She may be out on her rear at CNN, but SVU will sure take her! Spitfire comedienne Kathy Griffin, 49, was photographed on the streets of Manhattan Wednesday as she filmed scenes for her upcoming guest appearance the NBC crime drama Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.
The Emmy winner, who has championed for same-sex marriage on her Bravo reality show My Life On The D-List, will portray a lesbian activist on the show’s Feb. 6 episode.
From my admittedly quick hands-on, I’ve pretty much decided that the Kodak Playsport is the most practical pocket camcorder to date.
Why?
It’s rugged and waterproof up to a modest (though useful) 10 feet. That’s nice. But what you can’t tell from a spec sheet is that it’s wonderfully shaped and very solid in your hand—probably more solid than any other pocket cam I’ve held. The rubber grip is perfectly positioned to add…grip, and the HDMI/USB ports are plugged with a latch-protected stopper.
Basically, I trust that it’s actually waterproof, especially as the demo unit was still working after being submerged for 8 hours.
No, it was not – it was actually a time of great political turbulence with many wars.
One of the worst jobs to have in Tudor times was that of a soldier who had to fight in wars. Many fought in battles that were part of a long series of wars between 1562 and 1598.
By the mid 16th century, soldiers had to face guns and muskets as well as swords, arrows, pikes and axes. The injuries were horrendous and the treatment was not really very useful. Limbs were often damaged. Battlefield was filthy and antiseptics were not available. This meant that limbs damaged in battle usually became infected and had to be amputated.
Amputation was a very nasty business. Several people had to hold the soldier down. Even though he was given a whack on the head from the surgeon’s mallet to knock him out, he would have suffered tremendous pain. Few survived long after this ordeal.
The 34-year-old comedian is said to have made manager Nik Linnen his best man, and asked him to get cracking on his speech to ensure it will be ready for the ceremony.
Details of Brand’s unusual proposal have also emerged, with the experience seemingly typical of the comedian’s eccentric taste.
A worker at the luxurious Taj Rambagh Palace hotel in Jaipur, where Russell popped the question, told the Sun newspaper: ‘He had organised a special dining experience. We set a table in a garden with candles everywhere.
Then they were taken to the Mughal Garden – which was decorated by flowers and candlelight.
‘Mr Brand had given his butler the diamond ring to hide among the flowers. Miss Perry found it, he proposed and she immediately said, “Yes”.
‘After that they requested 45 minutes of privacy. They looked like they were beautifully in love.’
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Lev Gonick, vice president for information technology services and chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University, offers a prospective look at the top technology trends in higher education in 2010.
[Source: Inside Higher Ed]
Volvo seems to have had a great year. After finally finding an interested buyer, things are looking quite good for the Swedish car manufacturer. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), Volvo had a sales increase of 4.49% in comparison to 2008’s full year sales. Its market share in the UK also went up 12%, from 1.56% to 1.75%.
Volvo, the only premium manufacturer to experience sales growth in UK sales, managed to sell 34,857 cars last year, as Britain’s … (read more)
I’ve got one reason the Nexus One will succeed. Take a guess, go on, I’ll wait…No, it’s not the slick design of the hardware although it so smooth and charming. It’s not the speedy clean Android software either. Nor is it the fantastic voice commands feature, or the free navigation software with internal GPS, or the 16,000 applications you can easily download from the Android App store.Instead, the Nexus One has the best ‘in-store’ product placement of any phone, in the history of mobile phones. It’s front and center on Google.com. Right below the words ‘Google Search’ and ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’.
via One Reason The Nexus One Will Succeed – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com.
Can teenagers’ bedtimes be an indicator of whether or not they’re more likely to be depressed or suicidal? A recent study in the journal SLEEP suggests so. Children’s sleep specialist Dennis Rosen, MD, talks about why this study is an important indicator that teens should be getting a good night’s rest.
by Dennis Rosen, MD
The observation that most teenagers (roughly 80%, according to the National Sleep Foundation’s 2006 “Sleep in America” survey) get fewer than the recommended 9 hours of sleep a night is not new. Nor, for that matter, is the connection between insufficient sleep and mood disorders, which has been borne out in sleep deprivation experiments in adults as well as in population studies in adults and teens. Everyone needs to sleep, and despite not always wanting to tuck in and call it a day, teenagers are no different than anyone else in that respect, and suffer a whole host of negative consequences when they do not get enough sleep.
A new study published in the January 2010 issue of SLEEP looking at the effect of bedtimes set by parents on mood in 15,659 7-12th graders found that the later a child’s bedtime was set, the more likely the child was to have symptoms of depression and/or thoughts about suicide. 
