T-Mobile UK launches new price plans, offers unlimited data that's actually unlimited

T-Mobile UK has announced new range of price plans that offer its customers truly unlimited data for the first time. Previously, T-Mo UK has offered a "unlimited" data on many of its plans, but with a "fair use" limit, sometimes as low as 500MB. If customers used more than this fair use limit, they faced throttled speeds and restrictions on visiting certain websites.

The network's new "Full Monty" price plans put an end to this chicanery, offering users unlimited data without any kind of fair use limit buried in the small print. "Fully Monty" price plans start at £36 per month for 24 months, for unlimited T-Mobile calls, unlimited texts, unlimited data and 2000 minutes of calls to other networks. At this price point, T-Mo will also throw in a free Galaxy S II or HTC Sensation XE. Step it up to £41 per month and you'll get unlimited calls to other networks, too. The higher-priced £46 and £61 per month plans offer the same unlimited everything, with a lower up-front cost for your handset of choice. All four price plans include unlimited tethering, and will be available from Feb. 1.

All of the major UK networks moved away from unlimited data plans in 2010, in an attempt to curb heavy data use by smartphone users. We've seen this trend slowly reversing over the past year, though, with O2 offering unlimited data through its "GiffGaff" network, and Three selling "all-you-can-eat" data plans to contracted and pre-paid customers. It'll be interesting to see whether things continue to move in this direction as UK carriers begin to roll out 4G LTE coverage over the next couple of years.

Source: T-Mobile UK

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/Z45lfhEHOZw/story01.htm

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Exactly What Does A Marketing And Advertising Communications ...

It?s primarily Pr with tunnel vision glasses on that specifically focuses on marketing.Of course nowadays, when the matter of advertising interactions is pointed out, it?s usually described within the perspective of Internet marketing. Of course there?re omissions however for the greater degree, this is so. You will see, when it comes to the web as well as advertising, there?s a lot to debate.

An advertising and marketing agence de communication for example can really help a businessman learn the huge challenges of Internet interactions in a business way. For instance, everyone understands that the Web includes literally billions of potential clients however, just what about the untold numbers of opponents?

The majority of entrepreneurs often just discount their competitors or even minimize it. Alternatively, they often aim their efforts and resources on setting up a customer or client foundation and just assume that over time market forces will ultimately pull them ahead of their opponents.

A Marketing And Advertising agence communication on the contrary, could possibly bring about an extensive internet marketing plan which works not only to make a client or customer foundation but in addition at the same time operates to vanquish your web based competition. The truth is, like it or not your top challengers are actually doing the same to you.

Who hasn?t listened to the tales of companies that have been introduced on the web which shot to the top and help earn their owners millions in a fairly short time. Certainly everyone has. So then could it have been luck or perhaps a simple series of privileged accidents which forced these web based success stories? In addition, if so, then how can you get your hands one of the blessed rabbit?s feet they used?

The simple fact of the situation is that there was not luck included in anyway other than a really handful of select scenarios. Rather, it was effective marketing agence de communication visuelle that involved the mystique of a shooting star. You see the tale that you heard which had the organization being propelled by its very own spontaneous push was only the fact that, a story which was created as an element of a comprehensive marketing interaction strategy.

You notice it drew in clients or customers because it compelled their rivals aside. Of course, no one wants to stand up in the way of a speeding train. Rather, everyone wants to get on board. Even though this technique won?t work for every business online, for the ones that it has worked for, it performed beautifully. Still, the fact remains that there is a successful marketing and advertising communications approach for you, regardless of whether you have yet to implement it or not.

Looking to find the best advice on agence communication, then visit agence-france-communication.fr to find the best advice on agence de communication for you.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 30th, 2012 at 12:07 pm by Sony Dhiman and is filed under Communications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

Source: http://centired.com/2012/01/exactly-what-does-a-marketing-and-advertising-communications-agency-actually-do/

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Obama Killed Pipeline Deal Over Politics, Not Environmental Concerns (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama nixes the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, sending our neighbor to the north in search of another willing partner in the expansion of the oil sands reserve in Alberta. It didn't take them long to find another country very interested in doing business in Canada: China.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper met with Chinese leaders in November at the Pacific Rim economic summit in Hawaii and is set to make a state visit to China in February. Associated Press reported China has invested more than $16 billion into Canadian energy projects and is very interested in developing any resource that would give its growing economy access to Canadian oil.

Harper said he was "profoundly disappointed" by Obama's decision to axe the pipeline deal. Clearly, Harper can see Obama is playing to his environmentalist supporters in what may be a tight re-election campaign. That pandering is going to cost Americans thousands of jobs that would have resulted from the pipeline construction, plus all the spin off jobs that come with a project of that size.

Environmentalists are arguing the potential damage from such a long pipeline. But a quick walk down memory lane will remind everyone that environmentalist strongly opposed the Trans-Alaska pipeline back in the 1970s, and it has proved to be a complete success. A 1987 article in the Los Angeles Times reflected on the first 10 years of the pipeline's existence and the tremendous impact it had on Alaska and on over 70,000 workers.

The Keystone XL pipeline is an economic necessity for the U.S. and would create an unbroken partnership with our largest trading partner to the north. Were it not a hotly contested presidential election year, that pipeline would already be in the works. Americans need the jobs and the oil. There is no logical reason for Obama to give China an upper hand in negotiated with Canada -- well, except to garner a few more votes from his left-wing environmentalist supporters.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120129/pl_ac/10899809_obama_killed_pipeline_deal_over_politics_not_environmental_concerns

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WFP: Up to 500,000 may need food aid in Sudan (AP)

JUBA, South Sudan ? The World Food Program estimates that as many as a half million people could be forced to flee Sudan if the government in Khartoum does not allow humanitarian aid into the country, while a top U.S. official said Monday that a humanitarian crisis is looming.

World Food Program Deputy Executive Director Ramiro Lopes da Silva said WFP is in talks with the government in Khartoum to allow its aid workers into the states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan, which lie on the border with South Sudan. An estimated 80,000 people have fled armed rebellion and hunger in the two states and are now in South Sudan.

Sudan is battling the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North, a branch of a guerrilla movement which has fought various regimes in Khartoum for decades. SPLM-North was once part of South Sudan's ruling party during a long running civil war between Sudan's north and south.

South Sudan became the world's newest country last July. Citing security concerns, Khartoum has refused to allow humanitarian aid agencies into the region.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said Monday that aid groups must be allowed in to Blue Nile and South Kordofan to avert a humanitarian crisis. He said that it's extremely important that humanitarian concerns be addressed.

Lopes said Khartoum is willing to allow humanitarian access to the two states "under a certain set of conditions which we have not accepted." He said Khartoum would not allow Sudanese citizens to be involved in the operations.

Da Silva said the World Food Program is planning for a "worst-case scenario" to assist anywhere from 300,000 to 500,000 refugees in South Sudan should the talks fail.

