Author: Serkadis

Is Heavy Rain gearing up for a movie adaptation? Quantic Dream’s blockbuster suspense-action game seems like it is thinking of taking Hollywood by storm as copyright documents were recently unearthed filed by New Line Productions.
 
 
 

Here’s something definitely new. Valve is owning up to their missteps on the PS3, saying that they didn’t put their “best foot forward” on the console with the release of The Orange Box.
 
 
 

Tutorial :: How to Play Starcraft 2 beta offline against AI
Impt note: If you want to share this, just link to this site instead of copy pasting all the stuff

A workaround for playing Starcraft 2 beta offline vs AI has been found, shortly after Lazytown was able to crack Starcraft 2 […]

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At Nintendo’s third and final leg of their media summit in London, the Europeans were finally given an official date for the release of Super Mario Galaxy 2. Not only that, Metroid: Other M as well as

[chicagopressrelease.com: unable to retrieve full-text content]

A massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake, capable of tremendous damage,
struck southern Chile early Saturday, shaking buildings in the capital,
where some buildings collapsed.

Read the original article from SouthTown Star.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Devoe Joseph scored 16 points and Minnesota helped its NCAA tournament chances while dealing a blow to Illinois’ hopes with a 62-60 road victory on Saturday.

The Golden Gophers (17-11, 8-8 Big Ten) led by 19 with 7:11 to play and looked to be cruising to the victory, but the Illini (18-11, 10-6) rallied to cut the deficit to one in the final 80 seconds.

D. J. Richardson’s shot to tie the game at the buzzer was short.

Each team had just two points 6:20 into the game. Minnesota led 24-14 at halftime. At one point, Illinois endured a 4:45 scoring drought while the Gophers scored seven points.

Illinois’ Demetri McCamey was held to nine points on 4-of-18 shooting while registering 10 assists. McCamey fouled out as did Bill Cole, who led the Illini with 15 points. Mike Davis had 10 points and 12 rebounds for Illinois.
 

Read the original article from Journal Star.

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One of the largest earthquakes ever recorded tore apart houses, bridges and highways in central Chile on Saturday and sent a tsunami racing halfway around the world. Chileans near the epicenter were tossed about as if shaken by a giant, and authorities said at least 214 people were dead.

The magnitude-8.8 quake was felt as far away as Sao Paulo in Brazil — 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) to the east. The full extent of damage remained unclear as dozens of aftershocks — one nearly as powerful as Haiti’s devastating Jan. 12 earthquake — shuddered across the disaster-prone Andean nation.

President Michelle Bachelet declared a “state of catastrophe” in central Chile but said the government had not asked for assistance from other countries. If it does, President Barack Obama said, the United States “will be there.” Around the world, leaders echoed his sentiment.

In Chile, newly built apartment buildings slumped and fell. Flames devoured a prison. Millions of people fled into streets darkened by the failure of power lines. The collapse of bridges tossed and crushed cars and trucks, and complicated efforts to reach quake-damaged areas by road.

At least 214 people were killed, according to Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma, and officials said about 1.5 million homes sustained at least some damage.

In Talca, just 65 miles (105 kilometers) from the epicenter, people sleeping in bed suddenly felt like they were flying through major airplane turbulence as their belongings cascaded around them from the shuddering walls at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. EST, 0634 GMT).

A deafening roar rose from the convulsing earth as buildings groaned and clattered. The sound of screams was confused with the crash of plates and windows.

Then the earth stilled, silence returned and a smell of damp dust rose in the streets, where stunned survivors took refuge.

A journalist emerging into the darkened street scattered with downed power lines saw a man, some of his own bones apparently broken, weeping and caressing the hand of a woman who had died in the collapse of a cafe. Two other victims lay dead a few feet (meters) away.

Also near the epicenter was Concepcion, one of the country’s largest cities, where a 15-story building collapsed, leaving a few floors intact.

