Right in his wheelhouse

AP

Hines Ward is used to training, and he?s used to competing.

What he can?t get used to is the inevitability of losing.

The former Steelers wideout has struggled with that concept, as he prepares for the Ironman Triathlon.

?The realization is having never done it before, I can?t go in thinking I?m going to go out and win the Ironman,? Ward said, via Karen Price of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. ?That?s the battle I have, . . . I have to know what my body?s capable of doing and I have to run my pace. I can?t run a pace that?s someone else?s or I won?t make it at the end.?

By the time the race in Kona, Hawaii begins in October, he will have been in serious training for nearly a year.

Even for an elite athlete, the challenge of swimming 2.4 miles in the Pacific Ocean, biking 112 miles and then running 26.2 miles is a different kind of challenge than playing football or ?Dancing with the Stars.?

Ward has been training with eight-time Ironman champion Paula Newby-Fraser, who had to teach him how to ride a road bike with clip-in pedals, and teaching him the correct strokes in a pool to give him a chance.

?I think he thought it might be a bit of a challenge, but he had no idea how hard it was going to be, . . .? Newby-Fraser said. ?He gets incredibly frustrated. He melts down with frustration just because he wants to be good at it and wants to perform. He?s having to balance the reality of where he is with where he wants to be. When things don?t go exactly right he gets so mad.?

Ward has gradually built up from shorter races, and he did a half-Ironman last week.?He trains three hours a day, six days a week, logging on average 150 miles combined per week. As a result, he?s dropped 30 pounds since he started training, down to 195.

?I love challenges, and this will by far be my toughest challenge,? Ward said. ?It?s just me versus myself on the course. You have to continue to push through the pain and hopefully after 140 miles I can cross the finish line and what great satisfaction it will be to hear, ?Hines Ward, you?re an Ironman.? When that day comes, if I can cross that finish line, that will probably be one of my greatest accomplishments throughout my life.?

For a guy who has accomplished so much already, that?s saying something.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/16/munchak-more-involved-in-coaching-offensive-linemen/related/

Linda McMahon Voting Results 2012 pbs ron paul Cnn Electoral Map roseanne barr guy fawkes

Wacom Cintiq 13HD review: a space-saving pen display for designers

When Wacom teased a tablet-sized device a few months back, our curiosity was immediately piqued. However, the next reveal from the pen-wielding-peripheral company was actually the Cintiq 13HD -- a product more in line with the outfit's existing displays. We guess we'll just have to keep waiting patiently for that truly mobile input device. For now, though, the 13-inch pen display sports that tablet form factor, but remains a dedicated tethered peripheral for artists, designers and photographers. While the device still offers the capable, user-configurable ExpressKeys and mighty Cintiq pen, are the omission of touch gestures and the need to remain wired to your desktop or laptop dealbreakers? Read on to see what we discovered.

Gallery: Wacom Cintiq 13HD review

Filed under: Peripherals

Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/15/wacom-cintiq-13hd-review/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

lindsay lohan saturday night live snl lindsay lohan valley fever project x the lorax lorax fisker karma

World bodies say global food prices to rise

BEIJING (AP) ? Rising global food demand will push up prices 10 to 40 percent over the coming decade and governments need to boost investment to increase farm production, a forecast by two international agencies said Thursday.

Growth in food production has slowed over the past decade even as rising incomes in developing countries boosted consumption, said the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

"We're observing slower growth in production and productivity, and that is a concern," said Merritt Cluff, an FAO economist, at a news conference.

Governments need to find ways to give farmers access to technology to increase output and get more of their crops to market, the agencies said in a report, "Agricultural Outlook 2013-2022."

Prices are expected to rise 10 to 40 percent over the coming decade, with the cost of meat rising faster and that of grains more slowly, according to Ken Ash, director general of the OECD's trade and agriculture division.

"We would urge governments around the world to begin to shift and to shift quickly from old-style policies to a greater focus on productivity and innovation," said Ash. "If we carry on blissfully as if nothing has changed in the world, there could be a problem."

Higher prices will have their biggest impact in developing countries where some families spend up to 60 percent of their incomes on food, Cluff said.

Investment in farming has fallen in recent decades due to a long-term decline in commodity prices and has yet to rebound despite price spikes since 2008, the agencies said. As a result, they said, annual production growth is forecast to slow to 1.5 percent compared with the past decade's 2.1 percent.

"It's about a third less. That's a big difference," said Angel Gurria, the OECD secretary-general.

The agencies urged governments to avoid interfering with market forces that can encourage farmers to produce more by raising prices for their goods.

Food consumption in developing countries has grown by up to 30 percent a year over the past decade as incomes rose, while consumption in developed countries changed little, the agencies said.

China's imports of meat and oilseeds are forecast to grow as its increasingly prosperous consumers spend more on food, the agencies said.

