The nations weather (AP)

Weather Underground Forecast for Friday, December 30, 2011.

Wet and snowy conditions persist in the Northwest on Friday, while light rain and snow moves over the Great Lakes into the Northeast. A low pressure system off the coast of British Columbia pushes a strong cold front over the Pacific Northwest. This will produce more rain and high elevation snow showers. As this system moves into the Northern Rockies, it will continue triggering widespread snow showers. Expect 2 to 4 inches of snow across Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. However, heavy snow showers will persist for the Cascades, with 3 to 6 inches expected in most areas, with up to 18 inches across highest mountain peaks. Strong winds will accompany this system with gusts from 30 to 40 mph, up to 60 mph at high mountain passes.

In the East, a low pressure system will continue moving eastward, over the Great Lakes and Midwest, into the Northeast. This system will continue triggering a wintry mix of light precipitation. Snow showers are likely in the Northeast and across the Great Lakes, while precipitation will turn to rain showers in the Ohio River Valley and Midwest. Snowfall accumulation in most areas will range from 1 to 2 inches, expect more is likely across the downwind shores of the Great Lakes. Rainfall totals will range around a half of an inch across the Midwest.

The rest of the nation will see mild and dry weather as high pressure dominates over the Southern US. Expect dry weather with highs in the 60s from California and the Southwest through the Southern Plains and Southeast. Temperatures in the Lower 48 states Thursday have ranged from a morning low of -14 degrees at Mt. Washington, N.H. to a high of 77 degrees at Weslaco, Texas

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/weather/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111230/ap_on_re_us/us_weatherpage_weather

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Kim Zolciak Reveals the Wedding Moment She Won't Forget

With a new baby and a new husband, 2011 has certainly been a memorable year for Kim Zolciak. But the Real Housewives of Atlanta star -- who tied the knot with NFL player Kroy Biermann in November -- says there is one moment, in particular, that she'll always remember.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/real-housewife-kim-zolciak-talks-wedding-kroy-biermann/1-a-413225?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Areal-housewife-kim-zolciak-talks-wedding-kroy-biermann-413225

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North Koreans' Tears, Sadness Upon Kim Jong Il's Death (Time.com)

Ever since North Korea announced the death of Kim Jong Il, the wailing has come nonstop. From the woman in black on television, who announced that the Dear Leader had slipped these surly bonds of earth, to those who have gathered daily since then to moan and wail and beat their chests in agonized sadness, the North Koreans have shown that they do public grief better than anyone else.

And make no mistake: they have just begun to weep. Tomorrow, Dec. 28, when Kim Jong Il's funeral takes place in Pyongyang, the masses will be bawling and howling. They'll cry like few men (or women) have cried before. As the rest of the world has watched these scenes, most people are asking a very reasonable question: Are these people nuts? (See photos of Kim Jong Il lying in state.)

After all, it's not as if they had been living somewhere else when tens if not hundreds of thousands of their fellow North Koreans died of starvation in the late 1990s, the direct result of the ludicrous economic policies put in place by the Dear Leader. They walked past the corpses every day. "Everyone knew what was going on," says Kim Shin-yong, who defected from the North in 2002. Nor are they unaware that thousands of others have been flung into the country's notorious political prisons, many for no other reason than being related to somebody who had somehow offended the regime. Yet out they've come, crying their eyes out for a leader who is a sure-shot first-ballot entrant into the Despots Hall of Fame.

Why do they do it? The answer, as is usual in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is complicated. Many psychologists who view these scenes from afar consider them legitimate. Raised in isolation and fed an unrelenting diet of personality-cult-driven propaganda for their entire lives, a people can feel rudderless and grief-stricken when they hear that Kim has joined his late father, the Great Leader Kim Il Sung, in the afterlife. Scott Atran, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, notes accurately enough that the people of North Korea were told from Day One that virtually everything they have came from the Dear Leader, "and they have no alternative form of reality." And mass grief, though particularly intense in North Korea, isn't wholly unique. Chinese of a certain age recall that when Mao Zedong died in 1976, many Chinese were shocked into tears that the father of their country was no longer with them.

But as Jane Bolton, a psychiatrist, wrote last year in Psychology Today, "a lot of misunderstanding happens around the act of crying," and in North Korea, is that ever true. There are reasons other than grief that enter into play that, to put it politely, would not be a factor elsewhere. Cheong Seong Chang, a longtime North Korea watcher in Seoul, notes that mid-level party officials, if they are seen to be wailing louder than co-workers, "might get promoted." (See 10 things you didn't know about North Korea's new leader Kim Jong Un.)

And it's what happens to that other guy -- the guy stupid enough not to be wailing in public -- that provides the real motivation. Scholars of the system in North Korea say that if you are out and about and happen upon a group of criers, you'd best be seen crying too -- particularly if there are cameras rolling. As Lee Sung Yoon, a researcher for the National Asia Research Program, told CNN recently, "If you're not devastated by the news, you might get in trouble."

North Korean defectors say you can eliminate the might from that sentence: the country, they claim, has a network of domestic informants that makes the old East German Stasi look like amateurs. The fact that the Dear Leader could preside over a famine like the one in the '90s and not have the regime even wobble shows just how tight a grip the government has on its benighted population.

The question -- almost unknowable from the outside -- is, What happens behind closed doors? Are the Koreans still crying? North Korea watchers observe that there is less intensity to the public displays of grief this time than when Kim Il Sung, the founder of the DPRK, died in 1994. They further note that the population is not quite as ignorant of the outside world today as it was back then. Modern technologies (cell phones and DVDs from South Korea and China) find their way into the country these days. Thousands defected in the wake of the famine, and many figured out ways to get messages back to friends and relatives about what life is like in China -- or in South Korea, if they are lucky enough to make it that far. (See pictures of the busy life of Kim Jong Il.)

