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1 Stay private
Your internet service provider can see your internet traffic and probably logs your browsing history.
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Learn MoreData logging in Australia Data logging in the UK NSA spying in the US
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The "Twi-Hards" have come through again.
"Twilight's" latest film raked in more than $30 million with its midnight opening on Tuesday, surpassing the franchise's previous box office record, according to reports.
"The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" opened on 4,416 screens across the U.S., which also set a record for the widest-ever release for a film, E! News reported.
U.S. & World
Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson's return to the silver screen in the teen vampire-werewolf thriller will enjoy an even wider release on Friday, according to E!
"New Moon," the second "Twilight" film, last held the midnight box office record for its $26.3 million opening take. It went on to earn $709 million worldwide, Reuters reported.
By comparison, the first film of the saga earned $392.5 million at the global box office.
Click here for our "Eclipse" review.

subset: commoncrawl


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'Ordinary People' with Puppets: 'The Beaver'
Someone like Walter Black is bruised in the brain. Like The Beaver, such a state is complicated, aggravating, but definitely worth fighting to understand and accept.
When someone is diagnosed with a life-threatening or terminal disease, the tragedy is truly profound. We view the person walking into the unknown of a 'life' after this one as noble and yet needing all the real time love and support we can muster. We retrace their steps, maintain a quivering stiff upper lip, and struggle with our own sense of mortality. Near the end, when it looks like time will trump hope, we make peace with the process and pray our own exit from this world won't be so shattering - that is, if the problem is physical. God forbid it's mental. Then we have limited sympathies, or to put it more plainly, we can't compare the death of the body with that of the brain. A sick psyche unsettles us in ways that work on our own internal controls. Where once we felt bad, or even sad, a whole series of quarrels arise - and many of them aren't as gracious or dignified.
The Beaver, the newest film from Oscar winning actress turned director Jodie Foster, asks us to accept the raging depression of Walter Black (an excellent Mel Gibson) as the same level of sickness as a cancer or leukemia. It is a seemingly incurable plague that has driven a wedge between his wife (the filmmaker) and his two children - youngest son Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) and eldest boy Porter (Anton Yelchin). The latter is also walking his own personal tightrope. Poised to go to college and leave his fractured family behind, he sells homework to fellow students to earn his eventual escape. But when class valedictorian and head cheerleader Norah (Jennifer Lawrence) comes looking for help with her graduation speech, he finds a kindred spirit. In the meantime, Walter has attempted suicide, only to be "saved" by a ratty beaver puppet he finds in the trash. Soon, our damaged man is trying to rebuild his life - personally and professional - via the sage advice of a cockney accented kid's toy.
There are several sore spots one has to overcome to truly appreciate and enjoy this otherwise fine film. Oddly enough, the first and foremost has little to do with the tabloid terror at the center. Gibson, as usual, gives the kind of performance that marks his previous status as a superstar, Oscar worthy while clearly never going to be recognized as same. All ranting baby mama drama aside, he is brilliant. He is dark and destructive, lost in a way few onscreen fathers have ever been. During the opening act, Walter is so awash in his dire downward spiral that we really don't believe he will ever crawl back. While slightly comic in its Harold and Maude audacity, his drive toward suicide is shocking to behold. Later, when the toys that are literally haunting him step in to help, Gibson still reminds us that there is deep pain and a continuing psychological crisis going on. He's not cured, just convalescing.
Also not up for discussion are the rest of the cast. Foster is fine, doing a weirdly nuanced turn on a the normative supermom faced with a fading, distant marriage and an immediate mental crisis. Her delivery is clipped, rapid, and almost instinctual. By the time Walter and his puppet have proven successful, she slows down a bit and lets her thoughts finally drop the auto-pilot vibe. Little Riley Stewart is also good, precocious without being too "kid cute". That just leaves Lawrence and Yelchin and both are required to do a lot of heavy psychological lifting. Gibson's got the shtick - the goofy toy, the craggy streets of London brogue, the bonkers persona. Our young people must argue for the reality of this situation, how a dissolving family forces you to literally bang your head against the wall, or, in tragedy, turn to a secret illegal life.