Beijing has pursued self-sufficiency in production of rice, wheat and other grain but for soybeans and other oilseeds relies on imports from the United States, Brazil and other countries.

Imports of oilseeds are expected to rise by 40 percent over the next 10 years, accounting for 59 percent of global trade in oilseeds, while dairy imports would rise 20 percent, the OECD and FAO said.

China should remain self-sufficient in its main crops but for other products its sheer size "will keep markets on edge over the next decade," said Cluff.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-bodies-global-food-prices-rise-055826859.html

Frank Lautenberg Pia Zadora chicago blackhawks Vine Alexandra Lenas Jim Kelly Secret Life of the American Teenager

Dog sniffs out grammar

A border collie takes command of sentence rules

By Bruce Bower

Web edition: May 21, 2013

Enlarge

COMMAND PERFORMANCE

A border collie named Chaser participates in an experiment testing her ability to understand commands given before she can see any of the objects named in those directives. After hearing a four-word command, Chaser consistently turned around and carried the correct item from the head of the bed to the living room, where she placed it next the appropriate object.

Credit: Courtesy of J. Pilley

Chaser isn?t just a 9-year-old border collie with her breed?s boundless energy, intense focus and love of herding virtually anything. She?s a grammar hound.

In experiments directed by her owner, psychologist John Pilley of Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., Chaser demonstrated her grasp of the basic elements of grammar by responding correctly to commands such as ?to ball take Frisbee? and its reverse, ?to Frisbee take ball.? The dog had previous, extensive training to recognize classes of words including nouns, verbs and prepositions.

?Chaser intuitively discovered how to comprehend sentences based on lots of background learning about different types of words,? Pilley says. He reports the results May 13 in Learning and Motivation.

Throughout the first three years of Chaser?s life, Pilley and a colleague trained the dog to recognize and fetch more than 1,000 objects by name. Using praise and play as reinforcements, the researchers also taught Chaser the meaning of different types of words, such as verbs and prepositions. As a result, Chaser learned that phrases such as ?to Frisbee? meant that she should take whatever was in her mouth to the named object.

Exactly how the dog gained her command of grammar is unclear, however. Pilley suspects that Chaser first mentally linked each of two nouns she heard in a sentence to objects in her memory. Then the canine held that information in mind while deciding which of two objects to bring to which of two other objects.

Pilley?s work follows controversial studies of grammar understanding in dolphins and a pygmy chimp.

It?s hard to know what a dog or other nonhuman animal is actually thinking about when responding to commands, comments dog researcher and psychology graduate student Krista Macpherson of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. Debate about whether these animals understand that the meaning of commands rests on abstract rules will continue with Chaser?s behavior, in her view.

Chaser started sentence training at age 7. She stood facing a pair of objects she knew by name. An experimenter would say, for instance, ?to ball take Frisbee.? In initial trials, the experimenter pointed at each item while saying its name.

After several weeks of training, two experiments conducted in Pilley?s living room tested Chaser?s grammar knowledge. A college student sat with the dog facing two pairs of objects. Chaser had to choose an object from one pair to carry to an object from the other pair. The student read commands that included words for those objects. Only some of those words had been used during sentence training, including ?to sugar take decoy.? To see whether Chaser grasped that grammar could be used flexibly, Pilley had the student also read sentences in the reversed form of ?take sugar to decoy.? In 28 of 40 attempts, Chaser grabbed the correct item in her mouth and dropped it next to the correct target.

Another experiment tested Chaser?s ability to understand commands when she couldn?t see the objects at first. Pilley stood at the end of a bed where Chaser sat facing him, with two objects behind her at the other end of the bed. After hearing a command, Chaser turned around and nabbed one of the objects. She then ran to the living room and delivered the item to one of another pair of objects. She succeeded on all 12 trials.

Border collies achieve similar grammatical insights when working with farmers to learn sheep-herding commands, Pilley speculates. With enough training, other dog breeds could also get a paw-hold on grammar, he predicts.

Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/350585/title/Dog_sniffs_out_grammar

Spain Vs Italy Euro 2012 Pepco erin andrews erin andrews tour de france Magic Mike Anderson Cooper Gay

Donchez wins close Democratic primary for Bethlehem mayor

In a nail-biting primary Tuesday that likely will decide the next mayor, veteran Bethlehem City Councilman Robert Donchez took an early lead over J. William Reynolds and held it, but the margin of victory was so slim he declined to declare victory early Wednesday morning.

According to unofficial election results, Donchez won by just 296 votes with all precincts reporting at 12:30 a.m.

"It's a close race, and I'm not ready to declare victory," Donchez said. "We'll wait until tomorrow and see what the final numbers are."

Donchez commended Reynolds and his volunteers on a well-fought campaign. Donchez had 2,651 votes and Reynolds tallied 2,355, according to unofficial results. Reynolds won in the Lehigh County part of the city.

