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Source: http://blog.rapichat.com/2012/10/31/news-about-online-marketing-issue-1-16211/
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Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Champion SF Giants to be celebrated on Halloween
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Orange-and-black clad hordes will flood the streets of San Francisco for a Halloween Day ticker-tape parade celebrating the 2012 World Series champion Giants.
With the victory parade coinciding with the spooky holiday, costumed masses are expected to bring an even more festive feel Wednesday to what city officials stressed will be a family friendly, alcohol-free event.
"This was such a team effort to win the World Series, so we decided we'd get our city team together to make sure we have a great celebration," Mayor Ed Lee said Tuesday as he stood with police, fire, transportation and other officials at City Hall.
After the Giants won the Series in 2010, hundreds of thousands of revelers ? from school-age children to longtime fans who had waited decades for a championship ? crammed into downtown to cheer on their heroes.
This year's parade route is different than it was in 2010, when a vehicle carrying the "Say Hey Kid" Willie Mays led players and coaches in open-air buses designed to look like cable cars down the same route that Mays' Giants took in 1958 after relocating from New York.
That route started at Montgomery Street in the Financial District and turned onto Market Street. The 2012 edition will begin at the foot of Market near San Francisco Bay and cover about 1? miles to City Hall, where the team and officials will address the throngs.
Each player will have an open-top vehicle so fans will get a view from all sides.
San Francisco police Chief Greg Suhr said the parade will last about two hours. He warned people not to even try to drive into the area during the day.
The city spent Monday cleaning up after a rowdy celebration Sunday night turned violent in some neighborhoods and police arrested three dozen people. Bonfires of trash were lit in several intersections, and a $700,000 public transit bus was torched.
The World Series victory parade in 2010 occurred with little incident, and officials said they are expecting a peaceful encore Wednesday.
"The entire day, 24 hours into the nighttime, no alcohol (on the street)," Suhr said. "This is a family celebration, whether it's the San Francisco family with our champion Giants or bringing the little ones in costume, come have a great time."
Given the anticipated flood of people, officials are increasing public transportation during the parade.
Mayor Lee said the city will provide more trains than it did in 2010.
San Francisco's subway will continue to run through all stations along the parade route; Bay Area Rapid Transit commuter trains will run at rush hour levels all day; and ferries will be running special service throughout the festivities.
Officials also said knockoff merchandise will be confiscated.
"We're working with Major League Baseball to make sure all products being sold outside are ... authorized products, and arrests will be made," Suhr said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/champion-sf-giants-celebrated-halloween-090608479--spt.html
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Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Google bumps Android to 4.2, keeps Jelly Bean moniker
Well, it's no Key Lime Pie, but Android 4.2 is certainly a treat in its own right. The latest version of Google's mobile OS makes a number of evolutionary improvements to its already impressive repertoire -- including a new quick settings menu that can be accessed from the notification pull down and support for multiple user profiles. The multiple user support is especially handy for tablets like the new Nexus 10, which are much more likely to be shared, and now offer quick and easy user switching right from the lock screen. If you don't want to share your tablet, just what's on it, the new support for Miracast makes will allow you to wirelessly beam movies, games or anything else to a compatible display. The 10-inch tablet UI has also received a slight tweak, moving closer to the design for phones and the Nexus 7, with centered navigation buttons and the notification area up top. It might seem strange for users used to the Honeycomb-style tablet layout, but the new design is much simpler and provides a consistent experience across devices.
Google has also overhauled the photo experience and added Photo Sphere -- a 360-degree panoramic shooting mode that captures everything around you. Obviously, you'll be able to post those shots to Google+, but you'll also be able to add them to Google Maps, basically creating your own personal Street View. Interestingly, Google has also taken a page from Swype's playbook, adding "Gesture Typing" to its keyboard. There's also a new screensaver called Daydream that offers up news, photos and other content when a device is docked or idle.
Perhaps the biggest, and creepiest improvements are to Google Now, which can monitor your Gmail for relevant content such as flight numbers. Hotel and restaurant reservations are now presented as cards, as are packages enroute to your humble abode. The service will even remind you of events you've purchased tickets for, essentially making Calendar redundant for a lot of your personal life. For more info check out the source links.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, HD, Mobile, Google
Google bumps Android to 4.2, keeps Jelly Bean moniker originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Oct 2012 12:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Paper I Buy
We're living in a pre-barbaric age. Gutenberg and the printed word cast out the darkness of a hundred mistakes, a thousand benighted cities hastened from the gloom, a million lights winked on in a million windows. The word, once hidden in the chests of the mind, was now scratched onto paper and carefully typeset into folios. The barbarians were cast out, fleeing ahead of the coming enlightenment.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/RGtt0bTou88/
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Monday, October 29, 2012
Future of Nokia hangs on Windows Phone 8 rollout
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gives his presentation at the launch of Microsoft Windows 8, in New York, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Windows 8 is the most dramatic overhaul of the personal computer market's dominant operating system in 17 years. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gives his presentation at the launch of Microsoft Windows 8, in New York, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Windows 8 is the most dramatic overhaul of the personal computer market's dominant operating system in 17 years. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
HELSINKI (AP) ? For Nokia, it comes down to this: Is Microsoft's new phone software going to get it back in the smartphone race, or is it going to be too late?
After being the top seller of cellphones in the world for 14 years, Nokia failed to meet the challenge when Apple in 2007 introduced the dazzling iPhone that caught the imagination of design-conscious customers and rattled mobile markets.
The Finnish company hit a downward spiral that has led to shrinking sales and market share, plant closures, thousands of layoffs and downgrades by credit agencies to junk status.
On Friday, research firm IDC said that in the July-to-September period, Nokia slid for the first time off the list of the top five smartphone makers in the world. It's still the second-largest maker of phones overall, but sales of non-smartphones are shrinking across the industry, and there's little profit there.
The ailing company's CEO, Stephen Elop, sees Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 software as a chance to reverse that trend, describing it as a catalyst for the new models.
On Monday, Microsoft Corp. is hosting a big launch event for the software at an arena in San Francisco. The first phones from Nokia, Samsung and HTC are expected to hit store shelves next month.
The launch of Windows Phone 8 follows on the heels of Windows 8 for PCs and tablets, which Microsoft released Friday. That operating system has borrowed its look from Windows Phone, meaning Microsoft now has a unified look across PCs and phones ? at least if people take to Windows 8. The company has also made it easy for developers to create software that runs on both platforms with minor modifications.
Analysts are calling this a make-or-break moment for Nokia.
