Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/288599305?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Sunday, March 3, 2013
Dennis Rodman: NKorea leader wants Obama to call
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and U.S. players in an exhibition basketball game at an arena in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Rodman arrived in Pyongyang on Monday with three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team to shoot an episode on North Korea for a new weekly HBO series. (AP Photo/VICE Media, Jason Mojica)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and former NBA star Dennis Rodman watch North Korean and U.S. players in an exhibition basketball game at an arena in Pyongyang, North Korea, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013. Rodman arrived in Pyongyang on Monday with three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team to shoot an episode on North Korea for a new weekly HBO series. (AP Photo/VICE Media, Jason Mojica)
In this image released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed by the Korea News Service, former NBA star Dennis Rodman, third right, visits the Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang in North Korea Friday, March 1 2013. Ending his unexpected round of basketball diplomacy in North Korea on Friday, ex-NBA star Rodman called leader Kim Jong Un an "awesome guy" and said his father and grandfather were "great leaders." (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS)
In this image released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and distributed by the Korea News Service, former NBA star Dennis Rodman, second right in front row, visits a dolphin aquarium in Pyongyang in North Korea Friday, March 1, 2013. Ending his unexpected round of basketball diplomacy in North Korea on Friday, Rodman called leader Kim Jong Un an "awesome guy" and said his father and grandfather were "great leaders." (AP Photo/KCNA via KNS) JAPAN OUT UNTIL 14 DAYS AFTER THE DAY OF TRANSMISSION
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Call me? Maybe?
North Korea's young leader has riled the U.S. with recent nuclear tests, but Kim Jong Un doesn't really want war with the superpower, just a call from President Barack Obama to chat about their shared love of basketball, according to ersatz diplomat Dennis Rodman, the ex-NBA star just back from an improbable visit to the reclusive communist country.
"He loves basketball. ... I said Obama loves basketball. Let's start there" as a way to warm up relations between U.S. and North Korea, Rodman told ABC's "This Week."
"He asked me to give Obama something to say and do one thing. He wants Obama to do one thing, call him," said Rodman, who called the authoritarian leader an "awesome guy" during his trip. The State Department criticized North Korea last week for "wining and dining' Rodman while its own people go hungry.
Rodman also said Kim told him, "I don't want to do war. I don't want to do war."
Yet in January, after the U.N. Security Council voted to condemn the North's successful rocket launch in December and expand penalties against Kim's government, his National Defense Commission said in a statement that "settling accounts with the U.S. needs to be done with force, not with words." The statement also promised "a new phase of the anti-U.S. struggle that has lasted century after century."
North Korea and the U.S. fought on opposite sides of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953. The foes technically remain at war. They never signed a peace treaty and do not have diplomatic relations.
Rodman was the highest-profile American to meet Kim since Kim inherited power from father Kim Jong Il in 2011. He traveled to the secretive state with the Harlem Globetrotters team for a new HBO series produced by New York-based VICE television.
The visit took place amid rising tensions between the countries.
North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test two weeks ago, making clear the provocative act was a warning to the United States to drop what it considers a "hostile" policy toward the North.
Rodman said he was aware of North Korea's human rights record, which the State Department has characterized as one of the worst in the world, but said he wasn't apologizing for Kim.
"He's a good guy to me," Rodman said, adding, that "as a person to person, he's my friend. I don't condone what he does."
Basketball is popular in North Korea, and Thursday's exhibition game with two Americans playing on each team alongside North Koreans ended in a 110-110 tie. Following the game Kim threw an "epic feast" for the group, plying them with food and drinks and making round after round of toasts.
Rodman's trip was the second attention-grabbing American visit this year to North Korea. Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a four-day trip in January, but did not meet Kim.
Rodman said he planned to go back to North Korea to "find out more what's really going on."
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Saturday, March 2, 2013
New Study Links BPA and Childhood Asthma
One out of every ten U.S. children has been diagnosed with asthma. Image: Flickr/JasonUnbound
Kids exposed to a commonplace chemical early in life are more likely to have asthma, according to a study published today.
The study, which tested 568 children and their mothers in New York City, is the first to link early childhood exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) with asthma. Studies with lab mice, however, have found a similar link.
A Columbia University research team reported that children with higher levels of BPA at ages 3, 5 and 7 had increased odds of developing the respiratory disease when they were between 5 and 12. The children studied had roughly the same concentrations of BPA as the average for U.S. kids.
?We saw increased risk of asthma at fairly routine, low doses of BPA,? said Dr. Kathleen Donohue, an instructor in clinical medicine at Columbia University Medical Center and lead author of the study, which was published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology today.
BPA is used to make polycarbonate plastics and is found in some canned foods and beverages, paper receipts and dental sealants. More than 90 percent of Americans have traces in their bodies.
Medical experts for decades have been trying to figure out what has caused asthma rates to skyrocket in children throughout much of the world, beginning in the 1980s. Many suspect that it might have something to do with early-life exposures and changes in immune systems causing inflammation.
