Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/305530675?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
Car bomb kills three outside hospital in Libya's Benghazi
BENGHAZI (Reuters) - A car bomb killed at least three people outside a hospital in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on Monday, witnesses said, in a further sign of the violent disorder plaguing the country since the 2011 revolution that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.
Only one of the dead was carried into the hospital intact, a doctor told Reuters, which made it difficult to immediately establish the number of people killed. Another doctor said three deaths were confirmed including a child, along with 17 injuries.
"I saw people running and some of them were collecting parts of bodies," said a witness, who declined to be identified.
Hundreds of angry people gathered at the scene, blaming armed groups for the explosion and calling for them to be driven from Benghazi, which was the cradle of the uprising that ended Gaddafi's 42 years of iron rule.
"This is the flesh of our sons, this is what the militias have given us," said another witness at the scene. "All we need here are the police and the army." The post-Gaddafi transitional government exerts scant authority over much of the country.
The blast damaged a dozen or more vehicles and shattered the windows of buildings nearby, send aloft a thick cloud of smoke and flinging dust several blocks away.
(Reporting by Feras Bosalum; additional reporting by Ghaith Shennib; Writing by Jessica Donati; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/car-bomb-explodes-outside-hospital-libyas-benghazi-130904834.html
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'Brave' princess makeover sparks controversy
Movies 
2 hours ago
A Mighty Girl
New Merida alongside original Merida, from "Brave." Photo from AMightyGirl.com blog.
Brenda Chapman, director of "Brave" prior to being replaced during production, doesn't like how Disney has redesigned the film's main character Merida to better fit its line of princesses.
"I think it's atrocious what they have done to Merida," she wrote to her local newspaper, the Marin Independent Journal. "When little girls say they like it because it's more sparkly, that's all fine and good but, subconsciously, they are soaking in the sexy 'come hither' look and the skinny aspect of the new version. It's horrible!"
FILM REVIEW: "Brave"
"Merida was created to break that mold -- to give young girls a better, stronger role model, a more attainable role model, something of substance, not just a pretty face that waits around for romance," Chapman explained.
The new look of Merida has been criticized since being announced as being the 11th princess to join Disney's character line. The character, seen here, eliminates the bow and arrow wielded Merida in the film and makes alterations to the dress. One Jezebel writer noted that the heroine was given a "pretty pretty princess makeover."
A Change.org letter addressed to Disney's chairman and CEO Robert A. Iger, stated: "The redesign of Merida in advance of her official induction to the Disney Princess collection does a tremendous disservice to the millions of children for whom Merida is an empowering role model who speaks to girls' capacity to be change agents in the world rather than just trophies to be admired."
STORY: Pixar's braintrust on the making of "Brave" and the studio's first princess
The petition attached to the letter has been signed by more than 100,000 individuals.
Disney responded to the criticism in a statement to Yahoo! Shine: "Merida exemplifies what it means to be a Disney Princess through being brave, passionate, and confident and she remains the same strong and determined Merida from the movie whose inner qualities have inspired moms and daughters around the world."
Chapman, who ended up sharing the 2013 Oscar for Best Animated Feature onstage for the film, was replaced by Mark Andrews as director of "Brave" midway through production of the film.
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Sunday, May 12, 2013
GOP ready to push Benghazi case into 2014, beyond
FILE - This June 7, 2012 file photo shows U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice listening during a news conference at the UN. Senior State Department officials pressed for changes in the talking points that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used after the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya last September, expressing concerns that Congress might criticize the Obama administration for ignoring warnings of a growing threat in Benghazi. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
FILE - This June 7, 2012 file photo shows U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice listening during a news conference at the UN. Senior State Department officials pressed for changes in the talking points that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used after the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya last September, expressing concerns that Congress might criticize the Obama administration for ignoring warnings of a growing threat in Benghazi. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
FILE - In this Sept. 14, 2012 file photo, Libyan military guards check one of the U.S. Consulate's burnt out buildings during a visit by Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif, not shown, to the U.S. Consulate to express sympathy for the death of the American ambassador, Chris Stevens and his colleagues in the deadly attack on the Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Senior State Department officials pressed for changes in the talking points that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used after the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya last September, expressing concerns that Congress might criticize the Obama administration for ignoring warnings of a growing threat in Benghazi. (AP Photo/Mohammad Hannon)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Steady drips of information about a horrific night in Libya are fueling Republican arguments and ads designed to fire up the conservative base and undercut the Democrats' early favorite for president in 2016.
