As a general rule, we're in favor of any gadgets named for one of our favorite girl group jams. We've also got a soft spot for those projects looking to send a little love in the postal service's direction -- lord knows it can use it. Mr. Postman, naturally, fulfills both of those quotas. The smart ...
Photo by Sean/busbeytheelder/Flickr via Creative Commons
There are many things we do in private that we hope others never see. Installing a car seat is up there for me. Having just moved from New York City, where I rarely drove anywhere, to the country, where I rarely walk anywhere, car seats have suddenly become part of my daily life, and even though I know they may one day save my son’s life, I do not get along with them. When I’m fighting to install one into my car by myself, the process invariably involves instruction manuals (for my car seat and my car), YouTube installation videos (necessary since my manuals seem to be written in Pirahã), ample cursing, and me punching the car seat. Whoever said violence is never justified clearly never owned a Britax.
Most parents will agree car seats are a bitch to install; worse, the stats suggest that three out of four times, we’re doing it wrong. But the angst surrounding car seats does not end with installation—pretty much everything about them is ridiculously confusing. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently changed its recommendations on when to use which types of seats, but chances are, your state law disagrees. Rumor has it that next year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will tell parents to stop using the Lower Anchors and Tethers for Children system (LATCH) to secure car seats once the combined weight of your car seat and your child exceeds 65 pounds, which begs the question—do you know how much your car seat weighs? I don’t even know how much my kid weighs. Then there is the Freakonomics claim that car seats are in fact useless, the Consumer Reports debacle in which the organization apparently had to recall some reviews after screwing up its safety tests, and, oh yeah, the fact that some car seats simply do not fit in some cars. But hey, guess what? Your kid should be in a car seat until she’s 8 years old and don’t even think about letting her ride in the front seat until she’s 13. K?
Punch a car seat; it’ll make you feel better. Then read on, because I’m going to try to answer some of the many exasperated questions many of us have pondered about car seats in recent years.
First, the very basics: Why these insufferable plastic contraptions are well worth the hassle. Car seats can be life-saving, and to understand why, we have to go back to high school physics. When your car flies down the highway at 70 mph, you go this fast, too. This means you and your car have a heck of a lot of momentum, a figure that reflects speed and mass. When you come to a rapid halt in a collision, your car’s momentum has to drop quickly, which requires force—a force that deforms your car, among other things. Your own momentum must drop, too; you have the choice of flying through the windshield and letting the force of hard pavement stop your momentum, or you can use a seat belt, which does the same thing but a little more amiably.
Seat belts do more than just keep you from becoming a projectile; they are also slightly elastic, so they lengthen the time over which your momentum slows (as opposed to if you’d slammed into the pavement), which ultimately reduces the total force on your body at any one time. That’s good. Seat belts also ensure that this force hits two of the strongest parts of your body—your pelvis and your shoulders—and that your more delicate tissues, such as your genitals, abdomen and neck, remain unscathed (unless your car gets crushed to the point of crushing you, too). So: Seat belts are awesome.
Car seats, however, are better—which is important because car crash injuries are more dangerous to children than adults. Motor vehicle accidents are the No. 1 cause of death in children; more than one-third of kids who died in accidents in 2011 were unrestrained. “For a kid, things can come apart much more easily. When we sustain whiplash, they can break their necks,” says Ben Hoffman, a pediatrician and car seat specialist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Forward-facing car seats, which the American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends kids use from ages 2 to at least 4, have five-point harnesses. They distribute the force associated with impact across an even larger area—there are more straps coming into contact with your kid’s body—which means less force being applied to any single point. According to Partners for Child Passenger Safety, a long-standing research partnership between the State Farm Insurance Company, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, forward-facing car seats really do save lives: When these car seats are not seriously misused—i.e. when parents actually strap their kids in and attach car seats to their cars (apparently some don’t even try?)—car seats of all types reduce a 2- to 6-year-old child’s risk of death in a serious crash by an average of 28 percent compared with seat belts.
But it’s the rear-facing seats that are the real life-savers for kids under 4. Most crashes are frontal, which means that the force applied to riders typically comes from the front. Rear-facing seats distribute the force of impact along the entirety of the backside of your child’s body. Again: same force, but it’s distributed across a much greater area still, which means, yes, less damage. Rear-facing seats also prevent kids’ heads from flying forward as happens to forward-facing passengers. Head-flying is bad for neck muscles and bones, as they have to snap the head back in place (would you want to use your neck as a bungee cord?). One recent study reported that newborns to 2-year-olds were 76 percent more likely to be seriously injured in a car crash when they were in forward-facing car seats compared to rear-facing car seats. Seventy-six percent is a lot. In 2011, the American Academy of Pediatrics changed its recommendations to say that kids should remain in rear-facing car seats until at least the age of 2 (they used to say age 1); many state laws are not this strict—they are still, I guess, catching up with the science—but I’d do what the doctors say.
Photo by Glenn Fleishman/Flickr via Creative Commons
What about booster seats, which the AAP says you’re supposed to use for 4 to 7-year-olds who have outgrown their forward-facing harness seats? They don’t protect quite as well as the harnessed seats and not nearly as well as rear-facing seats, because they use only the seat belt as a restraint. They are, however, important to ensure that seat belts actually sit where they are supposed to. When kids under 8 wear seat belts without booster seats, the belts can cut across their necks and abdomens, which is precisely where you do not want a massive amount of force to hit your kid. A 2009 study conducted as part of Partners for Child Passenger Safety found that kids between 4 and 8 were 45 percent less likely to sustain moderate to serious injuries in crashes when they were restrained in high-back or backless booster seats to lap-and-shoulder seat belts alone—and this reduction in injury risk went up to 67 percent for kids in post-1998 car models.
