Thursday, February 28, 2013

The Engadget Podcast is live tonight at 3:30PM!

Yeah, we're on a bit earlier today. Some of us have families to get back to, after all. Yeesh. Also, we just couldn't wait to talk about all of the news that's come out of Mobile World Congress in the past week. Join Tim, Brian and our old/new colleague Peter Rojas at 3:30 sharp(ish) just after the break.

February 28, 2013 3:30 PM EST

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/8buflk-8x0o/

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Celebrate HOME Magazine read about living using less energy | My ...

Published quarterly, Celebrate HOME Magazine focuses on family, food, entertaining, gardening, art, crafts, hobbies, personal expression,?

Gladys Roldan-de-Moras copyright Cindy Dyer

Gladys Roldan-de-Moras copyright Cindy Dyer

Published March 2013 atathttp://cindydyer.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/celebrate-home-winter-2013.pdf?I contributed a short article on What home means to me.

Home means sacred space

to me, a place where I can

tune into my inner self and fill

space around me with beauty

and love. I have always been

intrigued by small habitats.

As a child, I wanted to live in

a tree house; I still do. I marvel

at small spaces and am attracted to Japanese small apartment designs. Home means

I am sustainably living a

greener life. A smaller space?

360 sq. ft.?requires less

energy. My building is

located in a park.

The park has a community

garden for residents. This year

I will have my very own raised

bed to maintain. Gardens testify

to green living. I will be raising

pollinator flowers for butterfly

and native bees and culinary

herbs. Home means that I will

make the world around me a

better place for pollinators

and health. The medicine is

in the herbs.

Home means having

adequate workspace for a

computer, printer and copier for

my home office. Home means

having abundant natural light

and open space for Tai chi and

Yoga practice. There is a small

area for resting/sleeping and

viewing TV. I don?t do well

with lounging. I chose a small

woman?s wing back chair and

accompanying oak straight

back chair, with room enough

to practice floor exercises.

My ninth floor suite has

large eight-foot windows,

facing west. The windows

provide a spectacular changing four season landscape.

Home means I can touch the

sky and stars, even though

I am inside. Outside the

window, mighty oaks keep

me company with their

seasonal foliage changes.

At long last, I am free. I am

home and finally living in

my tree house.

?Mary Ellen Ryall

Winter sunset Fitchburg
Winter sunset Fitchburg

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Source: http://butterfly-woman-publishing.com/2013/02/28/celebrate-home-magazine-read-about-living-using-less-energy/

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Apple launches iTunes in the Cloud for movies in eleven European countries

Apple launches iTunes in the Cloud for movies in eleven European countries

Apple has launched movies through iTunes in the Cloud in eleven European countries. Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden now have access to the service, according to confirmation provided by Apple to The Next Web, allowing them to stream and re-download movies through iTunes.

Additionally, France now has access to TV shows through iTunes in the Cloud.

Movies over iTunes in the Cloud are now available to users in 80 countries, while TV shows are only supported in five, Australia, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

If you're in one of the new countries, here's how to set up and use iTunes in the Cloud for movies and TV shows. Let us know how it works for you!

Source: The Next Web



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/LnvN8ypnW7c/story01.htm

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CEO Tim Cook: Apple focused on 'long term'

CUPERTINO - Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook on Wednesday acknowledged widespread disappointment in the company's sagging share price but shared few details about its secretive product pipeline and touched only briefly on a raging debate about how best to reward shareholders.

The world's most valuable technology company headed into its annual shareholders' meeting at its headquarters on shakier ground than it has been accustomed to in years, since the iPhone and iPad helped vault the company to premier investment status.

A declining share price has lent weight to Wall Street's demand that it share more of its $137 billion in cash and securities pile - equivalent to Hungary's Gross Domestic Product, and growing - a debate now spearheaded by outspoken hedge fund manager David Einhorn.

Einhorn was not spotted at the meeting at the company's headquarters at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino. Cook repeated that the company's board remained in "very very active" discussions about options for cash sharing, and said he shared investors' dissatisfaction over the stock price.

"I don't like it either. The board doesn't like it. The management team doesn't like it," Cook told investors.

"What we are focused on is the long term. This has always been a secret of Apple."

By focusing on the long term, revenue and profit will follow, he said.

Apple had the "mother of all years" last year with growth, in terms of dollars, outpacing that of Microsoft, Google, Nokia and several other major technology companies combined, Cook said.

Cook -- who was re-elected to the board with 99.1 percent of shareholder votes -- added that the company was working on new product categories, but, as usual, would not elaborate.

Speculation is rife on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley that the iPhone maker is working on a project to revolutionize the television and TV content, or a smart "iWatch."

