Q: I love smoothies and blended soups for breakfast, but I live in a small apartment with some late-sleeping roomates.
I am on the lookout for a quiet (or at least quiet-er) blender to fit my morning needs! Plusses would be small and easy to clean as well. Thanks for your help!
Sent by Jessica
A couple of years ago, we noted that US Immigration was making life difficult for touring musicians by changing the way they enforced the visas commonly used by musicians. Specifically, the usual visa required proof of popularity — but had no systems in place to account for popularity via the internet. This resulted in various well known musicians (including, by the way, our friend Lily Allen) being barred from making expected appearances in the US. It appears this sort of thing is happening again. The law still hasn’t changed, but US Immigration has again increased the strictness in how it interprets the existing laws for foreign musicians, leading some top acts to be barred from entering the country — or just increasing the bureaucracy they need to go through. For many foreign acts, touring the US is quite important in attracting more attention.
The article discusses how this is harming some acts that have built a lot of buzz or won awards… but then have had trouble capitalizing on that with a US tour. It’s kind of amusing that just as we hear from politicians talking about the importance of helping musicians with more and more draconian copyright laws, they’re making it that much more difficult for them to tour, build their reputation and earn a living. The next time an American politician discusses the need for more draconian copyright laws to help musicians, perhaps a reporter can ask them about this particular issue as well.
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Do you have a new cook or someone just setting up their kitchen on your holiday gift list? Perhaps a seasoned cook whose kitchen arsenal could use an update? Check out these 10 budget-friendly kitchen basics. No gadgets here! Just tried and true essentials.
The Fruit Maven has a simple goal. Write about the fruit she eats, and document the fruit she likes. Easy, and yet also extremely helpful to the rest of us!
Thank you so much for sharing your story Kate! My son and I also have seizures. Sam’s are much more severe and heartbreaking. I hope the TMS continues to helps you! I have been waiting to hear more about this method. Love hearing the good news for you and the college work!
Blessings to you,
Ginny M
Filed under: China, Plants/Manufacturing, GM, Saab, Earnings/Financials
General Motors’ Saab brand has been given a one month stay of execution as the Detroit, MI-based automaker has announced that it will hold off on a decision regarding the brand’s fate until the end of the year. GM’s apparent non-decision comes just one week after it announced that Swedish specialty car maker Koenigsegg unexpectedly pulled out of the running for Saab.
While GM isn’t commenting on any potential suitors at this time due to non-disclosure agreements with the parties involved, speculation is that Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. and Wyoming-based Merbanco Inc are in the running for the struggling Swedish automaker. BAIC appears to make some sense considering the Chinese automaker’s desire to enter the U.S. market and the fact that it was also involved in a bid to purchase Opel from GM earlier in the fall.
Beijing Auto was also reportedly involved in the original Koenigsegg deal, which fell apart for reasons we may never know. GM said in a brief statement (available after the jump) that if no deals materialized by the end of the year, it expects to begin an orderly wind down of the global Saab business at that time.”
[Sources: The Detroit News; General Motors | Image: Torsten Silz/AFP/Getty Images]
REPORT: GM could sell some Saab assets to Chinese; brand has through year’s end to find buyer originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Well, that was quick. Fritz Henderson, the recently appointed CEO of General Motors, is stepping down. Company chairman of the board Ed Whitacre (remember the “Satisfaction Guaranteed”…
2011 Chevrolet Volt in Viridian Joule – Click above for high-res image gallery The votes have been cast, the tallies tallied and the winner determined: Viridian Joule will be the official name of…
Hyundai up 46%, Nissan up 30% and all GM core brands positive It’s pretty easy to stage a comeback when a prior year’s monthly sales are so dismal, but that still doesn’t dull the sheen off what…
Browse our archive of Daily U-Turn posts or subscribe to the RSS feed
Daily U-Turn: What you missed on 12.01.09 originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Our boss, Maxwell, is on a hunt. He is looking for the very, very best toffee in the country. A recipe would be great, but we’re also looking for a great commercial source — somewhere that makes artisan-quality, incredibly yummy holiday toffee. Do you have a tip for us?
