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First The Divine Lady Liza tried her hand at Beyonce, now it’s Reba McEntire’s turn to put her Southern twang on a Bey ballad. The country queen performed “If I Were A Boy” — penned by BC Jean and made famous by Mrs. Knowles-Carter — during a live performance on Country Music Television this month.

Rock It or Drop It?

Microsoft President of Entertainment and Devices—that’s Xbox, Zune, Kin, Courier, et al—Robbie Bach announced his retirement today. And in his exit interview with TechFlash, he holds forth on the once and future Microsoft. So Robbie: what happens now? More »










Microsoft – Xbox – J Allard – Courier – Zune

Filed under: Aftermarket, SEMA Show, Classics, Ford

Vaughn Gittin Jr. is mostly known for his ability to pilot Ford Mustangs in a sideways – he currently leads the points race in the 2010 Formula Drift season – but over the last year the Maryland native has also been busy launching his own car brand, RTR, beginning with last year’s show at SEMA with the debut of the RTR-C Mustang.

Not one to rest on his laurels, Gittin will be following up the RTR-C with perhaps something even more impressive. In a collaboration with Team Need for Speed, the drifter/car builder will unveil another Mustang at the 2010 SEMA show dubbed the RTR-X. Based on a 1969 Mustang using a Dynacorn replacement body shell, the RTR-X will feature the 5.0-liter V8 from the 2011 Mustang GT and a one-off sub-frame from Art Morrison. You can follow the progress of the build until its debut at SEMA in November and even vote on the car’s livery over at SpeedHunters. Hit up the gallery below to see Gittin’s upcoming creation in more detail.

[Source: SpeedHunters.com]

Vaughn Gittin Jr. planning RTR-X Mustang for 2010 SEMA debut originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 25 May 2010 16:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of its Board of Governors meetings to discuss the United States’ monetary policy in April. In February, all twelve Federal Reserve regional bank presidents requested to keep the primary credit rate at 0.75 percent. In March, eleven banks voted for 0.75 percent, but the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas voted to move to 1 percent. In mid-April, the heads of the Kansas City, St. Louis and Dallas banks all voted to establish a rate of 1 percent.

On one hand, this is no surprise. The three banks’ presidents are, respectively, Thomas Hoenig, James Bullard and Richard Fisher — all known as inflation hawks, more concerned with low rates leading to inflation than with high rates leading to unemployment. It is not a sign of an imminent rate increase either. (The Federal Reserve banks don’t set their own rates. Additionally, to be clear without getting too deep in the weeds here, the primary credit rate is different from the federal funds rate, and it impacts how much banks pay to borrow from the government rather than how much consumers pay banks for loans.)

Indeed, last month, for the sixteenth month in a row, the Federal Reserve recommended keeping the federal funds rate low for an “extended period”: “With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to be subdued for some time. The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 0.25 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.”

Still, it demonstrates that more major figures within the Federal Reserve system are advocating a consideration of rate increases.

If you use Facebook, running this tool is a pretty good idea. It’ll at least let you find out exactly what parts of your profile are exposed where and to whom. With the steady diet of privacy setting changes that require opting-out instead of opting-in, you might be surprised where your Facebook information stands in the public/private online sphere.

From the link:

About a week ago, as frustration with Facebook and its privacy settings reached its pinnacle, Matt Pizzimenti, a software engineer and cofounder of Olark.com, launched ReclaimPrivacy.org, a site that scans your Facebook settings and warns you of what information you’re exposing to the public.

“I felt that [Facebook’s] navigation was too complicated to explain to my less-technical friends and family, so I built this tool to help them quickly see their privacy settings and change them,” Pizzimenti says.

Here’s an example of why LGBT activist groups who cheered the Obama administration’s acquiescence to a legislative push overturning the military’s ban on open gay service are girding up for a close fight.

Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the powerful veteran legislator who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, came out just now against the compromise. Skelton thought Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ initial preference for delaying any legislative action on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” until a Pentagon working group instructs Gates on how the services feel repeal ought to proceed is the right way to go. And he read the reluctance in Gates’ acquiescence to the compromise as an opportunity to oppose the repeal push when Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) offers it as an amendment to the fiscal 2011 Defense Authorization bill during the House floor vote later this week.