Apple's stock was down 0.25 percent to $447.86 in afternoon trade. It is now down more than 35 percent from its $702.10 September peak.

Cook presided over Wednesday's staid affair in his typically even-keeled manner. Despite a slipping share price, dissatisfaction on the Street over its cash allocation and uncertainty over its product pipeline, shareholders re-elected the entire board, and Cook won more than 99 percent of the vote in preliminary results.

Cook got the most votes, followed by Walt Disney Co's Bob Iger, who won re-election with 99 percent of shareholder votes. Former Avon Products CEO Andrea Jung, who stepped down after botching several attempts at restructuring the cosmetics company, received the fewest votes of the group, with 84.6 percent of shareholders voting yea.

Carol Shoaff, an Apple shareholder for about the past five years, said after the meeting that she was confident in Apple's leadership and the company was on the right path.

"I think he's good," she said, referring to Cook. "I don't think Steve Jobs would have left him in charge if he didn't believe in him."

Members of the Service Employees International Union protested outside the headquarters to get Apple to reconsider hiring of securities contractor SIS.

Apple's annual shareholder meetings have seemed more like celebrations in recent years. Since the company came out with its first iPhone in 2007, the company multiplied in market value until it peaked in September.

Then Samsung Electronics and Amazon.com began seriously eroding its market share in 2012, powered by arch-rival Google's Android software. On March 14, Samsung will launch the Galaxy SIV smartphone, the latest iteration of a flagship smartphone that helped it dethrone Apple from the top of the industry.

Institutional investors want Apple to share a greater chunk of its cash and securities pile, a demand growing increasingly strident with the company's stock wallowing at levels untested since the start of 2012.

Einhorn is advocating "iPrefs," preferred stock that will carry a perpetual 4 percent dividend to boost returns while not hampering cash flow.

On Friday, Einhorn won an important legal victory that strengthened his hand. His Greenlight Capital secured an injunction that invalidated shareholder voting on a proposal to scrap Apple's power to issue preferred stock at its discretion.

Apple says this would enhance governance. But the hedge fund manager argued it could complicate efforts to issue preferred securities in the future.

Cook said again on Wednesday that Einhorn's lawsuit - regardless of its efficacy - was a "silly sideshow." The underlying principle of cash distribution was something he and the board took seriously, he added.

The proposal was not put forth on Wednesday but Apple shareholders and representatives from the California Public Employees Retirement System and the Nathan Cummings Foundation spoke in favor of it at the meeting.

CalPers, owner of 2.7 million Apple shares, had supported the so-called Proposal 2. Senior Portfolio Manager Anne Simpson said it was unfortunate the measure could not be put forward.

"We know there is hot debate going on with cash," Simpson told the assembled shareholders. "We are willing and happy to wait."

Cook, who took over from late company co-founder Steve Jobs in 2011, answered a variety of questions from shareholders, including some on Apple's new headquarters, labor conditions in its factories and product plans.

One shareholder also asked why there was no bathroom in an Apple retail store in Santa Monica, Calif. Cook, acknowledging that it was an important point, said he will look into it.

On the new headquarters, Cook said the company plans to break ground later this year and occupy the facilities in 2016, a delay from the original 2015 target date.

The meeting largely followed the script with no distractions. Shareholders voted down two shareholder proposals, both of which were opposed by Apple's board. One wanted Apple leadership to hold more stock, the other was a proposal to create a board committee on human rights.

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/ceo-tim-cook-apple-focused-long-term-1C8595812

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Blueprint for an artificial brain: Scientists experiment with memristors that imitate natural nerves

Feb. 26, 2013 ? Scientists have long been dreaming about building a computer that would work like a brain. This is because a brain is far more energy-saving than a computer, it can learn by itself, and it doesn't need any programming. Privatdozent [senior lecturer] Dr. Andy Thomas from Bielefeld University's Faculty of Physics is experimenting with memristors -- electronic microcomponents that imitate natural nerves. Thomas and his colleagues have demonstrated that they could do this a year ago. They constructed a memristor that is capable of learning. Andy Thomas is now using his memristors as key components in a blueprint for an artificial brain.

He will be presenting his results at the beginning of March in the print edition of the Journal of Physics published by the Institute of Physics in London.

Memristors are made of fine nanolayers and can be used to connect electric circuits. For several years now, the memristor has been considered to be the electronic equivalent of the synapse. Synapses are, so to speak, the bridges across which nerve cells (neurons) contact each other. Their connections increase in strength the more often they are used. Usually, one nerve cell is connected to other nerve cells across thousands of synapses.