No, all the performances carry things quite well. Instead, it's the concept that will have you either scratching your head or instantly engaged. Using a puppet as a conduit to someone's inner turmoil is about as close to dealing with seriousness via ventriloquism as the movies should ever get. Unless the main character is eventually going to go psycho and start chasing people around with a butcher knife or chainsaw, channeling through a children's plaything is very problematic. It begs the true nature of the disease, something mental illness already has as a downside. Then it asks you to accept things that proper professionals might insinuate, albeit in this case through the buck-toothed facade of a fake animal. Yes, there is a moment in the middle where Walter speaks with The Today Show's Matt Lauer where it works - flawlessly. You believe every word, every metaphysical insight the beaver has to offer. But it's not always foolproof.
Indeed, where The Beaver stumbles a bit is in consistently employing the device to avoid the more devastating dramatics inherent in the conflict. Imagine Robert Redford's masterful Ordinary People except Conrad now deals with brother Buck's death through a marionette, or Shoot the Moon with Dana Hill mimicking characters from Saturday Night Live. As a literary device, it makes sense (the other 'self', compensating for the one that can't speak). As a visual device, it has its barriers. It starts every intervention as a joke, begging the viewer to join in with the feigned frivolity. Even worse, Gibson is a good enough actor to sell this stuff straight, even as part of some bifurcated personality disorder. Instead, we get a puppet to play with.
And yet the truths The Beaver strikes at are so stunning and so emotional that we forgive the stunt. We watch in awe as one man disintegrates and then slowly puts himself back together. We see a wife walk the fine line between forgiveness and fleeing. We see one son cotton to his father's newly developed childlike wonder, while another cements his status as a ex-family member in the making. All the while, the world turns, the news cycle celebrates and criticizes, and just like a terminal disease, the mental illness lingers...threatening...never really going or actually gone. If this film argues for anything, it's the devastating consequences of a malady without a course of chemo, or an invasive and complicated surgical strategy. Instead, someone like Walter Black is bruised in the brain. Like The Beaver, such a state is complicated, aggravating, but definitely worth fighting to understand and accept.


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Buffalo Bill Salutes You!
William Frederick 'Buffalo Bill' Cody (1846-1917) was an iconic figure in the Old West and in American historical lore. He was the recipient of a Congressional Medal of Honor, he founded the town of Cody, Wyoming and is one of the first to employ Native Americans in his Wild West Congress and actually pay them a competitive wage.
As a fan of motion pictures and motion picture history, Buffalo Bill ranks at the top of my list as a personal favorite. His Wild West Congress was the inspiration for many of the early Western silent movies and Old West stories that influenced generations of Americans as well as film makers and story tellers overseas.
He was the best known and most popular American in his time and his influence remains today. So tip your hat, salute from your saddle and circle the wagons with ole' Buffalo Bill!!! For more info on Buffalo Bill check out the Western History and Genealogy Buffalo Bill collection here
(This blog will be the first in a series on Buffalo Bill and his Wild West.)


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The Institute supports members both at home and abroad. This page highlights the more commonly sought after service by our members overseas.
Chartered Accountants Ireland has reciprocity agreements with a number of other Institutes that allow Chartered Accountants Ireland members apply for dual membership of those bodies and allows their members apply to Chartered Accountants Ireland for dual membership.
Chartered Accountants Ireland is a member of the Global Accounting Alliance (GAA). One of the key objectives of the GAA is to provide local support to members wherever they are in the world. In order to achieve this, GAA Institutes have agreed to provide specific local support and services to all members of GAA Institutes who are living and working in their territory.
Your Institute supports members overseas through local networks:
Chartered Accountants Ireland London Society, Chartered Accountants Ireland Australia Society, with chapters in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne
Professional Accountants in Europe in France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and others.
The Institute is a leading member of the Association of Chartered Accountants in the United States, representing members of all Chartered bodies in the US.