Democratic and Republican strategists sharply disagree on the issue's power to influence elections next year and beyond. But after eight months of trying, Democrats are still struggling to move past last September's terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, which killed ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Democrats insist that an independent inquiry, the dismissal of several State Department officials, and nine congressional hearings leave little new to say on the matter. But Friday turned up the sort of nuggets that feed conservative activists' belief that a major scandal may still be at hand.
Newly revealed communications show that senior State Department officials pressed for changes in the talking points that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice used a few days after the Benghazi attacks. These senior officials expressed concerns that Congress might criticize the Obama administration for ignoring warnings of a growing threat in Libya.
The White House has insisted that it made only stylistic changes to the intelligence agency talking points, in which Rice suggested that spontaneous protests over an anti-Islamic video set off the deadly attack. The new details suggest a greater degree of political sensitivity and involvement by the White House and State Department.
Rice and others eventually acknowledged that the Benghazi assault on Sept. 11, 2012, was a premeditated terrorist attack. Republicans say her Sept. 16 televised remarks were just the start of administration efforts to mislead Americans about what happened in Libya.
The Benghazi violence was heavily politicized from the start, occurring less than two months before President Barack Obama's re-election. Moreover, the secretary of state at the time was Hillary Rodham Clinton. The former senator and first lady infuriates many conservatives and ranks high in speculation about the Democrats' 2016 presidential nominee.
Friday brought another round of conservative broadsides against Clinton, Obama and the administration's handling of the Benghazi matter. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a possible Republican presidential contender, wrote an opinion piece in The Washington Times restating his view that Obama should have fired Clinton.
Campaigning later in Iowa, Paul said he thinks the Benghazi affair "precludes Hillary Clinton from ever holding office."
The conservative group American Crossroads released a 90-second video asking if Clinton was "part of a cover-up." The video, like emails and letters from several other groups, asked for political donations.
The Benghazi tragedy hands Republicans a host of political opportunities, although none without complications. It may be difficult for average voters to sift through the chronology, assess blame, or even follow the logic of GOP arguments.
For instance, claims that Clinton and others ignored calls for greater diplomatic security in Libya might be linked to the four American deaths. But accusations about the post-attack talking points ? which sometimes seem to dominate the current debate ? have nothing to do with possibly preventing the deaths, thus robbing them of that moral heft.
Democrats note that a major independent inquiry into Benghazi, issued in December, found that the State Department badly mishandled security needs in Libya. But it blamed officials no higher than the assistant secretary of state level.
Republican strategist Kyle Downey said Benghazi already exposes a trove of Democratic vulnerabilities, which might grow as inquiries continue. He said Republicans should use the findings to challenge the competence, truthfulness and judgment of Clinton, Obama and other administration officials. Republicans, Downey said, should let the politics play out in terms of which charges gain the most traction.
Some strategists say the Benghazi narrative may prove more valuable for congressional Republicans in next year's elections than in 2016, which is far off. House Republicans, in particular, can seize on Benghazi to motivate their base and donors, and to fend off possible primary challenges from the right.
Democrats say Republicans are nakedly exploiting the Benghazi deaths, and voters won't like it.
"Republicans are a desperate party right now, trying to do whatever they can to dirty up the president to make some gains in 2014, and to dirty up Secretary Clinton because they're terrified she'll walk into the White House," said Democratic consultant Doug Thornell. "This is an attempt to keep their base together and motivated" after Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012.
Thornell predicted Benghazi will prove no more useful as a political "scandal" than did the highly criticized "Fast and Furious" gun-tracking program and the federally subsidized but ultimately doomed Solyndra energy company.
White House press secretary Jay Carney has spent hours trying to dismiss GOP accusations, including those that Obama sought to hide the fact that Islamic terrorists were behind the Benghazi attack. "The whole effort here by Republicans to find some hidden mystery comes to nothing because the president called it an act of terror," Carney told reporters Friday.
