Author: Serkadis

Downloaded the “PlayStation Heroes” pack (qjnet/playstation-3/uncharted-2-multiplayer-skin-pack-on-us-and-eu-ps-store-next-week.html) for Uncharted 2 yet? Kudos to those who have, and to those who haven’t, here’s a look at what you’re missing out on.

“And big cats do not purr.  They roar!  GRRR!”  GRRR!  A Book About Big Cats is a chapter book all about the various types of big cats.  There are chapters on lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, and jaguars.    Each chapter discusses habitat, diet, and other interesting facts about the cats.  There are also bolded words and definitions of new vocabulary words.

Curriculum Connections

This book could be used in the instruction of the life science to young students (target grade 1-2).  It teaches that animals have distinct needs and defining characteristics (1.4.B).  It could be nicely tied to a unit on the animal kingdom. It could also coincide with a social studies unit about the continents.  Where the animals live could be discussed (ex. lions in Africa).  A discussion about animal extinction and protection would also be appropriate when reading this book.

Resources

This “creature feature”  ,provided by National Geographic for Kids,  has facts, videos, and photos about lions appropriate for kids.

A fact sheet about leopards that could be used for research or report writing.

This teacher’s website contains a lesson plan for teaching about jaguars.

Book:  Grrr!  A Book About Big Cats

Author:  Melvin and Gilda Berger

Publisher: Scholastic Inc

Publication Date:2002

Pages: 1-40

Grade Range:  1-2

ISBN:0-439-33408-X

Hace escasos minutos, la escudería BMW-Sauber ha presentado su nuevo monoplaza para la temporada 2010. El nuevo monoplaza de Peter Sauber se llamará Sauber C29 y ha sido mostrado en el Circuito de la Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Torno de Cheste.

Por el momento, llama la atención el haber usado tanto color blanco pero esto es debido a la falta de patrocinadores que en los próximos días se iran confirmando y de esta manera el monoplaza ira tomando más color.

En el día de mañana el primer piloto de esta escudería en probarlo será el japonés Kamui Kobayashi mientras que Pedro de la Rosa lo hará en los próximos días.

Related posts:

1. Peter Sauber nuevo propietario de BMW-Sauber
2. La FIA confirma a Sauber como nueva escudería de la Fórmula 1
3. Pedro de la Rosa podría fichar con Sauber en cuestión de horas

Caressa Cameron was crowned Miss America last night. Caressa wins a $50,000 scholarship as well as the title of Miss America for the next year. Here are some Caressa pictures both from her win last night, and also from some of her past pageants.

Here’s some video of Caressa Cameron singing “Born for This” at the Miss Hanover pageant.

Filed under: Europe, Recalls, Toyota, Peugeot, Citroën

The massive Toyota sticking-accelerator pedal recall has spread from the United States to Europe and even beyond Toyota-branded vehicles. Approximately 90,000 Peugeot 107 and Citroën C1 minicars have been added to the list of afflicted models. PSA, the parent of Peugeot and Citroën, has a joint venture with Toyota in the Czech Republic that produces the 107, C1 and the related Toyota Aygo.

The minis share the same electronic pedal assembly design used in the 2.3 million Toyotas being recalled in North America, as well a 1.8 million vehicles in Europe. In addition to the Aygo, Toyota has identified the iQ, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Verso, Avensis and Rav4 in Europe. In total Toyota is recalling 7.5 million vehicles worldwide.

We don’t know for sure but it seems unlikely with this many vehicles involved around the world that CTS is the sole supplier of these parts. If CTS is not the only supplier then it appears likely that the issue is more of a design problem than a manufacturing issue at one plant or supplier. It is also possible that it could be a software issue unrelated to the hardware itself.

[Source: The Guardian]

Toyota gas pedal recall woes spread to Peugeot / Citroën in Europe originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NORTH AURORA, Ill. — Oberweis Dairy announced today that it is aiming to fill 100 sales jobs through viral networking.

The company’s president Joe Oberweis said, “We have 100 great opportunities for work in a terrible economy.

We’re asking our network – our customers – to spread the word because we all know people who need work.

They’re doing a community service by helping to match jobs and income with people who need both.”

Interested candidates started contacting the company before the e-mail distribution was even complete, and the company was receiving a new inquiry about every 120 seconds mid-afternoon Thursday.