Export Start Guide is a joint initiative developed by Invest Northern Ireland, Chartered Accountants Ireland and Enterprise Ireland to help businesses to export.
Six free e-newsletters bringing the Institute closer to those based overseas. For example, Chartered Accountants News issues every Friday with news on what's happening in the profession.
Keep in touch with your Institute via our regular Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook activity.
The Institute also provides an impressive range of commercial services to members at heavily discounted rates.
We have a wide range of online courses. These courses are ideally suited to support members achieve their CPD requirements and are accessible from anywhere. We also offer a range of specialist qualifications – ideal to help you progress on your career path and many of which have a distance option available.
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Parallels has updated its containers-based virtualization product, Parallels Cloud Server, to introduce native support for Docker application deployment. Service providers can deliver container-based virtual private servers to the growing number of developers building Docker applications.
Parallels Cloud Server will offer a secure and high-density virtual server environment that equips service providers to compete with large public cloud providers on price and performance in this rapidly emerging market.
"Service providers want to meet the needs of customers and customers want to run Docker applications," said James Bottomley, chief technology officer, virtualization, Parallels.
"A challenge customers face today is running Docker images in a virtualized environment based on a hypervisor. This takes a core benefit of Docker — that the applications run in containers at higher density and performance — and reduces that benefit considerably. With Parallels solution, the service provider can offer the customer an environment where Docker is running on top of Parallels Cloud Server containers-based virtual machines for optimal performance and at high-density."
For service providers and others new to containers-based virtualization, the new Docker support makes Parallels Cloud Server a compelling solution as a scalable and proven platform for expanded offerings from VPS to managed IaaS.
"The growing number of developers building Docker-based applications is a ripe market opportunity with plenty of upside that service providers should be keen to capture," said Philbert Shih, managing director, Structure Research. "But in a highly competitive market, the challenge will be how to attract customers while maintaining aggressive yet profitable price points. The answer lies in building an optimized infrastructure environment that is dense and scales, while being able to maintain high levels of performance and facilitate portability of workloads."


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pangolin 0.4.3
Ant is a nice tool for writing Java build scripts, but Rake is nicer. The only thing missing from Rake is a way to run javac and jar, and although it's easy to run these as shell scripts you have to wait for the JVM to start. In combination with JRuby this gem lets you run javac and jar in your Rake scripts without exec'ing.


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Friday, November 30, 2012
Sports News
No. 12 Gonzaga routs Lewis-Clark St. 104-57
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[November 30, 2012]
SPOKANE, Wash.
(AP) -- Redshirt freshman Kyle Dranginis scored a season high 30 points, and five other Gonzaga players scored in double figures as the 12th-ranked Bulldogs coasted to a 104-57 victory over Lewis-Clark State College on Thursday night.
Przemek Karnowski scored 16 points, Sam Dower and David Stockton had 13 each and Kelly Olynk added 11 points and 10 rebounds for his first career double-double for Gonzaga (7-0). Drew Barnham, a junior transfer from Memphis, had 11 points for his first double-figure game with the Bulldogs.
Dranginis, a 6-foot-4 guard from Nampa, Idaho, hit 12 of 16 shots as Gonzaga shot 64 percent from the field. He hit 4-7 3-pointers as the Bulldogs made 11 of 20 from behind the arc. He also had seven assists and six rebounds.
P.J. Bolte scored 10 points to lead Lewis-Clark State, an NAIA school from Lewiston, Idaho. The Warriors officially remained unbeaten at 9-0, though they have lost to the Bulldogs and Montana in exhibition games.
Gonzaga rolled despite sitting starters Elias Harris and Gary Bell Jr. Harris, a senior All-American candidate, was the MVP of the recent Old Spice Classic in Florida and leads Gonzaga in scoring (15.7) and rebounding (9.2).
[to top of second column]
The Bulldogs shot 70 percent in the first half but didn't put together any real dominating runs en route to a 50-32 lead. The largest spurt was 10-0 late in the half, helping build a 20-point lead.
