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Dragon's Dogma – review | Technology | guardian.co.uk

 

That's why so many developers and publishers have recently opted to play things safe by making low-budget mobile, social or download games. So Capcom deserves all the plaudits known to mankind – it's difficult to imagine how it could have undertaken a riskier project than Dragon's Dogma. Not only is it a full-blown, open-world RPG (and therefore eye-wateringly expensive to develop), but it's the Japanese developer-publisher's first, which partly explains why it is arriving in such an unheralded manner. Luckily – and a tad unexpectedly – it's shot through with quality, and surely destined to become a cult classic. Dragon's Dogma starts in time-honoured fashion, as far as RPGs are concerned, with an extensive character customisation phase, the ability to choose your sex and character class (warrior, mage, ranged-weapons specialist and all the usual suspects are available) and a typically mediaeval setting. The intro shows a dragon arriving to terrorise your sleepy seaside town; you take up arms against it, but it singles you out and rips your heart out. However, you miraculously survive, and find yourself lionised as The Arisen (and not the first Arisen, you learn, in the land of Gransys). So you embark on a quest to find the dragon that stole your heart, saving Gransys from the forces of evil in the process. So far, so bog-standard, you might think. But the whole Arisen thing has a point beyond adding a layer of back-story. Your semi-undead status means that so-called pawns will follow you: also semi-undead, they won't act autonomously, but otherwise seem like perfectly normal beings. So, you get to pick a main pawn, who stays with you throughout the whole game and levels up as you do, plus two other pawns, thus generating a full questing group. As you play, you encounter countless supplementary pawns, who you can hire on the spot. It's crucial to do just that, since not only can you adjust your party's skill-base that way (if, say, you need to draft in an extra mage), but you can find replacement pawns with better skills and stats than your current ones. You can also hire and fire pawns at rift-stones, found it most settlements, forts and the like. The pawn system works beautifully as, indeed, do most other aspects of Dragon's Dogma. It looks pretty good – something like a cross between Skyrim and Dark Souls. The crucial battle system is exemplary: as you learn new attacks, you can assign them to your button of choice, and you can acquire stat and skill-enhancing perks. Early on, you learn the importance of your kit. If you're a warrior, for example, a better sword makes your attacks way more effective – and there are three upgrade levels for each item of your equipment (upgrading requires workmen, money plus raw materials). It's tempting to pick up every item you come across, but too much kit makes you awfully sluggish, so you learn to store inessential kit and distribute the rest among your pawns. Again, the inventory system is pretty well designed. All Dragon's Dogma's processes, then, are nicely designed, as you would expect with competitors such as Skyrim out there. But it could still fall into the trap of being generic. Happily, it doesn't – indeed, it has loads of character, and plenty of the quirkiness for which Japanese games are renowned. There are some superb, mythology-inspired enemies to fight, such as griffins and chimeras, which are part-serpent, part-lion and part-goat. And, taking a cue from Shadow of the Colossus, you can grab onto them and climb towards their weak spots – hacking away at them, for example, in mid-air. While there are countless sub-quests to perform (such as eliminating bands of thieves, clearing mines of ogres, shadowing cultists and so on), the main storyline sees you increasing your renown until the Duke invites you into his castle, at which point things really begin to take off. Typically, your first encounter with the Duke sees you wearing a jester's hat, and being caught in the Duchess's bedchamber lands you with a spell in the dungeon. It isn't, of course, perfect: like all open-world RPGs, you will encounter the odd bug and moment of raggedness. You can lose something like half an hour's play if, say, you encounter a major enemy unexpectedly at night having forgotten to save for a while; and your pawns can annoy you with their repetitive banter (although you can actually influence your main pawn's conversational skills). But those are minor gripes in the grand RPG scheme of things, and Dragon's Dogma has everything that RPG-heads crave – you can lose yourself in tinkering around, collecting items, finding arcane quests and seeking random enemies for days. It's reassuringly complex, and astonishingly well-executed given that this is Capcom's first attempt at such a game. It may apparently have come from nowhere, but Dragon's Dogma has the wherewithal to go places. If you've extracted all you can from Skyrim, this will fill the resulting void in your life.

Max Payne 3 – review | Technology | guardian.co.uk

 

As soon as the action kicks off, Dan and Sam Houser – the enigmatic siblings who run the Rockstar behemoth and steer its creative output – bring their obsession with genre cinema to the fore. Crammed into this story of a fallen cop seeking redemption as a bodyguard in the crime-ridden mega-city of Sao Paulo, there are snatches of Heat, Carlito's Way, Elite Squad and most obviously Man on Fire, Tony Scott's homage to bruised masculinity and doomed heroism. Indeed, Scott's entire ouvre is here; it's in the agonised self-loathing of the lead character, the brutality of the choreographed set pieces and the hallucinogenic lighting that floods every scene with woozy oranges and yellows. But here, this isn't just about style, it's about subjectivity. Payne is a drunken wreck, delirious with grief over the murder of his wife and daughter a decade ago. His battered state of mind is constantly communicated via a barrage of effects – from blurred, doubled graphics to saturated colours blooming over the screen like migraine flashes. It is a sustained conceit that, in less assured hands, could have become tiring and off-putting very quickly. Here, it's the most enthralling hangover you'll ever have. Because whatever else Max Payne 3 is, at its heart it's a blisteringly entertaining third-person shooter. Recruited as a private security contractor by an old police academy colleague, our hero is supposed to be looking after Rodrigo Branco and his brothers, a degenerate bunch of property magnates and party monsters, living the high life as the poverty piles up against their ultra secure apartment block. It all goes to hell when a street gang attempts to kidnap Rodrigo's trophy wife, and we're quickly drawn into a bloody war between drug runners, right-wing vigilantes and covert police forces who constantly clash and collude amid the squalor. This is a breathless hair-trigger blast-'em-up that veers thrillingly between high-class clubs and low-life strip joints, from million-dollar yachts to the tumbling corrugated iron shacks of the nightmarish favelas. Through 14 chapters, the memorable set-piece encounters pile on top of each other; a messy hostage exchange in a football stadium; a tense escape from a crowded bus station, a jail break that makes Oz look like Prisoner Cell Block H. It is relentless, pulverising stuff. The key to the game is the pitch perfect control system. A customisable auto-targetting system lets players select between hard or soft auto systems, the latter subtly guiding your reticule rather than aggressively yanking it toward specific enemies. Both are smart, seamless and intuitive, allowing newcomers to acclimatise to the turbo-charged pace. There's also a free aim system for veterans, happy to do their own thing with the rather sensitive cross hairs. Manoeuvering within the environment is super slick too. Hitting "X" gets you into cover from which you can easily target enemies, or blind shoot for a more cautious spray-and-pray approach. Disengaging just takes another tap on "X", while pressing "A" gets you to roll out of cover, allowing Max to speedily traverse an environment without providing too much of a target. Eventually, you start reading locations in micro-seconds, working out how to strafe the floor plan from object to object; enjoying the feel of it. You know you're in good hands when merely getting in to cover feels fun and expressive. At the core however are bullet time and shootdodge; the twin engines in Payne's brutal, hyper-stylised combat machine. Essentially, they're tweaked updates on the standard recipe – get kills to fill the meter, then press right analogue to go into slow-mo bullet mode, allowing our anti-hero to take out multiple targets while the enemies are still getting their bearings. These have always been the signature components of the Payne experience, but here, within a series of hugely complex environments, and powered by Natural Motion's advanced character animation physics, they lead to moments of absolutely thrilling action, which perfectly blend the interactive and the cinematic. There's a possibility it ought not be this utterly satisfying to dive headfirst down a stairwell, firing twin Uzis at a roomful of coke-frazzled gang members, but you feel it every single time. Even when you crash into a table (I've done this a lot), or accidentally leap off the side of a boat (this too). We have been promised an interactive tribute to those balletic John Woo sequences for years, and now we have it. Unlike most Rockstar titles, Max Payne 3 is an entirely linear experience – there is some room to explore certain sections, but we're locked into a narrative corridor and rocketing toward a single inescapable conclusion. While that's hugely restrictive compared to the open worlds of GTA and Red Dead, it has also allowed Rockstar to sharpen its narrative skills – the labrynthine plot, while hardly revolutionary, is involving and carefully delivered, and there are several engaging little side-stories, from unrequited love affairs to the tragic tale of a much-loved local footballer who fails to escape the violence of the favela. Together with snatched news reports and plenty of discoverable clues, these add some depth to the chaotic through-line, and give us sense of this vast, corrupt universe operating just out of Max's field of vision. Holding all this together is James McCaffrey's masterful performance as Max. His gruffly delivered mental monologue is a world-weary, Picaresque diatribe – part-classic Noir voice-over, part-raging suicide note. There's plenty of pitch dark humour in there, of course, but the over-riding subtext of loss and hopelessness is Rockstar at its indulgent, nihilistic best. On top of the 10-hour(ish) campaign, there's an arcade mode, split into two options: Score Attack gets you to re-attempt any chapter you like for the highest score possible, adding multipliers to consecutive or stylish hits; New York Minute is all about finishing missions as quickly as possible, earning extra time from kills. Both have global high score tables, but players can also compare scores against their friends, which should keep competitive Payne fanatics amused from sometime.