Do you know how much your car seat weighs? I don’t even know how much my kid weighs.
What’s important to keep in mind, though, when considering all these studies is that parents who use car seats may differ from parents who don’t use car seats in many important ways. They may drive safer cars and drive more slowly, for instance, both of which could also influence injury risk. Researchers attempt to control for these confounding factors to isolate the effects of car seats themselves, but these controls are never perfect.
In fact, a small body of research downright contradicts many of the studies I have just mentioned. In 2005, University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner, co-authors of the bestselling Freakonomics published a controversial piece in the New York Times Magazine arguing that “there is no evidence that car seats do a better job than seat belts in saving the lives of children older than 2.” Their assertions were based on several studies Levitt conducted. One mined data from a federal database called FARS, which records the details of U.S. crashes that kill at least one passenger, and found that kids over 2 were no less likely to die in crashes while in car seats than were kids wearing lap-and-shoulder belts. Another Levitt study using crash data from a national database and those of several states found that for kids aged 2 to 6, car seats did not prevent serious injuries any better than lap-and-shoulder belts did. Car seats did, however, reduce the risk of minor injuries by 25 percent.
SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) — New York Times technology columnist and gadget reviewer David Pogue is leaving the newspaper to cover similar topics for Yahoo.
The hiring announced Monday is the latest step in Yahoo Inc. CEO Marissa Mayer's effort to infuse the Internet company's website with more compelling content that will persuade people to visit more frequently and stick around longer. Mayer is hoping the increased traffic will eventually boost Yahoo's ad sales substantially, although that has not yet happened during her first 15 months on the job.
Pogue built a loyal following reviewing devices and online services while delving into other technology issues during the past 13 years at the Times.
As he did at the Times, Pogue will write columns and produce videos at Yahoo.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-21-Yahoo-Technology%20Columnist/id-88a0f4a5eeb344f6bf5dafd1fbf8e0e9
The disparate ecosystems of Windows Phone, Microsoft's traditional desktop and the Xbox 360 left a generation of Redmond loyals aching for a more unified front. Now Dell seems convinced that one is on the way: according to a blurb on the company's online store, Windows 8 apps will be capable of ...Shadowplay
The ABC fantasy series Once Upon A Time is back with a new season that is set in Neverland (not to be confused with the spinoff series Once Upon a Time in Wonderland which will crossover with the 3rd season of the Neverland-set Once Upon A Time), which was set up in the season finale of the show back in the Spring. In that season finale episode, an villainous character called Shadow was introduced. Today we learn that shockrocker Marilyn Manson has been cast in the role of Shadow on the show. MM will only be providing the voice for Shadow since the character is computer generated but it seems significant to me that Manson was cast on the show at all. Read on to learn more.
Once Upon a Time’s journey into the dark recesses of Neverland has gotten pretty scary already, what with an evil Peter Pan running around. Now it’s about to get a whole lot creepier: ABC has confirmed exclusively to Rolling Stone that rocker Marilyn Manson will be joining the cast of the show in November. Manson will voice Shadow, a character whose voice will give life to the very essence of Neverland. “We’ve always been enormous fans of Marilyn Manson,” show creators and executive producers Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz told Rolling Stone. “We wanted to cast someone with the vocal ability to make our skin crawl.” This season on Once Upon a Time follows Emma, Rumpelstiltskin, Regina, Captain Hook and the rest of the Fairytale Avengers in Neverland as they look for Henry while battling the evil Peter Pan. The Shadow has appeared a few times already this season, and he’s not quite the mischievous, fun-loving character who appeared in the classic Peter Pan tales. This version of Shadow is more interested in kidnapping and soul-stealing – and with Manson’s voice added to the mix, he should become a skin-crawling part of Neverland.
I’m one of the only people I know that watches Once Upon a Time (mainly because I invested so much time in Season 1 and that loyalty carried over to Season 2) so, as a viewer, I’m very intrigued by Manson‘s casting. I’ve been an MM fan from the start so I’m glad to see that he’s getting new work these days. I know he has a guest starring stint on the HBO series Eastbound and Down and now with this casting in Once Upon A Time, it looks like MM is much more interested in pursuing a career in acting rather than in music. Once is one of those shows that I DVR and watch when I have nothing else to watch … so I have the new eps of Season 3 recorded, I just haven’t watched them yet. Now that I know MM will voice a character on the show, I guess I have to catch up so I can see how well he does on the show. Do any of y’all watch the show? If so, are you looking forward to hearing MM on the show?
[Source]
eBay says former Apple e-commerce chief RJ Pittman will be its new chief product officer.
Commerce giant eBay on Thursday announced that it's hired away an Apple executive to become its chief product officer.
RJ Pittman, who spent the last three years running Apple's worldwide e-commerce operation, is eBay's new CPO, the company said in a statement.
The role is new for eBay and includes running the company's product and development strategies.
Before his stint at Apple, Pittman spent three years at the top of Google's product management group where he also served as a speaker and evangelist at various public events.
The move comes as Apple rejiggers its retail strategy. Earlier this week, it announced the hiring of Angela Ahrendts from Burberry to run its retail business, a job that was vacant for nearly a year. A leaked memo from CEO Tim Cook noted that Ahrendts would lead both the retail and online parts of Apple's business.
