Whether to treat such companies as quasi-utilities has been a contentious issue for some time.
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Boeing (NYSE: BA) 787 Dreamliner pilots conducted the program’s first stall tests – in which pilots intentionally reduce power to both engines and then recover normal flight speeds – as part of the initial airworthiness program for the airplane.
Additional stall tests will take place throughout the flight test period.
The testing went “very well and there were no surprises,” said 787 Chief Pilot Mike Carriker.
The purpose of the testing is to demonstrate that in the rare event a pilot encounters a stall during flight, the airplane reacts benignly and allows for a smooth recovery.
A stall is defined as flying so slowly that the airplane is no longer generating lift.
During stall maneuvers pilots use a disciplined process to slow the airplane down at precise increments to the point where it shakes dramatically, resulting in forces of 1.5 times the force of gravity.
Video highlights and an interview with Carriker are featured in a three-minute video on a new 787 flight test Web site that is being launched today.
The site can be accessed at either boeing.com or newairplane.com.
To receive updates on the 787 flight test program, go to the Web site and click on the RSS feed icon in the right column, near the top of the site.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Lori Gunter, +1 206-931-5919
787 Communications
In the past, we’ve seen various attempts by people to claim they had some sort of intellectual property right over a TV show or movie about them, but those claims rarely get very far. We’ve also seen people in prison with too much time on their hands suddenly claim IP rights over their name or likeness. Now, it appears that convicted terrorist Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramírez Sanchez) has decided that his life is his own and no one else can report on it without his approval. CitMediaLaw alerts us to the news that Carlos’ wife/attorney has sued the production company of a documentary about Carlos’ life. She is demanding that the master copy be given to them as soon as it is done, and that she and her husband get to review all the content and demand changes. It seems unlikely that this gets very far, but it’s yet another symptom of our age when people begin to think that pretty much everything can be “owned” via intellectual property.
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Months before Drew Peterson’s ex-wife Kathleen Savio was found dead in her bathtub the former police sergeant asked a one-time co-worker if he could find someone to “have his third wife taken care of,” the co-worker testified Thursday.
Jeff Pachter said Peterson told him during a ride in Peterson’s squad car in the winter of 2003 that he’d pay Pachter $25,000 and he didn’t care how Pachter divided the money.
Pachter said that while Peterson never used the words kill or murdered, “I thought it was to have her murdered.”
Pachter said he didn’t take Peterson’s offer seriously, saying he simply responded, “OK,” but did nothing about it.
The testimony is part of a hearing to determine what “hearsay” evidence prosecutors can present to jurors when Drew Peterson stands trial in Savio’s death.
Peterson, 56, a former Bolingbrook police officer, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Savio’s death. He is also considered the only suspect in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.
Pachter said Peterson explained to him that he asked Pachter partly because Pachter works in a dangerous section of Joliet. Pachter said he understood that to mean Peterson believed he would be able to find a drug dealer or gang member to carry out the job.
Pachter, who said he met Peterson when the two worked for a cable company, is a convicted sex offender who acknowledged he owed his bookie $1,000 at the time and had marital problems.
Prosecutors suggested in their questions that Peterson chose Pachter because he wouldn’t be the kind of person who authorities would believe over the word of a police officer.
Pachter said he hadn’t heard about Savio’s death in March 2004 until he telephoned Peterson the following July to ask about Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy, and the baby she had recently delivered. Pachter said Peterson said during the call, “By the way, the favor that I asked you, I don’t need it anymore.”
He said Peterson explained that Savio had fallen in her bathtub, hit her head and died.
Peterson has not been charged in Stacy Peterson’s disappearance, but much of the testimony has centered on her disappearance as prosecutors attempt to establish a link between the two cases.
Earlier Thursday, Stacy Peterson’s sister Cassandra Cales testified that two days before Stacy Peterson disappeared she told Cales she was afraid of Drew Peterson.
“She said she feared for her life and if anything ever happened to her, Drew did something to her,” Cales said.
In previous testimony, a neighbor of Stacy and Drew Peterson testified that shortly before she disappeared, Stacy Peterson told her the same thing.