Here’s Skelton’s statement:

“In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee this spring and in a recent letter, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen asked Congress to defer any legislative action regarding ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ until after the Department of Defense completes its comprehensive review later this year.  In a statement today, the Pentagon indicated that ideally, Secretary Gates continues to prefer that the Department complete this review before Congress considers legislation.  This is a reasonable and responsible request that I respect.

“My position on this issue has been clear – I support the current policy and I will oppose any amendment to repeal ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.’  I hope my colleagues will avoid jumping the gun and wait for DOD to complete its work.”

It’s unclear whether Skelton’s opposition could derail the amendment. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) have maneuvered more controversial bills through the House with lesser margins for error. But it’s yet another sign that whatever the White House may have endorsed, passage of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal is anything but guaranteed. And that’s not even factoring in tomorrow’s vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee.

That Lost finale sure was divisive! Some people loved it, others hated it and then there’s a big chunk of people who want the internet to shut the hell up about it. Can’t help you there, angry non-Losties! More »










Lost – Arts – Television – Programs – Dramas

Alley comes from San Francisco designers and partners Laura Patnaude and John Robblee. They consider their garments to be stylish clothes tailored for the athletically fit male. For this Spring/Summer 2010 Alley has put together a collection of stylish button down tops, jackets, shorts, and slacks. Available now at Alley.

Continue reading for more images.

When a North Korean Submarine shot a torpedo that hit a south Korean ship and sunk 46 people. The South Korean President, Lee Myung-bak suspended all trade with North Korea for the attack. North Korea now has taken it’s own action by severing all links, escalating the standoff over accusations that the North sank a South Korean’s Ship.

North Koreans news agency also reported that North Korea would expel all South Koreans from a joint-industrial zone in Kaesong, near the border.
This also sparked the tension between the two separated countries, and just time will tell what can happen. The U.S also started to get ready for war as the tension grows. Barack Obama has also said that the U.S is in the favor of the South Koreans and has their full support and that they should start getting ready for a future battle. Pyongyang has denied any relation to the march incident and said that the South Korean President was listening to a report by an International team. This sparks strong vigilance and alert for both countries.

Related posts:

1. South Korea Accused North Korea for Firing Torpedo that Killed 46
2. South Korea: Ship Sank from “External Blast”
3. DPRK “Main Enemy” of South Korea

If you’re at ASM, I just want to let you know I’ll be at the ASM Press Bookstore from 1 pm to 2 pm on Wednesday. The bookstore is on the far right end of the lobby as you’re standing in front of the convention center. If you want to talk about the things I’ll be discussing this afternoon at 5:30 pm, come by. Also, ASM Press has signed copies of Microcosm for sale. See you there!

Luke Timmerman wrote:

Vertex Pharmaceuticals has finally got the definitive proof it needs to say it has made a breakthrough for hepatitis C patients. The Cambridge, MA-based biotech company said today that its experimental drug for the chronic liver damaging disease was able to cure three-fourths of patients in the last stage of clinical testing required for FDA approval.

Vertex’s telaprevir compound, when given in combination with two standard drugs, was able to eradicate any detectable sign of the hepatitis C virus in the blood for 75 percent of patients a full 24 weeks after they completed their course of therapy, Vertex said today in a statement. That is compared with 44 percent who did that well on a typical 48-week course of the usual drugs, pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin. The results, which essentially represent the rate of clinical cures, were from a pivotal study of 1,095 patients known as “Advance.”

This is the first time a company has shown in the final phase of clinical testing that a protease inhibitor, a type of enzyme blocker on the virus, which can almost double the cure rate for hepatitis C patients, while cutting the course of treatment in half for the standard drugs, which cause flu-like symptoms. An estimated 170 million people worldwide, and about 3 million people in the U.S. are infected with chronic hepatitis C, which damages the liver and can shorten lifespans. If Vertex can confirm these results in two more pivotal trials that are expected to yield results in coming months, Vertex could seek FDA approval later this year and bring telaprevir to the U.S. market in 2011. U.S. sales alone could amount to more than $2 billion after a couple years, analysts say.

