shelving secunia

rondonvincenza20

If you're a novelist who takes a decade or so between books, you can only hope that your readers remember how much they loved you in the past. It's a saturated market out there, and brand loyalty doesn't always extend to novelists.

But ever since the news broke that Donna Tartt's new book The Goldfinch would soon be published, many readers have been waiting in a state of breathless excitement. They've never quite gotten over how much they loved Tartt's 1992 novel, The Secret History, a tale of friendship and murder set at a college, which went on to become not only an international hit but also one of those rare books that are read over and over, in hopes of reliving that initial literary rush.

Would Tartt's latest book inspire the same kind of devotion? After all, she published a second novel, The Little Friend, that was frequently described as a letdown. Is The Goldfinch more like The Little Friend, or — fingers crossed — The Secret History?

As it turns out, it's not much like either The Secret History or The Little Friend, and if I hadn't known that Donna Tartt had written it, I would never have guessed. This dense, 771-page book tells the story of a boy named Theo Decker, whose mother is killed in a terrorist act early in the novel. In the midst of the trauma and chaos, Theo steals a famous painting, "The Goldfinch," by the Dutch painter Carel Fabritius, setting the sweeping, episodic story in motion.

Several reviewers have compared her book to Oliver Twist, but when I started it I was more reminded of the Harry Potter series (a comparison that is actually made later in the book). The contemporary plot is often nervily improbable and outsized, and Theo, age 13 at the start, is a lot like Harry, in that both boys are gifted, tender-hearted and woefully unsupervised. Theo's scar, while deep and permanent, is of the invisible kind.

Donna Tartt's other works include The Secret History and The Little Friend.

Bruno Vincent/Getty Images

Donna Tartt's other works include The Secret History and The Little Friend.

Bruno Vincent/Getty Images

The day The Goldfinch arrived I promptly cracked it open, remembering how my sons would pounce on the latest Harry Potter on the day it was published. J.K. Rowling transformed a generation of kids into passionate readers. Donna Tartt does something different here — she takes fully grown, already passionate readers and reminds them of the particularly deep pleasures that a long, winding novel can hold. In the short-form era in which we live, the Internet has supposedly whittled our attention-spans down to the size of hotel soap, and it's good to be reminded that sometimes more is definitely more.

So we get a whole lot of Theo here, and also his friend Boris, a kid with a Ukrainian passport and a multi-national history who befriends him after he's forced to leave New York City and go live with his deadbeat dad and his dad's new girlfriend Xandra in a horrible development in Las Vegas. Boris is a great character — totally appealing, a victim of appalling parental neglect, and together he and Theo forge a friendship that's believable, destructive, and comical:

"Don't go!" said Boris, one night at his house when I stood up toward the end of The Magnificent Seven" ... "You'll miss the best part."

... "You saw this movie before?"

"Dubbed into Russian, if you can believe it. But very weak Russian. Sissy. Is sissy the word I want? More like schoolteachers than gunfighters, is what I'm trying to say."

The Las Vegas section is long and detailed, just like all the other sections of this novel. Tartt almost seems to be writing in real time, and yet I was never bored. A series of long set pieces moves the story from the suspenseful opening to the rich, dense, leisurely middle and eventually the action-packed end, which is set in Amsterdam. That part, weirdly, feels as if it was grafted on from a different novel. Or no, it almost feels as if it was grafted on from a particularly literate, stylish indie crime film on the Sundance Channel.

But the occasional disjointedness doesn't affect the overall success of the novel, which absorbed me from start to finish. While The Goldfinch delves seriously and studiously into themes of art, beauty, loss and freedom, I mostly loved it because it kept me wishing I could stay in its fully-imagined world a little longer. Donna Tartt was right to take her time with this book. Readers will want to take their time with it, too.

Meg Wolitzer's latest novel is The Interestings.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/21/239075604/more-is-more-in-donna-tartts-believable-behemoth-goldfinch?ft=1&f=1008
Category: carrie Toy Story of Terror Captain Phillips FIFA 14 Dedication 5

rondonvincenza20

Got BBM on Android? Here are the basics.

BBM is starting to get (kinda-sorta) rolled out today on Android, and to get folks acclimatized, BlackBerry has posted a few how-to videos on their YouTube channel. Videos show how to manage groups, how read/delivered receipts work, handling multi-person chat, checking status updates, sharing files, and adding contacts.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/PPGDN_SZTq4/the-sony-xperia-z1s-might-be-the-mini-z1-for-all-the-wo-1448993863
Similar Articles: The Goldbergs nfl scores Tami Erin true blood Moto X

rondonvincenza20

THE RED MONASTERY, Egypt (AP) — Locked inside a 6th century church in a desert monastery are some of the jewels of early Christianity — ancient murals in vivid pinks, greens and reds depicting saints, angels and the Virgin Mary with a baby Jesus, hidden for centuries under a blanket of black soot.

Italian and Egyptian restorers are meticulously uncovering the paintings, some of the earliest surviving and most complete examples of early Coptic Christian art. But the work, in the final stages more than a decade after it started, is done quietly to avoid drawing attention — and there's no plan to try to attract visitors, at least not now.

"This is our heritage and we must protect it," said Father Antonius, abbot of the Red Monastery where the Anba Bishay Church is located. He takes it as a personal mission to protect it. The church's heavy wooden door has only two keys. He keeps one and a young monk he trusts keeps the other.

"I don't think there is a church anywhere in Egypt that even begins to match the beauty of this one," Antonius said, beaming like a proud father.

