After Evernote, the personal note-taking app with 60 million+ users, got slammed with a security breach in February 2013, today the company is turning on three new features to give users better control over their accounts: two-step verification, access history and authorized applications listings. Two-step authentication will eventually get rolled out to all users, but a spokesperson tells TC that at first it will be only be rolled out to Premium (paying) users first, to make sure that the experience is right.
May 27, 2013 ? An international team led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine reports that a single injection of human neural stem cells produced neuronal regeneration and improvement of function and mobility in rats impaired by an acute spinal cord injury (SCI).
The findings are published in the May 28, 2013 online issue of Stem Cell Research & Therapy.
Martin Marsala, MD, professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, with colleagues at UC San Diego and in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and The Netherlands, said grafting neural stem cells derived from a human fetal spinal cord to the rats' spinal injury site produced an array of therapeutic benefits -- from less muscle spasticity to new connections between the injected stem cells and surviving host neurons.
"The primary benefits were improvement in the positioning and control of paws during walking tests and suppression of muscle spasticity," said Marsala, a specialist in spinal cord trauma and spinal injury-related disorders. Spasticity -- exaggerated muscle tone or uncontrolled spasms -- is a serious and common complication of traumatic injury to the spinal cord.
The human stem cells, said the scientists, appeared to vigorously take root at the injury site.
"In all cell-grafted animals, there was robust engraftment, and neuronal maturation of grafted human neurons was noted," Marsala said. "Importantly, cysts or cavities that can form in or around spinal injuries were not present in any cell-treated animal. The injury-caused cavity was completely filled by grafted cells."
The rats received the pure stem cell grafts three days after injury (no other supporting materials were used) and were given drugs to suppress an immune response to the foreign stem cells. Marsala said grafting at any time after the injury appears likely to work in terms of blocking the formation of spinal injury cavities, but that more work would be required to determine how timing affects functional neurological benefit.
The grafted stem cells, according to Marsala, appear to be doing two things: stimulating host neuron regeneration and partially replacing the function of lost neurons.
"Grafted spinal stem cells are rich source of different growth factors which can have a neuroprotective effect and can promote sprouting of nerve fibers of the host neurons. We have also demonstrated that grafted neurons can develop contacts with the host neurons and, to some extent, restore the connectivity between centers, above and below the injury, which are involved in motor and sensory processing."
The scientists used a line of human embryonic stem cells recently approved for Phase 1 human trials in patients with chronic traumatic spinal injuries. Marsala said the ultimate goal is to develop neural precursor cells (capable of becoming any of the three main cell types in the nervous system) from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from patients, which would likely eliminate the need for immunosuppression treatment.
Pending approval by UC San Diego's Institutional Review Board, the next step is a small phase 1 trial to test safety and efficacy with patients who have suffered a thoracic spinal cord injury (between vertebrae T2-T12) one to two years earlier, and who have no motor or sensory function at or below the spinal injury site.
"This is exciting, especially because, historically, there has been very little to offer patients with acute spinal cord injury," said study co-author Joseph Ciacci, MD, professor of surgery and program director of the Neurosurgery Residency at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Ciacci, who is also chief of neurosurgery for the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, will oversee the clinical trial at UC San Diego and the VA.
Ciacci said if the initial study confirms safety and efficacy, as well as the viability of the implanted cells, neural regeneration and decreased spasticity, the protocol can be expanded to other patients with other forms of severe spinal cord injury.
CANNES, France (AP) ? Emma Watson is reveling in her post-"Potter" freedom at the Cannes Film Festival, relishing a Valley Girl role far from her wise-beyond-her-years Hermione.
The 23-year-old "Harry Potter" actress stars in Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring," which premiered Thursday at the French Riviera festival. The British actress plays a celebrity-obsessed, thickly accented Los Angeles teenager who, with a group of friends, burgles Hollywood stars such as Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan.
At Cannes, Watson told reporters that while she remains proud of her work on the "Potter" films, they now feel long ago.
"I'm not trying to run away from it," she said. "I've just had an amazing three or four years. I'm really re-enjoying having the chance to transform into new roles and work with new creative people."
"The Bling Ring" is based on a Vanity Fair article about the true story of teenagers who robbed celebrities like Paris Hilton and Orlando Bloom while they were out at premieres and other events. The character Watson plays, Nicki, is modeled on Alexis Neiers, who starred in the reality series "Pretty Wild."
Watson said she watched American TV shows like "The Hills," ''Keeping up With the Kardashians" and "The World According to Paris" to prepare for the role.
"It'd be very easy for Nicki to feel like a parody," Watson said. "Somehow I had to understand and empathize with her and that was really biggest challenge, second to getting the accent down. It's quite a specific dialect."
Since the "Harry Potter" films concluded in 2011 with the second part of "Deathly Hallows," Watson has gravitated to more adult films, including last year's coming-of-age tale "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and Darren Aronofsky's Biblical epic "Noah," which recently finished shooting. She also makes a cameo as herself in this summer's "This is the End," an apocalyptic comedy.
"For Emma, it was, I think, really interesting to see an actress that you've seen in other things really transform into a completely difficult character," Coppola said.
Young actors often treat Cannes as a coming-out-party, a place to introduce themselves on a more artistically-minded stage. Watson shined with enthusiasm for her experience with the improvisation-friendly Coppola.
"I could work in a way that was a lot more loose than I was used to," said Watson. "I'm used to really having to stick to my lines because a lot of people know them by heart."
___
Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle
Former NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb will retire as a member of the team that drafted him in 1999.? He hopes that, when it happens, the Eagles will permanently set aside the number he wore during 11 seasons with the team.
?I would love for that to happen but if they don?t I won?t be upset about it,? McNabb told 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia regarding the possibility of the team retiring No. 5.
The Eagles have retired seven numbers, according to the 2012 Official NFL Record & Fact Book:? Steve Van Buren (15), Brian Dawkins (20), Tom Brookshier (40), Pete Retzlaff (44), Chuck Bednarik (60), Al Wistert (70), Reggie White (92), Jerome Brown (99).
?Syracuse is definitely retiring my number,? McNabb added. ?I know [the Eagles] retired Dawkins? number and that was well deserved. He deserved to be retired and no one should ever wear No. 20 again. We?re talking about different things. Everyone will know more information as we continue on. . . . That comes down to Jeffrey Lurie. Lurie being the great owner of the Philadelphia Eagles obviously took a chance on me and Andy Reid in 1999.? That?s will be Jeffrey?s decision as to what the next steps are.?
Speaking of Reid, McNabb has refuted a report that the retirement will occur when the long-time Philly coach returns to Lincoln Financial Field as the coach of the Chiefs.