Still, clues about what North Koreans actually think are maddeningly elusive. You take them where you can and try to fit them into the puzzle. Consider this: I spent a few days visiting a new university just outside Pyongyang about two weeks before Kim Jong Il died. The school is attended by elite kids, many of them connected to senior levels of government or the military. Some of the faculty and administration of this experimental new school -- all of whom are foreigners -- were on campus when the announcement of Kim's death came. I asked one person how the students had reacted to the news. Was there wailing, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments? "They were quiet, definitely," this person said. "But there was no crying."

None? "No. None that I saw."

Which was a relief to hear. The kids who attend this school are anything but stupid. They know a bit about the outside world, but they are also very much products of the regime. That there wasn't a damp eye in the house is not, frankly, what I was expecting to hear. Remember that the next time you see news footage of what one friend of mine in Seoul calls "the great North Korean wailing contest." Not everything is as it seems in North Korea, and they're not as nuts as they look.

See TIME's 2011 Person of the Year: The Protester.

See TIME's Top 10 Everything of 2011.

View this article on Time.com

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20111227/wl_time/08599210315800

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TheWilsonTimes: Wilson, Edgecombe, Wayne and Sampson counties are under a tornado watch until 7 p.m.

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Fuller picture emerges of fatal, chaotic US-Pakistan firefight

US military on Monday released the full report about a late-November 'incident' on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, in which US forces killed 24 Pakistani troops, mistaking them for insurgents.

As US-Pakistan relations continue to deteriorate after the US military mistakenly killed two dozen Pakistani military troops in late November, a new Pentagon report about the incident paints a picture of chaos on both sides and of US ground forces in Afghanistan pinned down by surprisingly accurate fire from what turned out to be Pakistani forces.

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It also points to the emergence of a troubling trend, in which insurgents bent on defeating US and allied forces in Afghanistan disguise themselves as Pakistani military troops to move about more freely near the border ? and also perhaps, senior US military officials warn, to bait US forces into behaving in a way that damages US-Pakistan relations.

Brig. Gen. Stephen Clark of the Air Forces Special Operations Command, who led the US military?s investigation of the incident along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, briefed reporters on the preliminary findings last week, but the full report was not released until Monday.

It provides new eyebrow-raising details of the cross-border ?incident,? as the Pentagon report refers to it, which at times is portrayed as a harrowing battle in which US Special Forces were pinned down by Pakistani troops whom they believed to be insurgents.

It was just after 11 p.m. on Nov. 25 that US military ground forces just inside the Afghanistan border in Kunar Province ?came under fire from a heavy machine gun? from the Pakistan side, the report states. Within a few more minutes, US forces ?came under accurate mortar fire.??

That?s when US troops requested a ?show of force? from a fighter jet nearby. An F-15 responded 10 minutes later, ?at high speed and at low altitude dispensing flares.?

As the live fire from Pakistani troops continued, US forces apparently considered leaving the area, according to the report. However, the US forces? team leader ?could not extract his troops due to continuing accurate fire.??

The report also noted that ?attempts by the GF [ground forces] to move away from their positions at that time would have increased the GF exposure to, and risk from, the fires they were receiving.?

As US forces requested permission to fire back, the team leader ?called his superior to verify that the fire was not coming from PAKMIL [Pakistani military] positions.? He was told it was not. US forces than fired a Hellfire missile into a bunker and shot at other ?hostile personnel.??

That?s when the Pakistani military reported it was taking fire. US forces fired for a total of 45 minutes during a 90-minute period that left 24 Pakistani troops dead and 13 wounded, according to the report.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/tC_3H0FZEn8/Fuller-picture-emerges-of-fatal-chaotic-US-Pakistan-firefight

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FDA warns docs on wart remover and eye salve mix-ups (Reuters)

(Reuters) ? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned healthcare workers on Wednesday to be careful when using two similarly named but very different drugs, saying a recent mix-up involving the two medications had injured a patient.

The agency said the incident occurred when a pharmacist confused Durasal, a wart remover not approved by the FDA, with Durezol, an FDA-approved steroidal eyedrop used to treat inflammation and pain following eye surgery.

The agency said the mix-up -- the latest in a series of cases involving confusion between the two drugs -- had caused "serious injury" to the patient.

Normally, the FDA said it screens proprietary names as part of the drug approval process to avoid any confusion with products already on the market. But because the wart remover was an unapproved product, its name was not vetted by the agency.

The FDA said that Elorac Inc, the Vernon Hills, Illinois-based distributor of the Durasal, had not responded to a request from the agency that it remove the product from the market place and has not recalled the product despite the FDA's concern about the risk it poses to patients.

Jeffrey Bernstein, a spokesman for Elorac, did not immediately return a message requesting comment on the FDA's warning.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/meds/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111228/hl_nm/us_drug_name_mixup

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North Korea to loom large in Japan-China summit

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda heads to Beijing on Sunday as the first foreign leader to meet the Chinese leadership after the death of North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il.

President Hu Jintao could use the occasion to assure the international community that Beijing was working to ensure a stable transition of power in its reclusive and impoverished partner, Japanese experts said.

"It is unlikely that China will reveal everything it knows. It is more likely that Chinese leaders will give assurances that they are calling on Pyongyang to ensure stability and order," said Shin Kawashima, associate professor at the University of Tokyo.

Noda's overnight visit was set for December 12 and 13 but rescheduled to Sunday and Monday at China's request, apparently for domestic reasons, which some suggested were to do with its falling on the Nanjing Massacre anniversary.

Noda, who came to power in September, will welcome the chance of more face time with Chinese leaders, as Beijing readies to promote younger leaders, with Vice President Xi Jinping seen as the most likely replacement for Hu.

Noda met with Hu in November on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Honolulu and agreed to make "reciprocal efforts" to enhance ties, often dogged by economic and territorial disputes.

But Kim's death has shifted the agenda from bilateral issues to global worries about nuclear-armed North Korea, where Kim's untested young son Kim Jong-Un appears to be taking the reins of the Stalinist state.

Almost nothing is known about him, including his grasp on the North's military and how he might respond to global calls to open up the country.

