3-D computing prototype puts your hands inside the screen

Devin Coldewey , NBC News ? ? ? 30 min.

Attendees of the latest TED conference got a look at a futuristic device called SpaceTop where the user views a 3-D workspace through a transparent display, manipulating the on-screen elements with just their hands. It won't be on shelves any time soon, but it does pique the imagination.

The demonstration was by Jinha Lee, an MIT graduate student who undertook an internship at Microsoft's Applied Science group to develop a 3-D desktop. Part of that project was creating a new method for users to interact with the computer.

Mice and touchscreens, of course, really only let one interact along two dimensions ? you can scroll left, right, up, and down, but going in and out must be done with 2-D gestures like pinches, whereas in real life you would just move your hand forward or back.

Lee's work focused on creating an interface though which one could move one's hand naturally and interact with familiar elements like windows and documents. The result is still rather rough, but it's promising.

The transparent display is equipped with a camera that tracks the user's head and adjusts the perspective on the 3-D desktop "under" it. Meanwhile, a second camera watches the user's hands and determines their position in three dimensions.

While it's still limited to a few demo applications, it's fascinating to watch: Grabbing a file from a stack is as easy as plucking it out, and when you need to type, just drop your hands onto the built-in keyboard.

Among the many challenges of developing such a system is that there is essentially no software written for it. Every operating system with which an average user might be familiar is built around the idea of a flat display navigated by a mouse or touchscreen. So Lee's had to be built from scratch.

As such, it's still very much just a concept or work in progress. His original work was done in late 2011, and the "core design and framework" were presented at Microsoft's TechForum in 2012. But this week's TED demonstration was much farther along and the first time it has been shown so publicly.

Whether this kind of interaction becomes commonplace or not (devices like the Oculus Rift and Leap Motion also present alternative input methods and are farther along in development), it's still a thrill to see something like this that seems to be science fiction made fact.

Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/futureoftech/3-d-computing-prototype-puts-your-hands-inside-screen-1C8600002

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Good Reads: A family in isolation, Pakistan's difficult present, Africa's biggest game

This week's good reads includes a profile of a Russian family that lived in isolation for 40 years, a young professor's return to Pakistan from the United States after 13 years, and efforts to end big game hunting in Africa.

By Cricket Fuller,?Staff writer / February 12, 2013

A lion rests in the grass plains of the Maasai Mara game reserve in Kenya.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff/File

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In 1978, a group of Soviet geologists trying to land their helicopter in the taiga (thick wilderness) of remote Siberia saw startling evidence of human life. Soon they found the Lykov family ? who had been living in an encampment for more than 40 years with no contact with the outside world.

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Mike Dash, writing for Smithsonian.com, recounts their incredible story and the chance meeting that brought it to light. The Lykovs were Old Believers, a fundamentalist Russian Orthodox sect that had been persecuted since the days of Peter the Great. In 1936, after his brother was shot and killed by a Communist patrol, Karp Lykov took his wife, Akulina, and two young children and fled into the forest.

For 40 years the family eked out a living in the unforgiving Siberian wilderness, ?permanently on the edge of famine.? Two more children were born. Akulina died of starvation in 1961 when a June snow destroyed the family?s small crop. The Soviet scientists were astounded to learn that the family had no knowledge of World War II, the moon landing, or any other major development of modern society of the past half century. The two youngest children had never seen a person outside their own family.

But over the next few years, says Mr. Dash, as ?the Soviet geologists got to know the Lykov family, they realized that they had underestimated their abilities and intelligence.?

The family at first spurned, then gradually accepted most of the modern technology they saw at the scientists? research camp nearby. When, during this period, three of the Lykovs died, scientists tried to convince Karp and his daughter Agafia to leave the wilderness, but they chose to rebuild their small cabin and stay on.

After Karp died in 1988, Agafia, the youngest child, again refused to leave the life her family had forged ? and the only one she has ever known. ?A quarter of a century later, now in her seventies herself, this child of the taiga lives on alone, high above the Abakan.?

Pakistan, a forbidden love

For Taymiya Zaman, Pakistan is not Osama bin Laden or blasphemy laws or drone attacks. It is her homeland, a place of rich culture and history, struggling under the weight of change and competing stereotypes. But for many people in the United States, where she is a history professor, Pakistan is a harbor for terrorists or the scene of poor brown children waiting for Western benevolence.

Ms. Zaman?s rich personal essay appears in Tanqeed, an online magazine of politics and culture that focuses on Pakistan. Her essay first ran in the quarterly magazine Critical Muslim.

Tired of the questions and accusations surrounding her nationality, Zaman ?builds a wall? around Pakistan. Finally, weary of the disconnect, and against the advice of her colleagues, she returns to Lahore for a sabbatical year. It will be the longest she?s been home since leaving for college 13 years earlier.

She describes the homecoming: ?Landing in Karachi is like running into the arms of a lover you?ve been forbidden to see for years.? Once there, however, she gains ?the realization that I can?t hide from the things about being here that leave me troubled and edgy.? She is heckled by a bearded student who accuses her of disrespecting Islam. The traffic congestion is overwhelming.

Zaman returns to her teaching position in San Francisco with newfound appreciation for the US and enduring love for her Pakistan. ?I know the newspaper images that fuel Pakistan-bashing. I know the minefields of personal sorrow and betrayal that don?t make it to newspapers. I also know a Pakistan beneath these images that is rich with extraordinary possibilities....?

Take photos, not big game, on safari

On Foreign Policy Blogs, Daniel Donovan writes of Botswana?s recent decision to ban big-game trophy hunting by 2014. Zambia followed suit soon after by banning hunting of lions and leopards.

Botswana?s move has inspired both praise and criticism. In spite of short-term setbacks to the hunting industry, Mr. Donovan points to Kenya?s thriving nonhunting safari business as a sign of greater long-term economic gains in banning trophy hunting.

?While hunters and hunting advocates point to large profits being made in hunting of animals in Africa ... the reality is that photographic tourism far outdistances any money made in hunting safaris,? he writes. Big-game hunting in Africa has always held an allure for the rich and famous, but one study in Botswana showed that trophy hunting only represented approximately 0.1 percent of gross domestic product, as opposed to phototourism, which yields 11 percent. And as Zambia?s tourism minister, Sylvia Masebo, put it: ?Tourists come to Zambia to see the lion and if we lose the lion we will be killing our tourism industry.?