The main catalyst of the potential influx is a deepening food crisis spurred by erratic rains in Sudan and instability due to the violence.

But according to WFP, things are not much better in South Sudan. In addition to the refugees along the border, an estimated 120,000 people have been affected by recent tribal violence in the volatile state of Jonglei.

In the face of these challenges, WFP estimates that the country's cereal deficit will be at least 440,900 tons (400,000 metric tons) in 2012.

WFP also estimates that about 2.7 million people ? around 30 percent of South Sudan ? will need food aid this year. That estimate does not include refugees that are continuing to flee from Sudan. About 1,000 people a day are crossing into South Sudan, he said.

Da Silva said the assistance will cost an estimated $250 million dollars, of which around $90 million has already been provided. But Da Silva said the lack of roads throughout the country and the coming rainy season mean WFP will not be able to provide aid for the rest of the year if their operations are not fully funded by May.

"Come the beginning of the rainy season we need to have pre-positioned all the food we require basically for the rest of the year until end of November," he said.

South Sudan is unlikely to be able to meet the funding gap. The country is currently engaged in a bitter oil dispute with Sudan. South Sudan has accused Sudan of stealing $815 million worth of crude oil since December. Negotiations between the two countries over the separation of their once unified oil industry have failed to produce agreement, prompting Sudan to begin levying oil exported by South Sudan through pipelines in Sudan.

In response, South Sudan has ordered a complete shutdown of its oil production. South Sudan now says it will not resume production until the two countries agree on a host of issues leftover from their civil war including the demarcation of the border and the return of the Abyei region, which both countries claim.

While the two countries are locked in a dangerous stalemate, millions of lives could be at risk.

"What you have now is a sense of urgency," says WFP's da Silva. "In a couple of months we are on what is typically the hunger season both in Sudan and Southern Sudan and obviously the impact on those populations is potentially very serious. The window for an effective intervention with the populations where they are is narrowing."

___

Associated Press reporter Jason Straziuso in Nairobi, Kenya contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120130/ap_on_re_af/af_south_sudan_hunger

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Factbox: A list of winners at the SAG Awards (omg!)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Screen Actors Guild on Sunday picked winners of its annual awards for best performances in film and TV, and Mary Tyler Moore was given a lifetime achievement honor. Below is a full list of winners in both film and TV categories:

FILM Best Ensemble Cast

"The Help" Actor

Jean Dujardin, "The Artist" Actress

Viola Davis, "The Help" Supporting Actor

Christopher Plummer, "Beginners" Supporting Actress

Octavia Spencer, "The Help" Stunt Performances in a Film

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"

TELEVISION Best Ensemble Cast - Drama

"Boardwalk Empire" Actor - Drama

Steve Buscemi, "Boardwalk Empire" Actress - Drama

Jessica Lange, "American Horror Story" Best Ensemble Cast - Comedy

"Modern Family" Actor - Comedy

Alec Baldwin, "30 Rock" Actress - Comedy

Betty White, "Hot In Cleveland" Actor - TV Movie or Miniseries

Paul Giamatti, "Too Big To Fail" Actress - TV Movie or Miniseries

Kate Winslet, "Mildred Pierce" Stunt Performances in a TV Series

"Game of Thrones"

(Reporting By Bob Tourtellotte; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_factbox_list_winners_sag_awards031130399/44350287/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/factbox-list-winners-sag-awards-031130399.html

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NY Public Library turns stereographs into animated GIFs, reminds your 3D TV of its roots

Digging your 3D TVs, video game consoles and laptops? Thank the past -- the New York Public Library is here to remind you that streographic entertainment has been blowing minds for over 100 years, and has the animated gifs to prove it. The Library recently introduced Stereogranimator, a web app that taps into the institution's large collection of historical stereographs and allows user to convert them into wiggling GIF animations and 3D anaglyphs. The program was inspired by "Reaching for the Out of Reach," a manual labor of animated stereographs started by San Francisco artist Joshua Heineman. The library currently has over 40,000 pairs of stenographic images just begging to be converted to depth-suggesting wigglepic. Interested? The link is below, friends -- go ahead and create your own psudeo-3D view of history. Too lazy to make your own? Fine, read on for a shaky and colorful look at an orange tree.

Continue reading NY Public Library turns stereographs into animated GIFs, reminds your 3D TV of its roots

NY Public Library turns stereographs into animated GIFs, reminds your 3D TV of its roots originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/29/ny-public-library-turns-stereographs-into-animated-gifs-reminds/

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Senate Republicans take aim at PUC Chair Ellen Anderson (Star Tribune)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/192348762?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Watch key testimony on Hasegawa?s Washington Investment Trust bill and an interview with KING 5?s Robert Mak

WIT Task Force member Darel Grothaus presents testimony on HB 2434 to the House Committee on Business and Financial Services on January 26, 2012:

If the video doesn?t play, please click here

King County Assesor Lloyd Hara presents testimony on SB 6310 to the Senate Committee on Financial Institutions, Housing & Insurance on January 25, 2012:

If the video doesn?t play, please click here

Watch an interview with Robert Mak on January 25, 2012:

If the video doesn?t play, please click here

Source: http://www.housedemocrats.wa.gov/bob-hasegawa/watch-key-testimony-on-hasegawas-washington-investment-trust-bill-and-an-interview-with-king-5%E2%80%99s-robert-mak/

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Arab Spring One Year Later (talking-points-memo)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/191816559?client_source=feed&format=rss

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'War Horse' star one of Hollywood's equine elite (AP)

ACTON, Calif. ? One star of Steven Spielberg's latest epic likes to end his work day by rolling around in the dirt, kicking his legs in the air and flaring his nostrils.

Finder, a 12-year-old thoroughbred, is among more than 150 equine performers featured in the Oscar-nominated "War Horse," and one of 14 who play the scene-stealing Joey. He lives on a ranch about 45 miles northeast of Hollywood with veteran horse trainer Bobby Lovgren, who oversaw all the equine action on "War Horse."

"Plowing, riding, chasing ? you name it, it's in there," said Lovgren, who calls "War Horse" "the biggest horse movie ever made." Lovgren is the prot?g? of legendary Hollywood horseman Glenn Randall, who trained Roy Rogers' Trigger.

Thanks to the enduring appeal of horses on screen, Lovgren, Finder and "War Horse" continue a longtime tradition of Hollywood horses that began with the earliest motion pictures.

"Bobby and his team literally performed miracles with the horses on this film," Spielberg said. "I wanted it to feel like the horses were performing their parts as much as (actors) Emily Watson or Peter Mullan, and that is what happened. There were times during production when the horses reacted in ways I had never imagined a horse could react. You just sit back and thank your lucky stars that these horses are so cognizant that they are able to give everything to a moment."

Those moments took months of training and a 22-member team of trainers, handlers and yes, equine makeup artists.