Like synapses, memristors learn from earlier impulses. In their case, these are electrical impulses that (as yet) do not come from nerve cells but from the electric circuits to which they are connected. The amount of current a memristor allows to pass depends on how strong the current was that flowed through it in the past and how long it was exposed to it.

Andy Thomas explains that because of their similarity to synapses, memristors are particularly suitable for building an artificial brain -- a new generation of computers. 'They allow us to construct extremely energy-efficient and robust processors that are able to learn by themselves.' Based on his own experiments and research findings from biology and physics, his article is the first to summarize which principles taken from nature need to be transferred to technological systems if such a neuromorphic (nerve like) computer is to function. Such principles are that memristors, just like synapses, have to 'note' earlier impulses, and that neurons react to an impulse only when it passes a certain threshold.

Thanks to these properties, synapses can be used to reconstruct the brain process responsible for learning, says Andy Thomas. He takes the classic psychological experiment with Pavlov's dog as an example. The experiment shows how you can link the natural reaction to a stimulus that elicits a reflex response with what is initially a neutral stimulus -- this is how learning takes place. If the dog sees food, it reacts by salivating. If the dog hears a bell ring every time it sees food, this neutral stimulus will become linked to the stimulus eliciting a reflex response. As a result, the dog will also salivate when it hears only the bell ringing and no food is in sight. The reason for this is that the nerve cells in the brain that transport the stimulus eliciting a reflex response have strong synaptic links with the nerve cells that trigger the reaction.

If the neutral bell-ringing stimulus is introduced at the same time as the food stimulus, the dog will learn. The control mechanism in the brain now assumes that the nerve cells transporting the neutral stimulus (bell ringing) are also responsible for the reaction -- the link between the actually 'neutral' nerve cell and the 'salivation' nerve cell also becomes stronger. This link can be trained by repeatedly bringing together the stimulus eliciting a reflex response and the neutral stimulus. 'You can also construct such a circuit with memristors -- this is a first step towards a neuromorphic processor,' says Andy Thomas.

'This is all possible because a memristor can store information more precisely than the bits on which previous computer processors have been based,' says Thomas. Both a memristor and a bit work with electrical impulses. However, a bit does not allow any fine adjustment -- it can only work with 'on' and 'off'. In contrast, a memristor can raise or lower its resistance continuously. 'This is how memristors deliver a basis for the gradual learning and forgetting of an artificial brain,' explains Thomas.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Universitaet Bielefeld.

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


Journal Reference:

  1. Andy Thomas. Memristor-based neural networks. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 2013; 46 (9): 093001 DOI: 10.1088/0022-3727/46/9/093001

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/strange_science/~3/eQVwYoYOj_w/130226101400.htm

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International Psychoanalysis ? Blog Archive ? Face to Face, Brain to ...

NEW YORK PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY & INSTITUTE:
Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis
Marianne and Nicholas Young Auditorium
247 East 82nd St., between 2nd & 3rd, NY, NY 10028
212-879-6900
www.psychoanalysis.org
www.nypsi.org

Saturday, March 2, 2013, 10 am ? 12 pm, Uri Hasson, Ph.D., Princeton University

Face to Face, Brain to Brain: ?Exploring the Mechanisms of Dyadic Social Interactions

Cognition materializes in an interpersonal space. The emergence of complex behaviors requires the coordination of actions among individuals according to a shared set of rules. Despite the central role of other individuals in shaping our minds, experiments typically isolate human or animal subjects from their natural environment by placing them in a sealed quiet room where interactions occur solely with a computer screen. In everyday life, however, we spend most of our time interacting with other individuals. In the talk I will argue in favor of a shift from a single-brain to a multi-brain frame of reference. I will present a new analysis tool, in which we compute the ?functional connectivity? between the brain responses in a seed area in one subject and the responses in other subjects? brains.

While at rest, we see no correlations in the responses across subjects; however, during the processing of real-life stimuli the brain responses in one brain are coupled to the responses in another brain. Such neural coupling is mediated via the transmission of a signal (stimulus-to-brain coupling) through the environment. When the transmitted signal is speech produced by another brain, the inter-subject functional analysis exposes a shared neural substrate that exhibits temporally aligned response patterns across the speaker and the listener. The recording of the neural responses from two brains opens a new window into the neural basis of interpersonal communication, and may be used to assess verbal and non-verbal forms of interaction in both human and other model systems.

Discussant: Maggie Zellner, PhD

Students, academics and clinical professionals in the analytic community are encouraged to attend. Members of the public are also welcome.