Benghazi may remain a white-hot topic in many conservative regions and talk shows for some time. At Wednesday's hearing before the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told relatives of the four Americans killed in Benghazi that her constituents "think about you all the time."
___
Follow Charles Babington on Twitter: https://twitter.com/cbabington
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The problem with iTunes and Windows 8
According to the chief financial officer of Windows -- what, your company doesn't have a product-level CFO? -- Microsoft has laid out the welcome mat for iTunes for Windows 8, but Apple has yet to come a knocking. Why ever could that be?
I was asked recently on Twitter why the Mac App Store wasn't bundled into the desktop iTunes app the way the iOS App Store is, and so many other things are. I don't know the official rationale, but my immediate instinct was -- because it's the Mac App Store, and that means it doesn't have to be ported to Windows. And if it doesn't have to get ported to Windows, it doesn't have to go into iTunes.
After all, iTunes is the only major piece of software Apple currently ports to Windows. Safari for Windows, after a brief, uneventful life, has gone missing in action, and QuickTime and the various iCloud and iOS management utilities are just that -- utilities. iLife doesn't get ported. Pro tools don't get ported. Just iTunes.
Steve Jobs once called iTunes for Windows a glass of water in hell. I've joked it was revenge for Office on Mac. Really it was a business necessity in the pre-post-PC world. iPods -- and eventually iPhones and iPads -- needed iTunes on the desktop to purchase, manage, and sync media and apps, the vast majority of computers ran Windows, and so iTunes had to run on Windows.
And that screwed it over for everyone. Apple, in their infinitely looped wisdom, decided it would be easier for them to port, and easier for us to use, a single, monolithic iTunes app than anything more specific or distributed, a single jack-of-all-trades app, wrapped up for easy transplant, rather than several masters of one carefully cut apart and crafted. And as iOS grew, and new content types like apps and iBooks, and new use cases, like Wi-Fi sync grew, iTunes on both Mac and Windows grew (and grew).
Absent the need to port to Windows, we get the light, purpose-built Mac App Store. On iOS get separate iTunes Store, Music and Video apps, we get a separate App Store, and we get separate iBooks, Podcasts, and iTunes U apps. We get many little shots of water that aren't anywhere nearly as hellish.
iTunes desktop isn't so easily reinvented. So it's being obsoleted.
In a post-PC world, a lot of the jobs formerly required of iTunes on the desktop have been pushed up into the iCloud. You can pretty much setup, manage, fill, and sync a new iOS device, out of the box, without ever once plugging it into iTunes on the desktop. (I don't think I've synced with iTunes on the desktop even once since the iPhone 4S launched with iOS 5 in October of 2011.)
Sure, transferring big media files and moving around large numbers of icons are still painful in the wireless world, but that's something Apple can and needs to fix, and inevitably it won't be by going back to the iTunes desktop.
It's the reason why, when the original iPad launched in 2010, it didn't run full-blown iTunes either. You couldn't tether and iPhone to an iPad for device management purposes. iOS didn't need no sticking iTunes desktop. And it's the reason why Windows 8 probably won't get a "Metro" version of iTunes desktop either.
Microsoft is still dominant-beyond-dominant in the PC market, but the PC market isn't as important as it used to be. New iOS customers, the kind who are drawn to things like Windows 8 "Metro", are probably also drawn to online services like iCloud, Dropbox, Skydrive, Spotify, Netflix, etc. and they'll do just fine without traditional iTunes ported and portly on the Surface RT. Mainstream customers, the kind who are sticking with Windows XP or Windows 7, are also likely sticking with iTunes desktop, and they'll be just fine with traditional iTunes running as a traditional desktop app.
iTunes for Mac is in the midst of a transition. It's not impossible to see where it's going over the next few years, and it's not the stodgy old desktop we all know and love to hate. It's going somewhere new. If an how iTunes for Windows goes with it will depend on Windows' importance in the post-PC world. Maybe iTunes will become more an iCloud-powered player than device management game.
That Microsoft has re-discovered the tablet market is nice. That they're experimenting with mix-mode devices is interesting. But Metro probably doesn't need full-blown iTunes any more than iOS does, and the Windows 8 Store probably won't get old-style iTunes much faster than the App Store will get old-style Office.
The world has changed.