One out of every 10 U.S. children has been diagnosed with asthma, and the rate is even higher for black children ? one out of every six, according to 2011 data from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.
The study doesn?t mean BPA causes asthma or wheezing. But ?it?s an important study because we don?t know a lot right now about how BPA affects immune response and asthma,? said Kim Harley, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies environmental chemicals and children?s health but did not participate in the new research.
?They measured BPA at different ages, measured asthma and wheeze at multiple points, and still found consistent associations,? she said.
The researchers measured BPA in the women?s urine toward the end of their pregnancies. Once born, their children were then tested for BPA at ages 3, 5 and 7. Then they were tested for asthma and wheezing between the ages of 5 and 12.
Even though the researchers took BPA measurements at multiple times, it?s tricky to pin down exposure levels.
?BPA has a short half life, so whatever we take in today will be gone in about 24 hours,? said Joe Braun, an epidemiology professor at Brown University who was not involved with the research.
Braun said the testing was ?as good as we?re going to get for this type of study.? Still, he said, "we?re still not accurately capturing exposure."
Chemical industry representatives assert that there is no clear evidence of any human health effects from BPA exposure.
?The increasing rate of asthma among children is an important public health issue, but there is no scientific consensus on what is causing the increase and this study adds little relevant information to the debate," Steven Hentges, a representative at the American Chemistry Council, said in a prepared statement.
?Because of the limited study design based on single samples to monitor exposure, it is difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions from this report," he said.
Sixty-five percent of the mothers were Dominican ? the rest were black women ? and mostly low income. This group of women and children has been studied for more than a decade by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children?s Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health. They?ve been tested for a variety of potential effects related to consumer chemicals, air pollutants and pesticides.
Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=835df998fd55b9047ac9ac5de12d4498
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The Daily Roundup for 03.01.2013
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/8cCGivUIRyU/
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Internet Post Deletion Business in China ? Global Voices
Caixin Magazine[zh] reported about the Internet post deletion business in China: ?It costs thousands to delete a negative news article, hundreds of thousands in professional fees to get a key word blocked.?? feichengdao has translated some excerpts from the report into English.
Source: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/03/01/internet-post-deletion-business-in-china/
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South Dakota faces federal cuts, furloughs
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota could lose at least $10 million in federal funding from automatic spending cuts set to take effect Friday, but Gov. Dennis Daugaard said he is most worried about what will happen in programs that educate struggling students and help low-income people heat their homes and put food on the table.
Daugaard said state officials Wednesday were still trying to understand exactly what would be cut from federal funds handled by the state and how those cuts would be applied. He said he was asking state agencies to provide more details on the cuts.
"I don't know that it'll be a dramatic impact. We're trying to understand that right now. We're trying to evaluate that right now," Daugaard said.
If President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders don't reach agreement on another way to reduce the federal debt by Friday, $85 billion in automatic, across-the-board cuts will take effect.
The Republican governor said he's upset that the president has insisted that the federal spending cuts be applied across the board, rather than letting federal agencies focus the cuts in programs that have little impact on people's daily lives.
For example, some of the cuts will hit grant programs that help cities build water lines and other projects. Those cities will not be forced to lay off anyone, but will only have to scale back pipelines, Daugaard said.
"That's an easier area to cut than, say, somebody who's counting on it to pay their heating bills or pay their food bills," Daugaard said.
Daugaard said school districts will lose money for special education and programs that help struggling students, such as one that provides teachers to help students who have trouble reading. Cuts also are slated for a program that helps low-income people pay winter heating bills and the nutrition program for low-income women with small children.
Jason Dilges, the governor's budget director, said the cuts could bring furloughs for state employees paid with federal money. The governor and the Legislature could decide to use state money to replace lost federal funds, he said.
"We'll have to look at the citizens of South Dakota and their well-being because these are going to affect us relatively quickly, Dilges said.
The timing of the federal cuts also complicates the process of approving a state budget for the year that begins July 1. The Legislature plans to pass that budget by the end of next week, the end of the main run of South Dakota's legislative session.
Dilges said he plans to propose only minor changes in the $4.1 billion state budget Daugaard proposed in early December, but the federal spending cuts could affect state revenue and spending. If prolonged spending cuts hurt the economy, state tax collections could suffer, he said.
Wade Pogany, director of the Associated School Boards of South Dakota, said school districts across the state likely will lose between $2 million and $3.5 million in federal funding for special education and programs that help disadvantaged students. As the Legislature prepares to pass a state budget, schools are asking that lawmakers provide extra money to help schools recover from state budget cuts made two years ago, he said.
"It couldn't come at a worse time for schools, given their financial situation right now," Pogany said of the federal cuts.
The South Dakota National Guard also has said the federal budget cuts would likely force it to furlough 548 full-time personnel for 22 days over the next five months. More than half the National Guard's 918 full-time employees would lose one day's work and pay each week for 22 weeks starting in late April. They would lose more than $4.2 million in wages, officials said.
