Pittsburgh-born, but now Austin-based?Insurance Zebra, a startup that aggregates car insurance quotes the way that Kayak aggregates flight and hotel deals, is today announcing $1.5 million in seed funding. The round was led by Austin's Silverton Partners, and includes participation from Mark Cuban, Floodgate, and Birchmere Labs.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/l5KpgSBZZQs/
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Today: Facebook highlights its mobile efforts in an earnings report that exhibits growth in revenues, but a drop in profits due to heavy spending. Also: Wall Street drops on report of shrinking economy, Research in Motion shows off new offerings, name.
Facebook's mobile efforts pay off, but investors still wary
Facebook ended its IPO year with momentum on its side, as the Menlo Park social network's earnings report issued Wednesday showed mobile usage surpassing desktop just as the company is beginning to show fruit from
he Facebook logo is seen on a screen inside at the Nasdaq Marketsite in New York in this May 18, 2012 file photograph. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)
the pursuit of mobile revenues.Facebook reported revenues of $1.58 billion for the final three months of 2012, a 40 percent increase from the same quarter a year ago, though profits descended to 3 cents a share as the company spent heavily on employees and infrastructure to build for the future. Without the one-time costs, Facebook's profits were 17 cents a share, beating Wall Street projections of 15 cents a share on revenues of $1.53 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.
The most important numbers in the report focused on mobile usage and revenues. Facebook announced that it now has more daily average visitors on mobile devices than desktop, with 680 million of its 1.06 billion monthly active members accessing the social
network through its mobile applications. Facebook was able to leverage that usage, pushing its mobile advertising revenue to 23 percent of its total advertising revenue, a gain from 14 percent the previous quarter, when the company announced that statistic for the first time. total income from mobile advertising more than doubled to $305 million in the quarter."Today there's no argument. Facebook is a mobile company," Zuckerberg said on a conference call with analysts, later adding "We started off the year with no ads on mobile ... (and) ended with 23 percent of ad revenue coming from mobile"
After its record-breaking May initial public offering, Facebook stock plummeted as analysts and investors doubted the company's ability to monetize its mobile users, which the company admitted was a weak spot. However, Facebook has focused on pushing ads into users' mobile news feeds and openly pushed into other possible revenue-generating areas in order to satisfy investors, which has helped push its stock back up.
"They said they were going to focus on mobile and they have executed there," Edward Jones investment analyst Josh Olson told the Mercury News on Wednesday.
Facebook shares did not immediately react positively to the report despite the mobile advances, with shares dropping 10 percent immediately after the release. However, prices quickly returned to the $30 level they have bounced around for the past few weeks, though there was an after-hours drop of about 4 percent on concerns about Facebook's heavy spending, which pushed operating expenses up 82 percent.
"More mobile revenue means way more spending on the operations of selling ads," Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser told Bloomberg News. "This is an expensive company to run."
In Wednesday's regular session, Facebook gained 1.5 percent to close at $31.24.
Stocks decline as report shows decline in U.S. economic growth
Wall Street's hot start to 2013 hit a speed bump Wednesday, as bad news arrived on the economic front: The federal government reported that the United States' gross domestic product actually shrank in the final three months of the year, the first time the U.S. economy has contracted since 2009.
The Commerce Department's report showed that GDP dropped 0.1 percent at an annualized rate in the fourth quarter of 2012 due to a mix of private-sector slowdowns -- possibly caused by uncertainty from the "fiscal cliff" negotiations -- and a steep cut in military spending.
Despite the contraction, economists were not concerned, saying the result was due to special, one-time factors that will not continue to effect the still-recovering U.S. economy. Capital Economics economist Paul Ashworth called it "the best-looking contraction in U.S. GDP you'll ever see," and IHS Global Insight director of financial economics Paul Edelstein told Bloomberg News, "This is not a recessionary signal by any means."
In fact, JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli told Reuters the dip was good news for the future, as it "leaves the economy relatively well-positioned heading into the first quarter."
Investors still didn't care for the news, however, sending all three indexes down on the day, a rare occurrence in a month that has been very strong for the markets. The 0.4 percent drop for the Standard & Poor's 500 was its biggest one-day drop so far in 2013, an example of how positive the year has been so far.
Research in Motion takes the stage, Electronic Arts still struggling
Tech stocks were on line with the overall market, as the Nasdaq also fell 0.4 percent and the SV150 index of Silicon Valley's largest tech companies declined 0.3 percent.
The biggest event in tech did not come from Silicon Valley on Wednesday, however: Research in Motion showed off its long awaited new mobile operating system, along with two new phones, in a series of events worldwide. The Canadian company also announced it is changing its name to BlackBerry, the brand name of its formerly iconic smartphones that have been overtaken by Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and devices running Google's (GOOG) Android operating system. The announcement didn't help the company's stock price: After a prolonged rally going into the launch party, the stock dropped 12 percent Wednesday on the Nasdaq.
Wednesday's non-Facebook entry in Silicon Valley's earnings season was Electronic Arts (ERTS), the video game maker that faces pressure as cheap mobile games overtake the more labor-intensive console games the Redwood City company has made its name on. EA's problems were not solved in the holiday-shopping quarter of 2012, as revenues declined from more than $1 billion in the 2011 quarter to $922 million, resulting in a loss of 15 cents a share. Shares fell almost 2 percent in after-hours trading following a gain of 0.9 percent in regular trading.
Silicon Valley tech stocks
Up: Yahoo (YHOO), NetApp, Facebook, EA, VMware, Applied Materials, Intel (INTC), Symantec, eBay
Down: Palo Alto Networks, Workday, Advanced Micro Devices, SolarCity, Zynga, SunPower (SPWRA), Splunk, Yelp, Adobe (ADBE), Intuit (INTU), Tesla, Oracle (ORCL), Cisco (CSCO), LinkedIn, Netflix
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index: Down 11.35, or 0.36 percent, to 3,142.31
The blue chip Dow Jones industrial average: Down 44, or 0.32 percent, to 13,910.42
And the widely watched Standard & Poor's 500 index: Down 5.88, or 0.39 percent, to 1,501.96
Check in weekday afternoons for the 60-Second Business Break, a summary of news from Mercury News staff writers, The Associated Press, Bloomberg News and other wire services. Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876; follow him at Twitter.com/mercbizbreak.