German Reunion Pains Inform Attitude Toward Greece - NYTimes.com

 

To an extent not often appreciated by outsiders, the lessons provided by that experience — with the nation pouring $2 trillion or more into the east, by some estimates, to little immediate benefit — color the outlook and decisions of policy makers and the attitudes of voters, a majority of whom would like to see Greece leave the euro zone, polls show. Most economists agree that Germany could do more to help revive growth throughout the euro zone, and there are reports that Chancellor Angela Merkel is preparing to propose a major European Union plan to accomplish that. But the German reluctance to underwrite the economies of Greece and other struggling countries is not just a matter of the parsimonious Germans hoarding their funds, as it is so often portrayed, but a sense that subsidies do not breed successful economies. “Money alone doesn’t help,” said Simon Huber, 44, out for a stroll recently near Sendlinger Gate here. “You’re only saved when you save yourself.” Though regularly lectured by their colleagues across the Atlantic about the need for stimulus measures to reverse the sagging fortunes of countries like Greece and Portugal, German experts believe they have a lot more experience trying to revive uncompetitive economies locked in currency regimes after nearly 23 years of dealing with the former East Germany. “We performed a real-life experiment,” said Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research here. While unemployment in the former West Germany is 6 percent, it remains stubbornly higher, at 11.2 percent, in the east. In 2010 gross domestic product per capita was more than $40,000 in the former West and just under $30,000 in the former East, compared with 1991 figures of $27,500 in the West and about $12,000 in the East. But much of the narrowing in the gaps between east and west, experts say, is attributed to the migration of job seekers westward as much as to any significant improvement in the east. There have been success stories in the revival of cities like Dresden and Leipzig, and some regions, especially on the southern edge of the former East Germany, are doing better. But the eastern part of the country today is known for perfectly rebuilt town squares that sit empty for much of the day and new stretches of autobahn with few drivers on them. “Germany made huge investments in infrastructure in East Germany,” said Klaus Adam, a professor of economics at the University of Mannheim. “The hope that the rest would follow has not been fulfilled. You need to get the productivity figures up.” While much of Europe follows the lead of President François Hollande of France in calling for jointly issued debt, or euro bonds, as the solution to Europe’s troubles, a vast majority of Germans reject the idea. To German ears, the demand for euro bonds sounds less like a technical solution to the crisis than a way to use Germany’s good credit rating to push off difficult but necessary reforms. “You don’t entrust your credit cards to anyone if you can’t control the spending,” said Jens Weidmann, president of the Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, in an interview Friday with the French newspaper Le Monde. “Pooling debt is not the right tool for growth,” said Mr. Weidmann, a former economic adviser to Chancellor Merkel. “This would pose both legal and economic problems. I don’t think we’ll be successful in trying to resolve the debt crisis with more debt outside the regular budgets.” Ms. Merkel dominated the political decision-making in Europe for much of the crisis, culminating in the signing in March of the fiscal pact to reduce budget deficits by 25 of the 27 European Union countries. But countries like Greece and Spain have underperformed economically and been unable to rein in their deficits as quickly as promised. 1 2 NEXT PAGE » Jack Ewing contributed reporting from Frankfurt.

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier – review | Technology | guardian.co.uk

 

GR:FS adopts a close up third-person perspective, but plays very much like an FPS, packed with in-your-face action right from the offset – something that might surprise fans of the series. With four acts – set in Africa, Pakistan, Russia and Norway – GR:FS fits so much into its generic 14-mission campaign it can feel a bit rushed. There are obvious debts to Crysis 2 and Deus Ex, particularly with futuristic gear such as the camoflage suit offering ghostly protection provided you don't move too fast or fire a weapon. But some ideas are both original and superbly realised. Take the Sync Shot, where you can paint up to four targets for team mates to establish line of sight for a coordinated kill. It's a great idea that's bound to be copied by others, as will some of the gadgets. From the brilliant Warhound mobile artillery platform that launches mortars or sidewinder missiles according to remote commands, to the portable UAV's that hover above the battlefield picking out targets, GR:FS has the kind of gadgets James Bond would kill for. And although we're used to seeing intelligent HUDs these days, GR:FS has one of the best – including a super sharp Magnetic View mode, which picks out armed enemies and other metal objects such as landmines. GR:FS also keeps the gun club happy with a massive selection of more than 50 weapons – each of which can be customised – in seven categories with more than 600 separate components. From sniper scopes to armour-piercing rounds, custom stocks and retractable undercarriages, there are so many choices it's tempting to keep replaying levels until you find your ultimate combo. It's fun to play too, with a learning curve that tempts you with new gadgets every few levels and some decent squad AI to back you up. And although making progress is heavily geared towards finding and taking cover, it makes this easier with a cover-dash command that lets you sprint between them by holding down the X key. However, there are some problems. For starters, the engine is far better at depicting gizmos than environments, with largely flat textures, cramped locations and occasional graphical glitches throughout – even in cutscenes. It's also ironic that most of the eye-catching moments – the sandstorms and blizzards or the way the screen shakes when under suppressing fire – are also ones that reduce your visibility to near zero. GR:FS is also very linear, with each level providing a single objective and only additional challenges for, say for killing 15 enemies in Magnetic mode. Admittedly, giving total player freedom would undermine the squad-based ethos, but without being able to issue movement commands, straying from a narrow focus risks losing sensor lock and a return to the last checkpoint. Speaking of which, although most of the cut-scenes are forgettable, they're also un-skipable, meaning you may see them repeatedly after restarts. Luckily, when the single player game is done, there's plenty more to get on with. GR:FS multiplayer is very much a work in progress, and there are some stability, balancing and lobby issues with U-Play still to be sorted, but it's clear the developers have been busy since their recent 600,000-player beta test. The original three multiplayer modes – Conflict, Saboteur and Guerilla – have been boosted with 3 more: Decoy, Siege and a split-screen Co-Op Campaign. Conflict has two teams competing to see who can fulfill the most objectives in 15 minutes. Saboteur is a race to carry a bomb to the rival team's detonation area. Decoy and Siege are best-of-three modes; the first a slightly confusing one involving one real objective and two decoy traps, the second with no respawns and both teams up against the clock to claim or defend a base. Finally, Guerilla is a Horde variant where your team has to withstand 50 waves of increasingly hostile enemies. With character classes that owe a clear debt to Battlefield 3, you get a choice of three to start with and two more unlocked on reaching level 50. Scouts are basically snipers, fleet footed and supported by camo suits. Engineers can hack enemy scanners for intel, but are also useful in close combat. Finally, there's Riflemen, who can lay down suppressing fire and soak up more damage. Whichever character or mode you choose, GR:FS is unashamedly team focused, with frantic battles best won by supporting your colleagues and additional bonuses, upgrades and kill-streaks awarded for objectives solved by teamwork. This won't please lone snipers or last-man-standing fans, but when it works with the right compadres, GR:FS is a refreshing alternative to the usual FPS machismo. However, with only two maps for each multiplayer mode and four for Guerilla, Ubisoft is not exactly splashing out on content. This may be due to a premium DLC pack coming in July with more maps, weapons and upgrades, but including a few more maps would have been a nice reward for a patient Ghost Recon community that now risks being divided between DLC haves and have-nots. GR:FS is so nearly a landmark game. It's busting with great gadgets, challenging and unusual to play and committed to a true co-op spirit that most rivals have long since abandoned. If only it looked a little better, had a few more maps and U-Play made it easier to find a quick online match-up with your mates. Even so, it's a worthy alternative to any FPS and puts the Ghost Recon franchise right back at the cutting edge

With Confession in the Patz Case, the Difficult Work Begins - NYTimes.com

 

It should be a detective’s dream come true. The police have their man, their investigation sewn up with a tidy bow of his own damning words. Far from it, for now the police must try to prove that he did what he said he did. And in the case of the suspect, Pedro Hernandez, and the boy, Etan Patz, that is not going to be easy. In many ways, this confession is a worst-case scenario of corroboration, starting with the body. The police said Mr. Hernandez confessed to strangling Etan in the basement of the SoHo bodega where he worked in 1979 and dumping the body in a bag with the garbage on the street. Had he buried it in a lot someplace, the police could dig, but Mr. Hernandez’s version of events renders the haystack too big, the needle almost certainly gone for good. The prosecution of Mr. Hernandez ground forward on Friday, with his arraignment on second-degree murder charges. At the same time, officers tried to return to the past, stepping down into the basement of what is now a boutique eyeglasses shop to document its current appearance, not even pretending to believe there are any clues to be found. The modern training that detectives receive goes out the window here: video from street cameras; incriminating e-mails; MetroCard swipe data; cellphone logs. “Time is an enemy here,” said Vernon J. Geberth, a retired New York City police lieutenant commander in the Bronx. He said he was struck by the absence of corroborating details in the news accounts of Mr. Hernandez’s confession. “I have to ask myself a question, do they have something they’re not telling us?” he said. So how do you corroborate Mr. Hernandez’s story? A New York detective and an assistant district attorney, both veterans and both speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not involved in the Patz case, spoke of ways to tackle such a difficult case. “Usually, there is a scene, usually there is a body,” the prosecutor said. “If you don’t have physical evidence that points to your guy, you go into your guy’s background. How did his mother treat him? Why this? Did his brother die? So, he wanted revenge? You look for family members, you look for relatives, you look for teachers. Why would he do such a thing?” “You want to make sure he’s not a chronic confessor,” the detective said. Many books are about those who confessed to crimes they did not commit. Detectives have most likely returned to Mr. Hernandez’s story. “You always go back for more detail, more detail, more detail,” Mr. Geberth said. “The confession is usually devoid of a lot of facts. They just want to get it out. Once it’s out, the barrier has been crossed.” The need to confess behind him, the suspect may relax. “Get him something to eat, something to drink. ‘By the way, did you speak to anybody? Did you go to work the next day, or take the day off?’ Important things.” The police know who worked at the bodega in 1979 because several employees were interviewed when Etan disappeared. Did Mr. Hernandez say or do anything strange at that time? Mr. Hernandez’s family said he spoke of having done “a bad thing and killed a child in New York,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said Thursday night. The detective I spoke with said he would return to those people, and find others. “What he said to them, when he said it, what details he gave. What was his demeanor? Has he ever admitted to doing anything else?” He would try to find other people with whom Mr. Hernandez spoke about the boy. “Interview people who haven’t come forward.” The detective said he would have revisited the scene with the suspect as it was in 1979, in a room with photographs from that time. “I would take the photographs and say, ‘Point to where you met him. Point to where he was,’ ” the detective said. “I’d have him put an ‘X’ on it with a Magic Marker and sign it.” Why? “Great evidence in court,” he said. “When you go to court, you not only have his statement saying that’s what happened, but you have evidence for jurors to see.” Jurors. That there are 12 people walking around who may one day sit in judgment of Mr. Hernandez is what has the police hunting for proof and for the holy grail — motive, the prosecutor said. “Corroboration is such a legal thing, it’s a thin requirement,” he said. “The question is, do you get the jury to believe this is the real thing?” Jurors, he said, “care about why.” E-mail: crimescene@nytimes.com Twitter: @mwilsonnyt

