Steve Jobs Is Alive, Apple's Stock Is Fine

Brian Caulfield, Forbes Staff

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How much pollution is generated byApple‘s North Carolina data center? How will Apple respond to the popularity of smart phones built around Google‘s Android operating system? And what, exactly, does Apple plan to do with its $76.2 billion worth of cash and securities?

We can all go back to bothering Apple about the usual stuff. Apple Chief Steve Jobs is alive. Apple’s stock price is fine.

Shares fell just 1.7% Thursday, the day after the Cupertino, Calif.-based Mac maker said it will replace its irreplaceable Chief Executive.

Jobs is now the company’s chairman. Longtime Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook becomes CEO.

Maybe that’s because when Cook promises not to change much, it’s an easy promise to believe:  he’s been running day-to-day operations for years.

Wrote Cook wrote in a letter to Apple employees leaked to Ars Technica:

“I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple’s unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.”

That’s nice. So when are we going to get an Apple TV set?

Apple shares fell $6.45, or 1.71%, to $369.73 in Thursday trading.

Hurricane Irene: a Louisianan's guide to hurricane preparedness

• 
  
• • Jim Gabour
  • guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 August 2011 16.30 BST
  • Article history

The US national hurricane centre started warnings as Hurricane Irene became a major Category 3 storm. Photograph: Reuters

An earthquake rattled the entire eastern seaboard for just a few moments this week. It gave no warning, absolutely no indication it would ever happen, and then in a matter of seconds, it disappeared. By late afternoon, everybody was back into the Manhattan groove – and whatever passes for it in Washington, Philadelphia and so on. But the quake was only the lead paragraph on what will be a week-long weather story about another, more slowly approaching bit of tumult: Hurricane Irene.

Interesting that, since we now have such accurate electronic prediction devices, such drama-hungry media outlets, and such universal personal communication, every individual who is evenly remotely in the path of this bit of weather is being subjected to the psychological stress of The Wait. Accessing TV and the web every 15 minutes to see if the "cone of prediction" has finally encompassed one's home territory becomes a compulsive ritual. The Weather Channel doubles up on staff, knowing their hair replacement and toe fungus ads triple in value during storm time.

Surviving here on the Gulf Coast, my own life has been punctuated by many like events. However, the first two storms occurred in a time with relatively primitive advance indicators. In that uninformed time, we did not suffer through days of anxiety, and as both hurricanes passed, the human toll was largely unaffected by lack of preparation. The material cost, that was inevitable. Nothing to be done. But there was no noticeable extraneous life loss incurred solely by overabundance of worry.

1957's Hurricane Audrey was, and remains, the most powerful American storm ever in the month of June. A Category 4, Audrey crashed headlong into south-western Louisiana. I was in third grade and spending a week at a very primitive, though enjoyable, woodland summer camp with my two cousins. One night, the wind began blowing hard and the rain started coming sideways, so we all got to sleep on pallets in the cafeteria. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by candle light. That was my Hurricane Audrey.

A week later, my father and I drove down to the devastated coast, to the tiny village of Holly Beach, where we spent time each summer at a small ramshackle beach house. Approaching the Gulf shore, Dad kept his eye on the odometer, anticipating a disruption in roads and signs. He was correct to do so. Two miles from Holly Beach, a large oil tanker straddled the road, east to west. There was no one on board. We drove very carefully through the drained rice fields, travelling around the propeller, which towered 20ft above our car. In only another mile, we were at the water's edge.

But Holly Beach nowhere to be seen. The sand never returned, and the original village remains a quarter of a mile out to sea. And thus did Audrey affect me, after the fact.

In 1965, Hurricane Betsy roared directly over New Orleans itself, then crashed straight upriver through Baton Rouge, coming ashore during my first week at university. I had been away from home and on campus for only three days, sleeping on the top portion of a squeaky bunk bed, drinking beer with disparate young strangers – in the process, hoping to parse the very beginnings of an adult life.

