roofgarden conferral: March 2013

Sunday, March 31, 2013

Can I Set Back Color Of Datetime Picker? - VB.NET | Dream.In.Code

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Source: http://www.dreamincode.net/forums/topic/317172-can-i-set-back-color-of-datetime-picker/

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All Eyes on Ophthalmologists this National Doctor's Day - Oakdale ...

Vision is our most prized sense. In fact, most people fear losing it more than any other primary sense. Vision loss can threaten your ability drive, work, and live independently. That?s why it?s so important to take care of your eyes and keep them healthy, and to know about the physicians that care for your eyes.?

National Doctor's Day, observed March 30, is a great time to learn more about the?role of ophthalmologists?in helping you maintain a lifetime of healthy vision. As medical doctors and surgeons, ophthalmologists provide specialized eye care, and are the only eye care providers qualified to perform medical-based eye care and surgical procedures.?

The American Academy of Ophthalmology encourages you to make eye care a part of your overall health-maintenance strategy. For example:?

Have Your Eyes Checked:?At age 40 all adults should have a baseline?eye disease screening, even if your vision seems perfect. If you?re age 65 or older, schedule an eye exam every 1-2 years, or as recommended by your ophthalmologist. Seniors in this age group may qualify for a free eye exam at?www.eyecareamerica.org.?
Get Plenty of Exercise:?Our eyes need good blood circulation and oxygen intake, and both are stimulated by?regular exercise. Being physically active also helps in maintaining weight in a normal range, which reduces the risk of?diabetes?and?diabetic retinopathy, which is a serious eye complication related to that disease.
Don?t smoke:?Avoiding smoking or quitting altogether is one of the best investments a person can make in their long-term health. Smoking increases the risks of a variety of diseases, including those that affect the eye such as cataracts and diabetic-related conditions.
Understand the impact of other diseases on the eyes:?The eyes are a complex organ.? They contain pigmented cells, a rich network of blood vessels, connective tissue, and the eye?s retina is actually a part of the brain. Diseases like diabetes, sleep apnea, hypertension, sickle cell disease, lupus, and many others can affect the eyes and threaten vision.? Your primary care physician may call upon your ophthalmologist to detect and manage these problems.?

For National Doctor?s Day, join us in celebrating Eye M.D.s by watching a?series of short videos?in which ophthalmologists speak about their passion for helping patients, the expertise they bring to eye care and their dedication to preserving vision and preventing blindness. The videos are a part of the American Academy of Ophthalmology?s public education program, EyeSmart.?

For more information about eye health, visit?www.geteyesmart.org.?

Source: http://oakdale.patch.com/announcements/all-eyes-on-ophthalmologists-this-national-doctors-day-d5c87f3b

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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Why Eat Peeps at Easter?

Along with Easter comes a barrage of Easter candy, perhaps none as much a pop-culture curiosity as Peeps. In a 2004 Explainer, Rachel Deahl researched Peeps' ties to Easter and our fascination with the confection. The article is printed below.

A pagan connection to this Easter confection

This Easter Americans will consume an estimated 700 million Marshmallow Peeps. Some will also be consumed by them?fanatics maintain Web sites featuring everything from Peep erotica, dubbed "Peep Smut," to an inventive online movie called "Lord of the Peeps," and each year at least a few newspapers print odes to the candy. But for all the fascination with Peeps, it's never been clear why the sugary treats are associated with Easter. The marshmallow rabbits represent the Easter Bunny, but what do marshmallow chicks have to do with the resurrection of Christ?

As it turns out, chicks have little to do with Jesus and a lot to do with spring. In 1917, Sam Born, a Russian immigrant, opened a small candy shop in New York City that sold chocolates and other confections. When the company grew, Born relocated it to Bethlehem, Pa., and named it Just Born, after a slogan he'd coined to advertise the freshness of his wares. Then, in 1953, Just Born bought a local Pennsylvania confectioner called the Rodda Candy Company.

Although Just Born acquired Rodda for its jelly-bean-making capabilities, the Born family was fascinated with the three-dimensional marshmallow Easter chicks, called Peeps, that Rodda was also making at the time. Lauren Easterly, the Peeps brand manager at Just Born, said that a group of women at Rodda made Peeps by hand in the back of the factory. In 1953, it took Rodda 27 hours to make one Peep. Just Born mechanized Peep production and was able to bring the confection to consumers on a mass scale by 1954.

No one at Just Born could explain why the Rodda Candy Company thought yellow chicks made for appropriate Easter candies. Company spokesmen also couldn't confirm whether Rodda was making marshmallow confections in other shapes in 1953, although Rodda did manufacture marshmallow eggs at one point. Whatever shapes Rodda was making, however, Just Born zeroed in on the chick; the company didn't start distributing the marshmallow candy in other shapes (such as bunnies) until the 1960s.

Candy historians speculate that the Peeps' link to Easter has more to do with the pagan origins of the holiday than its Christian roots. Eggs, and consequently chicks, are a long-standing symbol of fertility and rebirth, an appropriate image for a holiday that celebrates the coming of spring. Originally part of a pagan fertility ritual symbolizing new life, the egg became incorporated into Easter as pagan rites were absorbed into Christianity with the Christianization of Central Europe.