"Nokia is placing a huge bet on Microsoft and if the gamble doesn't pay off, the losses can be high," said Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics, near London. "It's putting all its eggs in one basket and that's quite a high-risk strategy."
In February last year, Nokia announced it was teaming up with Microsoft to replace its old Symbian and next-generation MeeGo software platforms with Windows. This move was made in the hope that it would rejuvenate the company and claw back lost ground.
Eight months later, they produced the first Nokia Windows Phone. Consumers didn't warm to it, and it soon became clear that these phones, based on Windows Phone 7, were going to become obsolete. They can't be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. Lumia sales slumped to 2.9 million units in the third quarter after reaching 4 million in the previous three months.
"Retailers withdrew marketing and promotion because no one wants to sell customers a device that ages in a few months," says Michael Schroeder, analyst at FIM Bank Ltd. in Helsinki.
"Had there been a seamless transfer to Windows 8 from the old (Lumia) devices, sales figures would have been much higher last quarter."
Mawston gives Nokia until April to prove it's still in the race.
"If Nokia does not have more than 5 percent of the global smartphone market by the end of the first quarter 2013, alarm bells will be ringing," Mawston said.
Analysts estimate Nokia's current global smartphone market share to be some 4 percent ? down from 14 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, uncertainty clouds its new venture with Microsoft.
"We're a bit in the dark here," Schroeder said. "Right now we can't really say anything about Nokia's future. Everything depends on how the new devices are received in the market."
Nokia says its Lumia 920 and 820 phones are just the beginning of a new range of Windows Phone 8 devices, but early evaluations suggest they lack the "wow" effect necessary to make a dent in the smartphone market.
Also, Windows Phone 8 lags behind in the number of third-party applications available. There are some 100,000 available. Google's and Apple's stores have six or seven times as many.
"It's a perception thing really," Mawston of Strategy Analytics said. "Like in supermarket wars, if you have a store with lots of shelves with lots of apps, then consumers will choose you over a smaller store that has a smaller offering ? even if you can't use all those apps."
Analysts expect 700 million smartphones to be sold worldwide this year. While network operators and retailers may welcome a third software system to challenge the dominance of Apple's iOS and Google's Android, it is the consumer who will ultimately decide Nokia's and Windows Phone 8's fate.
Beside the smartphone challenge, Nokia is feeling the pinch in the lower end with manufacturers in China and in Asia producing cut-rate non-smartphones ? Nokia's former domain. Earlier this year, Samsung overtook it as the world's No. 1 mobile phone vendor, ending Nokia's reign that peaked in 2008 with a 40 percent market share.
"Dumb" phones continue to be the backbone of Nokia operations, including in India where it's a top seller. With strong and extensive distribution networks and a brand well-known in emerging markets, all might not be lost for the company that grew from making paper and rubber boots to being the biggest manufacturer of cellphones.
Mawston says that in theory, Nokia and Microsoft have a good chance of success as they offer an across-the-board system that stretches across home computers, mobiles, laptops, tablets as well as in the office, backed by Nokia's strong distribution and hardware and Microsoft's multi-platform software.
"If they can exploit that underlying market platform ... and tie it all together in a good hardware portfolio, then potentially Microsoft and Nokia could be a very, very strong partnership ? a bit like bringing together Batman and Robin," Mawston said. "But, in practice, whether they can execute on that reality still is a great unknown and remains to be seen."
Associated PressBouncy-ball cameras scout out dangerous situations
A CLUMP of cameras, electronics and LEDs packed into a rubber shell the size of a tennis ball could help firefighters or SWAT teams scout out the potentially dangerous environments they are about to enter.
Designed by Boston-based startup Bounce Imaging, the device contains six cameras. When the ball is thrown into an unknown area, the cameras take two photographs per second and send them to a smartphone or laptop, where software knits the images into a 360-degree view of the room. The cameras capture light in the near-infrared range, and the device comes equipped with infrared LEDs, allowing it to build a full panorama of a scene even if it is poorly lit.
Bounce founder Francisco Aguilar says the idea for the device came to him after the Haiti earthquake in 2010. He saw the need for a reconnaissance device that would be useful in environments like the damaged buildings of Port-au-Prince.
Bernard Hicks, a SWAT-team officer in a major US city, speaking in an unofficial capacity, says that the Bounce device is attractive because it's easy to use. And at a few hundred dollars, it's much cheaper than the existing technologies used to image the inside of unknown areas. This means officers won't have to worry about breaking the equipment.
Hicks says there's a growing trend for police officers to be asked to take on active shooters rather than wait for the SWAT team to arrive, and that Bounce can help them handle that situation. "Incidents with active shooters are so volatile," he explains. "Whether it's one officer or two officers on scene, this technology gives them the opportunity to know the dangers around the corner before they get to them."
Aguilar suggests that a future version of the device might have a Geiger counter to get initial readings on suspected radioactive areas.
The device is still a prototype, but Aguilar says the finished product will be tested by SWAT teams and Massachusetts police departments in January.
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Sunday, October 28, 2012
AP PHOTOS: Spooky and kooky Halloween costumes
AP PHOTOS: Spooky and kooky Halloween costumes
By The Associated Press?
?By The Associated PressA group of costumed participants march during a Halloween event in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)
A group of costumed participants march during a Halloween event in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)
A group of costumed participants march during a Halloween event in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)
Dressed as potted flowers, 18-month-old Tianna Rapp, of Middleton, Idaho won second place in her age group at the annual Boo at the Zoo event in Boise, Idaho on Saturday Oct. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/The Idaho Statesman, Darin Oswald) LOCAL TV OUT; KTVB 7 OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT; THE IDAHO STATESMAN, DARIN OSWALD
Nampa, Idaho trick-or-treaters dressed as famous paintings, Ty Sherman, 10, as "The Scream," Kaesha Jackson, 10, as the "Mona Lisa," and Sam Sherman, 7, as "American Gothic," pose for a photo at this year's Boo at the Zoo Boise in Boise, Idaho on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012. (AP Photo/The Idaho Statesman, Darin Oswald) LOCAL TV OUT; KTVB 7 OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT; THE IDAHO STATESMAN, DARIN OSWALD
A woman puts on red contact lenses at a Halloween event in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012.(AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)
From spooky to kooky, Halloween revelers are dressed to delight in elaborate costumes.
In Japan, a group of friends transformed into a giant hamburger. In Nampa, Idaho, trick-or-treaters dressed as famous paintings including "The Scream."
Here's a look at some of the AP's best photos of Halloween costumes:
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Sen. Rubio's daughter in a golf cart accident
By NBC's Garrett Haake
LAKEWOOD CREST, Fla. -- Senator Marco Rubio's 12-year-old daughter was in fair condition Saturday night after being injured in an accident involving a golf cart in the Miami area.