For more information: admdir@nypsi.org

Educational Objectives: After attending, participants will be able to

1) identify the neural substrates involved with the comprehension of real-life narrative
2) identify the neural substrates involved with the production of real-life narrative
3) be familiar with current data on the extent of dyadic coupling between the brains of speaker and listener during narrative production and comprehension, respectively

Information regarding CME credit for psychiatrists:

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint sponsorship of the American Psychoanalytic Association and the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of [2] AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)?. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CME program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.

Information regarding CE credit for psychologists:

The New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education programs for psychologists. NYPSI maintains responsibility for this program and its content. APA-approved CE credits are granted to participants with documented attendance and completed evaluation forms. Upon receipt of the completed evaluation form, attendees will receive a PDF via email documenting CE credits.

Persons with disabilities: This building is wheelchair accessible.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE: None of the planners and presenters of this CE program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.

For information about NYPSI training programs please visit us

www.psychoanalysis.org or www.nypsi.org

??? Follow NYPSI on Twitter

???Follow NYPSI on Facebook

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?Follow NYPSI on LinkedIn

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Source: http://internationalpsychoanalysis.net/2013/02/26/face-to-face-brain-to-brain-with-uri-hasson-at-nypsi/

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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Powers wait to hear Iran response to nuclear offer

ALMATY (Reuters) - World powers hope Iran will respond positively on Wednesday to their new offer to lift some sanctions if Tehran scales back nuclear activity the West fears could be used to build bombs.

The United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia presented the offer when their first meeting with Iran in eight months began in Almaty on Tuesday and the Islamic state was considering it, the powers' spokesman said.

Western officials described the first day of talks as "useful". One said Iran discussed specific aspects of the powers' ideas in bilateral talks with three of them - Russia, Germany and Britain - but gave no indication how Tehran viewed them.

Iranian state television described the atmosphere in the discussions as "very serious".

The outcome of the two-day meeting in the Kazakh city will be closely watched in Israel, which has strongly hinted that it could attack Iran's nuclear sites if diplomacy and sanctions fail to stop the uranium enrichment program.

Iran says Israel's assumed nuclear arsenal is the main threat to peace and denies Western allegations it is seeking to develop the capability to make atomic bombs. It says it is only aiming to produce nuclear energy so that it can export more oil.

In their latest attempt to break years of deadlock in the dispute, the powers are offering Iran a relaxation of some of the sanctions that are taking a heavy toll on its economy.

"Hopefully the Iranians will be able to reflect overnight and will come back and view our proposal positively," the spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who represents the powers in the talks, said.

"The ball is in their court," Michael Mann added after the first day of discussions on Tuesday.

He did not give details of the offer, but other Western officials have confirmed it includes some limited sanctions easing if Iran closes a underground site where it carries out its most controversial uranium enrichment work.

Diplomats and analysts see scant chances of a conclusive deal with Iran before a June presidential election, with the political elite preoccupied with domestic issues.

Wednesday's talks are due to start at around 11 a.m. (0500 GMT).

IRANIAN COUNTERPROPOSAL

Iran would put forward its own proposal "of the same weight" as that of the other side, a source close to the Iranian negotiating team said on Tuesday, but Western officials said it had not done so during the first day of negotiations.

Iran, whose chief negotiator Saeed Jalili is close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and is a veteran of Iran's 1980s war against Iraq and the Western powers that backed it, has shown no sign of willingness to scale back its nuclear work.

It argues that has a sovereign right to carry out nuclear enrichment for peaceful energy purposes, and in particular refuses to close its underground Fordow enrichment plant, a condition the powers have set for any sanctions relief.

Tightening Western sanctions on Iran over the last 14 months are hurting Iran's economy and slashing oil revenue. Its currency has more than halved in value, which in turn has pushed up inflation.

But analysts say the sanctions are not close to having the crippling effect envisaged by Washington and - so far at least - they have not prompted a change in Iran's nuclear course.

Western officials said the powers' offer would include an easing of restrictions on trade in gold and other precious metals if Tehran closes Fordow.

The facility is used for enriching uranium to 20 percent fissile purity, a short technical step from weapons grade.

Western officials acknowledge an easing of U.S. and EU sanctions on trade in gold represents a relatively modest step. But gold could be used as part of barter transactions that might allow Iran to circumvent financial sanctions.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman last week dismissed the reported incentive as insufficient and a senior Iranian lawmaker has ruled out closing Fordow, close to the holy city of Qom.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati in Almaty and Zahra Hosseinian in Zurich; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/powers-offer-iran-sanctions-relief-nuclear-talks-055616179.html

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Stretchable batteries are here! Power to the bendy electronics

The next frontier in electronics are the flexible, stretchable kind. Yes, that means a rubber, bouncy smartphone (eventually), but it also means heart monitors threaded into cardiac tissue. For devices like that to work, they require flexible, stretchable batteries. And such batteries are here, according to researchers who just published their work.

