ScriptShadow: Screenwriting and Screenplay reviews: Twit-Pitch ...

Details: 103 pages

Emma Roberts as Jill?

Just like that first president of ours, I cannot tell a lie. ?This whole Twit-Pitch thing? ?I'm starting to have my doubts. ?We all know what happened on the last Twit-Pitch script I reviewed, and it only got worse when I went back through the finalists e-mails while looking for four scripts to review this week. ?I thought I'd be opening e-mails with scripts attached. ?Instead, I received four e-mails that basically said this: "Hi, err, um, Carson. So I was thinking about my script and I realized that, um, I have a job, and because of my job, I can't finish my script in time, for, um, the deadline? ?So I'm probably not going to enter. ?I hope that's okay and you're not upset."

*sigh*

I knew this would be an experiment. ?I said so at the beginning. ?But this is still an amazing opportunity for unknown writers to get noticed and nobody seems to be taking it seriously. ?I know I could go back through the Top 100 and find replacements for these entries, but I'm probably not going to. ?It's hard to drum up enthusiasm for people who don't take this profession seriously.

With all that said, I *have* read the first Twit-Pitch screenplay that's given me hope. ?Unfortunately, you're going to have to wait until tomorrow for that. ?Today's script, Crimson Road, doesn't quite live up to its premise. However, today's and tomorrow's scripts are a great contrast in what a writer must do to rope in a reader. ?Whereas tomorrow's entry takes some hardcore chances, Crimson plays its inspired premise surprisingly safe. ?Let's check it out.

17 year-old Jill Harris has just been released back into the wild after spending a couple of years in the looney bin. ?Which is why no one believes her when, on one of her first nights back, she sees a man chasing a girl through the woods. ?Even her former boyfriend, Stu, and her Deputy big brother, Hunter, give Jill the "Uh huh, we totally?believe you" spiel.

But Jill isn't giving up so easily. ?She's going to prove she's not the wacko everyone thinks she is. So she jaunts over to Crimson Road, a block full of houses plucked out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and targets the one unkempt house on the block. ?It's here where she pops open a trash can and finds the bloodied shirt of the girl she saw in the woods!

The cops race in and arrest the house owner and it's looking like the case is solved. ?But not so fast. ?The police receive a DVD of an old man in a basement getting tortured! ?Have they captured their killer or not?? ?And if that isn't bad enough, Jill's Uncle Fred, who molested her when she was a child, just got out of jail and moved onto Crimson Road, stirring up all sorts of bad memories in the community.

We eventually come to learn that this block is a community of serial killers who have a set of rules they abide by to ensure never getting caught. ?But when Jill begins relentlessly looking into them, they realize that in order to keep their secret, they're going to have to kill her AND her friends. ?Although Uncle Fred seems to be the ringleader, a calculated Anthony Perkins type named Ethan is the go-to killer when big jobs need to get done. ?So that's who they set loose on Jill. ?Will she survive? ?Will anyone survive? ?That's a question that will continue to be asked as long as there's a Crimson Road.

I think Crimson Road wants to be Scream. ?Not so much in the self-referential way. ?But it wants to be smart and funny while at the same time conveying a sense of danger for its characters. ?The thing is, at least with how it's constructed now, it's neither smart nor funny. ?Why do I say this? ?Well, the area that's really going to set you apart in these categories is dialogue, and the dialogue here is painfully standard.

Whenever anybody talks to anyone in Crimson Road, it's the most straightforward conversation you can imagine. ?People say EXACTLY what they're thinking all the time, making for one boring on-the-nose scene after another. ?For example, I don't remember a single character uttering a single sarcastic line in Crimson Road. ?And this is about high school kids! ?Sarcasm is their second language!

Here's a conversation between Jill's friend Michelle and her ex-boyfriend, Stu. ?MICHELLE: "So. Who do you believe?" STU: "Her parents. I think." ?"Do you think she is lying?" ?"But that is just it. It isn't like she is aware it's a lie. ?Her dad thinks the medication she's on somehow screws with her head." ?"We don't know if it didn't happen. ?What she said a few years back definitely happened, did it not?" "And last week? ?You believe someone tried to run her off the road? ?I get it, lightning sometimes strikes. ?It did earlier in her life. ?Several times --" ?"--so why couldn't it strike again last week? ?Or last night?" ?"Maybe last night did happen. But what are we supposed to do? ?Believe there's some psychopath in town?" ?"(remembering) Shit...I forgot. Her and I are supposed to walk to school together. What do I say?" ?"Oh. ?When's she gonna be here?" ?"Any minute now." "I should probably get going then."