The little known Anba Bishay Church offers a striking example of how Egypt's Orthodox Coptic Church jealously guards its heritage against formidable odds — whether decades of neglect, discrimination by the Muslim majority or the violence by Islamic militants, who have gained significant power since the 2011 ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

The protection of its heritage took on greater urgency when 40 churches were wrecked, burned and looted in a pogrom-like wave of attacks in August, blamed on Islamic militants. Coptic leaders say the attacks are the worst in centuries.

The attacks laid bare a worrisome failure or unwillingness by authorities, as well as moderate Muslims, to protect the churches. Christians, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt's 90 million citizens, were left with their deepest sense of vulnerability in recent history. Egypt's powerful military pledged with great fanfare to restore the churches. But Christians say that, two months later, they are still waiting for concrete steps.

The Coptic Orthodox Church is one of Christianity's earliest branches. It was born in Egypt, and almost all Egyptian Christians throughout the centuries have belonged to it. But it never ruled in Egypt. Instead, Copts were subjects in a succession of empires, from the Romans and Byzantines through various Muslim dynasties.

The result is a complicated legacy. A historic sense of persecution engrained a deep secrecy in the Church, which has long turned inward for its own protection. The lesson that Copts long absorbed — take care of yourselves and don't involve outsiders — has been applied to their conservation efforts.

Complicating those efforts, the Copts' material civilization is fragile. They have not left mighty stone temples, tombs and mosques like Egypt's pharaonic or Muslim rulers, noted Imad Farid, an expert on historical Coptic architecture.

Instead, Copts traditionally built in mud brick, which deteriorates over time, especially in the eroding moisture and floods in the Nile River valley. Desert monasteries, preserved by aridity, constitute most of what is left of Coptic civilization. They have been the traditional repositories for the Church's artistic treasures, from icons and murals to rare manuscripts.

Past generations of Copts "left us not with a history of rulers but of a people and their daily lives," Farid said. "The monasteries have preserved their way of life. They are like conservation zones for human and intellectual heritage."

But many monasteries were abandoned over the centuries, in part because of a shortage of monks. Over time, their mud brick chapels and hermit cells fell prey to elements, earthquakes or depredations from Bedouin attackers.

For example, the Red Monastery and the nearby White Monastery were once united in a sprawling complex to which some 5,000 monks belonged. Both were deserted by the 8th century and have only been resurrected in the last 30 years.

"Our heritage is disappearing because of random restoration work, urbanization and the work of the ignorant. I don't want future generations to curse us for not documenting what we have now," said Father Maximus, a monk and one of the church's top conservation experts.

A slender 59-year-old who carries an IPad and an IPhone wherever he goes, Maximus has led a team of Italian restoration experts traveling across Egypt since 1996 to save as much as they can of Coptic heritage. His team, including Egyptian experts and backed by the American Research Center in Egypt, has worked on the murals of Anba Bishay Church since 2002, in the desert on the edge of the Nile River valley, some 500 kilometers (310 miles) south of Cairo.

The Anba Bishay Church, modeled after Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre with an intricate array of niches and columns, is considered the most complete historical church structure in Egypt.

"It is a very unique church and now it is in a very good condition," enthused Maximus. He says the work is a battle against time — to "protect the physical Coptic heritage, to prevent it from disappearing."

The attacks in August illustrate the latest danger to Egypt's Coptic culture.

Among the 40 churches attacked was a 1,600-year-old church gutted by fire and stripped bare of its contents. Others were built in the late 19th or early 20th centuries. Most of the attacks took place in southern Egypt, an underdeveloped region with a combustible mix of powerful Islamic radicals and sizable Christian communities.

Some of the attacks began as retaliation for the Christians' support of the ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in a popularly backed July 3 military coup.

But they devolved into an orgy of looting. In some cases, looters dug under altars searching for buried treasure.

Widely held myths of hidden wealth have been fueled by the Church's traditional secrecy, said Bishop Biemen, abbot of the Monastery of Archangel Michael, near the southern city of Luxor.

"Because we have been hurt so often, we have become an insular community. That has created a sort of mystique about us that included tales of priceless jewels hidden in churches," he said.

In a recent tour of southern Egypt, The Associated Press found Christians still grieving over the loss of churches.

As a show of resilience, some have held Masses and weddings in the blackened shells of churches, using only a makeshift altar. Still, priests say, some worshippers have stayed away, too hurt to see the condition of the churches where they lived out milestones like weddings, baptisms and funerals.

"God, please be merciful to us and don't abandon us," Father Boutros said in a recent early morning Mass at the John the Baptist Church in the town of Abanoub, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Cairo.

"God, please save us from the evil ones," he said, as the congregation of around two dozen women and a handful of men repeated after him.

During the service, two church workers acted as lookouts outside, in case of renewed hostility by Muslim extremists. Schoolchildren dropped in for a quick prayer or communion on their way to classes.

The church's walls were blackened. Icons and murals, destroyed or stripped away in the looting, were replaced by posters of John the Baptist, Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Because the pews were burned or stolen, worshippers sat on rented chairs with dirty red velvet upholstery. Light bulbs were powered by a wire strung in from outside the church, since its own electrical system was destroyed.

"To burn a church is to burn the heart of every man who comes here to pray to God," said Maher Nakhlah, a 42-year-old U.S.-trained English teacher attending the Mass. "It is difficult to understand how a place where people pray and which is void of any hatred could be attacked."

In the nearby city of Assiut, the Gothic structure of the Franciscan Church of Saint Theresa, built by Italians early in the last century, remains largely intact after Muslim militants set it on fire.

But the damage inside betrayed a worrying hatred for the Christian faith.