Donovan concedes that ?[c]ritics of the decision argue that it will encourage poaching over the long-term,? which has reached alarming levels in Kenya. But ?even countries that encourage trophy hunting are not immune from illegal hunting,? as revelations of poaching violations in South Africa and Tanzania show.

?Ultimately, each country must decide which direction will benefit them both ecologically and economically.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/rFq_EnLICYg/Good-Reads-A-family-in-isolation-Pakistan-s-difficult-present-Africa-s-biggest-game

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Mexico arrests head of teacher's union on suspicion of fraud

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico on Tuesday arrested Elba Esther Gordillo, the powerful head of the country's teachers' union, on suspicion of embezzling the union's funds, the Mexican attorney general said.

Authorities accuse Gordillo, who is viewed as one of the key obstacles to education reform in Mexico, of siphoning off millions of pesos of union money into private accounts, Jesus Murillo told reporters at a news conference.

"Clearly, we're facing a case in which the money of education workers has been misused illegally for the benefit of various people, including Elba Esther Gordillo," Murillo said. "Under this government nobody is above the law."

The arrest of Gordillo, who critics have for years accused of corruption, came a day after the Mexican government signed a broad education reform into law.

The Mexican teachers' union fought against the law, which limits union control over hiring and teaching standards, and aims to improve Mexico's failing school system.

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; editing by Jackie Frank)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-arrests-head-teachers-union-suspicion-fraud-022004391.html

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Linking insulin to learning: Insulin-like molecules play critical role in learning and memory

Feb. 26, 2013 ? Though it's most often associated with disorders like diabetes, Harvard researchers have shown how the signaling pathway of insulin and insulin-like peptides plays another critical role in the body -- helping to regulate learning and memory.

In addition to showing that the insulin-like peptides play a critical role in regulating the activity of neurons involved in learning and memory, a team of researchers led by Yun Zhang, Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, show that the interaction between the molecules can fine-tune how, or even if, learning takes place. Their work is described in a February 6 paper in Neuron.

"People think of insulin and diabetes, but many metabolic syndromes are associated with some types of cognitive defects and behavioral disorders, like depression or dementia," Zhang said. "That suggests that insulin and insulin-like peptides may play an important role in neural function, but it's been very difficult to nail down the underlying mechanism, because these peptides do not have to function through synapses that connect different neurons in the brain"

To get at that mechanism, Zhang and colleagues turned to an organism whose genome and nervous system are well described and highly accessible by genetics -- C. elegans.

Using genetic tools, researchers altered the small, transparent worms by removing their ability to create individual insulin-like compounds. These new "mutant" worms were then tested to see whether they would learn to avoid eating a particular type of bacteria that is known to infect the worms. Tests showed that while some worms did learn to steer clear of the bacteria, others didn't -- suggesting that removing a specific insulin-like compound halted the worms' ability to learn.

Researchers were surprised to find, however, that it wasn't just removing the molecules that could make the animals lose the ability to learn -- some peptide was found to inhibit learning.

"We hadn't predicted that we would find both positive and negative regulators from these peptides," Zhang said. "Why does the animal need this bidirectional regulation of learning? One possibility is that learning depends on context. There are certain things you want to learn -- for example, the worms in these experiments wanted to learn that they shouldn't eat this type of infectious bacteria. That's a positive regulation of the learning. But if they needed to eat, even if it is a bad food, to survive, they would need a way to suppress this type of learning."

Even more surprising for Zhang and her colleagues was evidence that the various insulin-like molecules could regulate each other.

"Many animals, including the humans, have multiple insulin-like molecules and it appears that these molecules can act like a network," she said. "Each of them may play a slightly different role in the nervous system, and they function together to coordinate the signaling related to learning and memory. By changing the way the molecules interact, the brain can fine tune learning in a host of different ways."

Going forward, Zhang said she hopes to characterize more of the insulin-like peptides as a way of better understanding how the various molecules interact, and how they act on the neural circuits for learning and memory.

Understanding how such pathways work could one day help in the development of treatment for a host of cognitive disorders, including dementia.

"The signaling pathways for insulin and insulin-like peptides are highly conserved in mammals, including the humans," Zhang said. "There is even some preliminary evidence that insulin treatment, in some cases, can improve cognitive function. That's one reason we believe that if we understand this mechanism, it will help us better understand how insulin pathways are working in the human brain."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Harvard University.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Zhunan Chen, Michael Hendricks, Astrid Cornils, Wolfgang Maier, Joy Alcedo, Yun Zhang. Two Insulin-like Peptides Antagonistically Regulate Aversive Olfactory Learning in C.?elegans. Neuron, 2013; 77 (3): 572 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.11.025

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/HFukdteMQE0/130226162837.htm

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2,000 pound turtle could be extinct within 20 years

Feb. 26, 2013 ? An international team led by the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has documented a 78 percent decline in the number of nests of the critically endangered leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) at the turtle's last stronghold in the Pacific Ocean.

The study, published online February 26in the Ecological Society of America's scientific online journal Ecosphere, reveals leatherback nests at Jamursba Medi Beach in Papua Barat, Indonesia -- which accounts for 75 percent of the total leatherback nesting in the western Pacific -- have fallen from a peak of 14,455 in 1984 to a low of 1,532 in 2011. Less than 500 leatherbacks now nest at this site annually.

Thane Wibbels, Ph.D., a professor of reproductive biology at UAB and member of a research team that includes scientists from State University of Papua (UNIPA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia, says the largest marine turtle in the world could soon vanish.

"If the decline continues, within 20 years it will be difficult if not impossible for the leatherback to avoid extinction," said Wibbels, who has studied marine turtles since 1980. "That means the number of turtles would be so low that the species could not make a comeback.

"The leatherback is one of the most intriguing animals in nature, and we are watching it head towards extinction in front of our eyes," added Wibbels.

Leatherback turtles can grow to six feet long and weigh as much as 2,000 pounds. They are able to dive to depths of nearly 4,000 feet and can make trans-Pacific migrations from Indonesia to the U.S. Pacific coast and back again.

While it is hard to imagine that a turtle so large and so durable can be on the verge of extinction, Ricardo Tapilatu, the research team's lead scientist who is a Ph.D. student and Fulbright Scholar in the UAB Department of Biology, points to the leatherback's trans-Pacific migration, where they face the prevalent danger of being caught and killed in fisheries.