Hideo Kojima: video game drop-out – interview part 2 | Technology | guardian.co.uk

 

On the 25th anniversary of the genesis of his game series Metal Gear, creator Hideo Kojima reflects on a career spent battling the stigma of working in video games in the second of a two part interview feature, exclusive to the Guardian Share 42 Email Solid Snake ... Kojima named his lead character after Snake Plissken, who was played by Kurt Russell in the John Carpenter film Escape From New York Despite finding like-minded individuals at Konami, Kojima's first couple of years at the studio were far from easy. For one, his directorial ambition was fiercely at odds with its orthodox Japanese institutional hierarchy. "Lost World was the first project I was assigned to and the game was cancelled after six months," he says. "It was a serious blow to all of us on the team. I couldn't believe it. After that I began to work on Metal Gear. Konami wanted a war game, because they were incredibly popular at that time. But I didn't want to make the same as everyone else so I started thinking of ways in which I could subvert the genre." It was at this point that Kojima's love for film came into play. "I remembered the film The Great Escape and thought this would be a good approach for something distinct. My first concept was for a game in which you were a prisoner of war and simply had to escape. If you were caught you'd be brought back to the prison. The idea was for a non-combat game. "But I had such a hard time convincing people. I had so many things going against me at that time. For one, my first game had been cancelled, so I hadn't released anything yet. Then I was working in quite a large creative group, and I was the youngest. Finally, the type of game I wanted to make didn't exist at that time. The odds were stacked against me and it was very hard to earn the trust of the team." After a few months of failing to make his voice heard, Kojima managed to convince the most senior member of the team to meet with him. "He listened to my frustrations," Kojima says, "and then approached one of the higher-ups in the company who must have seen something in me as he invited me to pitch my ideas for Metal Gear in front of everyone. Everyone in the team saw that it was a revolutionary idea, I think, and from then on, I had their support." The first Metal Gear was developed for the MSX, a home computer format that enjoyed a fraction of the market share of Nintendo's inaugural games console, the Famicom. While many would have seen being told to make a game for underdog technology as a drawback, Kojima turned it to his advantage. "The MSX audience was more technologically savvy than the Famicom audience and as such the game had a much wider influence than it perhaps might have if it had just released on Nintendo's hardware. "We spent a long time working on animations that wouldn't have been possible on the Famicom. I would go so far to say that, had I been working in the Famicom department from the beginning I probably wouldn't have come up with the idea for Metal Gear. The features of the systems are so different. And the game concept wouldn't have passed Konami's internal processing, which required more mainstream, family-friendly titles for the Famicom." Following the success of the game Konami commissioned a sequel, this time for the Nintendo hardware. As Kojima had been hired to work in the MSX division, he was kept separate from the Famicom team, only hearing about the project second hand. "I heard about Snake's Revenge through rumours, initially," he says. "I was quite new at the company and had no influence on the other departments. "Then one day I met someone on the train who worked in the Famicom department. He used to work for me and was now working on the sequel. He said: 'I don't think this is a true sequel. I think you should make the true sequel.' So on my way home I began to think about what that might look like. Without that encounter I probably wouldn't have pursued a proper sequel, and there might never have been a Metal Gear Solid." Kojima was merely a game designer at that time, and had no detailed knowledge of the budgets involved, but the trust he had gained from the first game caused Konami to pour more money into his sequel. "Because we were making a war game, Konami wanted the experience to be authentic, so every week they paid for us to visit a forest in the mountains nearby. We would dress up in military uniform and play games there. It was a good time." Even at this early point in his career, Kojima's directorial flair was irrepressible, and, without programming knowledge, he found himself frustrated by having to rely on programmers to bring his vision to life. "I would tell the programmers what I wanted to show on screen, when I wanted the dialogue to display, or a music cue to sound," he says. "But they wouldn't do it how I wanted. They would change it slightly to what they thought was best. "It was hugely frustrating making games at that time for me. I wanted to control everything. So, after the second Metal Gear launched, I developed my own scripting engine and decided to work on adventure games so that I could have complete control over when the animation played or when the music triggered. That's when I developed Snatcher and Policenauts. It was a way to take creative control back from the programmers." But by 1998, Kojima had been promoted to a managerial role at Konami, and enjoyed autonomy to choose the people he wanted on the team – staff who would complement his vision. One such hire was Yoji Shinkawa, an artist that Kojima hired straight out of college in 1994. "Shinkawa was born to be a video game artist," says Kojima. "As soon as I knew I was to be making Metal Gear Solid, I asked Shinkawa to join the team and his work, as much as anything, defined the series from there on." Metal Gear Solid's development coincided with a technological shift in the medium, that brought with it creative challenges: the move from 2D graphics (and the accompanying gameplay) to the third dimension. Kojima's team developed a 3D engine from scratch for the game and Shinkawa would work from home for months at a time creating the 3D models that would populate the game. "Yoji created real life 3D plastic models of all of the game's vehicles and as he used so many chemicals, he had to work from home as the fumes were harmful to the rest of the team," Kojima says. "I would visit his apartment every day to check that he was OK. The first time I went there the floor was covered in plastic parts." The game launched to critical acclaim and commercial success. Its brilliance was in the packaging of the idea, couching the hide-and-seek act of creeping through the shadows in a tight, carefully orchestrated scenario in which one man must infiltrate a radioactive waste facility armed with little more than a radio, a bandana and a packet of cigarettes. Despite the one-man army set-up, Metal Gear Solid's narrative offers more layers of complexity than a Rambo or a Bond movie, Kojima shying away from a chance for a character to soliloquise on the nature of warfare, or the role of solider pawn, those very same figures controlled by the player, on the battlefield. I ask whether the reaction to the game surprised him, or whether he knew he had created something special. "We worked so hard on that game that there wasn't even time to think about how it might be received," he says. "We were just making the game that we wanted to play and I don't think I had any expectations that it was going to be a big game. So when I heard it was selling well in America it didn't feel real. "I think the first time the game's success struck me was when I came to London in 1999. We visited Forbidden Planet to promote the game. I walked in and the shopkeepers knew about me. I couldn't believe it. It was the most surprising moment in my life." Despite this success, Kojima was most interested in impressing the woman who had supported him from the very beginning: his mother. "About that time I heard that my mother had stopped telling her friends what I did for a living," he tells me. "She was hugely supportive in the beginning. But after a decade or so her friends' sons and daughters all had high positions in big companies. I think she felt a little awkward about what I did by this point." But Metal Gear Solid's success convinced Konami to plough a huge amount of money into its sequel, developed for Sony's PlayStation 2. "We had so much more budget so we were able to go to Hollywood and hire a composer [Harry Gregson-Williams]," he says. "That was a huge moment for me, made all the better because Harry had heard of my games." Following Metal Gear Solid 2's release, Kojima was listed by Newsweek as one of the 'Top 10 People To Watch In 2003'. "After that, my mother began to tell all of her friends about what I did," says Kojima, laughing. "It was sweet. By that time she was 70 years old. But she decided that she was going to play through my games. "It took her an entire year to complete Metal Gear Solid 3. She would get her friends to help her. When she defeated The End [a character the player faces off against in one of the game's final missions] she called me up and said: 'It is finished'." Today, there is little that Kojima would change about his career, and he has no regrets: "Looking back, I am thankful that I didn't go into the film industry," he says. "If I had joined that industry I wouldn't have been able to make the kind of films I wanted to, and I really enjoy the games I make now." Indeed, Kojima has lost none of his infectious energy and drive to create. He arrives to work at 6.30am each day, and spends an hour meditating on his life before heading into the business of the day, which is split equally between managerial responsibilities and creative ones. "I wouldn't have taken the managerial role if I wasn't heavily involved in the creative process too," he says. "I have to have a creative role otherwise I simply wouldn't come into work. I try to always have a game design role as part of my responsibilities at any one time. If I didn't have this, I wouldn't be able to do what I do." One part of his daily ritual stems from even earlier than his formative days working as a game designer for the MSX. Now 48, Kojima's father's influence on him is still very apparent in his routine. Every day, no matter how busy his schedule, the designer takes 90-odd minutes to watch a film at his desk. "It's part of my ritual to watch a new film every day, no matter what," he says. "It's important to me." Sensing that the habit is as much a tribute to his father's demand that the family watch a film a day as it is a way to draw creative inspiration from another medium, I venture the question: "Do you think your father would have been proud of what you do?" "I don't think..." he says, quietly. "I mean. If he was still alive… Well, I don't think he would be unhappy about my choice."