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/jiF6JGJhAyo/story01.htm
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Samsung WB800F
The Samsung WB800F ($299.99 direct) is a compact superzoom cameras with an impressively sharp 21x zoom lens.?It's also got a responsive touch screen and one of the better Wi-Fi implementations we've seen. But the Editors' Choice Canon PowerShot SX280 HS takes better pictures at higher ISOs, and bests the WB800F by adding a GPS and 1080p60 video capture.?
Design and Features
The WB800F looks a lot like other recent Samsung long zoom cameras, like the 18x WB250F. The camera, available in white, cobalt black, or red, measures about 2.6 by 4.2 by 1.5 inches (HWD), weighs 8.3 ounces, and features a rather deep handgrip with a leatherette covering. It's slightly bigger on all edges than the Canon SX280 HS (2.5 by 4.2 by 1.3 inches, 8.2 ounces), but both cameras can slide into your pocket. Some of the W800F's extra size is accounted for by a larger lens; it's a 21x zoom design that covers a 23-483mm (35mm equivalent) range?a bit wider than the 25-500mm on the SX280, but not quite as telephoto. The aperture is an impressive f/2.8 on the wide end, but it dwindles to f/5.9 when zoomed. You'll have to go with a much larger camera, like the Editors' Choice Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ200, to get a long zoom that stays at f/2.8 through its entire focal length range.
The engineers at Samsung have taken advantage of the largish body and implemented a solid control layout. The top plate features the Power button, the Direct Link button for quick Wi-Fi sharing, a manual flash release, the shutter release, a zoom rocker, and a mode dial. The rear of the camera houses a dedicated video recording button, as well a four-way controller that has buttons for the flash output, macro shooting, drive mode and self-timer, and the amount of information displayed on the LCD.
Tapping the Menu button brings up an overlay menu that gives you access to additional shooting settings. These include exposure compensation, white balance control, ISO, focus settings, metering options, image compression settings, and a few other odds and ends. ?You can adjust the settings via the four-way control pad, or directly via touch. The 3-inch 460k-dot LCD display is just as responsive as the one on the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Camera, but it's nowhere near as big or sharp; the Galaxy has a 4.8-inch screen with 921k-dot resolution.
Like other Samsung cameras, Wi-Fi comes standard with the WB800F. And Samsung gets everything right with its implementation?you can connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot from the camera and post photos and videos to Facebook, Picasa, YouTube, and SkyDrive, Samsung AllShare Play, or send them via email. ?If you're not near Wi-Fi, the camera can act as a hotspot and transfer photos directly to your phone using the free Samsung Smart Camera App for iOS and Android. This app also allows you to use your phone or tablet as a remote viewfinder; a live feed of what the lens is seeing is shown on your device and you can control the zoom, flash output, self-timer, and fire a photo without touching the camera.
Performance and Conclusions
The WB800F is speedy. It can start and take a shot in about 1.7 seconds and its shutter lag is a short 0.1-second. It can shoot at 7 or 3 frames per second, but at either speed it's limited to a 6-shot burst. You'll have to wait for about 11 seconds for all the files to write to the card after the burst. Compare this with the Galaxy Camera, which, due to its Android operating system, starts slower, in about 2.9 seconds. Its also slower to focus and fire, recording a 0.4-second shutter lag, but it can record a 20-shot burst at 3.8 frames per second.
I use Imatest to check the quality of photos captured by the WB800F. Photos are sharp, scoring 1,992 lines per picture height; we require an image to score 1,800 lines on a center-weighted test to pass muster. Imatest also checks for noise, which can make a photo appear grainy as you increase the camera's sensitivity to light, numerically expressed as ISO. The WB800F actually scores well on the standard Imatest noise test, staying at 1.2 percent?a bit below our cutoff of 1.5 percent?through its top ISO 3200 setting. But close examination of images on our calibrated NEC MultiSync PA271W display shows that image detail is smudged away at settings as low as ISO 800, a sure sign of an overly aggressive noise reduction algorithm. The SX280 HS only manages to keep noise below 1.5 percent through ISO 1600, and it also is smudgy at ISO 800 or above, but its noise is in a tighter, less blocky pattern. Neither camera can match our Editors' Choice for midrange compacts, the Canon PowerShot Elph 330 HS in high ISO performance; it's one of the best cameras with a 1/2.3-inch sensor that we've seen recently. It keeps noise below 1.5 percent through ISO 1600, and does a great job with detail at that setting. Its zoom lens is much less ambitious at 10x (25-250mm), but it's worth considering if you don't need 21x.