“I was on the 8th floor and all of a sudden I was down here,” said Fernando Abarzua, marveling that he escaped with no major injuries. He said a relative was still trapped in the rubble six hours after the quake, “but he keeps shouting, saying he’s OK.”

Chilean state television reported that 209 inmates escaped from prison in the city of Chillan, near the epicenter, after a fire broke out.

In the capital of Santiago, 200 miles (325 kilometers) to the northeast, a car dangled from a collapsed overpass, the national Fine Arts Museum was badly damaged and an apartment building’s two-story parking lot pancaked, smashing about 50 cars whose alarms rang incessantly.

While most modern buildings survived, a bell tower collapsed on the Nuestra Senora de la Providencia church and several hospitals were evacuated due to damage.

Santiago’s airport was closed, with smashed windows, partially collapsed ceilings and destroyed pedestrian walkways in the passenger terminals. The capital’s subway was shut as well, and transportation was further limited because hundreds of buses were stuck behind a damaged bridge.

Chile’s main seaport, in Valparaiso about 75 miles (120 kilometers) from Santiago, was ordered closed while damage was assessed. The state-run Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, shut two of its mines, the newspaper La Tercera reported.

The jolt set off a tsunami that swamped San Juan Bautista village on Robinson Crusoe Island off Chile, killing at least five people and leaving 11 missing, said Guillermo de la Masa, head of the government emergency bureau for the Valparaiso region. He said the huge waves also damaged several government buildings on the island.

Pedro Forteza, a pilot who frequently flies to the island, said, “The village was destroyed by the waves, including the historic cemetery. I would say that 20 or 30 percent has disappeared.”

In the mainland coastal town of Vichato, in the BioBio region, waves flooded hundreds of houses. State television video take from an airplane showed some houses almost covered by water.

The surge of water raced across the Pacific, setting off alarm sirens in Hawaii, Polynesia and Tonga and prompting warnings across all 53 nations ringing the vast ocean.

Tsunami waves washed across Hawaii, where little damage was reported. The U.S. Navy moved a half-dozen vessels out of Pearl Harbor as a precaution, Navy spokesman Lt. Myers Vasquez said. Shore-side Hilo International Airport was closed. In California, officials said a 3-foot (1-meter) surge in Ventura Harbor pulled loose several navigational buoys.

About 13 million people live in the area where shaking was strong to severe, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. USGS geophysicist Robert Williams said the Chilean quake was hundreds of times more powerful than Haiti’s magnitude-7 quake, though it was deeper and cost far fewer lives.

More than 50 aftershocks topped magnitude 5, including one of magnitude 6.9. One aftershock caused a wall to collapse in northern Argentina’s Salta region, killing an 8-year-old boy and injuring two of his friends, police said.

The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2 million homeless. It caused a tsunami that killed people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines and caused damage along the west coast of the United States.

Saturday’s quake matched a 1906 temblor off the Ecuadorean coast as the seventh-strongest ever recorded in the world.

___

Associated Press writer Roberto Candia reported this story from Talca and Eva Vergara from Santiago. AP writers Eduardo Gallardo in Santiago and Sandy Kozel in Washington contributed to this report.

Read the original article from Journal Star.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

 Bradley completed its regular season Saturday at the Qwest Center with an 82-71Missouri Valley Conference loss to Creighton, marking the 12th consecutive defeat the Braves have suffered on the Bluejays’ home court.

BU, which never led, closed to within 33-32 at halftime on Andrew Warren’s buzzer-beating 52-foot shot. But Creighton opened the second half with a 9-0 run to take control.

Taylor Brown led BU (15-13, 9-8) with a career-high 27 points. The teams will meet again Friday in the quarterfinal round of the MVC tournament in St. Louis.

Read the original article from Journal Star.

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LOS ANGELES — The huge earthquake that struck off the coast of Chile belongs to an “elite class” of mega earthquakes, experts said, and is similar to the 2004 Indian Ocean temblor that triggered deadly tsunami waves.