"They can migrate more than 7,000 miles and travel through the territory of at least 20 countries, so this is a complex international problem," Tapilatu said. "It is extremely difficult to comprehensively enforce fishing regulations throughout the Pacific."

The team, along with paper co-author Peter Dutton, Ph.D., discovered thousands of nests laid during the boreal winter just a few kilometers away from the known nesting sites, but their excitement was short-lived.

"We were optimistic for this population when year round nesting was discovered in Wermon Beach, but we now have found out that nesting on that beach appears to be declining at a similar rate as Jamursba Medi," said Dutton, head of the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center's Marine Turtle Genetics Program.

The study has used year-round surveys of leatherback turtle nesting areas since 2005, and it is the most extensive research on the species to date. The team identified four major problems facing leatherback turtles: nesting beach predators, such as pigs and dogs that were introduced to the island and eat the turtle eggs; rising sand temperatures that can kill the eggs or prevent the production of male hatchlings; the danger of being caught by fisheries during migrations; and harvesting of adults and eggs for food by islanders.

Tapilatu, a native of western Papua, Indonesia, has studied leatherback turtles and worked on their conservation since 2004. His efforts have been recognized by NOAA, and he will head the leatherback conservation program in Indonesia once he earns his doctorate from UAB and returns to Papua.

He has worked to educate locals and limit the harvesting of adults and eggs. His primary focus today is protecting the nesting females, eggs and hatchlings. A leatherback lays up to 10 nests each season, more than any other turtle species. Tapilatu is designing ways to optimize egg survival and hatchling production by limiting their exposure to predators and heat through an extensive beach management program.

"If we relocate the nests from the warmest portion of the beach to our egg hatcheries, and build shades for nests in other warm areas, then we will increase hatching success to 80 percent or more," said Tapilatu.

"The international effort has attempted to develop a science-based nesting beach management plan by evaluating and addressing the factors that affect hatching success such as high sand temperatures, erosion, feral pig predation and relocating nests to maximize hatchling output," said Manjula Tiwari, a researcher at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, Calif.

Wibbels, who is also the Ph.D. advisor for Tapilatu, says that optimizing hatchling production is a key component to leatherback survival, especially considering the limited number of hatchlings who survive to adulthood.

"Only one hatchling out of 1,000 makes it to adulthood, so taking out an adult makes a significant difference on the population," Wibbels said. "It is essentially the same as killing 1,000 hatchlings."

The research team believes that beach management will help to decrease the annual decline in the number of leatherback nests, but protection of the leatherbacks in waters throughout the Pacific is a prerequisite for their survival and recovery. Despite their prediction for leatherback extinction, the scientists are hopeful this species could begin rebounding over the next 20 years if effective management strategies are implemented.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Alabama at Birmingham. The original article was written by Kevin Storr.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Ricardo F. Tapilatu, Peter H. Dutton, Manjula Tiwari, Thane Wibbels, Hadi V. Ferdinandus, William G. Iwanggin, Barakhiel H. Nugroho. Long-term decline of the western Pacific leatherback,Dermochelys coriacea: a globally important sea turtle population. Ecosphere, 2013; 4 (2): art25 DOI: 10.1890/ES12-00348.1

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/-2zDZ55IC1Y/130226141233.htm

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?Angry Birds Toons?, Rovio?s New Cartoon Series Is Coming To A Browser Near You March 16

They're cute. They're bouncy. And they're angry. Introducing "Angry Birds Toons". Seriously. Rovio has long teased the existence of Angry Birds cartoon series but held most of the details secret. Well, all will be revealed come March 16th, when the first episode premieres.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/j3hZOYqtKq0/

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Amsterdam to raise legal age for prostitutes

AMSTERDAM (AP) ? Amsterdam plans to raise the minimum age for prostitutes from 18 to 21 and force brothels to close during early morning hours.

At a press conference Tuesday, mayor Eberhard van der Laan said the moves came from a decision to crack down on crime in the city's famed Red Light District and protect sex workers ? mostly women ? from abuse.

Amsterdam is home to about 8,000 professional sex workers, the city estimates, half of them who operate behind windows with red velvet curtains and red lights. Van der Laan said under the new regime, all windows would be closed from 4 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Prostitution was legalized in the Netherlands in 2000. It has been tolerated in Amsterdam since the 1600s, when the spice trade made it one of the world's wealthiest port cities. But the city has been tightening its rules since 2006 and shuttered a third of its brothel windows from 2007 to 2009.

Van der Laan said the city intends to introduce the new measures by July.

"We think the situation is so grave that we have to act," he told reporters.

He said young prostitutes were particularly vulnerable because they were often groomed by pimps who force them into service when they turn 18. He said the city's first priority was to keep women from being pushed into prostitution and its second was to help those who wish to exit the profession.

Other measures he plans to introduce include forcing all brothel owners to submit a business plan.

The Dutch tolerance of prostitution has always been a subject of debate, and after it was legalized, city officials realized that move had not served to reduce abuses. A proposed new national law would create a database of registered prostitutes, but it has never been passed by Parliament.

Dutch officials are now studying Sweden's prostitution laws as a possible model. Swedish law criminalizes only visiting prostitutes and does not punish the prostitutes themselves.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-26-Netherlands-Prostitution/id-27ce272cbce54c00910e00fe1d99c64a

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HTC plans to release more Windows Phones in 2013

Apple (AAPL) shares got a boost Tuesday afternoon on rumors that the company may announce a split on Wednesday during its annual shareholder meeting. The rumor comes from former money manager and current TheStreet.com contributor?Douglas Kass, who did not disclose his source. ?High above the Alps my Gnome is hearing a rumor that Apple will announce a stock split at tomorrow?s shareholder meeting,? Kass wrote in a post on Twitter, providing no further details. Apple shares rose more than 1.4% on the rumor after nearing a new closing low.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/htc-plans-release-more-windows-phones-2013-002000831.html

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GOP take aim at Obama for "nonstop campaigning" on sequester (cbsnews)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

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Court won't hear campaign contributions appeal

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Supreme Court won't hear an appeal of a decision upholding a century-old ban on corporate campaign contributions in federal elections.

The high court on Monday refused to hear an appeal from William P. Danielczyk Jr. and Eugene R. Biagi, who wanted the courts to say the ban violates corporations' free-speech rights.