Regulators’ Role at Chase Scrutinized - NYTimes.com

 

Roughly 40 examiners from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and 70 staff members from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are embedded in the nation’s largest bank. They are typically assigned to the departments undertaking the greatest risks, like the structured products trading desk. Even as the chief investment office swelled in size and made increasingly large bets, regulators did not put any examiners in the unit’s offices in London or New York, according to current and former regulators who spoke only on condition of anonymity. Senior JPMorgan executives assured the bank’s watchdogs after the financial crisis that the chief investment office, with hundreds of billions in investments, was not taking risks that would be a cause for concern, people briefed on the matter said. Just weeks before the trading losses became public, bank officials also dismissed the worry of a senior New York Fed examiner about the mounting size of the bets, according to current Fed officials. The lapses have raised questions about who, if anyone, was policing the chief investment office and whether regulators were sufficiently independent. Instead of putting the JPMorgan unit under regular watch, the comptroller’s office and the Fed chose to examine it periodically. The bank pushback also suggests that JPMorgan had sway over its regulators, an influence that several said was enhanced by the bank’s charismatic chief executive, Jamie Dimon, long considered Washington’s favorite banker. Now, as regulators scramble to determine whether the chief investment office took inappropriate risks, some former Fed officials are asking whether the investigation should be spearheaded by the New York Fed, where Mr. Dimon has a seat on the board. Some lawmakers and former regulators also have reservations about the comptroller’s office, which is investigating the trade and was the primary regulator for JPMorgan’s chief investment unit. “The central question is why Jamie Dimon was able to so successfully convince both its regulators that there was nothing to see at the chief investment office,” said Mark Williams, a professor of finance at Boston University, who also served as a Federal Reserve Bank examiner in Boston and San Francisco. “To me, it suggests that he is too close to his regulators.” Regulators, for their part, say they cannot micromanage a bank or outlaw its risk taking and did not bow to bank pressure when assigning examiners. William C. Dudley, president of the New York Fed, has said that JPMorgan’s losses did not pose a threat to the bank’s viability. In a statement on Friday, the comptroller of the currency, Thomas J. Curry, said, “I am committed to ensuring this agency provides strong supervision for all of the institutions we oversee.” Regulators are not typically stationed at divisions like JPMorgan’s chief investment office, which are known as Treasury units. The units hedge risk and invest extra money on hand, and tend to make short-term investments. But JPMorgan’s office, with a portfolio of nearly $400 billion, had become a profit center that made large bets and recorded $5 billion in profit over the three years through 2011. Officials of JPMorgan declined to comment on its relationships with regulators. Long before the recent trading blunder, JPMorgan had a pattern of pushing back on regulators, according to more than a dozen current and former regulators interviewed for this article. That resistance increased after Mr. Dimon steered JPMorgan through the financial crisis in better shape than virtually all its rivals. “JPMorgan has been screaming bloody murder about not needing regulators hovering, especially in their London office,” said a former examiner embedded at the bank, adding, in reference to Mr. Dimon, “But he was trusted because he had done so well through the turmoil.” Even now, executives at JPMorgan disagree with some regulators over how quickly the bank should unwind the soured trade, according to people briefed on the negotiations. JPMorgan would like to be done with the bad bet that has resulted in at least $3 billion in losses already, but senior executives argue it is a delicate process, especially as traders and hedge funds on the opposite side of the trade seize on the fact that JPMorgan is under pressure to exit the position.

Man charged in Etan Patz killing has mental health issues - latimes.com

 

NEW YORK — A man who claims to have abducted and strangled Etan Patz, who vanished 33 years ago Friday, has suffered from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and hallucinations, his attorney said as the man had his first court appearance since making his surprise confession a day earlier. Pedro Hernandez, 51, did not enter a plea to a second-degree murder charge filed earlier Friday. He also did not speak during a hearing that lasted just a few minutes. As his court-appointed attorney, Harvey Fishbein, outlined what he called Hernandez's "long psychiatric history," Hernandez sat slumped in a chair, clad in an orange jumpsuit, his hands manacled behind his back. Hernandez has been held at New York's Bellevue Hospital because of his apparent mental instability, and he and Fishbein appeared via a video linkup to a Manhattan courtroom shortly after Manhattan Dist. Atty. Cyrus Vance Jr. announced the charges. "This is the beginning of the legal process, not the end," Vance said in a statement that reflected the challenges of prosecuting a case in which there is no body, no physical evidence linking Hernandez to the crime, and a defendant with an apparent history of mental illness. "There is much investigative and other work ahead." Even though Hernandez says he committed the murder, his motive remains unclear. Patz's parents and at least one investigator became convinced years ago that a convicted pedophile serving time on an unrelated charge was the culprit. In 2004, a civil court ruled the man, Jose Ramos, responsible for Etan's death. Ramos denied involvement. Hernandez was not asked to enter a plea, and Judge Matthew Sciarrino Jr. ordered a psychiatric examination for him. Assistant Dist. Atty. Armand Durastanti also said no bail should be considered, and none was requested. "It has been 33 years and justice has not yet been done in this case," Durastanti said, noting the haste with which Etan's life was ended on May 25, 1979, as he made the short walk from his Manhattan apartment to his school bus stop. "This is approximately 110 yards. He has not been seen or heard from since." The hearing coincided withNational Missing Children's Day, which President Reagan proclaimed in 1983 in honor of Etan. He was the first child to have his picture appear on a milk carton, part of the nationwide awareness movement that ensured his face would be familiar to anyone buying milk. His disappearance — on the first day his parents, Stan and Julie Patz, had let him walk to the school bus alone — also is seen as marking the end of an era when it was not unusual for young children to walk to school or go out to play without parents by their sides. For decades, the case haunted the street in the now-trendy SoHo neighborhood where Etan's parents, Stan and Julie Patz, still live. Neither parent has spoken out about Hernandez's sudden confession, which came a month after the FBI and New York police dug up the basement of a nearby building in search of Etan's remains. None was found. But the renewed publicity about the case from that dig apparently nudged someone close to Hernandez to tip police that he might be involved in Etan's disappearance. At the time the boy vanished, Hernandez was an 18-year-old stock clerk at a corner grocery store near the Patz home. He moved to New Jersey shortly after Etan vanished, and he had told some people over the years that he had "done a bad thing and killed a child in New York," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in announcing Hernandez's arrest on Thursday. Kelly said Hernandez was brought in for questioning on Wednesday and told police he had lured Etan into the store with promises of a soda, taken him into the basement, strangled him, and put the body into an alley with the trash. The body never was found, and Kelly said he didn't expect to find any physical evidence to corroborate Hernandez's confession. But he said Hernandez was able to provide enough details of the crime to convince police he was telling the truth. Neither the Patz family nor Hernandez's appeared at the Friday court hearing, and Hernandez's wife has not commented on her husband's arrest. According to the Associated Press, the Rev. George Bowen Jr., the pastor at Hernandez's church, said that Hernandez's wife and daughter visited him Thursday after he was in custody. "They were just crying their eyes out," AP quoted Bowen as saying. "They were broken up. They were wrecked. It was horrible. They didn't know what they were going to do."

John Edwards trial judge meets with attorneys on 'juror matter' - latimes.com

 

GREENSBORO, N.C. — The federal judge in the John Edwards trial closed her courtroom Friday afternoon to deal with what she called a "juror matter," and then sent the jury home for the Memorial Day weekend with no verdict reached. U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles did not disclose what she and lawyers for both sides discussed during the 35 minutes the courtroom was closed to reporters and spectators. Jurors will return for a seventh day of deliberations Tuesday morning. Before deliberations began on May 18, the jury foreman, a financial consultant, told the judge that he might have an upcoming scheduling conflict. On Friday, Eagles told lawyers for both sides to arrive early Tuesday in case she needs to discuss a juror matter with them. As she does at the close of each session, Eagles reminded jurors not to discuss the case with anyone — even fellow jurors — outside the jury room, and to avoid all media reports about the trial. The jury of eight men and four women must decide whether $925,000 in payments from two wealthy patrons were illegal campaign contributions during Edwards' failed race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Edwards contends the payments were private gifts not directly related to the campaign. After a sixth day of deliberations, it was not possible to determine whether the jury was divided over guilt versus acquittal, or merely being thorough and meticulous. The longer deliberations drag on, the greater the likelihood of a split verdict or, if disagreements cannot be resolved, a hung jury. Jurors have asked to review more than 60 trial exhibits focusing on payments made to hide Edwards' affair with Rielle Hunter, whom he had hired as a campaign videographer. The jury has met for about 34 hours over six days, after having listened to 31 witnesses and examined hundreds of exhibits during the monthlong trial. Jurors troop in and out of the wood-paneled courtroom a couple of times a day, a collection of ordinary citizens in jeans, slacks and summer dresses. Some looked weary Friday. Others appeared restless. The faces of one or two jurors suggested mild annoyance. Edwards, 58, unfailingly neat and trim in a dark suit, has studied jurors closely during their brief courtroom appearances over the past week, appraising their demeanor from his regular seat at the defense table. The former U.S. senator and 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee is charged with six counts of accepting illegal campaign contributions. He faces up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines if convicted and sentenced to maximum penalties. Jurors' requests for exhibits this week indicate they have plowed through the first two counts, which involve $725,000 in checks from billionaire heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon, an ardent Edwards supporter. Jurors now appear to be finishing up deliberations over the next two counts, involving payments from the late Fred Baron, a wealthy Texas lawyer who was Edwards' national finance chairman. Prosecutors say Edwards orchestrated the payments to cover up the affair and prevent his campaign from collapsing in scandal. The defense says the payments were intended to hide the affair from Edwards' wife, Elizabeth Edwards, who had grown increasingly suspicious of her husband. The other two counts against Edwards accuse him of causing his campaign to file false finance reports and conspiring to accept and conceal illegal contributions through "trick, scheme or device." The jurors must reach a unanimous decision on each count to convict. Eagles has instructed them that prosecutors don't have to prove that the sole purpose of the payments was to influence the election — only that there was a "real purpose or an intended purpose" to do so. However, Eagles also told the jurors: "If the donor would have made the gift or payment notwithstanding the election, it does not become a contribution merely because the gift or payment might have some impact on the election." david.zucchino@latimes.com

