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Thursday, April 11, 2013
This Gorgeous Kettle Is How Iron Man Boils Water
On 10-year anniversary of Baghdad's fall, Iraqis remain torn
Ferdos square, where Saddam Hussein's statue stood until toppled by jubilant Iraqis on this day in 2003, was largely deserted today. Elsewhere in the capital, Baghdad residents struggled to get to work on streets choked with traffic and blocked by concrete walls and security checkpoints.
Iraqis have largely shrugged off the 10-year anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, even as they struggle still with the fallout of the US invasion: heightened security measures, ongoing violence, and a country much more divided than it was a decade ago.
In the first two years of post-war Iraq, April 9 was declared a public holiday, but later the day became linked with a US occupation that few wanted to celebrate.
Sections of the statue, erected in 2002 to honor Saddam Hussein?s birthday, were sold as souvenirs and scrap metal after it was brought down. But part of his bronze foot, too embedded to pry out of the concrete, remains.
RECOMMENDED: In Iraq, a tyrant was toppled - and then no one was in charge
?They toppled about half of it and people were interested in his head,? says Hisham Chaloub, one of thousands of Iraqis who gathered around the square 10 years ago.
He says when a group of Kurdish artists came with iron cutters for the rest, he convinced them he had a right to have part of it, and sold the section of the statue for less than $2 to show the contempt he held him in.
?Saddam was living in paradise and we were living in hell,? he says.
DIVIDED SENTIMENTS
In the north of Iraq, where Kurds were the targets of a campaign by Saddam Hussein that included poison gas and the destruction of thousands of villages, April 9 continues to be a public holiday.
But in Anbar province, tens of thousands of people turned out for mass prayers and a protest in which they burned American flags. In the largely Sunni province, April 9 is widely considered an unlucky day. Some parents even change the official birthdays of their children if born on that day.
The divide between Sunni and Shiite Iraqis that brought the country to civil war has widened again recently, with many Sunni Iraqis saying the Shiite-led government has discriminated against them since Saddam fell.
At Baghdad?s National Theatre, not far from Ferdos square, Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki attended a play commemorating the April 9 execution of the founder of the Islamic Dawa party two decades before Baghdad fell.
RELATED ? Sunni and Shiite Islam: Do you know the difference?
?The Tragedy of al-Sadr? tells the story of Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, a dissident Shiite cleric who was imprisoned, tortured, and executed, along with his sister Amina, in 1980. Sadr was the father-in-law of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a leading political force in Iraq.
STRUGGLING TO MOVE ON
Many still blame the United States for the last decade of conflict and hardship. Tens of thousands of Iraqis were killed during the war and the violence that followed. The fighting also prompted an exodus of Iraqi professionals that continues today.
At Iraq?s National Museum, a group of young Iraqis lit candles Monday to mark the loss of part of their heritage that disappeared when the museum was looted and damaged.
For many it was the first time they were seeing the museum, which is still closed to the public because of security and budget problems.
?I was a teenager in 2003,? says Ali Ali al-Makhzomy, a social activist who organized the event. ?I was happy the Americans were here. I thought they would make a big difference between what it was like in the 90s and what came after but after 10 years I don?t know how to describe my feelings.?
?If that was the American plan it was a problem, but if they weren?t planning at all, it?s even worse,? he says.
Wasfi, the former director of the National Symphony Orchestra, could live anywhere but he has stayed to run a music school he founded to bring together Iraqi young people.
?I think the change [toppling Saddam] was crucial and whether it has good impact or bad impact that?s for Iraqis to reshape? and to decide to live normally and calmly and decently.?
Iraqi authorities have drastically increased security in the capital over the last two days in the run-up to provincial elections, leading to epic traffic jams and two and three-hour trips across town. Security officials privately say the roadblocks and increased checks will last until voters go to the polls on April 20.
The government has also increased security to guard against retaliation as it carries out executions of prisoners on death row. Those hanged include leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq ? executions which have previously prompted bombings by the group.
The Justice Ministry said yesterday that it had hanged seven more Iraqi men but refused to name them or their crimes. Iraq has one of the highest execution rates and least judicial transparency in the world. Human rights groups and relatives of prisoners say many are tortured into confessions used to convict and sentence them to death.
?It?s not about celebrating,? says Makhzomy about the former public holiday. ?A lot of people have painful memories because their parents, brothers, sisters got killed or kidnapped. They faced a lot of hardship after 2003 until now. It?s not about Saddam. I think three-quarters of Iraqi people were happy about ending Saddam?s rule or dictatorship in general but I think what happened after the regime is still painful.?
RECOMMENDED: In Iraq, a tyrant was toppled - and then no one was in charge
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/10-anniversary-baghdads-fall-iraqis-remain-torn-195932724.html
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WTO cuts 2013 trade forecast, sees protectionist threat
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Trade Organization slashed its forecast for trade growth in 2013 on Wednesday, saying it feared protectionism was on the increase.
It cut its forecast for global trade growth in 2013 to 3.3 percent from 4.5 percent and said trade grew only 2.0 percent in 2012. That was the smallest annual rise since records began in 1981 and the second weakest figure on record after 2009, when trade shrank.
WTO Director General Pascal Lamy warned that 2013 could turn out even weaker than expected, especially because of risks from the euro crisis, and countries might try to restrict trade further in a desperate attempt to shore up domestic growth.
"The threat of protectionism may be greater now than at any time since the start of the crisis, since other policies to restore growth have been tried and found wanting," he said.
Lamy, who will step down at the end of August this year, called the 2012 growth rate "sobering".
Despite the hope of quickening trade this year and a provisional forecast of 5.0 percent growth in 2014, the annual rises are expected to stay below the historical trend of long-term growth, which was 6.0 percent for the 20 years leading up to the financial crisis but now stands at 5.3 percent.
"Traditionally we've reckoned on a 2:1 ratio of trade growth to GDP (gross domestic product) growth. This year it was 1:1 and we would expect to see that relationship re-establish itself," said the WTO's chief economist Patrick Low.