A wooden statue of the Virgin Mary was decapitated, and the hands chopped off. The face, hands and feet were also bashed off a porcelain sculpture of Saint Theresa, dating back to 1924. One of the church's two confessional booths was torched.

Friday Mass at the church is now held earlier in the day so congregants can leave and lock the church gates before Muslims finish their noon prayers at the nearby mosque, used by ultraconservatives.

"We don't want trouble," Father Bishara Ayoub said.

"The problem is not one of material loss, it is to do with psychology" said Jihan Bramble, a Christian engineer. "This is the price of freedom for now. But our persecution will continue indefinitely. It always has."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/amid-attacks-egypts-copts-preserve-heritage-061403067.html
Tags: foxnews national coffee day Dreamchasers 3 apple Laurie Forman

rondonvincenza20

FILE - This Feb. 8, 2012 file photo shows a view inside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share their posts on the social network with anyone on the Internet, raising the risks of minors leaving a digital trail that could lead to trouble. The change announced Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 affects Facebook users who list their ages as being from 13 to 17. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook is now allowing teenagers to share their posts on the social network with anyone on the Internet, raising the risks of minors leaving a digital trail that could lead to trouble.

The change announced Wednesday affects Facebook users who list their ages as 13 to 17.

Until now, Facebook users falling within that age group had been limited to sharing information and photos only with their own friends or friends of those friends.

The new policy will give teens the choice of switching their settings so their posts can be accessible to the general public. That option already has been available to adults, including users who are 18 or 19.

As a protective measure, Facebook will warn minors opting to be more open that they are exposing themselves to a broader audience. The caution will repeat before every post, as long as the settings remain on "public."

The initial privacy settings of teens under 18 will automatically be set so posts are seen only by friends. That's more restrictive than the previous default setting that allowed teens to distribute their posts to friends of their friends in the network.

In a blog post, Facebook said it decided to revise its privacy rules to make its service more enjoyable for teens and to provide them with a more powerful megaphone when they believe they have an important point to make or a cause to support.

"Teens are among the savviest people using social media, and whether it comes to civic engagement, activism, or their thoughts on a new movie, they want to be heard," Facebook wrote.

The question remains whether teens understand how sharing their thoughts or pictures of their activities can come back to haunt them, said Kathryn Montgomery, an American University professor of communications who has written a book about how the Internet affects children.

"On the one hand, you want to encourage kids to participate in the digital world, but they are not always very wise about how they do it," she said. "Teens tend to take more risks and don't always understand the consequences of their behavior."

The relaxed standards also may spur teens to spend more time on Facebook instead of other services, such as Snapchat, that are becoming more popular hangouts among younger people. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, though, says that the company's internal data shows its social network remains a magnet for teens.

Giving people more reasons to habitually visit its social network is important to Facebook because a larger audience helps sell more of the ads that generate most of the Menlo Park, Calif., company's revenue.

"What this is really about is maximizing the kind of sharing at the heart of Facebook's business model," Montgomery said. She worries that unleashing teens to share more about themselves to a general audience will enable advertisers to collect more personal data about minors "who aren't aware that their movements and interests are under a digital microscope."

Facebook hasn't disclosed how many of its nearly 1.2 billon users are teens. The social network was initially limited to college students when Zuckerberg started it in 2004, but he opened the service to a broader audience within a few years.

The teen audience is large enough to give Facebook periodic headaches. As its social network has steadily expanded, Facebook has had to combat sexual predators and bullies who prey upon children.

Facebook doesn't allow children under 13 to set up accounts on its service but doesn't have a reliable way to verify users' ages.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-16-Facebook-Teen%20Privacy/id-5cdead4bf9fd401f91f949b0dc852f47
Tags: tesla friday the 13th nfl ny times Nexus 7

rondonvincenza20

WASHINGTON (AP) — Last week, President Barack Obama gathered some of his top advisers in the Oval Office to discuss the problem-plagued rollout of his health care legislation. He told his team the administration had to own up to the fact that there were no excuses for not having the health care website ready to operate on Day One.

The admonition from a frustrated president came amid the embarrassing start to sign-ups for the health care insurance exchanges. The president is expected to address the cascade of computer problems Monday during an event at the White House.

Administration officials say more than 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges. The figures mark the most detailed measure yet of the problem-plagued rollout of the insurance market place.

However, the officials continue to refuse to say how many people have actually enrolled in the insurance markets. And without enrollment figures, it's unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projected by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period.

The first three weeks of sign-ups have been marred by a cascade of computer problems, which the administration says it is working around the clock to correct. The rough rollout has been a black eye for Obama, who invested significant time and political capital in getting the law passed during his first term.

The officials said technology experts from inside and outside the government are being brought in to work on the glitches, though they did not say how many workers were being added.

Officials did say staffing has been increased at call centers by about 50 percent. As problems persist on the federally run website, the administration is encouraging more people to sign up for insurance over the phone.

The officials would not discuss the health insurance rollout by name and were granted anonymity.

Despite the widespread problems, the White House has yet to fully explain what went wrong with the online system consumers were supposed to use to sign up for coverage.

Administration officials initially blamed a high volume of interest from ordinary Americans for the frozen screens that many people encountered. Since then, they have also acknowledged problems with software and some elements of the system's design.

Interest in the insurance markets appears to continue to be high. Officials said about 19 million people have visited HealthCare.gov as of Friday night.

Of the 476,000 applications that have been started, just over half have been from the 36 states where the federal government is taking the lead in running the markets. The rest of the applications have come from the 14 states running their own markets, along with Washington, D.C.