However, Gonzaga scored 38 points inside with Dower scoring 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting and Karnowski 10 by going 5 for 5. Dower, Karnowski and Barnham finished a combined 18 for 22 from the field.
Freshman Trey Sobatta scored nine points by shooting 3 for 4 on 3-pointers for the Warriors, who shot a respectable 46 percent against a team that is 14th in the country by allowing opponents to make just 34.9 percent.
Bolte, who leads the Warriors at 19.3 points a game as a reserve, was held to one basket and Jacob Champoux, who averages 13.8, only got off three shots, making a 3-pointer. He finished with five points. LC State finished at 37 percent shooting.
Gonzaga forced 20 turnovers and had a 46-20 rebounding advantage.
Copyright 2012 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Those who have followed the debates around the Stephen Poliakoff's recent TV series Dancing on the Edge and its sometimes convoluted (or seemingly convoluted) plot may appreciate the interiors at Fenton House, in Hampstead, north London. Fenton House was used as a location for Dancing on the Edge, and features as the house of the wealthy, charming and determinedly superficial Arthur Donaldson.
Although Fenton House was built around 1686, its neo-Georgian interiors reflect its ownership from 1936 by Katherine, Lady Binning, who left it to the National Trust on her death in 1952. She had been married to the heir of the Earl of Haddington, and Fenton House was furnished with Haddington family heirlooms as well as with the collections she had inherited from her mother, Milicent Salting, and the latter's brother-in-law, George Salting.
As some of the furnishings were returned to the various Haddington houses after 1952, certain rooms at Fenton House were left somewhat bare. In 1973 the National Trust invited the decorator John Fowler to help refurbish the house and give it a mellow, lived-in atmosphere. Fowler aficionados will recognise the subtle multi-tone painted woodwork in several rooms, the varied upholstery fabrics and the sophisticated curtain treatments.
So there is a strong element of fiction in the presentation of Fenton House, giving an added poignancy to its use as a sumptuous film set. But as Poliakoff's work demonstrates, if fiction is successful it acquires a certain kind of truth.


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... it's also how you say it
Linguistic variation makes a difference in STEM classrooms
The 30 students in a high school classroom may all speak English, but a mix of factors in each student's background shapes how he or she speaks it. The same is true for the teacher. Each person's social, regional and economic experiences influence which words are selected and how they are spoken. As a result, two students who try to communicate the same thing can be met with varying reactions from the teacher, based on the language used and the attitude of the hearer to those language variations.
In classrooms throughout Virginia and Maryland, Anne Charity Hudley is studying how such variations in language not only affect learning but also student assessment in STEM classes.
"There has been some strong research on the implication of language and culture in language arts classroom, but more information is needed about the intersections in STEM classrooms," said Charity Hudley.
Along with co-investigator Christine Mallinson, an assistant professor of language, literacy and culture at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Charity Hudley is working with 60 K-12 educators in Virginia and Maryland to assess their knowledge of and their responses to language variation, particularly among African American students.
Increase minority retention
In addition to her work with Mallinson, Charity Hudley is also collaborating with William & Mary biologists Margaret Saha, Dan Cristol and John Swaddle to investigate how cultural insights will help minority retention in the College's introductory biology courses.
The two investigators are using surveys, interviews and classroom observations to conduct their assessments. They are also designing "linguistically informed" materials for teachers to use in their classrooms and they are hosting workshops for the teachers.
But Charity Hudley's work does not stop with K-12 classrooms. She and Mallinson are also working with pre-service teachers and STEM majors on their respective college campuses.
The two received a National Science Foundation grant in 2011 to fund their work for three years.
Next generation of STEM thinkers
"Language, culture and science have always gone hand in hand for me," said Charity Hudley, whose mother and father are both physicians. She noted that her parents have spent their careers working in medically underserved areas in Richmond.
"My mother was one of the earliest physicians to participate in the CHIP (Comprehensive Health Investment Project) program in Virginia and my father served on the Virginia Special Advisory Commission on Mandated Health Insurance Benefits," said Charity Hudley. "I co-wrote this grant in honor of them so that we can all work together to produce the next generation of STEM thinkers who understand the role of language and culture in their work and research so that they can best serve diverse populations."