Set in England during World War I, "War Horse" centers on the enduring relationship between Joey and the farm boy who trained him. When Joey is sold to soldiers heading into battle, the horse begins a journey that brings him through various fighting factions and into the lives of soldiers and civilians who are moved by his strength and spirit.

The film has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including cinematography and best picture.

As the film's "horse master," Lovgren oversaw everything horse-related. His team prepared the equine actors for their various duties. Some became expert jumpers, others learned to stumble or feign a struggle. There were horses for riding and horses for pulling, and even stand-ins for the star horses while shots were being set. Lovgren's team was also responsible for teaching the actors how to ride and handle the animals.

"We all became incredibly attached to the horses," said cast member Patrick Kennedy. "Getting to know these horses and learning to ride them was the greatest privilege I've ever had."

None of the horses are credited by name in the film, and the filmmakers wouldn't say why. Lovgren said it's not uncommon: "Sometimes they'll put a few of the horses' names, but you know, realistically, it's very difficult to say that there was one hero Joey."

The trainer, whose many credits include last summer's "Cowboys & Aliens," typically spends about three months preparing his equine actors for a film shoot. He specializes in "liberty" work, meaning the horses are not restrained in any way and learn to respond to hand signals and body language.

The 46-year-old horseman grew up in an equestrian family in South Africa that runs a large jumping and dressage barn. Lovgren said he didn't much enjoy the public dealings that work required, so he headed to Hollywood to learn a new type of horse training. The 23 years he's spent working in movies prepared him for the challenges of "War Horse."

"All the scenes that we had to do had really all been done before in other films that I'd worked on, but never all in one. This took everything and put everything in one basket," he said. "I'm very proud of my other films, like `Zorro' and `Seabiscuit,' but it just has a little bit in there. The horse isn't the focal point. But in `War Horse' it is, and it's all the time."

Though Lovgren doesn't typically work with his own horses on set (he owns three, including Finder), he said he was lucky on this film that Finder was the right color. (Finder and the other horses playing Joey relied on makeup to make them look identical, with four white socks and a white star on their heads.)

Lovgren met Finder while working on "Seabiscuit" and loved him so much that he bought him. The thoroughbred is more expressive than most horses, Lovgren said, which makes him an ideal movie star.

Plus, he can play both genders. Finder played the mother in an early scene in the film showing the birth of Joey. That sequence and working with a foal was among the most difficult, Lovgren said. "They're very young, so you don't have much time to train them."

Almost everything in "War Horse" was shot with real horses, except for a few scenes that would have caused injury to the animals. Lovgren praised Spielberg's team for their respectful approach to the horses.

The toughest part of Lovgren's job isn't working with the animals, but communicating with filmmakers and other workers on set about what the horses need and what they can and can't do. Once filming begins, "it's more about communication skills than it is about training. That's something I've had to really learn," he said. "Obviously, I started working with animals because I don't work well with people (laughs), so that's been very important to learn to do that."

Watching Lovgren with Finder, it's easy to see the mutual love and respect between the two. Lovgren raises his arm and the powerful animal rears up. He makes a backward motion with a whip and the horse backs up. He strikes the whip on the ground and Finder bangs his hoof into the dirt. Lovgren throws a piece of wood two dozen yards away, and Finder runs to it and stands on his mark.

Lovgren doesn't train with treats, because "if you go on set and someone walks by with an apple, what's he going to do then?"

Instead, the animal's reward is "I leave him alone," Lovgren said. Still, Finder stands confidently by his side.

So with all the challenges of "War Horse," is it harder working with four-legged performers or two-legged Hollywood types?

"I'm not going to answer that!" Lovgren said with a smile. "We all know that answer, but I'm not going to answer that."

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy.

___

Online:

www.warhorsemovie.com

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_en_mo/us_film_hollywood_horses

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Demi Moore Hospitalized For Substance Abuse Issues

Demi Moore was rushed to the hospital Monday night to treat a reported substance-abuse issue. According to TMZ, paramedics were dispatched to the Margin Call actress' home in Los Angeles after 911 received a call at 10:49 p.m. Jan. 23. After a 30-minute evaluation, Moore was taken to a local hospital.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/report-demi-moore-hospitalized-substance-abuse-issues/1-a-421890?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Areport-demi-moore-hospitalized-substance-abuse-issues-421890

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Galaxy S III now rumored to be a no-show at MWC

But would that that really a bad thing?

Samsung, it is now rumored, will not be showing the Galaxy S III at Mobile World Congress. That's according to unconfirmed rumors from The Verge and Germany's Best Boyz. Of course, the Galaxy S III has yet to actually be announced or anything, nor has Samsung sent invites for any press event in Barcelona. But, yeah. It's entirely possible we won't see it there. Bummer, to be sure.

But here's the thing: We -- and most everybody else out there -- have been largely been assuming we'll see Samsung Next Big Thing™ in Spain. Perfectly reasonable assumption by all, since the Galaxy S II was announced there last year. But it's still an assumption, and it's still ignoring one thing.

Anybody remember when and where the Samsung Galaxy S was launched? That's right, boys and girls. The original Galaxy S was born in March 2010 at CTIA in Las Vegas, not at Mobile World Congress a month sooner. (We got Super AMOLED screens at MWC in 2010.) The Galaxy S still was released outside the United States first, and we got ours at an event in New York City that brought the four major U.S. carriers together. (Note we've not seen an event like that since; though last year's Galaxy S II event did manage appearances by AT&T and Sprint, and a half-assing from T-Mobile.)

Anyhoo. We're still a month out from MWC. Anything can happen. (Hell, we saw a complete redesign of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in a month.) And it's not like there won't be ample opportunities for the GSIII (or whatever's next) to be announced after that. We've got CTIA in May. Google IO in June. CTIA again in October. Countless events in between. And if indeed it's true that the Galaxy S III is being pushed back to eliminate lag time between release, let's all ask ourselves this:

Are we really going to complain about an unofficial phone's unannounced announcement possibly being pushed closer to the date that it'll actually be available for purchase? It's a mad, mad world.

Sources: The Verge; Best Boyz

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/9Qi-LWDs4MQ/story01.htm

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UK economy shrinks by 0.2 pct in 4th quarter (AP)

LONDON ? Britain's economy shrank by 0.2 percent in the last three months of 2011, official data showed Wednesday, a worse than expected result that raises fears of a recession and could see the Bank of England push for more monetary stimulus.

The market consensus had been that the economy would contract by only 0.1 percent in the quarter. For the year, GDP grew by just 0.8 percent, the Office for National Statistics said.

The fourth-quarter drop is likely to confirm analysts' belief that the Bank of England will authorize spending more billions next month to stimulate the economy.

Minutes of the January meeting of the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee showed that, as expected, the nine members had been unanimous in voting not to approve more stimulus.

The Bank had indicated that it would take at least through January to spend the 75 billion pounds in asset purchases approved in October.

Some analysts expect the bank to authorize more purchases next month.