Steve McQueen’s period drama 12 Years a Slave — an adaptation of the autobiography of Solomon Northup, a free man who was sold into slavery—was lensed in and around New Orleans by director of photography Sean Bobbitt, who also operated the camera. The veteran cinematographer, who earned an Oscar nomination for The Pianist, recently talked with The Hollywood Reporter about the photography and some of the most “powerful and horrific” sequences in his latest film.
PHOTOS: '12 Years a Slave': Exclusive Portraits of Star-Producer Brad Pitt and His Cast
“The scene where Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) hangs for the better part of the day was a critical scene to get right,” said Bobbitt, who photographed the movie on film. “For me, that scene really drove home the true horror of slavery. No one can help him because he belongs to someone else. ... The fact that everyone else sort of gets on with their lives around him highlights that this was not unexpected or unusual.”
This long sequence is told with several extended shots at different times of the day. “Steve wanted to show the transition from afternoon into early evening, so the horror of strangling would be driven home,” Bobbitt said. “Each of the shots are held for a long period of time specifically to make the audience as uncomfortable as possible and to force them to reflect on what was happening to Solomon and how terrifying that must have been."
“When the film was first tested, a lot of people complained that the shots were too long and uncomfortable. And to Steve’s credit, he said, ‘That worked perfect then, and we‘re not going to change that.’ “
VIDEO: '12 Years a Slave' Trailer
Bobbitt shared similar thoughts about the take during which the slave Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o) is whipped. “For Steve and myself, that was always going to be one continuous shot,” he related. “The audience is given no relief. Once you put a cut it, then subconsciously everyone is aware that they are watching a film and it let’s them off the hook. …Particularly for a scene like that with the complexity of the emotions and the violence going on, it really acts to heighten the drama and the performance of the actors.”
Bobbitt focused on lighting in a way that stayed true to the period. “There’s always a challenge when you are doing a period piece set in a time when there is no street lighting," he said, citing a night scene during which slave owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender) drags Solomon out of bed to quiz him about an occurrence. The light for the actors comes from the candle in a lantern that Fassbender is carrying, but the background would of course be dark. “The background felt really dark but we just have a sense of the world behind it—particularly the house and the trees. It was quite a large area, and the weather was too unstable to put balloons up. So the challenge was how to light a large area for night and get the balance between the foreground and background exactly right. We suspended a series of Space Lights in between the trees so you get areas that are effectively moonlight lighting for the elements of the background. But because [the lighting] was suspended you could move the camera 360 degrees without worrying about seeing it.”
TELLURIDE REVIEW: '12 Years a Slave'
The cinematographer also reflected on capturing the performances. “I’m lucky since I operate the camera, I’m right there with the actors,” he said. “I have that privilege; My eyes are the first eyes that performance goes through. You hope that on any film there will be moment where the hair stands up on the back of your neck and you are in the presence of something special in terms of the performance. I have never been on a film where it happened so often.”
E-mail: Carolyn.Giardina@THR.com
Twitter: @CGinLA
A BART police officer covers one of the two people that were struck and killed by a moving BART train along Jones Road in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/The Mercury News, Dan Rosenstrauch)
A BART police officer covers one of the two people that were struck and killed by a moving BART train along Jones Road in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/The Mercury News, Dan Rosenstrauch)
Two BART police officers look over the BART tracks along Jones Road in Walnut Creek, where two workers were killed by a moving BART train in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/The Mercury News, Dan Rosenstrauch)
A BART police officer looks out of a BART car that struck and killed two people along Jones Road in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/The Mercury News, Dan Rosenstrauch)
A BART police officer looks along the BART tracks along Jones Road in Walnut Creek, where a moving BART train struck and killed two people in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/The Mercury News, Dan Rosenstrauch)
A BART police officer looks along the outside of a BART car that struck and killed two people along Jones Road in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2013. (AP Photo/The Mercury News, Dan Rosenstrauch)
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Federal accident investigators were in the San Francisco Bay Area on Sunday to examine the deaths of two transit workers who were struck by an out-of-service commuter train performing routine maintenance.
Saturday's accident on Bay Area Rapid Transit tracks in the East Bay city of Walnut Creek took place against the backdrop of a contentious and disruptive labor strike.
Two National Transportation Safety Board investigators were at the site of the accident on Sunday, NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said.
The two-man team led by Jim Southworth, the board's railroad accident investigator-in-charge, will be looking at everything leading up to the collision, from safety procedures and qualifications of personnel to the track's condition.
"We will be the lead agency in the safety investigation into how and why this happened," Weiss said.
The four-car BART train with several people aboard was being run in automatic mode under computer control at the time of the accident, Assistant General Manager Paul Oversier said. The system has been shut down since Friday because of a work stoppage by the system's two largest unions.
The train was returning from a yard where workers cleaned graffiti from unused cars when it slammed into the two workers — one a BART employee and the other a contractor — who were inspecting an above-ground stretch of track between stations, Oversier said.
Neither BART nor the county coroner has released the names and ages of the victims.
Following the May death of foreman who was killed by a passenger train in West Haven, Conn., the NTSB has been promoting improved safety measures for track maintenance crews, Weiss said. In June, the board urged the Metro-North Railroad to provide backup protection for crews that were relying on dispatchers to close tracks while they are being worked on and to light the appropriate signals.
