31 January 2010
stupidities. . . :(
Gunmen kill 14 high-schoolers at party in Mexico...
31 Jan '10
By Julian Cardona
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Suspected drug hitmen burst into a party and killed 14 high school students, in Ciudad Juarez, toay, the latest massacre in one of the world's deadliest cities, the Mexican army said.
Gunmen jumped out of sport utility vehicles and fired at the students, who were celebrating victory in a local American football championship, in a house in the city across the border from El Paso, Texas, in the early hours of today.
Pools of blood collected in the street outside the house.
"The men drove up in SUVs, they were well-armed.
"They went into the house and shot at everyone, you could hear the gunfire all around," a neighbor at the scene said.
Army spokesman, Enrique Torres, said the victims were between 15 and 20 years old, and an additional 17 party-goers were wounded in the shooting, some critically.
"They were about 15 men, they closed off the surrounding streets and began shooting at the house as they moved inside," Torres said.
It was not immediately clear why the gunmen attacked the students.
But drug hitmen have attacked parties in the city, searching for rivals, while police have reported some teenagers have been involved in kidnapping others.
Ciudad Juarez is the bloodiest city in Mexico's drug war as rival cartels fight over markets and control of smuggling routes into the United States.
Violence is escalating even as federal police and soldiers patrol the streets.
Some 2,650 people were killed in drug violence in Ciudad Juarez last year and cartel murders have jumped since the start of 2010.
In some of the worst attacks, gunmen have stormed at least seven drug rehabilitation clinics in the manufacturing city over the past two years, targeting rival dealers.
Two strikes in September killed 28 people.
Mexico is the key transit route for U.S.-bound cocaine from South America and a top producer of marijuana and heroin.
A military crackdown on rival cartels in Mexico has fueled a surge in drug violence that has killed more than 17,000 people over the past three years.
(Additional reporting by Alejandro Bringas; editing by Mohammad Zargham)
Tape used to cordon off a crime scene lies surrounded by blood in Ciudad Juarez, 31 January 2010. REUTERS/Alejandro Bringas
furry death angel...
Doctor's book profiles nursing home's furry angel of death...
31 Jan 31, 2:09 PM
By Ray Henry, The Associated Press
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The scientist in Dr. David Dosa was skeptical when first told Oscar, an aloof cat kept by a nursing home, regularly predicted patients' deaths by snuggling alongside them in their final hours.
Dosa's doubts eroded after he and his colleagues tallied about 50 correct calls, made by Oscar, over five years, a process he explains in a book released this week, "Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat".
The feline's bizarre talent astounds Dosa, but he finds Oscar's real worth in his fierce insistence on being present when others turn away from life's most uncomfortable topic: death.
"People actually were taking great comfort in this idea, that this animal was there and might be there when their loved ones eventually pass," Dosa said.
"He was there when they couldn't be."
Dosa, 37, a geriatrician and professor at Brown University, works on the third floor of the Steere House, which treats patients with severe dementia.
It's usually the last stop for people so ill they cannot speak, recognize their spouses and spend their days lost in fragments of memory.
He once feared that families would be horrified by the furry grim reaper, especially after Dosa made Oscar famous in a 2007 essay in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Instead, he says many caregivers consider Oscar a comforting presence, and some have praised him in newspaper death notices and eulogies.
"Maybe they're seeing what they want to see," he said, "but what they're seeing is a comfort to them in a real difficult time in their lives."
The nursing home adopted Oscar, a medium-haired cat with a grey-and-brown back and white belly, in 2005 because its staff thinks pets make the Steere House a home.
They play with visiting children and prove a welcome distraction for patients and doctors alike.
After a year, the staff noticed that Oscar would spend his days pacing from room to room.
He sniffed and looked at the patients but rarely spent much time with anyone - except when they had just hours to live.
He's accurate enough that the staff - including Dosa - know it's time to call family members when Oscar stretches beside their patients, who are generally too ill to notice his presence.
If kept outside the room of a dying patient, he'll scratch at doors and walls, trying to get in.
Nurses once placed Oscar in the bed of a patient they thought gravely ill.
Oscar wouldn't stay put, and the staff thought his streak was broken.
Turns out, the medical professionals were wrong, and the patient rallied for two days.
But in the final hours, Oscar held his bedside vigil without prompting.
