Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Victoria & David Beckham Celebrate 14 Years of Marriage!

When David Beckham and Victoria Adams met in 1997, he was a young British soccer player, while she promoted girl power as one of the Spice Girls. The press and public quickly fell in love with the dashing duo, giving them the nickname "Posh & Becks."

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/photos-victoria-david-beckham-through-years/1-a-540574?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Aphotos-victoria-david-beckham-through-years-540574

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How to configure Feedly or another RSS service with Reeder for iPhone

How to configure Feedly or another RSS service with Reeder for iPhone and iPad

If you're a huge Reeder fan, you're in luck as it's just been updated with support for several new RSS services since Google Reader is now no longer accessible except to export your feeds.

Once you've exported your feeds to Feedly or another RSS service of your choice, you're ready to set up a new RSS service inside Reeder. Here's how:

Note, you'll have to export your feeds from Google Reader and into one of the newer RSS services before configuring it with Reeder. If you haven't done this already, make sure you check out our guide on how to export your Google Reader feeds first.

Once you've got that done, go ahead and continue on to get them set up within Reeder.

  1. Launch Reeder from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
  2. Tap on the Settings icon in the upper left hand corner.
  3. Now tap on Add Account... under the Accounts section.
  4. You'll have the choice to use either Feedly, Feedbin, Feed Wrangler, or Fever. Tap on the one you're now using.
  5. Now you'll be asked to sign in and verify that you'd like to give Reeder permission to access your feeds. Go ahead and accept.
  6. Once your feeds are set up in Reeder from the new service you can go back and tweak settings such as how many articles to sync, image caching, etc.. just as you did before with Google Reader.

That's all there is to it. Reeder will now use your new RSS service of choice in order to sync your RSS feeds. Let us know what you're using and how you like it in the comments.

    


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/046IUWjNjQ4/story01.htm

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Tuesday, July 2, 2013

South Africa's Mandela still 'critical but stable'

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Ailing anti-apartheid leader and former South African President Nelson Mandela remained in hospital on Monday in a "critical but stable" condition, the government said.

Mandela has been in a Pretoria hospital for more than three weeks receiving treatment for a recurring lung infection, his fourth hospitalization in six months.

The faltering health of the 94-year-old, a figure admired globally as a symbol of struggle against injustice and racism, has reinforced a realization that the father of the post-apartheid South Africa will not be around forever.

While he lies in hospital, many South Africans are looking ahead to his 95th birthday on July 18.

"We must all be able to do something good for humanity on this day in tribute to our former President," President Jacob Zuma said in a statement.

Mandela's health also dominated a two-day visit to South Africa by U.S. President Barack Obama over the weekend.

Obama met the Mandela family on Saturday, offering words of comfort and praising the retired statesman as one of history's greatest figures.

(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda; Editing by Ed Cropley)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/mandela-still-critical-stable-south-african-government-153546077.html

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Cloud behavior expands habitable zone of alien planets

July 1, 2013 ? A new study that calculates the influence of cloud behavior on climate doubles the number of potentially habitable planets orbiting red dwarfs, the most common type of stars in the universe. This finding means that in the Milky Way galaxy alone, 60 billion planets may be orbiting red dwarf stars in the habitable zone.

Researchers at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University based their study, which appears in Astrophysical Journal Letters, on rigorous computer simulations of cloud behavior on alien planets. This cloud behavior dramatically expanded the habitable zone of red dwarfs, which are much smaller and fainter than stars like the sun.

Current data from NASA's Kepler Mission, a space observatory searching for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, suggest there is approximately one Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of each red dwarf. The UChicago-Northwestern study now doubles that number.

"Most of the planets in the Milky Way orbit red dwarfs," said Nicolas Cowan, a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern's Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics. "A thermostat that makes such planets more clement means we don't have to look as far to find a habitable planet."

Cowan is one of three co-authors of the study, as are UChicago's Dorian Abbot and Jun Yang. The trio also provide astronomers with a means of verifying their conclusions with the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2018.