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I've just had 25 sqm of decking done over my patio. It's laid on a concrete slab and some slabs using 3x3 posts for the framework. The reason I used 3x3 is my mate runs a fencing company and he supplied it all. Last night I cleaned it all off and I was going to oil it when I got back from work tonight, when I looked at it tonight I've noticed that 7 of the boards have got sort of splits/cracks running down them intermittently some of them are a foot long but only a couple of mill thick and they're not going towards the screws (SPAX).
My mates said he'd swap them no problem but Im a bit worried about it happening again, has this happened to anyone else? Any preventative measures I can take.


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Alberta is being bailed out because it has been all but giving away its provincially owned oil and gas natural resources for decades when compared to other countries.
The Norwegian state owns 80% of its petroleum production and transportation infrastructure.
In Canada, petroleum production and transportation infrastructure is 100% owned by foreign and domestic private companies as well as foreign state-owned companies, including from China, France, Korea, Malaysia and Norway and Thailand. ...
From the outset, Norway maintained high non-petroleum taxes despite rising oil revenues. Its tax-to-GDP ratio (currently 42%) is among the highest in the OECD.
Alberta lowered its non-petroleum taxes as petroleum revenues rose, to the point where it now has by far the lowest overall taxes in Canada. This put pressure on other provinces to lower their taxes as well. ...
The Norwegian government captures an estimated 85% of the petroleum economic surplus, mainly through high taxes on producers and directly through the state corporation, SDFI.
The petro-surplus captured by the Alberta government (mainly through its royalty system) is among the lowest of all petroleum producing jurisdictions.
Norway realized revenues of $87.69 per barrel of oil in 2013 while Alberta took in only $4.38 per barrel— one-twentieth what Norway appropriated. (In the 2015-2016 fiscal year, the provincial government forecasts that it "will be collecting $1.54 per barrel of oil this year, a 72 per cent drop from the last fiscal year." https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/alberta-royalty-oilpatch-oilsands-1.390...)
But Albertans and Canadians suffer in terms of revenue generated for government in comparison to virtually all other oil and gas producers, even notoriously corrupt regimes.
Canada taxes its oil and gas companies at a fraction of the rate they are taxed abroad, including by countries ranked among the world's most corrupt, according to an analysis of public data by the Guardian.
The low rate that oil companies pay in Canada represents billions of dollars in potential revenue lost, which an industry expert who looked at the data says is a worrying sign that the country may be "a kind of tax haven for our own companies."
The countries where oil companies paid higher rates of taxes, royalties and fees per barrel in 2016 include Nigeria, Indonesia, Ivory Coast and the UK. ...
Companies like Chevron Canada paid almost three times as much to Nigeria and almost seven times as much to Indonesia as it did to Canadian, provincial and municipal governments.
Chevron used to run its Nigeria and Indonesia projects out of the U.S., but after allegations that they evaded billions in taxes, their operations were moved to Canada.
According to data collected by the Guardian, Suncor also paid six times more taxes to the UK, and Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) paid almost four times more to Ivory Coast. ...
Even with the low rates, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has been lobbying the federal government for more tax breaks to improve their "competitiveness." ...
According to resource governance expert and UBC geography professor Philippe Le Billon, neoliberal policies in Canada and across OECD countries have resulted in lower taxes and royalties for companies.
"Companies in Canada will point to the jobs they are creating rather than acknowledge they could be sharing more of their profits, which mostly goes to shareholders who are not even in the country," he said. "In key jurisdictions like Alberta, this has come about after decades of rule by Conservatives who are very cozy with oil interests. The numbers reveal a poor tradeoff: high emissions for not much revenue. It's long-past time for Canada to follow a model like Norway's, which captures far more revenue from oil production."
While royalty rates in Newfoundland are the highest in Canada, in Alberta they have fallen from a 40 per cent high during the 1970s to less than four per cent, and a complex system of exemptions ensures companies often pay even less. The NDP government in Alberta backed away from a pledge to hike them.