The magnitude-8.8 quake was a type called a “megathrust,” considered the most powerful earthquake on the planet. Megathrusts occur when one tectonic plate dives beneath another. Saturday’s tremor unleashed about 50 gigatons of energy and broke about 250 miles of the fault zone, said U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist Paul Caruso.

The quake’s epicenter was offshore and occurred about 140 miles north of the largest earthquake ever recorded — a magnitude-9.5 that killed about 1,600 people in Chile and scores of others in the Pacific in 1960.

“It’s part of an elite class of giant earthquakes,” said USGS geologist Brian Atwater.

If the magnitude holds, it will tie with the 1906 offshore Ecuador quake as the fifth largest since 1900.

“We call them great earthquakes. Everybody else calls them horrible,” said USGS geophysicist Ken Hudnut. “There’s only a few in this league.”

The Chile quake was smaller than the Sumatra quake of 2004, a magnitude-9.1 and was not expected to be anything nearly as destructive. That quake and ensuing tsunami killed 230,000 people. Another difference is that the Chile quake triggered tsunami warnings hours ahead of time in Hawaii and Pacific islands, allowing people time to flee to higher ground.

In 2004, there was little measuring technology in place to warn Indian Ocean countries about incoming killer waves.

So far, the quake death toll has surpassed 200. Several more died when tsunami waves swamped an island off the country’s coast.

Chile is no stranger to violent jolts. In fact, USGS geophysicist Ross Stein called the country an “earthquake hatchery.” Thirteen temblors of magnitude 7 or larger have hit Chile since 1973.

The latest quake took place at a boundary where two plates of the Earth’s crust grind and dive. While that type of action gave rise to the Andes mountains that form the backbone of South America, it’s also the source of some of the largest quakes.

The Chile temblor struck a day after a smaller earthquake shook the southern coast of Japan. Experts said the quakes appear to be unrelated.

There’s also no connection between this quake and the disaster in Haiti, said University of Miami geology professor Tim Dixon.

A quake like the one that hit Haiti, a magnitude 7, happens somewhere in the world about every month, usually underwater. But the type that hit Chile is among the most powerful recorded in recent history.

The faults in Haiti and Chile are distant enough that stress from one would not affect the other, Dixon said.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The earthquake in Chile was far stronger than the one that struck Haiti last month — yet the death toll in this Caribbean nation is magnitudes higher.

The reasons are simple.

Chile is wealthier and infinitely better prepared, with strict building codes, robust emergency response and a long history of handling seismic catastrophes. No living Haitian had experienced a quake at home when the Jan. 12 disaster crumbled their poorly constructed buildings.

And Chile was relatively lucky this time.

Saturday’s quake was centered offshore an estimated 21 miles (34 kilometers) underground in a relatively unpopulated area while Haiti’s tectonic mayhem struck closer to the surface — about 8 miles (13 kilometers) — and right on the edge of Port-au-Prince, factors that increased its destructiveness.

“Earthquakes don’t kill — they don’t create damage — if there’s nothing to damage,” said Eric Calais, a Purdue University geophysicist studying the Haiti quake.

The U.S. Geological Survey says eight Haitian cities and towns — including this capital of 3 million — suffered “violent” to “extreme” shaking in last month’s 7-magnitude quake, which Haiti’s government estimates killed some 220,000 people and left about 1.2 homeless. Chile’s death toll was in the hundreds.

By contrast, no Chilean urban area suffered more than “severe” shaking — the third most serious level — Saturday in its 8.8-magnitude disaster, by USGS measure. The quake was centered 200 miles (325 kms) away from Chile’s capital and largest city, Santiago.

In terms of energy released at the epicenter, the Chilean quake was 501 times stronger. But energy dissipates rather quickly as distances grow from epicenters — and the ground beneath Port-au-Prince is less stable by comparison and “shakes like jelly,” says University of Miami geologist Tim Dixon.