The Republican senator's?daughter, Amanda, was airlifted to Miami Children's Hospital with a head injury, according to?Alex Conant, Rubio's spokesman.
"While visiting with classmates, she was a passenger on a golf cart involved in a collision in a private gated community," said Conant in a statement. "She has been admitted to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. She is in fair condition.? Senator and Mrs. Rubio are grateful for all the outpouring of support and prayers."
Rubio was notified of the accident after coming offstage at a rally for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney in Kissimmee, Fla., Conant said.
Rubio returned to the Romney campaign bus following the rally, which continued along Interstate?4 for about an hour before pulling over near an airport, where Rubio disembarked and climbed into a waiting police cruiser.
Onboard the bus, Romney offered his thoughts and prayers to Rubio "like any nervous father would," according to Romney spokesman Rick Gorka.?
Conant said the senator then flew back to Miami to be with his family.
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Saturday, October 27, 2012
Vintage Vegas neon signs light up Sin City museum
6 hrs.
The brightly-colored, flashing lights of neon signs and the city of Las Vegas go together like gin and tonic water, so it?s no surprise that Sin City is the site of?the Neon Museum, which its?founders say is the world?s largest museum of neon signage.
On Saturday, when the museum?opens its doors, visitors will be able to view a collection of more than 150 neon signs - some vintage dating back to the 1930s, others more recent.
But all the signs are an important part of the social, architectural, design and pop-culture history of Las Vegas,?said Danielle Kelly, the museum?s executive director.
?Everyone knows the Stardust, which is highly recognized by so many people all over the world,? Kelly said.?The museum has three different versions of signs from the iconic Stardust Hotel-Casino, which was demolished in 2007 after an almost half-century run. During its heyday, the resort was considered the ultimate in luxury and style.
Other signs are from lesser-celebrated properties, like the one from the Algiers Hotel -?once ?the place for a power breakfast,? for locals, Kelly said. Other signs are from the Moulin Rouge, the Desert Inn, the Flamingo and other bygone hotels, restaurants, casinos and businesses.
The museum features a two-acre outdoor space known as the Neon Boneyard, and?a visitor center housed inside the former La Concha Motel lobby, a distinctive modern shell-shaped building from the early 1960s.
The initial effort to collect the signs began in the 1980s when a local arts group recognized their historic and artistic value, as many signs were being destroyed when buildings were torn down, Kelly said.?In 1996, the formal collection began with a handful of rescued signs.
The museum has been offering tours informally since 2008, but they were by appointment only. As part of the official opening, three electrified signs will be included for the first time in the permanent collection in the Neon Boneyard.
Today, the museum?s collection includes almost 200 signs, as well as?hundreds of pieces of signs. Some signs have been restored, but most have not. Many have peeling paint and faded colors but ?are visceral and alluring.?Their imperfect condition is really meaningful,? Kelly said. ?But all the signs are significant, and tell a story.?
About 15 restored signs are currently installed as public art in downtown Las Vegas.
Kelly recommends that visitors take a night drive down a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard just north of the main downtown area, or Fremont Street, where seven signs are installed, for an authentic experience down memory lane. In 2009, the boulevard became one of three U.S. urban streets to be named a Federal Scenic Byway by the Department of Transportation, she said.
The museum?s opening is part of a much larger city-wide revitalization, said Courtney Fitzgerald, a spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Since?2010, more than $9.2 billion has been invested in tourism-related development in the greater Las Vegas area,?which includes new restaurants, new cultural?institutions?and remodeled hotels -?like the Golden Gate Hotel?& Casino, the city?s first hotel and casino. Both The Smith Center for the Performing Arts?and The Mob Museum (National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement) opened in 2012, she said.
In addition, ?there has been a trend lately in people wanting to know about the history of Las Vegas, how the city got started.?The Mob Museum and the Neon Museum both tell that story,? Fitzgerald said. People often associate classic neon signs with ?old? Las Vegas, so they ?are excited to see those signs are still living on in some shape and form.?
Kelly, the executive director, said unlike so many cities that have pasts steeped in history, visiting the Neon Museum is a unique opportunity to pay homage to one of the country?s newer cities. Visitors to Rome can savor ruins from antiquity, but ?in the Boneyard, you can feel the history of Las Vegas.?
Tickets are $18 for adults; $12 for students, senior citizens, veterans and Nevada residents; and children ages 6 and under are free. Tours of the Neon Boneyard, which last about an hour, will be available every half hour beginning at 10 a.m., with the last tour departing at 4 p.m., every Monday through Saturday. The La Concha Visitors? Center will be open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/itineraries/vintage-vegas-neon-signs-light-sin-city-museum-1C6690659
Senator Reid treated for minor injuries in car crash
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senator-reid-treated-minor-injuries-car-crash-001702616.html
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Friday, October 26, 2012
Chance and Control: Interview with Petra Blaisse - Volume
The following interview appears in Volume 33: Interiors. You can read more about the issue?here.
Chance and Control
Petra Blaisse interviewed by Brendan Cormier and Arjen Oosterman
Receiving us in her office in a former school building one afternoon at the end of July, Petra Blaisse proposes to first show us around. Most of the Inside Outside team is on holiday or working on site, but we catch a glimpse of some of her collaborators and the work atmosphere of the office. The office is distributed over two sides of the corridor, with an Inside side (renowned for their large-scale curtains) and an Outside side (dealing with gardens, parks, and urban planning). We meet her to discuss her assignment to ?do? the Rietveld pavilion in Venice on the occasion of the 13th Architecture Biennale, but also to discuss her experiences as interior designer and how that relates to her outdoor work.
Arjen Oosterman: Can you tell us how you were invited to participate in Venice?
Petra Blaisse: When Ole Bouman [curator of the Dutch pavilion in Venice] came to me last winter he started to talk about beauty, which I thought fantastic! Architecture and design ? and our clients have forgotten about content and beauty, it is all about safety, sustainability, practicality. Never ever about something special or full of surprises, maybe even danger! When someone is experiencing architecture or landscape or life, you want to overcome danger and experience the unexpected. So beauty is important but it is seen nowadays as a luxury, as a subjective emotion, something that better stay private.
When we continued talking about this theme, we concluded that it would be too highbrow, demanding, and even arrogant to make beauty the theme for the assignment. I couldn?t do it with my team; it is not the way we work. We solve technical issues and necessities first and the outcome can also be beautiful? if we are lucky.