The formula for calculating the habitable zone of alien planets -- where they can orbit their star while still maintaining liquid water at their surface -- has remained much the same for decades. But the formula largely neglects clouds, which exert a major climatic influence.

"Clouds cause warming, and they cause cooling on Earth," said Abbot, an assistant professor in geophysical sciences at UChicago. "They reflect sunlight to cool things off, and they absorb infrared radiation from the surface to make a greenhouse effect. That's part of what keeps the planet warm enough to sustain life."

A planet orbiting a star like the sun would have to complete an orbit approximately once a year to be far enough away to maintain water on its surface. "If you're orbiting around a low mass or dwarf star, you have to orbit about once a month, once every two months to receive the same amount of sunlight that we receive from the sun," Cowan said.

Tightly orbiting planets

Planets in such a tight orbit would eventually become tidally locked with their sun. They would always keep the same side facing the sun, like the moon does toward Earth. Calculations of the UChicago-Northwestern team indicate that the star-facing side of the planet would experience vigorous convection and highly reflective clouds at a point that astronomers call the sub-stellar region. At that location the sun always sits directly overhead, at high noon.

The team's three-dimensional global calculations determined for the first time the effect of water clouds on the inner edge of the habitable zone. The simulations are similar to the global climate simulations that scientists use to predict Earth climate. These required several months of processing, running mostly on a cluster of 216 networked computers at UChicago. Previous attempts to simulate the inner edge of exoplanet habitable zones were one-dimensional. They mostly neglected clouds, focusing instead on charting how temperature decreases with altitude.

"There's no way you can do clouds properly in one-dimension," Cowan said. "But in a three-dimensional model, you're actually simulating the way air moves and the way moisture moves through the entire atmosphere of the planet."

These new simulations show that if there is any surface water on the planet, water clouds result. The simulations further show that cloud behavior has a significant cooling effect on the inner portion of the habitable zone, enabling planets to sustain water on their surfaces much closer to their sun.

Astronomers observing with the James Webb Telescope will be able to test the validity of these findings by measuring the temperature of the planet at different points in its orbit. If a tidally locked exoplanet lacks significant cloud cover, astronomers will measure the highest temperatures when the dayside of the exoplanet is facing the telescope, which occurs when the planet is on the far side of its star. Once the planet comes back around to show its dark side to the telescope, temperatures would reach their lowest point.

But if highly reflective clouds dominate the dayside of the exoplanet, they will block a lot of infrared radiation from the surface, said Yang, a postdoctoral scientist in geophysical sciences at UChicago. In that situation "you would measure the coldest temperatures when the planet is on the opposite side, and you would measure the warmest temperatures when you are looking at the night side, because there you are actually looking at the surface rather than these high clouds," Yang said.

Earth-observing satellites have documented this effect. "If you look at Brazil or Indonesia with an infrared telescope from space, it can look cold, and that's because you're seeing the cloud deck," Cowan said. "The cloud deck is at high altitude, and it's extremely cold up there."

If the James Webb Telescope detects this signal from an exoplanet, Abbot noted, "it's almost definitely from clouds, and it's a confirmation that you do have surface liquid water."

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/nasa/~3/g9tQ0dZnz1k/130701135131.htm

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World shares rise, Europe dips on mixed growth outlook

By Richard Hubbard

LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar edged higher against the yen and a rally in Tokyo stocks lifted world shares on Tuesday on signs of modest expansion in the United States and Japan, though the overall economic picture was mixed.

Japan's Nikkei index hit its highest level in nearly five weeks, driving gains in Asia, while Europeans share shed some of their recent gains in early trade, dipping 0.1 percent.

Monday's U.S., UK and Japanese surveys of manufacturing activity were upbeat, while Europe looked to be stabilising. China and other big emerging markets, however, were showing signs of slowing.

Investors were also cautious ahead of Friday's U.S. payrolls report, seen as key to determining when the Federal Reserve will scale back the huge stimulus programme that has underpinned demand for riskier assets.

"I think we can see a tentatively positive day, but we're certainly not running away with ourselves as so much is dependent on the U.S. employment picture," said Simon Smith, chief economist at FXPro.