That the Rodda Candy Company was based in Pennsylvania is also of note because German immigrants, many of whom settled in the state, are largely credited with popularizing the Easter Bunny tradition in America. Eastre was a Teutonic goddess of the dawn who was able to change a bird into a rabbit, a creature known for its fertility. In the 19^th century, Germans gave a related gift during the Easter season: a basket of eggs with figures of bunnies placed in it. The Easter basket, and the Easter Bunny, really became popular in this country following the Civil War, and as one candy historian noted, it would have required no great leap of imagination for Rodda (or earlier candy makers) to place a few chicks among the eggs.

Explainer thanks Anthony Aveni of Colgate Univeristy, Beth Kimmerle, and Tim Richardson.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=7e5d74a045e15102b4f9841c368a22dd

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Friday, March 29, 2013

Savoring California's Napa Valley - Leisure Group Travel

Trappings of the good life await groups touring America?s most famous wine region

Iconic Napa Velley

Everyone knows about California?s wine country and the iconic wineries in the Napa Valley and nearby Sonoma County. And certainly most visitors to the area are going to be interested in touring some of these wineries to see how they turn grapes into a product that sells for $40 a quart. But there are other options as well, from Michelin-star restaurants, bountiful markets and fancy spas to train rides, balloon flights and bike trips.

Getting around the Napa Valley is easy. There are two major north-south highways going through the valley, the Silverado Trail and Route 29.

Visits to valley wineries give tour members close-up looks at the fruit of the vine and tastings of the end product.

Let?s travel through the major towns of the Napa Valley, starting in the north at Calistoga and working south through St. Helena, Yountville and Napa to the Carneros region. Each town has good hotels, excellent restaurants and notable wineries. All but Yountville have weekly farmer?s markets from May to October.

Calistoga was home to several Native American villages, drawn by the healing powers of the local hot springs. By the mid-1800s a spa resort was built and the completion of the Napa Valley Railroad allowed passengers to ferry from San Francisco and then train to Calistoga. Later a local soda fountain owner was drilling for a water well and struck sparkling water. He opened a bottling line and Calistoga Sparkling Water was begun. Also nearby is the Old Faithful of California geyser.

The town today retains a Victorian aura with historic buildings, two-lane roads and no fast-food restaurants. It was cited by the National Trust as a Distinctive Destination. The cooler hillsides produce good zinfandel and chardonnay. Local wineries include Sterling, Schramsberg and Chateau Montelena, known for winning a famous Paris wine tasting and depicted in the movie Bottle Shock. Notable high-end spa resorts include Solage Calistoga and the Calistoga Ranch. A charming in-town property is the Mount View Inn, located on Lincoln Avenue, as are virtually all the restaurants.

St. Helena has a short two-block downtown area that is one of the most picturesque anywhere and contains one-of-a-kind tourist shops and restaurants. Top wineries include Duckhorn, Charles Krug and Joseph Phelps. Resorts include the Harvest Inn, Auberge du Soleil in nearby Rutherford and Meadowood, where the restaurant has three Michelin stars.? Favorite restaurants in St. Helena include Cindy?s Backstreet Kitchen by Cindy Pawlcyn, who also has Mustards Grill in Yountville, and Terra.? Greystone Restaurant is operated by the Culinary Institute of America and staffed largely by culinary students perfecting their craft under the supervision of experienced chefs.

Yountville is a unique small town. Although its population is less than 3,000, the town boasts three Michelin-star restaurants, making it the culinary capital of wine country; arguably, it?s home to the greatest concentration of fine restaurants in the world. The first winery was built here in 1874 and operated until 1955. It is now V Marketplace, which holds shops, the Napa Style wine bar and celebrity chef Michael Chiarello?s Bottega restaurant.? The top accommodations choice is the eco-conscious Bardessono Inn and Spa right across the street. Other hotel options range from the fabulous Hotel Yountville, North Block Hotel and Vintage Inn to a variety of inns?and B&Bs.

The restaurant that really put Yountville on the map is Thomas Keller?s French Laundry, where the menu changes every day and offers a staggering number of small items. It is always rated one of the best restaurants in the world. Keller has his own herb and vegetable garden. He also operates the more casual Bouchon Bistro, Ad Hoc (designed to be for locals) and Bouchon Bakery (pastries and sandwiches). Domaine Chandon winery?s etoile restaurant and Richard Reddington?s Redd also are world-renowned. Bistro Jeanty, Redd Wood and Hurley?s would be top restaurants anywhere else.

Napa Valley Balloons offers early morning flights that afford dreamy views of Northern California wine country.

The Rutherford and Oakville wine regions, between Yountville and Napa, are home to Caymus, Opus One, Inglenook, Plumpjack, Silver Oak, Cakebread and Robert Mondavi. The Oakville Grocery is a historic site where you can purchase whatever you need for your picnic lunch. You can even enjoy it at the picnic area out back. Inglenook is owned by Francis Ford Coppola and is the site of his home and a boutique winery. Coppola recently completed his purchase of the land that comprised the old Inglenook winery and here you can tour the winery as well as visit the museum that tells the story of winemaking, history of Inglenook and history of cinema. Far Niente Winery includes not only a winery tour but visits to its 13 acres of gardens and collection of classic cars and motorcycles.