Ole agreed and proposed a follow-up of the last Dutch pavilion theme: vacancy. The Rietveld pavilion has been a vacant building ten months out of the year for the past fifty years. ?Because of the economic crisis, we need to find ways to reuse vacant buildings in a relatively simple and economic way. That will be the statement.
Now I though that we can do. Inside Outside often works that way, to implement something that changes the organization and atmosphere of ?a building.
AO: By framing the quest for beauty with this theme of a design challenge it became feasible to act.
PB: Yes. And although we went through heaps of ideas related to all the information we gathered about this beautiful pavilion and the entire historically and culturally loaded context that surrounds it, we discovered that ? although we sometimes desperately try to avoid it with Freudian intensity ? the curtain, in its simplicity, is the strongest tool to achieve the effect that we wanted to achieve: challenging the given situation with an implemented object that would transform the architecture and its original implications in one move.
AO: The curtain will activate the space.
PB: Yes, it will? We will install a track system that can hold twelve positions, changing the spatial configuration through time. It is not the Rietveld language ? it is soft and pleated and it moves. And daylight ?will come splashing in like water, and shadows of trees and leaves will flutter and flicker on walls, floors and curtains. The installation will create effects that the architect would perhaps not choose ? but it will hopefully positively surprise him in his grave.
AO: Will there be additional programming of the space?
PB: Though the NAi may want to initiate certain happenings in the space, like a press conference, a concert, a beauty competition, or a religious ceremony, we are more interested in the difference that the curtain ? the connection to the sky and the play of light and shadow ? will introduce in the given space: with each shift of object and weather condition, the interior will change considerably: from large to small, square to round, light to dark, colorless to colorful and from still to loud. ??Because we opened the roof windows ? without the thousand lamellae and with sixty percent of clear glass ? the space will feel quite different.
AO: Landscape architecture came to the rescue in the early nineties, when neither architecture nor urbanism were able to provide the right answers to the challenges; now it could be interior architecture?s turn. And your practice combines both!
PB: Both are about organizing space; with planting and with curtains, horizontal carpets or vertical screens. Working outdoors, we collaborate with lighting and construction engineers, traffic specialists, botanists, furniture designers, and architects, among others. But in my mind the organization of space inside or outside is similar. It is about fluidity and movement, how you can efficiently go from one place to another, or how you can meander, take time and encounter surprises; or how you can create an extra room with one simple movement. Different routes and actions trigger different experiences. So both are about time, speed, organized views and perspectives and ? of course ? need special effects to trigger the notion of a changing landscape, whether inside or out.? Parks are in fact isolated patches of nature in an urban setting: large rooms that are encircled by traffic, buildings, and people in a hurry. They offer a welcome oasis to play, smell, relax, and think; to work out and to learn. But in fact they are used to cover polluted soil and underground infrastructure and to sooth the emotions of the surrounding inhabitants; they are therefore more political tools than innocent gardens; as much as our textile interventions are more solutions to technical and spatial issues than they are innocent objects of beauty.
AO: You mention time. Time as experience. But what about time in terms of life span, of the longue dur?e? Are there similarities here between interior and exterior work?
PB: Hardly any.
AO: Hardly any?
PB: Yes, landscape takes fifty years to mature, a curtain can only live fifteen years. One degrades and the other one grows. They are both dependant on light, climate and human interaction ? one has to use it, take care, act. As designer you have a kind of vision of what a place can become in the future. In the craze of the nineties everybody had money but no patience. So we had to put in trees that were already two hundred years old. But actually you seed, nurture, and wait. Gardens or green spaces of any scale ?are incredibly demanding for both users and clients. They have to invest in an unknown future and be patient. All can change every minute because of political shifts and economic fluctuations. The city of Milan will have to invest for generation to make the new Giardini di Porta Nuova park we designed for them in 2003 into what it is to become eventually: the Biblioteca degli Alberi. The story changes along the way and through time: first it is a Fashion Park for the elite; then a Sports Park for the people; then an artist?s work field, a children?s playground and an urban farm for the surrounding inhabitants. First the budget is high, then it diminishes through time ? yet the ambitions remain! .
So as designer you give your vision, you live through a long period of exciting and sometimes frustrating developments to fight and seek solutions for all the ambitions an ideas (together with everyone involved). But after that you are rarely expected to be part of the actual execution (thanks to the European tender regulations), let alone in the processes of growth and maintenance. So to position yourself in landscape design is quite different from interior. You can control so little after delivery of a design document, whereas with the interior design that we practice, we are on it with hands and feet from concept to tender, through production and installation; often including maintenance or adjustments in years to come.
AO: Interior is the opposite, it seems. In landscape you influence long-term development, with interior assignments it is the short lifespan you have to deal with.
PB: In interior you see the result, you?re making an object, it is there! Beautiful, exhilarating. In landscape it is all fantasy? brought through plant lists, stories about ecology and local wildlife, visits to forgotten gardens, theories on how plants can grow together better than separate, how ancient water systems can be uncovered and re-used ? we have endless stories. But whether it is going to happen is uncertain. Designing a park or a landscape master plan is much more a strategic process that serves the purpose of supporting development strategies and acquiring building permissions? if I may be so cynical!
AO: But don?t you have to include the short life of your interiors in your design?
PB: Also in fashion it has become fashionable to include the wear and tear. Think of the mould that Margielas introduced to color his clothes over time. The ?elephant trail? effect, both in interiors (the floor showing use, the fading of the textile) and exteriors.
Brendan Cormier: Interior seems to be far more subject to change because of fashion. People tend to replace parts of their interiors for no other reason.
PB: If you work in garden design and follow the plant business, you will see that it is as much influenced by fashion and manipulated by the market. Certain plants are out and others are in, people steel each other?s seeds and want only the latest variations and color combinations in their gardens. And each culture has a different view on this.
BC: Do you think the ego of a designer has to be different from an architect because of the time difference?
PB: The ego should be completely different, yes. Also because you?re sort of in between. It is a diplomatic role too. We want to understand completely what the architect wants. We worked with UN Studio and SANAA/Sejima when they already had designed the building, so you have to read into the project, go through every drawing and see every model, request to receive all their material samples before you can start thinking. In that sense they?re different from OMA?, because OMA has, from the very beginning, been interested in involving other disciplines into their work process at a very early stage. You grow together as a multi-disciplinary team. OMA dares to challenge others to comment and to influence them to acquire a wider perspective. This takes time and is not necessarily efficient, although maybe in the end it is: they learn, test, and develop themselves continuously, which is demanding but inspiring for all parties that work with them ? both for colleagues and clients. Most other architects want to first reach a certain level in their project so as to be in control and then they give you a specific role at a given point.