Reynolds said, "I'm proud of the campaign we ran and will wait to see what the results are tomorrow."

If Donchez's lead holds, he will likely become the city's 12^th mayor when the term-limited Mayor John Callahan steps down at the end of the year, barring a third-party or write-in candidate. No Republicans filed to run.

Donchez would likely work with a council that will include at least two new faces. With four seats up for election, council members Eric Evans and Karen Dolan and newcomers Bryan Callahan and Adam Waldron were leading among the six Democrats running. In November, the four top vote getters in the council race will face Republican Christopher Morales, owner of Bethlehem's lone hot dog cart, Easy Weenies.

The mayoral contest pitted Donchez, a 63-year-old retired teacher and legislative aide, against Reynolds, a 31-year-old teacher and former legislative aide. The two had very similar records on council but diverged widely on style.

Donchez emphasized his experience, suggesting Reynolds wasn't ready to be mayor. The son of a former city police detective, Donchez had an early look at the inner workings of City Hall and his campaign experience is nearly as old as the city's strong mayor form of government. He's been on council for 17 years, serving as its elected president nearly half that time.

But Reynolds called Donchez an insider and questioned Donchez's maturity, once confronting him at a debate with a negative mailer Donchez had sent out. One mailer included an old photograph of Reynolds with his hat turned backward.

Reynolds got an 11^th-hour endorsement Friday from Callahan, who said he intended to stay neutral but was persuaded to make a public endorsement after the mailers.

Donchez's campaign issued a statement calling Callahan "the ultimate hypocrite," noting Callahan's negative campaign when he became mayor in 2003. Donchez had also questioned how Reynolds could call him an insider when he had the support of the sitting mayor.

Reynolds, the youngest city councilman ever elected, had spent much of the campaign comparing his energy and philosophy to Callahan, who was elected at 34, and former Mayor Don Cunningham, who was elected at 31.

Reynolds emphasized his grass roots and proposed several initiatives, including changing some of council's at-large seats to district seats, and creating neighborhood committees to meet with department heads. He vowed not to marry any one until everyone ? regardless of sexual orientation ? could marry in Pennsylvania.

Donchez has described himself as taking a deliberative approach where he would convene a task force of business and finance experts to analyze how City Hall operates and search for better budgeting practices. He may make the rare move and ask council to reopen the 2014 budget after he is sworn in to make changes based on the task force's recommendations.

He said he would schedule regular office hours where residents could drop in, and hold town hall meetings in each section of the city.

He's called for bringing more economic development programs in house and naming a point person to help guide the effort. He would also explore creating the Christmas City Economic Development Corp., supplanting Bethlehem Economic Development Corp., and possibly merge it with the Redevelopment Authority.

On public safety, he would consider returning a fire pumper to the Dewberry station, which is now an EMS site, and gradually bring the police officer ranks from 149 to 155.

He said he would explore sponsorships for city facilities and create better access for the elderly at paths and pet-friendly parks.

Donchez had the backing of several well-known Democrats, including campaign chairs Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli and state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton.

Donchez took an early fundraising lead with $112,000 in the bank by Jan.1. Donchez had $167,600 to spend on the campaign during this year, a little more than twice what Reynolds had.

Nicole.mertz@mcall.com

610-778-2253

Source: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-bethlehem-mayor-election-20130521,0,2395042.story?track=rss

earthquake san diego Hurricane Isaac Sam Claflin Tony Farmer West Nile virus symptoms snooki Prince Harry Vegas pictures

Everything New Is Old: Benghazi & Co. (OliverWillisLikeKryptoniteToStupid)

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

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/307405305?client_source=feed&format=rss

joan of arc tony robbins bon iver abraham lincoln vampire hunter their eyes were watching god lara logan manu ginobili

UK first in EU to get Merck's new Schmallenberg vaccine

LONDON (Reuters) - British farmers will be the first in Europe to get a vaccine against Schmallenberg virus, a new livestock disease that hit the continent in 2011.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said on Tuesday that MSD Animal Health, a unit of Merck & Co, had been issued a licence for the new vaccine after an accelerated assessment to make it available this summer.

As a result, farmers will be able to vaccinate sheep and cattle before most of them become pregnant, which is important as exposure to the virus can cause damage to foetuses.

Schmallenberg virus - named after the German town where it was first detected - infected sheep and cows on at least 2,600 farms in eight EU countries in 2011.

It is particularly harmful to the offspring of animals infected during early pregnancy, resulting in stillbirths and malformations such as brain deformities, twisted spines and locked joints.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by David Cowell)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-first-eu-mercks-schmallenberg-vaccine-230726651.html

octomom stoudemire jordan hill tony nominations dark knight trailer dallas mavericks washington capitals