The city of Napa, at the south end of the valley, is its commercial center. There aren?t a lot of wineries here, with the notable exceptions of Domaine Carneros and Michael Mondavi Family Estate. However, there are roughly 20 wine-tasting rooms where you can savor the vintages from a group of wineries. A Downtown Napa Wine Tasting Card offers tastings at 12 of them for 10 cents each. At the Oxbow Public Market you can taste wine, watch cooking demonstrations, and purchase artisanal cheeses, charcuterie and bread. Or grab some seafood or pizza and enjoy it on the plaza overlooking the river. There are many shops downtown, which stretches east to the river. Along the way you?ll see Napa Artwalk, a rotating temporary series of sculptures based on a theme that changes every two years.

Accommodations in Napa include the Westin Verasa, Andaz Napa, Napa River Inn, River Terrace, Meritage Resort and the Silverado Resort, located east of town in a secluded golf course community. Notable B&Bs include the Beazley House and the Inn on First. Napa also has some great restaurants. La Toque has a Michelin star and Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto has Morimoto Restaurant here. Other great picks are Celadon, Fish Story and Hog Island Oysters at the Oxbow Market (with oysters from its own farm on the coast).

Grgich Hills Estate in Rutherford

The Napa area is easy to tour by bicycle. Napa Valley Bike Tours offers self-guided bike tours on current-year Specialized bikes where you set your own itinerary. They also offer two full-day guided rides, each of which visits three or four wineries in between rides of two to four miles each. One follows roads and the other goes off-road at times to ride through the vineyards. Either way they bring you a picnic lunch and pick up your wine purchases along the way. (napavalleybiketours.com)

Another option is the Napa Valley Wine Train, a scenic ride through the heart of Napa Valley. Each ride is three hours roundtrip and you have a choice of going for lunch or dinner. There are three price levels, which determine your car and your menu and beverage choices. You can choose to just ride the train roundtrip or book a lunch with winery visit and return on the train or motorcoach. (napavalleywinetrain.com)

For something out of the ordinary, try a hot-air balloon ride with Napa Valley Balloons. The winds are the calmest and coolest at sunrise, so the trip starts very early. You start with a pre-dawn arrival for coffee, juice and pastry. Then you board in a group of 6-16 depending on the basket size. There is no sense of motion as you float with the winds up to 2,000 feet for about an hour. Your pilot points out landmarks and scenic highlights between the mountain ranges. After landing you finish the trip with full breakfast and sparkling wines at Domaine Chandon Winery?s Michelin-star etoile restaurant. (napavalleyballoons.com)

For more information on California?s Napa Valley, go to visitnapavalley.com.

By John Kloster

Source: http://leisuregrouptravel.com/savoring-californias-napa-valley/

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Cyprus banks re-open; limits on transactions

People wait outside a branch of Bank of Cyprus in Nicosia, Cyprus, Thursday, March 28, 2013. Cypriots get their first chance to access their savings in almost two weeks when the country?s banks reopen Thursday - albeit with strict restrictions on transactions - after being closed due to the country?s acute financial crisis. Lines were starting to form outside banks Thursday morning ahead of the official opening for six hours at noon (1000 GMT). (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

People wait outside a Coop Bank branch in Nicosia, Cyprus, Thursday, March 28, 2013. Cypriots get their first chance to access their savings in almost two weeks when the country?s banks reopen Thursday - albeit with strict restrictions on transactions - after being closed due to the country?s acute financial crisis. Lines were starting to form outside banks Thursday morning ahead of the official opening for six hours at noon (1000 GMT). (AP Photo/Philippos Christou)

People wait outside a Coop bank branch in Nicosia, Cyprus, Thursday, March 28, 2013. Bank branches across the country were being replenished with cash, and are scheduled to open for six hours at noon (10:00 GMT). Systems were frozen pending the official noon opening. (AP Photo/Philippos Christou)

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Banks in Cyprus reopened for the first time in nearly two weeks Thursday and prohibited people from withdrawing all their savings and triggering further chaos in the country's financial system.

The limits on transactions, which include caps on withdrawals and money leaving the country, are a first in the 14-year history of the euro.

Across Cyprus, large but orderly lines formed ahead of the opening of banks for six hours from noon, and guards from private security firms reinforced police outside some ATMs and banks in the capital, Nicosia.

People filed calmly into banks across the country once they had opened, and no crowd issues were reported.

The country's president, Nicos Anastasiades, expressed his "warm gratitude and deep appreciation towards the Cypriot people for the maturity and spirit of responsibility they have shown at a critical time for the stability of the Cypriot economy," a statement from his office said.

In Nicosia, one 70 year-old pensioner who only gave his name as Ioannis arrived at the bank some two hours ahead of the scheduled opening time.

"I had to come this early, I came from my village 20 kilometers away, what do they want me to do, keep coming and going?" he said.

Banks have been shut since March 16 to prevent people draining their accounts as politicians scrambled to come up with a plan to allow Cyprus to qualify for 10 billion euros ($12.9 billion) in bailout loans for its stricken banking sector.