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- Tech Trader Daily
Intel: J.P. Morgan Jumps Aboard on Realistic Outlook, PC Trends, Foundry Business
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Shares of Intel (INTC) are up 93 cents, or almost4%, at $26.43, as the stock enjoys a banner day for upbeat remarks from the Street.
The rush of good feeling comes in advance of Intel's report of Q4 results Thursday afternoon, after market close.
Early this morning, J.P. Morgan's Christopher Danely, who has frequently found himself in the bear camp on Intel over the years, reversed course, raising his rating to Overweight from Neutral, and raised his price target to $29 from $20, writing that he is "making a leap of faith" on the company's future.
CEO Brian Krzanich "will continue to provide realistic guidance and focus on areas where Intel has an advantage – thereby improving margins and returns," writes Danely.
Danely raised this year's estimates to $54.5 billion in revenue and $1.90 per share in EPS, above consensus for $52.5 billion and $1.80 per share. That is above consensus for $52.6 billion and $1.89 this year.
Danely cites a number of factors indicating trends are going in the right direction in the PC market:
Intel, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Lenovo, and several other companies have stated PC demand is improving with HP, Microsoft, Lenovo and Asus all beating Consensus estimates on their PC businesses for the first time in years. We would note in C3Q13, HP registered YoY PC unit growth for the first time since C1Q12. In addition, Taiwan notebook ODM shipments in 4Q13 were above expectations […] As the following table illustrates, notebook shipments from the "big-4" Taiwan notebook manufacturers – Quanta, Compal, Wistron, Inventec – increased 7% QoQ in 4Q13, above our J.P. Morgan Asia Hardware team's estimate of up 5% QoQ due to strong corporate PC demand, stable PC demand in the U.S., and improving demand from Europe […] Looking ahead to 1Q14, our J.P. Morgan Asia Hardware team expects Taiwan notebook ODM shipments to decline low double digits QoQ, roughly in line with guidance and normal seasonality of down 11% QoQ. We believe 1Q14 marks the third consecutive quarter of seasonal/above seasonal QoQ notebook unit growth. We would note this is the first time the Taiwan notebook ODM industry has experienced three consecutive quarters of seasonal/above seasonal QoQ unit growth since 2009.
Danely notes the tablet computing market, which has been a problem for the traditional PC, appears to be saturating:
It appears the tablet market is starting to saturate and price elasticity is slowing after tablet ASPs have declined rapidly over the last two years. IDC reported tablet shipments increased 37% YoY in 3Q13, well below our J.P. Morgan IT Hardware team's expectation for 54% YoY growth. In addition, 7" tablet growth has slowed due to share loss to large-screen smartphones. As a result, our IT Hardware team expects tablet shipments to grow only 25% YoY in 2014, down from 53% YoY growth in 2013.
And Krzanich is sounding more realistic in his forecasts for the company's business than former CEO Paul Otellini, contends Danely, and is spending the company's investments in mobile computing chips more rationally:
Intel expects the PC market to decline low-single digits YoY in 2014, in line with most other companies in the PC supply chain and below our J.P. Morgan IT Hardware team's forecast for a 0.5% YoY decline. We believe Intel's more realistic outlook on the PC market is a positive, as we have been saying that Intel needs to acknowledge and plan for the PC market not growing, and adjust its spending and resources. In addition, Intel indicated it is lowering its spending on handsets by more than 20% YoY in 2014 versus 2012, as the company is focusing only on the largest handset makers. We believe the lower handset spending is another positive for the company as we have been saying that the smartphone applications processor market opportunity is too small to matter, and Intel architecture is not competitive in cost or power versus ARM.
Instead, Intel's intent to sell its contract manufacturingservices to other chip makers is a smart way to play mobile, he thinks, with the total revenue opportunity for Intel being perhaps $6.3 billion annually by 2017:
We believe way for Intel to gain material revenue and earnings from the "mobile" market (tablets/cell phones) is via foundry since x86 processors are not competitive versus ARM processors in non-Windows applications, i.e. almost every tablet and phone. We believe Intel is generating interest in its foundry business due to a combination of TSMC missteps and Intel promising a one year lead over TSMC and others at 10nm, which would reach production in 2016. Since Altera was announced in February 2013, Intel added Microsemi, and we believe Cisco and Brocade will follow.