We had no TVs or cellphones or computers, little interest in listening to weather reports on a radio otherwise filled with the Beatles and Stones. Thus, we had received no advance warning when we awoke to no electricity and 155mph winds. Betsy was just suddenly there, gusting hard enough that the mile-wide Mississippi River rose 10ft on its banks. Water came in over the levees from Lake Ponchartrain, but the levees held.

Roaring winds rattled the dorm's wrought-iron windows. I dropped to the floor from my bed. Passing through some four unexpected feet of cold fluid and floating shoes.

My ground-floor dormitory room was waist-deep in floodwater. I splashed forward and looked out the main entrance of the sturdy, thick-walled building, fascinated. Cars were rolling down the street, propelled sideways by the wind to move on their own. Overhead, sprawling uprooted live oaks, three stories tall, flew over low-lying classroom buildings, and crashed into taller structures.

And I thought: "So this is what life away from home is like." Betsy, as bad as it was, was not able to traumatise in advance. It was just there.

Forty years later, I arrived back in New Orleans from Japan 48 hours before Katrina. I was severely jetlagged, but when I reached the house, I immediately grabbed a ladder and began securing plywood storm shutters to the 27 windows in my house. By the time I finished, the storm was only 18 hours away and the city was under a mandatory evacuation order. There was also tremendous emotional pressure to run. I did. After 14 hours of horror-filled driving, the VW bug with three cats and no clothing arrived in a safe haven, 200 miles north.

It was the first time I evacuated in my life. I have vowed to never leave again.

My 48-hour-out hurricane preparation kit now involves batteries and flashlights, bottles of lamp oil and hurricane lanterns, fresh water and a chest full of ice, a battery-operated radio and two good books, a couple bags of chips and, of course, a conspicuously large supply of bourbon.

And, because I live where I do, I have secured in my patio a small pirogue – a shallow water Cajun boat – and a gas-fueled generator. Neither of which is probably necessary in New York or Boston.

But in any locale, a serenely positive attitude and selected information absorption are essential. If it is going to happen, it will. These days, after logistical preparation is complete, I enter a vacation state of mind, allowing myself only two weather updates a day.

High winds or no, Happy Hour will occur as needed
.

Apple May Allow Carriers to Discount the iPad 3

A new report about Apple possibly allowing carrier subsidies for the iPad 3 was published today by The Daily – an iPad-only news source. According to the sources quoted in the report, Apple is preparing to give carrier partners (such as AT&T and Verizon in the United States) the ability to subsidize the cost of the iPad 3 when a customer agrees to a data contract for the device. This model is similar to the one used to offer mobile phones at discounted rates, and may translate well to tablet devices that operate over the same 3G or 4G data networks.

Currently, carriers like AT&T and Verizon are not permitted by Apple to lower the price point of the iPad or iPad 2 in exchange for a customer agreeing to a data contract. Due to this, carriers have responded with contract-free prepaid data plans that allow customers to cancel without penalty at any time. Since customers can walk away freely, taking their data dollars with them, it’s unlikely that the carriers appreciate or support this model. Also, since iPad 2 models that support 3G data networks cost over $100 more than WiFi-only models, customers have little incentive to buy an iPad directly from a wireless provider.

The Daily report suggests that AT&T and Verizon will offer the iPad 3 at a significantly discounted price as long as customers sign a two-year data contract. By offering this discount, carriers hope to move more iPad devices and help prevent the ‘sticker shock’ that customers get when they see how much an iPad 2 with 3G data costs. With mobile phones, the model works well; Apple retails a 16 GB iPhone 4 handset for $649, but sign a contract with one of the major wireless providers and you can get the same iPhone for as little as $199. It’s a perceived win for the customer, who is saving on the upfront purchase cost, and it’s a win for the carrier who gets a customer that’s locked in to paying fees for a number of years. In reality, customers would probably be better off buying an unlocked iPhone 4 from Apple and refraining from a contract that will cost a couple of thousand dollars over a two-year period, but since this model is entrenched in the minds of North American customers, it’s one that most accept.