?We haven?t chosen the date yet,? McNabb said.? ?The ceremony is something that we?ve been communicating back and forth.? I want [the retirement ceremony] to be something that is special.? Not only for me but for the fans.? We?re discussing some different things that we want to get done, that I would like to see get done. Everything right now is in the works, nothing is written in stone.? It was just one step of acknowledging that I wanted to retire as a Philadelphia Eagle.? As things continue to break down for the particular event I?ll let everyone know exactly what is going on.?
McNabb also made clear that he?d love for another type of ceremony to happen, in Canton.
?If you ask me and I had all the votes to put me in I would say yes,? McNabb said regarding whether he?s a Hall of Famer.
He doesn?t have all the votes, or any of them. Neither do the rest of us, but we?ll go ahead and run a poll on the topic anyway.
To find the planet, astronomers used Einstein's theory as it pertains to the intensity of a beam of light. The method could add more exoplanets to a growing list, no 'wobble' or 'transit' required.
By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / May 14, 2013
Kepler space telescope is designed to search for Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy. The telescope has been in space since 2009, but scientists keep finding new ways to use it ? even using special relativity ? to find extra-solar planets.
Courtesy of NASA / AP
Enlarge
With a little help from Einstein's theory of special relativity, astronomers have discovered a planet orbiting a star some 2,000 light-years away using a new approach that was barely a gleam in its proposers' eyes a decade ago.
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The planet is a bit larger and about twice as massive as Jupiter. It orbits its sun-like star once every 1.5 days. The team making the discovery estimates the planet's temperature at a searing 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit.
On one level, such "hot Jupiters" are a dime a dozen these days. Because they are massive and close to their host stars, they are the easiest planets to spot with virtually every planet-hunting technique astronomers have used to date.
What sets this discovery apart, however, is that the planet is the first to have been found through a process that in some ways could simplify planet hunting, researchers say. Its effectiveness is limited to big planets orbiting close to their stars, the team reporting the discovery acknowledges.
But it also holds out the hope of finding such planets when the parent stars may be too faint for other, currently used techniques. This opens the possibility of adding many more extra-solar planets to a catalog that now tops 800 of them.
No need to hunt for the wobble a planet's gravity imparts to its star's spectrum. No need to wait for a planet to pass in front of its star, known as a transit.
Instead, the team looked for a combination of three relatively small effects that wax and wane throughout a planet's orbit around a star. This delivers a different signal to a planet-hunting device like NASA's Kepler spacecraft than the eclipsing planet, or transit method, delivers, notes David Latham, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a member of the team discovering the planet.
"The transits last just a short time, just a couple of hours," Dr. Latham writes in an e-mail. But the effects the team tracked "rise and fall continuously through the entire orbital period of the planet, roughly 36 hours, so it?s not hard to distinguish these phenomena."
And it can detect planets that don't transit their stars.
The approach was conceived 10 years ago by Harvard University astrophysicist Avi Loeb and Scott Gaudi, now an assistant professor of astronomy at The Ohio State University in Columbus, who took a cue from Albert Einstein.
One prediction of Einstein's theory of special relativity is that when an object is moving at a pace close to the speed of light, any light it emits appears more intense along the object's line of motion, forming a beam. To an observer watching the object approach, the light looks brighter than it would if the object were stationary.
The effect is most pronounced in powerful astronomical events such as gamma-ray bursts, in which matter emitting the gamma rays is accelerated to 99.9 percent of the speed of light, Dr. Loeb explains.
Indeed, to an astronomer looking directly into the beam, the effect can lead to the illusion that the light is traveling faster than its 186,000-mile a second speed limit. Such beams emanate from the poles of supermassive black holes that have gone on feeding binges. Researchers call them superluminal jets.
Since the Government announced plans to ban referral fees, legal firms specialising in personal injury claims have been scratching their heads as to how best continue their levels of custom. Despite the large savings that they will make now that they will not be paying out referral fees, higher marketing costs may be incurred. Business plans have had to be revised as law firms enter an uncertain plane.
However, a graduate from Liverpool John Moores University may have found a cost-effective and elegant solution in the form of a smartphone app. Lawyerly, available on both Apple and Android formats, allows the victims of accidents to connect directly to applicable solicitors.
The app provides the victims with important personal injury solicitor information including user ratings, services and contact information. Designer, Matt Cavanagh, has highlighted the significant impact that the app could have on people hoping to make a road accident claim:
?The app effectively acts as a seamless link between client and lawyer. For example, if someone has a road accident and is in a position to record the damage via a smart phone or tablet, it will allow them to find a solicitor right there and then.?
Law firms can register with a monthly subscription to the app so that their details can be shared with users who can download Lawyerly for free.
"Lawyerly is fool proof despite its many benefits to both parties. The potential client can reduce ambiguity by obtaining advice at the scene of the incident, while the solicitor receives a direct referral. This will reduce any friction in doing business." The app could negate the need for excessive marketing campaigns in the wake of the ban on referral fees. This will be especially welcome news for no win no fee solicitors who have found business hard to come by with the new regulations and can help maximise the compensation that goes directly to the claimant and the solicitor working on their behalf rather than a referral company.
Scientists find extensive glacial retreat in Mount Everest regionPublic release date: 14-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah Charley scharley@agu.org 202-777-7516 American Geophysical Union
Cancn, Mexico -- Researchers taking a new look at the snow
and ice covering Mount Everest and the national park that
surrounds it are finding abundant evidence that the world's tallest
peak is shedding its frozen cloak. The scientists have also been
studying temperature and precipitation trends in the area and
found that the Everest region has been warming while snowfall
has been declining since the early 1990s.
Members of the team conducting these studies will present their
findings on May 14 at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancun,
Mexico - a scientific conference organized and co-sponsored by
the American Geophysical Union.
Glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent
in the last 50 years and the snowline has shifted upward by 180
meters (590 feet), according to Sudeep Thakuri, who is leading
the research as part of his PhD graduate studies at the University
of Milan in Italy.
Glaciers smaller than one square kilometer are
disappearing the fastest and have experienced a 43 percent
decrease in surface area since the 1960s. Because the glaciers are
melting faster than they are replenished by ice and snow, they are
revealing rocks and debris that were previously hidden deep
under the ice. These debris-covered sections of the glaciers have
increased by about 17 percent since the 1960s, according to
Thakuri. The ends of the glaciers have also retreated by an
average of 400 meters since 1962, his team found.
The researchers suspect that the decline of snow and ice in the
Everest region is from human-generated greenhouse gases
altering global climate. However, they have not yet established a
firm connection between the mountains' changes and climate
change, Thakuri said.
He and his team determined the extent of glacial change on
Everest and the surrounding 1,148 square kilometer (713 square
mile) Sagarmatha National Park by compiling satellite imagery
and topographic maps and reconstructing the glacial history.
Their statistical analysis shows that the majority of the glaciers in
the national park are retreating at an increasing rate, Thakuri
said.