“The effect of viral networking can be amazing – when the subject matter is something people care about. In this economy, jobs are something we all care about,” Oberweis said.

“We’ve seen Facebook postings and even a bunch of Tweets on Twitter. I think the motivation here is clearly to help people find jobs when it’s very rough going.”

The company e-mailed the letter to all customers Thursday morning.

Interested candidates from the areas surrounding Chicago, St. Louis, central Illinois, Indianapolis, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Norfolk/Virginia Beach, VA, should contact [email protected].

A copy of the letter is available at oberweis.com/web/enews/moola19.asp.

About Oberweis Dairy

Having been started on a dairy farm nearly a century ago, Oberweis Dairy provides the best-tasting milk, ice cream, and now chocolates available anywhere.

The company is famous for milk in its trademark glass bottles as well as its best-in-class smooth and creamy ice cream.

The company distributes its products through its 48 ice cream and dairy stores, to thousands of homes through its home delivery service, and through grocery stores.

Oberweis is family owned and operated, currently by the 3rd and 4th generations.

For more information about Oberweis Dairy, visit oberweis.com.

While other retailers would consider digital content as a threat to their business, GameStop COO J. Paul Raines believes that DLC is critical to their survival. As such, he says that the next challenge for him and

CRYSTAL LAKE –– Schools throughout McHenry County and the nation are looking for ways to save money as revenue projections dip.

Paul Volcker expounds on his plan to fix the financial system in a New York Times op-ed. 

The plan is a good one:

• Prevent banks from owning hedge funds and other proprietary trading vehicles (Glass Steagall II)
• Give the government resolution authority to step in, liquidate, or sell any firm it deems to be in trouble (including mortgage lenders, investment banks, and insurance companies)
• Make shareholders, management, and, yes, bondholders pay for any costs associated with this (the latter is what we refused to this time, which is the most appalling part of the current bailout policy)

If we do only these things, we will have eliminated the most insidious and problematic part of the status quo: Too Big To Fail. 

Under this plan, big firms would be allowed to fail–in an orderly fashion, with their owners and lenders taking the hit.  In good times, they will also remain competitive in a global economy without arbitrary size constraints that put them at a disadvantage versus international banks that face no such restrictions.

Read Volcker’s op-ed here >

Join the conversation about this story »

Smell that? That’s a smell of a real man’s budget computer, doing real manly things like task processing and pixel churning. MSI’s new CX420, CR420 and CR720 laptops aren’t much for looks, but under the hood you can find new-gen Core i Series processors across the board and ATI Radeon HD5470 graphics in the CX420 (pictured). Sure, there’s only Intel integrated HD graphics in the CR420 and CR720, and the 1366 x 768 14-inch displays in the CX420 / CR420 are a bit of a letdown, but knowing MSI we’re sure the prices for this trio will more than make up for any mild disappointments on the spec sheet. Hit up the PR for the full breakdown, but there’s no release date to be found just yet.

MSI’s new CX420, CR420 and CR720 laptops put Intel’s new processors to good, workaday use originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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new product soon? – The New RMBS Investor Meets Due Diligence 2.0 – by JACOB GAFFNEY – … Sue Allon of risk manger Allonhill is honest when she says she now believes the first RMBS may not be as red hot as we all hope. She’s launching a new product at the ASF, which is under wraps until Thursday, but I can give you a brief, exclusive idea of what this will look like in terms of what the new RMBS investor is going to expect.  I’ve coined it Due Diligence 2.0. … – HousingWire

Fannie Mae Serious Mortgage Delinquencies Rise Above 5% – by JON PRIOR – HousingWire

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you need to read this – housing prices over the past 100 years have done nothing in real terms – Over 100 Years of Unspectacular – … The three most prominent features of this dataset are the giant crater in prices that commenced somewhere in the early 1900s and lasted until the mid 1940s, the epic run-up that started in 1997 and ongoing decline that we are experiencing today, and finally the fact that taken together the whole series indicates that home prices, more or less, have remained flat (in real terms) for more than 100 years. … Not only do prices sometimes go down, sometimes they go down and stay down for over twenty years … – Paper Economy – A US Real Estate Bubble Blog
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lack of assignments – Examining The Enforceability Of Securitized Mortgages – BY JAMES L. ROGAL – An important and far-reaching decision recently issued by the Massachusetts Land Court significantly changes the state’s foreclosure practice and detrimentally affects many real estate titles derived from foreclosures completed under the usual and customary foreclosure procedures. The issues raised by this case, as well as some recent cases from the Massachusetts Bankruptcy Court, bring into question the ability of holders of securitized mortgages to exercise their right to foreclose. It is vital for any lenders and servicers referring foreclosures in Massachusetts to understand the implications of these decisions. – MortgageOrb