The GDP report showed that Britain's big services sector didn't grow at all in the fourth quarter, while output of production industries, including factories, fell by 1.2 percent.

The International Monetary Fund this week cut its forecasts for the U.K. economy, predicting growth of only 0.6 percent compared with 1.6 percent previously.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120125/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_economy

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Patriots in Super Bowl, beat Ravens 23-20

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft holds up the championship trophy after their AFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. The Patriots defeated the Ravens 23-20 to win the AFC Championship. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft holds up the championship trophy after their AFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. The Patriots defeated the Ravens 23-20 to win the AFC Championship. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Members of the New England Patriots hold up the championship trophy after the AFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. The Patriots defeated the Ravens 23-20 to win the AFC Championship. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New England Patriots defensive tackle Gerard Warren celebrates after the Baltimore Ravens missed a 32-yard field goal attempt during the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. The Patriots defeated the Ravens 23-20 to win the AFC Championship. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski (87) looks at the championship trophy after the AFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. The Patriots defeated the Ravens 23-20 to win the AFC Championship. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

New England Patriots defensive tackle Vince Wilfork (75) celebrates during the closing seconds of the AFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. The Patriots defeated the Ravens 23-20 to win the AFC Championship. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) ? Tom Brady got all the help he needed to get the New England Patriots into the Super Bowl.

Thank you, Billy Cundiff.

The Baltimore Ravens kicker shanked a 32-yard field goal with 11 seconds left and the Patriots escaped with a 23-20 victory in the AFC championship game on Sunday.

Usually, vintage Brady doesn't need much assistance in championship settings, but the Patriots much-maligned defense came through, and Brady's 1-yard touchdown dive with 11:29 left proved to be the winning points.

"Well, I sucked pretty bad today, but our defense saved us," Brady said after throwing for 239 yards, with two interceptions and, for the first time in 36 games, no TD passes. "I'm going to try to go out and do a better job in a couple of weeks, but I'm proud of this team, my teammates."

Brady waited out the final tense minutes on the sideline, and then celebrated with the rest of his team when Cundiff's attempt went wide left. The Ravens looked on in stunned horror.

Cundiff had no excuse.

"It's a kick I've kicked probably a thousand times in my career," Cundiff said. "I went out there and didn't convert. That's the way things go."

Next up as the Patriots chase their fourth Super Bowl trophy in Brady and coach Bill Belichick's tenure in New England is the New York Giants, who beat the San Francisco 49ers 20-17 in overtime Sunday night.

The Patriots were installed as 3-point favorites for the Super Bowl on Feb. 5 in Indianapolis.

In their last trip to the big game, the Patriots had an 18-0 record when they were stunned by the Giants four years ago. They won the NFL championship for the 2001, 2003 and 2004 seasons. This time, they head to the Super Bowl with a 10-game winning streak.

Before Cundiff missed, the Ravens had a chance to go ahead two plays earlier, but wide receiver Lee Evans was stripped of the ball in the end zone by backup cornerback Sterling Moore, who earlier was victimized for a touchdown that gave Baltimore (13-5) the lead 17-16.

On his touchdown, Brady took a huge hit from Ravens star linebacker Ray Lewis, then emphatically spiked the ball as he walked away. Earlier, Brady showed his fire by barking at Lewis following a hard tackle on a 4-yard run.

"It's a pretty mentally tough team," said Brady, whose fifth trip to the Super Bowl will equal John Elway's achievement with Denver. "There's really some resiliency. We've shown that all season. Even in the games we've lost, the three games we lost, we fought until the end. We're always going to fight to the end. It's great to be a part of a team like this."

Baltimore had the touted defense in this matchup, but New England's unit, ranked 31st overall, was just as powerful.

"We stepped up," Pro Bowl nose tackle Vince Wilfork said. "We all stepped up big time. Being in this situation is a great moment. You have to cherish this moment."

The Patriots shut down Ray Rice, the league's total yardage leader, who was limited to 78 yards. Brandon Spikes made a fourth-quarter interception of Joe Flacco, who played well before that and threw for two touchdowns. And when the Ravens were threatening to score a late touchdown to win their first conference title in 11 years, New England clamped down.

"It's two great football teams, two gladiators, I guess, just kind of going at each other at the end, and I'm proud of our guys," Harbaugh said. "You know, we've got 53 guys, mighty men, as we like to call them ? and they fought, and we came up a little bit short, as 53. You know, 53 win and 53 lose."

With Rice a nonfactor, Baltimore had to rely on Flacco, and he delivered one of his best performances. Flacco has led the Ravens into the playoffs in all four of his pro seasons, but not to the Super Bowl. He was 22 for 36 for 306 yards and touchdowns of 6 yards to Dennis Pitta and 29 to rookie Torrey Smith.

The loss hardly could be blamed on Flacco.

"I don't know if I ever will prove anything," he said. "I just play the same way. We lost; someone has to. But we laid it all out on the field."

Operating against a porous secondary missing its top cornerback, Kyle Arrington, who left in the second quarter with an eye injury, Flacco gave Baltimore its first lead. His short pass on third down to explosive receiver Smith turned into a 29-yard scamper down the right sideline after Moore completely whiffed on the tackle.

Danny Woodhead's fumble on the ensuing kickoff set up Baltimore at the Patriots 28, but a third-down sack forced Cundiff to kick a 39-yard field goal, making it 20-16.

New England didn't flinch.

Brady took the Patriots 63 yards in 11 plays, and seemed to score on a 1-yard run. The call was overruled by replay, though, and on fourth-down, he dived just high enough over the line for the winning points.

"Every inch counts in this game and every foot counts in this game," said 12-year veteran guard Brian Waters, who joined the Patriots this year and is headed to his first Super Bowl.

Defense was particularly dominant early on. The Patriots held Baltimore to minus-4 yards on its first three first-down runs and forced the Ravens to go three-and-out each time. Meanwhile, the Patriots put together a methodical 13-play, 50-yard drive helped greatly by an illegal contact penalty on Lardarius Webb that negated a tipped interception by Bernard Pollard.

But Brady was sacked for the first time by Paul Kruger and Stephen Gostkowski kicked a 29-yard field goal.

Late in the first quarter, the Ravens changed tactics after Webb picked off a pass intended for Julian Edelman at the Baltimore 30. Flacco rolled right on first down and threw deep down the sideline to a wide-open Smith. Had the pass not been short, Smith likely would have sprinted into the end zone. Instead, it was a 42-yard gain, not bad at all given Baltimore's previous ineptitude with the ball.

Cundiff's 20-yard field goal momentarily tied it.

