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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Richard Alf, one of the founders of Comic-Con, died Wednesday from pancreatic cancer. He was 59.
The comic-book lover served as the chairman of the first Comic-Con at San Diego's U.S. Grant Hotel in 1970. Alf also helped front the money to get the gathering up and running, co-founder Mike Towry told U-T San Diego.
The three-day annual gathering has become a phenomenon, drawing a heavy Hollywood presence in recent years as the movie business has put an increasing emphasis on superhero films such as "Batman" and "Spider-Man."
Alf, however, had long since left the volunteer position before Comic-Con became a signature events for geeks across the globe.
Alf went on to found a comic-book store, Comic Kingdom, in the late '70s and became involved in stock trading and outdoor advertising, according to U-T San Diego.
In 2009, Alf and his co-founders were saluted at Comic-Con for their role in creating the iconic festival.
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January 08, 2012, 7:00 AM ? Windows 8 includes a storage scheme suitable for business deployment that can treat hundreds of disks as a single logical storage reservoir and ensures resiliency by backing up data on at least two physical disks.
Called Storage Spaces, the feature sets aside a designated storage area -- called a space -- for a defined category of data within the entire available disk capacity -- called a pool.
MORE WINDOWS 8: Windows 8 can scrub data from disks, but not up to tough security specs
Pools are treated as single virtual disks that can be partitioned and formatted as if they are single physical disks, according to the Microsoft Building Windows 8 blog. Spaces are defined across multiple physical disks, and the physical disks can still be treated as one even if they vary in size or are connected via different interfaces such as USB, Serial ATA (SATA) or serial attached SCSI (SAS).
Storage Spaces has advantages that make it suitable for business deployments, writes the author of the blog, Rajeev Nagar, a group program manager on the Windows 8 storage and file System team. "Storage Spaces delivers on diverse requirements that can span deployments ranging from a single PC in the home, up to a very large-scale enterprise datacenter," Nagar writes.
One interesting feature of Storage Spaces is that it can allocate a space that is larger than the actual available physical capacity of the pool that the space is carved out of. This sleight of hand is done via a technique Microsoft calls thin provisioning, which keeps data from overflowing the space by freeing up capacity whenever files are deleted or an application decides that such capacity is no longer needed, according to the blog.
This makes it possible, for example, to create a 10TB space within a 4TB pool, Nagar writes.
Anything stored in a space is mirrored on a separate physical disk. "Resiliency is built in by associating the mirrored attribute, which means that there are at least two copies of all data contained within the space on at least two different physical disks. Because the space is mirrored, it will continue to work even if one of the physical disks within the pool fails," according to the blog.
Storage Spaces has a second resiliency feature called parity in which some redundancy information is stored next to data in a space, so if a disk fails, data can be reconstructed automatically. "While conceptually similar to mirroring, parity-based resiliency utilizes capacity more efficiently than mirrored spaces do, but with higher random I/O overhead. Parity spaces are well suited for storing data such as large home videos, which have large capacity requirements, large sequential (predominantly append) write requests, and an infrequent-to-minimal need to update existing content," Nagar writes.
Storage Spaces is similar in some key functionality to Windows Home Server Drive Extender technology, it is not a one-for-one replacement, and is not backward compatible. In order to switch to Storage Spaces, users must create new pools and spaces on new disks and copy data to the pools.
Nagar writes that there are no architectural limits to the number of disks that can comprise a pool, and Microsoft tests pools made up of hundreds of disks as might be found in a corporate data center.
When the Windows 8 beta version is available sometime within the next month or so, it will include a Storage Spaces configuration tool. Those who want to try it out in the currently available developers preview must use PowerShell.
Windows 8 is the next version of the Windows operating system, now due for beta release in February. It's expected to be generally available later next year featuring touch-screen navigation and commands as well as support for tablets. Not all apps that run on Windows 7 will be compatible with the touch-screen capabilities, but mouse and keyboard devices will enable all apps that ran on Windows 7.
The new operating system shoots for power efficiency, better security and compatibility with ARM-based chips (read tablets and next-generation PCs), all of which could make Windows 8 attractive to businesses.
Source: http://www.itworld.com/hardware/238449/microsoft-aims-windows-8-storage-enterprise-data-centers
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SOURCE: AP/Haraz N. Ghanbari President Barack Obama, accompanied by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, left, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, and other senior Defense Department and military officials, delivers speaks on the Defense Strategic Review, at the Pentagon on January 5, 2012.
See also: A Return to Responsibility: What President Obama Can Learn About Defense Budgets from Past Presidents by Lawrence J. Korb, Laura Conley, and Alex Rothman; Sensible Defense Cuts by Lawrence J. Korb, Laura Conley, and Alex Rothman; Defense in an Age of Austerity by Lawrence J. Korb and Alex Rothman
President Barack Obama unveiled sweeping changes yesterday to U.S. military strategy that are the result of an extended Pentagon review of our strategic interests and defense priorities. After a decade of war and nation-building coming at a tremendous cost to the United States in both blood and treasure, President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the military?s shift to a more agile and sustainable posture primarily focused on protecting U.S. interests in the Middle East and Pacific and countering 21st century threats.