To evaluate the temperature and precipitation patterns in the
area, Thakuri and his colleagues have been analyzing hydro-
meteorological data from the Nepal Climate Observatory stations
and Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. The
researchers found that the Everest region has undergone a 0.6
degree Celsius (1.08 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature
and 100 millimeter (3.9 inches) decrease in precipitation during
the pre-monsoon and winter months since 1992.
In subsequent research, Thakuri plans on exploring the climate-
glacier relationship further with the aim of integrating the
glaciological, hydrological and climatic data to understand the
behavior of the hydrological cycle and future water availability.
"The Himalayan glaciers and ice caps are considered a water
tower for Asia since they store and supply water downstream
during the dry season," said Thakuri. "Downstream populations
are dependent on the melt water for agriculture, drinking, and
power production."
###
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Water
Research Institute-Italian National Research Council are funding
this research.
Notes for Journalists
The researchers on this study of the Mount Everest region will present
a poster about their work on Tuesday morning, 14 May 2013, at the
Meeting of the Americas. The meeting is taking place from 14-17 May
at the Cancn Center, located at Blvd. Kukulkan Km 9, Zona Hotelera,
in Cancn, Mexico. For more information for members of the news
media about the meeting, please go to
http://moa.agu.org/2013/media-center/ or contact Sarah Charley.
Below is the abstract of the poster, which is being presented from
8:00 AM - 12:20 PM local Cancn time (Central Daylight Time,
UTC/GMT - 5 hours), in the Gran Cancn Poster Hall (Cancn Center)
as part of session C21B. "Cryosphere in a Warming Climate: Changes,
Impacts, and Adaptation / Posters" (Convener(s): Ninglian Wang
(Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Mark Serreze (NSIDC)):
TITLE: Glacier response to climate trend and climate variability in Mt.
Everest region (Nepal)
PRESENTATION TYPE: Assigned by Committee
CURRENT SECTION: Cryosphere (C)
CURRENT SESSION: C02. Cryosphere in a warming climate:
Changes, Impacts and Adaptation
AUTHORS (FIRST NAME, LAST NAME): Sudeep Thakuri1, 2,
Franco Salerno2, 3, Nicolas Guyennon2, Gaetano Viviano2, 3, Claudio
Smiraglia1, 3, Carlo D'Agata1, Gianni Tartari2, 3
INSTITUTIONS (ALL): 1. Graduate School of Earth, Environment
and Biodiversity, University of Milan, Milan, MB, Italy.
2. Water Research Institute, National Research Council , Brugherio,
MB, Italy.
3. Ev-K2-CNR Committee, Bergamo, BG, Italy.
ABSTRACT BODY: This study is conducted with the aim of coupling
the climatic dynamics with glaciers variations. The glaciers in the Mt.
Everest region in Nepal Himalaya are characterized by the debris-
mantle in most of their ablation zone and are controlled by the south-
Asian summer monsoon and precipitation due to mid-latitude westerly.
We analyzed variations in glacier surface and snowline altitude for the
glaciers/ice mass in the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park (area:
1148 km2), using cartography and remote imaging since 1950s to 2011
and uncertainties associated, providing a longest time series of glacier
variations in this region. The glacier surface area had loss of 14.35.9
% (0.27 % yr-1) from 396.2 km2 to 339.5 km2 in 1958 to 2011 with
the loss by 0.12 % yr-1 in 1958-75 and 0.70 % yr-1 in recent years.
The smaller glaciers with
The following press release and an accompanying image can be
found at: http://bit.ly/12q3rku.
Scientists find extensive glacial retreat in Mount Everest region
Image caption and credit:
A new study finds a decline in snow and ice on Mount Everest (second
peak from left) and nearby mountains. Credit: Pavel Novak
AGUContact:
Sarah Charley
Contact information for the researchers:
Sudeep Thakuri: Email, thakuri@irsa.cnr.it
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Scientists find extensive glacial retreat in Mount Everest regionPublic release date: 14-May-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Sarah Charley scharley@agu.org 202-777-7516 American Geophysical Union
Cancn, Mexico -- Researchers taking a new look at the snow
and ice covering Mount Everest and the national park that
surrounds it are finding abundant evidence that the world's tallest
peak is shedding its frozen cloak. The scientists have also been
studying temperature and precipitation trends in the area and
found that the Everest region has been warming while snowfall
has been declining since the early 1990s.
Members of the team conducting these studies will present their
findings on May 14 at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancun,
Mexico - a scientific conference organized and co-sponsored by
the American Geophysical Union.
Glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent
in the last 50 years and the snowline has shifted upward by 180
meters (590 feet), according to Sudeep Thakuri, who is leading
the research as part of his PhD graduate studies at the University
of Milan in Italy.
Glaciers smaller than one square kilometer are
disappearing the fastest and have experienced a 43 percent
decrease in surface area since the 1960s. Because the glaciers are
melting faster than they are replenished by ice and snow, they are
revealing rocks and debris that were previously hidden deep
under the ice. These debris-covered sections of the glaciers have
increased by about 17 percent since the 1960s, according to
Thakuri. The ends of the glaciers have also retreated by an
average of 400 meters since 1962, his team found.
The researchers suspect that the decline of snow and ice in the
Everest region is from human-generated greenhouse gases
altering global climate. However, they have not yet established a
firm connection between the mountains' changes and climate
change, Thakuri said.
He and his team determined the extent of glacial change on
Everest and the surrounding 1,148 square kilometer (713 square
mile) Sagarmatha National Park by compiling satellite imagery
and topographic maps and reconstructing the glacial history.
Their statistical analysis shows that the majority of the glaciers in
the national park are retreating at an increasing rate, Thakuri
said.
To evaluate the temperature and precipitation patterns in the
area, Thakuri and his colleagues have been analyzing hydro-
meteorological data from the Nepal Climate Observatory stations
and Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology. The
researchers found that the Everest region has undergone a 0.6
degree Celsius (1.08 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature
and 100 millimeter (3.9 inches) decrease in precipitation during
the pre-monsoon and winter months since 1992.
In subsequent research, Thakuri plans on exploring the climate-
glacier relationship further with the aim of integrating the
glaciological, hydrological and climatic data to understand the
behavior of the hydrological cycle and future water availability.
"The Himalayan glaciers and ice caps are considered a water
tower for Asia since they store and supply water downstream
during the dry season," said Thakuri. "Downstream populations
are dependent on the melt water for agriculture, drinking, and
power production."
###
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Water
Research Institute-Italian National Research Council are funding
this research.
Notes for Journalists
The researchers on this study of the Mount Everest region will present
a poster about their work on Tuesday morning, 14 May 2013, at the
Meeting of the Americas. The meeting is taking place from 14-17 May
at the Cancn Center, located at Blvd. Kukulkan Km 9, Zona Hotelera,
in Cancn, Mexico. For more information for members of the news
media about the meeting, please go to
http://moa.agu.org/2013/media-center/ or contact Sarah Charley.