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Blue light can selectively eradicate Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections of the skin and soft tissues, while preserving the outermost layer of skin, according to a proof-of-principle study led by Michael R. Hamblin of the Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Harvard Medical School, Boston. The research is published online ahead of print in the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy
"Blue light is a potential non-toxic, non-antibiotic approach for treating skin and soft tissue infections, especially those caused by antibiotic resistant pathogens," says Hamblin.
In the study, animal models were infected with P. aeruginosa. All of the animals in the group treated with blue light survived, while in the control, 82 percent (9 out of 11) of the animals died.
Skin and soft tissue infections are the second most common bacterial infections encountered in clinical practice, and represent the most common infection presentation?more than 3 percent?in patients visiting emergency departments, says Hamblin. The prevalence of skin and soft tissue infections among hospitalized patients is 10 percent, with approximately 14.2 million ambulatory care visits every year and an annual associated medical cost of almost $24 billion (equivalent to $76 for every American), says Hamblin.
Treatment of skin and soft tissue infections has been significantly complicated by the explosion of antibiotic resistance, which may bring an end to what medical scientists refer to as the antibiotic era, says Hamblin. "Microbes replicate very rapidly, and a mutation that helps a microbe survive in the presence of an antibiotic drug will quickly predominate throughout the microbial population. Recently, a dangerous new enzyme, NDM-1, that makes some bacteria resistant to almost all antibiotics available has been found in the United States. Many physicians are concerned that several infections soon may be untreatable."
Besides harming public health, antibiotic resistance boosts health care costs. "Treating resistant skin and soft tissue infections often requires the use of more expensive, or more toxic drugs, and can result in longer hospital stays for infected patients," says Hamblin.
###
T. Dai, A. Gupta, Y.-Y. Huang, R. Yin, C.K. Murray, M.S. Vrahas, M. Sherwood, G.P. Tegos, and M.R. Hamblin, 2013. Blue light rescues mice from potentially fatal Pseudomonas aeruginosa burn infection: efficacy, safety, and mechanism of action. Antim. Agents Chemother. Published ahead of print 21 December 2012 ,doi:10.1128/AAC.01652-12http://www.asm.org/images/Communications/tips/2013/0113blue.pdf
American Society for Microbiology: http://www.asm.org
Thanks to American Society for Microbiology for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126513/Skin__soft_tissue_infections_succumb_to_blue_light
Are you ready to see a phone running a QNX-based operating system? How about two such phones? It's BlackBerry 10, and RIM can't wait to show it to you -- and we can't want to bring you along with us, live from New York City. Tune in at this very page at the time listed below and get ready for a ride.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, RIM
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/3G7b2srBTJw/
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Researchers found that valuing your friendship with your partner helps create relationships with more commitment, more love and greater sexual satisfaction.
People who put more emphasis on trying to satisfy their personal needs or desires through their relationship are less likely to sustain the bond in the longer term.
Romantic relationships are, at their core, friendships,? said the study?s lead author Laura VanderDrift, of Purdue University in Indiana.
As such, it may be the case that valuing that aspect of the relationship fortifies the romantic relationship ? and serves as a buffer against breaking up.
The results indicate that valuing the friendship aspect of a romantic relationship is important to relationship quality.
It seems likely that placing greater importance on the friendship component of the relationship relative to other components (e.g. sex) may promote lasting relationships.
The psychologists wrote that relationship failures can lead to negative emotions, feelings of insecurity and reduced physical health.
But they added that friendship is a ?defining characteristic of love? and suggested that understanding the causes of break ups could help couples avoid that fate.
The team, who report their findings in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, conducted two experiments.
The first involved 190 students who had been in a relationship for an average of 18 months at the start of the study.
They filled out questionnaires designed to assess the amount of investment they put into their relationship generally, different aspects of their relationship and their future hopes.
Four months later they were contacted again, by which time a quarter (27 per cent) were no longer with the same partner, and asked further questions about their relationship.
People who had scored highly for investing in the friendship aspect of their relationship were also more likely to score highly on romantic commitment, love and sexual satisfaction. They also tended to see increases in these elements over the four months of the study.
Crucially, those who put the most effort into building a strong friendship with their partner were less likely to have broken up.
The second experiment involved 184 students, who had been in relationships for 16 months on average.
They were asked to rate the value they attach to aspects of a relationship such as companionship, security, sex, self-improvement and experiencing new things on a scale of one (not at all important) to nine (extremely important).
People who rated the need for companionship and affiliation highly also tended to score higher for romantic commitment and sexual fulfilment.
Those who rated personal needs as more important did not score as highly on commitment or sexual fulfilment.
The authors said that further research could look at the specific kinds of behaviour that influence the link between strong friendships and lasting relationships.
Culled from naija.com
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January 11, 2013 -- Fashola Blames MRS Fire Disaster On FG (26)
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January 18, 2013 -- Tiger Woods offered ex-wife $200m to re-marry him and she said yes! (1)
January 11, 2013 -- Yvonne Nelson declares? I am not in any relationship (0)
January 22, 2013 -- Fan Calls Uti Nwachukwu A ?Dirty Gay Guy? (3)
January 11, 2013 -- Benue Raises Alarm Over Boko Haram (5)Short URL: http://www.osundefender.org/?p=90765
Source: http://www.osundefender.org/?p=90765
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Jan. 30, 2013 ? Researchers searching the galaxy for planets that could pass the litmus test of sustaining water-based life must find whether those planets fall in a habitable zone, where they could be capable of having liquid water and sustaining life. New work, led by a team of Penn State researchers, will help scientists in that search.