The ancient lake sturgeon, a threatened species, is making a modest comeback in the Great Lakes after more than a century of overharvest and habitat destruction.
Even as news spreads of the possible imminent invasion of giant Asian carp in the Great Lakes, there’s also good news — the mammoth, native lake sturgeon is making a comeback, breeding where it hasn’t in decades. Once regarded by European settlers in the region as a trash fish, the sturgeon has long been venerated by Native Americans. Concerted habitat restoration and restocking programs have given new life to the fish, which can live over 100 years and grow to weights of 200 pounds and lengths of greater than six feet. In fact, one Michigan angler a few years ago mistook a resting sturgeon for a floating log — until it swam away.
Filed under: Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, Buick, GM, GMC
Fritz Henderson’s unexpected resignation may have taken top billing today, but it wasn’t the only move announced by General Motors today. Michael Richards has been named the new General Manager of Buick GMC effective immediately, with the automaker looking from outside the company to fill the roll. Richards replaces Susan Docherty, who was named Vice President of US Sales in October. Richards joins GM after a short stint at Trilogy Automotive in Austin, Texas, where he led the use of digital and Internet-based solutions. Richards also worked as a consultant for JD Power where he launched tools for improved vehicle launch profitability and customer satisfaction.
The bulk of Richards’ experience comes from cross-town rival Ford where he worked from 1981-2008. Richards was most recently the marketing brand manager for Lincoln Mercury from 2006-2008. Prior to that he worked as the general sales manager for Ford Customer Service from 2002-2006.
Regardless of where Richards received his management chops, Vice Chairman and Marketing and Communications chief Bob Lutz likes what he has with the long-time Ford man. “We are pleased to have Mike as a member of the GM family. His vast sales and marketing experience will be invaluable in his new role, as he leads the team building the Buick and GMC brands.”
[Source: GM]
Continue reading Michael Richards named Buick GMC general manager
Michael Richards named Buick GMC general manager originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We must say, one device we were excited about this year was the Zune HD, and as evidenced in our Zune HD review, Microsoft came through with a superb device with a fantastic service behind it to match. In fact, we’ve said it many time that, in our opinion, for someone that truly loves music, Zune is the best deal around. Coupled with the $15 per month Zune Pass (which isn’t a requirement,) you get a top-notch portable media player with an OLED screen, HD Radio, and web browser with the advantage of being able to listen to pretty much any song you can think of at a moments notice.
The Zune HD retails for $289 for the 32GB model, and $219 for the 16GB model – however, Amazon’s got a great sale on the Zune HD that’ll put the 32GB model into your hands for $269 ($21 off,) while the 16GB model will run you $189 ($30 off.)
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Many doctors will tell you that there’s no reason to worry about radiation received during mammograms. My own doctor has said this, saying I need to worry more about the dangers of driving than the radiation in mammograms. But should women at high risk of developing breast cancer worry about having mammograms at an early age?
Researchers at University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands are saying that young, high-risk women should exercise caution when receiving mammograms. Specifically, the researchers warn that a “careful approach” should be taken with high-risk women under 30 years old. Their study findings were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
According to Dr. Jansen-van der Weide and colleagues, young women with familial or genetic predisposition to breast cancer might need to consider alternative screening methods of screening, such as ultrasound and MRI. They say the benefit of early tumor detection in this group could be offset by the potential risk of radiation-induced cancer. Yet, the American Cancer Society recommends that women with a greater than 20% lifetime risk of breast cancer should have imaging, including mammography each year, often beginning at age 30.
Using data from selected previous breast cancer studies on high-risk women, the researchers calculated pooled odds ratios to estimate radiation-induced breast cancer risk.
Results:
“Our findings suggest that low-dose radiation increases breast cancer risk among these young, high-risk women, and a careful approach is warranted,” Dr. Jansen-van der Weide said. The researchers also note that this is a small study sample, but it’s important for young, high-risk women to weight potential risks of mammography with their doctors.