The investigators now in California will be checking to see if BART uses "shunts" — a device that crews can attach to the rails in a work zone that gives approaching trains a stop signal — or any other of the backup measures the NTSB recommended for the Metro-North system, Weiss said.
"Obviously, we are very concerned anytime anyone dies in transportation accidents, but we're very interested in the issue of track worker deaths right now," he said.
The fact that BART workers have been on strike since Friday would be part of the probe if it turns out to be relevant in terms of staffing and the experience and training of the track workers and train operators.
"We are not there because of the strike, but they would look at the circumstances and the personnel surrounding the issue," Weiss said.
Officials from the unions representing BART's train operators and some of the system's other workers have warned of the danger that could come with allowing managers to operate trains as BART had planned to do in case of a strike. At a news conference Saturday, Oversier would not say whether a manager had been at the controls. In an earlier statement, BART said only that the person was an experienced operator.
Meanwhile, with no indication that the striking BART workers would be back on the job Monday, the region was preparing for another day of gridlock on freeways and bridges clogged with commuters who would ordinarily be traveling by train. BART, the nation's fifth-largest commuter rail system, has an average weekday ridership of 400,000.
BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said Sunday that transit officials and labor leaders have been in contact over the weekend, but the two sides did not have any plans to return to the bargaining table.
___
Associated Press writer Andrew Dalton contributed to this report from Los Angeles. Cone reported from Fresno.
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-20-BART%20Strike/id-d03d7f30c71740faa2a65ffb8094d4beSoon you'll be able to direct the path of a cockroach with a smartphone and the swipe of your finger.
Greg Gage and his colleagues at Backyard Brains have developed a device called the RoboRoach that lets you control the path of an insect.
It may make you squirm, but Gage says the device could inspire a new generation of neuroscientists.
"The sharpest kids amongst us are probably going into other fields right now. And so we're kind of in the dark ages when it comes to neuroscience," he tells NPR's Arun Rath.
The RoboRoach device allows users to influence the movements of cockroaches with a smartphone.
The RoboRoach device allows users to influence the movements of cockroaches with a smartphone.
He wants to get kids interested in neuroscience early enough to guide them toward that career path. And a cyborg cockroach might be the inspiration.
"The neurons in the insects are very, very similar to the neurons inside the human brain," Gage says. "It's a beautiful way to just really understand what's happening inside your brain by looking at these little insects."
Directions Vs. Free Will
The idea was spawned by a device the Backyard Brain-iacs developed called The SpikerBox, which is capable of amplifying real living neurons. Insert a small wire into a cockroach's antennae, and you can hear the sound of actual neurons.
"Lining the inside of the cockroach are these neurons that are picking up touch or vibration sensing, chemical sensing," Gage says. "They use it like a nose or a large tongue, their antennas, and they use it to sort of navigate the world.
"So when you put a small wire inside of there, you can actually pick up the information as it's being encoded and being sent to the brain."
With the RoboRoach device and smartphone app, you can interact with the antennae to influence the insect's behavior.
“ There are some people that get really sort of scared ... that we're taking over the free will of this cockroach. But in essence, that's actually not the case.
When you swipe your finger on your mobile phone, the app sends a message using Bluetooth to the device, which then sends a small pulse of electricity into the left or right antenna.
The result: a cockroach that follows your directions.
Since Gage introduced the RoboRoach at a TEDx conference earlier this month, it has stirred up some ethical concerns and questions around animal treatment.
"There are some people that get really sort of scared when we start talking about brain control — that we're taking over the free will of this cockroach," he says. "But in essence, that's actually not the case."
Gage says the RoboRoach just provides a sensation in the antenna that makes the cockroach perceive an obstacle in its path. He compares it to the bridle of a horse.
"You can have these reins — you can pull the horse left or right," he says. "You can do the same thing with a cockroach. It thinks it's being touched on the left or right side and it will sort of turn in the counter-lateral direction."
Swarms For Survival?
With the RoboRoach, you can wield influence over a single insect. But what about swarms of these cyborg cockroaches?
Dr. Edgar Lobaton is an assistant professor at North Carolina State University. He's in the simulation phase of his latest project: using swarms of up to 1,000 cockroaches to assist in search-and-rescue operations.
"We can use this collection of agents to do an exploration of the entire space, to be able to localize potential people that may be trapped in the ruins after these disasters," he says.
Wearing backpacks similar to the RoboRoach, their movements can be used to map structures like a collapsed building. Lobaton says cockroaches are perfect for the job because they're natural explorers.
"For these particular insects, they have gone through a lot of evolution. There's a lot of development in there to make them very flexible, to be able to accomplish things related to exploration and the search of food," he says. "So what we're trying to do is exploit basically this design from nature to be able to use it in our advantage."
So you might think twice before stomping or spraying the next cockroach you encounter with insecticide.
Cockroaches could be deployed to save your life one day. Or, at least, teach you a little bit about neuroscience.
When it comes to prolonging the life of your laptop, there's no easier upgrade than adding an ultra-compact USB flash drive to expand its storage capacity—particularly if it's got a small SSD on board. And a company called PKparis is now laying claim to the title of 'world's smallest USB 3.0 flash drive' with its new K’1 that more than looks the part.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/youll-barely-notice-the-worlds-smallest-usb-3-0-flash-1446986913By Julia Edwards
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks surged on Wednesday, nearing an all-time high, after Senate leaders said they had reached a deal to raise the government debt ceiling, one day before the U.S. defaults on its debt.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said leaders had come to an agreement, which will reopen the government through January 15 and raise the debt ceiling until February 7. The House of Representatives planned to vote on the measure later in the day.