The deal was finally reached in Brussels early Monday, and imposes severe losses on deposits of over 100,000 euros in the country's two largest banks, Laiki and Bank of Cyprus. Laiki will be broken up, with its good assets being absorbed by Bank of Cyprus. The exact amounts of the losses have not yet been officially announced.

Some individuals and businesses, spotting that Cyprus's economy was in trouble and that a tax on deposits was being discussed, had managed to move their money out Cyprus well before the banks closed their doors last week.

According to European Central Bank figures, deposits in Cyprus's banks slipped 2.2 percent last month, to 46.359 billion euros, the lowest figure since May 2010 and down from a peak of 50.5 billion euros in May 2012. The figure excludes deposits from other banks and the central government.

"I anticipated, not this to happen, but I anticipated issues last year, when Greece had a question of whether it will remain in euro and the consequences of that," said Athos Angelides, who runs a business importing and distributing hair salon products. "So luckily we transferred money in the middle of last year over to the UK."

Although the banks have opened, customers are severely limited in access to their accounts. Capital controls, imposed to prevent worried savers and businesses rushing to withdraw all their money, include limiting cash withdrawals to 300 euros ($383) per day per person and limiting payments abroad to 5,000 euros.

No checks can be cashed, although they can be paid in, and people leaving the country can only take up to 1,000 euros, or the equivalent in foreign currency, with them in cash.

The country's general accounting office said pensions and other social security payments, together with salaries for government employees, will be in bank accounts next Tuesday and Wednesday.

"The Central Bank decided on some limitations, so we are sure that slowly, slowly we are going back to functioning of the banks without serious problems," the head of the parliament, Yiannakis Omirou, told AP.

"Some problems I'm sure will be created but our people are ready to overcome the difficult moments we are passing."

The restrictions will be reviewed daily and are initially in place for seven days until next Wednesday. Some analysts are concerned that, if the controls are kept in place for much longer than that, Cyprus's measures will go against the fundamental principle of the single currency: Free and easy movement of money around the euro group's 17 members.

The European Commission said in a statement that EU member states could restrict financial transactions "in certain circumstances and under strict conditions on grounds of public policy or public security" but added that "the free movement of capital should be reinstated as soon as possible".

Many Cypriots were struggling to work out exactly what they could and couldn't do. Television talk shows hosted dial-ins with experts, with viewers' queries ranging from where they would repay loans to how they could pay tuition fees for children studying abroad and handle check payments. Across the country, people wondered whether they would be able to access their salaries, many of which were due this week.

"I believe this will be a very difficult day for both people and bank employees because no matter how much information there was, things were changing all the time," said Costas Kyprianides, a grocery supplier in Nicosia. "Even us traders, like myself, have so many checks which I need to deposit so I can make ends meet."

During the bank closure, ATMs were working but quickly ran out of money. Those of the two troubled banks, Laiki and Bank of Cyprus, had imposed withdrawal limits of 100 euros a day.

"Up until last night things kept on changing," said store owner Antonis Arotokritou. "There's an overall panic and uncertainty from both the bankers and the rest of the people."

Branches of the country's troubled second-largest lender, Laiki, didn't open on time due to a delay in the bank's computer system. Laiki spokesman Costas Archimandrites said there had been an initial problem with the bank's system but that it was quickly remedied. An hour after the official start of business, all branches had opened.

The stock market announced it would remain closed on Thursday "in order to ensure the smooth functioning of the stock market and protect investors." It too has been closed since March 16.

____

Elena Becatoros in Nicosia and David McHugh in Frankfurt contributed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-28-Cyprus-Financial%20Crisis/id-acc8fd3543444bb1af1ec162a187433e

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93% Lore

All Critics (87) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (81) | Rotten (6)

It's a harrowing walk through the heart of darkness.

Saskia Rosendahl gives an impressively poised performance as the beautiful teenager, whose determination to protect her remaining family coincides with her growing revulsion toward her parents.

"Lore" is not a pretty story, but it is a good and sadly believable one.

"Lore" is not a love story, nor the story of a friendship. Rather, it's a story of healing and of how breaking, sometimes painfully, is often necessary before that process can begin.

A fiercely poetic portrait of a young woman staggering beyond innocence and denial, it's about the wars that rage within after the wars outside are lost.

Full of surprises, the movie draws a thin line between pity and revulsion - how would you feel if you had discovered your whole life had been based on lies?

Texture and detail embellish a provocative story

Child of Nazi parents faces an uncertain future

[Director Cate] Shortland directs with an almost hypnotic focus, favoring Lore's immediate experience over the big picture.

Rosendahl's performance is raw and compelling, as Lore fights for her siblings' survival and grows up in a hurry.

Lore and her siblings make a harrowing journey across Germany

Worthwhile, but so subtle that it's frustrating.

The Australian-German co-production takes an unconventional tale and turns it into a challenging, visually stunning and emotionally turbulent film experience.

Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go. Except this ain't no fairy tale... unless it is, perhaps, a hint of the beginnings of a new mythology of ... scary childhood and even scarier adolescence...

With a child's perspective on war, "Lore" deserves comparisons with "Empire of the Sun" and "Hope and Glory," and with a feisty female protagonist it stands virtually alone.