Yonggang Huang, an engineer at Northwestern University, created the battery with materials wizard John Rogers at the University of Illinois, who received the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2011 for his work on flexible electronics designed for integration with the human body.

How much give and take does the invention allow? ?We can stretch the device a great deal ? up to about 300 percent ? and still have a working battery,? Huang noted. (Please don't try that with your smartphone's battery.)

?Such stretchable batteries enable true integration with stretchable electronics in a small package,? Huang told NBC News in an email.

The background of the research team means that medical applications will be primarily targeted, but there are other applications for bendy batteries such as wearable solar cells and electric-eye cameras that make studio-quality photographs.

The flexible lithium-ion battery reported today in the journal Nature Communications completes the flexible electronics package with a cordless power source. When the battery runs out of juice after about eight hours, it is recharged wirelessly.

To make the battery, the researchers start with tiny, individual, rigid battery storage components arranged next to each other. The bendy and stretchy characteristics stem from tightly packed, wavy wires that connect these components.

?When we stretch the battery, the wavy interconnects unravels, much like yarn unspooling, while the storage components almost keep undeformed, because of their much larger rigidity than the interconnects? Huang explained.

The breakthrough was demonstrated with a light emitting diode that continues to work when stretched, folded and twisted on a human elbow. It continued to work well through 20 recharge cycles.

John Roach is a contributing writer for NBC News. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/stretchable-batteries-are-here-power-bendy-electronics-1C8546821

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Green Blog: Feeding Ourselves on a Warming Planet

As we have often noted here on the Green blog, one of the biggest uncertainties humanity faces regarding climate change is the potential effect on the world?s food supply.

If there?s a risk that global warming and related changes could hit us much sooner and much harder than scientists are expecting, agriculture could be the crucial realm where that occurs. In fact, we have already entered an era of sharply higher global food prices, with climate change as one of the likely causal factors.

A new paper from researchers associated with Tufts University puts the overall risk in perspective. It is billed as a working paper, meaning it has not gone through formal scientific review, but it strikes me as worth highlighting nevertheless. The findings pretty closely match the conclusions presented in some of my reporting from 2011.

The authors, Frank Ackerman and Elizabeth A. Stanton, point out that in the 1990s, research suggested that climate change would be fairly benign for agriculture. The first few degrees of warming would help agriculture expand in chilly regions, and the rising level of atmospheric carbon dioxide would act as plant fertilizer, boosting crop yields, the thinking went. More recent science has cast sharp doubt on some of those conclusions.

Yet the earlier, rosy scenario is still incorporated into a lot of economic models of global warming. As a result, economists sometimes come to the conclusion that relatively modest efforts to tackle climate change are adequate for now.

?Can we muddle along without expensive climate initiatives, and go on living ? and eating ? as before?? the authors of the new paper ask. ?Not for long, according to some of the new research on climate and agriculture.?

I would say the research they cite, though clearly an improvement over the work from the 1990s, is by no means definitive; a major new program designed to improve our predictions about climate and agriculture is still in its early phases. Anyway, what attempt to predict the future is ever definitive?

But anybody who wants a tight synopsis ? less than 20 pages ? of the emerging evidence that we are in trouble on the food supply could do worse than consulting this working paper. It recaps recent findings that the benefits on plant growth of rising carbon dioxide levels may not be as great as originally hoped, that temperature extremes due to climate change may have a severe effect on crop yields, and that fresh water scarcity could exacerbate the problems.

?If warming continues unabated, it will, in a matter of decades, reach levels at which adaptation is no longer possible,? the researchers conclude. ?Any long-run solution must involve rapid reduction of emissions, to limit the future extent of climate change.?

Source: http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/26/feeding-ourselves-on-a-warming-planet/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Economist's View: 'How To (Maybe) End Too Big To Fail'

This is from a St. Louis Fed write-up of the following Dialogue:

St. Louis Fed economist William Emmons led the Dialogue, titled ?Robo-signing, the London Whale and Libor Rate-Rigging: Are the Largest Banks Too Complex for Their Own Good?? Joining Emmons for the Q&A that followed were Mary Karr, senior vice president and general counsel of the St. Louis Fed; Steven Manzari, senior vice president of the New York Fed?s Complex Financial Institutions unit; and Julie Stackhouse, senior vice president of Banking Supervision and Regulation at the St. Louis Fed. See the videos and Emmons? presentation slides at www.stlouisfed.org/dialogue.