Cales said when Stacy Peterson told her about her plans to divorce Peterson and leave with her children, Cales became frightened. Cales said she mentioned to Stacy Peterson that Savio’s death was “kind of weird.” But Stacy Peterson didn’t respond, Cales said.
Cales also testified that on the night she reported her sister missing, Drew Peterson told her that Stacy had left him for another man and had taken $25,000.
More than 30 witnesses have testified in the hearing, which is in its seventh day and is expected to last at least another week.
Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.
It is indeed the shoes of the Ferrari F355: it is considered by many as one of the most beautiful car on planet earth. and the wheels of the thing are not far behind. the simplicity in its design complement the smooth lines of the car perfectly. its a holy matrimony decided by the auto-gods themselves!!
This is another post in our Small Biz Corner series where each month we cover a specific topic specific to Small Businesses who use Macs.
If you need something more powerful than iCal, but don’t need Snow Leopard Server with CalDav, then BusyCal from BusyMac Software is the group calendaring tool for you.
Welcome to the second installment of Small Biz Corner. This month, we’re going to talk about an alternate calendar application for you to use in your SoHo (small office/home office) or Small Business (1-10 users) environment.
What makes BusyCal great is that it’s the iCal that Apple failed to make. You get so many more features that BusyMac’s label of “iCal Pro” makes sense.
Here is a list of some of those features (not included with iCal):
Let’s take a look at what BusyCal displays for its Calendar, as there are multiple ways to view your information:
BusyCal Day View
BusyCal Week View with Banners and Sticky Notes
BusyCal Month View (sorry for the blurring, didn't want to bore you with my meetings)
BusyCal List View (more blurring)
Other than a drag-and-drop from the disk image to your applications folder, you’re pretty much up and running with only a little bit of configuration for sharing calendars among your peers.
By default, your calendar is automatically shared via Bonjour. Thus, everyone in the office is automatically sharing their calendar. The only work you need to do is to subscribe to another shared (Remote BusyCal) calendar to view their schedule.
This is a pretty simple exercise, as you click the gear icon in the lower left corner of the BusyCal window:
Subscribing to shared Calendars
Please note, I am explicitly not going into the other basic create appointments, tasks, etc. as they are very close to how iCal works. If you have any familiarity with iCal, you will pick-up BusyCal in about five minutes.
The real value to BusyCal is its price. For $40, with a 20 percent discount for purchasing more than one copy, you have a real steal for setting up group calendaring within your business. Macworld gave BusyCal a 2009 Eddy Award and I am not surprised given the rich functionality combined with the simplicity that it provides.
Other items worth mentioning:
A year ago, I wrote about different choices for syncing to Google Calendar. In that comparison review, I recommended BusySync (also from the folks at BusyMac) due to its simplicity and low overhead for getting the job done. If you are a registered user of BusySync, you can upgrade to BusyCal for $20 — an incredible bargain.
It’s clear that the developers at BusyMac understand how to build great software for a reasonable price. Finally, if you do run into any issues with BusyCal, there is excellent documentation and support available on the BusyMac website.
In the largest lottery agreement in U.S. history, Powerball® and Mega Millions® are partnering to create the largest market ever for jackpot games.
As of Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010, players in 33 jurisdictions will be able to purchase tickets for both Powerball and Mega Millions at official lottery retail locations.
With this partnership in place, state lotteries can now offer players both jackpot games.
Thirty-three jurisdictions, representing a combined population of 199 million people and 147,000 retail outlets, now offer two multi-jurisdiction jackpot games with four drawings a week, instead of one multi-jurisdiction game with two drawings a week.
The market for these games has the potential to expand to 45 jurisdictions representing 291 million people and 182,000 retail outlets.
Since Powerball’s inception on February 10, 1988, and Mega Millions’ inception on August 31, 1996, the games have generated an astonishing $17.6 billion for good causes, such as education, senior programs, local towns and the environment.
With two large multi-state games, participating jurisdictions are expected to generate substantially more money for these good causes.
“Here in Illinois, we are estimating an additional $54 million annually in net proceeds from the sale of this game to benefit Illinois,” said acting superintendent Jodie Winnett. “Plus, retailers will have the potential for even more sales commissions.”
Drawings for Powerball will be held every Wednesday and Saturday at 9:59 p.m. CT, beginning Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010, with a starting jackpot of $20 million. Tickets may be purchased until 8:30 p.m. on the night of the drawing.