Video is recorded in MP4 format at 1080p30 or 720p30 quality. Footage looks good?it's sharp, smooth, and colors are accurate, but there is a bit evidence of the rolling shutter effect when panning the camera. This causes the top of the frame to move faster than the bottom, which is similar to the rubber pencil visual trick that has fascinated many a child. On the plus side, the sound of the lens zooming in and out is quiet; it's barely audible on the soundtrack.
You can connect the camera to your HDTV via a micro HDMI port, and there's a micro USB port you can use to plug the camera into a computer, and you will need to use it to charge the battery; the WB800F doesn't ship with a dedicated charger, so you'll have to plug it into the wall via an included USB to AC adapter when the battery gets low. Photos are recorded on SD, SDHC, or SDXC memory cards.
The Samsung WB800F is a good superzoom, but a few missteps prevent it from being a great one. Its lens is impressive, covering a very wide 23mm angle on the wide end and packing a 21x zoom ratio. In good light, images are impressive, but overzealous noise reduction rubs away detail when set to higher ISOs. Wi-Fi is a useful feature if you like to post photos on the go, but it's been better implemented in Samsung's own Galaxy Camera. Wi-Fi is also available in our Editors' Choice compact superzoom, the Canon PowerShot SX280 HS, which is a little bit more expensive, but produces more detailed photos at higher ISO settings and is a little bit smaller. And the aforementioned Canon PowerShot Elph 330 HS has a much less ambitious 10x zoom lens, but also includes Wi-Fi support, and images at high ISO settings are notably better than those from either the WB800F or the SX280 HS.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/Wq2fuLQQwkM/0,2817,2418720,00.asp
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Saturday, May 11, 2013
Connecting Images To Words: A Good Memory Training Technique ...
When you are trying to learn a new language, memory training techniques can help you learn and remember words a lot quicker. Before, learning a new language mostly consisted of saying phrases and words over and over again. This language learning method could help in pronunciation, but it isn?t really the best way to try to remember words. Using certain memory techniques that work best with language, you?ll be able to retain unfamiliar vocabulary for months and years, and if done the right way, for the rest of your life.
An effective memory strategy that can help you when you?re learning a foreign language is to link foreign words to things which are familiar to you. Nonetheless, for this method to work, you have to connect the foreign word to an outrageous image so you?re more likely to remember it for a long period.
One challenge with remembering foreign phrases and words is that they are unfamiliar to us. They just do not make any sense to us. The key is to associate foreign words to things that we are familiar with. Next, we should think of outrageous or silly images for those foreign words so they stick to our memory. It?s easy for our brain to discard the everyday things we run into. If what we see or hear is dull, it will most likely be overlooked. However, the silly, crazy, or unusual things usually have greater impact and we often remember them. This is precisely why absurd or silly images work best when you?re trying to learn a foreign language.
Let us take the word ?caliente? as an example. It?s Spanish for ?hot?. The issue with this word is that it?s not even close to sounding or looking like the word ?hot?. So what do you do to be sure you don?t forget this Spanish word and know that it means ?hot?? There are four syllables in ?caliente? so you could try breaking it down. For the first two syllables (?cali?), you can link it with the collie, the dog breed, because they sound like it. You may associate the third syllable (?en?) with ?in? (as in inside) and the last syllable (?te?) with ?tea?, the drink. Even though the last syllable of the word ?caliente? is pronounced to rhyme with the English word ?day?, it is close enough. We can picture a collie inside an air conditioned house on a very hot day, sitting on an easy chair like a man would, having iced tea.
It must be mentioned that image association is different from person to person. Let?s imagine that in your case, if you ever see the word ?caliente?, you?ll see a dog sipping tea inside a house on a hot day. This ridiculous image will be imprinted in your memory, making you remember that ?caliente? means hot.
You have to understand that it takes some time for memory training methods like this to be perfected. When you first start practicing, it will be slow going; but once you get the hang of it with creating images that work for you, the process becomes faster.
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