Here's the last part of the write-up on dealing with the too big to fail problem:

The Big Banks: Too Complex To Manage?, Central Banker, Winter 2012, FRB St. Louis:

... How To (Maybe) End ?Too Big To Fail?

So, how will we deal with the megabanks? Emmons outlined two basic approaches: radical and incremental. The radical approach involves structural changes imposed on the banks themselves or the creation of a different legal definition of what a bank is and what it can do. Radical proposals include:

  • Reduce their complexity and size ? Revive the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act (partially repealed by the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) prohibiting combining commercial banking with investment banking or insurance underwriting. Also, reduce their size by placing limits on banks? assets or deposits. However, Emmons said this proposal likely wouldn?t succeed because combining commercial and investment banking was not the main source of problems; in fact, many of the ?too-big-to-fail? institutions that caused problems during the crisis would have been allowed to operate under Glass-Steagall.
  • Create ?narrow banks? ? Separate payments functions from all other financial activities. Such a bank would take deposits and make payments but not make loans except those that have very little default risk. Emmons said this proposal wouldn?t be successful either because such banks are not likely to be viable. Narrow banks likely would seek to make riskier loans to improve their profitability, while non-narrow banks would seek to enter the payments business in one way or another.

?In fact, we have chosen not to pursue radical approaches to solving the ?too-big-to-fail? problem,? he said. ?Instead, we?re implementing incremental?albeit significant?reforms of the existing legal, regulatory and governance frameworks in which banks operate.? Meanwhile, bankers, regulators and legislators won?t know whether the regulatory reform efforts will actually work until they are actually used. Those efforts, which have sparked a lot of profound debate throughout the financial industry, include:

  • The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act ? The law includes living wills for orderly dissolution, capital requirements, stress tests, risk-based assessments on deposit insurance, FDIC orderly liquidation authority, the Volcker Rule and investor protections. ?These are all pushing banks to be more effective in internal discipline,? Emmons said.
  • Basel III Accord ? The third round of the Basel Accords is looking to improve the quality of bank capital and make other changes related to capital so that big banks demonstrate that they ?have more skin in the game,? Emmons said.

Emmons also offered another proposal: Make a strictly enforced ?death penalty? regime, a law mandating that any bank requiring government assistance would be nationalized, with a plan to sell it back to new shareholders at some point in the future. ?The crux of the matter would be carrying through this pledge to re-privatize the institution,? he said. ?It should reduce the incentives to take risk because the ?death penalty? is such a severe penalty that it would act as a deterrent.? Emmons noted that TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) was a half-step in this direction, in which the federal government took noncontrolling equity positions in megabanks?preferred instead of common equity?and didn?t wipe out shareholders or management.

?It?s not so radical of a proposal because we did impose a ?death penalty? on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Their shareholders and management were wiped out. General Motors and Chrysler were forced into bankruptcy, and AIG was effectively nationalized,? he said.

?If this were to be the plan, we would need (to continue the metaphor) an undertaker standing by?an institution that would be ready to exact this discipline on the firms,? he said, pointing to other nations? permanent ?sovereign wealth funds? that can take equity positions in firms.

The Jury Is Still Out

While investigations and lawsuits continue, regulations are written for new laws, and the industry wrestles with proposed capital and other standards, the question remains: Will any of this solve ?too big to fail,? successfully rein in systemic risk or prevent future ?misbehaviors?? Simply put, we don?t know yet.

?I think it?s really important to realize that these are the early days in terms of the reform efforts for the financial system, and many firms still have to navigate a pretty complex set of changes to the regulatory landscape, how the world is unfolding and how they?re going to generate profits,? Manzari said during the Q&A portion.

Stackhouse noted that of the 400 or so regulations and rules required by the Dodd-Frank Act, only about one-third are actually in place. ?The financial community, large banks in particular?those with over $50 billion in assets?have a lot ahead of them,? she said. ?The Dodd-Frank Act right now is the mechanism on the table to deal with these very large firms. The jury is still out on how that particular rule making will take place and how effective it will be.?

A strictly enforced "death penalty" sounds good to me, but I'd also like to reduce the ability of large financial institutions to influence politicians and regulators. The discussion does note that:

The revelations of recent controversies such as robo-signing, the London Whale and Libor rate-rigging?explored in the ?Big Bank Misbehaviors? sidebar at the bottom?as well as other problems not mentioned here indicate that something critical was lacking in the discipline of large, complex banks.

But the regulatory capture aspect of large banks isn't addressed.

I mostly wanted to highlight this slide from the presentation because it answers a question I've been asking for a long time, how big do banks need to be in order to reach the minimum efficient scale?

Frbstl1
And from another slide, the size of the largest banks:

Frbstl2
Some summary measures:

Frbstl3
The conclusion seems obvious to me.

