Author: Serkadis

David Jaffe’s been known to speak out his mind about… well, anything but his super secret project. After calling the game sharing feature of the PSN “horse sh*t”, the famed game director is now giving his two

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Today, April 22, marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. In honor of this occasion, OMB Watch is conducting a special environmental right-to-know fundraising campaign to support our Creating a 21st Century Environmental Right-to-Know Agenda project. Please take a few moments to contribute to the campaign, learn more about the project, take our environmental right-to-know survey, read other OMB Watch materials about the environment and public health, and do your part for our planet.

There’s been a lot of attention paid to Pierre Omidyar’s attempt to build a new kind of local news organization in Hawaii. Omidyar, of course, was the founder of eBay, and many of the early comments about the project made it sound like a “new” type of news organization that really was very much about making the community a part of the process — something that we’ve pointed out makes a lot of sense. Omidyar also brought in John Temple, the former editor, president and publisher of the (failed) Rocky Mountain News — who had been quite introspective in recognizing why RMN failed. So it seemed like the new project, originally called Peer News, had a good basis.

But the details are coming out, and they seem… odd. Apparently, the newly named “Honolulu Civil Beat,” which is supposed to be more like the discussion found in a “civic square” thinks it can charge people $19.99 per month to take part. That’s quite a steep entrance fee to a “civic square.” I thought part of the value of the civic square was its openness.

Even worse, Temple (who clearly knows better) is trotting out the old school media’s most tired excuse for why paywalls will work: claiming that because the WSJ has done it, others can as well:

“People are paying on the Web for (publications such as) The Wall Street Journal; it has established value. … We believe people will pay for content and experience that they value.”

But that ignores why people pay for the Wall Street Journal, which is not just that “it has value,” but that it has scarce value that helps people make money now. I don’t recall similar information being covered in the normal civic square. In the meantime, I’m sure there are plenty of local community sites for Honolulu already. Why would people want to pay extra to join just one of them?

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Super Street Fighter IV is still a week away from its release but Capcom is also ready prepping for a DLC of the game. More after the jump.
 

Here are some books that can assist with the instruction of numbers and number sense.  All of them are easy to read and provide excellent images to help students obtain a better understanding of numbers and their relation to place value.

One Hundred Hungry Ants  written by Elinor J. Pinczes and illustrated by Bonnie Mackan is a story about one-hundred ants on their way to eat the food at a picnic.  While traveling to the picnic one ant decides they will get there much faster if they divide into two rows of fifty.  After walking for a short time the ant decides they should divide into four rows of twenty-five then five rows of twenty and finally ten rows of ten.  This book is a good resource for a lesson introducing base-10 blocks

Greater Estimations  by Bruce Goldstone is a picture book that asks students to estimate how many items are in each picture.  The beginning of the book shows rubber duck in groups of ten and all the ducks lined up in a row of one-hundred. This book also uses popcorn kernels and groups of sky divers to give students a better understanding of number sense.

Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag is a story about a man who ventures out into the countryside to find a cat for his wife.  Once there he finds hundreds and thousands of cats and decides to bring them all home.  The cats get to his house and start to fight over which one of them is the prettiest and after all the fighting only one cat is left.  This book is perfect for showing students how big and small numbers can be and the language is very easy to read.

More M&M’s Math written by Barbara Barbieri McGrath and illustrated by Roger Glass asks students to drop the candies out of their bag and use a graph to count the number of each color they have.  This book is excellent for teaching ordinal numbers.

Sir Cumference and All The King’s Tens written by Cindy Neuschwander and illustrated by Wayne Geehan is a story about Sir Cumference and his wife Lady Di preparing to have a surprise birthday party for King Arthur.  But things get out of hand when so many guests show up that they have trouble counting them all.  They decide to make the guests stand in rows and columns to make the guests easier to count.  The guests are then placed in tents with each tent representing a place value.  This is a great book to read to students before a lesson on place value.

Websites for Kids

Hacker’s Numbers is a interactive online game that challenges students to make larger numbers than Hacker.  The student must place a number in the hundreds, tens and ones.  This game is allows students to practice place value.

The Cats in Line is an online activity that asks students to identify the ordinal number of the orange cat in a line of gray cats.  This site is good for helping students gain an understanding of ordinal numbers and their relation to a set of objects.

The “Less Than” Lake Maze is a game that challenges students to help a monster cross a lake by jumping from one numbered stone to another stone with a lower number on it.  If the students move to a larger number the monster falls in the lake.

Guess the Number is a game where the students can pick a number range (i.e. one to fifty) and then guess which number the computer has selected.  With each turn the computer tells the student higher or lower and then provides a smaller range.  The object of the game is to see how many turns it takes the student to guess the right number.