Below is the abstract of the poster, which is being presented from
8:00 AM - 12:20 PM local Cancn time (Central Daylight Time,
UTC/GMT - 5 hours), in the Gran Cancn Poster Hall (Cancn Center)
as part of session C21B. "Cryosphere in a Warming Climate: Changes,
Impacts, and Adaptation / Posters" (Convener(s): Ninglian Wang
(Chinese Academy of Sciences) and Mark Serreze (NSIDC)):
TITLE: Glacier response to climate trend and climate variability in Mt.
Everest region (Nepal)
PRESENTATION TYPE: Assigned by Committee
CURRENT SECTION: Cryosphere (C)
CURRENT SESSION: C02. Cryosphere in a warming climate:
Changes, Impacts and Adaptation
AUTHORS (FIRST NAME, LAST NAME): Sudeep Thakuri1, 2,
Franco Salerno2, 3, Nicolas Guyennon2, Gaetano Viviano2, 3, Claudio
Smiraglia1, 3, Carlo D'Agata1, Gianni Tartari2, 3
INSTITUTIONS (ALL): 1. Graduate School of Earth, Environment
and Biodiversity, University of Milan, Milan, MB, Italy.
2. Water Research Institute, National Research Council , Brugherio,
MB, Italy.
3. Ev-K2-CNR Committee, Bergamo, BG, Italy.
ABSTRACT BODY: This study is conducted with the aim of coupling
the climatic dynamics with glaciers variations. The glaciers in the Mt.
Everest region in Nepal Himalaya are characterized by the debris-
mantle in most of their ablation zone and are controlled by the south-
Asian summer monsoon and precipitation due to mid-latitude westerly.
We analyzed variations in glacier surface and snowline altitude for the
glaciers/ice mass in the Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) National Park (area:
1148 km2), using cartography and remote imaging since 1950s to 2011
and uncertainties associated, providing a longest time series of glacier
variations in this region. The glacier surface area had loss of 14.35.9
% (0.27 % yr-1) from 396.2 km2 to 339.5 km2 in 1958 to 2011 with
the loss by 0.12 % yr-1 in 1958-75 and 0.70 % yr-1 in recent years.
The smaller glaciers with
The following press release and an accompanying image can be
found at: http://bit.ly/12q3rku.
Scientists find extensive glacial retreat in Mount Everest region
Image caption and credit:
A new study finds a decline in snow and ice on Mount Everest (second
peak from left) and nearby mountains. Credit: Pavel Novak
AGUContact:
Sarah Charley
Contact information for the researchers:
Sudeep Thakuri: Email, thakuri@irsa.cnr.it
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Immigration activists are calling on President Barack Obama to end deportations of immigrants who might be eligible for legal status under a new immigration bill.
Activists have long complained of record deportations breaking up families under the Obama administration. Officials representing labor unions, day laborers and others held a conference call and released a letter Monday telling Obama it makes no sense to be deporting people that he's committed to legalizing through the immigration bill he supports.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reports deporting close to 400,000 people annually in recent years.
When asked to address complaints about deportations, Obama has said that until the law changes he has to enforce the law on the books.
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) ? A Libyan security official says a car bomb that exploded near a hospital has killed at least nine people, including three children, in the eastern city of Benghazi.
Abdel-Salam al-Barghathi says the car was parked outside a bakery near the city's main hospital when Monday's blast occurred. He says 13 people were also wounded in the blast.
The following are potential front-runners in Iran's June 14 presidential election to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The list of candidates will be announced next week after vetting by Iran's ruling clerics:
___
AKBAR HASHEMI RAFSANJANI: Served as president from 1989-97 and lost a comeback bid to Ahmadinejad in 2005. Rafsanjani is a fierce critic of Ahmadinejad and could become the main candidate for reformists and liberal-leaning voters. He also lost standing among the ruling clerics for publicly criticizing the crackdowns after Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in 2009. Rafsanjani, 78, is currently head of the Expediency Council, an advisory body that mediates disputes between the parliament and the Guardian Council, the group that vets candidates for the presidency and parliament. He is conservative, but also seen as pragmatic and willing to cut deals with other factions. In the past, he has urged for better ties with the U.S.
___
ALI AKBAR VELAYATI: Top adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on international affairs. Velayati, 67, served as foreign minister during the 1980-88 war with Iraq and into the 1990s. He is a physician and runs a hospital in north Tehran. He was among the suspects named by Argentina in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
___
MOHAMMAD BAGHER QALIBAF: Tehran mayor and former commander of the Revolutionary Guard during the Iran-Iraq war. Qalibaf, 51, is a pilot who enjoys good relations with Khamenei.
___
HASAN ROWHANI: A former nuclear negotiator and Khamenei's representative at the Supreme National Security Council, which also handles the nuclear dossier. Rowhani, 64, is a British-educated cleric. It is possible Rowhani could drop out of the race and throw his support behind Rafsanjani.
___
ESFANDIAR RAHIM MASHAEI: A top adviser to Ahmadinejad. His candidacy is being heavily promoted by Ahmadinejad, but he will face serious hurdles during the vetting by the Guardian Council, which must approve all candidates. Mashaei, 52, was denounced as a leader of a "deviant current" in Ahmadinejad's political showdown with Khamenei. Mashaei's daughter is married to Ahmadinejad's son.
___
MOHSEN REZAEI: Former chief commander of the Revolutionary Guard. Rezaei, 58, ran for president in 2009, but finished fourth. He is currently the secretary of the Expediency Council, of which Rafsanjani is chief and which mediates between the parliament and Guardian Council.
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) ? Bangladesh's government agreed Monday to allow the country's garment workers to form trade unions without prior permission from factory owners, the latest response to a building collapse that killed more than 1,100 people and focused global attention on the industry's hazardous conditions.
The Cabinet decision came a day after the government announced a plan to raise the minimum wage for garment workers, who are paid some of the lowest wages in the world to sew clothing bound for global retailers. Both moves are seen as a direct response to the April 24 collapse of an eight-story building housing five garment factories, the worst disaster in the history of the global garment industry.
Government spokesman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said the Cabinet approved an amendment to the 2006 Labor Act lifting restrictions on forming trade unions in most industries. The old law required workers to obtain permission before they could unionize.
"No such permission from owners is now needed," Bhuiyan told reporters after the Cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. "The government is doing it for the welfare of the workers."
Local and international trade unions have long campaigned for such changes.
Though the 2006 law technically allowed trade unions ? and they exist in many of Bangladesh's other industries ? owners of garment factories never allowed them, saying they would lead to a lack of discipline among workers.
Trade union leaders responded cautiously.