Wilborn Hampton: "The Common Pursuit": Halls of Poison Ivy

 

At what point does the zeal of youthful idealism wear off? In Simon Gray's play The Common Pursuit, now in a rather prosaic revival by the Roundabout Theatre Company, it erodes slowly over time until dreams become a distant mirage and betrayals, professional and personal, turn the erosion into a landslide. For the sextet of Cambridge students - five young men and the girlfriend of one - who set out to start a new literary magazine in the 1960's, the years take an exceptionally heavy toll. Compromise and infidelity, both to scholarly standards and to one another, alter the landscape and lower expectations. Each in his way becomes the thing he once most despised. The magazine, to be named Common Pursuit, is the brainchild of Stuart Thorne. It will be dedicated solely to literary excellence, focused on poetry, and Stuart has recruited four other students to join him in the enterprise. To the suggestion that his criteria might be elitist, he responds "well, someone has to be elitist." The group he brings together is a cross-section of collegiate types. There is Humphry Taylor, a poet-philosopher who is the brightest of the lot and, at the outset, a closet gay; Nick Finchling, a chain-smoking, incipient alcoholic whose flamboyance is matched only by his egotism; Peter Whetworth, a sexoholic history major nicknamed Captain Marvel for his prowess between the sheets; Martin Musgrove, a moneyed and enthusiastic outsider whose essay on cats is rejected for the first issue; and Marigold Watson, Stuart's devoted girlfriend and a sort of cheerleader for the project. Lest anyone doubt Stuart's passion for poetry, we see him in the opening scene leap from Marigold's embrace - coitus quite literally interruptus - to recruit Cambridge's leading poet into contributing some verse to the fledgling magazine. Back in his rooms, the others argue over whether they are listening to Vivaldi or Bach and indulge in the old undergraduate pastime of denigrating the literary merits of their peers. Fast forward nine years and disillusion has already set in. The past two numbers of the magazine have failed to appear, the printers haven't been paid, and eviction notices on its office have been issued. On top of it all, Marigold is pregnant. Only the London Arts Council can save Common Pursuit from going under and Stuart learns he may not be the final arbiter on literary merit after all. One man's poetry may be another's doggerel and vice versa. If there is any fizz left in this bubbly and ultimately sad play, it has gone flat in the current revival. The exuberance of the opening scene is forced and any humor is mostly lost in the rushed delivery of some of the lines. The acerbity of the zingers with which the individual characters skewer their literary rivals - vitriol being a Gray trademark - is oddly diluted. And while there is a sense of sorrow over the treachery inflicted among these onetime friends, it is more gloomy than poignant. Gray, who died in 2008, made a career of writing plays set in academia, and was himself a university lecturer. Among his more frequently revived plays are Butley (1971) and Quartermaine's Terms (1981). The Common Pursuit was first produced in 1984, directed by Harold Pinter, and revised by Gray a few years later. The Roundabout revival, directed by Moises Kaufman, never quite finds either the passion with which the magazine is launched or the depth of disappointment at the duplicity that follows. Some of the roles are miscast. Kristen Bush is consistently convincing as Marigold. Josh Cooke and Jacob Fishel have their moments as Stuart and Martin, respectively, and Tim McGeever is stoic as Humphry.

Mt. Everest climber skips summit to rescue fellow hiker - NY Daily News

 

ISTANBUL (AP) -- An Israeli who rescued a distressed climber on Mount Everest instead of pushing onward to the summit said Friday that the man he helped, an American of Turkish origin, is like a brother to him. Nadav Ben-Yehuda, who was climbing with a Sherpa guide, came across Aydin Irmak near the summit last weekend. In that chaotic period, four climbers died on their way down from the summit amid a traffic jam of more than 200 people who were rushing to reach the world's highest peak as the weather deteriorated. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, Ben-Yehuda, 24, appeared proud that Irmak, 46, had made it to the summit, noting that he is one of a small number of "Turkish" climbers to reach the top. Irmak left Turkey for New York more than two decades ago, but remains proud of his Turkish heritage. The friendship stands in contrast to the political tension between Turkey and Israel, which were once firm allies. "Aydin, wake up! Wake up!" Ben-Yehuda recalled saying when he found his friend in the darkness. The American, he said, had been returning from the summit but collapsed in the extreme conditions, without an oxygen supply, a flashlight and a rucksack. Ben-Yehuda, who developed a friendship with Irmak before the climb, had delayed his own ascent by a day in hopes of avoiding the bottleneck of climbers heading for the top. There have been periodic tales of people bypassing stricken climbers as they seek to fulfill a lifelong dream and reach the summit of Everest, but Ben-Yehuda said his decision to abandon his goal of reaching the top and help Irmak was "automatic," even though it took him several minutes to recognize his pale, gaunt friend. "I just told myself, `This is crazy.' It just blew my mind," Ben-Yehuda said. "I didn't realize he was up there the whole time. Everybody thought he had already descended." The Israeli carried Irmak for hours to a camp at lower elevation. Both suffered frostbite and some of their fingers were at risk of amputation. Ben-Yehuda lost 20 kilograms (44 pounds) in his time on the mountain, and Irmak lost 12 kilograms (26 pounds), said Hanan Goder, Israel's ambassador in Nepal. Goder had dinner with the pair after their ordeal. "They really have to recover mentally and physically," Goder said. "They call each other, `my brother.' After the event that they had together, their souls are really linked together now." The ambassador said the rescue was a "humanitarian" tale that highlighted the friendship between Israelis and Turks at a personal level, despite the deteriorating relationship between their governments. One of the key events in that downward, diplomatic spiral was an Israeli raid in 2010 on a Turkish aid ship that was trying to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of eight Turkish activists and a Turkish-American. The Jerusalem Post, which reported that Ben-Yehuda would have been the youngest Israeli to reach Everest's summit, spoke to Irmak by telephone during the dinner that Goder hosted. "I don't know what the hell is going on between the two countries," the newspaper quoted Irmak as saying. "I don't care about that. I talked to his (Ben-Yehuda's) family today and I told them you have another family in Turkey and America." Ben-Yehuda, who spoke to the AP just before leaving Nepal for urgent medical treatment in Israel, said he could not say with certainty how he would have reacted if he had come across a stricken climber he did not know. Oxygen is in such short supply and the conditions are so harsh, he said, that people on the mountain develop a kind of tunnel vision. "You just think about breathing, about walking, about climbing," he said. According to Ben-Yehuda, the fundamental questions going through the mind of a climber heading for the peak are: "Are you going to make it?" and "When is the right time to turn back?" And once a climber begins the descent, the all-embracing question becomes: "How fast can I go down?" Ben-Yehuda said his military training in Israel helped shape his reflexive dec

lot to learn when it comes to being a responsible adult. It is being reported that Bristol Palin’s ex and father of their three-year-old son Tripp, squandered away more than $1 million on toys - and not for his son. A source tells Us Weekly that Johnston, 22, spent his money on guns, boats, and four-wheelers, and as a result he is now broke and living at home with his mother in Alaska. Johnston’s reported spending habits are being highly criticized as in insider reveals to Us that he has continually failed to pay child support for his son. “Levi hasn’t paid child support in nearly two years,” the insider said. “And he has little contact with Tripp.” The onetime mayoral hopeful, who is also currently expecting a child – a girl – with girlfriend, Sunny Oglesby, 20, has garnered an unflattering reputation as an absent father and the Daily Mail reports that he has amassed a debt of $38,000 in backed child support. However, a former rep for Johnston, Tank Jones, is attempting to dispel allegations of his former clients’ financial trouble by claiming that the severing of his professional relationship with Johnston was a mutual decision and not due to Johnston's finances or lack thereof. “I wanted work on other projects. This was a mutual decision,” Jones told Us. “I would think he would want to do some different things too. I would never leave him at a low point.” Only Johnston and his accountant know the real truth about his finances but one can only hope that he will have everything sorted out before bringing another child into the mix. INFDaily 0 No votes yet Poor Okay Good Great Awesome Your rating: None Share on twitter|Share on deliciousShare on diggShare on redditShare on stumbleuponShare on emailShare on aimShare on pinterest8 More Articles By Jillian Claybrook Did Ted Allen 'out' Food Network star Anne Burrell? 'American Idol' finalist Brooke White is a new mother Prince William: Queen Elizabeth II is just my grandmother Get all the details on the engagement ring Mark Zuckerberg gave to Priscilla Chan Nicole Kidman sent sexy photos to Lee Daniels to get role in 'Paperboy' more Featured Links Godiva Coffee Prize Pack Win an Amazon Kindle Fire and a copy of Shark Dash Father's Day 'Thrill Your Grill' Giveaway Top 10 Beastie Boys Songs: In memory of Adam 'MCA' Yauch (Videos) Everybody seems to be talking about the Gotye song, "Somebody That I Used To Know," but what you might not realize is that the video has inspired literally dozens upon dozens upon dozens of covers. Over the years, Disney films have certainly been popular at the box office, but have also greatly influenced our culture today. Is anybody famous born on your birthday? How are your Trivia Skills? We Recommend Nude picture of Tori Spelling accidentally posted by husband Paris Hilton storms off the set of 'The View' Robin Thicke calls 'Duets' a 'huge opportunity' to reach a broader audience Keane - 'Strangeland' Review 'The Daughter Trap' by Laurel Kennedy From Around the Web Mary Kennedy’s Last Days: Distress From RFK Divorce, New Girlfriend (The Daily Beast) Behind The Row: Meet Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (Vogue) The Oscar Curse: Are Successful Women Unlucky in Love? (You Beauty) [