The gains brought the S&P 500 index within striking distance of the record intraday high of 1729.86 set on September 19. Trading volume was low, however, at just 2.4 billion shares, as many investors stayed on the sidelines over the uncertainty coming from Washington.
"Even though the market is moving up, this is a real historic event that is happening here so there is pause and concern," said Frank Davis, director of sales and trading at LEK Securities in New York.
"You are seeing a lack of activity because it's hard to invest in a market where you don't know what's around the corner."
Throughout the crisis, many strategists have argued that the brief sell-offs would be a buying opportunity because Washington would get its act together. That scenario, at the moment, seems to be playing out. On the New York Stock Exchange, more than three stocks were rising for every share that was falling.
All ten S&P sectors were up, led by financials on hopes for the debt deal and strong quarterly results. The sector gained 1.8 percent.
The Dow Jones industrial average was up 194.65 points, or 1.28 percent, at 15,362.66. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was up 22.53 points, or 1.33 percent, at 1,720.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 42.25 points, or 1.11 percent, at 3,836.26.
Bank of America Corp
"Not a bad quarter given the environment with Bank of America showing impressive capital levels and solid execution." Jeff Morris, head of U.S. equities at Standard Life Investments.
Shares of Yahoo
The corporate earnings season is off to a good start as the majority of companies has met or beaten estimates, said Jonathan Golub, chief U.S. market strategist at RBC Capital Markets in New York.
IBM
J.P. Morgan will pay $100 million to settle charges for the "London Whale" trading scandal, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Wednesday. J.P.Morgan shares were up 2.7 percent to $53.75.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum, Kenneth Barry and Chizu Nomiyama)
By Luiza Ilie
PUNGESTI, Romania (Reuters) - Thousands of Romanians protested on Saturday against plans by U.S. energy group Chevron to explore for shale gas in a poor eastern region and a Canadian company's project to set up Europe's biggest open cast gold mine in a Carpathian town.
Plans by the leftist government of Prime Minister Victor Ponta to approve the tapping of natural resources in the European Union's second-poorest state have triggered nationwide protests since the start of September, throwing together local communities, environmentalists, civic rights groups and the clergy.
While the two projects are separate and in different stages of development, protesters have criticized a lack of transparency in approving both. They demand stronger safeguards to protect Romania's environment and national heritage.
On Thursday, Chevron suspended work on what was to be its first exploration well in the small town of Pungesti in Vaslui county, 340 km (210 miles) northeast of the capital Bucharest, after locals blocked access to the site.
But the people of Pungesti, most of whom live off subsistence farming in one of Europe's poorest regions, have continued protesting, asking officials to revoke drilling plans.
On Saturday, more than 800 locals, priests and activists gathered in front of the empty lot where Chevron plans to install the well. Hundreds rallied in other cities.
In punishing windy weather, they waved "Stop Chevron" banners and knelt to the ground while a priest led them in prayer. A group of horse riders clad in national costumes then destroyed a cardboard model of an oil well.
FRACKING FEARS
Shale gas faces opposition due to concerns around hydraulic fracturing or fracking, the process of injecting water and chemicals at high pressure into underground rock formations to push out gas.
Critics say it can pollute water supplies and trigger small earthquakes. Advocates say it has a strong safety record and point to countries like the United States, where extensive fracking has driven down prices.
"I am against shale gas exploitation because of the chemicals used in fracking," said Vasile Ciobanu, 25, who has returned to Pungesti after working abroad for three years and now lives a few hundred meters away from the proposed well site.
"I don't think the company and Romanian officials are thinking about what could happen to people who live here."
Chevron declined to comment. Earlier this year, the company won all necessary approvals to drill exploratory wells in Vaslui, while it also has rights to explore three blocks near the Black Sea. The exploration phase would last for about five years.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that Romania could potentially recover 51 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, which would cover domestic demand for more than a century and help push prices lower.
In the central Romanian town of Campeni, around 2,000 people protested against Canada's Gabriel Resources plans to use cyanide to mine 314 metric tons of gold and 1,500 metric tons of silver in the small town of Rosia Montana.
The state also holds a minority stake in the mine. The government approved a bill to speed up the project, which has been waiting for approval for 14 years. In Rosia Montana, many argue the mine is the only solution to create jobs.
But one of the bill's provisions grants the mine "national interest" status, which would make it easier for the company to force the few locals who oppose the plan to quit their land, in return for compensation. Critics say this is unconstitutional. The bill is now following a tortuous path through parliament, and it is unclear when a vote will take place.
(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Jonathan, who has the age-old problem of how to bring the internet to his outbuilding. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a ...LOS ANGELES (AP) — Woody Allen has given his next film a name.
Continuing his European intrigue, "Magic in the Moonlight" is set in southern France and stars Colin Firth, Emma Stone, Eileen Atkins, Marcia Gay Harden, Hamish Linklater, Simon McBurney and Jacki Weaver. Co-stars include Erica Leerhsen, Catherine McCormack, Paul Ritter and Jeremy Shamos.
The Gravier Productions film is being produced by Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum. They've worked on a number of Allen's films, from his latest "Blue Jasmine" to 2001's "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion."
Allen has delivered a full-length feature every year since 1982. "Magic in the Moonlight" marks his 47th time in the director's chair and his first time casting both Firth and Stone.