The WTO forecasts are based on global GDP growth of 2.1 percent in 2013, a consensus estimate that the WTO said was unchanged from 2012.
"Risks to the forecast are firmly rooted on the downside and are mostly linked to the sovereign debt crisis in Europe," the WTO said in a statement.
(Reporting by Tom Miles, editing by Stephanie Nebehay/Ruth Pitchford)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/wto-cuts-2013-trade-forecast-record-slow-growth-103348808--business.html
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Predicting the next eye pathogen; analysis of a novel adenovirus
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 10-Apr-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Mary Leach
Mary_Leach@meei.harvard.edu
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
Research outlined in mBio
BOSTON (April 10, 2013) The ongoing dance between a virus and its host distinctly shapes how the virus evolves. While human adenoviruses typically cause mild infections, recent reports have described newly characterized adenoviruses that can cause severe, sometime fatal, human infections.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School, Provincial Laboratory for Public Health, School of Systems Biology, George Mason University, and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center report a systems biology approach to show how evolution has affected the disease potential of a recently identified novel human adenovirus. Their approach is based on the belief that understanding viral evolution and pathogenicity is essential to our capacity to foretell the potential impact on human disease for new and emerging viruses. Their study is now published in mBio.
Since the first adenovirus was characterized in 1953, 69 human adenoviruses (HAdVs) have been recognized as unique types. Analysis of whole-genome sequence data for existing and new HAdVs confirmed a critical role for homologous recombination in adenovirus evolution, leading to new and sometime serious human infections. The emergence of new HAdV types, with several associated with severe eye infection, promoted the investigators to apply a systems biology approach to try to predict the ocular tropism of a previously uncharacterized and highly novel HAdV, isolated by nasopharyngeal swab from a 4-month-old boy with several bronchiolitis.
A combined genomic, bioinformatics and biological analysis identified a unique deletion in a key protein of the viral capsid and further suggested the potential of the virus to cause severe ocular infection. The results point toward a possible approach for predicting pathogenicity for newly identified and recently emergent human pathogens.
###
The study was supported NIH grants EY013124, EY021558 and Ey014104, a Research to Prevent Blindness Senior Scientific Investigator Award, the Falk Foundation and the Massachusetts Lions Eye Research Fund.
About Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Mass. Eye and Ear clinicians and scientists are driven by a mission to find cures for blindness, deafness and diseases of the head and neck. After uniting with Schepens Eye Research Institute Mass. Eye and Ear in Boston became the world's largest vision and hearing research center, offering hope and healing to patients everywhere through discovery and innovation. Mass. Eye and Ear is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and trains future medical leaders in ophthalmology and otolaryngology, through residency as well as clinical and research fellowships. Internationally acclaimed since its founding in 1824, Mass. Eye and Ear employs full-time, board-certified physicians who offer high-quality and affordable specialty care that ranges from the routine to the very complex. U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Survey" has consistently ranked the Mass. Eye and Ear Departments of Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology as top five in the nation.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 10-Apr-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Mary Leach
Mary_Leach@meei.harvard.edu
Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary
Research outlined in mBio
BOSTON (April 10, 2013) The ongoing dance between a virus and its host distinctly shapes how the virus evolves. While human adenoviruses typically cause mild infections, recent reports have described newly characterized adenoviruses that can cause severe, sometime fatal, human infections.
Researchers from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School, Provincial Laboratory for Public Health, School of Systems Biology, George Mason University, and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center report a systems biology approach to show how evolution has affected the disease potential of a recently identified novel human adenovirus. Their approach is based on the belief that understanding viral evolution and pathogenicity is essential to our capacity to foretell the potential impact on human disease for new and emerging viruses. Their study is now published in mBio.
Since the first adenovirus was characterized in 1953, 69 human adenoviruses (HAdVs) have been recognized as unique types. Analysis of whole-genome sequence data for existing and new HAdVs confirmed a critical role for homologous recombination in adenovirus evolution, leading to new and sometime serious human infections. The emergence of new HAdV types, with several associated with severe eye infection, promoted the investigators to apply a systems biology approach to try to predict the ocular tropism of a previously uncharacterized and highly novel HAdV, isolated by nasopharyngeal swab from a 4-month-old boy with several bronchiolitis.
A combined genomic, bioinformatics and biological analysis identified a unique deletion in a key protein of the viral capsid and further suggested the potential of the virus to cause severe ocular infection. The results point toward a possible approach for predicting pathogenicity for newly identified and recently emergent human pathogens.
###
The study was supported NIH grants EY013124, EY021558 and Ey014104, a Research to Prevent Blindness Senior Scientific Investigator Award, the Falk Foundation and the Massachusetts Lions Eye Research Fund.
About Massachusetts Eye and Ear
Mass. Eye and Ear clinicians and scientists are driven by a mission to find cures for blindness, deafness and diseases of the head and neck. After uniting with Schepens Eye Research Institute Mass. Eye and Ear in Boston became the world's largest vision and hearing research center, offering hope and healing to patients everywhere through discovery and innovation. Mass. Eye and Ear is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and trains future medical leaders in ophthalmology and otolaryngology, through residency as well as clinical and research fellowships. Internationally acclaimed since its founding in 1824, Mass. Eye and Ear employs full-time, board-certified physicians who offer high-quality and affordable specialty care that ranges from the routine to the very complex. U.S. News & World Report's "Best Hospitals Survey" has consistently ranked the Mass. Eye and Ear Departments of Otolaryngology and Ophthalmology as top five in the nation.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-04/meae-ptn041013.php
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Senators unveil deal on gun sales background check
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. listens at left, as Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa. announce that they have reached a bipartisan deal on expanding background checks to more gun buyers, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. listens at left, as Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa. announce that they have reached a bipartisan deal on expanding background checks to more gun buyers, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., right, accompanied by Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., announce that they have reached a bipartisan deal on expanding background checks to more gun buyers, Wednesday, April 10, 2013, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., speaks with reporters following a Democratic strategy session at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, April 9, 2013. Reid said he plans showdown vote on gun control on Thursday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Two pivotal senators announced a bipartisan deal Wednesday on expanding background checks to more gun buyers, an agreement that could build support for President Barack Obama's drive to curb firearms violence.
Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Patrick Toomey, R-Pa., said their accord would help keep firearms from criminals and the mentally ill. Subjecting more firearms purchases to federal background checks has been the chief goal of Obama and gun control supporters, who promote the system as a way to prevent criminals and other potentially dangerous people from getting the weapons.
The agreement between two of the most conservative members of each party was expected to make it even likelier that the Senate's initial vote Thursday to begin debating gun legislation will succeed, despite an effort by conservatives to block consideration of the measure.
Even so, the ultimate fate of gun legislation remains unclear, clouded by opposition from the National Rifle Association and many Republicans and moderate Democrats in the Democratic-led Senate and the Republican-run House. Many critics say the effort would violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms and burden law-abiding gun owners.
"Truly the events at Newtown changed us all," said Manchin, referring to the Connecticut town where 20 first-graders and six educators were shot down in December, launching the country into renewed debate over gun violence. "Americans on both sides of the debate can and must find common ground."
"I don't consider criminal background checks to be gun control," said Toomey. "I think it's just common sense."
In a written statement, the NRA was critical.
"Expanding background checks at gun shows will not prevent the next shooting, will not solve violent crime and will not keep our kids safe in schools," the statement said. It said policymakers should focus on fixing the country's mental health system and on gang violence.
"President Obama should be as committed to dealing with the gang problem that is tormenting honest people in his hometown as he is to blaming law-abiding gun owners for the acts of psychopathic murderers," the NRA said.
The administration was continuing its effort to pressure Congress on gun control on Wednesday as first lady Michelle Obama planned to visit a high school in Chicago, the Obamas' hometown, where authorities say 29 current or former students have been shot in the past year.
Currently, the background check system covers sales only by licensed gun dealers. The compromise would apply the system to all commercial sales, such as transactions at gun shows and online. The sales would have to be channeled through licensed firearms dealers, who would have to keep records of the transactions.
Private transactions that are not for profit, such as those between relatives, would be exempt from background checks.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who led an earlier unsuccessful effort to strike a bipartisan background check deal, is backing the compromise after changes were made from an initial version of the deal between Manchin and Toomey, according to a Senate aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe details of the talks.
The changes included eliminating language that would have required states to recognize permits to carry concealed weapons issued by other states and eliminating language that would have limited background checks to sellers who sell at least five guns annually, said the aide.
Some Republicans might vote to begin debate on the legislation but eventually oppose the measure on final passage. Other parts of Obama's gun effort already seem likely to face defeat, including proposed bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
The gun legislation Reid wants the Senate to debate would extend the background check requirement to nearly all gun sales. Reid would try to replace that language with the Manchin-Toomey compromise once debate begins, a move that would require a vote.
The overall gun bill also tightens federal laws against illegal gun sales and slightly increases federal aid for school safety.
Thirteen conservatives have signed a letter saying they will block consideration of the measure, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he will back that move. That will force Democrats to round up 60 votes to overcome the conservatives.
At least eight Republicans have said they want to begin debate or have indicated a willingness to consider it, a number that would be expected to grow if the background check agreement proves successful.
Some moderate Democrats were remaining noncommittal and could oppose opening the gun debate. There are 53 Senate Democrats and two independents who lean Democratic.
Amid the maneuvering, relatives of some Newtown victims are lobbying to support gun curbs. And Obama has been calling senators from both parties to push for the gun bill.
"People should listen to what we have to say and move the debate forward," said Mark Barden, who lost his 7-year-old son, Daniel. "It's not just about our tragedy. Lots of kids are killed every day in this nation. We have to help lead the change."
___
Associated Press writers Nedra Pickler, Jim Abrams, Andrew Miga and Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.
___
Follow Alan Fram at (at)asfram
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Electronic implants: New fast transcutaneous non-invasive battery recharger and energy feeder
Apr. 9, 2013 ? Ant?nio Abreu, a Sustainable Energy Systems PhD Student under the MIT Portugal Program, currently developing research work at LNEG (Laborat?rio Nacional de Energia e Geologia I.P.) has developed a non-invasive battery recharger system for electronic implants that allows a longer life for the internal implantable devices in the human body such as, pacemakers, defibrillators, electric heart, delaying considerable the usual customary surgery intervention for replacement.
According to the world health organization, cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of deaths. On a last resource, patients with cardiovascular disease have to be aided through surgery and medical devices to help them perform the basic functions. Nevertheless medical devices, such as pacemaker that sends electrical impulses to the heart muscle to maintain a suitable heart rate and rhythm, need a source of energy and once the battery has run out they required a surgical procedure similar to the initial implantation to replace the device.
With the non-invasive battery recharger for electronic cardiac implants the need for a new surgical intervention is reduced, since it primes from being rechargeable, i.e. the patient will not need to be operated upon to change batteries every five to seven years, since these are rechargeable by irradiant electricity passing through the body. Ant?nio Abreu adds that "The non-invasive battery also allows for a customize energy consumption of the cardiac implants, therefore the consumption of energy can be regulated to adapted to its function and patients' pathology and activity. It guarantees the energetic supply of a communication channel between the exterior for diagnosis and/or implant reprogramming. In this case, there will be no demand of energy from the internal battery."
The principle of the operation is the use of a high efficient Transcutaneous Power System. However, these typical systems use electronic converters witch generate hazard electromagnetic interferences (EMI) that causes damage to the implants as to the patients. The present innovation takes into account the Energy Efficiency in electric transmission systems without ferromagnetic cores, regarding medical application. In practice it eliminates the Gibbs phenomena.
The invention optimizes the energy flow determined by the regime of exploration previewed at the innovative Predictor-Corrector Abacus conception.