Dosa does not explain Oscar scientifically in his book, although he theorizes the cat imitates the nurses who raised him or smells odors given off by dying cells, perhaps like some dogs who scientists say can detect cancer using their sense of scent.
At its heart, Dosa's search is more about how people cope with death than Oscar's purported ability to predict it.
Dosa suffers from inflammatory arthritis, which could render his joints useless.
He worries about losing control of his life in old age, much as his patients have lost theirs.
Parts of his book are fictionalized.
Dosa said several patients are composite characters, though the names and stories of the caregivers he interviews are real and many feel guilty.
Donna Richards told Dosa she felt guilty for putting her mother in a nursing home.
She felt guilty for not visiting enough. When caring for her mother, Richards felt guilty about missing her teenage son's swimming meets.
Dosa learns to live for the moment, much like Oscar, who delights in naps and chin scratches or the patient who recovers enough to walk the hall holding the hand of the husband she'll eventually forget.
The doctor advises worried family members to simply be present for their loved ones.
Richards was at her mother's bedside nonstop as she died.
After three days, a nurse persuaded her to go home for a brief rest.
Despite her misgivings, Richards agreed. Her mother died a short while later.
But she didn't die alone.
Oscar was there.
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Press
In this 23 July 2007 file photo, Oscar, a hospice cat with an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, walks past an activity room at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, R.I.
Dr. David Dosa profiles Oscar in a book released this week, 'Making Rounds With Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat.' (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Stew Milne, File)
moleskine...
Moleskine Notebooks...
Do you know about those legendary notebooks you can buy at Barnes & Noble as touted by the late author Bruce Chatwin?
They come in several sizes; the pocket size (just a tad larger than a 3 x 5 card) is perfect for a breast pocket or cargo pants pocket.
The paper is acid free and rich enough to take ink, so you can sketch as well as take notes, but the most useful feature is the elastic band (which is a built in bookmark) that holds the notebook together -- you can stuff business cards, clippings, sketches on napkins between the pages, and the rubberized cloth thing holds them all together until you can find a place for the scraps.
I've carried mine, literally, around the world.
--Howard Rheingold
Moleskine Notebooks
Come in squared, lined, or plain
96 leaves
$11 from Moleskine US
Also a large selection, including this $8 notebook from Amazon.
The backstory about Bruce Chatwin is amusing.
conference...
The Conference of the Mice...
Once upon a time, there was a large tabby cat, which, from the minute she arrived at the farm, spread terror among the mice living in the cellar.
Nobody dared go outside, for fear of falling into the clutches of the awful cat.
The fast-shrinking mouse colony decided to hold a conference and seek a way of stopping themselves from becoming extinct.
Taking advantage of the cat's absence one day, mice of all ages streamed into a conference room.
Certain they could solve the matter, each one put forward a suggestion, but none of the ideas was really practical. 
"Let's build an outsize trap," one mouse suggested.
When this idea was turned down, another said: "What about poisoning her?"
But nobody knew of a poison that would kill cats.
One young widow, whose husband had fallen prey to the ferocious cat, angrily proposed: "Let's cut her claws and teeth, so she can do no more harm."
But the conference did not approve of the widow's idea.
At last, one of the mice, wiser than the rest, scrambled to the top of the lantern that shone over the meeting.
Waving a bell, he called for silence: "We'll tie this bell to the cat's tail, so we'll always know where she is!
"We'll have time to escape, and the slow and weaker mice will hear her coming and be able to hide!"
A round of hearty applause met the wise mouse's words, and everyone congratulated him on his original idea.
"We'll tie it so tightly, it will never come off!"
"She'll never be able to sneak quietly up on us again!
"Why, just the other day, she suddenly loomed up right in front of me!
"Imagine that..."
However, the wise mouse rang the bell for silence again.
"We must decide who is going to tie the bell on the cat's tail," he said.
There was not a sound in the room except for a faint murmur: "I can't, because..." 
"Not me!"
"I'd do it willingly,but..."
"Neither can I..."
"Not me!"
"Nor me!"
Nobody was brave enough to come forward to put the plan into action, and the conference of mice ended without any decision being made.It's often very easy to have bright ideas, but putting them into practice is a more difficult matter.
30 January 2010
putin to go?
Thousands rally to urge Russia's Putin to resign...
30 Jan '10
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Up to 10,000 people rallied in the Russian Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad Saturday demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin over living costs and unemployment, a rare show of anger with the popular figure.
Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the opposition movement, Solidarity, told Echo Moskvy radio people were protesting against a "25-30 percent" rise in utility bills and against high unemployment.
He said the rally was organized by political parties, including the Communists.
"I believe this is a precursor to events likely to roll out over Russia," he said.
Russian authorities traditionally increase bills for housing, transportation, water, and electricity after the New Year.
This can stoke inflation which reached 1.7 percent for the first 25 days of January, exceeding official forecasts.
Despite signs of improvement, Russia remains mired in an economic crisis, with GDP contracting 8.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier and unemployment reaching 8.2 percent in December.
The Russian government has poured billions of dollars into the economy and supporting crisis-hit regions and towns.
Polls show Putin, the former president and a former intelligence officer, remains popular in Russia.
A VTsIOM poll this month put his trust rating at 54 percent, the highest among politicians. President Dmitry Medvedev scored 42 percent.
(Reporting by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin looks on during a meeting with his Kazakh counterpart Karim Masimov in Yalta, 20 November 2009. REUTERS/RIA Novosti/Alexei Nikolsky/Pool
eggsactly?
Britain's Thatcher 'went on egg diet'...
30 Jan '10
LONDON (AFP) - Margaret Thatcher went on a crash diet, eating 28 eggs a week, to get in shape ahead of the 1979 election when she was elected British prime minister, papers out Saturday suggested.
The diet aimed to help Thatcher, who weighed about nine-and-a-half stone, lose 20 pounds (nine kilograms) in two weeks and also featured large quantities of spinach, coffee, steak, lamb and fish.
A further instruction ordered her only to drink whisky -- her favorite tipple -- on days when she ate meat.
A yellowing note detailing the diet was found inside her personal diary for 1979 and has been released to the public along with thousands more of her personal papers by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
"It has to be pre-election," said Chris Collins of the foundation.
"I think she was looking to get in in trim for the cameras.
"She probably thought: 'The cameras are going to be on me the whole time -- I'm going to lose some weight'.
"But she is not somebody who had a problem with weight at all.
"She is on the move the whole time -- she burns energy."
Margaret Thatcher went on a crash diet eating 28 eggs a week to get in shape ahead of the 1979 election when she was elected British prime minister, according to papers released by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation. Photo:Peter Parks/AFP
false alarm...
US-Colombia flight diverted to Florida after terror scare: case of mistaken identity...
29 Jan '10
By Eileen Sullivan, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A Continental Airlines jetliner flying from Newark, New Jersey, to Bogota, Colombia, was diverted to Jacksonville, Florida, Friday, over suspicion a passenger was on the government's watch list of suspected terrorists banned from commercial flights.
It turned out to be a case of mistaken identity.
The passenger - one of 75 on board - was cleared by the FBI at Jacksonville International Airport, and permitted to continue on the flight to Colombia, the Transportation Security Administration said.
Despite its safe conclusion, the tense situation that arose from diverting a passenger jet after takeoff because of security fears was unlikely to ease the anxiety of the American flying public after the Christmas Day episode in which a Nigerian passenger is accused of trying to explode a bomb inside a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan.
In Friday's incident, the government was expected to investigate how the passenger was allowed to board the plane before being positively deemed safe.
An airline is not supposed to issue a boarding pass to a person on the government's no-fly list.
It was not immediately clear whether the passenger, who was not identified, went through additional screening in Newark before boarding the plane.
The airlines do not have any information other than the names on the list.
Some airlines already have moved to a new identification program, called Secure Flight.
All domestic carriers are expected to move to the new program by March.
The government system will include more details about the passenger in question, including the passenger's sex, birth date and full name as it appears on a government identification document.
Under the current system, if a person has a name similar to someone on the no-fly list, that person goes through additional screening.
In some instances, that person could be banned from boarding the flight.
The new system will show more details about passengers.
Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, told lawmakers recently that two carriers she did not identify publicly will not meet the March deadline.
She said the carriers would be a month or two late.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, charged in the Detroit incident, was not on the government's no-fly list or the list of people who should receive additional screening before boarding a plane.
There are more than 3,000 names on the no-fly list and about 14,000 names on a list of people who require extra scrutiny.
Abdulmutallab was on that exhaustive list.
-
Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett and Joan Lowy in Washington and Harry R. Weber in Atlanta, Georgia, contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Press
body found...