A federal judge agreed with them, but the 4th U.S. Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., overturned that decision. The Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision struck down a prohibition against corporate spending on campaign activities by independent groups but left untouched the ban on direct contributions to candidates.

The judge said independent expenditures and direct contributions were both political speech, but the appeals court said they must be regulated differently.

The justices will not review that decision.

This comes one week after the justices decided to hear a challenge to limits on how much an individual can give to political campaigns. In that case, an Alabama man argues that it's unconstitutional to stop a donor from giving more than $46,200 to political candidates and $70,800 to political committees and PACs.

Shaun McCutcheon says he accepts that he can only give $2,500 to a single candidate but says he should be able to give that amount to as many GOP candidates as he wants.

The justices will hear that case later this year.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-02-25-US-Supreme-Court-Campaign-Finance/id-6a85a13023ce40c2b9d7f8aea21f1e12

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More Choices, Less Commitment ? The Gospel Coalition Blog

"If I lived in Iowa, I'd be married with four children by now." Gregg Blatt is the CEO of Match.com's parent company. He's a 40-something bachelor living in Manhattan, and it's not entirely clear whether his wry comment aims to slight Iowa or New York.

Either way, it's clear that overwhelming choice can cripple commitment. Blatt himself wonders whether the glittering promise of online dating?your perfect match is only a click away?encourages us to become never-satisfied consumers of relationships, always looking to upgrade. And if we suspect we can easily find a superior choice on the Internet, how might that knowledge negatively affect the desire to invest in our current relationship, or even marriage? Assuming we one day get tired of compulsive consumption and decide to stop playing the field, will we be able to? Might the intoxication of choice lead to the death of commitment?and contentment?

Dan Slater thinks so. His recent article in The Atlantic implies that online dating, far from making marriage easier, is actually making it harder?by making commitment less likely:

The positive aspects of online dating are clear: the Internet makes it easier for single people to meet other single people with whom they might be compatible, raising the bar for what they consider a good relationship. But what if online dating makes it too easy to meet someone new? What if it raises the bar for a good relationship too high? What if the prospect of finding an ever-more-compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, in which we keep chasing the elusive rabbit around the dating track?

Slater's dog-track metaphor is strikingly apt. The rabbit isn't real, it's never caught, yet the greyhound still obsessively chases it. And the multiplying "rabbits" (as provided by the proliferation of online dating services) deceive us into believing that the odds of catching one have improved exponentially. In reality, as our expectations of relational satisfaction have risen, so has the likelihood of disappointment?and with it, the chances that we will keep on compulsively chasing. Of course, this process suits the online dating companies. "[T]he profit models of many online-dating sites are at cross-purposes with clients who are trying to develop long-term commitments," Slater observes.?"A permanently paired-off dater, after all, means a lost revenue stream." That's why most of the users on Match.com?are return customers, coaxed back into activity by plaintive "How could you leave us?" emails, and the consumer's own relational restlessness.?

Lowering the Bar

Evidence also suggests that even if we do finally commit to someone, the multiplicity of options makes it less likely we'll stay committed. Psychologist Barry Schwarz, author of The Paradox of Choice, argues that "a large array of options may diminish the attractiveness of what people actually choose, the reason being that thinking about the attractions of some of the unchosen options detracts from the pleasure derived from the chosen one."

In 2011, Mark Brooks, a consultant to online dating companies, published the results of an industry survey titled "How Has Internet Dating Changed Society?" The survey responses, from 39 executives, produced the following conclusions:

• "Internet dating may be partly responsible for a rise in the divorce rates."
• "Above all, Internet dating has helped people of all ages realize that there's no need to settle for a mediocre relationship."
• "Low quality, unhappy, and unsatisfying marriages are being destroyed as people drift to Internet dating sites."
• "The market is hugely more efficient. . . . People expect to?and this will be increasingly the case over time?access people anywhere, anytime, based on complex search requests. . . . Such a feeling of access affects our pursuit of love. . . . [T]he whole world (versus, say, the city we live in) will, increasingly, feel like the market for our partner(s). Our pickiness will probably increase."
• "Internet dating has made people more disposable."

That's frightening. But online dating is surely not the only cause of commitment-phobia. As Slater points out, gender may also play a role, though "researchers are divided on the question of whether men pursue more 'short-term mates' than women do." Certainly, with young women in the United States much more likely to graduate from college than their male peers, and college graduates much more likely to date other college graduates, men seem to have the luxury (or rather, the curse) of choice.

Then there is the pornography epidemic. It raises (or rather, lowers) the bar on what we expect of a prospective spouse because of its unremitting insistence on physical performance and cosmetic beauty, over and against mental and moral qualities. As Christian men, we may pray unctuously for the Lord to provide a wife of noble character (Proverbs 31:10-31), but our hearts are being continually conditioned to lust after the wife of maximal hotness. "Charm is deceitful," God protests, "and beauty is vain!" But we dismiss him like one of those impertinent pop-ups that gets in the way of what we really want to see.

Devastating Results

The devastating societal results are already being ruefully catalogued. The sexually graphic film?Shame (2011) sees a porn-addicted Michael Fassbender sloping from one brief encounter to another. Together in a hotel room with a beautiful woman who believes in monogamy, he is unable to perform. Because his only commitment is to an endless, open-ended lack of commitment, real intimacy eludes him. And by the time the film ends, we're not sure it will ever be regained.

?

Or take George Clooney in Up in the Air (2009). He plays a character whose aversion to emotional commitment means that, according to his own family, he has essentially ceased to exist. Taken in by the false promises of sexual "freedom," he has withheld commitment for years. And now that he wishes to give it, he's no longer free to do so.

Pointedly, The Velveteen Rabbit appears briefly in the film. It's a children's story about a stuffed toy rabbit who becomes real when he is loved. At one point, the rabbit asks the wise Skin Horse how the process happens.

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

It's a mesmerizing, sad story about how real love?real commitment?inevitably unmakes us. Perhaps that's partly why we're so afraid of it. But the story also explains why that "unmaking" is such a desirable thing.

It's how you become "real."

Our Undoing

Truly committing to another human being will certainly be our undoing. It requires substitutionary sacrifice: your life is subsumed in the quest for the other's contentment. In the case of marriage it means each person forsaking all others, which to the world looks like a very shabby prospect.

