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A man was shot and wounded in a confrontation Tuesday night with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies in East Los Angeles, authorities said.



The shooting occurred about 9 p.m. in the 900 block of South Kern Avenue after the man allegedly brandished a weapon, the department said.



The man was hit at least once and took off running before collapsing on the street, said Deputy Jeff Gordon. The victim was taken to hospital. His condition was not known.



Detectives were at the scene searching for evidence, including the reported weapon. No other details were available.



–Robert J. Lopez

Lakers – Kings Gameday Page
In their final home contest of the 2009-10 regular season, the Lakers (57-24) won game No. 34 at STAPLES Center, 106-100, against the visiting Sacramento Kings on Tuesday evening.

Though the Purple and Gold had the Western Conference locked up and a slim chance of matching Orlando for the league’s second-best record*, and with Kobe Bryant and Andrew Bynum out with respective injuries, L.A. still found something to play for: the chance to get some guys going off the bench.
*Orlando would have to lose at home to Philadelphia with L.A. beating the Clippers.

As it turned out, the bench managed one of its better performances of the season in scoring 41 points to complement Pau Gasol’s game-high 28 points and eight rebounds, the Lakers holding off a late charge from the Kings in Sacramento’s final game of the season.

“Got that game competitive after getting a little 13 point lead at the end of the third quarter,” summarized Phil Jackson. “Had to dig in a little bit at the end of the game to sustain that victory. Good game by Pau Gasol and Shannon (Brown*). They led us in the scoring tonight and we had some help off the bench.”

It wasn’t all good news off the bench, however, since Jordan Farmar strained his hamstring early in the second quarter. Farmar, however, will be active and could potentially play against the Clippers on Wednesday evening after being re-evaluated in the morning.

“He’ll dress tomorrow,” said Jackson of his quick-healing backup point guard. “He’s played 81 games this year. I want him to dress and be on the active roster for tomorrow’s game.”

The rest of the regular bench players all played a role in L.A.’s win, led by Sasha Vujacic’s season-high 13 points and six rebounds*, Luke Walton’s nine points with three assists in a season-high 24 minutes, and DJ Mbenga’s seven points with five boards (and his newly-gold dyed hair, matching that of Ron Artest). Regular sub Brown, starting in Bryant’s absence, added 24 points with three rebounds and three assists.
*Four of Vujacic’s season-high six rebounds came on the offensive end, including two tip ins, prompting this Phil Jackson postgame quip: “He’s an offensive rebounding Machine. That’s what he is now.”

Jackson suggested that Vujacic’s play has “got to make him feel much better about his game, and said that Walton “does things that create a little offensive rhythm for us and offensive opportunities.” While the team will continue to monitor how Walton’s back feels heading into the playoffs, he was happy at least with where things were on Tuesday.

“(My back) felt great,” he said. “It was a lot of fun out there, playing again and being out there and not having pain. To be out there and move and stuff was a lot of fun.”

Altogether, L.A.’s pine crew put up 24 points in the first half to help the Lakers take a 60-54 lead into the break, the home team shooting 52.3 percent thanks in part to Gasol’s 5-of-7. Sacramento wasn’t far behind, however, making 50 percent of their shots led by Jason Thompson’s 6-of-10 (15 points) and Francisco Garcia’s 5-for-8 (11 points).

It was Vujacic who keyed the bench effort in the second half, not from the field but with those season-high six boards. Brown added 12 of his points, including a dagger jumper that put L.A. up 106-100 with 28 seconds remaining, getting that look thanks to good ball movement that had been a factor all night.

“We got the ball moving today and then everybody got good looks,” explained Brown.

The bench effort wouldn’t have mattered without the outstanding play of Gasol, who nailed 12-of-15 shots from the field to score his 28, marking the fifth straight game that he’d managed at least 23 points. In fact, Gasol’s averaged
27.6 points in those last five on 65 percent shooting, not to mention nearly 12 rebounds, five assists and three blocks.