Authorities find body of missing US lottery winner near home of woman who befriended him...
29 Jan '10
By Tamara Lush, The Associated Press
PLANT CITY, Fla. - Winning millions of dollars in the Florida Lottery should have been the best thing that ever happened to Abraham Shakespeare.
With his newfound wealth, in 2006 - $17 million in a lump sum payment - came a string of hangers-on who constantly hit him up for money.
Nine months ago, he vanished.
Friends and family hoped he was on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean.
On Friday, detectives confirmed a body buried under a concrete slab in a rural back yard was his.
The home Shakespeare was found behind belongs to the boyfriend of a woman who befriended him in 2007.
Authorities believe he was murdered, and the woman may know something about it, but they do not yet know how he died, and have not arrested anyone.
Shakespeare's brother, Robert Brown, said Friday, Shakespeare often wished he had never bought the winning ticket.
"'I'd have been better off broke.'
"He said that to me all the time," Brown said.
Hillsborough County sheriff's detectives used fingerprints to identify Shakespeare's body, which they found covered by a concrete slab.
Before 2006, Shakespeare was an assistant truck driver who lived with his mother.
He was barely literate, and had a criminal record.
After he won the lottery, he bought a million-dollar home, and was extremely generous to others.
"He really didn't understand it at all," said Samuel Jones, a friend since childhood.
"It was moving so fast.
"It changed his life in a bad way."
Jones said Abraham would tell him, "I thought all these people were my friends, but then I realized all they want is just money."
Among those new friends was Dorice Donegan "DeeDee" Moore.
She told him she was interested in writing a book about his life, but officials said she was interested in his money.
Moore, whose known phone numbers were all disconnected Friday, became something of a financial adviser to Shakespeare.
Property records show her company, American Medical Professionals, bought his home for $655,000 a year ago.
Not long afterward, detectives said, she helped him open a company, and gave herself the ability to sign for money.
She withdrew $1 million, and later told detectives Shakespeare gave her the cash as a gift.
She bought a Hummer, a Corvette, a pickup truck, and went on vacation.
"DeeDee Moore is a con artist," Polk County Sheriff, Grady Judd, said in a news release earlier this month.
"DeeDee Moore has cheated Abraham Shakespeare out of his money, and possibly, his life."
A tip led detectives to Shakespeare's gravesite this week, behind a home owned by 26-year-old Shar Krasniqi, identified by Judd as Moore's boyfriend.
Meanwhile, friends and family puzzled over Shakespeare's rapid rise and fall.
Jones said his friend lived a humble life, and just before he bought the winning ticket he joined a church and was 'baptized'.
"When he won the lottery," Jones said, "he forgot about being 'saved'."
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Press
memory...
When the mind rests, memories become stronger, NYU study...
29 Jan '10
By Anne-Marie Tobin, The Canadian Press
TORONTO - When you learn something new and want to commit it to memory, it's often suggested you take a little time to let it sink in.
This advice assumes new meaning in an intriguing study that scrutinized the brain before, during and after a task, and discovered interesting levels of activity in certain areas of the brain in a rest phase after the task.
The researchers found more brain activity during rest predicted better performance in a subsequent memory test.
"We wanted to look to see whether there were times of relative rest during the day that would allow your brain to sort of replay your recent experiences, and if that occurred, whether that would actually have any impact on memory," says Lila Davachi, an assistant professor of psychology and neural science at New York University, and senior author of the paper published this week in the journal, Neuron.
By way of background, she explains, as memories get older, they become consolidated - stronger and more resistant to being forgotten.
"It's thought to be due to the fact they become more distributed in the brain so instead of one part of the brain representing that memory, making it relatively sensitive and weak to changes, the memories over time become distributed and supported by multiple regions of the brain," she says.
"There's very good evidence that this kind of redistribution or consolidation of memory happens during sleep."
She and her team decided to look at the possible role of rest during the day.
The study began with baseline brain scans of 16 people aged 22 to 34 in a functional MRI.
There were scans as they went through tasks that involved looking at images of faces, objects and scenes, and further scans during rest periods.
"Over a 20-minute period they performed an active task where we were showing them pictures of faces and objects and they were actively having to incorporate the two visual stimuli in each trial and make a response," Davachi says in an interview from New York.
"After that, we simply told them to lay awake and rest in the scanner for another eight minutes, and that was our critical scan."