AO: But is there potentially a form of competition?
PB: Sometimes.
AO: Because most architects think of themselves as interior designers too.
PB: Most architects do.
AO: And then Petra comes in to tell them that it can be different.
PB: Yes and that would be a nuisance if it were not for the ever-prevailing humor of the situation! Look: we are invited. We know we are often a pain and demanding and, in a way, perpetual amateurs at that. But that makes it so that we feel great respect for what the architects and other team members achieve and are capable of, and that we look with positive energy to what they present to us. So we don?t come and say ?I don?t like your door knob?, but there is a (sometimes heated but more often inspiring) conceptual discussion. How did you come to this point? Why is it like this? What does it do? What do you expect us to do? And then we want to find out: will our intervention really be an improvement? There are situations in which we talk ourselves out of the commission: we say it is not necessary, that it undermines the quality of the architecture; or we suggest they ask an artist, or a good carpenter, or indeed to do it themselves. Not as an insult or because we give up (we never do!) but on the contrary: someone else could do a better or more sensible job. That moment is always a bit confrontational. First you?re happy and honored with the commission, but then, more importantly: you want to believe in the job, in yourself and what you do, so you don?t just jump into anything .
AO: Do you have to create your own ?space? in the project? To claim and conquer terrain for your intervention? You also may have to concede that your intervention will change the architecture, maybe even the idea behind it.
PB: Or I don?t say anything. That is also a way. But more and more it happens that architects count on us in their design, because we?ve been around so long now. The idea of Casa da Musica in Porto, with the glass undulating facades required a curtain solution, for instance. Our work is influencing the architecture even before we enter the scene.
BC: There is a stream of interior design that is focused on stimulating human behavior. To what degree is choreography part of your designs? You have a cultural anthropologist on your team for instance.
PB: The designs are about choreography, about orchestrating movement through space and the experience of space. I always say that the path is the same as the track: they both lead you or the object from one point to the next, offering views and sensations, influencing your pace and sense of place. With curtains we prefer not to work with motors, because we like people to manipulate the curtain, to touch them and to sense their weight, scale, and material. Not only in private houses, but also in Haus der Kunst they do it by hand. It is a really important part of the design: the literal involvement of the human being, the relationship between the object and the person.
AO: There is a photo in your book Inside Outside showing a curtain blowing in the wind and the caption says: ?Look what architecture CAN?T do.? Fascinating.
PB: It is my elegy for this computer-designed architecture, blobs pretending they are soft and moving. But they are not; they are as hard and static as any architecture.
AO: But I also see chance here. What is the role of chance in your work?
PB: There is chance in that picture. We try to control as much as possible, but as soon as you let go, it has its own life and introduces a lot of surprises.
AO: Yet there is this meticulous testing in your designs, sometimes even for years, to exclude chance.
PB: Yes, five, six years, easily.
AO: So what is the role of chance?
PB: It is always there. In the Hackney Empire Theatre we did this stage curtain. It is a guillotine curtain (lifted vertically). I wanted to make something that has its own life, behaves differently every time it comes down. We did all sorts of tests and proposals with springs and elastics ? things that, as it turned out, couldn?t survive for fifteen years ? in the sense of securing their performance for years on end, time and again ? and we believed in a black-and-white composition at that, in a cultural heritage building of the late nineteenth century! Our clients, as you read in my book, found it all too modern and dependent on chance and asked us to withdraw or to make a red velvet curtain with golden cords in the classic manner. This we happily accepted and we came up with this enlarged smock solution. The process was about the fear of chance and the grabbing of chance, it was inspiring and it worked!
AO: The Dutch pavilion in Venice will feature a choreography of a curtain in an empty pavilion. Total control, no chance as far as I can see it.
PB: Total control, yes. Typical female control [laughs]. It?s controlled because you know the moment you deliver it there is no control any longer. If you don?t start with control, it?s too open. Why we design a garden meticulously is not because it will stay like that, but to create a strong starting point.
[Images (c) Rob ?t Hart]
More information about Volume 33: Interiors can be found here.
You can purchase Volume 33: Interiors here.
Source: http://volumeproject.org/blog/2012/10/25/chance-and-control-interview-with-petra-blaisse/
GOP tries to move past Mourdock comment on rape
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) ? Embattled Senate candidate Richard Mourdock and national Republican officials said Thursday they were moving past the uproar over his comments that a pregnancy resulting from rape is God's will and refocusing the nation's political conversation on the presidential and congressional elections less than two weeks off.
But even as they tried to recover, Senate Democrats dropped $1.1 million on an ad keeping the spectacle alive and linking Mourdock's comments to Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
"God intended that a woman be raped and become pregnant? Even Mitt Romney and (gubernatorial hopeful) Mike Pence believe Richard Mourdock goes too far," the narrator says in the statewide spot, which began running Thursday night? 48 hours after Mourdock made the remark in a debate. Democrats said it would continue running over Indiana's airwaves through the Nov. 6 election.
Mourdock spokesman Brose McVey called the ad "sleazy."
"Now Donnelly and his liberal Washington allies are attacking Richard Mourdock's faith and beliefs," McVey said, adding the ad violates an agreement signed by the campaigns not to use footage from the debates, but the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington never signed that pledge.
The blistering speed with which national Democrats produced and aired the spot was a swift shove against a series of stubborn, stalemated contests, from the presidential race to the battle for control of the Senate and the Indiana race in particular. The state's open Senate seat is a must-win if Republicans are to gain the four seats they need to win control of the Senate if President Barack Obama wins reelection, three seats if Romney prevails.
The ad's subject matter_rape, abortion, and God? illustrated the overarching importance of one group of voters critical to every locked contest: Women voters. In Indiana, the pool of undecided voters is more than 60 percent women.
Obama and his Democratic allies have battled all year for the trust of female voters, with Democrats charging that Republicans were waging a "war against women" and Republicans insisting that their economic plans offered more to this critical bloc that suffered from the recession more than men.
Obama started the year with a big lead among women. But the latest Associated Press-GfK poll found Romney running even with the president among this group, erasing a broad gap in the president's favor. Romney made particularly large gains among women on handling the economy. However, he lags behind the president as more trusted to make the right decisions on women's issues.
The president weighed into the Mourdock matter early.
"Rape is rape. It is a crime," he said on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. "This is exactly why you don't want a bunch of politicians, mostly male, making decisions about women's healthcare decisions."
For his part, Romney's campaign quickly issued a statement saying that he disagrees with Mourdock on the issue. But he allowed an ad endorsing Mourdock to continue to run in Indiana, and the candidate himself ignored reporters questions about the matter in Ohio on Thursday.