"The issue is not really about making a new law or amending the old one," said Kalpana Akter of the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity, a group campaigning for garment workers' rights. "In the past whenever workers tried to form associations they were subjected to beatings and harassment," she said. "The owners did not hesitate to fire such workers."
In recent years the government has cracked down on trade unions attempting to organize garment workers. In 2010 Hasina's government launched an Industrial Police force to crush street protests by thousands of workers demanding better pay and working conditions.
That year police arrested at least six activists, including Akter, on charges of instigating workers to vandalize factories. They were later freed, but some charges are still pending.
The activists are also angry that police have made no headway in the investigation of the death of a fellow union organizer, Aminul Islam, who was found dead a day after he disappeared from his home in 2012.
"Islam's case is going nowhere even though police say they are investigating," said Akter.
On Sunday, the government set up a new minimum wage board that will issue recommendations for pay raises within three months, Textiles Minister Abdul Latif Siddiky said. The Cabinet will then decide whether to accept those proposals.
The wage board will include representatives of factory owners, workers and the government, he said.
The collapse of Rana Plaza has raised alarm about conditions in Bangladesh's powerful garment industry.
Bangladesh is the third-biggest exporter of clothes in the world, after China and Italy. There are 5,000 factories in the country and 3.6 million garment workers.
But working conditions in the $20 billion industry are grim, a result of government corruption, desperation for jobs, and industry indifference. Minimum wages for garment workers were last raised by 80 percent to 3,000 takas ($38) a month in 2010 following protests by workers.
Since 2005, at least 1,800 garment workers have been killed in factory fires and building collapses in Bangladesh, according to research by the advocacy group International Labor Rights Forum.
In November, 112 workers were killed in a garment factory in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital. The factory lacked emergency exits, and its owner said only three floors of the eight-story building were legally built.
The Rana Plaza owner and eight other people, including garment factory owners, have been detained in the collapse investigation. Authorities say the building owner added floors to the structure illegally and allowed the factories to install heavy equipment that the building was not designed to support.
As of Monday, rescue workers said 1,127 bodies had been recovered from the ruins of the fallen building, where thousands were working at the time of the disaster. Teams were using hydraulic cranes, bulldozers, shovels and iron cutters to uncover bodies.
"We are still removing the rubble very carefully as dead bodies are still coming up," said Maj. Moazzem Hossain, a rescue team leader.
Hossain said they are trying to identify badly decomposed bodies by their identity cards.
On Friday, the search teams received a much-needed morale boost when they found a seamstress who survived under the rubble for 17 days on dried food and bottled and rain water.
The Textiles Ministry has also begun a series of factory inspections and has ordered about 22 closed temporarily for violating safety and working standards.
President Barack Obama speaks during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Monday, May 13, 2013, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, where they talked about various topics including Syria's civil war and the IRS. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Barack Obama speaks during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Monday, May 13, 2013, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, where they talked about various topics including Syria's civil war and the IRS. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Barack Obama gestures during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron, Monday, May 13, 2013, in the East Room of the White House in Washington, where they talked about subjects ranging from Syria's civil war to preparations for a coming summit in Northern Ireland. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama said Monday he will not tolerate political bias at the Internal Revenue Service and promised to get to the bottom of the agency's admitted targeting of conservative groups.
Obama, in his first comments on the revelations of political targeting at the tax agency, said he learned about them from the initial news reports Friday. With a growing list of congressional panels saying they will investigate the matter, Obama said people are properly concerned.
"You don't want the IRS ever being perceived to be biased and anything less than neutral in terms of how they operate," Obama said at a news conference Friday with British Prime Minister David Cameron at the White House. He called the revelations of targeting "outrageous."
"I've got no patience with it. I will not tolerate it, and we will make sure that we find out exactly what happened on this," the president added.
On Friday, the IRS apologized for scrutinizing the tax-exempt status of groups with conservative titles such as "Tea Party" or "Patriot" in their applications. Republicans have challenged the tax agency's claim that the practice was initiated by low-level workers.
"I just don't buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. "After all, groups with 'progressive' in their names were not targeted similarly."
If it were just a small number of employees, she said, "then you would think that the high-level IRS supervisors would have rushed to make this public, fired the employees involved, apologized to the American people and informed Congress. None of that happened in a timely way."
The IRS said Friday that it was sorry for what it called the "inappropriate" targeting of the conservative groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency said no high-level officials were aware.
But according to a draft of a watchdog's report obtained Saturday by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner, senior IRS officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said the Finance Committee that he chairs will investigate the matter, the first in the Democratic-controlled Senate to announce an investigation. In the GOP-controlled House, the Ways and Means Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, also are investigating.
The Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration is expected to release the results of its nearly yearlong investigation in the coming week.
Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, said last week that the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias.
But on June 29, 2011, Lerner learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog's report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with "Tea Party," ''Patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.
The 9/12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said "the conclusion that the IRS came to is that they did have agents who were engaged in intimidation of political groups is as dangerous a problem" as the government can have.
He added, "This should send a chill up your spine. ... I don't know where it stops or who is involved."
Congressional Republicans already are conducting several investigations and asked for more.
"This mea culpa is not an honest one," said Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
Collins said the revelations about the nation's tax agency only contribute to "the profound distrust that the American people have in government. It is absolutely chilling that the IRS was singling out conservative groups for extra review."
The IRS' Lerner said that about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, with about one-quarter scrutinized because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.
She said 150 of the cases have been closed and no group had its tax-exempt status revoked, though some withdrew their applications.
SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) ? Even amid the euphoria over finding a woman alive in the rubble of a garment factory that collapsed more than two weeks ago, rescuers on Saturday returned to the grim task of dismantling the wreckage and retrieving decomposing bodies, knowing there was little chance of finding any more survivors.
The death toll from Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster is more than 1,000 and climbing. More than 2,500 people were rescued in the immediate aftermath of the April 24 disaster, but until Friday, crews had gone nearly two weeks without discovering anyone alive.
Then, in the midst of what had become a grim search for decaying bodies following the world's worst garment industry disaster, rescuers found a woman alive, providing a much-needed boost for the weary workers.
For 17 days, the 19-year-old woman, a seamstress, lay trapped in a dark basement pocket beneath thousands of tons of wreckage as temperatures outside climbed into the mid-30s Celsius (mid-90s Fahrenheit). She rationed food and water. She banged a pipe to attract attention. She was fast losing hope of ever making it out alive.
In the ruins of the collapsed eight-store garment factory building above her, the frantic rescue operation had long ago ended.
"No one heard me. It was so bad for me. I never dreamed I'd see the daylight again," the seamstress, Reshma Begum, told Somoy TV from her hospital bed after her astonishing rescue on Friday.