The researchers focused on brain regions believed to play a role in memory.
"What we found during the rest scan after the task is, the hippocampus was interacting more closely with the cortex than what we saw before the task," Davachi says.
"It was interacting with the part of the cortex that we know was active during the task ...
"In other words, this part of the cortex - part of the visual cortex - was responding on every trial to these faces and objects.
"It looked like after the task was done, as subjects were resting, that activity seemed to still exist during the rest scan."
There were differences among individuals, however.
Some people had the hippocampus communicating very well with the cortex during the rest scans, and some less so.
All the subjects performed a memory test after being in the scanner, even though they hadn't been informed this would be expected of them.
The researchers found that the magnitude of the hippocampal-cortical correlations during the rest phase predicted later memory performance.
In other words, those with the most activity in those brain areas during the rest phase remembered the most about the earlier visual stimuli.
"That's sort of the measure we're reporting that links these correlations with memory - they actually predict memory performance on a later memory test," says Davachi.
"I can't explain why there is variation, but the variation allows us to conclude there is a relationship between the correlations and memory."
In a post-study questionnaire, no subjects reported they had been thinking about any of the preceding stimuli during the rest scans.
Morris Moscovitch, a senior scientist at Toronto's Rotman Research Institute, at Baycrest, says the results are interesting and exciting.
"What they've shown is really quite terrific," says Moscovitch, who's also a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.
"What they've shown is, you form connections between various regions while you're encoding.
"The correlations between them during the rest period, not only do they increase, but they also predict how good your memory is going to be for objects and faces."
He says the findings go along with the idea that if you learn something you should probably take a little time afterward to let it sink in.
"The simple lesson to learn is, after you've had a period of intense learning, try not to now start learning something else intensely, again."
Although the questionnaire responses indicated people weren't thinking about the images during their rest phase, it's possible the test subjects were rehearsing, either consciously or unconsciously, he adds.
Davachi notes more study is needed.
For instance, it's not known whether lying in a bed on a scanner in a dark room with eyes open is equivalent to the sort of rest one might get during a coffee break.
"It's possible any given subject in different situations may or may not exhibit those correlations."
The data suggest moments of relative rest during the day - taking a walk, having a coffee break - might allow the brain to perform an active process that may encourage memory formation, she says.
"This multitasking environment we live in - I think the most important issue it brings up is, basically, what are we doing to our brains in this environment?
"Are we not allowing the brain to sort of take its time to consolidate what we want to remember?" she asks.
"This is kind of a gift, to offer the possibility actually taking a break may be something you can do that will enhance memory."
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Press
gebeta board...
The Game Board...
An Ethiopian Folk Tale
Once a man in the town of Nebri
carved a beautiful gebeta board for his son.
He made it from the wood of an olive tree.
When he was finished,
he showed his son how to play games upon it.
The boy was very glad to have such a beautiful thing,
and in the morning when he went out with the cattle
to the valley where they grazed,
he took his gebeta board along.
Everywhere he went, he carried his board under his arm. 
While he followed the cattle, he came upon a group of wandering Somalis, with their camels, gathered around a small fire in a dry riverbed.
"Where in this country of yours can a man get wood?" the Somalis asked. 
"Why, here is wood," the boy said.
And he gave them the fine gebeta board,
which they put into the fire.
As it went up in flames, the boy began to cry:
"Oh, now where is my fine gebeta board
my father has carved for me?"
"Do not make such turmoil," the Somalis said,
and gave him a fine new knife in place of the game board.
The boy took the knife and went away with his cattle.
As he wandered along, he came to a place where a man was digging a well
in the sand of the riverbed, so his goats could drink. 
"The ground is hard," the man said.
"Lend me your knife to dig with."
The boy gave the man the knife,
but the man dug so vigorously with it, it broke.
"Ah, what has become of my knife?" the boy wailed.
"Quiet yourself," the man said.
"Take this spear in its place."
And he gave the boy a beautiful spear
trimmed with silver and copper.
The boy went away with his cattle and his spear.
He met a party of hunters.
When they saw him one of them said:
"Lend me your spear, so we may kill the lion we are trailing."
The boy gave him the spear,
and the hunters went out and killed the lion.
But in the hunt the shaft of the spear was splintered.
"See what you've done with my spear!" the boy cried.
"Don't carry on so," the hunter said.