The dollar edged back towards a four-week high against its Japanese counterpart at 99.78 yen though against a basket of major currencies it was little changed.

The Australian dollar stood out, weakening sharply after the nation's central bank kept its cash rate at a record low of 2.75 percent and reiterated that there could be room for further cuts.

In mixed fixed income markets, Spanish and Italian debt yields fell while Portuguese ones rose after the country's finance minister resigned.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-shares-rise-europe-dips-mixed-growth-outlook-080033227.html

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PFT: Branch shocked by 'friend' Hernandez's plight

HernandezAP

As the nonstop developments in the Aaron Hernandez murder case(s) begin to subside, it?s time to broaden the lens and address a topic that has popped up from time to time over the past two weeks.

Should the Patriots have avoided drafting Hernandez in 2010 and/or giving him a long-term, big-money contract in 2012?

Many are suggesting that the Pats screwed the proverbial pooch on this one, that they negligently brought a potential murderer to Massachusetts and, two years later, made him a multi-multi-millionaire.? But there are multi-problems with that logic.

For starters, there really was no indication that Hernandez was anything other than a kid who:? (1) liked to smoke marijuana; and (2) periodically made mischief.? As the folks at CFT pointed out on Saturday, Hernandez was indeed questioned in connection with a shooting nearly six years ago in Gainesville.? But it was perfunctory and brief.? Other Gators were questioned at the time, including safety Reggie Nelson and the Pouncey twins.

The only true red flag that attached to Hernandez from his college days came from an affinity for inhaling the fumes of a plant that, if anything, make the user less likely to commit violence or do anything other than sit around and eat Fritos.? And if there?s a link between smoking pot and murder, there would be a lot more murders.

Whatever was wrong with Hernandez, he supposedly had been rehabilitated by former Florida coach Urban Meyer, who according to the New York Times personally conducted ?daily Bible sessions? with Hernandez in order to turn him around.? Meyer presumably vouched for Hernandez to Patriots coach Bill Belichick.? Given the strong friendship between Belichick and Meyer that likely went a long way to persuading Belichick that Hernandez?s talents justified the risk.

Of course, some are now painting the picture that Hernandez entered the NFL with a pair of six-guns strapped to his side and ink on his arms that not-so-cryptically spelled out plans for his future crime sprees.? But where we these ?sources? with knowledge of supposed gang ties and other actual or perceived misdeeds or antisocial tendencies when Hernandez emerged as a fourth-round star in his second NFL season?

That would have been the obvious time for scouts, General Managers, and coaches to cover their collective asses by leaking the notion that, even though Hernandez was playing at a very high level, they avoided Hernandez in rounds one through three because he had more problems than marijuana.? But there was nothing ? not until after Hernandez was tied to a murder case and scouts and sources and some in the media all began to join in a hands-across-Whoville chorus of I told you so.

Even if Hernandez?s antics had generated real warning signs beyond marijuana, it?s impossible to connect dots from off-field misbehavior to premeditated murder.? It?s far more reasonable (or, as the case may be, far less reckless) to connect a substance-abuse problem (drugs or alcohol) to the potential for accidental death or dismemberment while driving a car.

Murderers come from all walks of life, with no way to prospectively screen for them ? unless they?ve actually killed in the past.? For every Aaron Hernandez there?s a Jovan Belcher, who generated no objective evidence to suggest that he would get into serious trouble before he repeatedly shot the mother of his young child and then killed himself in the presence of his coach and G.M.? Ditto for Rae Carruth, who orchestrated the murder of the mother of his unborn son because Carruth apparently didn?t want to pay child support.? The Chiefs and the Panthers saw neither problem coming, because there?s rarely any reason to suspect someone of having the capacity to deliberately kill someone else, regardless of the person?s history.

For the best proof of this, look no farther than O.J. Simpson.? Revered as a player, beloved as a broadcaster, and celebrated as an actor, he would have been the last man anyone would have regarded as the potential murderer of his ex-wife and a stranger who was in the worst possible place at the worst possible time.? (Simpson was acquitted in criminal court, but found legally responsible in civil court for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.)