Using the latest data, the Penn State Department of Geosciences team has developed an updated model for determining whether discovered planets fall within a habitable zone. The work builds on a prior model by James Kasting, Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at Penn State, to offer a more precise calculation of where habitable zones around a star can be found.
Comparing the new estimates with the previous model, the team found that habitable zones are actually farther away from the stars than previously thought.
"This has implications for finding other planets with life on them," said post-doctoral researcher Ravi kumar Kopparapu, a lead investigator on the study, which will be published described in Astrophysical Journal.
For the paper, Kopparapu and graduate student Ramses Ramirez used updated absorption databases of greenhouse gases (HITRAN and HITEMP). The databases have more accurate information on water and carbon dioxide than previously was available and allowed the research team to build new estimates from the groundbreaking model Kasting created 20 years ago for other stars.
Using that data and super computers at Penn State and the University of Washington, the team was able to calculate habitable zones around other stars. In the previous model, water and carbon dioxide were not being absorbed as strongly, so the planets had to be closer to the star to be in the habitable zone.
The new model has already found that some extrasolar planets previously believed to be in habitable zones may, in fact, not be.
The new model could also help scientists with research that is already under way. For example, the model could be used to see if planets the NASA Kepler mission discovers are within a habitable zone. The Kepler mission has found more than 2,000 potential systems that could be investigated.
The data could assist with a Habitable Zone Planet Finder a team of scientists in Penn State's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics is building. In 2011, that team received a National Science Foundation grant to develop an instrument to find planets in habitable zones. The precision spectrograph, which is under construction, will help scientists find Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way that could sustain liquid water.
In the future, the model could also be useful for research done with Terrestrial Planet Finder telescopes, which would guide users of the supersized telescopes on where to look.
While in the new model Earth appears to be situated at the very edge of the habitable zone, the model doesn't take into account feedback from clouds, which reflect radiation away from Earth and stabilize the climate.
In addition to Kopparapu, Ramirez and Kasting, researchers on the project are: Vincent Eymet, Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux at the Universite de Bordeaux; Tyler D. Robinson and Victoria Meadows, University of Washington; Suvrath Mahadevan, Ryan C. Terrien and Rohit Deshpande, Penn State; and Shawn Domagal-Goldman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Support for the research comes from NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planetary Laboratory. An interactive calculator to estimate Habitable Zones is online: depts.washington.edu/naivpl/content/hz-calculator.
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/KA_9W5XyT00/130130132413.htm
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Source: http://timbuktuchronicles.blogspot.com/2013/01/open-source-philosophy.html
Posted By SHL Librarian
Presented by: David Spiegel, MD
Willson Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
November 6, 2012
Watch the video
A diagnosis of breast cancer used to imply a terminal condition. But new understanding of the molecular and cellular processes behind the disease has led to more effective diagnostic tools and vast improvements in treatment. The result is that breast cancer now is considered more of a chronic condition rather than a terminal disease.
In the 1970s there were about 3 million cancer survivors in the United States; today those numbers have grown to more than 12 million. In fact, more than half of the women diagnosed with breast cancer tend to die of something else rather than the cancer.
?Survivorship is growing,? said David Spiegel, MD, associate chair of Stanford?s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, director of the Center on Stress and Health, and medical director of the Stanford Center for Integrative Medicine, who spoke at a presentation sponsored by Stanford Hospital Health Library. ?But that?s a good problem to have.?
But with these positive changes come some different challenges. How do you maintain a good quality of life while living with the uncertainty of a cancer diagnosis? How can survivors learn to deal with the stress associated with the disease and live well?
?It?s important to take care of your total health,? Dr. Spiegel said. ?Follow Grandma?s advice: Eat well, sleep well, and get plenty of exercise.?
Caring for Mind and Body
The psychosocial needs of cancer survivors should be an integral part of quality cancer care, he said. While conventional cancer therapy is increasingly effective, interventions such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy can cause additional distress. Additional stress can come from dealing with pain and fear, diminished capabilities, changing family roles, a sense of mortality, and multiple other factors.
?For cancer survivors, it?s not a matter of just one source of stress, but a series of stressors. It?s an especially important time to explore your feelings and figure out ways to deal with them,? said Dr. Spiegel. ?The key is taking stressors one at a time and developing a plan for dealing with them. Feeling overwhelmed by stressors is yet another stressor.?
While sadness is a natural response to a cancer diagnosis, for some women these stresses can lead to depression?a long-term condition that affects a person?s physical and mental health and sense of worth. Sadness can easily morph into depression, which extends into hopelessness, helplessness, and worthlessness. While about 3 percent of the general population suffers from depression, more than 25 percent of cancer patients deal with the condition.
Depression, Dr. Spiegel said, is neither a normal nor acceptable part of cancer survivorship. It is a serious problem that has been shown to affect longevity?one study, published by Dr. Spiegel?s group in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, showed that breast cancer patients who reduced their depression increased their lives by an average of two years. Another study showed that long-term depression predicted mortality and that depressed cancer patients showed significantly higher mortality than non-depressed cancer patients.
Dealing with chronic stress creates changes in the brain?s neural pathways can be alleviated through a number of therapeutic approaches, including antidepressants, transcranial magnetic stimulation, hypnosis, and various types of psychotherapy. Proven techniques include individual sessions, peer counseling, and cognitive behavioral therapy.
Avoiding Depression
Dr. Spiegel?s expertise is in integrative medicine, which merges conventional and alternative therapies to address the complex and interconnected aspects of health and illness. His 30 years of working with breast cancer patients has shown that mind-body interventions can improve mood, quality of life, and coping skills.
He established a guideline that he calls FACES to help women deal with the stress of cancer survivorship while avoiding lapsing into depression:
Social connections appear to have an especially powerful influence on a person?s mental outlook. ?Loneliness is as bad as smoking is for your health, and it?s even worse when you have cancer,? he said. ?Social isolation is a key aspect of stress.?