Apple has a couple of very good reasons to protect the status quo, and to not allow carriers to subsidize the iPad 3. First, a move such as this could have a negative impact on the iPad brand, which is seen as the premier tablet device in the marketplace. Perception is reality when it comes to consumers, and if they see national marketing campaigns pushing the tablet at $199, it may actually reduce sales. Also, with many iPad users already growing accustomed to buying a new device each year, Apple may see reduced sales figures as users stick with the same iPad they purchased through the entire duration of their two-year contract.

While each of these reasons are realistic, they’ve already been somewhat disproven by the rampant success of the iPhone. A significant percentage of iPhone owners purchase whatever new iPhone handset Apple releases each year, and a good chunk of those actually renew their wireless contract to get a discount. A carrier-subsidized iPad 3 may actually end up driving sales figures even higher, as customers who come in for a new phone walk out with a new phone and a new iPad tablet. Only time will tell if this is actually the case, or if Apple even intends to allow carriers this privilege.

So readers – what do you think? Would you be more likely to purchase an iPad 3 if you got some form of discount from your wireless carrier in exchange for signing a data contract? With a device like the iPad – which sees an updated version released annually – is a two-year contract too long?

HP Veer 4G review

HP's Jon Rubenstein told us that his company wanted to veer in a new direction, and veer it surely did -- the HP Veer 4G will arguably be the smallest fully-functional smartphone on the market when it goes on sale May 15th. In a nutshell, it's a Palm Pixi Plus in the guise of a Pre, only in a delightfully downsized package with webOS 2.1 and thoroughly modern functionality. What does it feel like to Just Type on its tiny keyboard or throw app cards across its itsy-bitsy 2.6-inch screen? How is it as a pocketable HSPA+ hotspot, and will that extra G decimate its miniscule 910mAh battery? These are the questions that drove us when playing with the Veer 4G this week, and you'll find the answers shortly after the break.





When first we saw the HP Veer, it was a miniature Pre 2 in most every appreciable way -- deep black coatings, soft-touch plastics and buttons in all the same places. AT&T's new white version, however, looks and feels like a jumbo chicken egg. It's still cute as a button and that hinge still slides shut with a superbly satisfying snap, but the ultra thin, lightly textured white plastic shell is a little bit creaky and cheap. (Note: the soft-touch black model will also be available.) We found it a little uncomfortable to hold flat against our palms for this very reason, actually, but the fingertip grip is risky too -- like the aforementioned egg, the Veer is relatively easy to drop, and we don't suspect that Humpty will take kindly to many falls. At the same time, we're not at all worried about the screen -- it's covered with a nice big piece of curved Gorilla Glass, and it takes a substantial, weighty press between thumb and forefinger to make any kind of impression on the liquid crystals underneath. There's a little speaker on top, and Palm's gesture area (with LED landing strip indicator) on the bottom.

Judo Throws & Moves

Learn how to perform judo techniques like throws, holds and other moves in these free Japanese martial arts training videos for beginners.

Series Summary

Judo, meaning gentle way, is a form of martial art that was founded in Japan in 1882 by Dr. Jogoro Kano. Kano originally began martial arts training because he was being physically abused by students in his school, because he was very small. Judo is an effective self defense art that uses an opponent's strength and momentum against them, which allows a judoka (or judo practitioner) to defeat a larger and stronger opponent. The art incorporates throws, joint locks, take-downs, leg locks, arm locks, chokes (restricting air to the lungs), strangulations (restricting blood flow to the brain), and a philosophy that seeks to improve the student's moral code, mental abilities, emotional well being, and physical ability.In this free online video series, learn Judo techniques from 12 time U.S. National Masters Champion Sensei John T. Anderson, as he demonstrates moves such as the compression arm lock, forearm lock, Hadaka Jin rear stranglehold, breakfalling, Juji Gatame cross lock, Kate Te Jume stranglehold, Kisa Katame, straight arm lock, Tai Otosha body throw, passing guard, Ko Uchi Gari major inside reap, leg throw, arm entwining, and Uke Otoshi hand drop.