The film has already begun production and is tentatively set to release in 2014.
Rick Diamond/Getty Images
Cyrus' performance with Robin Thicke at the VMAs shocked many.
COLOGNE, Germany – MTV has confirmed that Miley Cyrus will be bringing her twerk to Amsterdam.
The popstar, whose explicit dancing at this year's VMAs caused a sensation, will perform live at MTV's European Music Awards in Amsterdam on Nov. 10.
VIDEO: MTV EMAs: Miley Cyrus Smuggled into Amsterdam in Redfoo's Suitcase
MTV already let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, with its promo video for the show, which featured host, Redfoo of dance music act LMFAO, trying to smuggle a scantily-clad Cyrus through customs at Amsterdam airport.
Other confirmed performers at this year's EMAs include Katy Perry and The Killers.
Ariana Grande will be the backstage host for the show, which will be broadcast live at 9 p.m. local time. Will Ferrell will be among the celebrity presenters at the awards, in character as his Anchorman 2 newsman Ron Burgundy.
The European Music Awards is one of MTV's largest live events and will air across more than 60 channels and reach 700 million households worldwide. Bruce Gillmer and Richard Godfrey will executive produce the 2013 show from the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam.
The U.S. is back from the brink after a deal to reopen the government and lift the debt ceiling, but more crises may be on the horizon with a compromise budget due by mid-December and the federal government only funded through Jan. 15. Host Scott Simon speaks with NPR's senior Washington editor Ron Elving about what comes next.
Men stand inside the gold mine in Greenland's Nulanaq mountain on Dec. 19, 2009. The Danish territory's underground wealth was at the forefront of elections in March. Now, Greenland faces another dilemma: whether to end a zero-tolerance policy on uranium extraction.
Men stand inside the gold mine in Greenland's Nulanaq mountain on Dec. 19, 2009. The Danish territory's underground wealth was at the forefront of elections in March. Now, Greenland faces another dilemma: whether to end a zero-tolerance policy on uranium extraction.
Karen Hanghoj, a scientist with Denmark's Geological Survey, points to the southern tip of Greenland on a colorful map hanging in her office.
"What you can see here in the southern region here, is you have a big pink region," she says. "And then within the pink region, you see you have all these little purple dots.
"And what the purple dots are is a later period of rifting. These complexes have these weird chemistries and have these very, very strange minerals in them," she adds.
Those minerals include rare earth elements. They are essential to making cell phones, wind turbines, hybrid cars and many other products. China enjoys a near-monopoly on the global supply, sparking a race to find new sources of the 17 metals. One particularly large known deposit is in Greenland. But there's a catch.
Hanghoj lifts a hefty rock off her desk. It comes from that pink and purple polka-dotted region, though the rock itself is nondescript — except for one shiny black nugget known as steenstrupine.
"That mineral has all of the rare earths, or most of the rare earths, but also most of the uranium," Hanghoj says.
Uranium would therefore have to mined along with those coveted rare earth minerals.
Legislative Roadblocks
There are a few problems with that.
First, Greenland has a ban on uranium extraction. The zero-tolerance policy was put in place 25 years ago when Greenland was more tightly controlled by nuclear-averse Denmark. Since then, Greenland has taken on a new level of self-governance, including jurisdiction over its own natural resources.
This month, Greenland's parliament appears likely to lift the zero-tolerance policy. That could open the door for uranium mining not only as a byproduct, but also as a primary product. By some estimates, Greenland has enough of the radioactive stuff to make it one of the top five exporters in the world.
“ It's one thing if we're abolishing a policy, but what is going to be the policy instead of that? And that is something where Denmark and Greenland for the first time in their history really need to start engaging in a discussion that they have not had up to this point.
That raises questions for Denmark, which is still responsible for Greenland's foreign policy and security.
"The Greenlandic position seems to be that as long as we are exporting for peaceful purposes, then Denmark does not need to be engaged," says Cindy Vestergaard, a senior researcher with the Danish Institute for International Studies. But, she adds, "how will Denmark know it is being used for peaceful purposes if they are not involved?
"So it's one thing if we're abolishing a policy, but what is going to be the policy instead of that?" she asks. "And that is something where Denmark and Greenland for the first time in their history really need to start engaging in a discussion that they have not had up to this point."
Environment Or ...
There are also environmental concerns – parallels for which can be seen across the world in projects like the Keystone XL pipeline in the U.S. and Brazil's massive dams in the Amazon.
This spring a coalition of 48 nongovernmental organizations from around the world called on Greenland to uphold the zero-tolerance policy, citing the potential for radioactive pollution in a delicate Arctic ecosystem. And members of Greenland's opposition party, like Sara Olsvig, say the public still doesn't really understand the potential consequences of uranium mining.
"We have a lot of other choices in Greenland of other minerals, other resources, living and nonliving, that we can export," she says. "And our opinion is that we should go for those other resources instead of rushing through a decision on uranium, not even knowing if in the long run will pay off.
"We don't even know the full picture of what things we would have to build to just monitor a big open pit uranium mine in Greenland."
... Economic Development?
But for others, mining and the economic opportunities it represents cannot come fast enough. Technically, Greenland could declare independence from Denmark at any time. But without new sources of income, it remains tethered to its annual Danish subsidy of roughly half a billion dollars.
"When you can take care of yourself, you have more respect and pride in yourself," says Doris Jakobsen of the ruling Greenlandic party. "The same is true of the Greenlandic people."