But this selfless giving of oneself to another human being holds unique power to make both the lover and the beloved truly beautiful. By losing their lives, they have gained them. But we can only taste this if we commit?and allow other to commit to us.

Committing to love at great cost to ourselves is the most desirable choice we can make in God's universe. He demonstrated this love for us on a tiny hill outside Jerusalem. He made the choice to love self-sacrificially. Forsaking all others, he committed himself to a particular people, at a particular time, in a particular place. Even the living God?powerful, sovereign, utterly free, whose triune nature means that he does not depend on others in order to love and be loved?nevertheless committed himself to love one bride.

Will we trade the deceptive and ever-declining thrills of choice-idolatry for the unique pleasures of commitment? We should do it, and soon. Because even if, by God's grace, our chains fall off, even if our dungeon flames with light, we may be powerless to get up and leave, because our hearts have been crippled. We put off commitment and venerate choice, idly believing that we will commit when we are ready. But when that day finally arrives, we may realize with widening eyes that we're no longer choosing sin. Sin is choosing us. We will have become imprisoned by choice.

And for those of us who have experienced this prison first-hand, isn't it strange when the world describes us as "butterflies"? That is too delicate, too lovely. Brothers and sisters, let me propose a more fitting insect: the moth. Drawn to the light but finally unable to enjoy it. Dulled. Restless. All-consuming.

Barry Cooper studied English at Oxford University and theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is the author of Discipleship Explored, and is co-author of the Christianity Explored evangelistic program. He writes the blog Future Perfect, Present Tense, and is currently helping to plant Trinity West Church in Shepherd's Bush, London.

Copyright ? 2013 by the author listed above. Used by permission.

Source: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/02/25/more-choices-less-commitment/

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Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 combines touch, all-day battery life, and ThinkPad styling to the Windows 8 Slate tablet market. It's not a bad first effort, but rivals currently have the upper hand. It can be your all-day companion running from meeting to meeting, and you can get work done with the help of accessories when you finally get back to your desk. Taken alone, it's a very good tablet. Unfortunately, other rivals have better battery life, connections to keyboards, and overall differentiating features.

Design and Features
The Tablet 2 looks professional, with a black PolyCarbonate/ABS plastic cover over a magnesium internal frame. The tablet measures about 7 by 10.5 by 0.34 inches (HWD) and weighs a scant 1.21 pounds alone. Add the optional Bluetooth keyboard ($120) and fitted sleeve ($40), and you're talking a 2.63-pound travel weight. One plus that the Tablet 2 has over its rivals is its built-in slot to carry its included stylus. The Wacom-style stylus has a right-click button, but lacks the eraser tip that rivals like the Dell Latitude 10 and Microsoft Surface Pro have. Weighing less than 1.25 pounds and with its built-in stylus holder, it is a very good handheld PC for running around the office park or for a full day of client meetings.

The Tablet 2 has a few ports and switches on its sides: a micro-USB port for charging, a low-power USB 2.0 port, MicroSD and a SIM slot under a shared door, headset jack, volume, power, rotate lock, a docking port, and a mini-HDMI out port. The SIM slot supplies authentication to an optional WWAN radio, which wasn't in our review unit. The docking connector is mainly for the $100 enterprise-level docking station, since the Bluetooth keyboard and stand lacks a docking port.

The Bluetooth keyboard is very comfortable and has a built-in optical TrackPoint and the usual ThinkPad mouse buttons. But there is no room for a palm rest, and the keyboard has no retention mechanism aside from gravity and friction from the slot carved in its surface. This means that the keyboard stand works fine on a tabletop, but if you use the combo on your lap, the Tablet 2 is likely to slide out if you shift your weight during you work session. Both the keyboard and Tablet 2 fit in a tailor-made fitted sleeve, so the combo can work part-time. The Bluetooth keyboard has its own battery for operation, but it doesn't supply auxiliary power like the keyboard docks for the HP Envy X2 or Acer Iconia W510-1422.

The Tablet 2 charges off of its micro-USB port, which is a plus for the road warrior. Most non-iPhone smartphones use micro-USB to charge, so you can get by only carrying a single charger. The Tablet 2 comes with a 2A USB adapter and a USB to micro USB cable, which you can use with your smartphone or tablet. This also makes it more convenient for the multi-device user, since he can charge the Tablet 2 off of a PC with the USB cable as well. Lenovo also sells a $20 USB vehicle charger so you can charge your tablet on the road.

The Tablet 2's regular USB 2.0 port is problematic. It is full-size, so it will work with all sorts of peripherals like printers, keyboards/mice, and USB memory keys. But the USB port only supplies a few watts of power, so it won't run a large-capacity external hard drive. This shortcoming is a large detriment to getting work done if all you have with you are bus-powered external hard drives. The Dell Latitude 10 and most ultrabook-class tablets have full-power USB ports. The Tablet 2 can connect to 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 is supported. GPS is included.

The Tablet 2's screen is a 10.1-inch IPS display with a 1,366-by-768 resolution. This means that you can playback 720p HD content natively, but 1080p content will be scaled down. The system's Wacom-style digitizer and stylus back up the five-point touch screen. When the tip of the stylus comes close to the screen, the capacitive touch sensors turn off, so you aren't making marks with your palm when you're actually drawing on the screen with the stylus. The screen is bright, with a wide angle of view from all sides, and an accelerometer makes sure that screen elements point up at all times.

The Tablet 2 comes with an Intel Atom Z2760 processor, 2GB of memory, and a 64GB of flash storage. When we first turned the Tablet 2 on, it came with 33.4 GB of 50GB free. This is a bit less than the "36.8 GB of 52.2GB free" reported by the Editors' Choice Dell Latitude 10. No doubt much of the used space is the recovery partition plus a selection of pre-installed apps. The Tablet 2 came with Lenovo Companion, Skitch Touch, Evernote Touch, Lenovo Support, a Lenovo Settings app, Accuweather, QuickSnip (a clipping/screenshot utility), Amazon Kindle, Skype, rara.com, Intel AppUp, Lenovo Cloud Storage (SugarSync), and Norton Studio (security). Lenovo also included their QuickLaunch app, which replaces the functions of the Windows 7 Start menu. It's not the most heinous use of space, but since Tablet 2's current options for storage are 64GB only, every bit of storage space is precious. You can of course add storage with the microSD slot. The Tablet 2's front webcam is 2MP and the rear is 8MP with a LED flash. The Tablet 2 has a one-year standard warranty.