HP TouchPad another geek tablet failure as iPad 3 tackles mainstream

In the end, the HP TouchPad never had a chance. It was Hewlett Packard’s RC Cola to Apple’s iPad Coke and Samsung’s Android Pepsi. And with the HP TouchPad gone in a brief blaze of geek praise and mainstream shunning ultimately adding up to a whole lot of nothing, the battle is now on between the iPad 2 (soon to be iPad 3) and a contingent of Android-based tablets led by the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. We’ll ignore, for the moment, that the Tab borrows so startlingly from the iPad’s hardware design that Apple has successfully managed to get it banned from store shelves in an increasing number of nations and regions. Even as that behind the scenes battle rages, another more fundamental one plays out each time a customer sets foot in a store which sells tablet products: will they go mainstream with the iPad 2, or will they go geek with the Galaxy Tab or one of its Android brethren? The answer isn’t nearly as simple as whether the customer is a geek or not.

It’s immediately easy to see, however, why the HP TouchPad never stood a chance. It was the “other” geek tablet, the one which got lost in the shuffle when Android caught a stunning break and was pushed to the forefront by default as the majority of cellphone carriers had been squeezed out of the iPhone and had to offer their customers something as an alternative. The webOS operating system, which powered the Pre (then owned by Palm) was only available on the Pre itself, which no one among the mainstream wanted. Android, in contrast, was available for free and could be slapped onto any in-house hardware the carriers came up with. And so Android became the overwhelming “Brand B” smartphone choice among mainstream consumers who were on non-iPhone carriers, and that in turn gave the platform enough momentum that geeks ultimately chose it over webOS as well. It didn’t help that after Palm failed as a company and HP acquired its assets, the latter didn’t manage to get the TouchPad tablet to market until just last month, by which time it was too late to make a difference. But what of this brewing iPad vs. Android battle?

Tom Brady- wiki

Thomas Edward Patrick "Tom" Brady, Jr. (born August 3, 1977) is an American football quarterback for the New England Patriotsof the National Football League (NFL). After playing college football at Michigan, Brady was drafted by the Patriots in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft.

He has played in four Super Bowls, winning three of them (XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX). He has also won two Super Bowl MVP awards (XXXVI and XXXVIII), has been selected to six Pro Bowls (and invited to seven, although he declined the 2006 invitation), and holds the NFL record for most touchdown passes in a single regular season. His career postseason record is 14–5. He also helped set the record for the longest consecutive win streak in NFL history with 21 straight wins over two seasons (2003–04),^[1] and in 2007 he led the Patriots to the first undefeated regular season since the institution of the 16-game schedule. Brady has the fifth-highest career passer rating of all time (95.2) among quarterbacks with at least 1,500 career passing attempts. He, along with Joe Montana, are the only two players in NFL history to have won multiple NFL MVP and Super Bowl MVP awards (2 NFL MVPs, 2 Super Bowl MVPs).

He was named Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year in 2005, and was named "Sportsman of the Year" by The Sporting News in 2004 and 2007.^[2] He was also named the 2007 and 2010 NFL MVP (becoming in the 2010 season the first player to be unanimously chosen as MVP) as well as 2007 Male Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press, the first time an NFL player has been honored since Joe Montana won in 1990.^[3]