Apple (AAPL) could yet turn out to be a customer for foundry, he believes:
Our J.P. Morgan Samsung analyst J.J. Park estimates the Apple foundry business contributed roughly $3.9 billion in revenue for Samsung in 2012, and we estimate it could grow roughly 21% YoY to $4.7 billion in 2013. Our analysis indicates if Intel were to win 50% of Apple's foundry business at 25% operating margins (roughly in line with Intel's corporate average), it would add roughly $3.4 billion in incremental sales (6%) and $0.13 in EPS upside (6%) in 2017E.
Nor does Intel have anything to fear from chip vendors Nvidia (NVDA), Broadcom (BRCM), Qualcomm (QCOM) and others licensing ARM Holdings (ARMH) intellectual property in server chips, where Intel dominates sales:
ARM itself has acknowledged it is several years away from gaining material share in the server market. The company recently indicated it expects only "modest" volumes for 64-bit ARM server processors in 2014. In addition, we believe it will be difficult for ARM to meet its long-term target of roughly 10%-15% share of the server microprocessor market due to inferior performance, process technology, and software ecosystem relative to Intel.
The dividend yield is impressive:
We continue be impressed by Intel's commitment to returning cash to shareholders via dividends. Intel has raised its dividend four times since 1Q08, and the stock has a 3.5% dividend yield, the second highest among large cap semiconductor stocks and well above the average Mega Cap Tech dividend yield of 2.6% and the S&P 500 average of 1.9%.


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In this third installment of how to solve childhood obesity we will be talking about the problem of 'screen time.' Screen time is the amount of time that a child spends in front of a television, computer or other similar device. Thus far in this series we have talked about how breastfeeding and chemical exposure is related to obesity. These ideas are not my own. They are from the Let's Move Campaign spearheaded by Michele Obama. I am simply discussing them here.
In my practice I see many children with a wide variety of conditions. Most of these conditions respond favorably to reducing screen time. A child who is watching television or playing video games is not active. This reduction in activity level not only leads to obesity but complicates ADHD and other learning disorders.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children two years old and under should not be exposed to television, and children over age two should limit daily media exposure to only 1-2 hours of quality programming. In contrast to these recommendations, one study found that 43% of children under age two watch television daily, and 26% have a television in their room!
Children this young are not opting to watch television. Their parents are using it as a cheap babysitter unfortunately. It may be easy to sit your child in front of the TV and let them 'entertain themselves' but it is not healthy. Children that young need to be up and about learning and exploring the world. Not only is it important for maintaining a healthy weight, it's how their brain develops. The input from the muscles and joints provides enormous amounts of information to the brain. The brain uses this information to develop. If a child is seated and is not active a large portion of this input is lost.
Secondly, Physical activity assists children in obtaining and improving fine and gross motor skill development, coordination, balance and control, hand-eye coordination, strength, dexterity, and flexibility—all of which are necessary for children to reach developmental milestones.
Thirdly, allowing a child to watch too much TV or play too many video games sets up bad habits. Habits that we form when we are young are hard to break. Just like eating poorly as a child leads to poor eating habits as an adult, watching too much TV as a child leads to the same as an adult.
Preschool aged children are also watching more television than recommended. Ninety percent of children ages 4-6 use screen media for an average of two hours per day. Over 40% of children in this age group have a television in their bedroom, a third have a portable DVD player, and a third have a portable handheld video game player.
The choices for children are just about endless. The list below is just a sample of the devices that children have access to these days.
- Television
- DVD/Blu-Ray player
- Computer
- iPhone
- iPod
- iPad
- Nintendo DS
- Wii
- Playstation 3
- XBox 360
Not only do they have all the above options, but the gaming systems come with hundreds of games that could keep a child entertained for a life time. This list above doesn't mention cellular phones (except the iPhone) either. I've seen children as young as 8 with cell phones. Who are they calling?