“He’s had real good opportunities, he’s had some real exceptional games for us,” said Jackson. “Without Kobe on the floor he’s had more of a load to carry, so all those things have contributed to it. He’s going in at the right level which I want to see him play at the offensive end.”

In short, with Kobe Bryant getting some rest for the playoffs, the Lakers’ other superstar has been playing his best basketball.

The bench, meanwhile, will look to back up its collective performance with another good one in the Wednesday finale back at STAPLES Center, albeit on the road, but until then, your numbers:

POSTGAME NUMBERS
65 Pau Gasol’s shooting percentage in his last five games, during which he’s averaged 27.6 points, nearly 12 rebounds, five assists and three blocks. He went for 28 points, eight boards, three assists and a block against the Kings.

49.4 L.A.’s solid shooting percentage for the evening, though Sacramento hung around thanks to converting 47.8 percent of its own shots.

41 Bench points for the Lakers, paced by Sasha Vujacic’s 13, nine from Luke Walton – who played a season-high 24 minutes, and seven from DJ Mbenga.

24 Points for Shannon Brown, just three off his season and career high, on 10-of-19 shooting in place of Kobe Bryant, who rested the avulsion fracture on his right index finger.

13 Season-high point total for Sasha Vujacic, who made 5-of-9 shots, including a buzzer-beating three in the first quarter. He also managed a season-high six rebounds, four of which came on the offensive end, all in the second half.

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A new report estimates that some 800,000 American households now watch TV only via the Web, as the move to abandon cable, satellite or OTA broadcasts starts to gather pace. This represents a small percentage of the pay TV industry’s 101 million subscribers, but the number is expected to double by the end of next year. These are the earliest adopters, though, and they account for just 3 percent of all full-episode online television viewing — meaning that plenty of people are already supplanting their standard TV viewing with online episodes. It’s clear already (and has been for some time) that TV viewers are undertaking a fundamental change in how they want to access and view content. The combination of the Web and DVRs allowing on-demand viewing has made the linear TV channel something of an outdated concept, and at some point, TV providers will need to realize that on-demand shows are now how a growing number of people want to receive their programming.

Cable companies, for one, recognize this to a certain extent, so they’ve responded with TV Everywhere, a plan to offer programming online. But that plan is doomed to failure because it’s being implemented in the hamfisted way you might expect from cable companies, and is set up simply to force people to keep paying for cable if they want to watch shows online. If the plan to capitalize on online viewers is first to force them to keep paying for something they don’t want, then by further embracing the “features” of current systems that drive users away, it’s hard to see TV companies having a whole lot of success. The key is not to shoehorn the cable model onto the web, but to embrace the positive features enabled by the web and apply them to the rest of their business.

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The SMH has an article on comments by Origin Energy CEO Grant King predicting power prices in eastern Australia will triple over the next 10 years if climate policy remains deadlocked – Power price surge fuelled by stalemate over policy.

The chief executive of Origin Energy, Grant King, says uncertainty about energy policy is driving up industry costs, but without a carbon price Australia will fail to meet a government target to cut 2020 emissions by 5 per cent from 2000 levels.

In a sweeping attack on the stalled debate over emissions trading, Mr King said indecision on carbon trading was deterring business from investing in all but the safest power plants, which are those powered by wind and gas.

Building these new plants requires hefty spending on infrastructure such as new power wires and poles.

But he said these costs had not been factored into the price of electricity.

''We think it's quite possible that by 2020 the cost of energy to consumers could be two to three times what it is today,'' he said at a business lunch in Sydney yesterday.

''Increases in transmission and distribution costs, driven by current policy settings, will substantially increase the cost of electricity to consumers.''

A trebling in power prices would push the average annual bill for Energy Australia customers to $3771, compared with $1257 now.

Energy Australia is the dominant government-owned retailer of electricity. NSW power prices are already set to jump by as much as 60 per cent in the next three years because of transmission and carbon costs, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal said last month.

At the same time, Mr King said higher power costs would bring few environmental benefits, because emissions would remain stubbornly high until business received a clearer signal from government.

Relying solely on renewable energy and attempts to cut household power consumption was not enough to cut 2020 emissions by 5 per cent compared with 2000 levels, he said.