Brady holds numerous regular season and postseason records, including: most touchdown passes in a regular season (50); highest touchdown-to-interception ratio in a single season (9:1); highest single-game completion percentage, regular season or postseason (26/28, 92.9%); most consecutive pass attempts without an interception (339, still active); most consecutive regular-season home wins (28, still active); highest winning percentage of any quarterback ever during his first 100 starts (76 wins); most completions in one Super Bowl (32); and the longest streak of games with 3 or more touchdown passes (10 games). most career completions in Super Bowl history (100); Brady is the fourth-fastest player to reach 200 career passing touchdowns (116 games). He is the first quarterback in NFL history to have reached said mark with under 100 career interceptions (he had 88 interceptions). Considering his many numerous achievements, and his late draft selection (6th round, 199th selection), many analysts, including those at the NFL Network, have called Brady the best NFL draft pick (or draft steal) of all time, as well as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.^[4][5][6][7]

Psych

Although most health professionals believe chronic stress can lead to a variety of medical conditions, definitive proof of the mechanism by which this occurs has been absent.

“We believe this paper is the first to propose a specific mechanism through which a hallmark of chronic stress, elevated adrenaline, could eventually cause DNA damage that is detectable,” said senior author Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D., a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at Duke University Medical Center.

In the study, mice were given an adrenaline-like compound that works through a receptor called the beta adrenergic receptor. The scientists found that this model of chronic stress triggered certain biological pathways that ultimately resulted in accumulation of DNA damage.

“This could give us a plausible explanation of how chronic stress may lead to a variety of human conditions and disorders, which range from merely cosmetic, like graying hair, to life-threatening disorders like malignancies,” Lefkowitz said.

“The study showed that chronic stress leads to prolonged lowering of p53 levels,” said Makoto Hara, Ph.D. P53 is a tumor suppressor protein and is considered a “guardian of the genome” – one that prevents genomic abnormalities.

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) such as the beta adrenergic receptor are located on the surface of the membranes that surround cells, and are the targets of almost half of the drugs on the market today, including beta blockers for heart disease, antihistamines and ulcer medications.

Scientists discovered a molecular mechanism through which adrenaline-like compounds acted through the G-protein pathway to trigger DNA damage.

In the study, infusing the adrenaline-like compound for four weeks in the mice caused weakening of the protective action of p53, which was also present in lower levels over time.

This methodology will allow the scientists to learn whether the physical reactions of stress, rather than an influx of adrenaline in the lab as was done in the current study, also leads to accumulation of DNA damage.

Dozens more articles on stress 5 Ways to Stress Less 6 Myths About Stress Tips for Tackling Stress More Tips for Coping with Stress Tips to Reduce Family Stress Dealing with Stress Coping with Job Stress How Does Stress Affect Us?

MOELC

Calamba, Misamis Occidental – GM Noel Dumalagan together with the MOELC-1 Board President Harley Paderangga will attend the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) sponsored National Power Summit to be held on June 25-26 at the UP Dilliman Campus in Quezon City to tackle and participate issues concerning on Electric Power Reforms.

The said summit is an initiative of the Freedom from Debt Coalition on the 10th year anniversary of the EPIRA Law in cooperation with 1-CARE (1st Consumers Alliance for Rural Energy Partylist, Alliance of Mindanao Rural Electric Cooperatives (AMRECO), Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (iCSC),Foundation for Sustainable Society. Inc. (FSSI) and Fair Trade Alliance (FTA), whose theme of the power summit focuses on “Lessons Learned, Challenges and Prospects for the Philippine Power Industry.”

In his answer to questions from this newsweekly, GM Dumalagan said that MOELC-1 participation is to support the power summit and its goals to and objectives o craft a strong and unified positions on the government’s campaign to privatize remaining assets of NPC (Angat, Agus-Pulangi and Unified Leyte Geothermal Plant) and the rural electric cooperatives, and on the privatization of transmission.

Secondly, GM Dumalagan cited that the Power Summit will develop and promote Filipino Consumers welfare and interest in the power industry which is one of the missions of Misamis Occidental Electric Cooperative-1, especially on affordable power rates, reliable and secure power supply.