Social Connections
In the 1970s Dr. Spiegel established support groups for women with metastatic breast cancer to create an opportunity for them to share and deal with their emotions. His landmark study found that the women involved in a support group, along with traditional medical care, experienced reduced anxiety, depression, and pain, and survived an average of 18 months longer than women who did not take part in a support group. More recent studies looking at both quantity and quality of life have found similar findings or no change in survival rates, but noted that participants showed less overall distress.
Participants were able to share their feelings about death and dying, express their emotions, build bonds, reorder their life priorities, manage symptoms, and clarify their roles.
?They could learn from other people?s perspectives, so they could understand their own ability to see that they did have some control over how they lived, which was very empowering,? he said. ?The goal of group therapy is to help manage their stressors. By changing depression into sadness and anxiety into fear, a person can begin to deal with their stress.?
Dr. Spiegel cited another study that found group therapy helped breast cancer survivors acknowledge their emotions: once they stopped trying to control their feelings, their stress levels dropped dramatically. Dealing with strong emotions allowed them make important decisions to make priorities and redefine their lives. This type of therapy also helped reduce depression and anxiety, and encouraged women to participate more actively in decisions related to their health.
?It?s healthy to feel anger or sadness,? said Dr. Spiegel. ?Women who check out by trying to constantly control their emotions are under more stress because they have difficulty figuring out what to do to reduce their distress.?
Self-hypnosis also has been shown to have a positive effect on managing symptoms because it can alter how pain is perceived and modulated. ?One study found that women in a support group using self-hypnosis reported half the pain levels as women not practicing self-hypnosis.
?Research has shown that women with advanced breast cancer involved in psychotherapy were less depressed and felt better about facing the possibility of death,? said Dr. Spiegel. ?It can help them deal with stress so that they feel better about life in general and also appears to improve survivorship. Stress management remains an important component of treating cancer. ?
About the Speaker
Dr. Spiegel, the Jack, Samuel and Lulu Willson Professor of Medicine and associate chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, is internationally known for his research on the relationship between mental and physical health. He is also the medical director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at Stanford, which provides alternative and complementary services, such as meditation, acupuncture, and self-hypnosis, to help patients cope with cancer and other diseases. Dr. Spiegel has authored more than 475 research papers and chapters in scientific journals and 10 books on the mind-body connection. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.
About the Series
The Ernest Rosenbaum Cancer Survivorship Lecture Series is named after the noted oncologist who established the cancer supportive care program at Stanford and the comprehensive cancer care program at UCSF?s Mount Zion Hospital. He wrote more than 25 books on cancer, most of them about living through treatments and life after cancer. The series is sponsored by the Stanford Supportive Care Program.
For More Information:
Stanford Health Library can do the searching for you. Send us your medical questions.
About Dr. Spiegel
http://stanfordhospital.org/profiles/frdActionServlet/David_Spiegel.profile?choiceId=printerprofile&&fid=3789&profileversion=full
Cancer Supportive Care
http://www.cancersupportivecare.com
Stanford Center for Integrative Medicine
http://www.stanfordhospital.com/clinicsmedServices/clinics/complementarymedicine
Source: http://www.shlnews.org/?p=697
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Before I married Simon, I thought I was being savvy by identifying which land mines would most likely contribute to our potential divorce.
Money was a big one. He came from a family that could buy a Lexus with straight cash and I came from a family that went into credit card debt so I could go to UC Berkeley. Religion was another. When Simon told his father he intended to propose, he got a big talk about the importance of raising our non-existent children to be secular Jews (I'm Christian). When we got engaged, my parents asked their pastor whether Jews go to heaven (they do, because they have their own deal with God, so phew...). There was also the race factor -- which is actually not a big deal in minority-majority California and has so far produced only playful mock-fights over whether I can name any of my future sons Jose, Andres or Emilio after the fathers of the Filipino revolution.
But after almost three years of marriage, coming from different economic backgrounds and being a mixed-race, mixed-faith couple isn't what is producing the majority of our fights.
Instead, it's a subject that no one prepared us for: my weight.
It's a relief to know that other mixed-weight couples are going through the same things we are. Last week, Al Roker wrote about his own mixed-weight marriage and included just one direction for the skinny person in the relationship: "Shut up."
I read his post and identified immediately with his frustration, but I did think his advice was a little extreme. Shut up? The key to marriage is communication -- even about tough subjects. But before I could get all the way up on my high horse, Simon reminded me that I had laid down the exact same rules just a few months ago when it came to his comments about my weight, diet or exercise. Whoops.
Like many people who struggle with their weight, I've been dieting, losing weight and gaining weight since my early teens. I was 14 when I spotted my first stretch marks -- angry red lines where my arms met my back -- and throughout high school and college my weight would swing up and down depending on what was happening that semester. Before our wedding I managed to get down to 144 pounds, which was still overweight for my frame, but I had a waist and I was glowing, so I was happy that day.
Now, at five-foot-one and 175 pounds, I am obese, according to the BMI chart. I'm short and stocky and apple-bodied and endomorphic and always will be. Simon, at 6 feet, struggles to maintain 165 pounds. He has the body of a runway model: jutting hip bones, long, elegant legs and the slenderest ankles and wrists. Absolutely anything can make him accidentally lose 10 pounds: a long cold, the month he started using a standing desk, the time he tried to take up jogging.
Simon bit his lip for a long time when my weight started exploding in 2011. We were both working long hours and getting takeout for dinner a lot. On the weekends, we met up with friends at restaurants and enjoyed big Buca di Beppo dinners with his family. Of course, nothing about our lifestyle was showing on Simon's body, but it was wreaking havoc on mine. I got stretch marks on my stomach and I'd never even been pregnant. The clothes I had bought during a triumphant shopping spree before the wedding no longer fit. The honeymoon was definitely over and so was my strict diet and exercise regimen. Two and a half years post-wedding, I was the largest I'd ever been -- and it was starting to get to Simon.