"China holds the key for assuring stability in North Korea," said Takehiko Yamamoto, professor at Waseda University.

Japan, having no ties with the North, can do little other than support China's engagement with Pyongyang, he said.

"You might call it an achievement if Japan and China only confirm their joint resolve to work together to protect peace and stability in northeast Asia including on the Korean peninsula," he said.

On the bilateral front, the two Asian giants will go over a list of touchy issues, including territorial and energy field disputes in the East China Sea as well as China's increasingly assertive naval posture in the region.

Japan will urge China towards a framework dialogue to set rules for the development of gas fields in the East China Sea, near disputed islands called Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyu in Chinese.

The two are still trying to heal diplomatic wounds inflicted a year ago when China reacted in fury over the arrest of one of its fishermen near the islands after he rammed his ship into Japanese coastguard vessels.

An irate Beijing cut or seriously reduced trade, diplomatic and cultural exchanges until Japan climbed down and released the trawlerman.

The leaders are expected to agree to hold periodic meetings of senior diplomats and defence officials in a bid to avoid similar confrontations.

China is expected to be fairly placatory ahead of the 40th anniversary of the normalisation of diplomatic ties in September, an event it wants to pass off smoothly.

"China wants the celebration to end with no troubles. Perhaps China will not offer anything new, but it should be seen as a reflection of their caution," Kawashima said.

Noda and Hu will likely agree on a plan for Japan to purchase Chinese government bonds, a first for an industrial power, in a move that would strengthen financial ties and diversify Tokyo's forex holdings.

From Tokyo's point of view, this will help hedge against exposure to the dollar at a time the yen has remained stubbornly high.

It will also mark a victory for Beijing as it seeks to internationalise its currency.

Noda is also expected to outline his decision to join negotiations on the US-led trans-Pacific partnership (TPP), a potential rival to China's push for a trade pact with ASEAN states and their neighbors, including Japan.

Japan, whose biggest trade partners are China followed by the US, is trying to keep its feet in both camps and maintain access to all key markets in the greater Asia-Pacific region.

Among diplomatic niceties, Noda is also expected to thank China for its assistance in the aftermath of the march earthquake and tsunami, and to ask that Beijing send a pair of pandas to hard-hit Sendai to boost morale.

Source: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/North_Korea_to_loom_large_in_Japan-China_summit_999.html

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Swelling subsiding on Romo's bruised throwing hand

/

By STEPHEN HAWKINS

updated 7:28 p.m. ET Dec. 26, 2011

IRVING, Texas - All the negative tests on quarterback Tony Romo's bruised throwing hand are positives for the Dallas Cowboys.

Coach Jason Garrett said Monday that the swelling is going down and that a number of different tests have confirmed the original diagnosis of nothing being broken in Romo's right hand. The Cowboys are hopeful that he can practice Wednesday.

"It looks like it is getting better. All the X-rays and tests that have come back are negative," Garrett said. "We hope in the next couple of days with treatment he'll be able to take a snap and hold a football and throw it the way he needs to."

When asked if Romo could grip a football, the coach responded, "He has a relatively firm handshake."

All indications are that Romo will be ready for Sunday night's game at the New York Giants that will determine who wins the NFC East and goes to the playoffs.

"I believe in Tony," safety Abram Elam said. "I know it's going to take a lot to keep him from playing in this game."

The Cowboys (8-7) will be without starting left guard Montrae Holland, who was put on season-ending injured reserve Monday with a partially torn left biceps sustained in the 20-7 loss to Philadelphia on Saturday.

"I got caught in a position where I tried to catch a guy and try to pull him back in front of me, and it didn't work," Holland said Monday. "It wasn't the right position to be in."

Veteran guard Derrick Dockery will likely start in Holland's spot.

Dallas has lost three of its past four games since sweeping through its four games in November to take over the division lead. That slide includes a 37-34 loss at home to the Giants on Dec. 11, when New York overcame a 12-point deficit with two touchdowns in the final 3? minutes.

The rematch determines the NFC East champion, with the loser missing the playoffs at 8-8.

"For us, things have gone our way enough to give us this chance," Garrett said. "You can look back at the successes that we had that maybe we shouldn't have had and maybe some of the disappointments we've had that maybe we shouldn't have had. That's the Giants. That's every team in this league."

When the Giants wrapped up their victory against the New York Jets on Saturday, not long after Romo banged his hand on the helmet of a defender in the opening series against Philadelphia, the outcome of the Cowboys' game was rendered meaningless in determining the division title.

Romo never returned to the game, though he has since said he will play against the Giants in the winner-take-the-division game. He didn't appear in the locker room Monday when it was open to reporters.

Running back Felix Jones, who started against the Eagles after missing practice all last week with hamstring tightness, was out of the game soon after Romo got hurt and the Giants had won.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was even on the sideline in the first quarter of Saturday's game speaking with Garrett.

The coach said it was about the plan they already had for the players that came into the game banged-up, as well as Romo, based on the outcome of the Giants game.

"My understanding is he came down to see how Tony was doing and then got the information about what the result was of the Giants and Jets game and told me. It's not a big issue to me at all," Garrett said Monday.

"We are a team. We are a team as players, coaches and personnel people and certainly our general manager and owner. And we communicate. ... We just wanted to be on the same page in that situation."

The coach said he thought the Cowboys handled things right in not risking further injury to Romo or Felix Jones. The running back could practice this week.

Garrett said it's not complicated what he wants to see this week from Romo. The coach wants to make sure Romo can take a snap, grip the ball, throw it and hand it off.

"Quarterbacks that have had injuries in the past, and really, it's a functional type thing," Garrett said. "(The snap) is the first thing you have to evaluate, and then how's he gripping it? How accurate is he when he's throwing it? Does everything have to be perfect for him to throw it well? Because as you know, that position is a spontaneous one, and he's certainly a spontaneous quarterback."