Daugaard said a group that all states use to analyze federal spending has estimated South Dakota will lose $14 million in federal spending from March through September, but the state budget office estimates the loss at only $10 million. The state expects to lose nearly $5.7 million in federal money from March through June 30, the end of the state's budget year, and another $4.3 million from July through September, the end of the federal budget year, he said.
The governor said he expects the cuts to take place Friday, but the president and Congress might be forced to make a budget deal later to replace the automatic cuts. For example, if a budget resolution doesn't pass Congress by April 15, members of Congress won't get paid, he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-dakota-faces-federal-cuts-155558739.html
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Friday, March 1, 2013
The true cost of free-to-play
The App Store has become dominated by free-to-play, aka fremium, games. I started discussing this with some smart people on Twitter earlier today, but wanted to expand on it here, because I think it's important. What we don't acknowledge we can't change, and it feels like the current direction of iOS gaming needs to change. While some of the free-to-play games are brilliantly balanced and realized, providing value for both the makers and the players, most are not. Most suck. And a lot of that is our fault.
Some of it is Apple's fault too. iOS has an interesting history when it comes to apps when it comes to apps. When the iOS App Store launched in 2008, there were no trails or demos and no easy way to get refunds. There were, however, games like Super Monkey Ball, which cost $10 to buy. For a while that price-point held but, over time, we -- the collective we -- said we weren't willing to pay that much (at least not enough of us were willing to pay that much).
Some developers reacted by racing to the bottom in an effort to rise to the top of the best seller lists, held launch-day sales or cut their prices at some point after launch. It's a common retail strategy because, in many cases, it works. It also trains a segment of the customer base -- us -- not to buy apps at full price but to wait for sales.
To help developers make more money, Apple proffered in-app purchases (IAPs). At first, free apps had to stay free, so if games wanted to use IAPs, they had to charge at least $1 up front. That restriction was later lifted, and free-as-in-IAP was born. The hope seems to have been that ads could be removed or additional levels could be purchased, helping game makers make money.
Yet once again, "we" told game makers we wouldn't pay to remove ads or to buy extra levels. We were fine with ads, and okay with limited levels.
Independent developers need to make money to feed their children. Large gaming houses need to make money to keep making big budget games.
So given the rules of the App Store imposed by Apple, and the loud-and-clear message we've given them as customers, game makers have turned to free-to-play, or freemium models.
Most of us won't pay $1 for a great game, but will pay $99 in IAPs to have a better looking hut or farm or business or whatever than our friends and fellow gamers.
Most of us won't pay $1 for a great game, but will pay $99 in IAPs to get back to racing or fighting or crushing candy or whatever faster than our patience would otherwise allow.
Ego and impatience, not ads or levels, are what most often monetize games on the App Store.
Developers certainly aren't blameless either. Again, some do a great, customer-friendly job. Others, however, are as manipulative and exploitive as the worst of casinos. They employ behavioral analytics and conduct the equivalent of psychological warfare to try and extract every penny they can, for as long as they can, from gamers. We reward them with Top Grossing status and so much business that more and more of them sprout up every week.
They build and tune games to be addictive in the most financially draining sense of the word, like the coin-ops of old. The only difference is, you couldn't stuff more quarters into an arcade cabinet to get further, faster, and better impress the people looking over your shoulder.
You can on the App Store.
And because free-to-play, or freemium, is proving so much more lucrative than the simple, one-time, up-front payment system of the early days of the App Store, even established gaming franchises, unable to make money any other way, are switching to it, and sometimes to the less savory versions of it.
In this regard, Apple is failing in their stewardship of the App Store, and allowing the value of their platform to falter. Not the overall value -- they're still making more money than ever. But the value to well-intentioned developers and customers. And there, as I've said before, lies the path to ET cartridges being buried in the desert. Introducing real trial or demo modes, paid upgrades, and/or easy refunds -- things that exist on other platforms -- could go a long way towards influencing the App Store gaming economy away from the worst elements of free-to-play. Banning "games" with worthless IAPs, "games" akin to casinos if the player could never, ever win, would also help.
Most of all, we need to stop feeding the IAP machine, and stop rewarding that business model with our money. We need to pay for good games, for premium games. Instead of bitching that "it should be free" or "$1 is too much", we should reward great games and stand up developers with good money, because that's the only way to get more of both.
Sadly, that's unlikely to happen.
Apple created the system. Developers have learned to game it.
And we -- the collective we -- have told them we're just fine with that. We prefer it.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/9yFFRssQO_U/story01.htm
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Josh Duhamel Has ?Full Conversations? with His Unborn Child
"I've had full conversations with the baby already," Duhamel told PEOPLE at Tuesday. "I'm trying my best to communicate from beyond the womb. Whether it can hear me, I don't know, but I'm talking to it a lot."
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/RYW8L0MayBA/
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