"Here is a horse for you, in place of your spear." 
The hunter gave him a horse with fine leather trappings,
and the boy started back toward the village.
On the way, he came to where a group of workmen
were repairing the highway.
As they worked, they caused a landslide,
earth and rocks came down the mountain with a great roar.
The horse became frightened and ran away.
"Where is my horse?" the boy cried.
"You have made him run away!"
"Don't grieve," the workman said. "Here is an axe."
And he gave the boy a common iron axe.
The boy took the axe and continued toward the village.
He came to a woodcutter who said:
"Lend me your large axe for this tree.
My axe is too small."
He loaned the woodcutter the axe,
and chopped with it, but broke it.
The boy cried, and the woodcutter said:
"Never mind, here is a limb of a tree."
The boy took the limb upon his back
and when he came near the village a woman said:
"Where did you find the wood?
"I need it for my fire."
The boy gave it to her, and she put it in the fire.
As it went up in flames he said:
"Now, where is my wood?"
"Here," the woman said,
"have this fine gebeta board."
He took the gebeta board under his arm
and went home with the cattle.
As he entered his house, his father smiled and said:
"What is better than a gebeta game board...
to keep a small boy out of trouble?"
29 January 2010
smartasses...
Internet wiseacres mock the name of Apple's latest invention, iPad...
2 hours, 23 minutes ago
By Brooke Donald, The Associated Press
SAN JOSE, Calif. - You have to wonder whether there were any women in the room when the marketing geniuses at Apple decided to call the company's new gadget, the "iPad".
Because the jokes about feminine hygiene products are flying.
"Will women send their husbands to the Apple store to buy iPads?" went one joke on Twitter.
And a "MadTV" comedy sketch, from several years ago, about an electronic sanitary napkin called the iPad went viral on YouTube.
So how did the company come up with the product name?
How could Apple have set itself up for such obvious punch lines?
Apple, a company notoriously secret about its product development process, declined to comment about the name or how many women were involved in the launch.
Three Apple execs - all men - introduced the iPad at its unveiling in San Francisco.
But brand experts said the name's not so bad.
"It fits with what Apple's been doing, consistently.
"They take literal words that exist and stick an "i' in front of them.
And it works... for them.
It's not offensive despite the silly jokes," said Tye Heckler, a vice-president at Seattle-based Heckler Associates, which is responsible for the store names Cinnabon, Panera, and Starbucks.
Ira Kalb, associate director of the Center for Global Innovation at the University of Southern California's business school, said:
"Unless you've been under a rock, you know this is an Apple product just by the 'i' in front, and you know what it does by what 'pad' connotes."
Kalb said the jokes are probably good for Apple - more buzz - and will eventually pass.
He said other names floated for the product - iTab, iSlate, or iTablet - would have been far worse.
iTablet has too many syllables.
iSlate is too ancient.
iTab is too confusing.
"Apple is all about innovation, and ease of use.
"Those names just don't go with that," he said.
According to the Patent and Trademark Office database, more than 20 people or companies have tried to trademark "ipad", "ipads", or "ipads.com", over the years, for such things as vaccines, stationery, makeup remover, bra padding, and a host of electronics.
If the iPad sells, it won't be the first time a company has been mocked for its name, only to have the product fly off the shelves.
Nintendo was swamped with potty-training jokes after it announced its new game console: Wii.
-
AP Technology Writer Jessica Mintz in Seattle contributed to this report.
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Press
Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs shows the keypad on the new 'iPad' during the launch of Apple's new tablet computing device in San Francisco, California, 27 January 2010. REUTERS/Kimberly White (UNITED STATES - Tags: SCI TECH BUSINESS)
sketchbook...
Academie Wirebound...
I do a lot of sketching and art of various kinds and in various mediums, such as pencil, chalk, Copic markers and ink.
For this I need a good quality paper, but don't want to spend a lot of money; I don't want to feel guilty doing throwaway work.
The best buy I’ve found is Mead's Academie 70-sheet Spiral Bound notebook, and I’ve been using it for the past two years.
These sketchbooks are ideal for several reasons.
First are cost and availability:
They’re inexpensive and can be purchased practically anywhere, from office supply stores to Walmart and Target.
The paper quality is good enough for frameable art.
The sturdy notebooks have a solid pressboard back, so I generally don't need an easel, and the pages are perforated for easy removal.