Performance
The Intel Atom Z2760 processor in the Tablet 2 ensures Windows 8 32-bit compatibility, so the tablet will work with all your enterprise apps and corporate network protocols. It also means that you can use the browser and plug-ins standardized at your business instead of being limited to Internet Explorer (as you would be on a Windows RT system).

However, while the Atom means that the Tablet 2 has 10-hour battery life (10 hours 11 minutes), it also means that it doesn't perform too well on our multimedia benchmark tests. The Tablet 2 was one of the slowest systems we've ever tested on our Handbrake test (13:27 vs. 1:28 on a Core i5 system like the Microsoft Surface Pro). The Tablet 2 also lagged Atom-powered rivals like the Dell Latitude 10 and Acer W510 on the Handbrake test. On day-to-day tasks, the Tablet 2 put in a passable 1,410 point score on PCMark 7. Basically, if you have a need for corporate information retrieval and media playback all day, the Tablet 2 is fine, but if you need to work on graphics creation on a deadline, you're better off with a more powerful system with an Intel Core processor.

The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 is a decent Windows 8 Slate tablet. It doesn't win any of the performance tests, but is competitive with its Atom-powered rivals. It's a simple work-based tablet that has a good set of ThinkPad accessories that make it a good fit if you're transitioning ThinkPad users to something a lot more portable. However, for the ultimate in battery life, other systems like the Editors' Choice Dell Latitude 10 and keyboard docking tablets like the Acer Iconia Tab W510 are better choices if battery life is paramount. And let's face it, you're looking at an Atom-based tablet because of its combination of Windows 8 Pro compatibility and phenomenal battery life, right?

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 with several other laptops and tablets side by side.

More laptop reviews:
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Video: 'It was beginning to be a little tricky'

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'Sequester' on president's agenda at meeting with governors

President Barack Obama on Monday is expected to implore the nation's governors to put pressure on Congress to avoid the sequester as Obama speaks to the nation's governors at the White House.

Members of the Obama administration, heads of federal agencies and others have been issuing severe warnings to Congress regarding the sequester-- $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that will go into effect March 1 absent a budget. Warnings have been released threatening fewer responders to handle wildfires, reduced food safety inspection, less help for vulnerable Americans and on Friday, widespread flight delays and cancellations.

"Travelers should expect delays. Flights to major cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and others could experience delays up to 90 minutes during peak hours, because we have fewer controllers on staff. Delays in these major airports will ripple across the country," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters at Friday's White House press briefing after announcing that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans massive furloughs and closing air traffic control towers if the sequester goes into effect.

The White House on Sunday night released state-by-state reports detailing what they say would be "devastating" impacts on each state as a result of the sequester, but the topic of the sequester was notably absent from Obama's speech Sunday night to the governors, who are in town for the National Governors Association's (NGA) annual winter meeting.

Instead, the president at the White House dinner struck an appreciative tone, commending the governors for steering their states through tough times.

Democratic Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, chair of the NGA, followed Obama's address Sunday night by emphasizing the absence of politics from the night's celebration. "On this one night it?s a relief -- politics doesn?t drive the conversation. We don?t speak of partisan issues or presidential aspirations," Markell said.

But Markell did note the sequester.

"One thing for sure is certain -- you don?t let issues fester. You get to deal with education and health care, and even the sequester," Markell said to laughter and applause from the audience.

Republicans such as Speaker John Boehner have publicly stated their opposition to the sequester, though others have threatened they are willing to let it go into effect.

Some Republicans over the weekend continued to accuse the administration of exaggerating the sequester's impact.

"They have plenty of flexibility in terms of discretion on how they spend money. There are easy ways to cut this money that the American people will never feel," Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said on Fox News Sunday.

The president is slated to address the governors at 11:05 a.m. ET from the White House State Dining Room. Vice President Joe Biden, First Lady Michelle Obama and Second Lady Dr. Jill Biden are also scheduled to speak.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-expected-address-sequester-monday-meeting-governors-143539950--politics.html

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Macy's CEO testifies in fight over Martha Stewart

Macy's Chairman, President and CEO Terry Lundgren arrives to court in New York, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Lundgren is scheduled to testify in New York State Supreme Court on Monday in a trial that pits the department store chain against rival J.C. Penney Co. over a partnership with home diva Martha Stewart. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Macy's Chairman, President and CEO Terry Lundgren arrives to court in New York, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Lundgren is scheduled to testify in New York State Supreme Court on Monday in a trial that pits the department store chain against rival J.C. Penney Co. over a partnership with home diva Martha Stewart. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Macy's Chairman, President and CEO Terry Lundgren arrives to court in New York, Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. Lundgren is scheduled to testify in New York State Supreme Court on Monday in a trial that pits the department store chain against rival J.C. Penney Co. over a partnership with home diva Martha Stewart. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren testified on Monday that he hung up on home diva Martha Stewart after she called to inform him on Dec. 6, 2011 that the company that bears her name had inked a deal with J.C. Penney to open shops within most of the chain's stores.

He hasn't spoken to her since, even though the two used to be good friends.

"I was sick to my stomach," Lundgren testified on Monday in New York Supreme Court. "I can't remember hanging up on anyone in my life."

The testimony comes as Macy's Inc. and J.C. Penney Co. duke it out over the partnership with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. The trial, which began Wednesday, focuses on whether Macy's has the exclusive right to sell Martha Stewart branded cookware, bedding and other products. Other key witnesses expected to take the stand this week include Penney's CEO Ron Johnson and Martha Stewart.

Lundgren testified on Monday that Macy's had built the Martha Stewart brand to be the biggest in its home business. Under Lundgren's leadership, Macy's has focused on building exclusive brands that are not carried by rivals to get shoppers to the store. In the home area, exclusivity is key: Sales last year were up 8 percent, double the rate for the entire company.

Lundgren said Macy's has spent 40 percent of its overall marketing on the Martha Stewart brand even though the home category represents 17 percent of sales. He says that having Penney have access to the brand will not be good for the business and will confuse shoppers.

"I need the Martha Stewart business to be exclusive," Lundgren said. "I don't have a substitute."