Draw results will be available at Illinoislottery.com and by calling the Illinois Lottery at 800-252-1775.
Powerball tickets also will offer the Power Play option for an additional $1, which allows players the opportunity to multiply their non-jackpot wins by 2, 3, 4 or 5.
Players matching all five white balls who have played the multiplier automatically win $1 million regardless of the multiplier number.
More Information
For more information on Powerball please visit powerball.com.
For more information on Mega Millions please visit: megamillions.com.
About Powerball and Mega Millions
Powerball, formerly known as Lotto America, began on Feb. 10, 1988. The base jackpot starts at $20 million.
Powerball drawings are held Wednesdays and Saturdays at 10:59 p.m. Eastern Time, 9:59 p.m. Central Time and 7:59 p.m. Pacific Time.
Mega Millions, formerly known as The Big Game, began on Aug. 31, 1996. The base jackpot starts at $12 million.
Mega Millions drawings are held Tuesdays and Fridays at 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time, 10:00 p.m. Central Time and 8:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
About Illinois Lottery
Founded in 1974, the Illinois Lottery is a state agency with annual sales over $2 billion.
Since its inception, the Lottery has contributed more than $14 billion to the state Common School Fund to assist K-12 public schools. Players must be at least 18 years old.
For more information on the Illinois Lottery please visit our Web site at illinoislottery.com.
Around 10:30, the Dow was up over 100 points. Things were looking positive.
Then the sell off began. Now the Dow up only 30 points and falling incredibly fast.
The NASDAQ has already erased early gains, down 5 points at 2,175. The S&P 500 is hanging around break-even.
Gold isn’t having a good day either as it continues its free fall below $1100/oz. It’s trading at $1078/oz currently, down $6.20. Oil is up, however, trading around $74 a barrel, up half a percentage point.
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Filed under: Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, Bugatti, Chevrolet, Dodge, Mercedes-Benz, Koenigsegg
Fall 2009 was supposed to be the next golden age of the racing game, with the genre’s two heavy hitters – Forza Motorsport 3 and Gran Turismo 5 – scheduled for release. While Xbox 360 owners were rewarded with an incredibly good Forza 3, several delays of GT5 wrecked the plans of many a Playstation 3 owner, this writer included.
But since we were hell-bent on a new racing game, the decision was made to take a chance on another new racing game that was receiving some good press: Need for Speed Shift. We’ve spent the last two months playing Shift on PS3 to keep ourselves busy until GT5 is finally released. Were we disappointed or pleasantly surprised with the dark horse of the racing game pack? Hit the jump to find out.
Gallery: Need For Speed Shift
Continue reading Review: Need For Speed Shift fills gap between Forza 3 and GT5
Review: Need For Speed Shift fills gap between Forza 3 and GT5 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Avinash Persaud is Chairman of Intelligence Capital Limited, and Chairman of the Warwick Commission on Financial Regulation. For an explanation of this roundtable, click here.
DESPITE the mantra that banking is a global industry needing global regulation, what has emerged instead has been a series of national responses and regional perspectives. In Europe, perhaps belying an instinctive mistrust of markets, the emphasis has been on how to regulate financial markets to avoid future crises. Credit mistakes are made during the boom, not during the crash. Besides, it is impossible to do good policy during a crash. Ideas around counter-cyclical charges and minimum liquidity buffers have traction. In the US, perhaps reflecting an instinctive mistrust of government, the emphasis is on resolving a crisis only once it has emerged. Booms are impossible to stop, so lets minimise the impact of the inevitable bust. Dominating the US debate are issues of “TBTF” (too big to fail) and “contingent capital”. Paul Callello’s and Wilson Ervin’s interesting “bail-in” proposals fit most neatly with this “American perspective”.