Later bedtimes were also found to correlate with shorter sleep duration (not a big surprise) and a sense of not getting enough sleep, both as reported by the child. Those children with earlier bedtimes were also more likely to describe their parents as caring more about them than those with later bedtimes. Overall, children whose bedtime was set at midnight or later were 24% more likely to suffer from depression, and 20% more likely to have suicidal thoughts than children whose bedtimes were 10 PM or earlier.
As with all studies of this type, questions of cause and effect arise: did the later bedtimes truly cause the increased depression, or did underlying depression lead to later bedtimes? Sleep disturbances are one of the defining characteristics of depression. It may be that in many instances, pre-existing depression influenced the hour at which bedtimes were set. Lax limit setting on the part of parents, manifesting as unfettered bedtimes, could also have contributed to a sense in some that their parents didn’t care as much about them as they felt they should, which in turn may have led to symptoms of depression.
Still, the findings are intriguing, and worth paying attention to. Despite many and frequent protests to the contrary, teenagers really do need a certain amount of sleep (about 9 hours/night). It is very important to realize that sleep is not something to be done when there is nothing better, or more exciting, left to do. Sleep is necessary for both good short term function and long term physical and mental health. Setting age appropriate bedtimes, while not always easy to enforce, is, ultimately, not all that different from setting limits on other activities which can adversely affect health, such as cigarette smoking. As the findings of this study suggest, it is likely to be well worth the effort.
Read more of what Rosen has to say on children and their sleep on his blog, Sleeping Angels.
Do you set bedtimes for you children?
Rosen also wrote a blog about whether or not sleeping late can keep you slim.
It’s really stunning how frequently we see companies (and individuals) twisting and abusing copyright law to do things way beyond the obvious intentions of the law itself. I had been unaware of this particular case, but Michael Scott alerts us to a legal dispute between Omega (the watch makers) and Costco that the Supreme Court is considering taking, which could have massive implications for whether or not you could legally buy products in the US that were released in other countries. The link above to IP Watch does a really fantastic job explaining all the details clearly, so if you want to dig in, go there, but I’ll try to give a quick summary.
Basically, lots of companies try to restrict distribution of their goods, even after they’re sold — often with things like authorized distributors and such. Many have tried to use trademark law to claim that others cannot sell their goods, but as the law has evolved, a pretty robust first sale right has been established in many places that effectively says that the manufacturer has no right to control what’s done with a product after they’ve sold it to someone else. Thus, they cannot restrict later resales. One of the ways companies try to get around this is to claim that the products are “different,” since first sale rights only apply to products that are the same. But how can a product be different? Well, for example, some companies claim that when they sell through authorized channels, it includes a warranty — but the unauthorized channels do not include the manufacturer’s warranty (even if they include a different warranty) and thus they are “different.” Sometimes (bizarrely) this argument works, though other times it does not.
In this case, though, Omega tried a different strategy altogether. Rather than claiming it’s a trademark issue, it’s using copyright law. Copyright law also has a well-established first sale right, but here’s where Omega gets tricky. As Steven Seidenberg at IP Watch explains:
There is, however, one significant difference between the first sale doctrines in US copyright and trademark law. Copyright law has an added qualification. Its first sale doctrine, Section 109(a), applies only to copies “lawfully made under this title.”Omega argued that because the copies of its watch design were made outside the US, they were not made under US copyright law and were thus not covered by the first sale doctrine. Costco argued that because the copies were made by the US copyright owner, they should be considered “lawfully made” under US copyright law.
Of course, being astute readers, you should be asking a very important question: what copyright is there in a watch? Ah, again, Omega gets sneaky:
The watchmaker inscribed a tiny, 0.5 cm globe design on the underside of its watches. This design is invisible when the watches are worn, so individuals are unlikely to purchase Omega’s high end watches in order to obtain copies of this inconspicuous design. Because this design is copyrighted, however, it may enable Omega to stop the import of grey market watches into the US.
Yes, it put a tiny, barely noticeable engraving on the watch, claimed copyright over that design and is using that copyright claim to try to keep certain watches from being resold in the US. In this specific case, it was a set of Omega watches that were legally sold in Europe (where Omega sells its watches at a much lower price than in the US). The buyer then sold that shipment of watches to Costco in the US, who offered them for retail sale. Hence the lawsuit.
This appears to be a dual abuse of copyright law — first using copyright law to try to apply to an entire watch, when its really just a minuscule design that most people probably don’t notice, and second in trying to route around copyright’s well-established first sale doctrine with this convoluted argument that goods made in Europe aren’t covered by the first sale right.
The really scary part? The 9th Circuit Appeals Court (known for some wacky rulings) overturned a district court ruling that had sided with Costco, and said that Omega’s arguments made sense (pdf). If the Supreme Court does not overturn this ruling, it will likely mean that plenty of companies will use similar tactics to bar the sale of products originally sold outside the US from being resold in the US. This clearly is at odds with the very basis of copyright law and the concept of first sale rights. Hopefully, the Supreme Court recognizes this, though it doesn’t have a very good track record on copyright cases.