The miraculous moment came when salvage workers finally heard Begum's banging. They pulled her to safety. She was in surprisingly good condition, wearing a violet outfit with a large, bright pink scarf.
"I heard her say, 'I am alive, please save me.' I gave her water. She was OK," said Miraj Hossain, a volunteer who crawled through the debris to help cut Begum free.
The rescue was broadcast on television across Bangladesh. The prime minister rushed to the hospital, as did the woman's family to embrace a loved one they thought they'd never again see alive.
On April 24, Begum was working in a factory on the second floor of Rana Plaza when the building began collapsing around her. She said she raced down a stairwell into the basement, where she became trapped near a Muslim prayer room in a wide pocket that allowed her to survive.
Her long hair got stuck under the rubble, but she used sharp objects to cut her hair and free herself, said Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, the head of the local military units in charge of the disaster site.
"There was some dried food around me. I ate the dried food for 15 days. The last two days I had nothing but water. I used to drink only a limited quantity of water to save it. I had some bottles of water around me," Begum told the television station, as doctors and nurses milled about, giving her saline and checking her condition.
After the building collapsed, Begum's mother, Zobeda Begum, spent sleepless nights rushing from one place to another looking for her daughter, with other family members joining the search. When they found out she had been rescued, they raised their hands in prayers.
"I just could not believe it when I saw her in the hospital," the mother, a frail woman in her 60s, said tearfully.
Dhaka's Prothom Alo newspaper quoted Maj. Fakhrul Islam, a doctor at the hospital, as saying, "By the grace of Allah, Reshma is doing well. She is still under intensive care. She is out of danger."
Before Friday, the last survivor had been found April 28, and even her story ended tragically. As workers tried to free Shahina Akter, a fire broke out and she died of smoke inhalation.
Crews were instead engaged in the painstaking work of trying to remove bodies so the victims' families could bury their loved ones. They eventually approached the section where Begum was trapped.
"I heard voices of the rescue workers for the past several days. I kept hitting the wreckage with sticks and rods just to attract their attention," Begum said.
She finally got the crews' attention when she took a steel pipe and began banging it, said Abdur Razzak, a warrant officer with the military's engineering department who first spotted her in the wreckage.
The rescue crews could not believe there might be a survivor. "But within minutes, we were sure that there was someone," Razzak said.
The workers ran into the dark rubble, eventually getting flashlights, to free her, he said.
They ordered the cranes and bulldozers to stop immediately and used handsaws and welding and drilling equipment to cut through the iron rod and debris still trapping her. They gave her water, oxygen and saline as they worked.
Hundreds of people engaged in removing bodies from the site in recent days raised their hands together in prayer for her survival.
"God, you are the greatest, you can do anything. Please allow us all to rescue the survivor just found," said a man on a loudspeaker leading the supplicants. "We seek apology for our sins. Please pardon us, pardon the person found alive."
After 40 minutes, she was free.
"When we were able to reach there, we lifted her together with our hands and brought her out to put her on a stretcher. She was baffled as rescuers outside shouted 'God is great,'" said Hossain, one of her rescuers.
Soldiers and men in hard hats carried Begum on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance, which brought her to a military hospital. Her rescuers said she was in good condition, despite her ordeal. Razzak said she could even walk.
"She was fine, no injuries. She was just trapped. The space was wide," said Lt. Col. Moyeen, an army official at the scene who uses only one name.
Doctors at the hospital told Bangladeshi television that Begum was out of danger and that her kidney and liver function were fine.
"This is just a miracle, this is so pleasing!" said Razzak, the warrant officer.
Begum told her rescuers there were no more survivors in her area. Workers began tearing through the nearby rubble anyway, hoping to find another person alive.
"Reshma told me there were three others with her. They died. She did not see anybody else alive there," Suhrawardy said. The bodies were eventually recovered from another section of the building not far from Begum, he said.
Begum's sister Asma said she and her mother kept a vigil for the seamstress, who is from the rural Dinajpur district, 270 kilometers (170 miles) north of Dhaka. She said they had been losing hope amid the endless string of grim days, when scores of bodies and no survivors were removed from the rubble.
"We got her back just when we had lost all our hope to find her alive," she told Somoy TV. "God is so merciful."
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called Begum in the hospital, and the rescued woman began crying on the phone, Suhrawardy said. She told Hasina: "I am fine, please pray for me," he said.
Hasina, whose government has come under criticism for its lax oversight over the powerful garment industry, raced to the hospital by helicopter to meet her and congratulated the rescuers, officials said.
"This is an unbelievable feat," Hasina was quoted as saying by her assistant, Mahbubul Haque Shakil.
Begum lived in a rented house in this Dhaka suburb with her sister, who worked at a different garment factory.
Officials said Saturday that 1,081 bodies had been recovered from the ruins of the fallen building, which housed five garment factories employing thousands of workers. They said 780 bodies had been handed over to families.
Suhrawardy said rescuers returned to work soon after finding Begum. He would not specify a time frame for the recovery operation.
The disaster has raised alarm about the often deadly working conditions in Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry, which provides clothing for major retailers around the globe.
Brig. Gen. Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder, an army official overseeing the recovery work, said the bodies being recovered were badly decomposed and identification was difficult.
"We are working carefully," he said. "If we get any ID card or mobile phone with them, we can still identify them. Our sincere effort is to at least hand over the bodies to the families."
Brig. Gen. Azmal Kabir, a top official of the military's engineering section, said more than half of the estimated 7,000 tons of debris have been removed from the site but he did not know when the work would be finished.
Officials say the owner of Rana Plaza illegally added three floors and allowed the garment factories to install heavy machines and generators, even though the structure was not designed to support such equipment.
The owner and eight other people, including the owners of the garment factories, have been detained.
Home ? Education ? A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computing Technology, 4th Edition
Sara Baase, ?A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computing Technology, 4th Edition? 2012 | ISBN-10: 0132492679 | 496 pages | PDF | 3 MB
Sara Baase, "A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computing Technology, 4th Edition" 2012 | ISBN-10: 0132492679 | 496 pages | PDF | 3 MB A Gift of Fire: Social, Legal, and Ethical Issues for Computing Technology, 4e is ideal for courses in Computer Ethics and Computers and Society. It is also a useful reference for computer science professionals or anyone interested in learning more about computing technology and its overarching impact.
Sara Baase explores the social, legal, philosophical, ethical, political, constitutional, and economic implications of computing and the controversies they raise. With a computer scientist's perspective, and with historical context for many issues, she covers the issues students will face both as members of a technological society and as professionals in computer-related fields. A primary goal is to develop computer professionals who understand the implications of what they create and how it fits into society at large.