Mssrs Callello and Ervin have focused on how we avoid an enormous liquidity crisis that stems from a more modest capital shortage. Quickly forcing the conversion of a limited amount of unsecured debt into equity might shore up capital and so forestall a liquidity crisis that, left unchecked, would create a bigger capital problem. There is merit in this idea from the perspective of the individual firm and its stakeholders. Instead of a bankruptcy that would wipe out the shareholders and much of the unsecured lenders, a middle path is chosen, of organised haircuts of the unsecured creditors, that allows everyone to survive. This is not dissimilar to provisions in the US bankruptcy code for industrial companies. However Mssrs Callello and Ervin rightly argue that financial firms need a more immediate response. It is also not dissimilar from the idea of contingent capital, but Mr Callello and Mr Ervin believe the voluntary market for debt-that-can-become-equity would not be sufficiently large—which should give us pause for thought.
The problem with these and other contingent instruments are clearer from a macro perspective. What we are essentially doing is adding a forced option to unsecured lenders to banks, to convert their credit into something they do not want (a piece of equity), at some future date. In market parlance we are forcing a “put” onto unsecured debt. Markets and private rating agencies are better than governments at most things, but one thing they have consistently proven to be bad at is pricing risk through the economic cycle. Recall that the markets gave Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers and Northern Rock higher equity ratings (p/e ratios) than they gave HSBC, JPMorgan and other survivors. This “put” will be underpriced during the boom, but when the first whiffs of bust are smelled, the price will shoot up and short-term subordinated credit to banks will dry up. This could bring forward a crisis.
One way to address this may be to give a pre-determined limit to the size of the put—perhaps a maximum of 15% of the unsecured debt can be forced to be converted into equity, limiting the panic in the unsecured market when it becomes clear that these options will be exercised by the regulators. The unsecured creditor is essentially now providing a limited facility to allow a bank to work through its problem. Should the bank survive, this equity could be re-converted into debt.
But there is a second more fundamental problem with these market mechanisms. Crashes are not random. They always follow booms. Appropriately defined, busts cannot be systematically smaller than the preceding booms. Consequently, proposals to reduce the severity of the crash will always be inadequate if they do nothing to address the boom. This proposal does nothing to the boom at best and potentially makes it worse. Booms are both caused and prolonged by the market’s underestimation of risk—often triggered by a new technology that appears to permanently improve the risk-return trade-off, such as railways, motor cars, electricity, the internet and financial innovation. In the boom, the risk of unsecured debt is and will be systematically underestimated. The rise of under-priced unsecured debt could be perceived as less of a risk to the bank because it is now a form of contingent capital. This allows a bank to expand its balance sheet even more than otherwise. It will not curb the boom and could even add fuel to its flames. By doing nothing to the boom, all we may be doing is lessening the immediate severity of the crash but prolonging the downturn as banks find it very costly to raise unsecured debt in the aftermath of the crash. The history of financial crises is littered with good intentions.
The problem we need to address is a market underestimation of risk that feeds the boom. We require non-market mechanisms that raise the amount of capital banks are carrying as the boom progresses. Having more capital will be far more expensive for banks than this form of convertible debt, but it would provide the same buffer for the emergence of boom-fed credit mistakes and better constrain the boom in the first place. These non-market mechanisms can include the minimum funding liquidity and time varying capital adequacy requirements currently being worked on by the Financial Stability Board and Basel Committee. Alongside these initiatives, improving the power, scope and speed of resolution authorities may help to contain a crisis, but doing this on its own is not an adequate alternative to the main task of offsetting the market’s systematic underestimation of risk in booms.
With 5.35 million Toyota vehicles recalled due pedal entrapment issues, we were wondering if any of the egmCarTech visitors own a recently recalled Toyota.
If you’ve been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks and own any of the following vehicles listed below, you may want to contact your local Toyota dealer:
2009-2010 RAV4, 2009-2010 Corolla, 2009-2010 Matrix, 2005-2010 Avalon, Certain 2007-2010 Camry, 2010 Highlander, 2007-2010 Tundra, 2008-2010 Sequoia.
Either way, if you own any recalled Toyota vehicle, let us know how the whole issue is affecting your life, what you’re doing about it and if you have advice for any others facing the same problem.
Update yourself on the Toyota Pedal Recall news:
– By: Omar Rana
We have touched on this earlier, but with IDC estimating 18.3 Windows Mobile phones were sold last year, and HTC only selling 11.7 smartphones, that HTC no longer owns more than 50% of the Windows Mobile market.