There's a two-sided pocket, so I can remove and stow keepers.
I find the pocket helps me keep track of specific renderings, too.
Because these sketchbooks are inexpensive, I can use a few concurrently and switch back and forth between different mediums.
The paper quality is great for the price, too. It works well for Copic markers, especially, giving a true color rendering.
The pages are non-yellowing (acid-free), as well.
For comparison, Strathmore drawing pads have more size options, but at 40 to 50 sheets per book, the cost per sheet is higher, and the Strathmore’s pages aren’t perforated for easy removal.
Available from Amazon
etta ill... :(
Etta James, 72, hospitalized with serious infection; son expects release soon...
1 hour, 7 minutes ago
By The Associated Press
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Etta James' son says the 72-year-old jazz and R&B singer is hospitalized in Southern California with a serious infection but he expects her to be released soon.
Donto James says his mother has been at Riverside Community Hospital for about a week, and is recovering from sepsis, caused by a urinary tract infection.
He says James, who lives in Woodcrest, entered a treatment program about a month ago to shake a dependency on painkillers and over-the-counter medicine.
She was transferred to another facility and then the hospital when her physical condition worsened.
James, who sang everything from blues to jazz, is best known for the hit "At Last".
Copyright © 2010 Canadian Press
Etta James. (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Matt Sayles, file)
stress. . .
Stress is nothing more
than a socially acceptable form
of mental illness.
~Richard Carlson
Richard Carlson... (author)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Richard Carlson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 16 May 1961 Piedmont, California, U.S. |
| Died | 13 December 2006 (aged 45) San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker |
| Genres | Self-help |
| Official website | |
Richard Carlson Ph.D. (16 May 1961 – 13 December 2006) was an American author, psychotherapist, and motivational speaker, who rose to fame with the success of his book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all Small Stuff (1997), which became one of the fastest-selling books of all time, and made publishing history as USA Todays bestselling book for two consecutive years [1].
It also spent over 100 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, and was published in 135 countries, and translated into Latvian, Polish, Icelandic, Serbian, and 26 other languages[2]; thereafter Carlson went on to write another 20 books.[3]
Contents |
Early life
Carlson was born and raised in Piedmont, California in East San Francisco Bay Area[1].
He was an avid tennis player.
He was the top ranked junior in Northern California in 1979.
He received his bachelor's degree from Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, where he met and married Kristine Anderson (Kris Carlson) in 1981.
He later received his doctorate (Ph. D.) in psychology from La Sierra University, in Riverside, California.
Career
Carlson started his career and a worked as a psychotherapist, ran a stress management center, and published his first book in 1985, but became famous when his 12th book, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and it’s all Small Stuff became a best seller.
"Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" topped the bestseller lists for two years.
People magazine named Dick Carlson as one of that publication's "Most Intriguing People in the World".
He was popular on the talk-show circuit [4][5].
Meanwhile he also appeared in Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... and It's All Small Stuff, TV Special [6], and soon took up writing full-time.
He wrote many follow-up books to this success, including Slowing Down to the Speed of Life (co-authored with Joe Bailey) in 1997, one co-authored by his wife, Don't Sweat The Small Stuff in Love (2000), and What About the Big Stuff (2002).
Death
Carlson died on 13 December 2006, in Walnut Creek, California, [7], of a pulmonary embolism during a flight from San Francisco to New York, while on a promotion tour for his book Don’t Get Scrooged: How to Thrive in a World Full of Obnoxious, Incompetent, Arrogant and Downright Mean-Spirited People (2006).
He is survived by his wife, Kristine Carlson, and their two teenage daughters, Jasmine and Kenna; two sisters, Kathleen Carlson Mowris, of Olympic Village, California, and Anna Carlson of La Selva Beach, California.; and his parents, Barbara and Don Carlson of Orinda, California.
Bibliography
- You Can Feel Good Again: Common-Sense Therapy for Releasing Depression and Changing Your Life, Published by Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 1994. ISBN 0452272424.
- Don't Sweat the Small Stuff—and It's All Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life. Published by Hyperion, 1997. ISBN 0786881852.
- You Can Be Happy No Matter What: Five Principles Your Therapist Never Told You, Contributor Dr. Wayne Dyer. Published by New World Library, 1997. ISBN 1577310640.
- Slowing Down to the Speed of Life: How to Create a More Peaceful, Simpler Life from the Inside Out, with Joseph Bailey. Published by Harper Collins, 1998. ISBN 0062514547.