A Good Day for Elon Musk

 

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, has had his tough days; on Saturday, for example, an attempted launch of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, the first commercially developed flight to attempt to connect with the International Space Station, never got off the ground; flight computers aborted it during the countdown. But today definitely was a good day for Musk. A really good day. Early this morning, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket carrying the unmanned Dragon capsule blasted off successfully; Dragon is due to rendezvous with the Space Station in a couple of days. A jubilant Musk tweeted “Falcon flew perfectly!! Dragon in orbit, comm locked, and solar arrays active!! Feels like a giant weight just came off my backJ” And good news came out of Tesla Motors today as well, good for the company, as well as for buyers of the company's second model, the Model S sedan. Tesla announced on its corporate blog that manufacturing for the Model S is a few weeks ahead of schedule and delivery to customers will begin June 22. This announcement followed late yesterday's tweet by Musk, “Major Tesla milestone: All crash testing is complete for 5* (max) safety rating. Cars can now be built for sale to the public!!”   The company also announced that the car’s regenerative braking, which feeds energy back to the battery and slows the car down, will be adjustable (some people find the resistance from regenerative braking disturbing, and would be willing to sacrifice range to avoid it). Musk, interviewed yesterday by Spaceflight Now, an online publication, may be treated a bit like a tech pop star, but he still talks like the engineer that he is. Asked how he expected to feel today, he responded, “Either really happy or really sad. It's just one of those things that has a bimodal outcome.” Safe to say that today he’s feeling really happy. Above: Video of today’s Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral. To hear Elon Musk talk about his career and his long term goal of making life multiplanetary, listen to my 2009 interview with Musk.

Fleet Week 2012: Coast Guard's staged rescue thrills Staten Islanders

 

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Hundreds gathered yesterday at The Sullivans Pier to tour six powerful warships docked at the former home port for Fleet Week celebrations. But what really caught their attention was a surprise Search And Rescue (S.A.R.) demonstration by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard executed the drill in New York Harbor to show the crowd what it does best -- rescuing victims at sea. It commenced at 2 p.m., when a Coast Guardsman, playing victim, jumped about 20 feet from a helicopter, treaded water and raised his right hand to signal for help. Another Coast Guardsman, playing rescuer, jumped into the water to secure his comrade. The two were lifted to safety by a rope. Patrick Murphy, 15, of Westerleigh, said he and his family enjoy the Fleet Week festivities each year. The S.A.R. demonstration, however, was a new experience for him. "My favorite part was probably when the guy just fell out of the chopper! At first I was a little confused, but then I realized it was a drill and that it wasn't so serious." Tourists were not the only ones who enjoyed the Coast Guard demonstration. Sailors dressed in their summer whites, black and tans, and Navy working uniforms watched with the crowd, offering details about the operation. Margo Miscatel of Dongan Hills said she was impressed by the sailors' accessibility and knowledge. Staten Island Advance/Irving Silverstein Caitlyn Hearn of Eltingville and Nicole Clark of Grymes Hill learn about the helm of the USS San Jacinto from sailor Isaiah Riddick. "The staff took their time to explain to us what was going on and how the drill worked. I thought it was fantastic. It really shows what they can do and how skilled they are." But fans of Staten Island Fleet Week -- which continues in Stapleton through Tuesday -- almost missed their opportunity to witness a genuine S.A.R. demonstration, which was scheduled for noon. "We delayed due to the cloud coverage. In these situations, the question is always whether the ceiling is safe enough to conduct any demonstration," said Charlie Rowe, a civilian U.S. Coast Guard public affairs officer who helped organize the event. According to the U.S. Navy Staten Island Command Center stationed at the pier, compromised visibility often forces helicopter pilots to hover close over the water's surface. This poses several dangers, requires consulting radar technology and is done only in an actual emergency situation. But by 2 p.m., the skies cleared and the demonstration began. Earlier in the day, Borough President James P. Molinaro hosted a "captain's call" at Borough Hall for the commanders of the four American ships stationed at The Sullivans Pier, including the USS San Jacinto, USS Mitscher, the USS Donald Cook and the USS Gonzalez. "I am pleased to welcome the commanding officers to Staten Island and I would like to express our gratitude to the fine men and women who defend our country and protect the liberties we enjoy. I hope they have a wonderful time as guests in our great city," Molinaro said in a statement. Visitors to The Sullivans Pier can tour the Navy ships from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today through Tuesday or attend the Annual Splash Music Festival today and tomorrow from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Free tours of the Ships, also including KRI Dewaruci of Indonesia and the Cisne Branco of Brazil, are available today, tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free shuttle transportation from the south parking area, between Edgewater Street and Canal Street, to the front gate is available today, tomorrow and Monday from 12 to 5 p.m.

Chernobyl Diaries’ is a disaster of a horror film

 

Poor decisions and bad luck are contingencies of most horror films. Marion Crane decides to take a shower at the Bates Motel. People on Amity Island continue to swim in sharky water. The kids on Elm Street can’t stop falling asleep. All that appears to be motivating anybody in “Chernobyl Diaries” to do anything is paltry screenwriting. Chris and Amanda and Natalie visit Chris’s brother, Paul, in Kiev. The plan is to go to Moscow, but Paul thinks it would be fun to pile inside a stranger’s van and head to the site of a town abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986. Movie Review CHERNOBYL DIARIES Directed by: Bradley Parker Written by: Shane Van Dyke, Carey Van Dyke, and Oren Peli Starring: Jonathan Sadowski, Jesse McCartney, Olivia Dudley, and Devin Kelley At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs Running time: 88 minutes Rated: R (violence, some bloody images, and pervasive language) There are scraps of interest. Four or five people in the audience might see these guys wandering around big, vacant, Soviet-era structures and wish to quench an urge to watch something by Andrei Tarkovsky. But they won’t say anything because that observation would be more interesting than what they are actually watching. There’s also the matter of style. The movie has been shot with a hand-held camera that suggests that someone in the group is a cinematographer. It looks like the found footage in stuff like “Chronicle” and “Project X” but with reverse shots, shifting point-of-view shots, and competent editing. When three characters find the cellphone of two missing characters, the explanatory video one of them made is actual found footage. We’re supposed to understand this is just nominally creepy camerawork. Anyway, it’s all assembled from a kit. Something is still alive — and it’s not the bear that jogs by them in an empty apartment complex or the dogs that might have ripped up Chris’s leg. The movie wants us to find this frightening, but there’s no suspense, no terrifying images. (There’s no diary, either!) No one runs for dear life. They just inch into one small, dark room after the next. There is a pitiful attempt to bring the nuclearness of things in on the action and a worse attempt to end it all. The plot twist has arthritis. The actors playing the four Americans — Jesse McCartney, Jonathan Sadowski, Olivia Dudley, and Devin Kelley — have natural enough rapport. They could be improvising. So could the two people playing the hippie couple that joins the tour. But the real stars of the movie are the tired devices and plot points. They’re famous, but they’re as old as Betty White: The Guide Is Dead, The Van Won’t Start, Her Shirt Has a Plunging Neckline, Don’t Go in There. That last one doesn’t happen for us this time. It’s more like: Please. Go in there. We want to go home.

Jenna Jameson arrested for suspected DUI in Calif. - San Jose Mercury News

 

WESTMINSTER, Calif.—Former adult film star Jenna Jameson has been arrested in Southern California for investigation of driving under the influence after she struck a light pole with her vehicle. Police say Jameson had driven her vehicle into a light pole early Friday in Westminster. She suffered minor injuries but refused medical treatment. A police statement says a field sobriety test was conduct and there were signs of intoxication. Jameson was booked and later cited and released. A statement issued by her website says Jameson is home and well but has no immediate comment. Jameson crossed into the mainstream after publishing a popular autobiography in 2004. She has twin sons with mixed martial arts star Tito Ortiz, who two y

 

 

NOLA's 'Times-Picayune' to cut paper to 3 days a week

 