Not only does this not sound like two teenagers talking, it doesn't sound like two people talking. ? This is a writer trying to convey information to the reader through two people talking and that's it. There's no nuance, no naturalism, no flavor. ?Now let's listen to a conversation between two teenagers in Scream. ?Notice the huge difference...

TATUM: "Do you believe this shit?" ?SIDNEY: "What happened?" "Oh God! ?You don't know? ?Casey Becker and Steve Forrest were killed last night." "No way." "And not just killed, Sid. We're talking splatter movie killed--split open end to end." "Casey Becker? She sits next to me in English." "Not anymore. ?Her parents found her hanging from a tree. ?Her insides on the outside." "Do they know who did it?" "Fucking clueless--they're interrogating the entire school. ?Teachers, students, staff, janitors..." "They think it's school-related?" "They don't know. Dewey said this is the worst crime they've ever seen. ?Even worse than...(stopping herself) Well it's bad."

Notice how much more fun this dialogue is! ?Notice how much more flavor it has! ?"We're talking splatter-movie killed." "Her insides on the outside." "Fucking clueless." ?"She sits next to me in English." "Not anymore." ?As a writer, one of your jobs after you get the logistics of the dialogue down is to add flavor to it. ?It doesn't feel like Anthony ever did that. ?He just got the relevant information down and stopped there. ?Now granted dialogue must be catered to the type of story you're telling and the types of characters speaking it. But I know this - there isn't any situation where teenagers speak like robots. ?"Do you think she is lying?" should at the very least have a contraction: "Do you think she's lying?"

On top of this, there's zero subtext. ?And subtext is what makes dialogue fun! ?Characters need to be in situations where they're saying one thing but meaning another. ?They have to be in situations where we know they're hiding something from the person they're talking to.

Take the above scene for example. ?Stu used to be Jill's boyfriend before she went to the looney bin. ?But it appears that Stu's now with Jill's best friend Michelle and neither of them have told Jill yet. Okay, that's a perfect set-up for subtext! ?Stu's over at Michelle's house and Jill shows up unexpectedly. ?Michelle and Stu freak out as she's coming up the stairs and she pushes Stu into the closet. ?Jill pops in and now you have a conversation between Michelle and Jill. ?You could have Jill confide in Michelle that she misses Stu but doesn't know how he feels. ?Blah blah blah. You get the idea. A fun scene! ?Instead, Anthony has Stu leave right before Jill shows up. ?Boring!

Dialogue was just one element of this script that needed work. ?I thought the choices here were way too safe and Jill's investigation was way too simplistic. ?A solid attempt was made at giving Jill a backstory with her molesting uncle, but it felt mega-forced. ?I mean how is it that Uncle Fred has gotten out of jail and moved back into town and nobody from the family knows about it?? ?There's just no way that happens.

But I wouldn't worry about that for now. ?If I were Anthony, I would focus this next draft on dialogue. Learn to have more fun with it, to let the characters go instead of making their conversations so stilted and on the nose. ?Learn to incorporate subtext as well to juice things up. ?As for what I mean about the choices being too "safe," tune in tomorrow and I'll show you a script that does anything but make safe choices. ?You'll be able to see the difference. Until then, what did you think of Crimson Road?

[ ] what the hell did I just read?

What I Learned: ?After you've come up with your premise, try to put your hero as CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO DANGER in regards to that premise. ?For example, if you're writing a story about the attack on Pearl Harbor, you probably don't want to focus on a character in Montana whose brother is stationed in Hawaii. ?You want to focus on the brother stationed in Hawaii! ?And you want to put him on one of the ships that's attacked! ?Same thing here. ?I thought this script would have been a lot better if Jill lived on Crimson Road herself, and slowly began to realize that her father was one of the serial killers (or maybe even her mother!).