Americans seeking health coverage through the Affordable Care Act must fill out applications before selecting a specific plan. The forms require personal information, including income figures that are used to calculate any subsidies the applicant may qualify for. More than one person can be included on an application.

The White House says it plans to release the first enrollment totals from both the federal and state-run markets in mid-November.

An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press showed that the administration projected nearly a half million people would enroll for the insurance markets during the first month.

Officials say they expect enrollments to be heavier toward the end of the six-month sign up window.

Problems with the rollout were largely overshadowed by Republican efforts to force changes to the health care law in exchange for funding the government. That effort failed and the government reopened last week with "Obamacare" intact.

Some Republicans are now calling for the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The White House says it has complete confidence in her. House Republicans have scheduled a hearing next week to look into the rollout problems.

White House allies say they're confident the problems are being addressed.

"There's no question the marketplace website needs some improvement," said Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., one of the architects of the law. "The administration needs to fix the computer bugs and I'm confident that they're working around the clock to fix the problems."

___

Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-frustrating-health-care-rollout-083602176--politics.html
Tags: redskins st louis cardinals the league National Dog Day Justin Bieber Spits On Fans

rondonvincenza20

WASHINGTON (AP) — Carol Burnett has been awarded the nation's top humor prize in Washington in a show featuring top performers including Julie Andrews, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts awarded Burnett the 16th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Burnett deadpanned that the award is very encouraging. She says it was a long time in coming, but she understands because there are so many people funnier than she is, especially in Washington.

Fey opened the show with accolades for Burnett and some jokes about the recent government shutdown.

She says she loves the trailblazing Burnett "in a way that is just shy of creepy."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/carol-burnett-receives-top-us-humor-prize-dc-194353362.html
Related Topics: notre dame football Presidents Cup Streaker indicted Jana Lutteropp George Duke

rondonvincenza20

On Friday, a number of 2013 awards hopefuls went into limited release in select theaters across the country. The one getting the most attention is Fox Searchlight's 12 Years a Slave, since most pundits are projecting that film to be neck-in-neck with Warner Bros.' Gravity for the best picture Oscar, at least for the moment. But one that I would argue is equally important to check out this weekend is Lionsgate-Roadside Attractions' All Is Lost, the single best film that I saw at May's Cannes Film Festival -- even though it wasn't even in competition, for reasons that the fest will have to figure out one of these days.

FILM REVIEW: All Is Lost

All Is Lost -- which has subsequently played at the Telluide, New York, Mill Valley and London fests, among others -- is the sophomore effort of writer-director J.C. Chandor, whose feature debut, Margin Call, earned him a best original screenplay Oscar nomination two years ago, and it is a film that features a landmark performance from 77-year-old Robert Redford, one of Hollywood's greatest living legends. The film's log line may sound rather familiar -- a man is shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean and struggles mightily to survive -- but I can assure you, having now seen the film twice, that you haven't seen this same film before.

Unlike, say, Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, it doesn't feature a single shot of dry land or multiple actors -- just Redford, alone in the middle of the ocean. And unlike, say, Robert Zemeckis' Cast Away, which mostly revolves around one guy, there is no "Wilson" with whom the protagonist can converse and, in so doing, rather easily convey his thoughts and feelings to the audience. Instead, this is a film that features one man who speaks virtually no dialogue -- and yet remains as thrilling and gripping as any film that I've seen this year.

For that reason, I think that All Is Lost stands an excellent shot at a best picture Oscar nom, a very good shot at a best director Oscar nom, a shot at a best original screenplay nom (even though so few words are spoken it still required a detailed 35-page treatment from Chandor) -- and is a slam-dunk for a best actor nom for Redford, which would be his first for acting in exactly 40 years. (His last and only previous acting nom came for The Sting.) As I've said for months, I believe that when Oscar voters mull over a best actor field that includes 77-year-old Redford, noting that he's never been better than he is in All Is Lost and then realize that he's never previously won, they will not be able to resist voting for him. (And if last year's best actress Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence does indeed open the best actor envelope and announce his name, I would expect an extended standing-ovation.)

For all of these reasons, I was very delighted to be asked to moderate a conversation with Chandor and Redford during their recent visit to Gotham for the New York Film Festival -- in the middle of which Chandor accidentally kicked over his water bottle and sent water spewing around Redford's feet, prompting laughs from everyone in light of the fact that Redford had rarely been dry during the four months that he worked under Chandor's direction. The actor had wanted to push himself to see how much he could handle as a septuagenarian, refusing to allow stunt men to stand in for him on almost every occasion for which they had been budgeted. And the writer-director obliged. As it turned out, both rose to the occasion.

You can watch a clip featuring highlights of our chat at the top of this post.

Twitter: @ScottFeinberg

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/news/~3/QRc3sypKq0c/robert-redford-jc-chandor-joy-649411
Category: 9/11 Pictures gucci mane cbs sports amber heard Jennifer Rosoff

rondonvincenza20

Courtesy of IDW

David Ozer and Ted Adams

Comics publisher IDW is pushing into television.

IDW, which publishes more than 300 original properties, has launched IDW Entertainment in an effort to fund and develop new television properties based on its massive catalog. David Ozer will oversee the division as president.

Ozer will work with IDW publisher and CEO Ted Adams to identify, develop and oversee brand extensions across its portfolio of comics and graphic novels for the television market. The division will focus on financing, development and production of TV series with the goal of securing rare but increasingly proffered straight-to-series commitments from networks. He comes to IDW from executive roles at Sonar Entertainment, Starz Media/IDT Entertainment and DIC Entertainment.