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Brees surpasses Marino

??Drew Brees set the NFL record for yards passing in a season, breaking a mark that Dan Marino had held since 1984, and the New Orleans Saints clinched the NFC South title with a 45-16 victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Monday night.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45792048/ns/sports-nfl/

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Aretha's Christmas: 'Silent Night' with Four Tops (omg!)

DETROIT (AP) ? Detroit's Queen of Soul knows how to throw a Christmas party, and she welcomed in the holiday with glitter, a jazzy musical backdrop and a finale of "Silent Night" with the Four Tops.

Aretha Franklin held her annual Christmas party on Friday at the Detroit Athletic Club, greeting guests in a teal blue gown accented with a silver sequined bodice.

The Detroit News reports (http://bit.ly/tPkXO9 ) that Franklin exchanged gifts with family and friends as Ursula Walker, Buddy Budson, Marian Hayden and Gayelynn McKinney played jazz in the background.

During a meal of filet mignon and salmon, guests were entertained by performances by Gwen & Charles Scales and Franklin's son Eddie Franklin, who sang "Some Enchanted Evening."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_arethas_christmas_silent_night_four_tops173957466/44007234/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/arethas-christmas-silent-night-four-tops-173957466.html

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Nguyen Du commented on article Par Value: Vietnamese Investors Sink Savings Into Golf Memberships

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VT nears completion of HokieSpeed, world's 96th most powerful supercomputer

If basking in the presence of a powerful supercomputer is on your list of "must-haves" when selecting a proper university, then you may wish to fire off an admissions application to the Hokies at Virginia Tech. The school's HokieSpeed system is now in its final stages of testing, which combines 209 separate computers, each powered by dual six-core Xeon E5645 CPUs and two NVIDIA M2050 / C2050 448-core GPUs, with a single-precision peak processing capability of 455 teraflops. To put things in perspective, HokieSpeed is now the 96th most powerful computer in the world, and yet it was built for merely $1.4 million in loose change -- the majority of which came from a National Science Foundation grant. As a further claim to fame, HokieSpeed is the 11th most energy-efficient supercomputer in the world. Coming soon, the system will drive a 14-foot wide by four-foot tall visualization wall, which is to consist of eight 46-inch Samsung 3D televisions humming in unison. After all, with virtually limitless potential, these scientists will need a fitting backdrop for all those Skyrim sessions. The full PR follows the break, complete with commentary from the system's mastermind, Professor Wu Feng.

Continue reading VT nears completion of HokieSpeed, world's 96th most powerful supercomputer

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NBA Gives Fans Gift Of 5 Games On Christmas

Basketball fans who endured a five-month NBA lockout can enjoy a marathon of games Sunday, with five match-ups scheduled for Christmas day. The season tips off with the Boston Celtics vs. the New York Knicks. But perhaps the biggest game of the day will be a rematch of last season's NBA Finals, between the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat. Other matches include the Chicago Bulls vs. the Los Angeles Lakers; the Orlando Magic vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder; and the Los Angeles Clippers vs. the Golden State Warriors. In November, NBA players and owners had reached a tentative deal to end the league's months-long lockout. At the center of the dispute behind the lockout was the debate over how much of the league's revenue share should go to players, including for pensions and medical benefits -- something their union funded in the past. Owners had sought to change the old revenue-sharing arrangement that gave players 57% of the revenue. The new deal offers a virtual 50-50 split.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45786546/ns/local_news-houston_tx/

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OnLive Now Playing Friendly With The Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY

Does anyone out there actually own Sony Ericsson's handset-formerly-known-as-Playstation-phone, the Xperia Play? I've never seen one in the wild. Not once. If any Play owners are out there reading: A) raise your hand, and B) know that your device learned a cool new trick today. That fancy slide-out gamepad built into your device? It's now compatible with OnLive's crazy gaming-in-the-cloud service.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/8err-bbo9Q8/

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What are Steve Jobs' most notable failures?

Like The Architect would say, NeXT was quite naturally perfect. It was a work of art. Flawless. Sublime. A triumph only equaled by its monumental failure.

First, some context: back when NeXT was created Jobs went from being the guy from Apple to the guy who got his ass thrown from Apple, after trying to stage a coup BTW.

Now NeXT computers weren't that expensive considering prices of the time and how advanced it was. Problem is it happened right when the PC became a commodity, no longer an expensive tool for companies and white collar workers. Jobs couldn't adapt to that, he started back when a good computer was almost the prize of a car (if not more) and now he became the old guy that still takes the train and wonders why everybody travels by plane now.

Those were the days of outsourcing manufacturing, yet Jobs wasted a ton of money building a state-of-the-art factory. He wouldn't even buy the motherboards, it was all soldered and assembled right there. I guess that's why he became a big supporter of overseas factories, even saying the Segway was doomed to fail because it was made in the US (and he had a point, given his own experience).

Paul's note about the fancy NeXT boxes its funny considering that's the kind of attention to details that people love about Apple now. But packaging wasn't a big deal back in the '80s and 90's, nor was minimalism.?

In fact those were the times of quantity=quality, of "multimedia" devices, consoles with lots of addons, cars with green LCD displays all over the place, all-in-one PCs with TVs built-in, and big remotes full of buttons.?

Yeah, you need training to handle that.

People are used to Apple's compromises today, but back then compromise was the F word: feature bloat was the rule, not the exception and not by any means a mistake. A product was considered subpar if it didn't have at least 3 separate functions, even if it sucked at all 3. The microwave/toaster/coffeemaker? that's from the '90s...

And BTW, mind Jobs used almost all of his own money on NeXT, he paid $100,000 out of his pocket for the logo alone. There were other investors on board but he was the only one that was going to end up broke if NeXT failed.

And it did, at least the original idea: nobody bought a NeXT, not even the cheaper pizzabox model. However he avoided bankruptcy by doing a 180? and embracing one of the other big trends of the '90s: software. He downscaled NeXT to the NeXTSTEP OS, which is ironic considering the original idea for NeXT was a computer and the OS was added by Jobs along development, one of the first mistakes he made since it not only added several millions in costs but it also delayed the launch of the Cube, killing most of the momentum it had.