Source: http://scriptshadow.blogspot.com/2012/07/twit-pitch-review-crimson-road.html

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Emmy Nominations: Who Should Make the Cut?

Bright and early tomorrow morning, at 5:40 a.m. PST, Kerry Washington of ABC's new drama Scandal and Nick Offerman of NBC's Parks and Recreation will announce this year's Primetime Emmy nominees. Though the actual ceremony (on ABC, with Jimmy Kimmel hosting) doesn't take place until Sunday, Sept. 23, the predictions and speculation start…well, right about now.

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/emmy-nominations-who-should-make-cut/1-a-473902?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Aemmy-nominations-who-should-make-cut-473902

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Peregrine CEO denies lavish lifestyle, assets to be sold

CHICAGO/CEDAR FALLS, Iowa (Reuters) - Peregrine Financial Group Chief Executive Russell Wasendorf Sr., who last week confessed to bilking futures customers of more than $100 million, owned a jet plane and an extensive wine collection but he did not, he said in his confession, live large.

"I don't live a lavish lifestyle," Wasendorf wrote in a signed note detailing the 20-year fraud. "Although I am sure that some people will think that I do."

A complete copy of the confession was obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

As a court-appointed receiver in Chicago prepares to sell Wasendorf's Hawker Beechcraft jet, his $100,000 wine collection and other assets that may have been bought with stolen money, the federal court in Cedar Rapids postponed Wasendorf's Wednesday bail hearing until July 27 to give him more time to work with his newly appointed public defender.

He will remain in custody until then, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney General said.

The 64-year-old owner and founder of the failed Iowa-based brokerage was arrested last Friday, days after a botched suicide attempt, and charged with lying to government regulators.

Once a well-known figure in the futures trading industry, Wasendorf now faces "up to decades" in prison, prosecutors have said, with additional charges likely to be filed. He confessed to using a post-office box and forged bank documents to dupe regulators, customers, employees and even his own son for 20 years.

In his note, Wasendorf said he began taking customer funds in 1993, just one year after he launched the brokerage, to keep the company afloat.

In the confession he said he had spent most of the funds he "misappropriated" on building a new headquarters in Cedar Falls, boosting the firm's capital, covering business losses, and paying fines and fees charged by regulators.

"I don't feel bad having deceived the Regulators -- the CFTC (the Commodity Futures Trading Commission) and the National Futures Association," Wasendorf said in the note. "These Regulators are not the Police of the Industry they are the Gestapo!"

In the note, Wasendorf was by turns angry and contrite. He explained he was "constantly trying to find a way to replenish" customer accounts by building new businesses, and that "given more time I may have been able to pull it off and pay back everything."

The revelation that the CEO of a futures broker could have fooled regulators for years has forced even longtime defenders of self-policing to rethink their views.

"I don't know how you couldn't say, we need to reevaluate the self-regulatory system," Futures Industry Association chief Walt Lukken told reporters after an industry event in Chicago. "They weren't doing the right things to prevent this."

Spokesmen from the CFTC and the NFA declined to comment.

As the unfolding scandal shocked the trading community last week, the CFTC last Tuesday charged Wasendorf with misappropriating customer money. Regulators said more than $200 million is missing. That same day, Peregrine filed to liquidate under Chapter 7 of the U.S. bankruptcy code.

CONDO, WINE FOR SALE

Michael Eidelman, the receiver for Wasendorf in the bankruptcy of PFGBest, as his firm is known, is moving to secure the CEO's personal assets, including a $100,000 personal wine collection stored at myVerona, Wasendorf's high-end Italian restaurant in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Eidelman said in an interview.

Other assets include a jet, valued by brokers at $7 million to $10 million, that is now at an airport in Waterloo, Iowa, and a condominium near Lake Michigan in downtown Chicago, valued by the county's property tax assessor at about $1 million.

The director of the Waterloo airport where the jet is parked said that a representative from CFTC had called to ask that the locks be changed on the city-controlled hanger so it could be secured.

The condo will "go on the market pretty soon," Eidelman said. Wasendorf also owns a house just outside Cedar Falls worth close to $1 million, property records show.