STORY: IDW Announces New 'Transformers/G.I. Joe' Series

Circle of Confusion, the shingle that executive produces AMC's The Walking Dead and creator Robert Kirkman's upcoming TV adaptation of comic Outcast, will oversee packaging and creative development of the division and will executive produce the company's projects under Rick Jacobs.

Initial titles under consideration include Life Undead, from co-EP Chris Pollack with showrunner Paul Zbyszewski (Agents of SHIELD, Lost), who penned the comic book attached; Brooklyn Animal Control, based on the dark comic from writer-director J.T. Petty (Splinter Cell) and artists Stephen Thompson; and V Wars, which is edited by New York Times best-selling author Jonathan Maberry. For its part, IDW Entertainment is already in talks with a network to bring V Wars to the screen.

"IDW Publishing's significant growth over the past several years, particularly in the theatrical arena with a number of properties currently in development at major studios, together with the ever increasing popularity of our creator-owned titles, have provided us with the ideal opportunity to expand into multiplatform entertainment," Adams said. "David's depth of distribution and finance expertise in television, coupled with his production knowledge and his extensive relationships within the entertainment community, make him the perfect choice for spearheading our aggressive move into television."

Added Jacobs: "The timing couldn't be better for IDW Publishing to invest in television production. IDW is a powerhouse of creativity, and the film studios recognize that potential. By financing its own television projects, the company is now poised to become a major player across all media platforms. We're very excited to continue to help expand IDW's reach beyond publishing."

On the feature side, IDW has a number of projects in development, including Lore with Warner Bros. and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson; World War Robot at Disney with Jerry Bruckheimer attached; and Zombies vs. Robots at Sony.

CAA packaged the deal.

The news comes as comics-themed fare continues to be a hot property on the small screen. ABC's Marvel Comics-inspired Avengers follow-up Agents of SHIELD has already been picked up for a full season, and Fox has given a straight-to-series commitment to Gotham, a prequel centering on Batman's Commissioner Gordon. Fox is also prepping an adaptation of Alan Moore's Vertigo favorite The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

E-mail: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/THRComicCon/~3/VLSjlxSZ3jA/story01.htm
Similar Articles: Mexico vs Panama Never Forget 9/11 cbs sports Katy Perry Vma 2013 brandon jennings

rondonvincenza20

SEATAC, Wash. (AP) — Hall of Fame center Bill Russell was arrested this week at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after Transportation Security Administration officials found a loaded gun in his luggage.

Russell was arrested Wednesday night as he attempted to go through security. Airport spokesman Perry Cooper confirmed Friday night that Russell was cited for having a weapon in a prohibited area. Russell's gun was confiscated and he was released.

Russell's gun was a .38-caliber pistol and was loaded with six rounds, according to a TSA spokesman. He was turned over to Port of Seattle police and there were no disruptions at the airport.

The 79-year-old Russell has lived in the Seattle area for decades. He was an 11-time NBA champion with the Boston Celtics and coached the Seattle SuperSonics from 1973-77.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-10-19-Bill%20Russell%20Arrested/id-41589e80d43544e6a40da203fe668575
Tags: cleveland browns fiona apple Boulder Flooding beyonce FXX

rondonvincenza20

Responding to an analyst's question, Intel CEO waxes eloquent about the advantage of Intel's manufacturing technology compared with Apple's.

New Intel CEO Brian Krzanich

(Credit: Intel)

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich touted the merits of Intel's manufacturing process compared with that of Apple's new 64-bit A7 chip today after the company's earnings report.

During Intel's third-quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday, an analyst questioned Intel about the advantages of going to a 14-nanometer manufacturing process, compared with Apple's 28-nanometer A7 chip.

"[Apple] has been able to show very impressive benchmarks on 28-nanometer silicon," the analyst stated.

Generally, the smaller the chip geometries, the more advanced the chip manufacturing process and thus the faster and/or more power efficient the chip can be. Intel claims that it's jumped well ahead of the rest of the chip industry by moving to a cutting-edge 14-nanometer process first.

Here's what Krzanich said in response to the analyst's comment, citing, among other things, Moore's Law, which states that the number of transistors doubles approximately every two years.

I mean you just kind of used the generic word for benchmarks and there are lot of different ones that are out there. So I am not sure exactly which ones you are talking about. But if you just take a look at our products and all of our products are 64-bit. So we have had that for an extended period of time and products that we are shipping today are already 64-bit.

If you take a look at things like transistor density and you compare, pardon the pun, apples-to-apples and you compare, say, the A7 to our Bay Trail, which is a high density 22 nanometer technology, then our transistor density is higher or more dense than the A7 is. It's a good product...but we do see the Moore's Law advantage from 28 to 22 nanometer as an example, when you compare dense technologies to dense technologies.

Apple is the first to get a 64-bit chip into a consumer smartphone.

(Credit: iFixit)

The challenge for Intel is that Apple is proving to be a world-class designer of fast-yet-power-efficient smartphone and tablet silicon with its A series of processors, essentially obviating the need for Apple to look to Intel for silicon in those devices.

And Apple is dropping hints that its 64-bit processors may be destined for devices that more directly challenge the traditional laptop PC.

"When Apple announced the iPhone 5S, it called the processor 'desktop-class,' and I don't think that was an accident -- it was sending what we think is a very clear signal that it will converge the iPhone and the MacBook Air," Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth said recently in an interview, speculating on Apple's plans.

Krzanich also addressed where PC and device makers will use its mainstream Core "Haswell" and tablet-centric Bay Trail Atom chips.