Brady, perhaps peeved by his poor throw that Webb picked off, hit two passes for 29 yards on a 75-yard drive to make it 10-3. BenJarvus Green-Ellis rushed for 36 yards on that series, and also drew a personal foul against Webb, who ripped off the running back's helmet on a short rush. Green-Ellis surged into the end zone from the 7, then pointed to the patch on his jersey honoring Myra Kraft, the late wife of Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

In the locker room afterward, Kraft was asked about the motivation the team got from dedicating the season to his wife of 48 years. Kraft tapped an MHK pin on his left lapel and kissed his fingers before pointing upward.

"They're an amazing team, they're a great brotherhood, they're a family," Kraft said.

Going back to the pass, the Ravens tied it on a 6-yard throw to Pitta ? yes, Baltimore has some dangerous tight ends, too ? that concluded an 80-yard march. Flacco opened the drive with a 20-yard completion to Evans and then Anquan Boldin escaped Arrington's attempted tackle to gain 37 more yards on a reception. Flacco was finding holes in New England's coverage, particularly when he moved out of the pocket.

New England's All-Pro tight end Rob Gronkowski made an error at the end of a 63-yard drive, failing to keep two feet in bounds on a catch. Gostkowski's 35-yard field goal made it 13-10.

Gronkowski left for a while with a left leg problem, but soon returned.

"It doesn't even feel right, especially playing with the veterans here," Gronkowski said. "I watched them go to the Super Bowl as I was growing up and now I'm part of it? It is an unreal moment."

Notes: Brady won his 16th career postseason game to tie Joe Montana for most in NFL history. ... New England's seventh Super Bowl appearance puts it one behind Pittsburgh and Dallas. ... The Patriots are 7-1 in AFC title games, 4-0 at home. ... Brady and Belichick are the first QB-coach combination to win five conference championships in the Super Bowl era. ... Baltimore was 7-0 against playoff teams this season before Sunday's loss. ... The Ravens finished 4-5 on the road. ... In three career games against the Patriots, Rice averaged 145.7 yards, nearly double what he managed Sunday.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-01-23-FBN-AFC-Championship/id-cb3b202e89a040a08eb6d2a48a3ed720

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Study Fails to Confirm Existence of Arsenic-Based Life

News | More Science

A new analysis by open-science advocates present a 'clear refutation' of a controversial finding that appears to undermine assumptions about how essential phosphorus is for life

By Erika Check Hayden and Nature magazine ?| January 23, 2012

A scanning electron micrograph of GFAJ-1, the bacterium at the centre of the controversy. Image: Science/AAAS

A strange bacterium found in California?s Mono Lake cannot replace the phosphorus in its DNA with arsenic, according to researchers who have been trying to reproduce the results of a controversial report published in Science in 2010.

A group of scientists, led by microbiologist Rosie Redfield at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, have posted data on Redfield's blog that, she says, present a ?clear refutation? of key findings from the paper.

?Their most striking claim was that arsenic had been incorporated into the backbone of DNA, and what we can say is that there is no arsenic in the DNA at all,? says Redfield.

But the authors of the Science paper are not retreating from their conclusions. ?We are thrilled that our results are stimulating more experiments from the community as well as ourselves,? first author Felisa Wolfe-Simon, now at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, wrote in an e-mail to Nature. ?We do not fully understand the key details of the website experiments and conditions. So we hope to see this work published in a peer-reviewed journal, as this is how science best proceeds.?

Open criticism
In the Science paper, Wolfe-Simon and her co-workers reported that they had found a bacterium called GFAJ-1 that can use the element arsenic in place of phosphorus in molecules essential to life (see Arsenic-eating microbe may redefine chemistry of life). This was surprising because phosphorus is thought to be essential for life, whereas arsenic is usually toxic.

But after Redfield and others raised numerous concerns (see Microbe gets toxic response), many of which were published as technical comments in Science, Redfield put the results to the test, documenting her progress on her blog to advance the cause of open science.

Redfield grew GFAJ-1 bacteria in arsenic and a very small amount of phosphorus, as had Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues. She then purified the DNA from the cells and sent it to Marshall Louis Reaves, a graduate student at Princeton University in New Jersey. Reaves used a caesium chloride gradient to separate the cells' DNA into fractions of varying densities, then used a mass spectrometer to identify the elements present in each fraction of DNA. He found no arsenic in any of the DNA.

But Redfield?s methods might leave defenders of the arsenic life hypothesis some wiggle room. For instance, Redfield was unable to grow any cells without adding a small amount of phosphorus. Because it is not clear how much phosphorus was used to grow the bacteria in the original paper, its authors could argue that Redfield's cells were not sufficiently phosphorus-starved to be forced to use arsenic in its place.

Wolfe-Simon also says she would not expect to find arsenic in DNA analysed on a caesium chloride gradient, because the arsenic-containing DNA might be so fragile that it would break apart and appear only in very faint bands separate from the bulk of the cell's DNA.

However, Redfield says that Reaves analysed all of the DNA purified on the gradient, so he would have detected any arsenic. Redfield also analysed the size of DNA from cells that had been stored for two months in her lab refrigerator. The DNA fragments from cells that had been grown with and without arsenic were similar sizes, indicating that DNA from arsenic-grown cells is not unstable.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=8a2d5e66b7c9d68d79d1b7a07956aafa

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Kris LoPresto: An Entertainment Enthusiast's Like and Dislike List

When I was a kid I would get excited to see TV Guide waiting for me in the mailbox when I got home from school. I would examine the cover and then immediately flip to their Cheers & Jeers section. Some stories I cared about (Jeers for Knight Rider for David Hasselhoff playing an evil twin? How dare you!) and others I didn't (Anything involving Dallas). However, I loved the cross section of interests that weekly little article gave me. In honor of it I would like to debut: An Entertainment Enthusiast's Like & Dislike List.

Like:
Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band release new single "We Take Care Of Our Own"

Instant classic summer song. It makes me want to drive cross country, stopping in every little town and just help people or something. While new Springsteen albums have been a bit uneven recently this new single gives us hope for better days. Plus, it gives Bruce an excuse to tour again! What's not to like about that?

Dislike:
CW is Developing a new show, Arrow, about a mid level Superhero

Does anyone even like Green Arrow? I've grown up reading DC comics and I have a DC Comics superhero tattoo on my arm and even I don't care about Green Arrow. The producers of Smallville originally tried to tell the tale of a young Bruce Wayne but that idea was squashed when Christopher Nolan got his hands on the Batman character. With Nolan on the way out why not give us the young adventures of one of the most iconic superheroes of all time: Batman. Instead, we get a level three tier superhero in Oliver Queen. To quote Fred Wilpon, the owner of the Mets: Really good player. Not a superstar.

Dislike:
Ricky Gervais plays nice as the host of the Golden Globes

Sure, Kim Kardashian probably doesn't think he was too nice but overall he was a pussycat compared to last year. NBC's relentless ads promised a Gervais who would roast the celebrity audience, however when it came to showtime the brilliant comic was rather boring.

Dislike:
Mark Wahlberg says he would have beat 9/11 terrorists and landed the plane safely.