Survivors of Haiti’s quake described abject panic — much of it well-founded as buildings imploded around them. Many Haitians grabbed cement pillars only to watch them crumble in their hands. Haitians were not schooled in how to react — by sheltering under tables and door frames, and away from glass windows.

Chileans, on the other hand, have homes and offices built to ride out quakes, their steel skeletons designed to sway with seismic waves rather than resist them.

“When you look at the architecture in Chile you see buildings that have damage, but not the complete pancaking that you’ve got in Haiti,” said Cameron Sinclair, executive director of Architecture for Humanity, a 10-year-old nonprofit that has helped people in 36 countries rebuild after disasters.

Sinclair said he has architect colleagues in Chile who have built thousands of low-income housing structures to be earthquake resistant.

In Haiti, by contrast, there is no building code.

Patrick Midy, a leading Haitian architect, said he knew of only three earthquake-resistant buildings in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.

Sinclair’s San Francisco-based organization received 400 requests for help the day after the Haiti quake but he said it had yet to receive a single request for help for Chile.

“On a per-capita basis, Chile has more world-renowned seismologists and earthquake engineers than anywhere else,” said Brian E. Tucker, president of GeoHazards International, a nonprofit organization based in Palo Alto, California.

Their advice is heeded by the government in Latin America’s wealthiest nation, getting built not just into architects’ blueprints and building codes but also into government contingency planning.

“The fact that the president (Michelle Bachelet) was out giving minute-to-minute reports a few hours after the quake in the middle of the night gives you an indication of their disaster response,” said Sinclair.

Most Haitians didn’t know whether their president, Rene Preval, was alive or dead for at least a day after the quake. The National Palace and his residence — like most government buildings — had collapsed.

Haiti’s TV, cell phone networks and radio stations were knocked off the air by the seismic jolt.

Col. Hugo Rodriguez, commander of the Chilean aviation unit attached to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti, waited anxiously Saturday with his troops for word from loved ones at home.

He said he knew his family was OK and expressed confidence that Chile would ride out the disaster.

“We are organized and prepared to deal with a crisis, particularly a natural disaster,” Rodriguez said. “Chile is a country where there are a lot of natural disasters.”

Calais, the geologist, noted that frequent seismic activity is as common to Chile as it is to the rest of the Andean ridge. Chile experienced the strongest earthquake on record in 1960, and Saturday’s quake was the nation’s third of over magnitude-8.7.

“It’s quite likely that every person there has felt a major earthquake in their lifetime,” he said, “whereas the last one to hit Port-au-Prince was 250 years ago.”

“So who remembers?”

On Port-au-Prince’s streets Saturday, many people had not heard of Chile’s quake. More than half a million are homeless, most still lack electricity and are preoccupied about trying to get enough to eat.

Fanfan Bozot, a 32-year-old reggae singer having lunch with a friend, could only shake his head at his government’s reliance on international relief to distribute food and water.

“Chile has a responsible government,” he said, waving his hand in disgust. “Our government is incompetent.”

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

CHICAGO (STMW)  — Gov. Pat Quinn says he wants a running mate who shares his passions. Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan would rather do away with the lieutenant governor’s office.

But the Illinois Democratic Party, which Madigan chairs, has opened a Web site that will allow those who want to seek the number-two job in state government a chance to present their credentials.

Quinn currently has no running mate. Scott Lee Cohen, who won the Feb. 2 primary, left the ticket under pressure after it became widely known that he was accused of abusing his ex-wife and arrested for holding a knife to the throat of an ex- girlfriend. Cohen has denied the allegations, and charges stemming from his arrest were dropped when the girlfriend failed to appear at a court hearing.

Quinn said he considers what the party is doing to seek potential candidates “a healthy process.” In the end, the decision is up to the Democratic party’s 38 state central committeemen, two from each of Illinois’ 19 congressional districts.

The weight of each committeeman’s vote depends on the number of Democratic ballots cast in the last election.