For a while, our fights went something like this: we'd go out to a nice dinner, enjoy food and wine, and then we would read the dessert menu.
Simon: Do you feel like dessert?
Me: Sure!
Simon: You know, not every meal has to be a special meal.
Me: What the f***?!
I'm probably being unfair here. In fact, I know I'm being unfair. Because for every time Simon has accidentally made me feel like shit about what I eat in public, there is another time I've convinced him that spending money on Weight Watchers or a gym membership or NutriSystem or a personal trainer or an Atkins book or a spinning class package would put an end to my complaints about my weight. For every time Simon has nagged about carb counts, I've seized draconian control over our grocery list and what we put in our mouths. Farmer's market vegetables every week! Every meal must be 40 percent protein! No more supermarket sushi!
Sometimes he teased me about the "enormous sacrifice" he was making because we didn't have any junk food or chocolate in the house because of whatever diet I was on at the time. I'd roll my eyes at his theatrics.
But little did he know that for a while last year, I would go to Target on the days I knew he wouldn't be home until late. I'd buy a pint of Ben & Jerry's Phish Food, finish it before he came home and then throw the trash in the dumpster. It felt like cheating -- especially when I would act astonished, just astonished! -- when another week of dieting would result in a net gain. He was carrying my pain with me when I hit roadblock after roadblock, but I was never completely truthful with him about the steps I was (and wasn't) taking to reach my goal.
Eventually the half-truths and disappointment were too much to bear, and in late 2012 I decided that enough was enough. Now, I didn't have the kind of breakthrough Al Roker had (he described his point of no return as "it clicked for me"). Instead, I decided I was over all the dieting and bingeing drama, that I loved our life together, I loved my job and myself and I was happy. If I lost weight, great. If I stayed heavy, so be it. That led to our worst fight ever over my weight.
"That's not acceptable," he said. "You have to try."
"Why?" I asked. "Why do I have to try?" Because. Because my doctor wants me to lose weight. Because obesity is linked to a lot of diseases. Because my Dad is pre-diabetic. Because being fat makes future conception and pregnancy difficult. Because he loves me and he doesn't want to see me unhappy anymore.
I knew all these things, but I still flew into a sobbing rage and walked out of the apartment -- an alarming escalation of our usually quiet and weepy fights.
"If you can't accept me for who I am, then you'd better get yourself a mistress," I spat at him before I left. I drove to the nearby Pavilions and cried in the parking lot. I called my mom and she prayed with me over the phone, asking God to strengthen my marriage. Looking back, I was a real drama queen!
We ended the fight by "compromising," (ha) which for now means I forbid him to ever mention my weight, dieting or exercise again.
It seems extreme, but just like in Al Roker's relationship, Simon's silence is helping to heal this sore spot in our marriage. I no longer turn to him for understanding on this subject. Why should I? He has no idea what it's like to feel like a failure on the scale or to feel hungry at night because all your calories are used up for the day.
For empathy, I turn to the Reddit.com LoseIt community, which is a forum for people of all sizes who are in the process of shedding pounds (and posting very motivating before-and-after pictures, to boot).
For his part, Simon's learned that even his sweetest, gentlest words about my health are infuriating to me, and that his actions are what counts. I feel really happy when he goes on hikes with me on the weekends, or when he makes a healthy dinner once a week. He knows to no longer comment on what I'm eating in public or when we're with friends, and I've stopped acting like less of a drug addict when it comes to food. That means no more secret eating. I write everything down, even when I have a bad day, and I try to view my healthy eating as the new normal, not a temporary phase that I can just burn through and put behind me once I reach my goal weight.
I'm not sure how long I'll last on my latest health run. I've had, after all, about a dozen. I feel pretty strong right now, but then again it's only one month into the new year. The only thing I know for sure in my race to lose weight is that I need to start seeing Simon for who he really is: someone on the sidelines, holding a big handmade sign above his head and screaming my name at the top of his lungs.
Below, tips from people who know how to lose weight.
?
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anna-almendrala/mixed-weight-relationship_b_2567988.html
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Obstacle to fun, maybe
If you were to poll gamers at large and ask them what they felt were the worst things about the Wii, chances are you'd hear "waggle" and "bad minigame collections" pretty frequently. In fact they often went hand in hand, and Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is trying its hardest to make sure both of things carry over into the Wii U generation. We can only hope that they don't.
Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade ? it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? ? is, as you might guess, a collection of short games that you can play with up to three friends. You might also guess that the games would revolve around an "obstacle" theme, but you'd be wrong; many of them are standard rounds of target practice, hide and seek, or, erm, picking the balloon with the number two on it after the game tells you to pick the balloon with the number two on it. That last one's not much of a game really, but there you go.
The collection is given a sort of theme park approach, with the games broken up into smaller, unlockable areas. Again, you'd expect the space area to contain space-themed games and the Western area to host games with a cowboy flair but by and large everything is just thrown at the wall with no regard for where it lands, and there's no telling what you'll encounter where. Fortunately, we guess, whatever you encounter will be reliably awful, so there's that to look forward to.
The games are hosted by a dead-eyed teddy bear with a stare so cold and creepy that we were constantly on edge for that inevitable moment when he'd pull out a knife. Half of his face is frozen in a bizarre semblance of what we can only assume is the developer's attempt at "'tude", while the other half just passively smiles. This, combined with the fact that his lips don't move when he talks, makes it seem like we've walked in on the bear in the middle of a massive coronary that's doomed to go untreated.
The entire package feels like a holdover from the previous generation; none of the graphics come anywhere near the capabilities of Nintendo's newest console, and the Wii U GamePad barely factors in at all, with each of the games requiring instead a Wii Remote and, often, Nunchuk. This means Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade plays identically to every other poorly-responsive, uninteresting, lazily slapped together mini-game collection you've been doing your best to avoid since 2006.