On one hand, this is an extreme example of how the Modified Patriot Way of buying low ? via trades, free agency, and the draft ? can go very wrong.? On the other hand, the only way to avoid blame for harboring a potential murderer is to shun any player who has generated at any time any reason to believe that he could do anything wrong as an NFL player.

Even then, there?s still a chance that a player with no red flags will be the next Jovan Belcher, Rae Carruth, or O.J. Simpson.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/30/branch-calls-hernandez-a-friend-finds-allegations-shocking/related/

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Monday, July 1, 2013

Combo Crew (for Android)


Combo Crew, the latest Android title from developer The Game Bakers, aims to eliminate one of the problems inherent to mobile action games: poor touch screen controls. Instead of requiring gamers to continuously jam their digits onto a glass screen, Combo Crew maps punches, kicks, and super moves to swipes?a far superior way to interact with a touchscreen interface. While it's easy to unleash moves in this arena-style 2D brawler, design elements intended to streamline the controls remove the challenge and the need for move set mastery.

Welcome to the Jungle
Combo Crew opens with a generic backstory that plays out as a pseudo-parody of games of this type: Mr. Boss invites Gina (a Hair-Fu practitioner), Dolph (an action movie star), and Parker (a video game junkie) to his Boss Tower for dinner?but it's a trap! The baddie simply wants to challenge and defeat the best fighters in order to stroke his ego.

Although Combo Crew introduces you to three cutesy protagonists, only Gina and Parker are available for fisticuffs duty right away; you unlock Dolph after you've fought a few matches and earned 20 in-game credits (that's right, in-game currency?no cash needed). A fourth character, Sammo, is also a 20-credit buy.

Each brawler starts with four attacks?a mix of regular blows, guard breakers, and crow ground attacks. New moves are unlocked as you complete chapters, while other moves are unlocked after successfully completing missions in Combo Crew mode (a series of fight-based challenges). Once new moves are acquired, you can use them to replace the old ones if you'd like, but you can only carry four attacks at a time. Spending credits in the Shop lets you purchase Boosts (temporary power-ups such as a health-replenishing burger) or Perks (permanent character improvements such as a greater damage output).

Fight Club
Swipe-based inputs are how you unleash your fury onto Mr. Boss' foot soldiers. Swiping up, down, left, or right executes basic attacks, but there are advanced methods, too. Tapping the screen, holding, and then swiping toward an enemy delivers a guard breaker that crumbles a block defense. Swiping with two fingers uncorks impressive auto-combos that string multiple hits together without any further input. When your super-meter is full, tapping the super-attack icon lets you bust out a flurry of hard-hitting moves. There's a surprisingly amount of depth to the combat system: you can even do air juggles and knockdown attacks. Your combos are tallied as you land blows, and the music gets remixed on the fly as the total grows.

The simplified combat works well and the hits are quite satisfying, but there are some associated tradeoffs. You don't actually move your opponent; swiping causes your character to dash toward a foe and attack. You can't rely on positioning to set up attacks/dodges as you can with classic beat 'em ups like Double Dragon or River City Ransom. If you want to avoid an attack, you must swipe attack when an exclamation point appears over an enemy's head to perform a counter. The streamlined controls also result in button-mashing as a viable combat scheme, which removes the challenge.

Combo Crew is a solo experience, but there is an unusual (and creative) asynchronous co-op element. Suppose a bad guy gives you the business and whittles your health down to zero. Instead enduring a game over, you can ask a Combo Crew-playing friend to remotely take over your game. Your buddy has the opportunity to finish up your mess, and if s/he beats the round, your friend's score is converted into health for your character. When your fighter's health gauge is filled, any remaining points are added to your score.

Knuckle Up
Combo Crew is an entertaining diversion that should scratch genre fans' beat 'em up itch. It's cute, colorful, and had a surprisingly deep combat system. Still, you don't necessarily need to learn it; button-mashing can get the job done, too. What makes Combo Crew work, the simple control scheme, also works against it. Still, those who want to punch a few grunts in the face will find a lot to like.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/ctQKZOPkw8o/0,2817,2421192,00.asp

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