For example, meeting the 5 per cent target would require households to cut energy use by 20 per cent by 2020 and a doubling in the amount of renewable energy generation installed by 2020. This was a ''huge'' challenge for Australia, he said.

''We will fall well short of that target unless we go back and put in place policies designed to change the way we generate energy,'' he said.

The comments come as the federal government prepares to introduce the twice-rejected carbon pollution reduction scheme to the Senate as soon as next month.

Origin is viewed as a beneficiary of the scheme because it does not own any coal fired power plants, which are the biggest polluters.

 

A 3-year-old German Shepherd that was tied to a tree in Garden Grove and starved for at least five weeks is recovering but is still too weak to walk.



Named Courage by shelter workers in Orange County, the dog was so starved that it ate dirt, according to a KTLA report.



Courage weighed 37 pounds — far below the 75 to 85 pounds that a healthy German Shepherd should weigh.



Veterinarians have given Courage blood transfusions, plasma transfusions, electrolyte and vitamin infusions. He is expected to survive, but is not expected to recover quickly, according to the report.



–Robert J. Lopez

If you are going to learn online forex trading strategies then you should only learn them from somebody that has demonstrated their proficiency in trading forex. Don’t waste your time looking for obscure trading tips and generic strategies. Not only will these angles get you nowhere, they will likely put you in a worse off quandary then you were before you initiated trading forex.

In order to learn online forex trading you will demand to learn from somebody that has attained an extensive knowledge of the market and that is able to relay this noesis to you. If you take the right course on trading forex you will leave your course confident and subject and ready to deal with the foreign currencies market. You will be able to go out there and trade currencies with cognition of the market and trends.

Being able to spot trends in the foreign currencies market can be a challenge. With the proper training, you’ll be in a much better position to be able to make market forecasting and to invest set off of them. When you determine to learn online forex trading you will have to seek out the greatest course to take in order to increase your exposure to trading tactics and strategies that will end up creating your money.

If you have been reasoning about taking your love of currencies selling to the next level and start trading professionally you will still need to take a class to learn some insider tips. Only someone that has spent years trading currencies will be able to convey these insider tips to you and help you to be successful in your own right as a trader. While your market knowledge will help you and put you at an advantage, a trading course will ensure your success.

Solar panels are one of the greenest and least controversial types of renewable power generation technology. Some neighborhoods don’t like how they look on roofs of houses, but there are no concerns about harming wildlife, as with wind turbines or tidal power systems. And the technology to make them is continuing to improve.

But not all solar panels are created equally. Solar panels are energy intensive to produce, and potentially harmful materials such as cadmium and lead are sometimes used in their production. The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has begun to assemble a ‘Solar Scorecard’ that evaluates solar panel manufacturers.

Because the Scorecard is based on company self-reporting, presently there are only ten PV module manufacturers and one solar cell manufacturer with scores listed. Four companies also have a gold star, indicating that the company “has a takeback program and has policies against exporting waste and using prison labor to dismantle end-of-life panels.”

Scoring is based on a 100-point scale, with four major categories: Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Takeback, which deals with end-of-life and recycling for the panels; Supply Chain Monitoring and Green Jobs, which looks at employee exposure to toxic materials among other issues; Chemical Use and Lifecycle Analysis, which looks at hazardous material use; and Disclosure, which considers a company’s transparency about these issues. The survey was originally sent to 27 solar PV companies in October 2009 and the survey deadline was extended to late January 2010. Hopefully more companies will respond and the listing can be kept current in coming years, providing consumers with more information about the panels they are considering.

link: Solar Scorecard

Once again Sanrio is collaborating with Apple to bring you nifty looking official Hello Kitty iPhone cases. This latest one is a Hello Kitty case for your iPhone 3G and 3G S and features a retro flower power look. Its being called Hello Kitty iPhone 3G/ 3GS Denim and it retails for for $29.95 and also comes with a screen protector.

When I wasn’t making my own baby food, I served my children Earth’s Best organic baby food. The Earth’s Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution is the story behind the company that feeds so many babies.