How it affected Jobs? well, to start nobody cared or knew who he was during the '90s. Gates was famous, nobody outside IT talked about Windows being a copy of the Mac, it was all ancient history. When Jobs came back to Apple in '97 for most of the people out there it was the last gasp of the Cupertino boys. Apple was doomed, and the dude from the square-thingy computer that was used to code DOOM but that nobody actually bought to play that insanely popular game* was not going to be able to save it.

There was no red carpet at Infinite Loop, no hero's return: the only reason why Jobs made it back to Apple its because they were desperate for a new OS after Copland failed. How bad was Jobs' image back then? well to put it into perspective some people were actually disappointed (and still are) that Apple didn't bought Be Inc, using BeOS instead and bringing back Gass? who was doing a good job before Sculley also fired him.

That he managed to climb out of that hole is nothing short of a miracle.

*On defense of gamers, the version for the NeXT cube and station had a sluggish framerate and no sound.

Source: http://www.quora.com/Steve-Jobs/What-are-Steve-Jobs-most-notable-failures/answer/Juan-Videla

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Fashion's most relatable new trends arrive early (Providence Journal)

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New York Times: College Football Is In Crisis, What With The Resume Padding And Child Rape And Things Like That [Journalismism]

Today's New York Times writes up the resignation of Yale football coach Tom Williams, caught in a resume-padding scandal after he claimed to have been a former Rhodes Scholarship finalist. A two-bylined investigation by the Times in November, as Yale quarterback Patrick Witt was dropping out of the Rhodes process so he wouldn't miss the Harvard game, found no evidence that Williams had applied for a Rhodes at all. That prompted an internal inquiry at Yale, which led to Williams stepping down.

The Times rehashed the Rhodes investigation today, and added that further reporting had also contradicted Williams's claim that he had briefly been a non-playing free-agent addition to the San Francisco 49ers roster. "Caught in lies," the headline said. The text likewise called Williams's Rhodes story a "lie." (For comparison, in 2004, while debunking the Bush Administration's case that Iraq had an active nuclear-weapons program, the Newspaper of Record called the administration's claims "largely one-sided" and wrote that officials had failed to "convey the depth of evidence" contradicting them. )

Then the Times dropped back to put the whole Williams scandal in context:

Witt's story gained attention just as the child sexual abuse scandal fully engulfed Penn State. Jerry Sandusky, a longtime top assistant to Joe Paterno, had been charged with molesting young boys over many years. Paterno, who had failed to act aggressively when alerted years ago that Sandusky had been seen assaulting a child on Penn State property, was soon fired.

The Penn State scandal, at the time, was only the latest and worst in a series of embarrassments for college football programs. The University of Miami was placed under investigation this fall after it was reported that a convicted swindler had deeply infiltrated the football team, with cash and favors. Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel lost his job, in part for failing to report and later lying about a scandal involving his players.

Padding your resume?a football tradition going back to Vince Lombardi, at least?is the same kind of thing as raping children. Giving athletes cash and favors? Also like raping children. Free tattoos? Child rape. In case you were wondering what we mean when we talk about the toy morality of the people who cover college sports, there you have it.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/deadspin/excerpts/~3/8_DPWAiz_bY/new-york-times-college-football-is-in-crisis-what-with-the-resume-padding-and-child-rape-and-things-like-that

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Plane crashes on New Jersey highway, bankers killed (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? A small private plane crashed on a busy New Jersey highway on Tuesday, killing five people including two managing directors with New York-based investment bank Greenhill & Co Inc.

The single-engine Socata plane took off from New Jersey's Teterboro Airport and was headed for DeKalb Peachtree Airport near Atlanta, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said.

The plane crashed onto Interstate 287 near Morristown, New Jersey, police said.

Jeffrey Buckalew, 45, head of Greenhill's North American advisory activities, was believed to have been on the plane along with his wife and two children, the firm said.

The plane belonged to Buckalew, who joined Greenhill in 1996 from Salomon Brothers. He was an experienced pilot with a passion for flying, Greenhill said.

Also on board was Rakesh Chawla, 36, a Greenhill financial services sector banker, the firm added.

"Jeff was one of the first employees of Greenhill. He and Rakesh were extraordinary professionals who were highly respected by colleagues and clients alike," Greenhill Chairman Robert Greenhill and Chief Executive Scott Bok said in a joint statement. "They will be sorely missed and our sympathies go out to their families and friends."

New Jersey state police Trooper Christopher Kay said five people were confirmed dead, but did not name them.

Before the crash, the plane made contact with an air traffic controller asking for permission to seek higher altitude, which was granted, Peters said. Following this, the transmission became garbled and the plane disappeared from radar, he added.

Buckalew had served as an adviser for Delta Air Lines during merger talks with Northwest Airlines. He also worked on Roche's squeeze-out of Genentech, and Dow Chemical's Rohm & Haas deal. Chalwa had joined the firm in 2003 from The Blackstone Group.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Will Dunham)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111220/bs_nm/us_greenhill

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Google, KKR invest in California solar project

Online search and advertising giant Google is teaming with investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. to develop four solar energy farms serving the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California.

Google, Inc. said Tuesday on its Green Blog that it will spend $94 million on the projects and work with KKR and solar developer Recurrent Energy, a division of Sharp Corp., on the projects.

Construction on three of the projects will be complete early next year, and the fourth will come on line later in the year.

The projects are expected to provide electricity to power more than 13,000 average U.S. homes. Electricity produced by three of the projects is contracted for 20 years with the utility district, Google said.

It's the latest in a series of renewable energy investments for Google, which has said it is disappointed that it can't buy renewable electricity for its power-hungry data centers and wants to invest to help renewable power expand in scale.

Google earns what it describes as attractive returns on its investments by capturing local and federal renewable energy tax credits and charging interest on the money it supplies for the projects.

Google said it has invested more than $915 million in clean energy projects, including $800 million this year. Google has invested in wind farms in North Dakota, California and Oregon, solar projects in California and Germany, and a project off the East coast of the U.S. meant to help make offshore wind farms possible.