Jakobsen says that protecting Greenland's environment is her priority, and adds that lifting the zero-tolerance policy does not mean uranium mining will necessarily happen. But she's tired of hearing what others say Greenland can and can't do.
"I can't accept that Greenland should become a museum," she says. "Those [non-governmental organizations] also say that it should be forbidden to sell our seals, forbidden to whale, forbidden to extract oil, forbidden to extract uranium. You can't limit everything. Greenland needs economic development."
Whatever happens in regard to uranium, this issue has raised the decibel level of discussion about Greenland's future. And if there's one thing both the ruling and opposition parties can agree on, it's that any movement is good if it leads to independence.
LONDON (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the U.N-Arab League envoy for Syria say an international conference to set up a Syrian transitional government must be organized urgently and held as soon as possible.
Kerry and envoy Lakdhar Brahimi (LAHK'-dar bra-HEE'-mee) spoke Monday after meeting at the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Britain.
Kerry says it's imperative to get the so-called "Geneva II" conference organized by a mid-November target the United Nations has set.
Brahimi says he'll travel to the Middle East this week to see representatives of all sides to try to plan and set a specific date for the meeting.
Kerry is in London on the last stop of a an extended two-week overseas trip that has also taken him to Japan, Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia and Afghanistan.
One of these days, Michael Bloomberg is not going to be mayor of New York City anymore, and someone else is going to be crowned King of the Great Underground River
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Environmental groups are fighting to stop the leveling of 154 acres of coastal redwoods and Douglas firs to make way for grapevines.
Environmental groups are fighting to stop the leveling of 154 acres of coastal redwoods and Douglas firs to make way for grapevines.
In the California wine mecca of Sonoma County, climate change is pitting redwood lovers against red wine lovers.
This Friday morning, a coalition of environmental groups are in a Santa Rosa, Calif., courtroom fighting to stop a Spanish-owned winery from leveling 154 acres of coast redwoods and Douglas firs to make way for grapevines.
Redwoods only grow in the relatively cool coastal region of Northern California and southern Oregon. Parts of this range, such as northwestern Sonoma County, have become increasingly coveted by winemakers.
Chris Poehlmann, president of a small organization called Friends of the Gualala River, says the wine industry is creeping toward the coast as California's interior valleys heat up and as consumers show preferences for cooler-weather grapes like pinot noir.
"Inexorably, the wine industry is looking for new places to plant vineyards," says Poehlmann, whose group is among the plaintiffs.
California's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CalFire, approved the redwood-clearing project in May 2012.
"So we sued them," says Dave Jordan, the legal liaison for the Sierra Club's Redwood Chapter, another of the plaintiffs. The Center for Biological Diversity is the third plaintiff.
The groups filed suit in June 2012 on the grounds that state officials violated California's environmental protection laws by approving the plan.
Redwoods are considered among the most spectacular of all trees. The biggest trees on Earth by height, redwoods can stand more than 350 feet tall. Some are more than 2,000 years old.
However, the redwoods at the center of this conflict are not old-growth trees. The area was clear-cut more than 50 years ago, and most of the redwoods on the site are less than 100 feet tall. Which is why Sam Singer argues: "There are no forests [on this site]."
Singer is a spokesman for Artesa Vineyards and Winery, which is owned by the Spanish Codorniu Group and which first proposed the development project in 2001. Singer says that the two old-growth redwood trees on the property will be spared.
But the thousands of trees slated for removal are between 50 and 80 feet tall, according to Poehlmann. He says the trees provide wildlife habitat and stabilize the soil against erosion, which has been a major problem for streams in the area that once harbored runs of salmon and steelhead trout.
Coast redwood trees stand at Muir Woods National Monument in Mill Valley, Calif. Redwoods are the biggest trees on Earth by height — they can grow more than 350 feet tall. But their range is quite limited: They only grow along the coast of Northern California and southern Oregon.
Coast redwood trees stand at Muir Woods National Monument in Mill Valley, Calif. Redwoods are the biggest trees on Earth by height — they can grow more than 350 feet tall. But their range is quite limited: They only grow along the coast of Northern California and southern Oregon.
The project planners have even estimated this timber to represent 1.25 million board feet of "merchantable" lumber.
Dennis Hall, a higher official with CalFire, says his department's approval of Artesa's project in 2012 came only after a lengthy review process found that it would not significantly damage the environment.
"We did an [environmental impact report] for the project," Hall says. "It was an extreme and exhaustive analysis of potential impacts to the environment." The report deemed most of these potential impacts to be "less-than-significant."
Still, Poehlmann feels CalFire has been too lenient on proposals by developers to level trees. "They are acting as if they are actually the 'department of deforestation," he says.
The tensions go beyond this case: Friends of the Gualala River and the Sierra Club's Redwood Chapter have gone to court several times in the past decade to successfully stop timberland conversion projects proposed by winery groups and which had been approved by the state. Among these fights was the battle to save the so-called Preservation Ranch, a 19,000-acre parcel that developers planned to partially deforest and replant with vines. Earlier this year, the developer sold the property to The Conservation Fund.
But from 1979 to 2006, 25 conversions of forest to agriculture occurred in Sonoma County at an average rate of 21 acres per year, according to county officials.
At least a few tree clearing projects have occurred without permission. High-profile winemaker Paul Hobbs didn't bother getting a permit before he leveled eight acres of redwoods in 2011 with plans to plant wine grapes. He remains a superstar winemaker and was tagged earlier this year by Forbes as "The Steve Jobs of Wine."