What a dick thing to say. Not only are you saying that you are better than all the people who perished on that flight but you have the audacity to say you would land the plane somewhere safely. Insulting 2 tragic flights with one dumb statement. Classy. WTF is wrong with you? You know what? Don't say hi to your mother for me.

Like:
The New York Football Giants beat the Green Bay Packers

One of the best seasons of television this year hasn't been The X Factor or 2 Broke Girls, but the NY Giants football season. Most games have been white knuckle affairs for fans, but as the team has gotten healthy the defense has started to gel together and it's led to some really impressive wins. Most notable was last Sunday's dispatching of the the reigning Super Bowl champion Packers. The Giants improbable season continues Sunday night at San Francisco against the 49ers. This is must see television for even the most casual of sports fan.

Dislike:
Urban Outfitters is selling a Douchebag Jar like the one on The New Girl

$8? Do you not know how to write on a jar and cut a hole in the lid like a normal functioning person? This is kind of blowing my mind right now. Only the douchiest of douchebags would actually buy this from the ultra hipster paradise that is Urban Outfitters.

Like:
Jon Stewart explains how SOPA & PIPA would effect his show and life as we know it.

Civil liberties are at stake y'all! The internet as we know it is in danger of being censored and sites like Wikipedia and Google "went dark" restricted access to their normal content and encouraged visitors to contact their congressperson. Even though sites like Wikipedia and Google did a good job explaining why these bills suck Jon Stewart hit the nail on it's head as to what kind of ramifications this bill would have on our lives and just what kind of people are pushing this legislation through.

So there you have it. This is the list for the week that was. Tell me what makes it onto you list in the comments below. Disagree with me? Tell me why. I'll be back next week for another installment.

?

Follow Kris LoPresto on Twitter: www.twitter.com/krislopresto

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kris-lopresto/an-entertainment-enthusia_b_1220380.html

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Razzies worst-movie awards shift to April Fool's (AP)

LOS ANGELES ? Hollywood's award season is going to linger on through April Fool's Day this year.

Organizers of the Razzies have changed the schedule for their nominations and prize ceremony. The spoof on the Academy Awards picks the year's worst films.

The Razzies used to announce contenders the night before the Oscar nominations, which are coming Tuesday.

Razzies founder John Wilson announced Sunday that nominations this season will be released Feb. 25, the eve of the Oscar ceremony. Winners of the Razzies will be announced on April 1.

Wilson says Razzies organizers have long wanted to have their awards coincide with April Fool's Day.

A news release announcing the change also notes that it will give the 600 Razzies voters "additional time to see the dreck they will eventually nominate."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/movies/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120122/ap_en_mo/us_oscars_razzies

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Robert Kuttner: Obama's Mixed Messages

Many Democrats are congratulating themselves that the final two in the 2012 Republican field are a stuffed shirt who can't motivate his own base and a wild man who seems to inspire only fundamentalists and Tea Party fanatics. But let's not pop the champagne quite yet.

According to a video sent to supporters Saturday, President Obama is planning to strike a "populist" note in his Tuesday State of the Union Address and in the themes he sounds in his re-election campaign. Obama will pledge "an America where everybody gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share and everybody plays by the same set of rules."

"We can go in two directions. One is towards less opportunity and less fairness," Obama declared in the video, "Or we can fight for where I think we need to go: building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few."

Obama, say widely reported White House leaks, will double down on promises of tax breaks for manufacturing, job training and education initiatives, other help for the unemployed, and stronger efforts to deal with the foreclosure crisis. All of these, except for the tax breaks, by definition require activist government.

So despite Obama's fervent desire throughout his presidency to surmount ideological divisions, 2012 promises to be a great ideological debate.

If the Republican nominee is Mitt Romney, the general election will pit a president invoking the interests of the 99 percent against a man who for Democratic purposes is the ideal face of the one percent.

Alternatively, if the Republicans nominate Newt Gingrich, we will have a less predictable and more volatile far-right populist invoking cultural resentments to challenge a rather feeble center-left economic populism that seems to be reserved for electoral emergencies.

God knows, we need to re-elect Barack Obama. If the Republican nominee wins, he will probably take with him the House and Senate, as well as the Supreme Court. Today's Republican Party is more reckless, ruthless, and nihilist than anything we've seen in mainstream U.S. politics perhaps ever.

But Obama's new-found economic populism would be a lot more credible if it had been the consistent message and program of his presidency.

Since populism is used to mean different things, including jingoism, let me be clear about how I mean it. To me, populism represents the activist use of government to help the non-rich get a foot on the economic ladder. Populism entails a constructive politics of class, so that the broad majority is mobilized as a counterweight to the political influence of concentrated wealth. In policy terms, economic populism offers a managed form of capitalism necessary to keep a market economy on the rails. Progressive populism, as both a successful economics and politics, was epitomized by Franklin Roosevelt.

Obama's election-year populism is a confession that a message that champions the 99 over the one is good politics. But we needed populist deeds as well as words, beginning January 20, 2009. Instead, we got a continuation of policies to prop up and bail out the banks that caused the financial collapse.

Obama's original team of economic advisers, including Paul Volcker, was shoved aside in favor of set of prot?g?s of Robert Rubin. His newly appointed treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, had worked intimately with Republican Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Republican treasury secretary Hank Paulson to design the bank bailout and put off fundamental bank reform. Imagine Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 turning to Herbert Hoover's economic team, and you get the idea.

Once the key decision was made to bail out rather than break up Wall Street, it became impossible to provide the necessary relief for the mortgage crisis, for fear that bank balance sheets would have to acknowledge their true losses. The economy was condemned to a slow bleed.

As the result of his failure to embrace the reality of economic populism from day one, Obama's election-year rhetorical populism is now in danger of falling flat. Obama would have much more credibility as a populist now if he hadn't surrounded himself with Wall Street advisers and done so much of Wall Street's bidding.

To be sure, there is massive dishonesty and demagoguery in the rhetoric of Gingrich and Romney branding Obama a food-stamp president or blaming Obama for the huge job losses set in motion under George W. Bush. But with the economy still stuck in second gear, this rhetoric will nonetheless resonate with a lot of voters. All it will take is a deepening of the crisis of the Euro, or a spike in the price of oil, and the economic "green shoots" that are finally appearing will be crushed.

Republicans in Congress will block whatever Obama offers. But even if they were to let his program become law, tax breaks, job training programs and greater investment in education are not likely to alter fundamentally what ails the economy and the economic horizons of ordinary people.

Take the case of the crisis in defaults, foreclosures, and housing prices. The administration has lately been working with several state attorneys general to trade a contribution of mortgage relief from the banks in the range of $20-25 billion for a one-time cleanup of the legal mess made by the same banks when they were on their subprime binge. The problem is that the amount of mortgage relief needed to put a floor under the collapse in housing prices is well into the hundreds of billions.

To solve the problem would require a New Deal-scale break-up and recapitalization of several large banks. But the people making economic policy for this administration will not touch that idea with a rake.