On the face of it, our story is the tale of a journey to launch the first organic baby-food company in the United States. While of course true, our inspiration soared beyond baby food to a grander, multidimensional imagining, an imagining where the face of agriculture was transformed and the chemically dependent agribusiness paradigm was reduced in its prominence.

We envisioned a world where organic foods would become dominant, with an organic avenue right through the mainstream food thoroughfare. And in our dreams organic baby food would be a catalyst for that paradigm shift: a shift that would support and protect our fragile ecosystems, safeguard farm workers and their families, and walk the talk about doing right by those who are most vulnerable and precious to us?our children.

Truly, these twin brothers are brilliant! Many people I know, including family members, only began their journey into organic food (which eventually leads to a greener lifestyle in general) when their first child was born. After feeding this pure little being the best food on earth (breastmilk) parents approach chemically-grown solid food with hesitation and trepidation. Earth’s Best, found in almost every grocery store in America, offers an affordable, organic option. Thanks to the Koss brothers, an organic revolution really did begin with the babies!

Disclosure: I was sent free samples of these products to review. No prior assurances were given as to whether the review be positive or negative.

Homebrew coder 34®ß0*3® AKA Earboxer has released a minor update for his highly addicting DS homebrew game, Helicopter DS. More after the jump.
 
 
Download: Helicopterds v.21 (http://dl.qj.net/nintendo-ds/homebrew-games/helicopterds-v21.html)

A few days ago the following headline on the New York Times website caught my eye: Seeing What the Hubble Sees, in Imax and 3-D. There are two reasons this headline is worthy of note. First, it is amazing that an IMAX movie about the Hubble Space Telescope exists at all, and is worth mentioning on the front (web)page of the NYT. Hubble is a part of the popular imagination, and may be the object most closely tied with Science in the eyes of the general public (even more than the LHC). Furthermore, it is absolutely astounding that NASA launched hundreds of kilos of camera equipment and film into orbit, and spent valuable astronaut time (both on the ground and in space) to pull off the filming. I would claim one of the lasting legacies of the Apollo missions to the Moon are the photographs, and in particular Earthrise. That single photograph of our home as a small blue marble against the vastness of space put our planet into proper perspective for the very first time. NASA is well aware that part of its mission is to light up the public imagination, getting us to peer past our limited horizons, and out into the vast Universe beyond. This film is part of that tradition.

The second interesting aspect of the headline is that it’s nonsensical. Hubble has only one eye. It has one mirror. It can’t perceive depth, and therefore can’t see in 3-D. We see slightly different images in each of our eyes, and then a fairly impressive difference engine (called a “brain”) figures out the depth to everything we are looking at, and whether that rock is about to bonk us on the head and we need to duck NOW! 3D movies (such as Alice and Avatar) use circularly polarized light, and glasses with different filters in each lens, to produce the different images for each eye. (The light is circularly polarized so that, if you tilt your head, it all still works; the old linear polarization approach didn’t do this, and had a tendency to make one feel motion sick [at least, it did for me]).

In general astronomical sources are too far away for us to discern distance using parallax. That’s why the night sky looks “flat”, even though the planets and stars and galaxies are at a tremendous range of distances. If you wanted to be able to directly “see” the distance to the nearest star, in the same way that you ascertain the distance to an approaching lion, your eyes would need to be separated by roughly 10 billion km. (Eye separation = Distance*Angle. The human eye has an angular resolution of roughly 1 arcmin = 0.0003 radians, and the nearest star [Proxima Centauri] is 4 lightyears = 3.8e13 km.) The way we figure out distance in Hubble images is by using color information (and, in particular, the spectra) to discern recession velocity (redshift), and thereby distance (using Hubble’s law). This is not something we do with our eyes (although we do use color information to discern temperature; you’re unlikely to grab something that is so hot it’s glowing blue). Hubble sees a purely two-dimensional Universe. So “seeing what the Hubble sees …in 3-D” is a contradiction in terms. Was the headline carefully crafted to see if we were paying close attention?