(Image via WikiMediaCommons)
Post from: Blisstree
Are you ready to explore the gates of hell? Well, soon you will as EA and Visceral Games has finally confirmed the release date of the Dante’s I…
NEW PRODUCT TESTING OPPORTUNITIES ARE ARISING WHICH I WILL BE POSTING THE FORUM LINK, ALONG WITH PICTURE AND VIDEO FOR ALL TO SEE.
ILL BE DOING A VIDEO TONIGHT GOING OVER WHAT I HAVE IN MY GYM BAG, BOOKS I RECOMMEND ETC.. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, NEW PRODUCT OPPS ETC.
TRAININGS GOING WELL, AS OF RIGHT NOW I WOKE UP FEELING PRETTY ROUGH. BEEN REALLY PUSHING AS HARD AS I CAN IN THE GYM. RAN OUT OF PROTEIN BUT STILL HAVE MASS GAINER , GOING TO ORDER MORE WISH THERE WAS SOME SWEET BLACK FRIDAY DEALS PERTAINING TO PRODUCTS I WAS USING BUT ITS COOL.
SO HOWS EVERYONE DOING? KEEP THE QUESTIONS COMING ILL BE HAPPY TO ANSWER THEM AS SOON AS I CAN.
LOOK OUT TONIGHT!
Every holiday season websites are full of tips to save money and help mother earth during the holidays. Here are 10 simple measures for a Greener less costly holiday season.
1. Consider replacing older strings of holiday lights with more energy efficient LEDs (light emitting diodes). Now available in many traditional colours, they are not only energy efficient they are also shatterproof, shock resistant and safe to touch. They present no fire hazard and can save up to 80-90% in energy compared to incandescent bulbs.
2. If LEDs are not an option consider buying new miniature lights which use about 70% less energy and last longer than larger bulbs.
3. But if you prefer the brilliance of the larger bulbs, there is still an option to reduce electricity, switch to a five watt bulb, which will reduce your costs by about 30%.
4. Defrost frozen food in the refrigerator. Doing this helps keep the fridge cold, because of the mass of cold items inside helps the fridge recover each time the door is opened.
5. Do you remember you mom and dad always telling you to close the fridge door? I sure do, well they may have been right. Leaving the fridge door open while you take out the items you need is far more efficient than opening and closing it several times.
6. Allow hot food to cool before storing it in the refrigerator or freezer. However, be sure to refrigerate or freeze hot foods within two hours of purchase or preparation or within one hour if the air temperature is above 90 degrees.
7. Use the smallest pan and burner needed for the job. A six-inch pan on an eight inch burner will waste more than 40% of the energy. Cook with lids on your pans. For example, cooking pasta without a lid on the pot can use three times as much energy.
8. If you use glass or ceramic pans, you can turn the oven temperature down 25 degrees and foods will cook just as quickly
9. Household appliances keep using electricity even if you are not there. If going on vacation during the holidays unplug televisions, stereos, computers, VCR’s, chargers, etc., since they all draw small amounts of electricity even when they are turned off.
10. When driving keep your tires properly inflated, tires at correct pressure improves gas mileage by around three percent.
These are just a few of the many ways we can make our homes and lives a little more efficient, not just for the holidays, but year round.
Have a safe and happy holiday season.
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Sprint: 50 million customers, 8 million law enforcement GPS requests in 1 year from Christopher Soghoian on Vimeo.
Sprint’s Manager of Electronic Surveillance has revealed, during a panel discussion at a wiretapping and interception industry conference, held in Washington DC in October of 2009, that Sprint served more than 8 million law enforcement requests for GPS data from mobile phones used by subscribers.
With about 48 million subscribers, that’s one request for every 6 people on the network and amounts certainly to mass surveillance of some kind.
Of course no-one is claiming Sprint is the only carrier engaging in this practice, and who can forget the infamous surveillance rooms at AT&T but should make citizens of US wonder if they are really as free as they think they are, and of course brings home that all of us voluntarily carrying a tracking device with us constantly.
Should we be concerned? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Slight Paranoia via TechDirt via PPCGeeks
Thanks Sean VanSickle for the tip.