The changes announced Thursday were combined with similar moves at three major Alabama daily newspapers also owned by the Newhouse family group's Advance Publications. The Birmingham News, the Press-Register in Mobile and The Huntsville Times will switch to publishing three days a week as part of a new focus on online news. At all four papers, there will be unspecified staff cuts. All four papers will continue to publish continuously on their websites, and online access will remain free. Newspapers have struggled in recent years as consumers increasingly get their news online. Print advertising declined as the economy went into recession, and newspapers have yet to learn how to make online advertising as profitable as its printed counterpart. "For us, this isn't about print versus digital, this is about creating a very successful multi-platform media company that addresses the ever-changing needs of our readers, our online users and our advertisers," said Advance Publications' president of local digital strategy, Randy Siegel, in an interview with the Associated Press. "This change is not easy, but it's essential for us to remain relevant." Siegel didn't say how much money the reduced print runs in Louisiana and Alabama would save, nor how many staff members would be laid off or hired in the new online units. "To get good quality information is not cheap," said Jennifer Greer, chair of the journalism department at the University of Alabama. "What you are seeing is people trying to figure out a business model that works in a digital age." The decision was met with sadness by some residents in New Orleans, where The Times-Picayune won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Staffers continued reporting despite being forced out of the newspaper's offices amid widespread flooding and power outages. The storm drove away thousands of residents, some of whom never came back. The city — and its newspaper — struggled to recover in the years since. The paper was a lifeline for the Southern, working-class city, providing government announcements, obituaries, Carnival and scoops on local corruption, said Cheron Brylski, a 53-year-old New Orleans-based political consultant. Not having the paper every day is like losing a sports team, she said. "Where is New Orleans headed since Katrina? This is not something that helps our recovery," she said. The papers in Alabama also have long histories. The Mobile paper has roots to 1813 with the founding of the Mobile Gazette and became a daily in 1832, according to a history of the publication on al.com. And in 2007, the Birmingham News won a Pulitzer Prize for a series on corruption in Alabama's two-year college system. Birmingham News employees were told during morning meetings that longtime Editor Tom Scarritt will retire this fall when the new companies are created, according to two reporters who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the changes for the company. In New Orleans, a new company, the NOLA Media Group, would be created to oversee both The Times-Picayune and its affiliated website, NOLA.com. The announcements mirror changes Advance Publications made in Michigan. In 2009, the company shut the Ann Arbor News but created AnnArbor.com, a news website that still publishes print editions on Thursday and Sunday. In February, it launched the MLive Media Group, which runs MLive.com, to focus its efforts in Michigan digitally. Meanwhile, all of its eight other newspapers in the state offer three days of home delivery with newsstand sales from three to seven days a week. Newspaper analyst Ken Doctor, who writes the Newsonomics blog, said the company is trying to hold on to declining print ad revenue for a few more years, and expects Advance to eventually cut print runs at its other newspapers in New Jersey, Oregon, Ohio and elsewhere. The company owns The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.; The Plain Dealer in Cleveland; and The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. "It's a big bet to retain profitability and hope that in the shock therapy, there are profits on the other end," he said. Print circulation has been dropping steadily over the years at the four newspapers affected by Thursday's announcement, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. On average, the four papers' circulation in the half year through March fell about 6% from a year ago. Nonetheless, TheTimes-Picayune remains one of the nation's most successful newspapers. Of the top 50 large-sized markets, the newspaper has the highest rate of readership of its daily edition in the U.S., according to Austin, Texas-based Scarborough Research, a firm that tracks the industry. The Times-Picayune's average paid circulation was 133,557 in the six months through March, down 49% compared to March 2005, a few months before Hurricane Katrina hit. The Birmingham News' circulation of 103,729 is down 29% from five years ago; the Press-Register's of 82,088 is down 18%; and The Huntsville Times' of 44,725 is down 15%. Die-hard supporters and even Mayor Mitch Landrieu pledged to make sure the newspaper remained a part of New Orleans culture. "Through wars and floods, the 'Aints and a Saints Super Bowl victory, the TP has been and remains an integral part of our daily routine and our culture," Landrieu said. Anne Milling, a longtime member of the advisory board to The Times-Picayune, said an online-focused model wouldn't work in New Orleans. She said she and other supporters were exploring bringing in new owners committed to a daily paper, or even starting a new daily publication. "We always do things differently," she said. "It's part of our tradition: You wake up with a cup of chicory coffee and read the newspaper."

memorial day, fantasia, neil diamond,etan patz,fleet week,sixers,gi joe retaliation,jillian michaels,facebook stock 15, chernobyl diaries 16

 

6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 6. memorial day 7. fantasia 8. neil diamond 9. etan patz 10. fleet week 11. sixers 12. gi joe retaliation 13. jillian michaels 14. facebook stock 15. chernobyl diaries 16. bethenny frankel 17. udonis haslem 18. bill clinton 19. revenge 20. bodega 

Warren gets frustrated with press asking her to prove heritage

 

One thing is clear: embattled Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren isn’t happy that she is still being asked about her claimed Native American heritage. It’s the fourth week in a row that the press in Boston has been pressing Warren for answers. In a video captured by Fox 25 on Thursday, Warren appeared frustrated that reporters in Brookline asked her for proof of her minority claims. It was her first public appearance in more than a week. She tried dodging the questions at first. Asked to put the Native American heritage questions to rest, Warren responded: “Middle class families are getting hammered.” But when pressed about why she once claimed minority status but doesn’t identify that way anymore, she responded: “I have answered these questions. I am going to talk about what’s happening to America’s families.” “Scott Brown has hammered on my family, at the same time that… middle class families are also getting hammered,” she said. Warren has struggled to prove her claims of American Indian ancestry, other than saying she knows of it through family lore. Critics have accused her of claiming minority status in the past to gain an unfair advantage when applying for jobs.

Mickey Shunick Disappearance: Searchers Follow Bike Route Where Missing Student Was Last Seen

 

Dozens of people gathered to ride the route presumably taken by missing Louisiana college student Michaela "Mickey" Shunick when she vanished on her bike last Saturday. Friends and searchers took to the route at dusk Thursday, following the path on which Shunick set out in the early hours of Saturday morning. FBI, U.S. Marshals and local police are involved in the search that they are treating as a missing-person case, but have not ruled out foul play. Shunick, 22, a senior anthropology major at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, left friend Brettly Wilson's house on her bike just before 2 a.m. Saturday after a night out, and hasn't been heard from since. "I asked her to be safe ... I saw her get to the driveway and that was the last time I saw her," Wilson said. Friends and family held a candle light vigil Tuesday night, and announced a reward of $20,000 for tips leading to her whereabouts. Searches by K-9 units, police and volunteers have turned up no hints of what happened, but her family remains hopeful. "I think she's OK, I think she's alive. I think she's out there," Mickey's sister, Charlene, told ABC affiliate KATC-TV in Lafayette, La. The FBI, state and local police, and nearly a thousand volunteers are searching this morning, but have found no trace of the young woman. Friends say she wasn't drinking, and that Shunick was an avid cyclist, so riding her bike at that hour was not unusual. Shunick Family Michaela "Mickey" Shunick was last seen... View Full Size Hope Dwindles for Missing Mother and Girls Watch Video Marine Questioned in Case of Missing Calif. Woman Watch Video Woman Goes Missing During Cruise With Boyfriend Watch Video Shunick's older sister says she never would have left on her own, and that Saturday was her brother's graduation. Monday was Mickey's own 22nd birthday, and the two had big plans. "She's my mini-me. She's one of my best friends and I just miss her and I want to know what's going on," sister Charlie Shunick said through tears. For her father, not knowing is the hardest part. "If she has been taken by somebody, where is she? What are they doing to her? It's better being around people like over here. It's tougher when you're alone at night," Tom Shunick told ABC News. Her family says they can't think of any reason anybody might want to harm Shunick, and her father said although he's grateful for the search efforts, he wishes the search had started earlier. "None of the video cameras got checked over the weekend because the managers weren't in and waited two days to check the video cameras," he told Lafayette newspaper The Advertiser. "If somebody has abducted her and taken her on the interstate [highway] or something, they got a two-day head start." Mickey Shunick always carried mace when she rode her bike, her family says, adding that they will keep searching, no matter how long it takes. "We're going to see her soon, we're going to get her home and this is going to be over soon," friend Wilson said. Shunick's family is offering a $25,000 reward for any information in the case. They say that they hope everyone is on the lookout for her, including those in states that border Louisiana. The family plans to send out a robo-call today to the entire parish -- which consists of hundreds of thousands of people in the region -- hoping that someone knows where Mickey is. Shunick is 5-foot-1 and 115 pounds. She was last seen wearing a pastel multi-colored striped shirt, light-wash skinny jeans and gray shoes.

Calcium Supplements - Which Calcium Supplements are the best?

 

(HealthCastle.com) The role of calcium in bone health is indisputable. We've previously talked about food sources of calcium, we will spend some time discussing the different forms of calcium supplements. How Much Calcium? The Dietary Reference Intake DRI for calcium for adults is 1000 mg - 1300 mg depending on age and gender. As one serving of dairy product provides ~300 mg of calcium, those who do not consume enough calcium from food sources may need calcium supplements to meet their daily requirement. When purchasing calcium supplements, ensure to look for the elemental calcium content, not the total content. For instance, a pill containing 500 mg of Calcium Carbonate provides 200 mg of elemental calcium. Hence one pill in this example only provides 200 mg of calcium, not 500 mg. Calcium is absorbed in small intestines. Not all calcium we consume will be absorbed. The amount of calcium absorbed is dependent on a number of factors such as the acidic condition in our intestines, Vitamin D level, estrogen level and the type of calcium supplement. Different Types of Calcium Supplements One important factor affecting calcium absorption is how well the pill dissolves. Try buying calcium pills of US Pharmacopeia's standards. The "USP" on the label indicates that the calcium pill meets the USP standards of supplying adequate elemental calcium and how well it dissolves in our intestines. Calcium Citrate e.g. Citracal or Solgar: Calcium is best absorbed in an acidic environment, hence calcium citrate is the best absorbed supplemental form of calcium. It does not require extra stomach acid for absorption; hence we may take it anytime in a day, even on an empty stomach. However Calcium Citrate usually provides less elemental calcium per pill, therefore one may need to take a relatively more numbers of pills per day depending to the needs. Cautions: people with acid reflux may not be able to tolerate calcium citrate. Calcium Carbonate e.g. Viactiv, Tums or Caltrate: Most calcium pills in the market are in the form of calcium carbonate. It requires extra stomach acid for better absorption, hence it is best taken after meals. Dolomite, Bone Meal or Oyster Shell: These naturally occurring calcium pills may contain heavy metal or lead. At the moment, calcium supplements are not tested by any regulatory agency for lead content. Therefore, it's best to avoid. Calcium Gluconate and Calcium Lactate: These types of calcium pills contain low content of elemental calcium. Hence, one may need to take a large amount of tablets to meet the calcium requirement! Coral Calcium: This type of calcium is marketed for more than bone health. Its infomercial claimed that it can cure 200 human diseases. It's indeed only Calcium Carbonate. Read Alert! Coral Calcium Supplement Scam