Rosendahl...provides both narrative and emotional continuity to a film whose deliberate pace and fragmented presentation of reality might otherwise prove exasperating.

A burning portrait of consciousness and endurance, gracefully acted and strikingly realized, producing an honest sense of emotional disruption, while concluding on a powerful note of cultural and familial rejection.

Although there are moments that push the story a bit beyond credulity, Shortland has created something remarkable by forcing us to find within ourselves sympathy for this would-be Aryan princess.

Stunning, admirable and indelible - truthfully chronicling the triumph of the human spirit - in a class with Michael Haneke's 'The White Ribbon.'

Can we spare some sympathy or hope for the children of villains, even if they too show signs of their parents' evil? Lore provides no easy answers.

The portrait is miniature and yet indelible, a ghostly reminder of the 20th century.

No quotes approved yet for Lore. Logged in users can submit quotes.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/lore/

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What?s new and what?s not for women in war? A Yahoo! News chat

Last week, during his Ryan Seacrest-hosted special on The CW, Justin Timberlake said that music is the "most special" hat of the many hats he wears as an entertainer. Now, we can't psychoanalyze JT?as much as everyone may have wanted to during his year-long courtship of the world's attention. But, to be sure, music has given this man a lot: Timberlake's pop-star status has allowed him to pursue the very side projects that have transformed into his main career focus, as modern mega-celebrities are want to do with their "brand maintenance" these days. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/what%E2%80%99s-new-and-what%E2%80%99s-not-for-women-in-war--a-yahoo--news-chat-171220929.html

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Thursday, March 28, 2013

The Reducio ad absurdum of American constitutional jurisprudence (Powerlineblog)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/294687109?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Jake's Never Land Pirate School (for iPhone)

Ahoy mateys! Jake's Never Land Pirate School (free), based on the animated Disney Junior show Jake and the Never Land Pirates, is a fun and educational iPhone app that teaches kids fundamental skills like following directions, counting, identifying shapes and sounds, and other preschool basics. Although the game is designed for players ages three and up, I would recommend it more for children four and up. With the app's cute graphics and interactive games, kids are sure to have fun learning with some of their favorite Disney Junior characters.

Mommy, I Wanna Be A Pirate!
Kids start the game by creating their own pirate using a picture of their face. They can either capture a picture or import one from the iPhone's photos. After that simple setup, they choose any of the following classes?Sailing, Pirate Band, Map & Spyglass, or Pixie Dust. There are at least three levels in each class and each class is headed by a different Never Land character. Your child can sail the seas with Jake and Bucky, rock out with Bones and Sharky, locate objects with Cubby, or fly through mazes with Izzy and Skully.

How Pirate School Works
Kids practice counting in the Sailing Class, in which they can navigate around obstacles and collect buoys. By tilting the device, they can move the ship in the direction they want, hitting the gadget button that appears when there's an obstacle. There are no repercussions for doing poorly, so the game runs continuously until your child has collected enough buoys to move on. This could have positive and negative effects. On one hand, kids won't be discouraged if they have trouble navigating. On the other hand, they might find colliding into obstacles more fun (or rather funny since the water "splashes" on the screen).

In the Pirate Band Class, players play different instruments with Bones and Sharky playing in the background. Each instrument requires a different finger movement, which is demonstrated on screen and has to be mimicked by the player when playing the level. Kids can then listen to a recording of themselves playing the instrument without Bones and Sharky in the background and hear what the it sounds like alone. The game is simple enough to play since it's all about music and rhythm and takes no more than a few simple finger movements on the screen.

Good pirates follow directions from their captain, which your little one can learn to do in the Map & Spyglass Class with Cubby. Your child has to pick a location on the map by listening to clues, then look for objects according to the directions. For example, Cubby might say, "Try looking for a skateboard by the smallest coconut." Using the spyglass, your child has to look around the location using those clues.

Last, but not least, what's Never Land without a little pixie dust? Kids can practice pre-writing skills and identifying shapes in the Pixie Dust Class. Using their pirate character, players create a trail of pixie dust for their pirate to follow. They can lead them into "pixie bursts" and trace shapes so objects fall on a cardboard cutout of Captain Hook.

Most Organized Pirates You'll Ever Meet
Kids earn a badge at the end of each lesson and also get a chance to collect gold doubloons as quickly as they can. Throughout the game, there's a log that keeps track of your children's progress in each class as well as how many doubloons they've collected. After kids have finished all the lessons, they get an official Never Land Pirate certificate, which they can decorate with stickers and print through Air Print.

Jake's Never Land Pirate School is definitely worth getting for your youngster. Although the game is designed for children three years old and up, the skill required are such that I personally would recommend it more for four and up. Menu navigation and some of the games might be a little tough for younger kids. Jake's Never Land Pirate School is a great app to have in your kiddie app arsenal and will keep your kids preoccupied and learning.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/6lCwYTrjJwk/0,2817,2417084,00.asp

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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Obama names Julia Pierson as Secret Service director (Washington Post)

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Here's Everything Wrong with The Hobbit

Click here to read Here's Everything Wrong with <em>The Hobbit</em>

Our friends at Cinema Sins found 45 things wrong with The Hobbit and I'm just going to assume all 45 of those things are because of the 48FPS that Peter Jackson chose to use for reasons unknown. Or I guess it could also be because the movie just wasn't any good. [Cinema Sins] More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/8Y-IyqxYBzc/heres-everything-wrong-with-the-hobbit

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Saliva testing predicts aggression in boys

Mar. 26, 2013 ? A new study indicates that a simple saliva test could be an effective tool in predicting violent behavior.