- Don't Sweat the Small Stuff with Your Family: Simple Ways to Keep Daily Responsibilities and Household Chaos from Taking Over Your Life, Published by Hyperion, 1998. ISBN 0786883375.
- A Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Treasury: A Special Selection for Teachers, Published by Hyperion, 1999. ISBN 0786865768.
- Don't Sweat the Small Stuff at Work: Simple Ways to Minimize Stress and Conflict While Bringing Out the Best in Yourself and Others, Published by Hyperion, 1999. ISBN 0786883367.
- Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Teens: Simple Ways to Keep Your Cool in Stressful Times, Published by Tandem Library, 2000. ISBN 0613311353.
- Don't Sweat the Small Stuff in Love: Simple Ways to Nurture and Strengthen Your Relationships While Avoiding the Habits That Break Down Your Loving Connection, with Kristine Carlson. Published by Hyperion Books, 2000. ISBN 0786884207.
- The Don't Sweat Guide for Parents: Reduce Stress and Enjoy Your Kids More, Don't Sweat Press, Publisher, Don't Sweat Press, Published by Hyperion, 2001. ISBN 0786887184.
- Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Men: Simple Ways to Minimize Stress in a Competitive World, Published by Hyperion, 2001. ISBN 0786886366.
- Don't Sweat the Small Stuff for Women: Simple and Practical Ways to Do What Matters Most and Find Time for You, with Kristine Carlson, Published by Hyperion, 2001, ISBN 0786886021.
- The Don't Sweat Guide for Moms: Being More Relaxed and Peaceful So Your Kids Are, Too, with Don't Sweat Press, Kristine Carlson. Published by Hyperion, 2002. ISBN 0786887273.
- The Don't Sweat Guide for Graduates: Facing New Challenges with Confidence, Don't Sweat Press. Published by Hyperion, 2002. ISBN 0786887257.
- What About the Big Stuff?: Finding Strength and Moving Forward When the Stakes Are High. Published by Hyperion Books, 2003. ISBN 0786888806.
- The Don't Sweat Guide for Teachers: Cutting Through the Clutter So That Every Day Counts, Don't Sweat Press, Published by Hyperion, 2003. ISBN 0786890533.
- The Don't Sweat Guide for Dads: Stopping Stress from Getting in the Way of What Really Matters, Published by Hyperion, 2003. ISBN 0786887249.
- The Don't Sweat Guide to Your Job Search: Finding a Career You Really Love, by Editors of Don't Sweat Press, Richard Carlson, Published by Hyperion, 2004. ISBN 1401307604.
- Don't Get Scrooged: How to Thrive in a World Full of Obnoxious, Incompetent, Arrogant, and Downright Mean-spirited People, Published by HarperCollins, 2006. ISBN 0060758929.
- You Can Be Happy No Matter What: Five Principles for Keeping Life in Perspective, Contributor Dr. Wayne Dyer. Published by New World Library, 2006. ISBN 1577315685.
- An Hour to Live, an Hour to Love: The True Story of the Best Gift Ever Given, with Kristine Carlson. Hyperion 2007. ISBN 1401322573.
- Focus on the Good Stuff: The Power of Appreciation, by Mike Robbins, Richard Carlson. Published by Wiley Default, 2007. ISBN 0787988790.
References
- ^ a b Richard Carlson: Bestselling self-help guru The Independent, December 30, 2006.
- ^ Obituary - Richard Carlson The Telegraph, Jan 4, 2007.
- ^ Richard Carlson, 45, Self-Help Author, Dies New York Times, December 17, 2006 .
- ^ 'Don't Sweat Small Stuff' author Carlson dies at 45 The Oakland Tribune, Dec 15, 2006.
- ^ Carlson's advice in huge demand San Francisco Chronicle, Jerry Carroll, Chronicle Staff Writer, February 17, 1998.
- ^ Don't Sweat the Small Stuff... and It's All Small Stuff Overview New York Times.
- ^ 'Don't Sweat Small Stuff' author dies at 45 San Francisco Chronicle December 16, 2006.
External links
 | Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Richard Carlson |
- Brief profile at Richard Carlson Memorial Site
- Don't Sweat.com official site
- Co-author Joe Bailey Site
- Graphical compilation of Richard Carlson's Weekly Thoughts
Obituaries
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