The Predictor-Corrector Abacus is a representation in the complex plan of a situation where a specific load is supplied by an electrical energy to the Active Power P, and Reactive Power Q. What characterizes this Abacus is the circumstance of considering the effect of the reactance and the resistance of longitudinal transmission lines that is evident at the figure by the position of the angles of segments lines that proliferate in the first and second quadrants of the Argand's complex plan. The best position of the segments lines defines the maximum of power transference without electromagnetic interferences.
The Prototype, patented by Ant?nio Abreu in the USA and in Europe with the collaboration and support of the PRIME (Incentive Program for the Modernization of the Economy) program and approved by the European Commission, was initially designed for pacemakers application but currently, and according to the medical development, new improved technics were made to be suitable for high power (and high voltages too) devices, such defibrillators, electric heart, insulin pumps or other type of implantable prosthesis.
Moreover, the same principle that allows the supply of lower energy voltages can be applied to improve the high power electrical transmission and distribution systems (electrical grid) to reduce costs due the consumer electric consumption, according to the results obtained.
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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Yen's fall runs out of steam, earnings lift stocks
By Richard Hubbard
LONDON (Reuters) - A selloff in the yen paused on Tuesday as it neared 100 to the dollar, while a firm start to the U.S. corporate earnings season and a fall in Chinese inflation lifted share markets.
The Japanese currency hit 99.67 to the dollar in Asian trading, the greenback's strongest level versus the yen since May 2009, before the selloff ran out of steam. The euro stopped at a peak last seen in January 2010 of 129.94 yen.
The dollar has gained about 7 percent against the yen since the Bank of Japan (BOJ) unveiled a massive stimulus program last Thursday involving large purchases of long term Japanese government bonds (JGBs).
"Markets are increasingly focused on the notion that larger JGB purchases, at longer maturities, by the BOJ could push Japanese domestic long-term investors elsewhere," said Vassili Serebriakov, strategist at BNP Paribas.
In early European trading the dollar was at 98.91 yen, down 0.4 percent, while the euro was down 0.25 percent on the day at 128.93 yen.
The BOJ's bold measures are also having a major effect on the world's main bond markets by sending Japanese government yields down sharply and spurring a search for higher-yielding assets, sending yields lower on U.S. and euro zone debt.
The yield on 10-year Treasury notes stood at 1.74 percent, little changed from late U.S. trade on Monday, although not far from a four-month low of 1.677 percent.
German government 10-year bonds were steady at 1.24 percent having hit 1.2 percent on Friday, their lowest levels since mid-2012 when the European Central Bank promised to do whatever it took to save the euro.
EARNINGS LIFT
European equity markets rose in early trading, led by mining stocks as investors hoped for more accommodative monetary policy from China following benign inflation data, and after U.S. firm Alcoa posted solid earnings.
The FTSE Eurofirst 300 index <.fteu3> of top European shares was up 0.5 percent at 1,170.30 points. London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> all opened as much as 0.7 percent higher.
U.S. stock futures were also firmer, suggesting a firm Wall Street open. <.l><.eu><.n/>
Earlier, the MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> rose 1 percent, led by Australian shares <.axjo> which gained 1.4 percent on rises in blue chip financials and miners.
China's annual consumer inflation cooled in March as food prices eased from nine-month highs and producer price deflation deepened, data showed on Tuesday, leaving policymakers room to keep monetary conditions easy and nurture a nascent recovery.
Alcoa Inc , the largest U.S. aluminum producer, kicked off U.S. earnings on Monday, reporting an increase in quarterly profit and easing concerns about corporate results in the first three months of 2013.
U.S. crude futures rose 0.2 percent to $93.54 a barrel and Brent rose 0.15 percent to $104.83.
Crude oil prices have seen some support from tensions on the Korean peninsula after words from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un about the prospect for war with the south.
(Additional reporting by Chikako Mogi. Editing by David Stamp)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/yen-still-focus-u-earnings-seen-aiding-asian-001647531--finance.html
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Little League returns to Sandy-ravaged town
After Hurricane Sandy destroyed Island Park's field, fences and equipment, a nonprofit stepped in to donate much-needed items lost in the storm. It was a homerun for the kids, who got a chance to return to the sport that they love. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
By Amy Perrette, Producer, NBC News
ISLAND PARK, NY ? In a small town on Long Island, still less than half rebuilt after Superstorm Sandy, Little League is finally getting underway.?
Andrew Barwicki, who?has been coaching Island Park Little League for four years,?choked up while watching his players take the field for the first time on Saturday.
?We have 220 kids that are playing this weekend and those kids are having the times of their lives,? he said.
Click here to learn more about the organization Pitch in for Baseball
Third baseman Hayden Smith, 10, is thrilled to be back on the field after Sandy made their home uninhabitable.?
He missed his fellow players while he and his family stayed in a friend?s basement as repairs were being made on their home.?Finally, on Little League?s opening day, they were able to move back into their house.
?
Baseball is a reason to spend time together, he says.
?It?s fun because I never got to do this in a long, long time,? Hayden said.
The storm damaged homes and burst sewage pipes, flooding the whole town under four feet of water.
?Two days after the storm, I came here, I looked at all of our equipment, and I realized it was completely lost,? said Barwicki, who serves as the president of both the Island Park Little League and Barwicki Investor Relations. ?That equipment floated away into the ocean.?We lost about $15,000 worth of equipment.?
Island Park Little League has been a mainstay of the community since it began in 1957, so the possible loss of the 2013 season was devastating.?
?People were out of their homes, they were displaced, people lost their jobs. I knew we could not go to the people of Island Park and ask them to pay,? said Barwicki.
That is when Philadelphia-based nonprofit ?Pitch in for Baseball? stepped in, replacing all the ruined equipment with donated gear.?
?Let your equipment play extra innings? is the organization?s motto.
David Rhode, executive director of ?Pitch in For Baseball,? founded the organization in 2005 in the wake of Hurricane Katrina when was coaching his own boys. He noticed that expensive gear was piling up in his garage, unused.?
?There have to be millions of people who have gear in their homes,? he thought at the time.??What if we were able to get that stuff in the hands of kids that really needed it??