The cornerstone of this change is a reduction in the size of the ground forces. In particular, the Army, which added 65,000 positions while carrying out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will return to numbers slightly above its pre-September 11 size of about 480,000.The Army will, however, increase the size of its special forces.
With the United States unlikely to undertake extended nation-building operations in the foreseeable future, this new strategy will rely increasingly on the United States? overwhelming naval and air superiority to project power around the globe. Moreover, the Pentagon will funnel more resources into countering 21st century threats, principally terrorist groups and subnational actors, nuclear proliferation, anti-access technology (a key element of China?s strategy to restrict U.S. capabilities in East Asia), and cyber security.
Equally important, President Obama?s new strategy will allow the United States to refocus its attention on its economy, which is the bedrock of U.S. global power and strength. As President Obama noted in his remarks, and as we at the Center for American Progress have emphasized repeatedly, ?We must put our fiscal house in order here at home and renew our long-term economic strength.?
The new strategy will enable the Department of Defense to find savings of nearly $500 billion throughout the next decade from projected levels of defense spending. (This will not affect veterans programs, which are funded through the Veterans Administration.)
In fact, this reduction?as the United States winds down its involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan?is quite moderate when compared to prior defense drawdowns. President Dwight Eisenhower, for example, cut the defense budget by 27 percent after the Korean War. President Nixon cut it by 29 percent after Vietnam, and the combined efforts of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton reduced defense spending by a whopping 35 percent after the end of the Cold War.
Under President Obama?s plan the defense budget will continue to grow in nominal terms, though not quite fast enough to keep up with expected levels of inflation. Even with $500 billion in reductions, the United States will continue to spend more on defense each year in the next decade than it did during the height of the Cold War and, as the president noted, more than the next 10 countries combined.
President Obama?s plan also leaves room for additional cuts. The Center for American Progress has identified fiscally responsible reductions that, if implemented throughout the next decade, would reduce defense spending by about $700 billion without undermining our national security.
The Department of Defense will announce the specific program cuts that will enable it to meet the $500 billion target in its fiscal year 2013 budget, due next month. But President Obama?s strategy?and his goal of $450 billion in savings in 10 years?present a responsible step toward regaining control of the defense budget, which skyrocketed by nearly 70 percent under the Bush administration.
Excess defense spending does not make our nation safer. It diverts resources from critical investments here at home. President Obama is wise to use the U.S. drawdowns in Iraq and Afghanistan as a turning point to update and improve U.S. national security strategy while clamping down on the waste and mismanagement that plagued the Department of Defense in the past decade.
Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Alex Rothman is a Special Assistant with the National Security and International Policy team at the Center.
See also:
Source: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/01/military_strategy.html
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WEDNESDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Remember those tall, shiny, metal, sliding boards? They seemed dauntingly steep, but you took the plunge and whizzed downward. Next, you tackled the monkey bars, climbing higher and higher and hanging by your knees at the pinnacle.
Playgrounds are a lot different for today's preschoolers. Low sliding boards, safer plastic climbers and fence-protected platforms are meant to prevent injury. But a preliminary study suggests an unintended result: unenthused, less active kids.
Platforms lead to nowhere, climbers are short and slides are slow. The equipment is easily mastered and kids soon lose interest, daycare providers told researchers in a series of focus groups.
And with increasingly sedentary kids and a worsening childhood obesity epidemic, the study authors said it's time to start balancing safety concerns with the need for vigorous, stimulating play.
Led by Dr. Kristen Copeland, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, the study involved 49 local daycare providers, many highly experienced, at 34 child-care centers. These included inner city, suburban, Head Start and Montessori, church-affiliated, YMCA, worksite- or university-affiliated and corporate/for-profit facilities. Focus groups took place between August 2006 and June 2007.
In the study, appearing online Jan. 4 and in the February issue of Pediatrics, providers described barriers to healthy exercise: state licensing codes and financial constraints that restrict equipment choices, injury concerns and pressures to put class learning above playtime, whether coming from parents or local kindergarten-readiness initiatives.
"We were surprised to hear that parents -- both low-income and upper-income -- were focusing on traditional 'academics' (letters, numbers, colors) instead of outdoor play, even for children as young as 3 years old," Copeland said. "Children learn on the playground -- they learn about nature, weather and the seasons, motion, concepts of distance and speed, and cause and effect. They learn how to negotiate and talk with their peers. And they learn fundamental gross motor skills, like how to throw and catch a ball, and how to skip."
And it's also a case of sluggish bodies make sluggish minds. "Research has shown that children can concentrate and learn better after brief periods of vigorous activity," Copeland noted.
Angela Mickalide, director of research and programs for Safe Kids Worldwide, called the new study "thought-provoking," but said it lacked epidemiologic information on injuries that do occur from playground equipment. "A kid with a traumatic brain injury or fracture is going to be even less active," she noted.