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DiCaprio, Christie's to hold auction to benefit environment
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actor Leonardo DiCaprio, the star of the new film "The Great Gatsby," and his foundation have teamed up with Christie's for a charity auction next week to benefit environmental causes. Thirty-three works, many created for and donated to the auction by some of the world's top artists, will go under the hammer on Monday in New York at The 11th Hour Auction, which aims to raise as much as $18 million to protect the last wild places on Earth and their endangered species.
New Soutine record set as Christie's meets Impressionist goal
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A record was set for French artist Chaim Soutine on Wednesday at Christie's auction of Impressionist and modern art, which met expectations with a total of just under $160 million. The tightly edited sale of 47 works exceeded Christie's auction a year ago by more than $40 million, but the earlier evening featured only 31 lots. Still, an impressive 94 percent of the works on offer found buyers which officials said was its best sell-through rate since 2006.
Big numbers for Impressionist art as New York auctions kick off
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The spring auctions got off to a strong start on Tuesday with Sotheby's solid sale of Impressionist and modern art which took in $230 million, led by a $42 million Cezanne still life and a $26 million Modigliani portrait. A year after Sotheby's set the world auction record for any work of art with its sale of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" for $120 million, it managed a sale of works by Picasso, Rodin and Monet that saw 85 percent of 71 lots on offer finding buyers and came in just under its high pre-sale estimate of $235 million.
New York's Met Museum celebrates punk's influence on fashion
NEW YORK (Reuters) - With their black leather, studded jackets, ripped jeans, bondage trousers and messages of rebellion and anarchy, punks from the 1970s probably never envisioned that a major museum would be celebrating their influence on fashion 40 years later. But the Costume Institute of The Metropolitan Museum of Art is doing just that with a new exhibition, "Punk: Chaos to Couture," that opens on May 9 and runs through August 14.
On eve of New York auctions, newer works seen driving the boom
NEW YORK (Reuters) - With a billion dollars worth of art on offer at their spring auctions in New York, Christie's and Sotheby's are looking to the post-war and contemporary works to drive the market this month. The sales of the newer works are expected to exceed those of the once-dominant Impressionist and modern field by anywhere from 50 to 100 percent, according to estimates.
Russia's new Mariinsky theatre woos the doubters
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Enlisting the drama of Prokofiev and the elegance of Tchaikovsky, St Petersburg's new Mariinsky theatre staged a gala opening on Thursday designed to silence critics of the starkly modernist building erected in the heart of Russia's imperial capital. The $700-million glass and limestone building, which critics have dubbed the "Mariinsky mall", glowed in the night sky, its glass and metal walkways humming with excited voices as the select crowd of 2,000 found their seats.
Painter Mark Rothko's Latvian hometown opens centre for his art
DAUGAVPILS, Latvia (Reuters) - Modernist painter Mark Rothko's hometown in Latvia devoted a new centre to the late artist's work on Wednesday. The Mark Rothko Arts Centre opened in the eastern town of Daugavpils, the Baltic country's second biggest city, with six paintings from the private collection of the artist's daughter and son, who were present at the launch.
Artist Richard Prince didn't infringe photo copyrights: U.S. court
NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a closely watched case in the art world, American artist Richard Prince won a federal appeals court order Thursday holding that he did not infringe the copyrights of a photographer by incorporating his images into 25 paintings and collages. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York reversed a lower court's finding that Prince must hand over artwork using the photos to Patrick Cariou, whose pictures of Rastafarians in Jamaica were incorporated into art, exhibited in 2007 and 2008.
Tate Britain releases shortlist for modern art's Turner prize
LONDON (Reuters) - An artist who paints portraits of imaginary people joined a French-born filmmaker, a British-German performance artist and a British multimedia artist on the shortlist for modern art's most prestigious and controversial award on Thursday. The portraits of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, the first black woman to be named a finalist for the annual 25,000-pound ($38,200) Turner Prize, appear traditional but are of imaginary people with invented histories, the Tate Britain museum said.
New Andy Warhol exhibit features the artist as subject
NEW YORK (Reuters) - More than 30 years ago in the south of France, the camera switched its focus to the celebrity-obsessed artist Andy Warhol, who became the reluctant subject of a photo study that was then relegated to a storage cabinet filed under "W." Sometime last year, a friend of photographer Steve Wood happened upon the trove of 35mm slides and persuaded wood that the "lost" images deserved their Warhol-allotted 15 minutes of fame.
My husband has finally joined me here in South Florida. I am helping him through his adjustment period and truly, it is an adjustment. "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in New Hampshire anymore."
I haven't written much since my husband arrived. I'm trying to make sure he's happy here. After all, it was me who wanted to move much more than him. He likes winter. He skis, goes ice fishing and loves chopping fire wood. But he was ready for a change, so I've been trying to ensure his first days here are fun. As they say, first impressions are lasting.
Although we are not retiring, I now understand what women mean when they say, "I can't get used to him being home all day." When I first left my job, we were still in New Hampshire. He left for work every morning while I spent my time writing, tweeting, pinning and blogging. I attended book clubs and started my second novel. When I got to Florida, I added blogging for the Huffington Post to my list of things to do. I was living alone for the first time in 30 years. I had my own schedule. I stayed up late writing, got up in the middle of the night to write, slept late after all that writing. I could eat scrambled eggs for dinner and left over pasta for breakfast. I temped at an accounting job two days a week but other than that, my time was my own, to do what I pleased, whenever I pleased.
The first week back, I showed him around the area. We went to the beach and we had drinks at waterfront bars. On my two temp days, he met the builder he will be working with and unpacked his things.
The second week rolled around and my temp job came to an end. He wasn't starting work for another week. I was ready to get back to writing. I desperately needed to write. Ideas were churning in my brain but there was one small problem: We had no TV. We decided to leave our old clunker behind. We'd put the TV armoire out on the road, a FREE sign taped to the door. It was a beautiful piece of furniture but a white elephant, as it seems we are one of the only families in America who have not converted to a flat screen TV. I had been living without TV for over two months now and didn't miss it at all. I was hoping my husband could make it for awhile without TV too.
But it was the height of the golf season, the Celtics were in the playoffs, the Bruins were still playing hockey. "This is the best time of the year for viewing sports," he complained. I gave him some books to read, Travis McGee crime novels set in South Florida, written by John D. MacDonald. Instead, in the evenings, he commandeered my computer and watched movies on Netflix. We started shopping for a TV.
Little did we know how complicated and expensive this would be. Do we go with the plasma or LED? How big do we want the screen? My husband wanted big, at least 50 inches big. These things cost from $700 to $1,000? Then we had to think about pixels and Hz. What is Hz? We went to Best Buy, Costco, Walmart. We shopped online. Next we needed to find a table to put this behometh on. Or then again, we could mount it on the wall.