Or consider the real manufacturing crisis. As a must-read piece in Sunday's New York Times reports, Apple does nearly all of its manufacturing in Asia because the United States has lost the capacity to provide many of the advanced industrial processes that Apple needs. This is not about education or even about wages, but about entire production systems.

If those jobs were done in the United States at decent wages, according to the Times, the shift would cost consumers about $65 more in the price of an iPhone. But each manufacturing job would generate more than twelve other jobs, and the country would be that much richer.

If the U.S. government were serious about manufacturing, it would be exploring a strategy to bring manufacturing back. China has been taking the United States to the cleaners, with government subsidy of factories, repression of labor, coercion on U.S. companies to transfer sensitive technologies. Companies like GE are only too happy to oblige, thanks to the subsidies and the captive labor force. The administration has belatedly identified China as a potential geo-political threat, but resists acknowledging the economic threat.

Instead, the Administration has proposed a Trans-Pacific Partnership with nine mostly smaller Pacific nations such as Malaysia and Vietnam -- which on balance would make it easier for American companies to outsource production to law-wage countries, easier to ship those products back to the United States, and harder for all participating countries to regulate finance.

China does not figure in the proposed deal, which is modeled on NAFTA. This is a politics in which government serves economic elites and blows off the national interest. It is about as far from economic populism as you can get.

Obama's sometime populism reminds me of the old joke about the man who
prays to the Lord, asking: Why can't I ever win the lottery? And the Lord sends back a message: It would help if maybe you bought a ticket.

This president would be far more believable with a populist message if he had been walking the talk since he first took office.

We are all the political hostages of Obama's mixed messages. We have no choice but to go all out for his re-election. If he fails to win, we will inherit a country in which the Right completes the destruction begun under Reagan and furthered under both presidents Bush. We will have a country with less liberty, less social justice, more extremes of inequality, and democracy itself will be increasingly at risk.

But we also need Obama to win and to govern as a true economic progressive. His failure to do so thus far not only denies the country the broad-based recovery that we need, but blunts a populist appeal that is a natural public response to the hosing that regular people have taken from financial elites. That failure permits cultural anxieties to displace economic ones. As a result, Obama's re-election is only a 50-50 proposition, even against an unstable carnival pitchman like Newt Gingrich or a glass-jawed fraud like Mitt Romney.

Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. His latest book is A Presidency in Peril.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/obama-2012-election_b_1222598.html

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The Science of the New Musician: How N.Y.U. Professor Gary Marcus Became a Guitar Hero

Gary Marcus is a professor of psychology at NYU, an MIT graduate and a juggler, unicyclist and photographer. A few years ago he set out to conquer one field that had eluded him his whole life: music. ?I had no musical talent whatsoever,? he described to me from his office, which sets a few blocks east of Manhattan?s Washington Square Park, ?and was at one point gently told to stop taking recorder lessons when I was younger.? With a sabbatical coming up, and a growing interest in whether people could pick up an instrument in their adult life, Marcus did what anyone else would do. He picked up a guitar. Not any guitar though, a Guitar Hero guitar.

As someone who has spent most of high school and college playing this beloved game, this was music to my ears.

His latest book, Guitar Zero, now available, is the culmination of his work as a student of guitar, music enthusiast and researcher of learning. It joins the ranks of some excellent psychology of music books including Oliver Sacks? Musicophilia, Daniel Levitin?s This Is Your Brain on Music and John Ortiz? The Tao of Music.

But Guitar Zero is different. Yes, Marcus delves into the academic side of things, but he is also personal. He devotes several chapters to explain his struggles with congenital arrhythmia, learning music theory, playing instruments and he shares wonderful stories from his adventures at Day Jams, ?a summer camp where kids ages eight to fifteen learn to play and compose rock and roll,? with his band ?Rush Hour.? What comes out is a lighthearted memoir filled with wonderful insights about music and the human mind. Compared to popular psychology books written from the expert?s point of view, Guitar Zero is a refreshing glimpse into the mind of the amateur.

Most interesting was a chapter on what makes successful music. When I spoke with him about the book he told me that most great music finds a balance between familiarity and novelty ? a belief that strikes a similar chord with his contemporaries. He explained that, ?we enjoy it when we predict something accurately, this is why we like a steady drum beat. But we get a real reward for novelty.? This made a lot of sense to me. We like the verse-chorus 120 bpm structure that most popular music is built off of, but as any one hit wonder will tell you, too much familiarity is boring. At the same time, people don?t necessarily like too much novelty. Just look at John Cage?s ?4:33?, a three-piece movement entirely void of notes, or ?Changes of Music,? a composition purposely open for the playing of random notes. Listening to these pieces can be irritating and annoying because there is a complete lack of familiarity.

Our propensity to look for a balance between familiarity and novelty in music may have an evolutionary explanation. As Marcus quipped, we are ?informavores,? to suggest that, ?we like to find new stuff.? Music may simply be an outlet for this trait; it ?exploits the human pleasure system? by giving it what it wants, which is why Steven Pinker refers to it as ?auditory cheesecake.?

This provokes the question: why do some people have favorite songs that they listen to over and over again?

One reason is that, as Marcus explained, ?we are actually not that good at storing detailed representations of songs in our heads.? This means that although we listen to some songs over and over again, we aren?t actually hearing the same song over and over again. Each time around we pick up something new, gain a sense of novelty and get a reward as a result.

This is not the case for experts who tend to habituate to songs much faster. Marcus spends a chapter on expert musicians to explain the difference between them and us. (He was lucky enough to interview Pat Metheny, Terre Roche and Tom Morello.) ?Unlike novices or even ordinary experts,? he told me, ?true masters are always exploring new techniques and developing a new repertoire.? This is why many of the greatest musicians spent their careers trying to push boundaries by writing material that replaced the familiar with the novel. It?s Dylan going electric, the Ramones going Punk or Pittsburgh?s Girl Talk relying entirely on other art to create new art; these examples and more demonstrate that replacing some familiarity with novelty can be ultimately more enjoyable for the listener.

Another question Marcus asks in Guitar Zero is what, relative to other aesthetics, makes music good. It?s a deep question that influenced philosophers and authors alike throughout the ages: Nietzsche remarked that without music life would be a mistake and Huxley famously confessed, ?after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.? Marcus explained to me that, ?the amazing thing about music relative to some other arts but not all, is that you can really get both of the rewards ? familiarity and novelty ? at the same time. You can have the familiar in a melody, but you can also change the lyrics or instrumentations to be novel. You have all of these techniques for allowing you to simultaneously get a kick (of dopamine) for successfully predicting a song and appreciating something new and interesting.? Agreed.