He did not offer any opinion on known candidates Saturday, noting only that Southern Illinois University law professor Sheila Simon, the daughter of former U.S. Sen. and Lt. Gov. Paul Simon, is a long-time friend.

He again said he wants someone who shares his passions. He has said that includes a concern for veterans and consumers. Quinn, speaking at the International Kennel Club dog show at McCormick Place, also said he wants someone who is a dog lover.

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

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This ski trip, now in its 24th year is a legend in the mortgage banking community.  It is also a premier networking opportunity, and I always post this as many people are always interested.  – BC

  <<< CLICK TO VIEW

2010 Ski Trip Agenda 24 Years of Behavioral Modifications 2-24-10dhFinal

Italy, Europe | Strange Statues

Allied bombs and rough seas have reduced the once mighty turn of the century giant into an armless ruin. Located at the end of a popular sunbathing beach in the Italian riviera town of Monterosso del Mare, Il Gigante was originally built from concrete in 1910 to decorate the seaward edge of the elegant Villa Pastine. The 14 meter high image of Neptune holding the waves at bay quickly became a symbol of the town, and was photographed and shown on postcards of the era.

It was designed and built by Arrigo Ferarra, a well known Jewish Italian sculptor, known for works in several cathedrals and for his bronze door on the Duomo in Milan. In WWII, Minerbi was forced into hiding because of his Jewish ancestry in the middle of the Duomo project. The scenes on the doors he had designed, ironically, were inspired by the Edict of Constantine, which called religious tolerance, aimed at stopping the persecution of Christians in the Roman empire. He survived, and the doors were completed and installed after the war.

The Villa Pastine was not so lucky, and suffered from allied bombing runs. Il Gigante lost his arms, his trident, and the giant seashell he had held aloft, but remained the somewhat battered, but romantically ancient looking symbol of the town. In 1966 the statue was weakened further by rough seas, weathering it further.

In 1982 an intrepid climber discovered treasure “alle calcagna del gigante,” or “at the heels of the giant”. The golden rabbit prize from the Italian version of the famous book-treasure hunt “The Masquerade” was hidden beneath the heels of the giant.

Today the ruins almost blend into the rocky cliff face, facing the sea with decayed elegance. And no arms.

DUPAGE COUNTY (STMW)  — About 1,500 DuPage County residents were reported as homeless last year, including 368 under the age of 18 and 169 under 5 according to a new report, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Carol Simler, of the DuPage County Homeless Continuum of Care, told the County Board that the figures likely are too low.

The numbers included only those who had spent time in a shelter and didn’t reflect people who had doubled up with other families or found accommodations other than county shelters.

Simler stressed that many of the homeless were employed, but their income fell short of the $19 per hour that she estimated necessary for a two-bedroom apartment in DuPage County. “They are a somewhat invisible population,” she said.

Simler said that while the total homeless might not seem high compared with other counties, they nonetheless took their toll in terms of health care, incarceration and other costs to local communities.

The report was the first formal report to the county on homelessness.

In a survey of 27 cities last year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors found increases in family homelessness in 19.

Julie Dworkin of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless says that in 2008, 22 percent of families seeking emergency shelter were homeless for the first time.

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

LG’s first Windows Phone 7 prototype has just been shown off by Engadget, and while the full QWERTY keyboard looks pretty usable, what immediately struck me was the small screen and massive bezel surrounding it.

Without any measurements given there is no way of saying how large the screen really is, but we are certainly not talking about a 3.6 inch screen like the HTC Touch Pro 2, but closer to the 3.2 inches of the LG eXpo.

Small screen size is likely one of the factors which led to slow sales of the HTC Pure on AT&T and the extremely poor sales of the Palm Pre, despite a dazzling user interface.

Do our readers feel our concerns are justified? Let us know your opinion below.

CHICAGO (STMW)  — Emergency crews were on standby at O’Hare Airport for an American Airlines flight with mechanical problems Saturday afternoon.