Also the online world has changed how children are entertained as well. Kids go home, get online and chat with their friends instead of actually getting outside and moving.
It's one thing to talk about all these forms of entertainment, but do they actually lead to obesity. The research says they do. Studies show an association between television viewing and risk of being overweight in preschool children, independent of socio-demographic factors. Specifically, for each additional hour of television viewing, the odds ratio of children having a BMI greater than the 85th percentile was 1.06. Having a television in the bedroom had a stronger association, with an odds ratio of 1.31. One study noted that preschool children who watched television for more than two hours a day were more likely to be overweight than children who watched television two hours or less daily.
Television viewing is also linked to dietary intake. Another study found that television exposure was correlated with fast-food consumption in preschool children, even after adjusting for a variety of socio-demographic and socio-environmental factors.
So how do we solve the problem? I often tell the parents of my young patients that their child needs to be limited to no more than 2 hours of total screen time per day. If the child wants to get up and watch 1 hour of cartoons before school, they only have one hour for the rest of the day. Also, they are not permitted to watch television during meals. That should be for family time. When children get home from school they should get outside and enjoy an activity that makes them move. Ride a bike, play a sport or get involved with an after school program. Kids that come home and plop down in front of the television are much less likely to be healthy. Do your kids a favor and get them moving!


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My Writing Course
So I'm sitting here trying to think of ways I can continue to buy Fancy Feast for Crum the Cat. Several people have proposed that I ought to start doing dokusan sessions online via Skype and charge money for them. But that idea, frankly, makes me want to vomit. Dokusan, for those who may not know, is a private personal interview with a Zen teacher, usually conducted as part of a sesshin or Zen retreat. Though participants usually pay for Zen retreats, and though some of that money normally goes to the teacher, it is not customary to charge specifically for dokusan. Besides which, if it's not done in the context of a retreat it isn't really dokusan, at least in my understanding of what dokusan is supposed to be.
I've been sending my resume out to colleges and universities who run writing programs to see if they'll hire me to teach creative writing. Then it occurred to me. Do I really need a university to hire me to do that? Maybe I could do that myself and eliminate the middle man.
My upstairs neighbor Dave teaches writing at the University of Akron. So I went up there and asked if I could borrow a syllabus from one of his classes. I looked it over and figured I could adapt his strategy to an online course in creative writing to be taught by me.
I'm thinking I could offer a ten week course with 4 - 6 writing assignments that I would personally evaluate. Students would get the benefit of my experience as a professional writer, which is something I've been doing for at least ten years before Hardcore Zen came out in 2003. I was writing all sorts of stuff for Tsuburaya Productions. And before that I wrote for zines and science fiction mags. That's like 20 years as a writer, not even counting the comic books and shitty poetry I wrote starting when I first learned to write.
I couldn't help get anyone published. I could tell you how I went about doing it. But I have no connections that are going to work for anyone else. I can show you how to make your work publishable, though.
In order to make this worth the time and headaches it would cost me, I'd have to charge at least $350 per student. I may have to charge more, in fact, because it would be a whole big bunch of work for me. The going rate for online writing courses appears to vary between $300 and $800. Although I haven't been able to find any examples of someone like me, an independent published author, offering such a course. I'm sure such examples must exist somewhere. I would imagine the prestige of the writer in question would determine the price. Does anyone know of a writer who independently offers online writing courses?
So the question I'm asking all of you nice folks is: Would you be interested in taking such a course? I doubt that most of the regular contributors to this blog's comments section are going to want to do it. So I'm hoping to hear from a few ordinary citizens. This page gets a thousand or more hits a day. So I know that it's not just those same five guys reading it.
Remember Crum the Cat is depending on you!


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A quick preview of some Leica shots from the 2012 Festival of Speed at Goodwood
We now have a new photography website dedicated to Andrew Butler's photography.
The site has an extended range of photographs to view and purchase.
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