The pilot study, led by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and published this week online in the journal Psychiatric Quarterly, suggests a link between salivary concentrations of certain hormones and aggression.

Researchers, led by Drew Barzman, MD, a child and adolescent forensic psychiatrist at Cincinnati Children's, collected saliva samples from 17 boys ages 7-9 admitted to the hospital for psychiatric care to identify which children were most likely to show aggression and violence. The samples, collected three times in one day shortly after admission, were tested for levels of three hormones: testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and cortisol. The severity and frequency of aggression correlated with the levels of these hormones.

Barzman's team focused on rapid, real-time assessment of violence among child and adolescent inpatients, a common problem in psychiatric units. But he believes a fast and accurate saliva test could eventually have several other applications.

"We believe salivary hormone testing has the potential to help doctors monitor which treatments are working best for their patients," said Barzman. "And because mental health professionals are far more likely to be assaulted on the job than the average worker, it could offer a quick way to anticipate violent behavior in child psychiatric units. Eventually, we hope this testing might also provide a tool to help improve safety in schools."

For this study, the saliva test was used in combination with other aggressive behavior tools, including the Brief Rating of Aggression by Children and Adolescents (BRACHA) questionnaire, an assessment tool also developed by Barzman's team to predict aggression and violence in the hospital.

"This study sample, while small, gives us the data we need to move forward," added Barzman. "We have more studies planned before we can reach a definitive conclusion, but developing a new tool to help us anticipate violent behavior is our ultimate goal."

Barzman's team included Douglas Mossman, MD, a psychiatrist at the University of Cincinnati (UC) and an internationally recognized authority on violence prediction; Michael Sorter, MD, Director, Division of Psychiatry at Cincinnati Children's; David Klein, PhD, MD, an endocrinologist at Cincinnati Children's; Thomas Geracioti , MD, an expert in the endocrinology of mental disorders based at the Veterans Administration Medical Center and Kacey Appel, a PhD candidate in epidemiology at UC.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

Journal Reference:

Drew H. Barzman, Douglas Mossman, Kacey Appel, Thomas J. Blom, Jeffrey R. Strawn, Nosa N. Ekhator, Bianca Patel, Melissa P. DelBello, Michael Sorter, David Klein, Thomas D. Geracioti. The Association Between Salivary Hormone Levels and Children?s Inpatient Aggression: A Pilot Study. Psychiatric Quarterly, 2013; DOI: 10.1007/s11126-013-9260-8

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/living_well/~3/ovK7xsW1i5s/130326162157.htm

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Finalizing Your 2010 Roth Taxes | Bankrate.com

Taxes ? Investment Taxes ? Finalizing Your 2010 Roth Taxes

2010 was a great year for retirement savers. That was when the income limit restricting who could convert a traditional individual retirement account to a Roth plan was eliminated.

Now anyone, regardless of how much they make, can roll their tax-deferred traditional IRA money into a tax-free Roth IRA.

The one remaining hang-up is that when you convert to a Roth, you must pay taxes on the taxable portion of your traditional IRA.

This tax is due on the portion of your traditional IRA that you previously deducted, along with the earnings, because this amount is tax-deferred money. You pay tax when you take distributions, or in this case, convert the funds.

That's required because it's going into a Roth IRA, where distributions are tax-free because taxes are paid on contributions before they're made. This means tax on contributions from a converted traditional IRA must be paid.

But 2010 also was a great year when it came to paying the conversion taxes.

That year, taxpayers who converted a traditional IRA to a Roth were given the choice to pay all the conversion taxes all at once on their 2010 tax returns or to spread the tax payments equally over the 2011 and 2012 tax years.

If you opted to spread out the conversion tax bill, you reported half of the taxable traditional IRA amount on your 2011 tax return. Now this filing season, you must report the remainder of your conversion and pay taxes on it on your 2012 income tax return.

The payment is simple if you didn't take any other distributions from the Roth retirement account. You enter the remaining half of your 2010 Roth conversion on line 15b of Form 1040, or if you file a Form 1040A, on line 11b of that shorter form.

Don't remember how much you converted? That's where your tax record-keeping comes into play.

When you converted the traditional IRA to a Roth in 2010, you filed Form 8606 with that year's tax return. That let the Internal Revenue Service know that you were deferring your retirement plan tax payment for a couple of years.

The amount on which you owe taxes for 2012 (i.e., half the original conversion amount) is on line 20b of that 2010 Form 8606.

This covers your conversion taxes for 2012 as long as you have not taken any distributions from the Roth account since you converted it in 2010.

Source: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/finalizing-2010-roth-taxes.aspx

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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

For Israelis, Obama has finally arrived

President Obama hit all the right notes for winning over skeptical Israelis during his first state visit to the critical ally.?