Every game supports four players; if there are fewer human players than that, the CPU will fill the void. Human players can enter any name for themselves that they like, but oddly the game also requires you to choose a separate name for the bear to call you by. This is because the developers only gave the bear a limited bank of audio files from which to draw, so you may tell the game that your name is William, but then you'll have to choose whether it calls you Chano or Shamus or Julio instead. It's bizarre to say the least.
In each game you'll compete against the other three for points. This nearly always involves waggling as quickly as possible, but sometimes it can rely on maneuvering crosshairs around the screen instead. No game is any more complicated than that, and it often feels as though the developer went out of its way to assign the most frustrating control schemes possible. Some games, for instance, are races that see you hopping from platform to platform. Despite the fact that each player has a perfectly good D-Pad and A button to use, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade requires you to thrust the Wii Remote in the direction you wish to jump. Not that it cares where you actually thrust; it's a crapshoot whether or not the game will ever recognise your input. It's a needless and mandatory use of the least reliable control scheme possible, which is pretty much par for the course here.
The Wii U GamePad only comes into play during the bonus rounds. The rest of the time it features the glass-eyed bear glowing creepily at you and loudly narrating minor gameplay developments without moving his mouth. During the bonus rounds the winner of the previous game spins a roulette wheel, which determines what the bonus game will be. Here the GamePad is used differently than the Wii Remotes, but it's certainly no more fun, and it really does feel like a tacked on addition to what's essentially a low budget Wii cash-in.
The sound effects are beyond terrible, as the four players on-screen avatars laugh and hoot and holler over each other throughout every event, turning everything into a clamorous, cluttered aural monstrosity. The bear barks meaningless platitudes about every minor thing that happens ? from a player grabbing a coin to a player not grabbing a coin ? and while you're not likely to come away from this game feeling fulfilled you're more or less guaranteed a headache.
We'd like to close on a positive note of some kind, but we genuinely can't. This is an absolutely terrible game, and you don't want it. Trust us.
As clunky and poorly considered as its title, Family Party: 30 Great Games Obstacle Arcade is awful. Relying entirely on the shallow and repetitive waggle that should have died along with Wii, there's absolutely no reason to recommend this obnoxious, screaming, clattering monstrosity at all. It's mindless entertainment at its worst, but, on the bright side, it might be the perfect way to cure your childrens' burgeoning video game addiction.
Source: http://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/wiiu/family_party_30_great_games_obstacle_arcade
Do you know WHY your website needs to be psychologically optimized? When we optimize for psychology, sales go up, interaction & retention are enhanced and return visitors increase. If you?re doing e-commerce then you need every opportunity to increase your online sales. If your website is informational, you need people to remember you as a reference. If your website?s purpose is for education it?s important to stimulate the mind of the critical thinker.
When considering the psychology of your website, consider your purpose. There is no ?one size fits all? approach.
So let?s break website psychology down.
Color Psychology
Colors affect every decision we make, whether we know it or not. How we perceive a product, person or place is directly associated with the colors involved. Consciously or sub-consciously, colors play a role in our decisions. Colors effect our mood ? have you ever walked into a room that was dark and uncomfortable? It makes you want to leave immediately. This holds true with your website as well. If a visitor doesn?t feel comfortable, they will leave.
So it?s easy, you just have to find which colors mean what and put them in the design, Right? Not that easy?
Let?s use Orange as an example. Orange encourages ambition, fun times and warm energy, but when applied as a sales tool it makes products more attractive and look more affordable. If you have a call to action in Orange it will seem much more affordable and inviting then a call to action in Gold, which represents worth, loyalty and prestige. (Unless that?s what you?re going for)
All to often is the wrong color chosen for a web site. A color should be decided on based upon two key starting points. 1. Your target demographic 2. Your product/service.
If you have an existing logo, the color of the logo must be taken into consideration. The existing color must be incorporated with the correct density in the design, while still maintaining a balance with corresponding colors. (Which is another consideration you must address).
Color psychology is powerful when done correctly. It?s not an accident that Campbell?s soup has used the same colors continuously throughout their products life. I even bet when I mentioned that product you had a visual of the label pop up in you mind.
What about Coke, Pepsi, Google, 7UP, Nike, RedBull, Reese?s. These colors all play a role in how we perceive them.
So, once we have the colors, now what? What triggers us?
Psychological Triggers
We develop a Psycho-graphic profile which allows us to choose the color schemes. Psychological triggers, on the other hand, are used when developing our sales funnels in which we want those profiles to follow. It works both consciously or subconsciously, the proper use and placement of triggers will lead a customer through your website to the point of purchase.
If you recall the beginning of this document, I asked you ?Why does your website need to be psychologically optimized?? Do you know why I asked you that? Because humans are curious by nature. Asking ?why? stirs our curiosity stick so we delve deeper into a sites content. Searching for the answer.
?
Psychological optimization is just another key component that plays into the overall efforts put into web development. These tiny, yet large, decisions can mean the difference between profits and losses. We approach every website with these factors in mind. We go through the necessary research to properly evaluate who is visiting the site and how they will navigate through the site to arrive at a call to action. Each website is approached differently depending on it?s unique needs and how they pertain to the visitors.
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A barge carrying 80,000 gallons of oil hit a railroad bridge in Vicksburg, Miss., on Sunday, spilling light crude into the Mississippi River and closing the waterway for eight miles in each direction, the Coast Guard said. A second barge was damaged.
Investigators did not know how much had spilled, but an oily sheen was reported as far as three miles downriver of Vicksburg after the 1:12 a.m. accident, said Lt. Ryan Gomez of the Coast Guard's office in Memphis, Tenn.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the second barge also hit the bridge or if it ran into the first barge, he said. The first barge was still leaking late Sunday afternoon, and emergency workers set out booms to absorb and contain the oil, Gomez said. The river's closure halted at least five northbound and two southbound vessels, he said.