The paper reviewed here is ‘Symptoms as mediators of the relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia:A Meta-analysis’ by Joseph Ventura and colleagues. In the conclusion to the abstract the authors write that
‘Although neurocognition and negative symptoms are both predictors of functional outcome, negative symptoms might at least partially mediate the relationship between neurocognition and outcome‘
The authors begin with an introduction in with a discussion of the literature on cognition in relation to negative symptoms. They state their hypothesis thus
‘that the meta-analysis would support a mediation hypothesis for negative symptoms based on the strength of the relationship between neurocognition and negative symptoms, and negative symptoms and outcome‘
The authors detail the methodology. There are 12 search terms that they used in the specified databases which included pubmed and Psycinfo. These 12 search terms did not include IQ or components of standardised test batteries. They did include terms such as executive function and working memory. They also manually extracted further references from retrieved articles. They retrieved 200 articles and further analysed these according to inclusion criteria. Thus diagnoses should be specified in the papers according to DSM criterion which thus excludes those papers which use ICD-10 criteria. I thought the other inclusion criteria seemed to me to be quite sensible and pragmatic e.g. the data in papers should not have been published previously elsewhere.
The authors state their definition of neurocognition and also their use of the MATRICS initiative for structuring domains of cognitive functioning to be used in the analysis and these are ’speed of processing, attention/vigilance, working memory, verbal learning, visual learning, and reasoning and problem solving’. They excluded social cognition which they thought to be another important independent mediator of the relationship in question. PANSS, SANS and SAPS were used for the assessment of positive and negative symptoms while functional outcome was divided into three broad areas which in turn had a range of outcome measures.
I didn’t understand the next stage. The authors aggregated the data from the neurocognitive domains into a single measure of neurocognition. I didn’t understand how aggregating speed of processing and problem solving for instance was meaningful. Each of these has been identified as a separate domain and so not only is data is being lost in this aggregation. However as the authors hint at in their discussion, not all of these domains are simply defined but are products of inter-related systems – different domains may share neural substrates. Thus if these domains are not entirely separate then I would argue that an additive operation is being applied to dependent data and that the result is not meaningful. I expected that individual test results would be aggregated and that after correcting for multiple comparisons effect sizes with p-values would be identified for the individual tests. While this would produce a large number of different results, these could be grouped after the initial analysis into broader categories if necessary.
The authors have identified a large number of studies according to clearly specified criteria and listed these in the paper together with a brief summary of each paper. The authors have aggregated the data into a single neurocognitive score which I didn’t understand. I would be interested to see an analysis of the interaction between individual test scores and the relationship between negative symptoms and functional outcome.
References
Ventura J, Hellemann G S, Thames A D et al. Symptoms as mediators of the relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome in schizophrenia: A meta-analysis. Schizophrenia Research. 113. 2009. 189-199.
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Hopefully this is just a big mistake, but Slashdot points us to a bunch of Google Docs users complaining that Google is blocking them from sharing their documents claiming “inappropriate content,” even in cases where the content is clearly fine, such as college class notes and homework assignments. Even assuming this is just some sort of bug, the bigger issue seems to be Google’s lack of response, despite the issue cropping up weeks ago. This charge has been raised about Google in the past, and it’s only going to become more important. As more and more people rely on Google for services, the company is going to need to improve its handling of customer service issues and communication.
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The United States Supreme Court reaffirmed this week in a case from Florida, Porter v. McCollum, that a defense lawyer must conduct a reasonable investigation to uncover mitigating evidence in preparation for a capital trial.
Today is World AIDS Day and I’m thinking about the progress we’ve made in the last decade of so in fighting this disease, and the long road still before us. The issue of HIV and AIDS in American prisons serves as an example of the difficulty and the politics of fighting this disease around the world. And there aren’t many rays of hope when looking at AIDS in prison.
More than 6% of prisoners in New York and 4% of prisoners in Florida are HIV-positive. A few months ago, I posted a map of HIV and AIDS rates in prisons across the country. Almost across the board, it’s higher than the national average.
Health care is questionable in prison, but many prisoners weren’t getting proper care before being locked up — so prison provides access to AIDS drugs they never had. The most difficult treatment issue is their release. A study earlier this year found that 90 percent of prisoners would have an interruption of treatment within 30 days of their release.