"Upon information and belief, the assets owned by the Wasendorf Entities are diversified and include a restaurant, publishing company, aircraft and a construction company," Eidelman said in a motion Tuesday requesting that the bankruptcy court give him more power and funding to pursue and secure those assets.

"It is possible assets owned by the Wasendorf Entities may have been procured with funds embezzled from PFG," he said.

Eidelman asked the court for permission to employ the jet's pilot and myVerona's manager, as well as the chief financial officer at Wasendorf & Associates, which runs Wasendorf's now-closed publishing arm, to help him "identify, locate, secure, and take custody of the assets owned and controlled by Wasendorf Sr. and the Wasendorf entities."

The criminal case is USA v. Wasendorf, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Iowa, No. 12-131

The bankruptcy case is Peregrine Financial Group Inc, Case No. 12-27488 U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District Of Illinois (Eastern Division).

(Additional reporting by Tom Polansek and PJ Huffstutter; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/peregrine-ceo-denies-lavish-lifestyle-assets-sold-195534084--sector.html

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Cyborg Steve Mann details alleged McDonald?s assault

7 hrs.

Avram Piltch , Laptop

No shirt. No shoes. No augmented reality glasses. No service. Earlier this month, human cyborg and University of Toronto Professor Steve Mann, claims he was brutalized and kicked out of a Paris McDonald?s after employees objected to his headset and its ability to record photos and videos of his experiences.

"I?m not sure why the perpetrators attacked, but 'Perp.' [Mann's name for one of his assailants] did mention about cameras not being allowed," he told us in an exclusive email interview. Mann was unavailable for a phone call because his iPhone was also damaged in the alleged attack.?

Though augmented reality headsets like Google?s Project Glass have just started making headlines this year, Mann has been wearing his own home-brewed "EyeTap Digital Glass" computers every day since the early 1980s.?

"The current generation EyeTap, which runs on customized WearComp OS, captures images at 120 frames per second in 1080 x 1920-pixel resolution, but according to Mann, these images aren?t stored permanently. However, when Mann?s EyeTap Glass was damaged, it failed to erase some images of his experience at McDonald?s.

?It merely delays rather than records, but when [the EyeTap was] damaged (computer), the leftovers were recovered,? he said. ?In this sense Perp 1 [the person who allegedly assaulted Mann] was the person who took all the pictures in the last hour or so, by causing the computer to be broken.?

Mann, told us that, on July 1st, he, his wife and their two children were in line to purchase food at the Paris McDonald?s when an employee approached and informed them that cameras were not allowed in the establishment. After Mann presented the employee with a doctor?s note he carries with him that states he needs to wear his headgear, the employee let him through and a cashier took his order.

According to Mann, after he and his family had received their food and taken a seat by the entrance, another McDonald?s employee, whom Mann refers to as Perpetrator 1, approached and angrily tried to pull the EyeTap, which is permanently attached and cannot be removed without tools, off of his head.

"Perp. 1 reached his left hand out and pressed against the frame of my eyeglass, and swung his left hand around a few times pushing and pulling at it," he told us.

Mann then tried to calm Perpetrator 1 and showed him his doctor?s note, which the employee showed to two coworkers, whom Mann nicknames Perpetrators 2 and 3. After Perpetrator 2 crumpled up his doctor?s note and Perpetrator 1 tore up some other documentation he provided,?Perpetrator?1 then allegedly pushed him out the door and onto the street, damaging his gear.

"My Glass started acting a little erratic but I could still see to some degree, but with crosshatches and kind of a freeze-frame like motion as the Eye Glass stopped and started intermittently," Mann said. The alleged assault apparently loosened a ribbon cable within the device, causing the eye piece to malfunction and flood Mann?s eye with laser light. ?

However, the device was still functioning until Mann had an embarrassing bodily reaction upon hitting the street, which caused his circuits to short out.

"The actual cause of the final stoppage (which happened shortly after he pushed me out the door) is a bit embarrassing as what happened also is that I had had to really use the toilet, at the time, and it was that I?d been going toward using the toilet but got attacked, so as a result, later, it turned out that my pants became the toilet,? he said.

"The cargo pants I wear have large number of pockets most of the way down both legs, so my iPhone and the processing boards, motherboard of miniature PC, control board of Glass, etc., went dead shortly afterwards, and that?s when the Glass went totally dark. My iPhone and some of the other pieces still don?t work."