Since its inception, the organization has supplied over $3 million of equipment to over 300 communities in the United States and over 75 countries worldwide, including Columbia, Haiti, and Iraq.?
?To give [children] the chance to play, for kids to be kids, for us is a tremendous privilege,? said Rhode.
The nonprofit is delivering nearly $150,000 worth of equipment to communities devastated by Sandy, including Island Park.
?Baseball?s incredibly important,? Rhode said. ?To be able to give something familiar like playing the game of baseball gives kids a sense of comfort, enables them to heal in a really simple way. Kids have been asked to sacrifice a lot.?
Hayden?s mother, Sarah Smith, is especially grateful to ?Pitch in for Baseball? for providing such a joyous moment for her son.?
?There?s been a lot of sadness and a lot of loss, so to see him?I?m over the top happy,? she said. ?I?ve been expressing sadness for so long, so the happiness is a little unfamiliar, but it?s great.?
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5 moments that show why Margaret Thatcher mattered in American politics (Washington Post)
Gronk's deal?was shrewd move
ReutersWe begin our analysis of each team?s draft needs with a look at the Kansas City Chiefs, who hold the No. 1 overall selection and have eight picks overall ? but lack a second-round selection after the trade for quarterback Alex Smith:
Offensive tackle:?The Chiefs gave left tackle Branden Albert the franchise tag, but it seems they are open to considering moving him in the right deal. Even if the Chiefs keep Albert, drafting a top left tackle prospect like Texas A&M?s Luke Joeckel or Central Michigan?s Eric Fisher?makes a lot of sense. Albert is signed for just one more season, and he prefers left tackle, not right tackle.
Running back:?The Chiefs have a clear-cut featured back in Jamaal Charles. However, the depth behind Charles needs improvement. Kansas City doesn?t necessarily need to address this position early in the draft, given how running backs are valued these days, but adding a back ? perhaps one with a little more bulk than Charles ? would be wise. The good news for Chiefs fans? The Eagles showed a sharp eye for running back talent throughout Andy Reid?s tenure as head coach.
Inside linebacker: Here?s another position where the Chiefs have a building block (in this case, Derrick Johnson) and some questions otherwise. Also, just like at running back, positional value would suggest inside linebacker is more likely to be addressed on the second or third day of the draft.
Outside linebacker:?The Chiefs are set here entering 2013 with Justin Houston and Tamba Hali. However, they need to begin preparing for the future at the position. Hali has been productive (62.5 sacks) and dependable (two missed games in seven seasons), but he will be 30 in November. He has two years left on his deal, as does Houston ? who comes off a 10-sack season in 2012 and figures to garner a big-time second contract, considering the value of pass rushers. The Chiefs might want to add a mid-round prospect and groom him for 2015. You can never have enough pass-rush help.
Tight end: It wouldn?t be a surprise if the Chiefs drafted a tight end even after signing Anthony Fasano in free agency.?Tony Moeaki enters the final year of his contract, and more options at the position wouldn?t be a bad idea. Reid?s draft history suggests tight end might be more of a third-day consideration. The majority of tight ends selected in Reid?s Philadelphia tenure came off the board in Round Five or later.
We have seen far worse holders of the No. 1 pick than the 2013 Chiefs. This is a team that had a half-dozen Pro Bowl representatives in January ? and all of them are still on the roster. Still, they have some work to do in April. With a good draft, a climb out of the cellar in the AFC West wouldn?t shock anyone, especially with the Raiders and Chargers trying to climb back into contention themselves. Finally, the Smith trade opens some options for the Chiefs. They don?t need a quarterback this year. If any team falls in love with a prospect, the Chiefs shouldn?t let the call go to voicemail.
Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/08/in-hindsight-gronkowski-made-smart-move/related
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Biden, Holder push for gun safety measures
As part of a new push for substantial gun control legislation, Vice President Joe Biden and Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday spoke about gun violence during an event with law enforcement at the White House.
The 2 p.m. ET event was the latest effort by President Barack Obama and his team to pressure Congress on gun legislation as lawmakers return to Washington from a two-week recess.
Obama traveled to the University of Hartford in Connecticut Monday where he addressed the Dec. 14 shootings in Newtown, Conn. Twenty children and 6 school personnel were killed in the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, prompting the president to call for new gun restrictions.
In his speech, Obama encouraged those gathered at the university as well as the general public to call on lawmakers to give gun control legislation a vote in Congress and support what the White House calls "common-sense" measures to reduce violence.
"If you?re an American who wants to do something to prevent more families from knowing the immeasurable anguish that these families here have known, then we have to act. Now is the time to get engaged. Now is the time to get involved. Now is the time to push back on fear, and frustration and misinformation. Now is the time for everybody to make their voices heard from every statehouse to the corridors of Congress," Obama said.
Obama flew home from Connecticut Monday evening with family members who lost loved ones in the Newtown shooting. The White House said the guests had been invited to travel on Air Force One so that they could both attend Obama's Hartford appearance and spend Tuesday in Washington lobbying members of Congress to support the legislation.
Obama is pressing for universal background checks, which is very likely to be the cornerstone of legislation to be introduced by Senate Democrats. Many Newtown family members are lending their support to the proposal.
Some Republicans have lately suggested they will filibuster any gun safety measure, a prospect White House press secretary Jay Carney called "appalling."
First lady Michelle Obama is traveling to Chicago Wednesday to speak about gun violence, and Biden will participate in a gun roundtable Thursday on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
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HTC seen ?losing the window of opportunity? with HTC One after component shortages
With all this talk about the cord-cutting masses no longer wanting to subsidize TV channels they don't watch, it's a little surprising that one of the oldest, most widely available forms of TV is waning: over-the-air broadcast TV. Despite its attractive price of $0 per month and billions of advertising revenue, nobody ? including the broadcast networks, the tech companies that are out to disrupt them, and the cord-cutters and cord-nevers who hate cable ? is very enthusiastic about antennas. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/htc-seen-losing-window-opportunity-htc-one-component-182544158.html
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Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Monkeys' lip-smacking sounds hint at genesis of human speech
The rhythmic vocal sounds made by lip smacking in wild gelada monkeys have similarities to human speech, a University of Michigan study shows. Read the press release at http://bit.ly/17nngvw
By Tanya Lewis
LiveScience?