By Christa Case Bryant,?Staff writer / March 20, 2013

President Barack Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres are photographed through a window and the crowd as they are greeted by children waving Israeli and American flags upon their arrival at the Peres' residence, March 20, in Jerusalem.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Enlarge

Like Jerry McGuire, who won his wife back with a simple "hello," President Obama seemed to capture the hearts of Israelis with the first word of his speech upon touching down at Ben Gurion airport: Shalom.

Skip to next paragraph Christa Case Bryant

Jerusalem bureau chief

Christa Case Bryant is The Christian Science Monitor's Jerusalem bureau chief, providing coverage on Israel and the Palestinian territories as well as regional issues.

Study warns on location data privacy

25 March 2013 Last updated at 07:09 ET By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Individuals can be uniquely identified with just four points of location data, a study of mobile phone records shows.

Countless mobile applications make use of location data, and such information is increasingly used to tailor both services for users and advertisements.

But a study in Scientific Reports warns that human mobility patterns are unique identifiers, even when data are scarce.

It presents a formula to describe the trade-off between genuine anonymity and the "resolution" of location data.

The growing ubiquity of mobile phones and smartphone applications has ushered in an era in which tremendous amounts of user data have become available to the companies that operate and distribute them - sometimes released publicly as "anonymised" or aggregated data sets.

Continue reading the main story

?Start Quote

Even if there's no name or email address it can still be personal data, so we need it to be treated accordingly?

End Quote Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye MIT

These data are of extraordinary value to advertisers and service providers, but also for example to those who plan shopping centres, allocate emergency services, and a new generation of social scientists.

Yet the spread and development of "location services" has outpaced the development of a clear understanding of how location data impact users' privacy and anonymity.

For example, sat-nav manufacturers have long been using location data from both mobile phones and sat-navs themselves to improve traffic reporting, by calculating how fast users are moving on a given stretch of road.

The data used in such calculations are "anonymised" - no actual mobile numbers or personal details are associated with the data.

But there are some glaring examples of how nominally anonymous data can be linked back to individuals, the most striking of which occurred with a tranche of data deliberately released by AOL in 2006, outlining 20 million anonymised web searches.

The New York Times did a little sleuthing in the data and was able to determine the identity of "searcher 4417749".

Trace amounts

Recent work has increasingly shown that humans' patterns of movement, however random and unpredictable they seem to be, are actually very limited in scope and can in fact act as a kind of fingerprint for who is doing the moving.

The new work details just how "low-resolution" these location data can be and still act as a unique identifier of individuals.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Catholic University of Louvain studied 15 months' worth of mobile phone records for 1.5 million individuals.

The location of a given mobile phone can be determined from antennas within each "cell" of the network. The team considered these locations as assessed hourly during that time.

They found from the "mobility traces" - the evident paths of each mobile phone - that only four locations and times were enough to identify a particular user.

"In the 1930s, it was shown that you need 12 points to uniquely identify and characterise a fingerprint," said the study's lead author Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye of MIT.

"What we did here is the exact same thing but with mobility traces. The way we move and the behaviour is so unique that four points are enough to identify 95% of people," he told BBC News.

"We think this data is more available than people think. When you think about, for instance wi-fi or any application you start on your phone, we call up the same kind of mobility data.

"When you share information, you look around you and feel like there are lots of people around - in the shopping centre or a tourist place - so you feel this isn't sensitive information."

Privacy formula

The team went on to quantify how "high-resolution" the data need to be - the precision to which a location is known - in order to more fully guarantee privacy.

Co-author Cesar Hidalgo said that the data follow a natural mathematical pattern that could be used as an analytical guide as more location services and high-resolution data become available.

"The idea here is that there is a natural trade-off between the resolution at which you are capturing this information and anonymity, and that this trade-off is just by virtue of resolution and the uniqueness of the pattern," he told BBC News.

"This is really fundamental in the sense that now we're operating at high resolution, the trade-off is how useful the data are and if the data can be anonymised at all. A traffic forecasting service wouldn't work if you had the data within a day; you need that within an hour, within minutes."

Dr Hidalgo notes that additional information would still be needed to connect a mobility trace to an individual, but that users freely give away some of that information through geo-located tweets, location "check-ins" with applications such as Foursquare and so on.

But the authors say their purpose is to provide a mathematical link - a formula applicable to all mobility data - that quantifies the anonymity/utility trade-off, and hope that the work sparks debate about the relative merits of this "Big Data" and individual privacy.

"We really don't think that we should stop collecting or using this data - there's way too much to gain for all of us - companies, scientists, and users," said Mr de Montjoye.

"We've really tried hard to not frame this as a 'Big Brother' situation, as 'we know everything about you'. But we show that even if there's no name or email address it can still be personal data, so we need it to be treated accordingly."

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21923360#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

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Snow, wintry rain: Messy Monday for East Coast

In the first days of spring, people across the Midwest are digging out of a major snowstorm that barreled across the country, dropping over a foot of snow on St. Louis. Today more snow is expected up and down the East Coast. The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel reports.

By Alastair Jamieson and Erin McClam, NBC News

It?s the winter that wouldn?t die.