The testimony is a culmination of a legal battle between the three companies that started in 2011. Macy's sued Martha Stewart Living in January 2011, saying the company breached a long-standing contract when it penned the deal with Penney, which invested $38.5 million in a nearly 17 percent stake. In a separate lawsuit, Macy's sued Penney claiming it had no regard for the Macy's contract and that Johnson had set out to steal the business that it had worked hard to develop.

The two suits were consolidated for the bench trial, which Supreme State Court Judge Jeffrey Oing is presiding over the trial. The trial is expected to last three weeks.

At issue seems to be a loophole in the agreement with Macy's. It's a provision that allows Martha Stewart to sell goods in categories like bedding in Martha Stewart Living's own stores.

According to Martha Stewart, because the Macy's agreement doesn't say the goods under dispute can be sold "only in "stand-alone" stores, the mini shops within J.C. Penney stores do not fall under the exclusive agreement.

Macy's Inc., based in Cincinnati, disagrees. Lundgren argues that a typical definition of a store is that it has a parking lot or is part of a mall. Macy's lawyers outlined in documents that it later found that Penney "knowingly and purposely demanded and received confidential information" from Martha Stewart Living about the contract of Macy's and crafted a deal that was more lucrative than the Macy's agreement.

Macy's claims in court documents substantial damages and said the maneuver by Penney "threatens to inflict incalculable further harm on Macy's. Billions of dollars of sales are involved." Macy's is also trying to stop Martha Stewart from providing designs to J.C. Penney even if it gets rid of the Martha Stewart moniker.

Last summer, Macy's won a preliminary injunction against Martha Stewart Living that would prevent it from selling housewares and other exclusive products at J.C. Penney. Judge Oing did grant Penney permission to open Martha Stewart shops, as long as the items under the exclusive contract with Macy's are not sold in them.

Penney, which is based in Plano, Texas, plans to open shops featuring designs from Martha Stewart on May 1, but Daphne Avila, a Penney spokeswoman, said that the products which include bedding and cookware have been stripped out of the home maven's moniker and instead feature the label "JCP Everyday."

According to a memo filed by Penney, Macy's rights to Martha Stewart aren't nearly as sweeping as it suggests. Under Macy's interpretation of the contract, according to J.C. Penney, Martha Stewart Living is "little more than an in-house designer for Macy's."

In court documents, Martha Stewart Living said it will prove that it was Macy's. that breached the contract because it didn't "use commercially reasonable efforts to maximize net sales of Martha Stewart Collection products."

The stakes are high for both retailers as well as for Martha Stewart. For Macy's, having another major department store sell Martha Stewart towels, pots and other merchandise could dilute its business.

Martha Stewart Living is trying to fatten merchandising revenue as it struggles to offset declines in its broadcast and publishing business, a segment that accounts for more than 60 percent of its total business. And the deal with Martha Stewart is part of Penney's plan to reinvent the struggling department store under Johnson, who became CEO of the company in November 2011.

Penney has struggled with mounting losses and sharp sales declines since early last year after shoppers were turned off by a new strategy that eliminated most sales in favor of lower prices every day. Penney began adding shops featuring new hip brands last year and plans to overhaul the home department this spring. Martha Stewart is at the center of that revamp.

The stakes are also high for the personalities involved in the suit. Lundgren said that while he used to be good friends with Stewart, he hasn't spoken to her since that 2011 after he hung up on her.

"''I was completely shocked and blown away," he testified on Monday. "It was so far from anything I could imagine."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-02-25-Macy's-Penney-Trial/id-a6f57cf94d6b4c8e8f8ec58e62658369

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White House Previews Local Impacts of Sequester

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Governors Association's winter meeting is under way in the nation's capital, and while President Obama hosted the state executives for their annual black-tie dinner in the White House today, his administration is pushing a new angle over the partisan bickering around the sequester: how it relates to individual states.

READ: What's a Sequester?

Five days remain for Congress to agree to a deficit-reduction deal that would avoid triggering the $85 billion package of automatic cuts that would be split among the federal government over seven months, half from the Defense Department. There has been little public indication that lawmakers are in serious negotiations to avoid the deadline.

Tables released by the White House today indicate each state would receive penalties to mostly similar programs, including meal assistance for seniors and law enforcement grants. But the release is tailored to outline the individual impact to each state in the union.

In a sample from military-heavy Virginia, "90,000 civilian Department of Defense employees would be furloughed, reducing gross pay by around $648.4 million in total."

The document also says maintenance on 11 Navy vessels serviced in Old Dominion would be cancelled under the cuts.

Three-hundred disadvantaged children in Colorado could lose access to child care. Meanwhile in Louisiana, "1,730 fewer children will receive vaccines for diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, whooping cough, influenza, and Hepatitis B due to reduced funding for vaccinations of about $118,000," it reads.

READ: The full list of alleged consequences from the sequester

That state's governor, Bobby Jindal, is the head of the Republican Governors Association and was one of the state executives present at the White House dinner. Earlier that morning he accused the administration of fear mongering, rather than focusing on the issue at hand.

"It's time to stop campaigning," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "Stop sending out your cabinet secretaries to scare the American people. Roll up your sleeves and do the hard work of governing."

The governor, a fierce opponent of the president's healthcare agenda, suggested tweaks to the Affordable Care Act would be a good starting point to meet the debt goal.

"Just delay the Medicaid expansions, delay the health care exchanges so they can work with states on waivers, on flexibility. You could save tens of billions of dollars there by - and you're not even cutting a program that's started yet. Just delay it for a few years," he said.

With few exceptions, the sequestration law makes across-the-board cuts to all government departments, with each individual program taking a hit of between 5 percent and 7 percent. But as written, it does not allow those departments to reallocate funding between individual programs.

For example the Federal Aviation Administration says it stands to furlough the bulk of its 47,000 employees, including large numbers of air traffic controllers. Yet the FAA would not be able to take money from another program and dump it into the one that manages those air traffic controllers to offset the slashed budget.

READ: Devastating sequester spending cuts? Give me a break!

That may not mean the resulting cuts aren't salvageable. Economist Doug Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, says that at the end of the day sound management could minimize the impact.

"Take defense for example. We're going to have to, at the present plan, furlough defense workers for roughly 22 days over the next six months roughly one day a week. You could do that by giving everybody Friday off, but Fridays would be a bad day for producing defense services. Or you could spread that out and have some people on Mondays, some on Tuesdays, some on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday," he told ABC News. "Manage the workflow to try to deliver what you need in terms of running the Pentagon and the effects would be a lot smaller.