"Most of the tablets we're doing with [hardware] partners are Bay Trail. There are some that are being based on Core [Haswell]. Most of them are being based on the standard Core product. The Haswell Y's are going into fanless systems or extremely low-power 2-in-1s," he said referring to the standard Haswell laptop chips and the more power-efficient Y series Haswell chips.

And Krzanich reiterated that Bay Trail "clamshells," or traditional laptop designs, with touch enabled screens will appear "at $299, which is a new real price point for a touch-enabled devices, so we see it continuing to grow as we enter next year."

Editors' note: This post was originally published on October 15 at 4:27 p.m. PDT, 2013. It has been updated throughout.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57607636-37/intel-ceo-takes-on-apple-a7-cites-moores-law-advantage/?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Apple
Category: brandon jacobs Samsung indicted bradley manning blue moon

rondonvincenza20

David Gibson,left, and Rich Kiamco, right, of Jersey City display their marriage license, which they obtained earlier today, during a rally on the lawn in front of Garden State Equality tonight, Friday Oct. 18, 2013, in Montclair, N.J. The state Supreme Court ruled today that the state must begin granting same-sex marriage licenses. (AP Photo/Joe Epstein)

Karen Nicholson-McFadden,left, and Marcye Nicholson-McFadden,center, of Aberdeen, listen as their son Kasey, 14 and their daughter Maya, 10, speak to a crowd of about 150 people gathered on the lawn in front of Garden State Equality Friday Oct. 18, 2013, in Montclair, N.J. The rally was in support of the state Supreme Court ruling that the state must begin granting same-sex marriage licenses. (AP Photo/Joe Epstein)

Troy Stevenson, Executive Director of Garden State Equity, addresses a crowd of about 150 people gathered on the lawn in front of their office Friday Oct. 18, 2013, in Montclair, N.J. The rally followed a state Supreme Court ruling that the state must begin granting same-sex marriage licenses. (AP Photo/Joe Epstein)

Hayley Gorenberg,left, the Deputy Legal Director for Lambda Legal, pops the cork of a bottle of champaign as Udi Ofer, right, the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, cheers at the end of a rally on the lawn in front of Garden State Equality Friday Oct. 18, 2013 in Montclair, N.J. The state Supreme Court ruled today that the state must begin granting same-sex marriage licenses. (AP Photo/Joe Epstein)

Steven Brunner, left, and Daniel Baum, a same sex couple that applied for a marriage license, speak to the media on Friday, Oct. 18, 2013, in Asbury Park, N.J. New Jersey's highest court ruled unanimously Friday to uphold an order that same-sex marriages must start Monday and denied a delay that had been sought by Gov. Chris Christie's administration. (AP Photo/The Asbury Park Press, Bob Bielk)

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Several gay couples in New Jersey are expected to gather late Sunday to wed in ceremonies to be held shortly after midnight.

The last-minute weddings were planned after the state Supreme Court last week refused to delay a lower court order for the state to begin recognizing same-sex marriages at 12:01 a.m. Monday.

Gov. Chris Christie's administration has a pending appeal, but justices said they would not hold up marriages while they consider it. The justices said they did not think the state's arguments were likely to prevail and that delaying the lower court's order would hurt couples who would not become eligible for certain federal benefits until they could legally marry in New Jersey.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Lambertville Mayor David DelVecchio both plan to lead ceremonies for gay couples at 12:01 a.m. Monday.

Hoboken, Collingswood and a handful of other towns opened municipal offices Saturday to accept applications for marriage licenses from same-sex couples.

Activists still were working Saturday to line up judges who could waive the three-day waiting period for same-sex couples who want to exchange vows first thing Monday. Under state law, couples normally must wait 72 hours after applying for a marriage license before they can tie the knot.

Garden State Equality executive director Troy Stevenson said the effort to get couples hitched without the waiting period was a "work in progress." He didn't have specific details on how many judges were available to consider couples' waivers during the weekend, but he said many marriages will be held across the state at 12:01 a.m. Monday.

Officials noted that state law says couples married legally elsewhere can wed in New Jersey without a waiting period — a provision that appears to apply to many New Jersey couples.

Many same-sex couples began scrambling to plan their weddings shortly after the state Supreme Court issued its unexpected decision Friday. They reached out to florists, photographers, catering firms, banquet halls and other wedding-related businesses to see what was available on short notice.

Justin Jordan, a photographer who shoots many weddings in southern New Jersey, said he's heard from "numerous couples" since Friday.

"Many people have been waiting anxiously for the chance to get married, and now that they have the chance to do it, they're jumping at the opportunity," Jordan said. "But they're also realizing everything that goes with a wedding, like getting a photographer or video person, buying flowers, arranging for food ... it's a daunting task when you have months to plan, let alone a few days."

Among those seeking their licenses Saturday morning were Hoboken residents Paul Somerville and Allen Kratz, who have been together since 1985. They were previously married in Oregon in 2004, only to have the union nullified by the state's supreme court. They also have been part of a domestic partnership in 2006 and a civil union in 2008, both through the city of Hoboken.

The couple said they will receive their license on Tuesday and plan to wed Thursday in a private ceremony. Kratz told The Jersey Journal that it's wonderful to be able to marry his longtime partner.

"Civil rights always come too early for those in a comfortable position of power and never soon enough for those who have been denied life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," Kratz said.