The National Power Summit objectives is also to craft strategic and programmed democratization of ownership and control particularly in generation and distribution sector and strategically programmed to switch towards renewable energy. The summit also targets the active role of the public sector in transmission and in crucial power generation.

Today, the power industry of the country is at a crossroads. With one of the highest industrial and residential power rates in Asia and in the whole world, the industry has made life harsher and harder to poor Filipinos. Economic growth is also slow as the high cost of power has made the nation’s industries uncompetitive in the international market, the consequences of which are being shouldered by the poor electric cooperatives member-consumers.

With the Electric Power Industry Reform Act of 2001 whose enactment is to serve an affordable and reliable supply of electricity, for a decade the Filipino people have not come close to savoring the taste and smell of it. Instead, power generation and transmission were concentrated in a state monopoly, rural Cooperatives tended to serve a more political than developmental functions, rent seeking, corruption and political patronage become its norm, suffered severe power shortage in the 1990’s and debts found by the World Bank unsatisfactory.

In its research FDC found out that the power crises in the 80’s up to the 90’s was exploited by the International Financial Institutions’ (IFIs) and the power-brokers in Malacañang to tap the private sector in addressing the crisis by liberalizing the entry of IPP’s or the Independent Power Producers for the power generation.

The supply shortage was address but the prohibitive cost of such cure was not told to the public until the mid-1990, NPC entered into contracts with the IPPs without consideration of actual and realistically forecasted supply and demand conditions and without prudent assessment of the risks and costs attached and created a new problem for the power sector.

From a situation of shortage the pendulum shifted to an over-contracted supply that consumers had to pay for whether or not they were actually used the contract capacity. With these anomalous details in the contracts with IPP’s sinks the National Power Corporation deeper into debts and the Filipino consumer suffers.

The FDC National Power Summit is expected also to be participated by the 119 Rural Cooperatives, some Legislators, and messages from Senators, Escudero, Honasan, Trillanes and Congressmen Bello, Bag-ao, Rivera and Cabaluna with Deputy Speaker of the House of the Representative Eric Tañada will speak before the participants from Consumers Groups like the Save Angat Dam, Coalition of Consumers for the Defense of the Privatization of the Tongonan Geothermal Plant in Leyte, PALAG Mindanao, FCD’s Local Chapters, Business Groups, Associations and Unions under REC’s, the Department of Energy (DOE), the Energy Regulation Commission(ERC), and Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation (PSALM).

The Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) farther cited that notwithstanding all the unmet objectives of EPIRA, the IFIO’s, government and power-brokers/marketers contend that while reforms in the power industry may have suffered setbacks, all these are but a work in progress as actual privatization of the assets of NPC begun only five years ago. Yet the with privatization continuing at a more harried pace today, the future of the industry and the dream of consumers’ to have universal access to affordable, sustainable and reliable power, remain bleak. As far as the ordinary consumers and the poor are concerned, the lights are still off.

Mindanaoan is a full time media practetioner. A former Broadcast Journalist of RMN, A Cultural Worker, and Political Media Consultant. The Publisher is also the VP for External Affairs of the Mangagawang Media ng Mindanaw a DOLE Registered Media Organization with Registry Certificate No MO-RW-005-352-2009.

REALTOR

Rhode Island Association of Realtors said that sales of single-family homes in the state rose 22 percent last month compared with July 2010, but the values ??have declined.

Association of Realtors said the average price of single-family homes last month was $ 210.000, down 8 percent from July 2010 and the same price in July 2009.

Apparently, the Office of ERA Martin & Associates is not alone in seeing an increase in customers. According to statistics published on Thursday July by the Ohio Association of Realtors, the local association had a 13.6 percent increase in revenue over the same period in 2010, the average selling price rose from $ 80,775 per year $ 102,145 this year.

The group says it estate home sales expected to rise due to slow sales activity last year after the expected outcome of the federal tax credit for home purchases.