The bridge was found safe for trains, said Petty Officer Carlos Vega
Both barges were being pushed by the tugboat Nature's Way Endeavor. The website for Nature's Way Marine LLC of Theodore, Ala., identifies it as a 3,000-horsepower, 90-foot long boat, making it the largest and highest-powered of the company's five tugs. It was built in 1974 and underwent a complete rebuild in 2011, according to the company.
A company manager referred calls to the Coast Guard command center at Vicksburg.
The Coast Guard Marine Safety Unit Vicksburg sent a team to assess the spill and oversee the cleanup, a Coast Guard news release said. The agency said a command center at Vicksburg included representatives from the Coast Guard and Nature's Way, as well as local officials and law enforcement.
___
Online:
http://www.natureswaymarine.com/default.asp
Information about Endeavor: http://bit.ly/VefsWz
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/barge-80-000-gallons-oil-hits-bridge-leaks-214747183.html
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While Lucasfilm originally planned to bring Star Wars Episode II and III back to theaters in 3D this fall, it's just announced that will not happen. In a statement posted on the official site, it says "we will now focus 100 percent of our efforts on Star Wars: Episode VII." Lucasfilm is now owned by Disney, which just announced last week that J.J. Abrams (director of Star Trek and creator of TV series including Lost and Fringe) would direct the seventh installment, which is scheduled to hit theaters in 2015. The original trilogy was also reportedly on deck for 3D rerelease, but there's no word yet whether we'll see those again before Episode VII, just a promise to post "further information" at a later date.
J.J. Abrams to Direct Star Wars: Episode VII
J.J. Abrams will direct Star Wars: Episode VII, the first of a new series of Star Wars films to come from Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy. Abrams will be directing and Academy Award-winning writer Michael Arndt will write the screenplay.
"It's very exciting to have J.J. aboard leading the charge as we set off to make a new Star Wars movie," said Kennedy. "J.J. is the perfect director to helm this. Beyond having such great instincts as a filmmaker, he has an intuitive understanding of this franchise. He understands the essence of the Star Wars experience, and will bring that talent to create an unforgettable motion picture."
George Lucas went on to say "I've consistently been impressed with J.J. as a filmmaker and storyteller. He's an ideal choice to direct the new Star Wars film and the legacy couldn't be in better hands."
"To be a part of the next chapter of the Star Wars saga, to collaborate with Kathy Kennedy and this remarkable group of people, is an absolute honor," J.J. Abrams said. "I may be even more grateful to George Lucas now than I was as a kid."
J.J., his longtime producing partner Bryan Burk, and Bad Robot are on board to produce along with Kathleen Kennedy under the Disney | Lucasfilm banner.
Also consulting on the project are Lawrence Kasdan and Simon Kinberg. Kasdan has a long history with Lucasfilm, as screenwriter on The Empire Strikes Back, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi. Kinberg was writer on Sherlock Holmes and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Abrams and his production company Bad Robot have a proven track record of blockbuster movies that feature complex action, heartfelt drama, iconic heroes and fantastic production values with such credits as Star Trek, Super 8, Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol, and this year's Star Trek Into Darkness. Abrams has worked with Lucasfilm's preeminent postproduction facilities, Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, on all of the feature films he has directed, beginning with Mission: Impossible III. He also created or co-created such acclaimed television series as Felicity, Alias, Lost and Fringe.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Source: Star Wars
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/lv9MLQBz6y8/
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NOTE: This is a courtesy posting. To Adopt Bob, Contact Jane at 203-209-2335 (text or call) or email her at [email removed]. We're helping Jane find the right home. This is what Jane wrote about Bob: "i am a 4 yr. old male cat, who unfortunately has had a hard life. my first owner abandoned me and then this nice family found me. they have been feeding me for a long time, and then I got in a fight with another homeless cat and i was really hurt, so they took me to the doctor.
i had a lot of surgeries and they took me in to live with them. i really like living with them, but they have 6 other cats. And i don?t get along very well with 2 of them, so they told me i have to find a new home. Some things about me. i have been neutered, am up to date on all my shots. i LOVE to sit on laps and cuddle. My only medical issue is that I i have FIV (feline immunodeficiency virus). My doctor told me that as long as I live inside, and take care of myself with yearly visits, that I can live a long, healthy life. I would rather be in a home with no other pets as I am selfish and want all the attention from my owner. if you are interested in meeting me, you can call the number below (or email). I am very easy...just need food, water and love. maybe a cat toy too. I am litter box trained (aren?t all cats!!) and am happy doing nothing all day but sleep. Can?t get much easier than that! you can reach my owner, her name is jane at 203-209-2335 (text or call)
or email her at [email removed]
CHARACTERISTICS:
Breed: Domestic Short Hair
Size: Medium
Petfinder ID: 25155372
ADDITIONAL INFO:
Pet has been spayed/neutered
CONTACT:
The Animal Center Inc. | Newtown, CT | 203-270-0228
For additional information, reply to this ad or see: http://www.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=25155372
Brought to you by Petfinder.com
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WASHINGTON???The hacker-activist group Anonymous says it hijacked the website of the U.S. Sentencing Commission to avenge the death of Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who committed suicide. The FBI is investigating.
The website of the commission, an independent agency of the judicial branch (http://www.ussc.gov), was taken over early Saturday and replaced with a message warning that when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago "a line was crossed."
The hackers say they've infiltrated several government computer systems and copied secret information that they now threaten to make public.
Family and friends of Swartz, who helped create Reddit and RSS, say he killed himself after he was hounded by federal prosecutors. Officials say he helped post millions of court documents for free online, and that he illegally downloaded millions of academic articles from an online clearinghouse.
The FBI's Richard McFeely, executive assistant director of the agency's?Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, said in a statement that "we were aware as soon as it happened and are handling it as a criminal investigation. We are always concerned when someone illegally accesses another person's or government agency's network."
Hours after the hijacking, pages on the USSC.gov website were available only sporadically.
This report was updated by NBC News.