“These first Phase 3 results are important for people with hepatitis C, as they represent a potential new era of therapy where doctors may be able to use direct acting antiviral medicines to improve treatment and help patients potentially avoid life-threatening liver-related consequences,” said Ira Jacobson, the chief of gastroenterology and hepatology, at Weill-Cornell Medical College, in a Vertex statement.

Shares of Vertex (NASDAQ: VRTX) climbed 11 percent to $38 in after-hours trading today following the announcement.

The data to support telaprevir shouldn’t come as a surprise given what the company has seen in its previous studies. This Advance trial enrolled patients who have chronic hepatitis C infections, but have never before been treated. That’s because many people consider the standard therapy—pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin—as worse than the disease because of the flu-like symptoms they must endure for almost a year.

Doctors wanted to see in this study whether adding telaprevir, as a pill taken three times a day, would be able to provide enough benefit to outweigh the side effects. Patients were randomly …Next Page »

The paper reviewed is ‘Behavioral Symptoms and Caregiver Burden in Dementia’ by Shaji and colleagues and freely available here.

Aims: The authors write that

‘The present study examines the prevalence of BPSD in a community sample of patients with dementia and its impact on the caregivers‘

Method: The study took place in a rural area in Kerala, India. Trained healthworkers identified cases which were then screened by clinicians using DSM-IV criteria and the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) scale. Subjects rated as moderate to severe on the CDR were included in the study. I didn’t notice any exclusion criteria and the population might therefore be representative of a clinical population (albeit with selection bias influencing the sample population characteristics). The subjects were also included in two other studies and three outcome measures were collected

• BEHAVE-AD.

• General Health Questionnaire-12.

• Zaret Burden Interview (ZBI).

The statistical tests used for different data types are clearly stated.

Results:

• 29 people were included in the study with a mean age of 78.3 and all living at home with their families.

• The characteristics of the sample are described in table 1. 43.8% of the people received a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease and 34.5% were diagnosed with Vascular Dementia. The other diagnosis or combinations are described. 79.3% of the sample were female.

• The scores on BEHAVE-AD are described in table 2 with 28 of the subjects meeting the criteria for Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms in Dementia (BPSD). I noted that the standard deviations were relatively large.

• Table 3 displays the prevalence of items on the BEHAVE-AD subscales. Particularly prominent are delusional ideation and disturbances of activity.

• In Table 4 the researchers detail the incidence of delusion types.

• Table 5 shows a comparison of vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.

• Table 6 showed the characteristics of no/mild BEHAVE-AD symptoms v moderate/severe BEHAVE-AD symptoms. Here, I thought the significant results perhaps reflected their relationship to the BEHAVE-AD total as they are components.

• Table 7 displayed the characteristics of 2 samples defined by GHQ score thresholds. There is a significant relationship between increasing GHQ scores and ZBI scores. I thought that causality might be difficult to interpret in view of the cross-sectional nature of the study.

Discussion:

The authors draw a number of conclusions. They note the absence of a relationship between BEHAVE-AD and GHQ-12 scores and suggest that a larger sample size may be helpful in exploring this relationship further.

Conclusions:

I thought this was a small but interesting study in a sample with family based care of people with moderate to severe dementia. There was found to be an association between GHQ scores in carers and ZBI scores although the direction of the link was unclear given the cross-sectional design of this study.

Call for Authors: If you are interested in writing an article or series of articles for this blog please write to the e-mail address below. Copyright can be retained. Index: An index of the site can be found here. The page contains links to all of the articles in the blog in chronological order. Twitter: You can follow ‘The Amazing World of Psychiatry’ Twitter by clicking on this link. Podcast: You can listen to this post on Odiogo by clicking on this link (there may be a small delay between publishing of the blog article and the availability of the podcast). It is available for a limited period. TAWOP Channel: You can follow the TAWOP Channel on YouTube by clicking on this link. Responses: If you have any comments, you can leave them below or alternatively e-mail [email protected]. Disclaimer: The comments made here represent the opinions of the author and do not represent the profession or any body/organisation. The comments made here are not meant as a source of medical advice and those seeking medical advice are advised to consult with their own doctor. The author is not responsible for the contents of any external sites that are linked to in this blog.