By the end of the book Marcus answers his original question: Can a Middle-Aged Dog Learn New Guitar Tricks? There is a surprisingly little amount of scientific literature on whether adults can pick up an instrument later on in life. There is the often-cited 10,000-hour rule, which describes how expertise requires 10,000 hours of deliberate practice and the so-called ?critical period? theory, which says that if you want to learn something, start early. So how did Marcus, who first picked up the plastic Guitar Hero guitar at age 38 do?

It didn?t take him too long to conquer Guitar Hero (on medium), which he described as a gateway drug to other instruments. Next, he turned to a real acoustic guitar, learning music theory and taking lessons. Now, a couple years later, he can strum a tune on the real thing, and more importantly, he feels comfortable making up his own music ? something that he finds to be pleasurable and immensely satisfying. ?I might never be Jimi Hendrix? Marcus confesses near the end of Guitar Zero, ?[but] I was able to create sounds and textures I had never heard before? for a brief moment I could sense what it was like to explore a new musical landscape.?

(Be sure to check out Marcus? iphone app ?3-in-1 Improviser?, which he personally designed. It allows users to compose, conduct and improvise original music. It was launched at the World Science Festival this summer and was mentioned in The New York Times.)

I want to personally thank Professor Marcus for the interview and friendly correspondence. It was a pleasure.

?

Images: 1 and 2 from Gary Marcus, 3 from Wikipedia (will update link to the original image later, after Wikipedia blackout lifts)

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=54667ee7526bed36a38487c039e63b80

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Video: Inside Microsoft's Q2 Results

The technology giant saw profit fall slightly in the second quarter due to weak computer sales, but earnings still beat the Street. Insight with Richard Sherlund, Nomura head of U.S. technology equity research.

Related Links:

Business & financial news headlines from msnbc.com

Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/46072024/

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Queer Memoir: Pets ? Kicked Out Anthology

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to guest curate Queer Memoir: Pets and make one of my homeless dog obsessed ?baby-dyke dreams come true ? creating a space where queers talked about how much they loved animals! ?The evening was absolutely fantastic attended by nearly 80 people and featured incredible storytellers! ? You can check out some of my thoughts about the dog focused part of the evening at The Bark magazine

Source: http://www.kickedoutanthology.com/2012/01/19/queer-memoir-pets/

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Yahoo co-founder Yang resigns (Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) ? Yahoo Inc co-founder Jerry Yang has quit the company he started in 1995, appeasing shareholders who had blasted the Internet pioneer for pursuing an ineffective personal vision and impeding investment deals that could have transformed the struggling company.

Yang's abrupt departure comes two weeks after Yahoo appointed Scott Thompson its new CEO, with a mandate to return the once-leading Internet portal to the heights it enjoyed in the 1990s.

Wall Street views the exit of "Chief Yahoo" Yang as smoothing the way for a major infusion of cash from private equity, or a deal to sell off much of its 40 percent slice of China's Alibaba, unlocking value for shareholders.

Shares of Yahoo gained 3 percent in after-hours trade.

"Everyone is going to assume this means a deal is more likely with the Asia counterparts," Macquarie analyst Ben Schacter said. "The perception among shareholders was Jerry was more focused on trying to rebuild Yahoo than necessarily on maximizing near-term shareholder value.

"It certainly seems things are coming to a head as far as realizing the value of these assets."

Yang, who is severing all formal ties with the company by resigning all positions including his seat on the board of directors, has come under fire for his handling of company affairs dating back to an aborted sale to Microsoft in 2008.

Yang's exit comes roughly a month before dissident shareholders can nominate rival directors to Yahoo's board.

The remaining nine members of Yahoo's board, which includes Hewlett-Packard executive Vyomesh Joshi and private investor Gary Wilson, are all up for reelection this year.

Yang's departure could be part of a broader board shakeup, said Ryan Jacob, chairman and chief investment officer of Jacob Funds, which owns Yahoo shares.

"If they don't move quickly on these things, they run the risk of a proxy battle and they are doing everything they can to avoid that."

The company did not say where Yang was headed or why he had suddenly resigned. CEO Thompson offered few clues in a memo to employees obtained by Reuters following the announcement.

"I am grateful for the support and warm welcome Jerry provided me in my early days here. His insights and perspective were invaluable, helping me to dig deeper, more quickly than I could have on my own, into some of the key elements of the company and how it operates.

Yang and co-founder David Filo, both of whom carried the official title "Chief Yahoo," own sizable stakes in the company. Yang owns 3.69 percent of Yahoo's outstanding shares, while Filo owns 6 percent as of April and May 2011.

CHIEF YAHOO NO LONGER

In a letter to Yahoo's chairman of the board, Yang said he was leaving to pursue "other interests outside of Yahoo" and was "enthusiastic" about Thompson as the choice to helm the company.

Yang, 43, is also resigning from the boards of Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group Holdings.

Respected in the industry as one of the founding figures of the Web, Yang has come under fire over the years from investors and to some extent within the company's internal ranks.

"Lots of people think he holds up innovation there with old ideas and (is) slow to decide and that he's not an innovator himself for being at such a high level," said one former Yahoo employee.

"People have very high expectations for founders. Everyone wants a Steve Jobs," the employee said, referring to Apple's co-founder who brought the company back from near death and transformed it into the world's most valuable tech company.

Some analysts say the Yahoo board's indecision stems in part from Yang's sway in the company. Disillusioned by the company's flip-flopping, they warn that the rest of the board remained much the same as the one that rejected Microsoft's unsolicited takeover bid when Yang was CEO.

"Jerry Yang was certainly an impediment toward anything happening," said Morningstar analyst Rick Summer. "This is a company that's been mired by a bunch of competing interests going in different directions. It was never clear what this board's direction has been."

Microsoft's bid was worth about $44 billion. Its share price was subsequently pummeled by the global financial crisis and its current market value stands at about $20 billion.

More recently, Yang and Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock have incurred the wrath of some major Yahoo shareholders for their handling of the "strategic review" the company was pursuing, in which discussions have included the possibility of being sold, taken private or broken up.

Yang's efforts to seek a minority investment in Yahoo from private equity firms enraged several large shareholders, including hedge fund Third Point, which accused Yang of pursuing a deal that was in "his best personal interests" but not aligned with shareholders' interests.

Yahoo has also been exploring a deal to unload most of its prized Asian assets in a complex deal involving Alibaba, valued at roughly $17 billion, sources told Reuters last month.

Alibaba Group's founder, Jack Ma, whose personal relationship with Yang led to Yahoo buying a 40 percent stake in Alibaba in 2005, said he looked forward to continuing a "constructive relationship" with Yahoo.

Susquehanna analyst Herman Leung said: "I had thought that Jerry Yang was a lifer at Yahoo.

"Without him on the board, this could smooth a potential transaction. What that transaction is, is any of our guesses right now."

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; Additional reporting by Alistair Barr and Poornima Gupta in San Francisco, Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles, Liana Baker in New York and Melanie Lee in Shanghai; Editing by Bernard Orr, Gary Hill and Matt Driskill)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120118/wr_nm/us_yahoo

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