___

Follow Mulvihill at http://www.twitter.com/geoffmulvihill

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-10-20-US-Gay-Marriage-NJ/id-25555b526db54901b9df81f12b9d8621
Tags: breaking bad national coffee day Rosh Hashanah 2013 amber heard George Duke

rondonvincenza20

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-US PRESSWIRE

Well before Adlan Amagov made it to the States, he issued a kick heard around the world. In a 2009 fight in Rostov Oblast, Russia, Amagov entered the ring against an unsuspecting fighter named Maskhat Akhmetov. Amagov wore a sleepy expression on his face, very much like the ever-soporific Gegard Mousasi, as if the moment meant nothing much in the grand scheme of whatever it is we’re talking about.

Then he casually walked across the ring, sized up a spinning hook kick that came off so perfectly and so effortlessly and with such precision that it felt like the work of Hollywood choreography, dropping poor Akhmetov where he stood. Mother Russia’s jaw dropped, and a random December night in a dim lit theater became for Amagov what sportscasters like to call "a defining moment." That kick traveled across the pond to the U.S. long before Amagov did.

To the point that, when Amagov met his manager Sam Kardan finally convinced him to come to the States, after racking up an 8-1-1 record in Russia and the Ukraine, there weren’t a lot of volunteers willing to welcome him into the western cage.

"That kick definitely brought a lot of attention to me -- it was like Jean-Claude Van Damme," Amagov told MMA Fighting. "The U.S. was never in the plans quite honestly. I met Sam Kardan in Russia in 2008 when he came to meet Fedor Emelianenko, and I got introduced to him at that time. He said that there is a bright future for me in U.S. So we kept in touch, and got me a visa and then I came to America.

"We could not get a local fight as everyone watched that video with a kick as well. After two weeks in U.S., we got a contract with Strikeforce, though. It was a good trip."

That good trip, paved by a good kick, has ultimately led Amagov to the UFC, where he is facing T.J. Waldburger at UFC 166 in Houston Saturday night. The man they call "Borz," which is Chechen for "wolf," is one of the latest Russian intrigues to find his way into the trademarked eight-sided cage. Khabib Nurmagomedov, whom Amagov has trained with both at the Red Fury Fight Club in Russia and at AMA in New Jersey, has been raising eyebrows of late, too.

And Amagov got started into MMA by training with Russian’s highest end clients, names such as Fedor and Alexander Emelianenko. He went onto be a Russian sambo champion himself, which was a nice piece to hybridize into the broader fight game.

These days Amagov spends most of his time training with Greg Jackson and Mike Winkeljohn in Albuquerque. After going 3-1 in Strikeforce, he had his UFC debut against Chris Spang this past April in Stockholm and he was able to dictate what happened in the fight. Though he didn’t pull of any JCVD-style theatrics, he did present an assortment of kicks -- some familiar, and some impromptu flights of fancy.

"I think I dominated all three rounds," he says. "I demonstrated all of the kicks that exist in MMA, and even invented couple as I was going through the fight -- like kicking from behind while in a clinch against the cage. I wish I would have finished him but it was my first fight in the UFC and I was being cautious the goal was to win the fight."

In his prelim battle with Waldburger, there will be ample opportunity for that finish, because -- for one thing -- both fighters like to move forward. Better still, each has been known to take chances.

"[Waldburger] has good grappling, he submitted 13 out of 16 fights," Amagov says. "He means business. I think he is dangerous on the ground and he is an aggressive fighter -- a very aggressive fighter. I have respect for his skills. I do need to make a statement this fight as I transferred from Strikeforce and need to make a name for myself."

The fact that Amagov made it to the U.S. to pursue MMA is a story in itself. When his native Chechnya tried to gain independence from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union 1991, Amagov was made privy to the horrors of war. In the first Chechnya war, the destruction got very close to his home in the village of Sernovodsk, when such things as air strikes became part of his daily existence.

"When I was eight years old in 1994, my school was blown up in a war that started in 1991," he says. "It was tough for all of us, as we lost our shelter and a lot of friends were forced to move out of the area after going through refugee camps."

The first war went on until late summer of 1996, before a second war began in 1999, and lingered on for long after. Amagov eventually relocated and found his silver lining.

"That's how I ended up in Moscow and started training combat sambo with the Emelianenko brothers," he says. "I think the war and the suffering that I witnessed has made me more composed and calm. I always analyze a situation before making conclusions."

Which goes a long way towards understanding why he looks so poised and unnervingly calm heading into his fights.

Source: http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/10/17/4845136/after-turbulent-childhood-adlan-amagov-getting-his-kicks-in-the-ufc
Similar Articles: Dario Franchitti jennette mccurdy Under the Dome nfl scores mila kunis

rondonvincenza20

Some 35,000 sites that use vBulletin, a popular website forum package, were hacked recently by taking advantage of the presence of files left over from the program's installation process, according to security researcher Brian Krebs.

The hack by itself is fairly standard, but the way in which it was carried out shows how search engines like Google can unwittingly become a party to such hacking.

Krebs' findings were unearthed in conjunction with work done by security research firm Imperva, members of which believe the hacks are being executed by way of a botnet. The botnet not only injects the malicious code into the target sites, but also scrapes Google in a massively parallel fashion looking for vBulletin-powered sites that might make good targets.

Why scrape Google in parallel? As a workaround for Google's defense mechanisms against automated searches.

Such defenses work well against a single user scraping Google, since after a certain number of such searches from a single host, the user is presented with a CAPTCHA. This typically stops most bot-driven scrapes. But if a great many such searches are performed in parallel, it doesn't matter if each one of them eventually runs afoul of a CAPTCHA. Together, in parallel, they can still scrape far more than any one system alone can. (Krebs did not describe the size of the botnet used, however.)