Now time to deal with Comcast. It was Tuesday, the new TV was in the house. We had cable because it came with my internet service, a special package called BlastPlus for $56.99 a month. But we needed a box. I called Comcast, a long process of punching numbers and answering questions until I finally spoke to a human being. They could deliver a box on Friday. "Friday!" my husband shouted. "I can't wait that long, let's go to one of their offices." We drove to Boca, entered the store and joined the other disgruntled Comcast customers sitting on plastic chairs, eyes glued to a computer screen that had a list of names. Sheila B was number 49. There were four Comcast employees manning the service desk. It was one o'clock, the woman sitting next to me had been waiting since 11. I decided this might be a good time to catch up on my tweeting obligations which I had been neglecting since my husband arrived.
Time moved slowly. I could no longer think of anymore witty things to say with 140 characters. We had inched our way to the 39th position when Elaine G was called to service desk #3. This was when I almost started a riot. A man in his early forties stepped up to desk #3 then a few minutes later a woman, obviously Elaine G, stood next to him, looking confused and angry.
"Hey, that guy jumped ahead of Elaine G," I said loudly. Other people started asking what happened and I explained what I had just observed. Elaine G looked at me gratefully then started complaining to the Comcast representative. In his defense, the 40-year-old guy's wife said, "He was called earlier but he wasn't here." An elderly man sitting near us, shouted "You snooze, you lose. Get to the back of the line." My husband shot me a look, "Why are you causing trouble? Let's get out of here. I can wait until Friday for TV."
We left. Later that day, we found out our apartment complex has a Comcast rep who could deliver a box on Thursday, but he forgot a wire we needed for HDTV. Another new option we were unfamiliar with. That arrived on Friday, after I'd gone off on a rant about the evils of monopolies and deregulation. My husband ignored me, biding his time until he could slip into his recliner and channel surf to his heart's content.
Today is Monday. Last night, after the golf and some basketball (not the Celtics, they lost in the first round of the playoffs), we watched an HBO movie, Untamed Heart, which we both enjoyed. Yes, my husband added HBO to the cable package. So much for the inexpensive BlastPlus deal. But today is Monday. He has gone to work. I am writing and all is well in South Florida.
Earlier on Huff/Post50:
Genealogy
"I have over ten thousand names in my [genealogical] file and am hooked on not just the facts, but the story-writing. I reconnect with cousins I haven't seen since I was a teen. I meet new relatives online and in person, even fifth cousins, who I never know I had... There's nothing like knowing that you had an ancestor in the Battle of Saratoga..." -<em>Jean Benning</em>, 75
Cultural Immersion Travel
"I traveled with the Hershey (Pennsylvania) Community Chorus to sing in Wales. When you visit the valleys in the east it's like going back in time; people aren't attached to their computers and mobile phones. I started renting an apartment in the city of Pontypool for six months a year. Now I have a lot of friends there and even volunteer at a shop where the proceeds support cancer research." -<em>Judith Emmers</em>, 69
Exercise
"I'm lucky enough to live across the street from a gym. I go over there two mornings a week and work out for an hour at 5:30 a.m., and then see a trainer for another hour. I also do water aerobics three times a week. I do it so I can keep doing the things I love, not because I love the exercise. I didn't start exercising until I was sixty-six." -<em>Corinne Lyon</em>, 74
Travel
"I spent my seventieth birthday in a hot tub six thousand feet up Mount Hood. I didn't want my kids to think they had to do something special." -<em>Carolyn Rundorff</em>, 71
Group Bicycling
"A group of us organized a trip along the Natchez Trace from Nashville, Tennessee, to Natchez, Mississippi. We researched stops and places to stay, and every day one of us was the designated driver to haul the gear. You want to know the people fairly well before you set out on something like this. We covered 444 miles in less than a week." -<em>Bill Dunn</em>, 65
Book Clubs
"We started the Canetti Literary Society in December 1981. [Elias] Canetti...had just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I have a Masters in Literature and had never heard of Canetti. So I thought it was a good time to read his work, and the best way would be to have a book club with other women who might be interested in reading good literature. We are still in existence." -<em>Anne Richtel</em>, 95
Volunteering As A Docent
"I'm training to be a museum docent at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. The training to be certified is rigorous -- six hours a week for six weeks, then shadowing a certified docent, then delivering your spiel to two different staff members in two different areas of the museum." -<em>Therese Wilkin</em>, 63
Dancing
"I began morris dancing in 1984 and long sword dancing in 1989. These forms are English and date back several centuries. I get exercise; a very close bond with a group of people of both genders and a variety of ages; the challenge of learning and performing a wide variety of rather complex and demanding dances; and the satisfaction of helping keep ancient traditions alive and growing." -<em>Robert Orser</em>, 79
Gardening
"It is lovely to come to this physical and spiritual, scientific and creative body of knowledge at this point in my life. When I talk over the back fence with my gardening neighbors or give someone a bouquet of flowers from my garden, I know just how my grandmother and mother felt when they did the same thing." -<em>Ally McKay</em>, 68
Singing In A Choir
"We had one piece that we were doing at a festival, which we had only a short time to learn, and we rehearsed on the bus to Abilene. We were the last to perform, and our director was very nervous. We rehearsed one last time before going on, and everyone in the choir got every note right. It's a pleasure you can't understand if you haven't done it. It really keeps you going." -<em>Mary Roberson</em>, 70
Community Theater
"The best part of community theater is that no one cares about your politics, your religion, or your money. Everyone's on the same bus. I've gotten so much out of it. My closest friends come from there. The ones I depend on, the ones who have my back, come from the theater." -<em>Ellen Kazin</em>, 71
Writing
"When I retired I took several Road Scholar watercolor trips and subsequently read everything I could find on Winslow Homer... My wife suggested that I had uncovered so much material on Homer that I should write a book... The rewards are beyond my fondest dreams...I believe that has brought me as close to the Master as one can get." -<em>Robert Demarest</em>, 83
Learning A Foreign Language
"I started [studying Italian] when my husband and I were planning our first of four Road Scholar trips to Italy. I have found other people -- over two hundred of them, to be exact -- in an organization called Il Circolo Italiano on the Philadelphia Main Line, who come together to speak and promote the Italian Language and culture... They are the warmest people you would every want to meet." -<em>Jean Benning</em>, 75
Volunteering With Habitat For Humanity
"I wanted to do something in retirement that would give back to the community and to people in need, and this seemed to be an excellent candidate... The major reward is seeing families that are living in great need...partner with us in building first other people's and then their own homes, and then move into what in most cases is the first home they have ever owned." -<em>Robert Bond</em>, 75
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After Evernote, the personal note-taking app with 60 million+ users, got slammed with a security breach in February 2013, today the company is turning on three new features to give users better control over their accounts: two-step verification, access history and authorized applications listings. Two-step authentication will eventually get rolled out to all users, but a spokesperson tells TC that at first it will be only be rolled out to Premium (paying) users first, to make sure that the experience is right.
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Public release date: 14-May-2013
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