Five days into spring, a winter storm raked the Midwest and Northeast on Monday, turning commutes messy and threatening to dump up to 4 inches of snow around Philadelphia and Washington.

The good news: Temperatures hovering at or just above freezing should hold accumulations down.

?The roads are in pretty good shape this morning because, after all, it is March,? Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel said from Frederick, Md.

More coverage from weather.com

During the morning drive, the storm was dropping snow across a curlicue swath of the country, from the Mid-Atlantic coast back through the southern Great Lakes and down into the Appalachian Mountains in Kentucky and Tennessee.

In New York and parts of New Jersey, a winter weather advisory was in effect starting at 6 a.m. EDT. Snow and rain showers were expected to continue through late afternoon and wind down by early evening.

In Philadelphia, rain during the morning commute was expected to change to a wintry mix that will last for most of the day. Untreated roads could turn slippery, said Brittney Shipp, a meteorologist for NBC affiliate WCAU.

Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images

A woman removes snow from her driveway Monday in Silver Spring, Md. A messy Monday is in store for millions along the East Coast.

Inside the Washington Beltway, forecasters called for a mix of rain and snow, with accumulations of less than an inch. North and west of the capital, 2 to 4 inches of snow was expected ? and perhaps as much as 8 inches west of Interstate 81.

Over the weekend, the same storm system pounded parts of the Rocky Mountains east to the Ohio Valley. Denver got almost a foot of snow, and Goodland, Kan., reported 15 inches.

On Friday, a qualifying match for the 2014 World Cup outside Denver was played in near-blizzard conditions ? so much snow that officials had to bring in a yellow-and-purple soccer ball.

The United States beat Costa Rica 1-0, and Costa Rica has asked the governing body of soccer to order a replay.

A storm system blanketed the Midwest in snow, while thunderstorms and wind gusts slammed the South, NBC's Janel Klein reports.

This story was originally published on Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:02 AM EDT

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/29f6f133/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C250C174518590Esnow0Ewintry0Erain0Emessy0Emonday0Efor0Eeast0Ecoast0Dlite/story01.htm

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Swedish House Mafia Had Ultra Music Fest Climbing Porta-Pottys

Fans were dripping in each other's sweat to catch a glance of the threesome during the second weekend of Miami's EDM party.
By Sarah Harper

Swedish House Mafia perform at Ultra
Photo: Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704272/swedish-house-mafia-tiesto-ultra.jhtml

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Monday, March 25, 2013

A marine animal to feed your eco-car

Mar. 25, 2013 ? The marine animal tunicate can be used both as biofuel and fish food, according to research from Norway. On the ocean floor, under the pier, and on ship ropes -- that's where the tunicates live. Tunicates are marine filter feeders that serve as bacteria eaters and as a foodstuff in Korea and Japan. But in the future they may become more prevalent.

Five researchers at the University of Bergen (UiB) and Uni Research have found that a certain type of tunicate -- ascidiacea -- can be used as a renewable source of biofuel and fish food. This is particularly good news for the growing aquaculture industry, which for years has struggled to find enough quality feed for its fish. There also is the prospect of reducing emissions from traffic.

Usable as fuel

It is the cellulose, the protein, and the Omega-3 fatty acids in the ascidiacea that is the cause for its many uses.

"Its mantle consists of cellulose, which is a collection of sugars. When cellulose is cleaved, one can obtain ethanol. And ethanol can be used for biofuel in cars. The animal's body consists of large amounts of protein and Omega-3. This can be used for fish feed," says Professor Eric Thompson at UiB's Department of Biology.

Thompson and his colleagues have spent years looking into the many possible uses of the ascidiacea.

Commercial potential

At the innovation conference GROW in March 2013, arranged by Business Region Bergen, the researchers received a prize for innovative research and were awarded NOK 300,000 for their discoveries. Regional bank Sparebanken Vest and Bergen Teknologioverf?ring (BTO) sponsor the prize. The researchers plan to use the prize money to create commercially viable products based on their research. They have already acquired a patent for biofuel and have a patent application pending for the cultivation of ascidiacea as fish feed.

Why are tunicates particularly suited for use as biofuel?

"The bioethanol used today is unsustainable as it comes from foods already used for human consumption. That is why there has been a move towards using cellulose from the timber industry to produce bioethanol," says Dr. Sc. Christofer Troedsson of Uni Research's Molecular Ecology Group and head of the research at UiB's Marine Development Biology and the tunicate research project.

"However, it is quite complicated to break down the cellulose in trees and convert it into ethanol. This is because the wood contains a substance called lignin, which is hard to separate from the cellulose. Tunicates contain no lignin. Their cellulose is also low in crystals and is more efficiently converted into ethanol," he says.

More environmentally friendly

Troedsson also points out that using ascidiacea rather than trees is more environmentally friendly, because this does not occupy large tracts of land which could otherwise be used for other purposes, such as growing food.

Another important point is that the ascidiacea are not in the food chain, probably because of their protective mantle. So there are no creatures dependent on the ascidiacea to survive. They also grow very quickly. 4-6 months after "birth" they are ready for harvesting. Tunicates are also found in all oceans, with an enormous growth potential that exceeds most land-based feedstock.