The hacks themselves, of which Krebs has identified two, are fortunately rather easy to detect. One involves adding surreptitious admin accounts to the vulnerable vBulletin installations. The other hack, "apparently used in a mass website defacement campaign," adds an admin account named "Th3H4ck".

Now the good news: The very thing that made it possible to find those vulnerable vBulletin sites -- a properly crafted Google search -- can also be used to identify any existing hacked vBulletin installs. If you see a site you know on that list, tell the administrator. There's a good chance he doesn't know he's been hacked.

Scanning for vulnerabilities with Google isn't by itself new; Bruce Schneier pointed out in 2008 how this process was not only possible but could be automated. But deploying such Google scanning via a botnet for the sake of seeking out vulnerable sites in a massive parallel operation is a relatively new wrinkle -- at least until Google finds a way to block such things en masse without impacting regular search services.

Krebs points out it's difficult to place the blame exclusively on vBulletin. The makers of the software point out that its installation instructions ask that users remove the "/install" and "/core/install" directories after setting up the program.

In that sense, this issue is akin to the ways ColdFusion projects have been plagued by break-ins -- in part because many outfits are running older, unpatched versions of the software, but mainly because many firms don't follow Adobe's own instructions for hardening ColdFusion setups.

The oft-targeted WordPress has the same issue: It's easy to set up, but securing it requires that the end-user take a number of steps that often aren't followed.

This story, "Hackers use botnet to scrape Google for vulnerable sites," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

Source: http://www.infoworld.com/t/hacking/hackers-use-botnet-scrape-google-vulnerable-sites-228799
Category: houston texans Amanda Rosenberg Asap Rocky Rihanna green bay packers

rondonvincenza20

Share With Friends:

|

| Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/334841242?client_source=feed&format=rss
Similar Articles: Cressida Bonas 9/11 notre dame new iphone Danica McKellar

rondonvincenza20

webber-fans-tweet Get a glimpse behind the scenes of the Japanese Grand Prix with @AnthonyFrench ^[1]’s round-up of the best Tweets from the race weekend.

Thursday

It may only have been the media day at the circuit but even so the stands were packed – some fans had even arrived to watch set-up the day before.

Friday

As the second practice session drew to a close the paddock was stunned by news from Spain that former Marussia test driver Maria de Villota had passed away. Many of the teams and drivers paid their respects to De Villota on Twitter ^[2].

On the track Mercedes and Red Bull took turns at the top of the times sheets while several drivers were caught out by the punishing Suzuka track.

Saturday

The infamous Spoon and Degner corners continued to reap a harvest of the unwary and unfortunate, but Red Bull steered clear of trouble to lock out the front row. But for the first time this year Mark Webber ^[3] was ahead of Sebastian Vettel.

Sunday

A poor start by the Red Bull duo let Romain Grosjean ^[4] seize an early lead for Lotus. Vettel played his strategic cards to perfection to get ahead of the both, passing Grosjean in the final stint for his ninth win of 2013.

Fernando Alonso’s ^[5] place ensured the drivers’ championship would not be won for at least one more race.

F1 Fanatic on Twitter

F1 Fanatic has three Twitter accounts you can follow:

F1 Fanatic ^[6]: F1 Tweets straight from the editor including links to all new articles

F1 Fanatic Live ^[7]: Live F1 session coverage including team radio

F1 Fanatic Update ^[8]: Just links to new articles on F1 Fanatic – nothing else

2013 Japanese Grand Prix

Browse all 2013 Japanese Grand Prix articles ^[9]

Share this with your friends:

References

^{^} @AnthonyFrench (www.f1fanatic.co.uk)
^{^} Drivers and teams pay tribute to Maria de Villota (www.f1fanatic.co.uk)
^{^} Mark Webber (www.f1fanatic.co.uk)
^{^} Romain Grosjean (www.f1fanatic.co.uk)
^{^} Fernando Alonso (www.f1fanatic.co.uk)
^{^} F1 Fanatic (twitter.com)
^{^} F1 Fanatic Live (twitter.com)
^{^} F1 Fanatic Update (twitter.com)
^{^} Browse all 2013 Japanese Grand Prix articles (www.f1fanatic.co.uk)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/f1fanatic/~3/rEtD_-g_Gzc/
Related Topics: Mexico vs Costa Rica Gta V Cheats USA VS Mexico Lisa Robin Kelly Iams Recall

shelving secunia

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

More Is More In Donna Tartt's Believable, Behemoth 'Goldfinch'

Monday, October 21, 2013

Official BBM how-to videos show the ropes to new users

Got BBM on Android? Here are the basics.

SF Transit Strike Has Commuters Facing Gridlock

'Frustrated' Obama vows to get malfunctioning healthcare website fixed

The Sony Xperia Z1S Might Be a Mini Z1 For Everyone Else

Amid new attacks, Egypt's Copts preserve heritage

Facebook to let teens share with bigger audience

For Obama, a frustrating health care rollout

Carol Burnett receives top US humor prize in DC

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Robert Redford and J.C. Chandor on the Joy and Struggle of Making 'All Is Lost' (Video)

Comics Publisher IDW Launches TV Division With 'Walking Dead' EP Attached

Bill Russell arrested for carrying gun at airport

Intel CEO takes on Apple A7, cites 'Moore's Law advantage'

NJ gay couples in final hours of wedding planning

After turbulent childhood, Adlan Amagov getting his kicks in the UFC

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Hackers use botnet to scrape Google for vulnerable sites

Cambodian Opposition Leader Declares Political 'Stalemate' (Voice Of America)

2013 Japanese Grand Prix weekend in Tweets | 2013 Japanese Grand Prix