Mourdock turned back to campaigning Thursday morning, holding a breakfast fundraiser west of Indianapolis with South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, meanwhile, continued hitting Democrat Joe Donnelly for co-sponsoring the a bill supported by Missouri Republican Rep. Todd Akin that would have barred federal funding for abortion in cases of statutory rape and incest. Akin also is struggling to recover from his own "legitimate rape" comment, aired in August, in his challenge to Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill.
But unlike Akin, Mourdock was receiving support from loyal allies and even a few national Republicans.
"I don't know that I've ever in my many years in politics gotten such support, physical support, people come up and giving me hugs all day yesterday and telling me they're praying for me and my wife. We're moving forward and very confident with what the outcome will be," Mourdock told WTHR-TV in Indianapolis following his fundraiser with DeMint.
The party's 2008 nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, meanwhile walked back his request that Mourdock apologize for the comment, saying in a statement Thursday he was happy with Mourdock's explanation of what he meant.
With less than two weeks until the election, the Republican damage control strategy is: no more Akins.
"I think it makes a lot of sense to change the subject. As long as you're talking about this, you're losing," said Republican pollster Christine Matthews.
On Thursday, Mourdock tried to reclaim the strategy he had pursued up until Tuesday: tying Donnelly to Obama.
"Maybe the president ought to come out to Indiana and talk about it with Donnelly," Mourdock said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press. Mourdock's deputy campaign manager Brose McVey said the campaign planned interviews with television stations in Terre Haute, Ind. Thursday and a press event in New Albany, Ind. Friday, the southern Indiana town where he made the abortion comment during a Senate debate.
"This is a very competitive race and we're not going to back down and we're confident we're going to win," McVey said Thursday.
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Thursday, October 25, 2012
The Customer Service Divide: Social Media vs Telephone ...
I had two experiences this year that has left me concerned about the ethical operations of companies and how they approach customer service. Mainly the type of customer service it seems you receive if you go by the proper channels, and that you receive when you go via a social media channels and start throwing your toys out of the pram.
I?ve not been one to get stung by bad customer service often to have to deal with it; it has mainly been something I have read about, rather than had a personal experience of. I understand there are genuine slip-ups; mistakes happen, things are overlooked or forgotten about. They shouldn?t happen, but they do, and businesses/employees learn by their mistakes.
Both of the following incidents were first dealt with by my girlfriend (who made the orders) using the telephone numbers for customer services, which then led to me complaining via Twitter about their failures, i.e., I started throwing my toys out of the pram.
I don?t want to make a habit of complaining about companies on Twitter, but it frustrates me seeing a company give poor customer service via telephone, and yet suddenly take action when I mention their shortcomings on Twitter. I know social media is a good leveraging tool when a company fails to provide customer service, though it shouldn?t have to be that way.
The Delivery Company
We had ordered some dog food and my girlfriend was at home until the reasonable hour of 4pm waiting for its delivery. Later she received an Email saying that they had tried to deliver but no one was at home. Fair enough, sods law, stay in all day nearly and then they (supposedly) attempt delivery ? no calling card was left, just an email. The problem was the email gave an incorrect 8 digit reference number made up completely of zeros. This was, as you can guess, not being accepted when entered into the automated telephone system or on their website.
With no direct easy way to get hold of the delivery company my girlfriend fired off an email to the dog food supplier. They reported that the delivery company said that one of the two parcels was ?stuck? (their words not mine) and the other one would be delivered the next day ? whilst no one was at home.
So I made my tweet complaining about the error, tagging the delivery company name, and sure enough I had a response asking for details. There was no way to directly communicate with anyone when my girlfriend called by phone, but here was another real human being willing to help out in some form just because I was making a statement on Twitter.
The Florist Company
The girlfriend had ordered flowers for a friend who had an operation soon after giving birth to a baby boy. Thankfully it wasn?t long till she was back home and my girlfriend thought some flowers as a surprise would be nice. We enquired with her partner if the flowers arrived after not hearing from her after a few days and sure enough they hadn?t been delivered.
When my girlfriend rang the company, they confirmed they had not been delivered, and offered her a complementary redelivery or a refund. When she enquired about the ?complementary redelivery? it turned out that they wouldn?t refund her and redeliver, but simply deliver the flowers late that she had paid for! So my girlfriend requested a refund after pointing out that the redelivery was not exactly complementary, and there was my second statement via Twitter of rubbish customer service.
This time I was given a URL by the flower delivery company?s Twitter profile to fill out a form. So I passed the details on even though my girlfriend had already organised a refund. For her troubles they called her and offered to deliver the flowers for free and got back to me on Twitter saying it had been resolved.
Here is what my girlfriend had to say when I forwarded the tweet to her:
?Ha ha that was quick. She was nice on the phone and are going to send flowers to [friend?s name] yay. That is what should have happened in first place though. Twitter complaining is weird.?
Customer service via social media
Yes, complaining on Twitter is weird. Surely a company should always try and do its best to resolve things before it gets to the stage of anyone complaining on Twitter to make things right. By telephoning customer services the issues should have been resolved in the first place.
It?s not like I have a big following of people on Twitter who are interested in flowers, but meanwhile my girlfriend works alongside many women in a NHS laboratory, the exact demographic that they would love to be targeting on social networks. Do they think my girlfriend is recommending their service after they forgot to deliver the flowers, and then offered to just deliver them late without a refund?
Why do companies have this divide between how they treat their customers on the phone and on social media? Having worked a number of years face-to-face in retail with customers, I believe companies should do their best every time so there are no second choices.
Maybe it?s a financial thing; don?t bend over backwards for all customers due to costs of compensating them? That?s a false economy in itself, especially when the business is in the wrong.
Pay attention to social media complaints
What happened about our dog food delivery? We ended up driving to the depot and demanding our box (which they had sat there) because no one rang back to follow-up what was happening ? even after speaking to a person on Twitter. I hazard a guess that they have a major customer service problem that can?t be fixed by social media alone.
Yes, it?s good that your company may be paying attention to social media channels for customer service issues, but it?s only as good as the customer service that you provide in the first place. You need to make sure that you have a system to follow-up that the issue is resolved so it does not slip through the cracks again.
Have you had poor customer service that was then resolved by social media channels? Please leave out using brand names to protect innocent employees who actually do a great job for their employers.