American Airlines Flight 89 landed at 1:02 p.m. without incident due to mechanical problems, according to the city’s Department of Aviation spokeswoman Karen Pride.

An EMS Plan 1 –which sends five ambulances– was called for the flight that landed on runway 28, although no injuries were reported, Fire Media Affairs Chief Joe Roccasalva said.

Airline officials confirmed they were investigating a mechanical problem for Flight 89 from Brussels to Chicago, American Airlines spokesman Billy Sanez said. The flight landed normally and on-time after the pilot declared an emergency as a precaution when a light turned on indicating a mechanical problem.

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

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As best I can tell, Health Insurance for the average family costs about 13k per year. For individuals, its about $6k per year. For some, employers pay a big chuck of that. For others, the deductibles and other charges are super high so that the monthly premium is lower.  For many,  its a health arbitrage. You pray you don’t get sick while you can’t afford the insurance.

What we have is a product, health insurance, that everyone seems to need. And if you pay attention to the political world, its a product that our government wants everyone to have.  Which got me thinking.

$500 per month per person. $1,200 per month per family.  Where do we spend enough on products in competitive industries to warrant a business subsidizing  our health costs ?

Google subsidizes the cost of hosting our home and business videos in exchange for selling advertising around the content we upload. Our cellphone provider might cover a couple hundred dollars of the cost of our phone in exchange for a multiyear commitment to buy phone and data from them. What do we have to exchange in order for someone to cover all or part of our health care costs ?

Let me give you an example. Is it worth it for Walmart to add me to the self insured health plan that they offer employees in exchange for a commitment that I buy 100pct of any products Walmart sells from Walmart ?  If I promise to buy everything from toothpaste to celery to lightbulbs to underwear from them for the next 5 years, would the average person generate more than enough in net margin dollars to make it worth the incremental expense ? Remember, you have to build in the reduction in new customer acquisition costs as well. Is it worth it to Walmart ? What if my employer did the same type of deal. For the sake of example, what if the Dallas Mavericks promised to buy everything that we can from Walmart ? Would Walmart make us an affiliate for health insurance purposes and add Dallas Mavericks employees ?  Or could the program be simplified so that while Walmart wont commit to subsidizing all of the health care costs in their system, or require 100 pct of purchases, they could take a page from Visa and apply some percentage of purchases towards health care premiums for customers and allow them to participate in a Group Insurance program that Walmart , with their incredibly purchasing power set up.  Not surprisingly, this wouldn’t be a drastic step for a Walmart. They already offer special discounts to other self insured companies for the purchase of prescription drugs.

Here is the bottom line. Would consumers and businesses commit to do business with companies that offer incentives and subsidies built around health insurance coverage ? And what if health insurance became a value add rather than a primary product ? Would a service from companies that are big enough to self insure and add their customers to their corporate health care programs change the dynamics and economics of health care ? Would it create enough competition to force traditional insurance companies to change their ways ?

Maybe its already out there and I don’t know about.  Maybe its an opportunity.  But its certainly something I would like to see discussed more. If there is any way to bring back universal healthcare to the market, rather than the government, now is the time to talk about it

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Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a German member of the European Parliament, announced in a TV interview Saturday night that France, Germany, and the Netherlands would snap up Greek bonds in an effort to bail the country out, according to Reuters.

But who is Jorgo Chatzimarkakis?

He’s a low-level, 43-year old politician of Greek descent, and even Reuters is forced to wonder how he would possibly be aware of such a plan.

We’re not sure if this is connected to the forthcoming Greek bailout that the WSJ just announced, if so we’d remain highly dubious.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Bailout For Greece! (Again)
• TARP 2.0: German Parliament Trying To Stop The Greece Bailout
• Don’t Be Fooled By Greek Bailout Optimism, This Is TARP 2.0

Engadget has published the first pictures of a real Windows Phone 7 handset made by LG.

The handset is a slider with a 5 megapixel camera with flash.

Click for larger versions

See more pictures at Engadget here.