Enter Your Number is and interactive online math activity that allows students to enter any number then want that then have the computer tell them the place values of the numbers within the number.  This site also has the option of generating a number for the student to challenge them.

Additional Resources

Bring It is an awesome online resource to support instruction for teaching one-to-one correspondence and other early elementary math skills such as addition, subtraction and even skip counting.  This activity also offers a two player mode for students working in teams.

Estimation Exploration is an offline activity that asks student to estimate the amount of items in a jar or other container.  This activity assists students with gaining number sense and uses physical objects such as shells, jelly beans or foam balls.

Counting Votes is another offline activity where the teacher asks students to help him/her create a list of vegetables on a large piece of paper.  Then using small cups and counter chips the students get to vote for which vegetables are their favorites.  The teacher writes the number of votes next to each vegetable and the students get to count their total number of votes for each vegetable.

Head’s up to all PS3 owners, Sony has announced that a new software update for the PlayStation 3 will be available shortly.
 
*UPDATE*
PS3 firmware 3.30 is now live.

Now that the healthcare reform bill has been signed into law, and Americans are justifiably worried that health insurance premiums will increase, there is a 1½ cent answer to rising premiums.

We’ve all been told that the new healthcare reform law was supposed to lower insurance premiums by 14 percent to 20 percent—thereby making health insurance more affordable for everyone. But if you check the fine print reduced insurance premiums apply only to those who decide they want to keep the low-value, “skimpier” kinds of policies.

The general consensus is that the new law virtually guarantees that health insurance premiums will rise even more—instead of becoming more affordable. The Congressional Budget Office itself stated that insurance premiums for people buying their own coverage would go up by an average of 10 percent to 13 percent.
 
Based on the forecasts of other analysts, premiums will rise even higher—to the tune of 30 percent to 45 percent. Imagine what YOU would be paying if your insurance premiums increased by that much.
 
Americans are sharply divided on the new healthcare law, but one thing is for certain: Many provisions in the healthcare law carry with them serious consequences. And we won’t know their full effect until the provisions start in the year 2014.

For instance, the law cuts Medicare by $500 billion, and 10 million seniors who get their coverage through Medicare Advantage’s private plans (about 22 percent of Medicare enrollees) will be stripped of their coverage… or will have their Medicare benefits reduced.

But that may not matter much because the Obama administration itself has forecast that Medicare—the trust fund that pays hospital bills for elderly Americans—is expected to run out of money in 2017. Many believe that Medicare is already broke now—and that unbeknownst to the American public, the government has begun using the general Federal tax funds to pay for senior citizens’ Medicare benefits.

What’s even more alarming is that according to many sources, the Social Security trust fund, which has been forecasted to completely run out of money in 2037, is already running a deficit. And there’s no telling how long the government will be able to continue providing Social Security benefits and services.

One glaring aspect that’s missing in the new healthcare law is that nothing has been done to fix the double-digit upward spiral in healthcare costs… and that in itself is a recipe for disaster.

What would we do if there comes a time when we can no longer rely on Medicare and Social Security? And what if you’re a senior citizen who’s already SICK … and you have no income to pay for healthcare? What would happen if doctors and hospitals turned you away at the door because they have no assurance they’ll get paid for services that they’ll provide you?

It’s a terrifying thought… but one that every American over the age of 40 must consider and find a solution for.

In the coming years, average citizens can never be sure that their future healthcare needs will be met. Neither will they have any control as to whether or not they will receive healthcare benefits from the government… or how much insurance they will have to pay.

The only thing they can exercise control over is their health.

This begs the question: What good is health insurance anyway—even if you could afford the premiums? Having adequate health insurance (or being covered by public healthcare) only means that the cost of your medical care will be covered in the event that you get sick. Wouldn’t it be infinitely better if you didn’t get sick at all?

There is a simple therapy used by 15,000 European health practitioners to heal millions of patients of virtually all diseases. This therapy has been used successfully for more than 170 years, and could be the best way to ensure your good health, especially in these uncertain economic times. It also protects you against rising health insurance premiums, and will keep you from having to rely on a healthcare system that may not adequately cover your needs.

This scientifically proven therapy, which involves the use of a natural oxygenating substance, creates an environment within the body where disease cannot thrive. This then enables the body to cure itself of practically any disease. For instance, studies have shown that cancerous tumors shrink in the presence of this natural oxygenating substance, and this substance inhibits the growth of other tumors and disease tissues as well.