? 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Despite parting ways with Fox News, Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (R) said she's not done sharing "the message of the beauty of freedom and the imperative of defending our republic" in an exclusive interview with Breitbart News.
The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee emphasized the 2014 elections, calling focus on the upcoming races "imperative."
"It?s going to be like 2010, but this time around we need to shake up the GOP machine that tries to orchestrate away too much of the will of constitutional conservatives who don?t give a hoot how they do it in D.C.," Palin said. "D.C. is out of touch, obviously."
Palin also reflected on the most recent presidential election, comparing Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan's 2012 loss to the own defeat she and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) faced in 2008.
"Conservatism didn?t lose. A moderate Republican candidate lost after he was perceived to alienate working class Reagan Democrat and Independent voters who didn?t turn out for him as much as they did for the McCain/Palin ticket in 2008," Palin said. "Granted, those same voters also didn?t turn out for Obama as strongly either."
When asked about her reaction to the media declaring "both you and the Tea Party dead and buried," Palin said she was "raised to never retreat and to pick battles wisely, and all in due season."
"When it comes to defending our republic, we haven?t begun to fight!" Palin said. "But we delight in those who underestimate us."
HuffPost Media reported earlier:
Real Clear Politics was the first to report that Palin ? who reportedly signed a $1 million-a-year contract with the network in 2010 ? will not be renewing it. The New York Times' Brian Stelter later confirmed the news with Fox News.A "source close to Palin" told RCP that she had turned down a new offer. Fox News merely told the New York Times in a statement that it wished her the best.
Click here to read the full Palin interview with Breitbart News, and watch a video of some of Palin's best Fox News moments above.
Also on HuffPost:
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/26/sarah-palin-interview_n_2559359.html
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Julian Dennison and Kevin Paulo
A coming-of-age story infused with obvious personal investment but too undisciplined to have much dramatic impact.
Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema Dramatic Competition)
Kevin Paulo, Julian Dennison, Jacek Koman, Alistair Browning, Laura Peterson
Mark Albiston, Louis Sutherland
PARK CITY ? There?s a lot of heart and raw emotion in Shopping, which to some extent helps overcome the film?s shaky storytelling and skimpy social context. New Zealander filmmaking team Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland?s first feature centers on a teenager torn between a difficult home life with his Pacific Islander family and the lure of reckless freedom with a roving band of criminals. Many of the elements are familiar, but the setting in a lonely village on the Kapiti Coast, north of Wellington, is distinctive.
PHOTOS: Sundance's Greatest Hits: The Movies That Broke Through
News footage early in the film provides rudimentary background on the immigration situation in 1981, when the story is set. Having been invited to the country in the 1950s to fill the need for unskilled labor, Polynesian immigrants to New Zealand found the welcome-mat withdrawn when the national economy took a dive in the decades that followed. Random checks and dawn raids on immigrant homes fueled racial tensions.
While the writer-directors clearly have made a conscious choice to minimize exposition, greater detailing of this sociopolitical canvas might have helped draw out parallels with many countries around the world, including the U.S. But as evidenced by its thick accents, mumbled dialogue and regional vernacular, this is a film that places a premium on unvarnished authenticity, even at some minor cost to its accessibility.
The son of a Samoan mother (Maureen Fepuleai), teenage Willie (Kevin Paulo) is regularly browbeaten by his white father Terry (Alistair Browning) with reminders that his dark skin means he has to work harder and act smarter than other boys, just to stay out of trouble. In between shifts at a local department store, Willie takes care of his little brother Solomon (Julian Dennison), a sweet-natured, imaginative kid who has created an elaborate fantasy world in his head, perhaps partly to shut out the animosity that surrounds them.
Early scenes of the two brothers biking along coastal roads to Grayson Gilmour?s gentle melodic music establish the loving bond between them. Willie is almost a parent to Solomon, given that their religious mother remains a somewhat remote presence, stuck in her own cultural isolation, and their father is a volatile drunk prone to violent explosions. His brutal beating of Willie over a perceived infraction gives the story an ugly visceral jolt.
Terry?s simmering menace drives Willie to start skipping work and spending time with Bennie (Jacek Koman), a Central European immigrant whose rowdy entourage includes his daughter Nicky (Laura Peterson) and assorted lowlifes. Willie earns Bennie?s paternalistic embrace when he inadvertently provides cover for the eccentric stranger?s shoplifting and then starts actively participating in the group?s robberies.
In the unworldly teenager?s attraction to this wild life of booze, pills, sex and thievery, the co-directors appear to have been influenced stylistically by early Gus Van Sant films. A scene in which Willie fakes an epileptic seizure in a music store while Nicky lifts a cassette seems a direct citation from Drugstore Cowboy. Being absorbed into Bennie?s posse allows Willie to feel a part of something instead of stuck on the outside.
Despite the open hostility of some of his new companions and the potential dangers of involvement with Nicky, Willie seems open to Bennie?s offer to take him along when they pack up their caravan and move on. But Solomon?s vulnerability at home forces his brother to reconsider.
As a coming-of-age drama laced with quiet humor, Shopping has its charms, many of them stemming from the unaffected performances of Paulo and Dennison. But overall, the acting is uneven.
Albiston and Sutherland too often sacrifice clarity and character involvement in favor of a messy visual and narrative approach that tries to make an aesthetic virtue of the film?s rough-edged style.
Venue: Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema Dramatic Competition)
Cast: Kevin Paulo, Julian Dennison, Jacek Koman, Alistair Browning, Laura Peterson, Maureen Fepuleai, Byron Coll, Matthias Luafutu
Production company: Warp Films Australia
Director-screenwriters: Mark Albiston, Louis Sutherland
Producers: Sarah Shaw, Anna McLeish
Director of photography: Ginny Loane
Production designer: Josh O?Neill
Music: Grayson Gilmour
Costume designer: Lucy McLay
Editor: Annie Collins
Sales: NZ Film Sales
No rating, 98?minutes.
Source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/shopping-sundance-review-415635
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