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Bernanke’s (new) Conundrum – Negative Convexity -  … There is a simple reason for the apparent discrepancy. It is called Negative Convexity … – more on fast prepays and the deflationary effect – also, getting "humped" – Bruce Krasting Blog

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   + 

read this – Deficiency Judgements – Lenders Pursue Mortgage Payoffs Long After Homeowners Default – by Kathleen M. Howley – When John King stopped making payments on his home in Coral Gables, Florida, two years ago, he assumed the foreclosure ended his mortgage contract, he said. Last month, a Miami-Dade County court gave collectors permission to pursue him for $44,000 stemming from the default. Deficiency judgments were rare in the 15 years since the last real estate slump, … “The banks have been too underwater with foreclosures to spend much time on deficiency judgments, but that’s beginning to change,” Hillard said in an interview. “This is going to be the next big crisis.” … – Bloomberg

also
Recourse: One of the Dangers of "Walking Away" – by CalculatedRisk 
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Reverse Mortgage Industry Reaches 2% Market Penetration – The reverse mortgage industry has crossed the 2% overall penetration level according to Reverse Market Insight.  The penetration level is the total active reverse mortgages in servicing today as a percentage of all senior homeowner households. – Reverse Mortgaqe Daily

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Phoenix – Foreclosure data: Prices are close to the bottom – J. Craig Anderson – For the first time since the foreclosure crisis began, the price of a Phoenix-area foreclosed home is roughly the same as it was a year ago. – AZ Central 

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Mortgage Servicing Performance I: Underwater and That Social Trust Thing – by Rortybomb

Mortgage Servicing Performance II: Predatory? – by Rortybomb

also

  << very important chart

read this on shadow inventories – Fake Homeownership – by Rortybomb – … Here’s what fake homeownership looks like on the way down. I didn’t talk enough about this graph: … But it is fascinating to think of what is happening with the people who can’t make their mortgage payments but haven’t been foreclosed on. The bank in this case is exercising an option to defer foreclosure – an option I never thought would be used on such a wide-scale … – Rortybomb Blog

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Mortgage Bulls Bid Fed Fond Farewell – Say Rates Won’t Soar When U.S. Ends Buying Spree – By MARK GONGLOFF – Conventional wisdom holds that the end of the Federal Reserve’s $1.25 trillion mortgage-buying spree will be catastrophic for housing. But a growing number of investors are betting that the fears are overstated and mortgage rates won’t soar when the Fed leaves the market in just over two months. – WSJ Economy 

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Fannie Mae: Delinquencies Increase Sharply in November – by CalculatedRisk – Earlier I posted the Freddie Mac delinquency graph. And here is the monthly Fannie Mae hockey stick graph … (note that Fannie releases delinquency data with a one month lag to Freddie). – CalculatedRisk Blog

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Fannie, Freddie Chase Bad Mortgages – BY NICK TIMIRAOS – Lenders Like BofA, J.P. Morgan Repurchase Billions in Faulty Loans; Just a Drop in the Default Pool – It is payback time for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on some mortgages sold to the finance companies by lenders.  Stuck with about $300 billion in loans to borrowers at least 90 days behind on payments, Fannie and Freddie have unleashed armies of auditors and other employees to sift through mortgage files for proof of underwriting flaws. The two mortgage-finance companies are flexing their muscles to force banks to repurchase loans found to contain improper documentation about a borrower’s income or outright lies. – WSJ Markets

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Higher cost of owning versus renting will drive US home foreclosures higher – Moody’s explains why it thinks mortgage foreclosures will continue to rise despite loan modification efforts. – Research Recap