The lip-smacking vocalizations gelada monkeys make are surprisingly similar to human speech, a new study finds.
Many non-human primates demonstrate lip-smacking behavior, but geladas are the only ones known to make undulating sounds, known as "wobbles," at the same time. (The wobbling sounds a little like a human hum would sound if the volume were being turned on and off rapidly.) The findings show that lip-smacking could have been an important step in the evolution of human speech, researchers say.
"Our finding provides support for the lip-smacking origins of speech because it shows that this evolutionary pathway is at least plausible," Thore Bergman of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, author of the study published Monday in the journal Current Biology, said in a statement. "It demonstrates that nonhuman primates can vocalize while lip-smacking to produce speechlike sounds."
Lip-smacking ? rapidly opening and closing the mouth and lips ? shares some of the features of human speech, such as rapid fluctuations in pitch and volume. [See Video of Gelada Lip-Smacking]
Bergman first noticed the similarity while studying geladas in the remote mountains of Ethiopia. He would often hear vocalizations that sounded like human voices, but the vocalizations were actually coming from the geladas, he said. He had never come across other primates who made these sounds. But then he read a study on macaques from 2012 revealing how facial movements during lip-smacking were very speechlike, hinting that lip-smacking might be an initial step toward human speech.
To investigate this scenario himself, Bergman analyzed recordings of the geladas' wobbles. He found that the rhythm of these wobbles closely resembled that of human speech. Specifically, the wobble resulted from a male making a "moan" (something geladas produce by vocalizing while inhaling and exhaling) and lip-smacking. The lip-smacking movements corresponded to the mouth movements made during human speech.
An example of a call involving complex facial movements is the "girney" vocalization in macaques. These are thought to be produced by lip movements and teeth chattering, but evidence suggests the movements and sound don't occur at the same time. By contrast, the gelada lip-smacking and vocalizing seem to happen concurrently.
The findings suggest lip-smacking represents a possible pathway in the evolution of speech, though not the only one, Bergman said. In addition, lip-smacking may also serve a purely social function, just like human conversations.?
Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter?and Google+.?Follow us @livescience, Facebook?& Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Cry me a river of possibility: Scientists design new adaptive material inspired by tears
Apr. 8, 2013 ? Imagine a tent that blocks light on a dry and sunny day, and becomes transparent and water-repellent on a dim, rainy day. Or highly precise, self-adjusting contact lenses that also clean themselves. Or pipelines that can optimize the rate of flow depending on the volume of fluid coming through them and the environmental conditions outside.
A team of researchers at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) just moved these enticing notions much closer to reality by designing a new kind of adaptive material with tunable transparency and wettability features, as reported yesterday in the online version of Nature Materials.
"The beauty of this system is that it's adaptive and multifunctional," said senior author Joanna Aizenberg, Ph.D., a Core Faculty member at the Wyss Institute and the Amy Smith Berylson Professor of Materials Science at SEAS.
The new material was inspired by dynamic, self-restoring systems in Nature, such as the liquid film that coats your eyes. Individual tears join up to form a dynamic liquid film with an obviously significant optical function that maintains clarity, while keeping the eye moist, protecting it against dust and bacteria, and helping to transport away any wastes -- doing all of this and more in literally the blink of an eye.
The bioinspired material is a continuous liquid film that coats, and is infused in, an elastic porous substrate -- which is what makes it so versatile. It is based on a core concept: any deformation of the substrate -- such as stretching, poking, or swelling -- changes the size of the pores, which causes the liquid surface to change its shape.
With this design architecture in place, the team has thus far demonstrated the ability to dynamically control -- with great precision -- two key functions: transparency and wettability, said Xi Yao, Ph.D, Wyss Institute and SEAS postdoctoral fellow, and lead author of the study.
Sitting at rest, the material is smooth, clear and flat; droplets of water or oil on its surface flow freely off of the material. Stretching the material makes the fluid surface rougher, Yao explained. The rough surface makes it opaque for one thing, and enables one to do something never possible before: It offers the ability to make every droplet of oil or water that is placed on it reversibly start and stop in their tracks. This capability is far superior to the "switchable wettability" of other adaptive materials that exist today, Yao said, which simply switch between two states -- from hydrophobic (water-hating) to hydrophilic (water-loving).
"In addition to transparency and wettability, we can fine-tune basically anything that would respond to a change in surface topography, such as adhesive or anti-fouling behavior," Yao said. They can also design the porous elastic solid such that it responds dynamically to temperature, light, magnetic or electric fields, chemical signals, pressure, or other environmental conditions, he said.
The material is a next generation of a materials platform that Aizenberg pioneered a few years ago called SLIPS. SLIPS stands for Slippery Liquid-Infused Porous Surfaces, and is a coating that repels just about anything with which it comes into contact -- from oil to water and blood.
But whereas SLIPS is a liquid-infused rigid porous surface, "the new material is a liquid-infused elastic porous surface, which is what allows for the fine control over so many adaptive responses above and beyond its ability to repel a wide range of substances. A whole range of surface properties can now be tuned, or switched on and off on demand, through stimulus-induced deformation of the elastic material," Aizenberg said.
"This sophisticated new class of adaptive materials being designed by the Institute's Adaptive Materials Technologies platform led by Joanna Aizenberg have the potential to be game-changers in everything from oil and gas pipelines, to microfluidic and optical systems, building design and construction, textiles, and more," said Wyss Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Xi Yao, Yuhang Hu, Alison Grinthal, Tak-Sing Wong, L. Mahadevan, Joanna Aizenberg. Adaptive fluid-infused porous films with tunable transparency and wettability. Nature Materials, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nmat3598
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/A0jhz_88ZzI/130408085127.htm
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Childhood Obesity Has Long Term Health Risks - Fitness Through ...