In September, Google announced it would set up a $75 million fund to help local installers offer special financing deals to homeowners who want to put solar panels on their roofs. In June, the company announced a $280 million deal with installer SolarCity to help it offer similar deals.

Google's Sacramento solar deal represents its first U.S. investment in a large-scale solar project that generates energy for a grid, rather than rooftop systems that provide power to homes or businesses.

KKR said the project is its first U.S. renewable energy investment. It has invested in a French wind farm operator and a Spanish solar energy company.

Prices of solar panels have fallen dramatically over the last year as more solar manufacturing plants have been built, raw material costs have fallen, and renewable energy subsidies in Europe, solar's biggest market, have dried up.

This has been a boon for installers, utilities and homeowners. Solar installations are on pace to double in the U.S. this year for the second year in a row. MidAmerican Energy, the Iowa utility owned by Berkshire Hathaway, announced investments in two enormous solar farms this month, one in Arizona and one in California.

But for panel makers, the low prices have eroded their profits.

First Solar, among the world's largest solar companies, has cut earnings and revenue estimates for 2011 and its share price has fallen 75 percent this year. The company, based in Tempe, Ariz., expects to report charges of 85 cents per share related to a series of cost-cutting moves this year, including layoffs of about 100 people.

In September, California solar panel maker Solyndra LLC, which received a $528 million federal loan and was touted by the Obama administration as a "green jobs" creator, filed for bankruptcy court protection, citing low panel prices.

Jonathan Fahey can be reached at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey .

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2011-12-20-Google-Solar%20Investment/id-85a5d8cc282e4d5dbc002217961f2a9c

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Playstation Vita Has Japanese Enthusiasts Lining Up In Thousands

TOKYO ? Sony's long-awaited PlayStation Vita portable game machine hit stores in Japan on Saturday as thousands of game enthusiasts lined up early in the morning to be among the first to buy it.

Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is predicting brisk sales, even though the launch may have missed some holiday shoppers. A successful debut would help the company offset the rest of its struggling business. Sony projects a loss of more than $1 billion for the fiscal year through March 2012, which would be its fourth straight annual loss.

In Tokyo's Ikebukuro shopping district, some 300 game enthusiasts lined up outside a major electronics chain that opened a few hours earlier than usual for the event. Many of the purchasers had made advance orders on the Internet so they could start playing immediately.

The device is a touch-interface and motion-sensitive handheld seen as a successor to the PlayStation Portable. Gamers can connect over cellphone networks and Wi-Fi hotspots, and use GPS location-tracking technology.

Television footage showed some shoppers unwrapping their new purchases and starting to try them out at the store.

"I'm so happy to see so many people lining up for PS Vita so early in the morning," Sony Computer Entertainment Japan President Hiroshi Kono wrote in his official blog after touring several Tokyo stores. "I can tell they had anxiously waited for today's launch."

For the Tokyo-based electronics and entertainment giant, the Vita is the biggest product launch since the PlayStation 3 console five years ago. It's also accompanied by two dozen software products ? the largest number of launch titles in PlayStation history.

The Vita has front and back cameras, a touchscreen in front, a touch pad on the back and two knob-like joysticks. It will enable gamers to play against each other using PlayStation 3 consoles over the Internet-based PlayStation Network, a system that was hit with a massive hacking attack earlier this year.

Vita's launch will heat up competition with rival Nintendo Co.'s 3DS. Nintendo Co.'s 3DS had a disappointing start despite the company's efforts to market its 3-D technology, with critics complaining about a lack of interesting games. Nintendo ended up slashing prices on the 3DS within six months.

The companies are challenged by the rise of smartphones and tablets, through which casual gamers play inexpensive and simple games like the mega-hit "Angry Birds."

The PS Vita goes on sale in North America and Europe on Feb. 22.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/17/playstation-vita-has-japa_n_1155083.html

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Open Thread (Balloon Juice)

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James Napoli: If Santa Was Jesus: The Passion of the Claus

I'm celebrating being a couple of months into my second year of blogging on Huffington Post. I want to thank everyone in the HuffPo blog community and the blog team staff. I'd like to say that this unconventional holiday post was my present for you, but, well, it just wouldn't be right. You'll see what I mean.

Gather round, children as I tell you a tale from a time long ago. A time before we lived in the perfect world you and I know today. The happy world we so enjoy, in which peace reigns on earth and no one wants more than they already have.

But it was not always this way.

The Three Wise Guys, Carmine, Vinnie and Dominic, were the first to hear of the wonderful new prophet: the prophet who would bring to the world heedless commerce and an endless array of unnecessary products. Guided by whatever star looked the most like the one they saw when they last looked up at the night sky, the Three Wise Guys made their pilgrimage to witness the birth of the baby Claus.

His name was Norbert. Mary and Joe Claus were nonplussed upon hearing that their infant Norbert would one day lead the world into a bold new era of trade and commerce. "He's gonna be the first prophet to make a profit," quipped Carmine, at which point the Three Wise Guys were asked to leave. Indeed, they would have been consigned to the scrap heap of history but for their miniaturized likenesses, which appeared in dioramas of the birth of the Claus. These were merchandised to unsuspecting citizens during the brief but unsettling time in which Santa Claus and his movement held the land in its grip. Which was soon to come.

When Norbert Claus was 10 years old, he was working tirelessly in Joe Claus' functional furniture shop when he was beset by a vision. "Father," he confided, "I see a time when we will craft more frivolous, more diversionary objects. Little vehicles with wheels that can spin, for example, called toys."

Joe thought this odd, but continued to listen. "You see, dad, people will soon be feeling a sucking void of meaninglessness in their lives. And they will need to buy all manner of toys to make them feel better. Then, by extension, when they are unable to communicate their feelings to those they love, they can buy things for them, too. These will be called presents." As Joe Claus chalked up young Norbert's musings to going a bit hard on the Red Bull, Norbert abruptly announced his departure, declaring that he must now roam from village to village, preaching this new way of life.