The HTC Incredible vanished from Verizon’s website on Tuesday — for a grand total of about 6 minutes. Don’t worry, it’s not in the midst of some massive recall or anything. It apparently was just to swap out some of the specs — mainly the addition of a 2GB microSD card, says Mobile Burn. (Though we don’t see that mentioned.) That said, the estimated shipping date is June 15, so you might want to trek to your nearest brick-and-mortar store if you’re looking for one. [Mobile Burn via VZW]

Update: Verizon just got back with us, and indeed the down time was nothing more nefarious than to update the microSD card spec. Sky’s not falling.

This is a post by Android Central. It is sponsored by the Android Central Accessories Store

Mac users will have to wait until tomorrow to download Half-Life 2, but in the meantime we can watch a teaser that parodies Apple’s lovely old 1984 commercial. Cute, Valve. Real cute. More »










Apple – Macintosh – Steam – Half-Life 2 – Valve

Parece que a los australianos le gustan los coches italianos, puesto que volvemos con un nuevo coche de policía, ahora ha sido el Alfa Romeo Mi.To el que servirá a las fuerzas del orden en Sydney.

Me hubiera gustado verlo con sirenas, pero el fin para el que va destinado este Mi.To no debe de necesitarlas, puesto que será el coche reclamo para una campaña de seguridad vial destinada a la gente joven, de la que quieren captar la atención con el italiano vestido de policía.

Además esta colaboración de la firma italiana y las autoridades policiales de Sydney no es nueva, puesto que hace cuatro años también se cedió un GT para actividades divulgativas y de seguridad vial.

Vía | Autoblog.it

LaCie’s new Rugged Safe HDD is for the super-paranoid: it offers 128-bit AES hardware encryption, biometric fingerprint access and a shock-proof enclosure. Your high school papers and pirated SNES ROMs will be downright untouchable. More »










LaCie – Security – Cryptography – Universal Serial Bus – Hard disk drive

No one dreams of leaving a lasting carbon footprint on the world when they depart. But if it’s a choice between that and being reduced to a brown soupy liquid and a pile of bones, which option would you take? The California legislature is considering allowing funeral homes to provide a third alternative to burial or cremation. Instead of hauling out the backhoe or firing up an incinerator to dispose of human remains, funeral directors could offer a method called alkaline hydrolysis or “bio-cremation.” This technique uses hot water, pressure, and potassium-sulfate (the strongly basic chemical often referred to as lye) to break down the body’s tissues into simple molecules in a matter of a few hours. Proponents of bio-cremation say it’s the eco-friendly death option. They note that cremation produces air pollution and greenhouse gases, while burials use tons of wood for caskets and involve treating bodies with hazardous embalming chemicals. Four other states have already approved bio-cremation, but before funeral homes can offer the service, they have to figure out what to do with the environmentally friendly liquid remains. Last week, an undertaking service in Minnesota asked its local city council for permission to pour it down the drain. Out of respect …

Maybe the standard Sony Vaio P is a bit pedestrian for your taste. It’s just not enough, right? Well then, how about one covered with crocodile skin? It’s supposed to be a digital clutch anyway.

Pricing info isn’t available, but it’s not going to be low-cost. The model’s spec’d out with the Atom Z560 Intel US15X chipset, 256GB SSD, and optional 12-hour battery. Plus all that crocodile skin can’t be cheap. [SonyBrands via eeepc via liliputing]

Today I jogged through Amsterdam from the Royal Palace on Dam Square to the mouth of the river. Like many European city centers, Amsterdam has evolved into a super mall, an old surface covered with the images of models posing with products, often in gigantic proportions. There is a spell cast on me, regardless of […]

iLuv, one of a number of manufacturers of Apple accessories, has added three small and portable speaker options that provide high quality sound while eliminating cable clutter. The three speaker options include a mini clip speaker, a portable speaker bar and a pair of newly designed cube speakers, all powered by USB to reduce cable clutter on the desktop. All three speaker designs work with Mac or PC…
Continue Reading iLuv’s speaker trio for iPad, Mac and PC 

Tags: Apple,
iPhone,
iPod,
Laptops,
Portable Audio,
Speakers,
USB

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