These videos are provided by http://www.hypnosishealthinfo.com/. Visit our blog at http://hypnosishealthinfo.com/blog/. Childhood Obesity Has Long Term Health Risks. Welcome to Hypnosis Health Info. You?ve found the best online source for information about hypnosis. At HypnosisHealthInfo.com we feature a wide variety of solutions to many health issues from an array of expert hypnotherapists. There you can experience hypnosis and even learn how to hypnotize yourself and create positive changes. Roger Moore, PhD is available to help you with your weight loss at his Seattle weight loss and Bainbridge Island weight loss offices. You can contact Roger Moore at (206) 903-1232 or email: Roger@HypnosisHealthInfo.com. Whatever your issue, hypnosis can help. Health: Fresh solutions to many common challenges Weight: Our revolutionary approach really works Pain control: Manage chronic pain plus dental visits Sports performance: Improve your game beyond what you thought possible Performance anxiety: Put it behind you in no time Academic improvement: Increase focus, test scores and overall learning Relationships: Enhance all your personal interactions Stop smoking: Much easier than you imagine New information and new resources are frequently added to Hypnosis Health Info, so be sure to sign up for the news list and visit our site often. Self-Hypnosis can improve your life. These videos are provided by http://www.hypnosishealthinfo.com/. Visit our blog at http://hypnosishealthinfo.com/blog/.
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Stocks lower after posting worst week of 2013
Stocks stumbled out of the gate Monday, after last week's worst weekly decline for major averages this year, ahead of earnings results from Alcoa after the close.
(Read More: Pisani: Market, Make Up Your Mind!)
The Dow Jones Industrial Average tilted lower, dragged by Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq slipped. The Nasdaq declined to touch its one-month low. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX), widely considered the best gauge of fear in the market, traded above 14.
Among key S&P sectors, telecoms dragged, while energy poked higher.
Aluminum producer and Dow component Alcoa is slated to post results after the closing bell, marking the unofficial start to first-quarter earnings season. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to post earnings of 8 cents a share on revenue of $5.88 billion.
Banking giants JPMorgan and Wells Fargo are scheduled to post earnings on Friday.
The earnings outlook for the current quarter is fairly weak, with growth expected to increase by just 1.6 percent, compared to 6.2 percent last quarter, according to Thomson Reuters. The quarter also has seen an unusually high number of negative warnings, with 107 negative revisions for companies in the S&P 500. Compared to positive revisions, it is the worst pace in 12 years, the news agency added.
(Read More: Now It's Earnings That Could Stall the Stock-Market Rally)
"Sometimes, earnings are a secondary trigger for markets ? it's been more news-based as we've seen recent market rallies have to do with economic indicators," said Christine Short, senior manager at S&P Capital IQ.
While S&P Capital IQ expects first-quarter 2013 earnings growth of 0.7 percent, Short noted that the final number usually ends up about 4 percent higher than initial estimates.
"So we could see this could be an earnings season of about 5 percent growth, which would be respectable," she said. "And if we do end up 4 percent higher, it should help give the markets a boost."
In corporate news, General Electricagreed to buy oilfield services giant Lufkin Industries for $3.38 billion in cash, or $88.50 a share. Lufkin surged nearly 40 percent following the news.
And Macy's and rival J.C. Penney are due back in court in their battle over Martha Stewart home goods after a month-long mediation effort appeared to have failed.
On Monday, Cleveland Fed President Sandra Pianalto will be speaking, while Bernanke will be speaking on Monday evening on the topic of maintaining financial stability at a conference organized by the Atlanta Fed.
"The $3 trillion question for investors in the coming two to three years is what will happen to the Fed's balance sheet, and what the impact of any quantitative tightening (QT) will be on the economy and financial markets ? policymakers can probably continue to call the shots on the pace of QT as opposed to having it forced on them by markets (fingers crossed with respect to inflation, though). But don't expect the Fed's balance sheet to come down quickly anytime soon," Stuart Parkinson, strategist from Deutsche Bank. said in a note on Monday.
Traders will also be looking out for more clues over the future of quantitative easing in the coming week when the Federal Reserve releases minutes from its last meeting on Wednesday. There are also more than a half dozen appearances by Fed officials in the coming week, including Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.
In Europe, shares were higher, shrugging off negative news flow and Friday's weak employment numbers in the U.S. In Asia, too, markets in Shanghai and Hong Kong pared steep losses caused by worries over the Korean peninsula and fears of a new strain of avian flu in China.
Meanwhile, U.S.Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is starting a two-day trip to Europe for economic discussions with the region's officials and leaders. Lew is scheduled to meet with members of the European Commission in Brussels on Monday and will also travel to Frankfurt where he will meet with European Central Bank President Mario Draghi.
?By CNBC's JeeYeon Park (Follow JeeYeon on Twitter: @JeeYeonParkCNBC)
? 2013 CNBC LLC. All Rights Reserved
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Monday, April 8, 2013
Broadcasters worry about 'Zero TV' homes
This undated image provided by James Weitze shows a truck driver taking a self portrait on the road. Weitze satisfies his video fix with an iPhone. He sleeps most of the time in his truck, and has no apartment. To be sure, he's an extreme case and probably wouldn't fit into Nielsen's definition of a household in the first place. But he's watching Netflix enough to keep up on shows like ?Weeds,? ?30 Rock,? ?Arrested Development,? ?Breaking Bad,? ?It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? and ?Sons of Anarchy.? (AP Photo/James Weitze)
This undated image provided by James Weitze shows a truck driver taking a self portrait on the road. Weitze satisfies his video fix with an iPhone. He sleeps most of the time in his truck, and has no apartment. To be sure, he's an extreme case and probably wouldn't fit into Nielsen's definition of a household in the first place. But he's watching Netflix enough to keep up on shows like ?Weeds,? ?30 Rock,? ?Arrested Development,? ?Breaking Bad,? ?It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? and ?Sons of Anarchy.? (AP Photo/James Weitze)
LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Some people have had it with TV. They've had enough of the 100-plus channel universe. They don't like timing their lives around network show schedules. They're tired of $100-plus monthly bills.