Before long, Norbert attracted a cadre of follower elves and a former telemarketer named Mary Marmalade, who helped him craft his 'toys' in a workshop and sell them on street corners. In this way, Norbert healed all those who wanted to use products to cure their ennui. It was Rumpo, Norbert's closest elf confidant, who suggested the beard, fat suit and boots; and the name change to the more reverent Santa. This image makeover, combined with the Sermon on the Snow Mound ("blessed are the customer service centers, for they shall help build brand loyalty...") changed the course of history. Soon, demand exceeded supply. And the news of the public's mania for gadgets and toys reached the unhappy ear of the local king, whose name was King King.

King King could not abide anybody becoming more popular than he was. He bribed Rumpo with a stack of Visa gift cards, and when Rumpo kissed his master in the Garden of GetSomeForMe, Santa Claus was jailed. Mary Marmalade sat beneath his window each night, lulling him to sleep with the moving ballad I Don't Know What To Buy Him. But with their shopping savior out of sight, the populous soon awoke as from a dream, wondering how they could ever have felt that buying useless baubles could ever replace human love.

But King King was kind, and on the day set aside for public banishment, he gave the crowd a choice. On his left: Santa Claus, accused of employing elfin accomplices and introducing the purchase of worthless objects as an opiate to an otherwise fairly well-adjusted citizenry. On his right: a man named Barnabas, who had been arrested on four counts of assault, and one count of attempting to marry an alpaca. "Which one would you have me banish?" King King asked of the assembly.

"The other guy!" shouted the crowd as one, throwing the easily flustered King into a tailspin with which he decided to contend by playing rock-paper-scissors with each of the accused. Santa Claus lost. And so he was run out of town on a sleigh pulled by nine reindeer from the stables of Rankin/Bass and angrily pelted with plush stuffed animals as he went. In a later filmed version, these violent moments were captured in hideous slow motion by director Mel Gibson.

Happily, as we know, the message of consumerism never really caught on. And from our perspective as a highly evolved society in which buying things to fill a hole inside of us is an almost laughable concept, we can look upon the legend of the Santa Claus as nothing more than a charming folk tale. A folk tale, however, that did make an excellent movie, which would be pretty awesome to watch on a brand new HD, 3D ready flat screen. That is, if you're cool enough to have one of those.

James Napoli is an author and humorist. More of his comedy content for the web can be found here.

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Follow James Napoli on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JamesNapoli

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-napoli/holiday-humor_b_1147636.html

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Can ignorance make a better democracy?

Ignorance can be bliss, but it seems it can also promote democracy.

Strongly opinionated members can determine a group's consensus decision, even when they make up only a small minority. New research of animal behavior shows, however, that adding ignorant or uninformed members to the group can counteract the minority?s powerful influence and promote a more democratic outcome.

Researchers used several computer models to investigate the decision-making process in various animal groups when a majority wants to travel in one direction and a minority wants to go in another.

When the strength of the two packs' preferences was equal, the group was much more likely to follow the majority. But when the minority had stronger feelings than the rest of the group about its direction, it was able to control the decision.

When the researchers added a third crowd that was ignorant of the options, the majority was able to spontaneously wrestle the decision back from the minority.

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   4. Can ignorance make a better democracy?

"It's very counterintuitive," said Iain Couzin, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University, who was lead author of the study published in the Dec. 15 issue of the journal Science. "We previously assumed that uninformed individuals promote extremism by being easily exploited by the (strong) minority."

Democratic fish
Couzin and his colleagues performed follow-up experiments with a school of freshwater fish to see how well their models apply to the real world. "One of the nice things about animal groups like schooling fish is that you can read out what they are trying to do just from their motion," Couzin told LiveScience.

Using a group of golden shiners, the researchers trained two groups of the fish to associate a food reward with two different color targets: one yellow, one blue. The fish, like humans and other animals, have certain sensory biases, Couzin explained. Just as humans have an innate reaction to the color red, golden shiners are naturally attracted to yellow, so the fish trained to expect food by following yellow dots were more strongly drawn to their target than those trained with blue dots.

When the researchers brought the two groups together and the yellow-target fish were in the minority (five yellow to six blue), the school of golden shiners followed the smaller group about 80 percent of the time. But when the researchers added five untrained fish to the mix, the group chose the majority?s blue target half the time.

With 10 untrained fish, the group chose the blue target more than 60 percent of the time, showing that ignorant individuals really can promote a more democratic decision.

Couzin is interested in determining how widespread the phenomenon is by testing the decision-making model in other groups, including humans. He?d also like to look for this process in the activity of nerve cells.

"There are fundamental parallels between decisions in groups and neural decision-making," he said. "There's likely to be a whole bunch of neurons that don?t have information and can be persuaded by other neurons."

A human connection?
Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington evolutionary biologist, said he was surprised by the results and is curious to see what happens when there are more than two options (or preferences) available.

"The dynamics between groups can get extremely complicated," said Bergstrom, who was not involved in Couzin's research but who, with his University of Washington colleague Jevin West, wrote a perspective piece accompanying the research article.

The scientists stressed that the results of the study cannot be extrapolated to decision-making in human groups. Bergstrom explained that opinionated individuals in the models could not spend extra time lobbying the others and couldn't make false claims about an option, as humans can.

"In the models, individuals could only be obstinate about changing their minds," he said.

West said, "We definitely want to caution against jumping to the conclusion that the whole Occupy Wall Street movement can learn something from the study."

Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

? 2011 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45688354/ns/technology_and_science-science/

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When Is a Taxi Not a Taxi?