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The investment bank, which many regard as one of the biggest winners of 2009, is predicting that US growth in 2010 will be disappointing, amounting to just half of what the consensus of economists is predicting.
Last year, Goldman’s chief economist, Jan Hatzius, was named the economist of the year.
Goldman predicts that large cash balances at companies will lead to more M&A, larger dividends, and stock buy-backs. Companies will spend more on IT, buying cloud computer servers and increasing personal computer purchases.
Goldman detailed its predictions for 2010 in a memo released yesterday. The memo takes the form of 9 themes for the year. We read through it and produced a quickie guide to Goldman’s view of the world in 2010.
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Filed under: Cool tools, Snow Leopard
I recently wrote about Ross Carter’s Snow Leopard Creater Code discoveries and his solution, LaunchCodes. It turns out there were a few issues with the initial implementation, such as Apple Events not being passed along. Normally when you find a file in Spotlight, a PDF for example, opening it launches Preview and the query that was used to locate the file shows up in the search field in Preview. This was no longer working in LaunchCodes, though Ross says he’s working on that right now. In the meantime, Michel Fortin has produced Magic Launch, and it solves the majority of the issues that have been presented.
Magic Launch installs as a System Preferences pane, and you can drag and drop applications to it to register their file type. Then, you can choose a default application, but optionally specify that it should launch in it the application which created it, when possible. Probably the coolest feature, though, is the rule handling. Similar to rules in Mail.app, you can set up a series of criteria to determine when a different app should open the file. You can have multiple rules, and each rule can check things like file location, file name or extension, text contents, hex contents and/or ASCII contents. That’s pretty nifty, and goes beyond the default functionality that was available before we even needed apps like this.
Magic Launch is free to try out, and costs $14US for a license. If you’re still finding documents annoyingly launching the wrong applications, go download it and give it a try.
TUAWSnow Leopard Creator Codes: one more time, with feeling originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Performance, Technology, Lotus
“Simplify, then add lightness.” Those are the famous words spoken by Sir Colin Chapman, the father of Lotus and one of the automotive world’s great geniuses. Speaking of genius, the dual-clutch transmission (at a sane price point) is a major step forward. It combines the automaticness of an automatic with the manualness of a manual and the speed of a bullet. The trouble is, dual-clutches are complex and heavy. But what if the company Colin built had their way? What if you could simplify a dual-clutch, and make it lighter?
“What if” indeed. Lotus has reportedly filed a patent application for some sort of dual-clutch. We say “some sort” because not only are we not patent attorneys, the “oily bits” in a dual-clutch are a little bit Greek to us. Besides, patent apps are meant to be a bit vague – they don’t want to give too much away. Anyhow, long story short – do we want a track-burning Exige that can swap gears in mere milliseconds? Yes, we most certainly do. Text of the application after the jump.
[Source: Jalopnik]
Continue reading Report: Lotus files patent application for new dual-clutch transmission
Report: Lotus files patent application for new dual-clutch transmission originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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When I watched James Cameron’s Avatar movie, I noticed how the three-dimensional sound really popped and made the movie seem more immersive and realistic.
That’s music to the ears at Dolby Laboratories, which is trying to get its cool sound technologies into all sorts of digital entertainment devices. At the Consumer Electronics Show, where everything focuses a little too much on visual entertainment, Dolby has a lot of reminders about the importance of sound.
The company is getting its technologies into web-connected TVs, Blu-ray movie players, PCs, smartphones, set-top boxes and game consoles. It’s part of a campaign dubbed Dolby Everywhere. Part of the effort is Dolby Volume, a technology adopted by Motorola and others that reduces the noise level of TV commercials so they’re not as jarring.
The company is also demonstrating Dolby Mobile to help make smartphones sound better, with richer sounds and cleaner, powerful bass sounds. Vudu, the set-top box maker, is using Dolby Digital Plus to deliver 5.1 surround sound for its service on a variety of TVs. More than 2,000 TV models from 19 TV makers use Dolby Digital Plus. More than 50 set-top boxes from 26 manufacturers also use it. Dolby has also launched surround sound voice chat for online games, dubbed Dolby Axon. Those are just some of the various Dolby technologies on display at the show.
If there’s competition for Dolby, it isn’t anything on a grand scale. Rather, it’s that users who0 are using things like phones, games, and other devices haven’t learned to appreciate things like surround sound or higher quality. It’s Dolby’s job to teach them what they’re missing.
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Yesterday, my latest blog post for Science Progress went live. It is about an attempt by Senators John McCain and Tom Coburn to pick through the scientific grants that resulted from the massive economic stimulus legislation, and try to pretend (baselessly) that this is wasted government spending. But of course, funding science creates jobs.