Holtz-Eakin, who also advised Sen. John McCain during his 2008 presidential run, said the impacts would be "real" but may not be immediately recognizable for months.

"They're going to be slow," he said. "They're going to have the ability to manage the impacts and where possible states can pick up the slack."

ABC's David Kerley contributed to this report.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-previews-local-impacts-sequester-022731280--abc-news-politics.html

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Sony?s New NEX-3N Mirrorless Delivers A Big Sensor In A Tiny Body, Could Be The New King Of Beginner ILCs

Sony today unveiled a new NEX camera, the NEx-3N. The new body is the latest addition to the company's celebrated lineup of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, and it manages to be the smallest and lightest camera available in that category to also house an APS-C sensor. The 16.1 megapixel CMOS sensor is right on par with those found in full-sized entry-level DSLRs, and allows the camera to snap photos up to ISO 16000, which means it should be a fairly strong low-light performer.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/wNfkGSbUSvw/

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Conserative candidate wins Cyprus election

AAA??Feb. 24, 2013?12:28 PM ET
Conserative candidate wins Cyprus election
By MENELAOS HADJICOSTISBy MENELAOS HADJICOSTIS, Associated Press??

Opposition party leader and presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades votes with his grandson Andis, in the Presidential election in southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Faced with the specter of financial meltdown, Cypriots are choosing a new president with the conservative candidate favored to win over his left-wing rival in a runoff vote Sunday.(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Opposition party leader and presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades votes with his grandson Andis, in the Presidential election in southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Faced with the specter of financial meltdown, Cypriots are choosing a new president with the conservative candidate favored to win over his left-wing rival in a runoff vote Sunday.(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

A man votes in the presidential election in southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Opposition party leader Nicos Anastasiades garnered 45.46 per cent of the vote in the first round of voting, some 18 points over communist-backed Stavros Malas. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Left-wing presidential candidate Stavros Malas votes in the Presidential election in Nicosia, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Faced with the specter of financial meltdown, Cypriots are choosing a new president with the conservative candidate favored to win over his left-wing rival in a runoff vote Sunday. (AP Photo/Philippos Christou)

A replica of a ballot with two presidential candidates, right-wing opposition leader Nicos Anasatsiades, left, and left-wng Stavros Mallas is posted on a wall by a police officer, right, at a polling station in southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Opposition party leader Nicos Anastasiades garnered 45.46 per cent of the vote in the first round of voting, some 18 points over communist-backed Stavros Malas. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Right-wing opposition leader and presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades with his granddaughter Nikoletta leaves after voting in the presidential election in southern port city of Limassol, Cyprus, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2013. Anastasiades garnered 45.46 per cent of the vote in the first round of voting, some 18 points over communist-backed Stavros Malas. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) ? Final results show that conservative candidate Nicos Anastasiades has won Cyprus' presidential runoff election by one of the widest margins in 30 years.

According to the Interior Ministry's website, with all the votes counted, Anastasiades had won 57.48 percent of the ballots, far ahead of left-wing rival Stavros Malas, who had 42.51 percent of the vote.

Cypriots are choosing their leader at a critical time.

Their country faces the specter of financial meltdown, and the new president will be under pressure to quickly finalize a financial rescue package with the eurozone's other 16 countries and the International Monetary Fund.

Associated Press
People, Places and Companies: Cyprus

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-02-24-Cyprus-Presidential%20Election/id-8148732ed6884f488624b40553a86f26

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Sequestration affecting congressional hiring, Rep. Goodlatte says (Washington Post)

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New type of 'farming' yields renewable energy

There's a new way to farm at Mississippi State University, and the harvest yields renewable energy and teaches a new generation of students how to harness it for practical use.

MSU's energy farm consists of 24 solar panels and two wind turbines on top of the Simrall Electrical and Computer Engineering Building on the east side of campus. Under the leadership of Yong Fu, assistant professor in the electrical and computer engineering department, students have learned how to choose the appropriate equipment, figure out how it works and install, connect and operate it.

Two MSU graduate students, doctoral candidate Saher Albatran of Jordan and master's candidate Chiranjeevi Madvesh of India, have been part of the energy farm since it was conceptualized in early 2012. The farm is part of Fu's renewable energy integration course, which teaches students about harvesting, converting, operating, planning and marketing various renewable energy resources, including wind and solar energies.

The course allowed Albatran and Madvesh to become leaders in understanding the variable and sustainable attributes of renewable energy. Albatran headed the wind turbine project, while Madvesh spearheaded the solar panel initiative.

"We had to do all the mechanical-, civil-, electrical- and software-related work to make it successful," Madvesh said. "Today, we are feeding the energy back to the grid. The satisfaction we got by working on this project and the smiles on the faces of the team members are priceless."

Fu said students in his class explore how to connect wind and solar energies to a grid.

"If you show them the real-world application, that gives them understanding," he said. "The students enjoy it; sometimes I will teach my class in the lab. They work together to get the first-hand experience."

By choosing, installing and connecting the equipment, students get the chance not just to see the hardware work, but they also are able to ask relevant questions about application, Albatran said.

Overall, he said the experience has been very exciting work for him and has reinforced his leadership skills.

"I learned how to manage and how to divide the work among the students. Also, I learned how to make sure that all of them are ready to do the work, and if I did something alone, how to keep them in contact so they know all the details," Albatran said. "Otherwise, the work flow could go in an unexpected direction."

The mechanical and civil engineering work necessary to installing and connecting the renewable energies to the grid was a positive complement to the electrical engineering necessary to bring the project to fruition, Albatran and Madvesh agreed.

In addition to students researching, installing and connecting the solar panels and wind turbines, they are also collecting data, including energy generated and phase voltages and currents, Madvesh said.

"Students even worked on data analysis and were able to find out things which can really help to improve the present capacity of power delivery," he said.

Learning about renewable energies is one thing, Fu said, but actually implementing them is fostering the kind of learning that will benefit students in their careers.

"On the whole, the project was absolutely amazing, definitely one of my best experiences. It's a good achievement in a very short duration of time," Madvesh said. "I thank Dr. Fu and the department of electrical and computer engineering for giving me this opportunity."

MSU's energy farm is supported by the state Department of Energy Smart Grid Education and Workforce Training Project.

Source: http://www.msstate.edu/web/media/detail.php?id=5908

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