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Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Are There Regulations That Prohibit Giving A Loan On ... - Realtor.com
Q: I am interested in a foreclosure property being sold ?as is?. The bank that owns the house (it is a mobile with land) has already pre-approved me for a loan. I gave them an offer that included providing a water heater. They asked for a counter offer with my ?best and final offer?. I want to take out the water heater because I have a friend that works on houses and can give me a good deal. My agent says I need to leave it in because they can?t give a loan on a house without a water heater. It is not an FHA loan. Can I have her take out the water heater? (there is another offer on the property and her agency is handling that offer too) ? Thanks
?Anonymous, Peoria, IL
A: Generally a water heater will be required for financing (health & safety issue) and in many cases the bank that owns the home will put one in if required for financing, check with the underwriter.
One strategy could be to take the water heater requirement out of the contract and then when your lender requires it for a loan, ask the seller to repair/replace, but your agent will know the best strategy for your area and situation.
good luck!
Teri Andrews Murch is a Realtor? with Lyon Real Estate in Auburn, CA.
Are you interested in having a qualified REALTOR answer your questions? Click through to Ask a REALTOR? now.
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Related posts:
- Who Determines The Closing Date?
- Does The Type Of Loan Matter On A Short Sale Offer?
- If I Couldn?t Buy A Home With One Bank, Should I Try Another?
- How Do I Go About Buying A Government-Owned House?
- Are There Types Of Creative Financing That Can Minimize A Down Payment?
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Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Difference Between Enculturation and Acculturation: Enculturation ...
Enculturation vs Acculturation
?
Enculturation and acculturation are terms that are used in sociology and social anthropology, to explain different processes of absorption of cultural traits by the people. Both processes help in explaining socialization on individuals in a society. Enculturation helps a person living in a society imbibe and immerse social values of the culture that surrounds him. There is another term acculturation that is sometimes used for this very process and confuses many. There are subtle differences between enculturation and acculturation that will be highlighted in this article.
Enculturation
The process of socialization that helps a person to acquire social norms, values, behaviors, language and other tools of the culture that surrounds him in a society is labeled as enculturation. Much help in this process comes from parents, peers and siblings that provide the necessary push and pull to make a person learn what makes him socially more or better fit in his society. All people in the society learn about acceptable behaviors and the behaviors they need to avoid.
Acculturation
Acculturation is a process of socialization that takes place whenever there is a meeting of two different cultures. These changes taking place can be seen both at cultural as well as psychological levels. Both the cultures are affected with changes seen or felt in both cultures. The changes that can be seen easily are the changes in clothing, language, and customs or practices. However, despite claims by anthropologists and sociologists about acculturation being a two way process of change, there is proof to suggest that changes take place mostly in the norms and values apart from clothing and language of minorities living inside a country rather than affecting majority customs and traditions.
What is the difference between Enculturation and Acculturation?
? Both enculturation and acculturation are processes of socialization taking place in a society.
? Whereas enculturation is a process that helps an individual to imbibe social values, norms, customs etc. of the culture he lives in, acculturation is a two way change process that takes placed when there is a meeting of two cultures.
? In acculturation there are changes felt in both cultures though mostly it is the minority culture that gets changed by way of changed language, clothing, customs and practices.
? Enculturation helps an individual to survive and better fit into the culture he finds himself surrounded.
? No difference between the two terms is accepted in some countries where acculturation is considered as same as enculturation.
Source: http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-enculturation-and-vs-acculturation/
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Monday, October 22, 2012
Internet marketing and business ? SubmitEdge Review ? The ...
Every web based businessman wishes to see their site on top of the Google search rankings. The competition is getting stiffer and businesses are talking the services of SEO companies to boost their ranking and improve their visibility. If you are looking out for reliable SEO firms, then submit edge review can give you a fair idea about the working of this company. As a SEO company, SubmitEdge has earned an untarnished reputation that is very difficult to achieve. The professionals of the company have worked hand and glove with their clients to help them in attaining the high PR in Google rankings. The firm is pretty popular among its clients as they do not hesitate in going an extra mile to serve their clients.
SubmitEdge regularly works to develop unique strategies to meet the specific needs of individual clients. Their strategies are helpful in boosting your site?s page rank and thus, make a positive impact on your online sales. You can go through the SubmitEdge review to get a clear idea about how good the company is. You can check out the reviews of the company on various sites as well. The professionals of the company make sure that they enhance the design of the website. The company can help in creating huge visibility online, so that you could easily grab the maximum attention.
Every business organisation wants their websites to be at the top of Google, Yahoo, Digg, Reddit and other search engines. Unfortunately, not everyone is able to achieve this objective. The experts at SubmitEdge, constantly work to develop unique strategies that could help their clients in reaching the top of these search lists. You will be glad to know that SubmitEdge reviews posted online have earned better rankings from clients. The SEO professionals at the company have been capable of creating content that is readable for both, users and search engine algorithms. The company has developed as the top brand in SEO firms and is considered to be the best in the domain. They leave no stone unturned to give their clients amazing services and monitor their development till the end of the project.
The professionals at SubmitEdge will always keep you updated about the developments. SEO is a constant process and with a company like submit edge, attaining quality results becomes pretty easy. The company has quality customer care service that offers 24X7 supports to its clients. You must search for submit edge reviews online and check out the details about their achievements before finalizing them for the job. The reviews will provide you with better insight about the services. The company has earned a vast satisfied client base and you must certainly consider their services in case you are looking out for SEO services. Try out their services without any delay. This can prove to be the key to your success in the online business domain. The internet offers easy access to the company. The packages are also priced competitively to offer maximum benefits to businesses of all scales.
Source: http://www.berkeleybubble.org/submitedge-review-the-perfect-seo-company/
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Sunday, October 21, 2012
White House orders spy agencies to share cyberthreat intel with companies
7 hrs.
WASHINGTON (AP) -?A new White House executive order would direct U.S. spy agencies to share the latest intelligence about cyberthreats with companies operating electric grids, water plants, railroads and other vital industries to help protect them from electronic attacks, according to a copy obtained by The Associated Press.?
The seven-page draft order, which is being finalized, takes shape as the Obama administration expresses growing concern that Iran could be the first country to use cyberterrorism against the United States. The military is ready to retaliate if the U.S. is hit by cyberweapons, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said. But the U.S. also is poorly prepared to prevent such an attack, which could damage or knock out critical services that are part of everyday life.?
The White House declined to say when the president will sign the order.?
The draft order would put the Department of Homeland Security in charge of organizing an information-sharing network that rapidly distributes sanitized summaries of top-secret intelligence reports about known cyberthreats that identify a specific target. With these warnings, known as tear lines, the owners and operators of essential U.S. businesses would be better able to block potential attackers from gaining access to their computer systems.?