Consider, for example, a nearly $1 million NIH stimulus grant to Johns Hopkins University for a study on treatment options for drug abuse following inpatient care (such as counseling and follow-up care), which brought with it 86 jobs to support the large project. In other words, in this instance, medical knowledge and economic recovery will advance simultaneously.
And that’s just one of many such stories helpfully compiled on the ScienceWorksForUs website. It is important to remember that whenever major research projects get funded, the dollars tend to create a variety of university-based support jobs and graduate student livelihoods to carry out all aspects of the work. They also enable the retention of existing jobs that may otherwise have gone away, and perhaps also the hiring of professors and researchers.
McCain and Coburn ignore this context. Instead, they essentially mock various grants…
For instance, a malt liquor and marijuana study in Buffalo, New York, funded to the tune of $389,357. Coburn and McCain turn this entirely legitimate public health research inquiry into a joke, simply because the substances may have particular lifestyles associated with them. But so what? Young adults abuse these substances, and it is quite legitimate to study the associated effects. This is particularly the case for malt liquor, as the grant reports that it has received little research attention. Understanding early alcohol abuse patterns, as well as the deaths and injuries that result from drug abuse among young men, are clear public health benefits. Moreover, as with any major medical study, it’s inevitable that jobs will be created to support the work.
Something similar goes for another NIH-funded study on sexual behaviors of young women in college, determining whether they are more likely to “hook up” after drinking—once again, public health research that is greeted by McCain and Coburn only with a sneer. And on it goes: They dismiss a public health study on why young males don’t like wearing condoms, along with research on the “Icelandic Arctic Environment in the Viking Age,” the “Learning Patterns of Honeybees,” and so on.
Basically, the McCain Coburn approach is to point and laugh at various scientific studies, without showing either that they are bad science or that they won’t produce jobs. It’s a rather pathetic exercise….about which you can read more here.
We are gearing up for our annual trip to IKEA and so we were excited to see this sneak preview of their new spring and summer releases, due out in February. Here’s a peek at a few new things for the kitchen.
Universal Pictures has released the first images from the big screen adaptation of Saturday Night Live’s sketch parody MacGruber — a spoof of the ’80s television hit MacGyver. Drawing on the success of other SNL-inspired movies like Coneheads and A Night At The Roxbury, the blockbuster comedy boasts an impressive cast of Hollywood stars, including Will Forte, Ryan Phillippe, Kristen Wiig, Val Kilmer, Powers Boothe, and Maya Rudolph.
MacGruber opens April 23.
Luke Timmerman wrote:
One of the hot biotech startups from the Midwest is setting up shop in Boston. Lycera, the Ann Arbor, MI-based company with a novel idea for attacking autoimmune diseases, has decided to move its headquarters to Cambridge, MA and is naming a young management talent as CEO.
Lycera is announcing today it has hired Bill Sibold, the former senior vice president of U.S. commercial business at Biogen, to be its new CEO. Sibold, 43, is taking over at a company that made waves last year when it closed a Series A venture round worth $36 million from InterWest Partners, Arch Venture Partners, Clarus Ventures, and EDF Ventures.
The company was founded in 2006 to build on research from the University of Michigan laboratory of Gary Glick. He looked at the landscape of treatments for people with autoimmune disorders—conditions in which the immune system goes haywire and attacks healthy tissues—and saw room for improvement. A number of biotech drugs are effective against these disorders, such as Amgen’s etanercept (Enbrel) and Roche and Biogen Idec’s rituximab (Rituxan), but they and other drugs like them have the drawback of requiring injections and disabling some of a patient’s immune defenses, potentially making the patient vulnerable to infections. The concept at Lycera is to pursue different targets on cells, which make it possible to tamp down the autoimmune activity, without making people vulnerable to infection.
The market potential of any drug that really works for autoimmune diseases is enormous. About 80 diseases fall into this class, with names like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and psoriasis. The conditions collectively affect an estimated one out of every 12 people in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health. Rheumatoid arthritis alone is now a $10 billion a year market dominated by companies like Amgen, Johnson & Johnson, and Abbott Laboratories.
Bill Sibold
“Even though this is at an early stage, I think Lycera can be a great company that can compete with anybody,” Sibold told me, during a phone interview from the Ann Arbor offices.
Lycera envisions growing up over time from two bases of operation. Ann Arbor will remain the home to the drug discovery team, which is made up of about 15 people, many of whom used to work together at Pfizer before the company closed its research center there. Clinical development, regulatory affairs, business development, and executive leadership is being established in Cambridge, to take advantage of the region’s rich talent pool, Sibold says.
Sibold, 43, has the kind of background that venture capitalists want in an executive, and that is hard to find outside of Boston or the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s got a Harvard Business School …Next Page »