One reason healthcare costs continue to escalate out of control is that current medical research is focused on the wrong causes of disease. Some claim that viruses, microbes, germs or harmful bacteria are the cause of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, arthritis and other diseases. Others say it’s the toxins in the food we eat, the air we breathe and the substances we consume. And still others say it’s our genes or stress that cause us to acquire disease.

Because this wide array of theories has proliferated for centuries, the process of “curing” disease—and health maintenance in general—has turned into a complex and expensive proposition. And consequently, health insurance premiums have escalated as well.

Madison Cavanaugh, author of The One-Minute Cure: The Secret to Healing Virtually All Diseases, claims that the primary physical cause of all diseases is linked in one way or another to oxygen deficiency. She says that when the human body is supplied with abundant amounts of oxygen, all cancer cells, viruses, harmful bacteria, toxins, pathogens and disease microorganisms are killed because they cannot survive in a high-oxygen environment.

The natural therapy she recommends stimulates the movement of oxygen atoms from the bloodstream to the cells to a dramatically greater degree than is usually reached by other means. Because the therapy costs only 1½ cents a day to self-administer at home, it may be the most affordable health insurance anyone can have.

—Danica Collins

Hedge fund manager John Paulson held two conference calls over the last couple of days with investors, and most of the attention has been paid to what he said about the Goldman Sachs (GS) fraud charges.

For what it’s worth, he hasn’t been charged, but he’s been defensive anyway.

What’s interesting though is that the man who was famous for betting against the economy is now a snorting bull.

MarketWatch has the details.

“I’m not concerned about that at all today,” he said. It’s more likely there could be a V-shaped recovery, Paulson elaborated.

House prices have stabilized and could climb 8% to 10% nationwide in 2011, he added.

Corporate earnings are coming in ahead of expectations, the stock market is stronger and there’s a “vibrant” credit market. With the “final leg” of a rising housing market, “the outlook for 2011 could be very strong,” Paulson said.

Paulson has been betting on reflation and financials for awhile — and doing quite well at it — but these are new comments in terms of feeling good about residential housing, corporate profits, and the general sustainability of the comeback.

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Spike TV will be featuring Tiger Woods’ latest game for PlayStation 3, but in lieu of the usual controller, it will be using the PlayStation Move. Details of this premier were revealed via Sony PlayStation’s official Twitter

A brand new multiplayer demo for Lost Planet 2 is now available on the Xbox 360, with the PS3 version scheduled to arrive tomorrow. But wait there’s more, too boost up the downloads of the demo, Capcom

After today mixed action in the US, stocks are selling off in Asia.

• The Shanghai Composite is down 1.2%.
• Japan’s Nikkei is off 1.8%.
• Korea’s KOSPI is down just over 1%.

Gold, meanwhile, continues to be flat, while the S&P is trading off slightly.

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Thursday should be a very interesting day in the debate over financial reform, as Barack Obama heads to the Cooper Union Institute to deliver what will be a very closely followed speech on financial reform.

Coming as it does on the heels of SEC vs. Goldman Sachs (GS), and at a very late-stage in the game (we’re well past the point of vague generalities), this speech should give a clear indication of the type of bill Obama wants to sign.

Will a hard Volcker rule be in place? Will Blanche Lincoln’s anti-derivative rule make it into the final bill?

We’ll know shortly.

Meanwhile, Mike O’Rourke picks up another interesting, but important tension: that being the growing rift between New York City pols (like Bloomberg) who recognized the need to not kill the Wall Street golden goose.

Writes O’Rourke in his Bedtime With BTIG note

It will be interesting to see the environment and how the speech is received.  Today, the NY State Comptroller Thomas Dinapoli put out a press release titled, “DiNapoli: State Could Run Short of Cash, Releases Final Closing Numbers for Last State Fiscal Year, Warns of Cash Crunch.”  The only reason the state finished the 2009-2010 fiscal year with a positive balance was it postponed payments into the new fiscal year.  The release notes “The state Division of the Budget projects the General Fund will end the months of May, June, July and August with a negative balance.  This is unprecedented in New York’s history, indicating growing fiscal stress and historically low cash flow levels.”   The Comptroller’s annual data was the primary spark for the Wall Street bonus outrage over the past 18 months.  Politicians throughout the country, including many high profile ones in New York, used the data to take a populist approach and bash Wall Street for political gain.