Nearly 220,000 kids aged 14 and under were treated in emergency departments for playground-equipment injuries in 2009, according to a Safe Kids fact sheet. And in children aged 4 and under, most traumatic brain injuries happen on the playground.
Mickalide said that among the most dangerous for young children are "old playgrounds with slides at inclines greater than 45 degrees, climbers that are 8 or 10 feet off the ground, and monkey bars much higher than kids should be on, but without a soft surface underneath."
Safety measures like decreasing equipment height and using protective surfaces like shredded rubber and wood chips in "fall zones" have markedly reduced injury risk, as have state laws requiring conformance to safety guidelines, according to Safe Kids.
It's not always equipment design at issue. Other factors can include "inappropriate behavior on the playground," Mickalide said. "Not playing on soft surfaces. Allowing kids to play on equipment meant for older children. Playing on equipment that gets too hot, or is splintered or damaged. Kids who aren't actively supervised."
When it comes to equipment, less is often more, both experts agreed, and children can get as much out of doing jumping jacks or tossing a ball. "Running and playing games are both healthy and fun," Copeland said.
More information
The National Program for Playground Safety offers tips for parents as well as standards for playground equipment.
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The Lohan family members like to live on the edge.
Lindsay Lohan’s troubled father Michael has been in and out of the hospital, and his court-ordered rehab facility, since his two arrests in one week late last year.
“I don't know what God has in store for me, but it must be BIG. I should've been dead five times already,” Michael reflected of his numerous health woes.
When you collapse at an AA meeting, times are tough.
MiLo says he’s finally on the road to recovery, though.
“It’s by far the best treatment facility I have ever worked with or have been to,” he said about A New Day treatment center in North Palm Beach, Florida.
“A little longer and the blood clot would have taken me out.”
Separated from his four children over the holidays, Michael said his treatment is finally improving their relationship, especially with his eldest daughter.
“The whole thing has made me look at life differently and brought me and my entire family closer, including Lindsay," he said in a chat with Radar.
Michael was sentenced to 90 days in rehab and will be out in a few months to entertain us once again - hopefully in good health for years to come.
[Photo: WENN.com]
Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/01/michael-lohan-im-lucky-to-be-alive/
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Abstract:
A University of Oregon professor is a major contributor to a national research team exploring a novel way to use fractal geometry to improve the production of electricity in solar panels.
Richard Taylor, a physics professor, is working with researchers from the University of Denver, the University of California - Davis and the University of California-Merced under a grant from Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA), America's second-oldest independent foundation, begun in 1912.
Their research project, "Fractals as a Promising Geometry for Enhanced Solar Energy Conversion," is actually fairly simple to explain, according to Taylor.
Fractals are naturally repeating patterns found widely in nature - from vast stretches of rugged seacoast to the finest veins in the tiniest of plant leaves.
"In this project we hope to use branching fractals - the type found in leaves and trees - to optimize the collection of sunlight, while reducing the cost of doing so," Taylor said.
The researchers are actually tackling two different projects, he said. The first is to create organic photovoltaic cells that rely on nanoscale fractal pathways for the direct conversion of sunlight to electricity.
The term "organic" refers to carbon-based molecules, which are generally very common, and hence, inexpensive. "Nanoscale" refers to the realm of the very small, a true nanoscale device is generally thought to be around 100 nanometers or less in size. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, roughly the equivalent of a marble compared to the earth.
The second project, Taylor said, will be an attempt to grow bacteria in fractal patterns to maximize their ability to produce renewable liquid fuel by absorbing sunlight.
The Scialog Collaborative Award, which enables Taylor and his collaborators to explore this line of research, stems from RCSA's Scialog? initiative. Scialog is short for science dialog. The initiative's goal is to get top scientists talking to one another in hopes of accelerating breakthrough discoveries in areas of major global concern, said RCSA President and CEO James M. Gentile.
This year the foundation made only three Collaborative Awards at its annual meeting, which drew more than 60 top solar researchers to Bisophere2 north of Tucson, Ariz. Scialog encourages early-career scientists to collaborate in the pursuit of high-risk/potentially high-reward research, Gentile said. He explained that means that the experiments the program funds may frequently fail to produce intended results, but when they do succeed, they are likely to represent major advances in our basic understanding or in the effectiveness of our technology.
The winners of this year's Scialog Collaborative Awards were determined by a panel of solar energy experts led by Nathan Lewis, the George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. Lewis is currently heading a $122-million U.S. Department of Energy program to accelerate the development of renewable liquid fuels produced by photosynthesis, the process by which plants produce energy from sunlight.
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Research Corporation for Science Advancement (www.rescorp.org) ? formerly known as Research Corporation ? was founded in 1912 and is the second-oldest foundation in the United States (after the Carnegie Corporation) and the oldest foundation devoted wholly to science. Research Corporation is a leading advocate for the sciences and a major funder of scientific innovation and of research in America?s colleges and universities. Follow updates from RCSA on Facebook and Twitter.
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