Source: http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2013/02/how-to-maybe-end-too-big-to-fail.html

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Oscars 2013: The Real Winners And Losers

James Bond killed while the orchestra hit a sour note.
By Amy Wilkinson


Kristen Stewart at the 2013 Oscars
Photo: Christopher Polk/ Getty Images

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1702532/oscars-2013-winners-losers.jhtml

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Gorgeous weather brings blooming beauties

Gorgeous weather brings blooming beauties | www.ktvu.com

Posted: 7:55 p.m. Monday, Feb. 25, 2013

By Evan Borders - KTVU.com

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. ?

The weather in February recently has been beneficial to Tulips, as is evident at the bountiful bunch that are blooming in San Francisco at Pier 39's annual 'Tulipmania'.

The pier has been importing bulbs from Holland for years now and puts on walking tours for guests. They were planted this year in November and December since they thrive in temperate climates and need a period of cool dormancy to bloom.

Even though the pier ended their ?Tulipmania? walking tours on Feb. 24th, they are still expected to be in bloom for about two or three weeks.

Pier 39 is located at 2 Beach Street in San Francisco. For more information, go to pier39.com.

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The Cathay Pacific float has become a mainstay of the annual Chinese NewYear's Parade. Follow this year's float on this year's Road to the Chinese New Year Parade.

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Source: http://www.ktvu.com/news/entertainment/gorgeous-weather-brings-blooming-beauties/nWZWn/

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Steve Jobs' Birthday: Remembering a Visionary

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Samsung confirms Galaxy S IV launch on March 14th in NYC

Samsung confirms Galaxy S IV launch on March 14th in NYC

It was true. And then it wasn't. Now, here at MWC in Barcelona, Samsung has finally confirmed its rumored March 14th launch event for the much-anticipated Galaxy S IV. The smartphone giant's latest flagship is set to debut in New York City, apparently by popular demand. "We introduced the Galaxy S III in London last year," Samsung Electronics' mobile division chief JK Shin told Edaily news. "This time we changed the Venue (to New York)... as we were bombarded with requests from US mobile carriers to unveil the Galaxy S IV in the country." As with any such announcement, details are sparse at best, so we'll need to wait a few more weeks before confirming specs and appearance for the Galaxy S III successor. But, as always, you're welcome to shout out your best guesses in the comments.

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Source: Reuters, Edaily

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/JqaksR1gDmc/

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2013 Academy Awards Winners

The 85th Academy Awards are scheduled to take place on Sunday, February 24th in Los Angeles, and if you're looking for the winners, you've come to the right place. We'll be updating this article with each of the Oscar winners as they are announced, so if you don't have easy access to the telecast, be sure to check back here!



    Best Production Design

  • Sarah Greenwood (Production Design); Katie Spencer (Set Decoration) for Anna Karenina
  • Eve Stewart (Production Design); Anna Lynch-Robinson (Set Decoration) for Les Mis?rables
  • David Gropman (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration) for Life of Pi
  • Rick Carter (Production Design); Jim Erickson (Set Decoration) for Lincoln
  • Dan Hennah (Production Design); Ra Vincent and Simon Bright (Set Decoration) for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

    Best Sound Mixing

  • John Reitz, Gregg Rudloff and Jose Antonio Garcia for Argo
  • Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Ronald Judkins for Lincoln
  • Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes for Les Mis?rables
  • Ron Bartlett, D.M. Hemphill and Drew Kunin for Life of Pi
  • Scott Millan, Greg P. Russell and Stuart Wilson for Skyfall

    Best Visual Effects

  • Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Philip Brennan, Neil Corbould and Michael Dawson for Snow White and the Huntsman
  • Joe Letteri, Eric Saindon, David Clayton and R. Christopher White for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
  • Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott for Life of Pi
  • Janek Sirrs, Jeff White, Guy Williams and Dan Sudick for Marvel Avengers Assemble
  • Richard Stammers, Trevor Wood, Charley Henley and Martin Hill for Prometheus

    Best Short Film - Live Action

  • Asad
  • Buzkashi Boys
  • Curfew
  • Death of a Shadow
  • Henry

    Best Short Film - Animated

  • Adam and Dog
  • Fresh Guacamole
  • Head Over Heels
  • Maggie Simpson in "The Longest Daycare"
  • Paperman

    Best Documentary Short

  • Inocente
  • Kings Point
  • Mondays at Racine
  • Open Heart
  • Redemption

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1926903/news/1926903/

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Police: MC Hammer pulled over for expired tags

DUBLIN, Calif. (AP) ? A sheriff's department spokesman in Northern California says a Dublin police officer stopped and then arrested MC Hammer because the '90s rap star was driving a car with expired registration and refused to get out of the vehicle.