You use Uber by creating an account, logging in with your credit card information, and downloading an app to your smartphone. Then when you want a ride, you fire up the app. It uses your phone?s GPS and Uber?s sophisticated traffic models to tell you how close the nearest car is (always less than 10 minutes away during my three field tests) and if you like the proposition, you press the button. When your ride is ready, you get a text message?letting you wait for the car without leaving the comfy confines of your party/bar/house to stand exposed to the elements?and then you hop in. The driver takes you where you want to go, and out you hop. Billing is automated via the information you already provided and tip is included. Uber, meanwhile, doesn?t actually own any cars or employ any drivers. It?s just a booking service that takes a commission for facilitating the transaction.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=fd1b8ce099895119d7c7fcbef58af378

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Should parents go to jail when kids miss too much school? (The Week)

New York ? Florida's Palm Beach County is cracking down on truancy by punishing parents, and it's hardly the first place in the nation to do so

A Florida county is holding an unusual threat over parents' heads: If your kids miss too much school ? specifically, more than 15 days over a 3-month period ? you could go to jail. And Palm Beach County isn't the first in the nation to resort to jailing parents to crack down on truancy. Four key questions:

What's going on?
Florida's Palm Beach County has created a new court specifically focused on truancy cases. While Florida has long had a law that states that parents can face up to two months of jail time if their child (aged 6 to 16) has more than 15 unexcused absences in three months, there was no infrastructure to enforce it ? until now. Schools lacked the personnel to bring the cases to court, and prosecutors were more focused on violent crimes. The new truancy court is currently in a trial period, targeting kids from kindergarten to third grade.

SEE MORE: The 'crazy' 11-11-11 birth phenomenon

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How big of a problem is truancy in Palm Beach?
It's a significant issue. In in the 2009-2010 school year, 6.6 percent of the county's 198,351 students racked up 21 or more unexcused absences.

Is Florida the only state with such a law?
No. Earlier this year, nearly a dozen parents in Baltimore City were sent to prison for their kids' truancy. In Orange County, Calif., at least five parents have gone to jail since a tough anti-truancy law went into effect earlier this year. Parents in Alabama, Texas, and North California have also been sent to the slammer for failing to ensure their kids attended classes.

SEE MORE: The Texas judge who whipped his daughter: When is spanking child abuse?

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Is this the right way to deal with truancy?
Not everyone thinks so. This "seems extreme and maybe even counterproductive," says Amy Reiter at The Stir. "If the parent is in jail, how will she then help get her kid to school?" Teens especially need to learn to take responsibility for their own actions, not have their parents pay for their crimes. Earlier this year, the NAACP filed suit against a school district in Pennsylvania that had fined a woman $8,000 over her kids' truancy. The organization argued that the kids had stopped going to school because they were being bullied and harassed.

Sources: Baltimore Sun, The Stir, Sun Sentinel, Yahoo

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HBT: Union says to reserve judgment on Braun

Steroids stories breaking when no other news is going on means that everyone is gonna get out in front of it. Like, way in front of it. This stuff with Ryan Braun went down on Saturday and I think people have already decided what his grandchildren?s legacy is going to be as a result.

But not so fast, says the MLBA! Its head honcho Michael Weiner released a statement this morning telling everyone to chill out:

?Our Joint Drug Agreement is designed to protect a player from a rush to judgment before he can challenge a reported positive test result. Fairness dictates that Ryan Braun be treated no differently. I urge all to reserve judgment on this matter until the JDA?s process has played itself out.?

He?s right. Good luck with that because the mob is already mobbing, but he?s right.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/12/13/union-head-michael-weiner-releases-a-statement-about-ryan-braun/related/

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S&P move piles pressure on euro zone assets (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? European stocks and the euro slid and most bond yields rose after the threat from rating agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade euro zone countries en masse if no credible plan to solve the debt crisis emerges at a summit later this week.

The unprecedented warning also brought to a halt a rally in global equities that began last week, with the MSCI world equity index (.MIWD00000PUS) down about 0.3 percent.

The timing of the announcement and the inclusion of Germany in the group facing a ratings cut surprised many in the markets, and put pressure on the upcoming gathering of leaders to come up with a solution to the region's debt crisis.

"It highlights the importance of the weekend," said Jim O'Neill, the chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

"If they (EU leaders) come up with something along the lines they have been talking about, I doubt they (S&P) will go through with it," he added.

The impact of the warning was limited by the bearish view many investors already hold about the outlook for the region.

European stocks as measured by the FTSEurofirst 300 (.FTEU3) were around 0.8 percent lower, off a five-week high struck on Monday.

In the debt market bond yields across the euro zone rose but top-rated German and French bonds did better than the debt of the region's more peripheral countries.

"(S&P's move) casts a pall over whether the EFSF (Europe's bailout fund) will maintain its triple-A status, putting more pressure on the European Central Bank to fill the gap," said Nick Stamenkovic, rate strategist at RIA Capital Markets.

A 10-year bond issued by the EFSF saw its price edge up slightly. Euro zone leaders agreed last week to increase the capacity of the rescue fund.

The single currency, which initially moved sharply lower against the U.S. dollar, was down around 0.2 percent to around $1.3375.

"S&P has told us what we already knew," said Sebastien Galy, FX strategist at Societe Generale. "Most investors are anyways bearish on the euro."

The EU said on Tuesday the euro zone's economy barely grew in the third quarter, giving grounds for the ECB to cut rates later this week.

Spot gold prices were also lower dipping 0.2 percent to around $1,718.64 an ounce.

DOWNGRADE THREAT

S&P said it had told 15 of the 17 euro zone countries, including Germany, France and four others with the top AAA credit rating, that it might downgrade them within 90 days, depending on the outcome of Friday's summit.

The warning took the sheen off a Franco-German agreement, which the two nations plan to put before the other member states at the summit to impose budget discipline across the currency area through European Union treaty changes.

Elsewhere, the IMF approved a 2.2 billion euro ($3 billion) tranche of aid for Greece, which was seen as taking the threat of an imminent default off the table.

The Reserve Bank of Australia, citing Europe's woes as a key factor, cut interest rates by 25 basis points and left the door open for more easing.

(Additional reporting by Kirsten Donovan and Anirban Nag; editing by Anna Willard)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111206/bs_nm/us_markets_global

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