 New York City is hardly an enclave of conservatism, but in recent weeks and months, the tone of the main stream print media has shifted in favor of Wall Street (or at least the taxes it pays) and in opposition to Washington.  The charge has been led by Mayor Bloomberg who recognizes the importance of the Financial industry’s tax revenues to the livelihood of the city and the state.  Local media has also turned on Senator Schumer who is being portrayed as trading Wall Street (and thus New York) in favor of landing Harry Reid’s post as Majority Leader if (when) Reid is voted out of office in November.  Currently, the state could not have a weaker Governor, and his likely successor has been among the most aggressive Wall Street bashers, leaving Bloomberg as the only high profile politician in the industry’s corner.  Now, the President heads to New York to spread his message the day after the state comptroller warns of the state’s precarious financial state due to reduced tax revenues.  With an election approximately 6 months away, today’s news should be a wake-up call to all New York politicians to follow Bloomberg’s lead.  If they don’t start to battle for their continuants, then soon they won’t have any.

Napoli’s message, which did not get much attention today, was indeed quite stark.

Here’s the key line:

“The state is starting the new fiscal year the way we ended the old one,” DiNapoli said. “The state’s finances are very shaky. Big bills are piling up, and there may not be enough cash to cover them. We need the Governor and the Legislature to agree on a realistic budget that aligns revenue with spending and isn’t a replay of last year’s buy-time budget. Without a responsible spending plan, our cash shortfalls may be much worse than last year.”

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It took a bit of a while coming, but European gamers will soon have their hands onthe Tropies for Disgaea 3. NIS America not only confirmed the arrival of the Trophies to the Euro version of the

From Farmville to Second Life, there’s no question that if you’re able to create a virtual world in which people pay real money for virtual goods, then you’ve got a winner on your hands. For years now, virtual sweatshops have existed to farm World of Warcraft for gold and rare items, that can then be sold for real money. For example, a “Spectral Tiger” can fetch over $800 on eBay right now. That said, Blizzard has started to capitalize a bit on this trend, and now sells virtual pets through its online store. The latest is a “Celestial Steed,” which, for $25, allows players to “travel in style astride wings of pure elemental stardust.” In four hours, Blizzard sold approximately $2 million in virtual livestock — apparently Blizzard understands how to give their community good reasons to buy (which is fortunate for Blizzard, since WoW’s subscriber base is rumored to have plateaued).

This sale sparked off a bit of a debate amongst the WoW community, who argue that being able to “buy your way” through the game destroys the game in favor of profit. It will be interesting to see if this sentiment grows enough to warrant a Blizzard response — like we saw in the case of Dungeons & Dragons Online, who removed some recent changes because of overwhelming negative feedback. That said, even if the complaints remain at a dull roar, a glut of Celestial Steeds roaming the plains of Azeroth would wreak havoc on its street value. After all, even though the world is virtual, many of the same laws of economics that affect the real world also apply. Blizzard likely understands these economic concepts will and will undoubtedly stop selling the Celestial Steed at some point to maintain an artificial scarcity.

That said, the only reason such artificial scarcity works in WoW is because Blizzard has absolute control over the economy. Those that think that Blizzard’s success automatically means that people will pay for infinite goods in the real world will find that it is a bad comparison to make. So, if you want to sell imaginary, flying horses, then it’s best to build a virtual world over which you have total control, in which those horses have some sort of value — but that’s not trivial.

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The new Mercedes-Benz Shooting Break will make its debut at the 2010 Beijing Motor Show, but before that Mercedes-Benz TV is giving us a little tour of the new concept.

Click here to read our original post on the Mercedes-Benz Shooting Break Concept.

Hit the jump for the video.

Refresher: Inspired by the SLS AMG, F800 Style Concept and the FASCINATION concept, the Mercedes-Benz Shooting Break Concept hints at an estate version of the upcoming CLS-Class. Power for the Shooting Break Concept comes from a new 3.5L V6 engine making 306-hp with a maximum torque of 273 lb-ft.

Mercedes-Benz Shooting Break Concept:

Mercedes-Benz Shooting Break Concept:

– By: Omar Rana

Gran Turismo 5 has been in development for almost four years and is now on its way to the final stages of development, but it looks like Polyphony’s boss won’t still be satisfied with the finished product.

Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Videos

Shell’s commissioned ad agency JWT to create a spot showing off the wondrous properties of Shell’s Helix lubricants. JWT then commissioned Asylum Models and Effects to create a transparent Nissan 370Z out of Perspex. While we’re surprised that – Shell being Shell – they didn’t use a Ferrari, after watching the commercial’s companion making-of video, we think we get it. And hey, we’re not going to sneeze at a working, transparent car no matter what it is. Follow the jump for both videos.

[Source: Paul Tan]

Continue reading Video: Shell makes a Nissan 370Z for the Invisible Man to showcase lubricants

Video: Shell makes a Nissan 370Z for the Invisible Man to showcase lubricants originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 4.21.10 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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