And it's not just redwoods that are at stake as vineyards expand their terrain. California's oaks aren't subject to the same environmental protections as more commercially valuable species like redwoods and Douglas fir, according to CalFire's Hall. And Northern California's oak forest, near the coast as well as inland, is being lost at fast rates to vineyard expansions, says Adina Merenlender, an environmental biologist with U.C. Berkeley.
Merenlender says oak trees tend to be overlooked by the general public, which is more easily impressed by redwoods. Yet oak forests, she says, provide habitat for vastly more species than do redwood forests.
Sara Cummings with the Sonoma Vintners, a wine industry trade group, says new vineyards are usually planted within what she calls the region's "agricultural footprint"—land that is already designated by county planners as "agricultural." Moreover, she says, more than half the county's winegrowers are members of the California Sustainable Winegrowing Program.
But Merenlender is concerned about future expansion into land not previously farmed.
"We're already seeing a lot of acquisition of coastal lands," she says. "Investments are moving north and west, toward the coast."
The issue, it seems, is a global one. A 2013 study predicted that global warming will cause a dramatic shift in the world's wine regions. The report warns that wilderness areas in British Columbia and remote regions of China—one of the world's fastest-growing winemaking regions—may become increasingly coveted by the industry.
"But at least we'll have plenty of wine to drink, "Poehlmann quips, "while we bemoan the fact that our forests are all used up."
Getting into the spirit of fall, LeAnn Rimes and her husband Eddie Cibrian showed up at the Pierce College Pumpkin Patch on Thursday (October 17).
The “Can’t Fight The Moonlight” singer and her handsome actor hubby took full advantage of the refreshment stand, snagging some popcorn and fresh lemonade during their outing.
And before they headed home, LeAnn and Eddie made sure to purchase a wheelbarrow full of beautiful orange pumpkins!
Rimes tweeted, “Going to be a kid w/ my hubby!! Love a good pumpkin patch! Our wheel barrel had a flat lol We’re full of lemonade & popcorn #Halloween.”
Credit: Ireneusz Skorupa
News this week that Twitter's senior vice president of engineering, Christopher Fry, raked in $10.3 million last year confirmed what many already knew: Silicon Valley is an economic bubble where the competition to hire in-demand engineers is greatly inflating some pay packages. However, the high salaries awarded to many in the tech industry comes at the price of worsening inequality in the Bay Area.
In its first public financial statement in preparation for an IPO, Twitter revealed that Fry's package consisted of a $145,513 salary and $100,000 bonus, with the bulk of compensation coming from stock awards. His payday ranked just behind that of Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, at $11.5 million.
Silicon Valley -- home to tech giants Apple, Twitter, Google, and Facebook, as well as venture-capital-funded tech startups -- is awash with cash. A recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics confirmed that Silicon Valley employees are among the highest paid in the country, with the average worker in San Mateo County earning $3,240 per week -- more than three times the national average, and $1,100 more per week than the average employee in Manhattan. By comparison, the average salary for all professions in the Bay Area is $66,070, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Reuters this week quoted Iain Grant, a recruiter at Riviera Partners, which specializes in placing engineers at venture-capital backed startups, as saying that more than three-quarters of candidates who took VP of engineering roles at his client companies over the past two years received total cash compensation in excess of $250,000. Many also received stock grants totaling 1 to 2 percent of the company.
Some, like PandoDaily's Farhad Manjoo, argue that Silicon Valley's engineering salaries are finally getting fair, thanks to the high-stakes bidding wars between companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. While many react with envy at anecdotes of Silicon Valley perks -- the free cafeterias, laundry services, haircuts, employee shuttles, and even leases on Teslas designed to lure new hires -- Manjoo offers a warning:
As the industry's biggest start-ups all go public, their stock options will lose their appeal... and that's going to hurt employees' bottom lines. If you're in the trenches at one of these companies, you'd be wise to realize that your bosses are nothing without you. Ask for more money. Sure, the perks sound fun. But I've had those free lunches. They're not as nice as a better paycheck.
Menlo Park, Calif.-based Robert Half agrees, saying that even in the current job market, Silicon Valley companies cannot skimp on pay. The staffing firm warns that "top salaries are just as important now as in a hotter economy. This is particularly true since each worker is being asked to do more, making every position critical. And, with tighter staffs, the impact of someone leaving is magnified."
But the attention focused on highly compensated engineers like Twitter's Fry and others obscures the fact that Silicon Valley also mirrors the national trend of widening inequality. In an in-depth article, Hamish McKenzie paints an uncomfortable picture of Silicon Valley's ugly rich-poor gap. McKenzie quotes a study by Working Partnerships USA:
Silicon Valley hasn't added any net new jobs in 16 years; that about 31 percent of jobs in Silicon Valley pay $16 an hour or less; and that from 2000 to 2010, the portion of middle class households in Silicon Valley dropped from 62 percent to 55 percent. In the same period, the number of households making less than $10,000 more than doubled, and the cost of every major household expense category increased faster than wages.
Chris Benner, associate professor in Human and Community Development at the University of California, Davis, confirms that "the Bay Area is 'one of the worst in the country' for the gap between the rich and poor." With their high salaries, tech workers are driving up housing costs in the area, making it difficult for low-income families to get by. "[But] most tech people don't think about it," Benner says of the inequality problem.
This article, "Silicon Valley: Top salaries for many, greater inequality for all," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.
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