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Property Values Projected To Fall 12 Percent In 2010 – by Michael David White -  NewObservations.net projects residential real estate prices will fall 12 percent nationwide in 2010.  Our average of four major indexes predicts a total fall in prices of 34% from peak to stable trend. The total fall of 34% is based upon a current loss across four number sets of 19%. – NewObservations.net 

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Lloyds reopens U.S. RMBS market with $1 bln deal – By Alex Chambers – LONDON – Lloyds TSB raised $1 billion via a residential mortgage-backed bond on Friday, reopening a U.S. market that had been shut since mid-2008 because of the credit crunch.  The lender sold 2.5 billion pounds worth of bonds in a five-tranche deal, which also included three sterling and one euro tranche.  While this is the second residential mortgage-backed securitization from the UK bank in recent months, it is the first dollar currency deal since the credit crunch began. … – Reuters

2010Jan: Global Unusual Monthly Mean Temperatures and Precipitation (BCC).

Reference: Beijing Climate Center http://bcc.cma.gov.cn/en/

Image Description: see case description. Image Location: Climate Diagnostics and Prediction Division/NCC/CMA http://ncc.cma.gov.cn/Monitoring/Bulletin/201001/monitoringc/globalextrc.gif Image Permission: This work is copyrighted and unlicensed. However, it is believed that the use of this work to illustrate the subject in question, Where no free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information, on Interlinked Challenges, hosted on servers in the United States by Michigan State University, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.

SPRINGFIELD — Gov. Pat Quinn came into office under unusual circumstances after Rod Blagojevich was arrested and run out of office. Now, several candidates are vying for the office the old-fashioned way – through an election.

Quinn will face Comptroller Dan Hynes for the Democratic nomination while the Republican field features six candidates ranging from well-known party figures to some who have never held public office.

Republican hopefuls are former state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna, state Sen. Kirk Dillard of Hinsdale, former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan, state Sen. Bill Brady of Bloomington, Hinsdale businessman Adam Andrzejewski and conservative commentator Dan Proft.

How to tackle the state’s massive $13 billion budget shortfall has been a constant thread in both party’s races. Both Democrats have said some form of a tax increase is needed to chip away at the fiscal woes plaguing the state while Republicans have mostly touted the need to rein in costs.

Hynes wants a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to raise taxes on wealthier Illinoisans. He said he wants a 3.5 percent income tax rate on those making more than $200,000 a year and a 7.5 percent rate on those making more than a $1 million.

Quinn, however, has supported raising the 3 percent income tax rate to 4.5 percent with more exemptions for middle-class families.

Meanwhile, all but two Republicans have said raising taxes would cause more damage. Ryan and Dillard are the lone GOP candidates who haven’t closed the door on a tax increase, saying it would be irresponsible to do so.

All the Republican candidates have vowed to slash government spending but haven’t been clear as to what they would cut or what services taxpayers would have to give up.

On the Democratic side, Hynes and Quinn have tried to pin scandals on one another over the last month. Hynes, for instance, has blasted Quinn for his botched early release program that let violent inmates out after spending a short time in prison.

In response, Quinn has waged attacks against Hynes’ handling of the Burr Oak cemetery scandal where bodies were allegedly dug up and plots resold.

As for controversies on the Republican side, Ryan has been criticized for repeatedly prosecuting two men for murder in the early 1990s while he was DuPage County’s state’s attorney even after doubts arose about the evidence.

Ryan has since apologized. McKenna faced criticism for including his name in a poll he commissioned while head of the state party to gauge support for a possible gubernatorial run. Party leaders later ruled it was wrong of him to do so.

Naperville Republican Bob Schillerstrom dropped out of the race, but too late to remove his name from the ballot.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Courtney Love wasn’t at all happy with the way Kurt Cobain’s likeness appears in Guitar Hero 5, so pissed that she’s threatened to sue Activision (Courtney-Love-up-in-arms-about-Kurt-Cobain-s-inclusion-in-Guitar-Hero-5/pg/49/aid/134423) for it. But despite all the rancor she’s shown over the

A WebOS port of the popular GB/CGA emulator is pretty rocking’, even though it only runs at 90% speed on a good day. The hackers who figured all this out will get it back up to speed shortly but don’t expect to download this at the Apps Market or whatever Palm is calling it. This is pure homebrew.