Now Digitimes Research estimates HTC sold more Android phones phones than Windows Mobile phones, estimating they sold 6 million Android devices. That would leave 5.7 million Windows Mobile phones, meaning at 31% of the Windows Mobile market HTC is now pretty small potatoes.
Now of course the other 69% could be equally shared between the other 15 OEMs, but a much higher likelihood is that another company ran away with the lion share of the market.
The best candidate for the crown is Samsung, who impressed with their Omnia range, and IDC notes that the Omnia 2 did particularly well for them.
Of course its sad to see HTC lose dominance of a market they pioneered so long ago, but Samsung has in fact always been more open than HTC when it comes to the internals of their devices, offering SDK’s and developer support quite freely, very much unlike HTC.
What are our reader’s feelings on the matter? Let us know below.
Jay Is Games is a great place to find some of the best that the casual game genre has to offer, but it’s also a good for discovering new developers. Since 2006, the website has hosted several game design competitions, giving indie developers a chance to win a cash prize and, more importantly, exposure.
The seventh edition of the Casual Gameplay Design Competition, where developers have been tasked with creating an interactive fiction game focused on the theme of “escape,” is currently underway, and entries have been flooding in since November. Ars spoke with Jay Bibby, founder of both Jay Is Games and the CGDC, to learn more about the competition and why interactive fiction may be primed for a comeback.
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This week was all about the metal. Next week’s Rock Band DLC caters more to the other end of the music spectrum with former exclusives from the standalone Country Track Pack disc.
All six tracks will be available either individually for $1.99 (160 Microsoft points; 200 Wii Points) or in a bundle for $9.99 (800 Microsoft points). Look for the “Going Country 03″ six-pack next Tuesday, February 2 on Xbox 360 and Wii, with the PlayStation 3 downloads hitting that Thursday, February 4.
Check out all of next week’s DLC below:
Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]
The Polish Dufort London Taxis company yesterday organized a launching ceremony for the introduction of the London Taxi Service to Warshaw.The event was housed by the company at one of its locations in the Polish capital.
"I have been working for a long time to bring this fantastic vehicle to Poland and people love it just as much as I do Jacek Kurovski, Managing director of Dufort, said. I am now able to help taxi companies in Poland offer a real alternative to the cheap cramped salo… (read more)
Is this a good offer?
Thanks in advance !!
A Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) hydrogen train (hydrail) rolled into Southern California this week to meet Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The hydrail locomotive is powered by hydrogen fuel cell plus hybrid technology.
Now, it’s a sign of the times when Governor Schwarzenegger tweeted about his experience on Twitter. The H2 locomotive is a switch locomotive that moves other trains short distances around the rail yard.
The BNSF hydrogen train is seen as a clean alternative to those currently powered by diesel engines. In January 2008, I had talked about how BNSF was developing an H2 switch train in Kansas along with its partner Vehicle Projects LLC.
In October 2006, I had also talked about how JR East was developing the world’s first hydrogen powered commuter train in Japan. The BNSF hydrogen hybrid train is a welcome alternative to areas known for their poor air quality.
So, in the future you may not hear the rumble of a diesel engine and the belch of black smoke on the tracks, but rather the quiet hum of a hydrogen fuel cell and a little cleaner air surrounding it.
Ain’t it always the way? Just when you think you’re the owner of the world’s biggest yacht, an even larger one appears out of nowhere? (Well, I say nowhere, I really mean Belgium, where boat designers Emocean hail from.)
At 656 ft – 99 ft longer than Roman Abramovich’s dinghy – the uberyacht will have a drive-in garage, a pair of 98-ft day boats, a helipad, a hanger, a 30-meter swimming pool, nightclub, casino, games room, a two-level cinema, three beach clubs and a health spa. There are 10 VIP rooms, 22 guest suites and a private deck for the owner.
The floating turd – just look at the color of that thing – houses 45 passengers and 70 crew and bobs along at an impressive 28 knots. Range is 6,500 nautical miles. And is it just me, or do those long gunslits/porthole-y things spell out Ha Ha Ha? Ha. [James Spotting]
Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata is not impressed by the recently-announced iPad. In an interview with the New York Times, Iwata called the iPad nothing more than a big iPod Touch. The Nintendo president also expressed misgivings towards