Lt. Herb Walters of the Alameda County Sheriff's Office said in a statement issued Monday that Hammer was "very argumentative" with the officer during the traffic stop late Thursday. He says it's unclear who owns the car.

Hammer eventually came out of the car and was arrested for investigation of obstructing an officer in the performance of his duties.

Hammer, who was born Stanley Burrell, has offered a different account, suggesting he was the victim of racial profiling. He tweeted on Saturday that the officer asked him if he were on parole or probation and tried to pull him out through the car window.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-02-25-US-People-MC-Hammer/id-928a1204346f4c2899640f12e582bb9f

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Steam Buns While You Boil Hot Dogs

If you ever find yourself boiling hot dogs on the stove, put that steam to work heating and softening your buns.

Steam Buns While You Boil Hot Dogs

While spiral cutting hot dogs and grilling them might yield the best results, boiling dogs is a fine alternative when it's too cold to grill outdoors, and the steam from the pot is great for warming up your buns. All you have to do is rest a strainer or upside-down straining pot lid on top of the pot, and set the buns inside for a few seconds.

Hack Your Weiners - Steam Your Buns While You Boil Your Dogs | Reddit

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/PcNXjurjTN4/steam-buns-while-you-boil-hot-dogs

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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Supreme Court to revisit campaign finance limits

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three years after easing limits on corporate political donations in the Citizens United decision, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to consider whether to lift caps on how much individuals may contribute to candidates.

In a brief order, the court agreed to hear McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, a challenge by Alabama businessman Shaun McCutcheon and the Republican National Committee to limits on aggregate donations over a two-year period.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in September had rejected McCutcheon's argument that capping donations violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

But if the Supreme Court disagrees, it could use the case to change part of its landmark 1976 decision, Buckley v. Valeo, that upheld such caps, which are sums in the mid-five figures.

"It's not a watershed case in the sense Citizens United was, but it could extend that case's logic to contribution limits, which could be very significant," Richard Hasen, a campaign finance expert and law professor at the University of California at Irvine, said in a phone interview.

The Citizens United case was decided in 2010 by a 5-4 vote, and removed limits on independent expenditures made by companies and unions to support or oppose political candidates. The court based its ruling on a First Amendment right to free speech.

Critics of the position taken by the RNC and McCutcheon believe that lifting contribution limits could allow individual donors undue influence.

"If the Supreme Court reverses its past ruling in Buckley, the Court would do extraordinary damage to the nation's ability to prevent the corruption of federal officeholders and government decisions," Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, said in a statement. The group plans to submit a brief urging the court to uphold the limits, he said.

The Democratic National Committee declined to comment.

PETITIONER BACKED REPUBLICANS

McCutcheon is chief executive of Coalmont Electrical Development Co, a general contractor in McCalla, Alabama, located about 20 miles southwest of Birmingham.

He contributed $33,088 to 16 candidates in the 2012 election cycle. Many donations were in increments of $1,776, referring to the year the Declaration of Independence was signed.

McCutcheon had wanted to contribute another $21,312 to 12 more candidates and make donations to the RNC and to committees supporting Republican candidates. But those contributions would have caused McCutcheon to run afoul of a $46,200 limit on contributions to candidate committees.

Another limit capped overall contributions to national political parties, state political parties and non-party political committees at $70,800, so long as no more than $46,200 goes to the latter two groups.

"I am very glad and excited that our case and other cases are moving forward as expected," McCutcheon said in an email.

DISTORTION ALLEGED

Lifting the limits could allow individuals to funnel more money overall to candidates. For example, an individual could choose to donate $1 million to 400 candidates in $2,500 increments, but not donate $1 million to a single candidate.

"The limits distort the system by forcing people to give money to Super PACs and advocacy groups, when they would rather give money to individual candidates and parties," James Bopp, a lawyer for McCutcheon and the RNC, said in a phone interview.

"That drives money away from the most accountable and transparent actors in our political system, in favor of entities that are basically unaccountable to the voter," he added.

Super PACs are a type of political action committee spawned in part by the Citizens United decision.

More than a dozen of these groups spent nearly half a billion dollars to support Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Some pro-Republican groups raised seven-figure sums monthly from Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife. A Super PAC supporting Democratic President Barack Obama collected million-dollar contributions from Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide the McCutcheon case in its next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2014.

The case is McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-536.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Jonathan Stempel; Additional reporting by Patrick Temple-West and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Howard Goller, Bill Trott and Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-revisit-campaign-finance-limits-002251044--finance.html

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