Click through for Zelda.

via Giz and PreCentral

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Filed under: Odds and ends, Books

Overlooked in much of the hype about the iPad announcement earlier in the week was a comment by Steve Jobs in the Keynote presentation where he mentioned that the iBooks app for iPad would take advantage of the popular EPUB format for electronic books. Since we’re all going to get a lot more familiar with this format in the near future, we felt it would be a good time to provide our readers with more information about EPUB.

EPUB is the same format used by the popular Stanza [free, iTunes link] app for iPhone and iPod touch. It’s a free and open standard format created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), and it’s designed for reflowable content that can be optimized to whatever device is being used to read a book file. The IDPF has championed EPUB as a single format that can be used by publishers and conversion houses, as well as for distribution and sale of electronic books.

The format is meant to function as a single format that publishers and conversion houses can use in-house, as well as for distribution and sale. It supports digital rights management, something that’s sure to warm the cockles of the hearts of publishers, but there’s no DRM scheme that is currently specified as part of the format.

Other ebook readers that currently use the format include the Barnes & Noble Nook, the Sony Reader, iRex Digital Reader, and the iRiver Story.

If you’re a budding publisher and want to get your ebook into the iBookstore, you’ll need a tool to help you create your document in the EPUB format. Of course, we don’t know if just anyone will be able to self-publish for the iBookstore, but Apple does note that they will have books from both “major and independent” publishers available.

For Mac users, the choice of tools is small, but good. First, there’s the free Calibre ebook management tool. Calibre converts a number of different file formats to EPUB, so it’s a good tool for doing an initial conversion. However, to do a lot of formatting, you’ll need a full-powered EPUB editor like Sigil. Sigil is a free open-source editor that runs on a number of platforms including Mac OS X.

Next, there’s the inexpensive (US$49.99 for a single license) iStudio Publisher. iStudio Publisher is a full-fledged desktop publishing application that can export text flows in EPUB format — while that’s good to hear, it’s unclear if iStudio Publisher EPUB files can include photographs or diagrams.

If you happen to be an Adobe InDesign CS4 (US$699) user, you’re in luck. The top-of-the-line tool for design and publishing supports EPUB, and it is possible to create files that will work on Amazon’s Kindle as well. Lexcycle, the company that created Stanza, has a complete list of the tools for production and conversion of files here. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a future version of Pages develop into a way to create EPUB documents.

While EPUB is a popular format, it’s not without criticism. The format is great for text-centric books, but is considered unsuitable for publications that require advanced formatting or detailed layout, such as comic books and technical tomes. That could result in some issues for textbook publishers. The lack of a standard DRM scheme could cause the format to splinter into different factions unless Apple forces the issue by adopting an open scheme.

There are also issues with the lack of detail on links within EPUB books. This makes it impossible or difficult to link ebooks, or even provide links within an EPUB book. It appears from the keynote demonstration that Apple has come up with their own “standard” for linking, as there were very active examples of linking from a table of contents to individual pages within an ebook. The standards for annotating EPUB are also lacking, which means that each company using EPUB is coming up with their own way of handling this.

There’s a very good possibility that Apple has created their own in-house standards for DRM, linking, and annotation. If the iPad and iBookstore are the successful products that they can be, Apple could finally force the industry to adopt a more robust EPUB standard.

So, that’s it for our roundup of all things EPUB. As TUAW receives more information about how iBook and the iBookstore are going to work, we’ll be sure to pass it along.

TUAWAll about EPUB, the ebook standard for Apple’s iBookstore originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Brooklyn Museum

Tracing mud brick takes skill, patience and lots of scraping and brushing. It is paying off for Ayman and his team, though. By Tuesday, they had already uncovered quite a bit of brick in the center of the square north of the Taharqa Gate. This is surely the enclosure wall into which the Taharqa Gate was set, but we can’t yet connect it to the gate directly.

The lighter area in the center of the photo is the brick as it was on Wednesday. The row of 5 bricks visible here against the center of Chapel D confirms that this chapel was built against the east face of the Taharqa Gate enclosure wall as we’d always assumed. There is more brick in the gap to the north but at a lower level.

Even when you can see bricks clearly, the faint color differences between brick, mortar and surrounding earth can make them hard to photograph, particularly in strong sunlight. A large bedsheet makes a good shade cloth, providing even, subdued light where needed.

Egyptology News Blog, Andie Byrnes