An organized, broad-based approach for sharing cyberthreat information gathered by the government is widely viewed as essential for any plan to protect U.S. computer networks from foreign nations, terrorist groups and hackers. Existing efforts to exchange information are narrowly focused on specific industries, such as the finance sector, and have had varying degrees of success.?
Yet the order has generated stiff opposition from Republicans on Capitol Hill who view it as a unilateral move that bypasses the legislative authority held by Congress.?
Administration officials said the order became necessary after Congress failed this summer to pass cybersecurity legislation, leaving critical infrastructure companies vulnerable to a serious and growing threat. Conflicting bills passed separately by the House and Senate included information-sharing provisions. But efforts to get a final measure through both chambers collapsed over the GOP's concerns that the Senate bill would expand the federal government's regulatory power and increase costs for businesses.?
The White House has acknowledged that an order from the president, while legally binding, is not enough. Legislation is needed to make other changes to improve the country's digital defenses. An executive order, for example, cannot offer a company protection from liabilities that might result from a cyberattack on its systems.?
The addition of the information-sharing provisions is the most significant change to an earlier draft of the order completed in late August. The new draft, which is not dated, retains a section that requires Homeland Security to identify the vital systems that, if hit by cyberattack, could "reasonably result in a debilitating impact" on national and economic security. Other sections establish a program to encourage companies to adopt voluntary security standards and direct federal agencies to determine whether existing cyber security regulations are adequate.?
The draft order directs the department to work with the Pentagon, the National Security Agency, the director of national intelligence and the Justice Department to quickly establish the information-sharing mechanism. Selected employees at critical infrastructure companies would receive security clearances allowing them to receive the information, according to the document. Federal agencies would be required to assess whether the order raises any privacy or civil liberties risks.?
To foster a two-way exchange of information, the government would ask businesses to tell the government about cyberthreats or cyberattacks. There would be no requirement to do so.?
The NSA has been sharing cyberthreat information on a limited basis with companies that conduct business with the Defense Department. These companies work with sensitive data about weapon systems and technologies and are frequently the targets of cyberspying.?
But the loss of valuable information has been eclipsed by fears that an enemy with the proper know-how could cause havoc by sending the computers controlling critical infrastructure systems incorrect commands or infecting them with malicious software. Potential nightmare scenarios include high-speed trains being put on collision courses, blackouts that last days or perhaps even weeks or chemical plants that inadvertently release deadly gases.?
Panetta underscored the looming dangers during a speech last week in New York by pointing to the Shamoon virus that destroyed thousands of computer systems owned by Persian Gulf oil and gas companies. Shamoon, which spreads quickly through networked computers and ultimately wipes out files by overwriting them, hit the Saudi Arabian state oil company Aramco and Qatari natural gas producer RasGas.?
Panetta did not directly connect Iran to the Aramco and RasGas attacks. But U.S. officials believe hackers based in Iran were behind them.?
Shamoon replaced files at Aramco with the image of a burning U.S. flag and rendered more than 30,000 computers useless, Panetta said. The attack on RasGas was similar, he said.?
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council, Caitlin Hayden, said the administration is consulting with members of Congress and the private sector as the order is being drafted. But she provided no information on when an order would be signed. "Given the gravity of the threats we face in cyberspace, we want to get this right in addition to getting it done swiftly," she said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Saturday, October 20, 2012
Democratic donors energize "Super PACs" as election nears
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic donors gave unprecedented amounts of money in September to their party's three main "Super PACs," federal disclosures revealed on Friday, a reflection of how wealthy Democrats' reluctance to give to such groups has faded in the weeks before the November 6 election.
A fundraising laggard for much of the campaign, the political action committee (PAC) backing President Barack Obama raised more than a rival group backing Republican Mitt Romney, the second consecutive month the Democratic group had done so.
The pro-Obama group Priorities USA Action said it raised $15.2 million in September, compared with $14.8 million for the pro-Romney group Restore Our Future, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
Restore Our Future, a formidable advertising force whose attack ads on Romney's Republican rivals helped him secure the party's presidential nomination, began the crucial month of October with $16.6 million in cash on hand. On Saturday, Priorities' filings are due to reveal its cash on hand and donors for September.
Early this year, many Democratic donors were reluctant to donate to PACs supporting their party's candidates because they disliked the idea of contributing to attack ads and other negative advertising - a staple of spending by groups known as "Super PACs" because they have no limits on how much they can raise and spend.
In recent months, fundraising for Democratic PACs has accelerated to counter the waves of anti-Obama and anti-Democratic ads from Republican groups.
Meanwhile, the Democratic PACs seeking to help candidates win House of Representatives and Senate seats also saw donations rise in September.
Majority PAC, the group helping Democratic candidates for the Senate, announced on Friday its biggest cash haul since its creation in 2010: $10.4 million in September, and another $9.7 million during the first week of October.
Its sister group, House Majority PAC, also had its best month in September and is on track to double that in October, an aide to the group said.
CONTROL OF CONGRESS
Democrats need a net gain of 25 seats to become the majority party in the 435-seat House, an outcome that most pollsters see as unlikely. Republicans need a net gain of four seats to take control of the Senate. Most pollsters also see that as unlikely.
Scores of Republican PACs and tax-exempt groups have been formed to support Republican House and Senate candidates. Tax-exempt groups do not disclose their finances; disclosures of the most influential Super PAC, American Crossroads, are due later on Saturday.
Restore Our Future, the PAC that supports Romney, reported on Friday that its largest donors included Texas home builder Bob Perry and billionaire Harold Simmons. Perry gave $2 million in September and leads all donors with $10 million contributed to Restore Our Future during this election cycle. Simmons gave $500,000 for the month, increasing his total to the group to $1.3 million.
Republicans showed greater fundraising strength at the party level in September.
The Republican National Committee raised $48.4 million and ended September with $82.6 million in cash on hand. Its Democratic counterpart took out a large loan.
The Democratic National Committee, which has focused on races for the Senate and House, raised $20.3 million in September and borrowed $10.5 million. It ended September $20.5 million in debt, according to its filing with the FEC.
A DNC representative declined to comment on the reason for the debt and how it might affect Democratic candidates in the final two weeks before the election. The party had $4.6 million in cash on hand heading into October.
The RNC reported $9.9 million in debt at the end of September, with its $82.6 million in cash on hand.
Unlike the DNC, the Republican Party has been working closely with its presidential candidate, Romney, who heavily relies on its grassroots operation. On the Democratic side, Obama's campaign has a huge grassroots organization itself and does not need such help from its party.
(Additional reporting by Alexander Cohen; Editing by David Lindsey and Will Dunham)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/democratic-donors-energize-super-pacs-election-nears-052048391.html
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