A growing number of them have stopped paying for cable and satellite TV service, and don't even use an antenna to get free signals over the air. These people are watching shows and movies on the Internet, sometimes via cellphone connections. Last month, the Nielsen Co. started labeling people in this group "Zero TV" households, because they fall outside the traditional definition of a TV home. There are 5 million of these residences in the U.S., up from 2 million in 2007.
Winning back the Zero TV crowd will be one of the many issues broadcasters discuss at their national meeting, called the NAB Show, taking place this week in Las Vegas.
While show creators and networks make money from this group's viewing habits through deals with online video providers and from advertising on their own websites and apps, broadcasters only get paid when they relay such programming in traditional ways. Unless broadcasters can adapt to modern platforms, their revenue from Zero TV viewers will be zero.
"Getting broadcast programing on all the gizmos and gadgets ? like tablets, the backseats of cars, and laptops ? is hugely important," says Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters.
Although Wharton says more than 130 TV stations in the U.S. are broadcasting live TV signals to mobile devices, few people have the tools to receive them. Most cellphones require an add-on device known as a dongle, but these gadgets are just starting to be sold.
Among this elusive group of consumers is Jeremy Carsen Young, a graphic designer, who is done with traditional TV. Young has a working antenna sitting unplugged on his back porch in Roanoke, Va., and he refuses to put it on the roof.
"I don't think we'd use it enough to justify having a big eyesore on the house," the 30-year-old says.
Online video subscriptions from Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. ? which cost less than $15 a month combined ? have given him and his partner plenty to watch. They take in back episodes of AMC's "The Walking Dead" and The CW's "Supernatural," and they don't need more, he says.
He doesn't mind waiting as long as a year for the current season's episodes to appear on streaming services, even if his friends accidently blurt out spoilers in the meantime. With regular television, he might have missed the latest developments, anyway.
"By the time it gets to me to watch, I've kind of forgotten about that," he says.
For the first time, TV ratings giant Nielsen took a close look at this category of viewer in its quarterly video report released in March. It plans to measure their viewing of new TV shows starting this fall, with an eye toward incorporating the results in the formula used to calculate ad rates.
"Our commitment is to being able to measure the content wherever it is," says Dounia Turrill, Nielsen's senior vice president of insights.
The Zero TV segment is increasingly important, because the number of people signing up for traditional TV service has slowed to a standstill in the U.S.
Last year, the cable, satellite and telecoms providers added just 46,000 video customers collectively, according to research firm SNL Kagan. That's tiny when compared to the 974,000 new households created last year. While it's still 100.4 million homes, or 84.7 percent of all households, it's down from the peak of 87.3 percent in early 2010.
Nielsen's study suggests that this new group may have left traditional TV for good. While three-quarters actually have a physical TV set, only 18 percent are interested in hooking it up through a traditional pay TV subscription.
Zero TVers tend to be younger, single and without children. Nielsen's senior vice president of insights, Dounia Turrill, says part of the new monitoring regime is meant to help determine whether they'll change their behavior over time. "As these homes change life stage, what will happen to them?"
Cynthia Phelps, a 43-year-old maker of mental health apps in San Antonio, Texas, says there's nothing that will bring her back to traditional TV. She's watched TV in the past, of course, but for most of the last 10 years she's done without it.
She finds a lot of programs online to watch on her laptop for free ? like the TED talks educational series ? and every few months she gets together with friends to watch older TV shows on DVD, usually "something totally geeky," like NBC's "Chuck."
The 24-hour news channels make her anxious or depressed, and buzz about the latest hot TV shows like "Mad Men" doesn't make her feel like she's missing out. She didn't know who the Kardashian family was until she looked them up a few years ago.
"I feel absolutely no social pressure to keep up with the Joneses in that respect," she says.
For Phelps, it's less about saving money than choice. She says she'd rather spend her time productively and not get "sucked into" shows she'll regret later.
"I don't want someone else dictating the media I get every day," she says. "I want to be in charge of it. When I have a TV, I'm less in control of that."
The TV industry has a host of buzz words to describe these non-traditionalist viewers. There are "cord-cutters," who stop paying for TV completely, and make do with online video and sometimes an antenna. There are "cord-shavers," who reduce the number of channels they subscribe to, or the number of rooms pay TV is in, to save money.
Then there are the "cord-nevers," young people who move out on their own and never set up a landline phone connection or a TV subscription. They usually make do with a broadband Internet connection, a computer, a cellphone and possibly a TV set that is not hooked up the traditional way.
That's the label given to the group by Richard Schneider, the president and founder of the online retailer Antennas Direct. The site is doing great business selling antennas capable of accepting free digital signals since the nation's transition to digital over-the-air broadcasts in 2009, and is on pace to sell nearly 600,000 units this year, up from a few dozen when it started in 2003.
While the "cord-nevers" are a target market for him, the category is also troubling. More people are raised with the power of the Internet in their pocket, and don't know or care that you can pull TV signals from the air for free.
"They're more aware of Netflix than they're aware over-the-air is even available," Schneider says.
That brings us to truck driver James Weitze. The 31-year-old satisfies his video fix with an iPhone. He often sleeps in his truck, and has no apartment. To be sure, he's an extreme case who doesn't fit into Nielsen's definition of a household in the first place. But he's watching Netflix enough to keep up with shows like "Weeds," ''30 Rock," ''Arrested Development," ''Breaking Bad," ''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and "Sons of Anarchy."
He's not opposed to TV per se, and misses some ESPN sports programs like the "X Games."
But he's so divorced from the traditional TV ecosystem it could be hard to go back. It's become easier for him to navigate his smartphone than to figure out how to use a TV set-top box and the button-laden remote control.
"I'm pretty tech savvy, but the TV industry with the cable and the television and the boxes, you don't know how to use their equipment," he says. "I try to go over to my grandma's place and teach her how to do it. I can't even figure it out myself."
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