Facebook Camera

 

Camera | Facebook Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an ... www.facebook.com/cameraband - Cached More results from facebook.com » Facebook launches 'Camera' photo app - CNN.com (CNN)-- So much for Instagram? Facebook on Thursday launched a photo-sharing app called Facebook Camera, which aims to make it simpler for the social ... www.cnn.com/2012/05/24/tech/mobile/facebook-camera-app/... - Cached More results from cnn.com » Facebook camera News, Videos, Reviews and Gossip - Gizmodo A new challenger appears! Facebook is now beginning to eat up its children, releasing a Camera app that competes directly with its recently purchased Instagram. gizmodo.com/facebook-camera - Cached More results from gizmodo.com » Facebook launches iPhone camera app - Tech Talk - CBS News (CBS/AP) Facebook announced Thursday that the company will unveil a new camera app for the iPhone. Simply called Camera, the app can be downloaded from ... www.cbsnews.com/.../facebook-launches-iphone-camera-app - Cached More results from cbsnews.com » Facebook Camera: New Camera App for iPhone and iPod Touch ... Facebook Camera: New Camera App for iPhone and iPod Touch abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/05/facebook-camera... More results from abcnews.go.com » Hands On: Facebook's New iOS Camera App That Isn't Instagram ... Facebook’s first camera app for iOS, aptly and simply dubbed Facebook Camera, highlights the company’s commitment to its mobile business. But ... www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/facebooks-ios-camera-app - Cached Facebook launches iPhone camera app - Yahoo! News NEW YORK (AP) — Facebook's rocky initial public offering hasn't stopped life at the world's biggest online social network. On Thursday, the company unveiled a ... news.yahoo.com/facebook-launches-iphone-camera-app... - Cached Life goes on after IPO: Facebook launches camera app for ... NEW YORK — Facebook’s rocky initial public offering hasn’t stopped life at the world’s biggest online social network. On Thursday, the company ... www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/life-goes-on... - Cached Samsung Camera | Facebook Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an ... www.facebook.com/samsungcamera - Cached Facebook Camera – News Stories About Facebook Camera - Page ... Facebook Camera - Find news stories, facts, pictures and video about Facebook Camera - Page 1 | Newser www.newser.com/tag/62790/1/facebook-camera.html - Cached Sponsored Results Facebook Camera at Amazon Big Savings on Facebook Camera. Free Shipping on Qualified Orders www.Amazon.com/electronics Wifi Camera Looking For The Best Deals, Eh? Save On Wifi Camera! Shopzilla.com Survillance Camera Digital Camera Sale at Yahoo! Camera Deals on Survillance Camera shopping.yahoo.com instant camera 10+ Instant Cameras. Shop, Compare and Save at Pronto. Camera.Pronto.com

Homeowners insurance

 

Home Insurance Reviews Home Insurance Reviews Analyzed, with Ratings and Price Comparisons. www.consumersearch.com More Sponsors: Homeowners insurance, insurance, life insurance Sort Results by:Relevance|Time Homeowners insurance Reviewing your homeowners policy may not rank high on our annual home-maintenance checklist. Yet following the five steps below will save you big bucks now and a lot of grief down the road.After the recent ... Money via Yahoo! Finance - May 24 08:31am Save big on homeowners insurance Reviewing your homeowners policy may not rank high on our annual home-maintenance checklist. Yet following the five steps below will save you big bucks now and a lot of grief down the road. CNN Money - May 24 03:10am Some insurance companies cancelling policies before hurricane season Some homeowners said they are receiving notices less than a week away from the start of hurricane season that their homeowners' insurance policies are being cancelled. WDSU New Orleans - May 23 08:11pm New Citizens customers could face 56% higher insurance rate - Sun-Sentinel all 2 news articles… Homeowners Insurance - News Images 4 News Images Protect Flowers and Shrubbery Says Swinton Home Insurance MANCHESTER, UNITED KINGDOM-- - Green fingered homeowners are being urged to check their home insurance policies to ensure their plants and shrubbery are covered.Swinton, a leading high street retailer ... Marketwire via Yahoo! Finance - May 23 04:00pm Homeowners should review insurance before it's too la... - The Victoria Advocate Citizens Insurance weighs higher rates for new policies - The News-Press R.I.-Based Narragansett Bay Insurance Appoints VP - Insurance Journal all 6 news articles… Homeowners insurance: Reassess coverage At least once a year, it's a good idea to review the insurance coverage on your biggest asset: your home.Your homeowners insurance coverage should start with a replacement cost policy that covers the entire ... Bankrate.com via Yahoo! Finance - May 09 12:00am First Person: Rising Homeowners Insurance Rates Have Us Questioning Our Desire to Own a Home COMMENTARY | I've been on the hunt for a house here in Florida for some time now but, along with bank requirements that are almost out of the ordinary, I'm also finding that the cost of homeowners insurance might just be too much for me. According to my wife, who is an insurance agent, the continued price increases are likely due to the fact that many of the major insurance companies no longer ... Yahoo! Contributor Network via Yahoo! Finance - May 21 10:37am Real Estate: Review homeowners insurance coverage regularly At least once a year, it's a good idea to review the insurance coverage on your biggest asset: your home. San Jose Mercury News - May 17 05:36pm HomeInsurance.com releases 2011 RateReport- homeowners facing a 19 percent increase nationwide WILMINGTON, N.C., May 16, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- (HomeInsurance.com) -- The 2011 HomeInsurance.com RateReport was released today showing a considerable increase in average 12-month homeowners insurance premiums ... PR Newswire via Yahoo! Finance - May 16 04:00am Homeowners Choice Reports Results for First Quarter of 2012 TAMPA, Fla. -- Homeowners Choice, Inc. , a Florida-based provider of homeowners insurance, today announced its results of operations for the three months ended March 31, 2012. GlobeNewswire via Yahoo! Finance - May 08 01:01pm Drexel Insurance Launches Interactive Website Drexel Insurance announces the launch of a new agency website at http://www.DrexelInsurance.com/. With interactive features such as on-site glossaries, maps, driving directions, and multiple forms of contact, Drexel Insurance‘s new website covers several types of insurance including Miami homeowners insurance and is designed with insurance customers in mind.MIAMI, FL (PRWEB) May 24, 2012 ... PRWeb via Yahoo! News - May 24 12:24am Sponsored Results Homeowner's Insurance Find Homeowner's Insurance Agents in your area - YellowPages yellowpages.com AARP - Official Site Join AARP Today for Discounts on Travel, Insurance & Much More! www.aarp.org

Nation's worst traffic

 

Study: East Contra Costa commute among nation's ... The Piedmonter - 6 hours ago Though it likely comes as no surprise to East Contra Costa commuters, the daily drive through Pittsburg and Antioch ranks among the nation's worst, according to a national freeway traffic study ... more » Report: Honolulu has worst traffic gridlock in ... Metro Magazine - 4 hours ago Traffic congestion in the U.S. dropped 30% in 2011, according to an annual report, which cites high unemployment and high fuel prices as contributing factors. Honolulu was shown to have the worst ... more » more Worst Traffic stories » Search results Study: East Contra Costa commute among nation's worst - San ... Morning drive on Highway 4 through Antioch and Pittsburg ranked 10th worst by Washington traffic firm: Bay Area ranks third among metropolitan areas www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_20693344/...among-nations-worst Honolulu Has Nation’s Worst Traffic Think your morning commute is bad? Do you live in Honolulu? A new study released by INRIX shows that Honolulu has the nation’s worst traffic. According ... www.inquisitr.com/242450/honolulu-has-nations-worst-traffic - Cached D.C. ranks 6th in nation for worst traffic - WTOP.com WASHINGTON - Daily commutes in the Washington area can be brutal. D.C. has fallen to sixth in an annual ranking of the nation's worst traffic cities, a drop from ... www.wtop.com/?nid=41&sid=2874106 Traffic Congestion Plummets Worldwide: INRIX Traffic ... Nationwide, Americans traveling the nation’s worst traffic corridors experience up to 60 hours of delay annually on their afternoon commutes alone. www.inrix.com/pressrelease.asp?ID=156 Going Nowhere: 10 Worst U.S. Cities for Traffic | NewsFeed ... According to the study, drivers in America’s 10 worst traffic ... Los Angeles, New York, traffic, worst U.S. cities for traffic, Nation newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/22/going-nowhere-10-worst-u-s... Worst Cities For Traffic - Forbes.com - Information for the ... The worst traffic in the U.S. is getting even worse. It pollutes as the ... Click on the link below for the nation's worst choke points, according to the ... www.forbes.com/2006/02/06/worst-traffic-nightmares-cx_rm... - Cached Report: Honolulu has worst traffic gridlock in U.S. - News ... Nationwide, Americans traveling the nation’s worst traffic corridors experience up to 60 hours of delay annually on their afternoon commutes alone. www.metro-magazine.com/News/...has-worst-traffic-gridlock... - Cached D.C. area is No. 1 nationwide in traffic congestion, study ... Washington suffers from the worst traffic congestion in the nation, with drivers spending more than three days out of every 365 caught in traffic. Helped along by a ... www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-area-is-no-1-nationwide... - Cached Seattle traffic 7th-worst in nation: Study - Puget Sound ... Seattle traffic is the seventh-worst in the country, with drivers sitting in traffic 33 hours in 2011, according to a new study by Inrix. The Kirkland company ... www.bizjournals.com/seattle/morning_call/2012/05/seattle... Austin traffic congestion still nation's third worst, study says For the second consecutive year, the Austin area ranked No. 3 nationally in traffic congestion, ahead of Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth, according to a study to be ... www.statesman.com/news/local/austin-traffic-congestion... - Cached