Mann said that, after picking himself up and dusting himself off, he sought out Police in the Champs-Elysees area, but none of the many cops he approached were interested in taking a report or investigating.?

"Some of the parts of me started shutting down at different times afterwards," Mann told us in an exclusive email interview. "I?m still online now but a lot is not working."

To draw attention to his plight, on July 16th Mann posted an?account of the alleged assault on blogspot, causing an international uproar. The incident has so far been covered by more than three dozen major news outlets, including?Tech Crunch,?Forbes,?Mashable?and?The Verge. ?A?group on Reddit?had more than 2,000 comments as of this writing.?Sci-fi blog io9 even?described the alleged attack?as "the world?s first cybernetic hate crime."

"After first trying with the Police (no luck) and then the Consulate/Embassies (no luck), and then the legal experts and human rights commissioners (no luck), some of whom suggested 'the court of public opinion,' I finally brought this matter to the public?s attention, but only after exhausting all other possibilities," he said.

A representative from McDonald?s told us that the company is still investigating the incident.

"We strive to provide a welcoming and enjoyable experience for our customers when they visit our restaurants," the company told us in a statement. "We take the claims and feedback of our customers very seriously. We are in the process of gathering information about this situation and we ask for patience until all of the facts are known."

For his part, Mann said he is not seeking punitive damages, just enough money to fix his EyeTap Glass and perhaps a commitment from McDonald?s to support vision research as his glasses are also designed to eventually help people with vision and memory problems.

No matter how this ends, Mann?s story raises serious questions about technology and privacy. As we carry cameras with us everywhere we go, the question of where and when we can capture our experiences looms large. Google?s upcoming Project Glass will certainly be swept up in the same type of controversy as augmented really eyewear proliferates.

In a paper on wearable computing, Mann describes wearable devices and recording as similar to human memory and says that public establishments like businesses should not discriminate against people whose memories are captured by computer devices. He sees a future in which everyone from memory-impaired Alzheimer?s patients to healthy adults uses wearable tech as an extended memory.

"The 'Silicon Brain' of the Mindmesh thus asks the question 'is remembering recording?' As more people embrace prosthetic minds, this distinction will disappear. Businesses and other organizations have a legal obligation not to discriminate, and will therefore not be able to prevent individuals from seeing and remembering, whether by natural biological or computational means," he?writes on Interaction-Design.org.

More from Laptop Mag:

Source: http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/cyborg-steve-mann-details-alleged-mcdonalds-assault-889595

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Give Away Old Stuff, Get New Stuff: Listia Opens A Rewards Store

Listia, a startup that allows users to exchange free goods, is expanding its model today by taking its new Rewards Store out of beta testing. On the Listia site, people can give away things that they don't want or need anymore. When you give something away, you earn points on the site, which you can then redeem for the goods that offered by other users. Until now, however, what those points actually got you depended on what other users were posting, and all the goods were used (unless, for some reason, you decided to give away something brand new).

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/qfc06nDv_tw/

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Obama campaign sues over Ohio early voting law

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) ? President Barack Obama's re-election campaign on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit against Ohio's top elections official in a dispute over the battleground state's law that restricts early, in-person voting during the three days before Election Day.

The lawsuit filed in Columbus comes after a series of election law changes cleared the state's Republican-controlled Legislature and were signed by Republican Gov. John Kasich.

Obama's campaign and Democrats argue that the law unfairly ends early, in-person voting for most Ohioans on the Friday evening before the Tuesday election, while allowing military and overseas voters to cast a ballot in person until Monday.

Before the changes to the law, local boards of election had the discretion to set their own early, in-person voting hours on the days before the election. And in-person voting on the weekend varied among the state's 88 counties.

The state's elections chief, Secretary of State Jon Husted, has argued that all counties should have the same early voting hours and be open on the same days. Husted and his fellow Republicans contend it's unfair that a voter in one county can cast an early ballot on a day when a voter in a neighboring county cannot.

"I didn't see a lawsuit occur when six counties had weekend voting and extended hours and 82 of them didn't," Husted said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I'm sympathetic to the idea that we should have consistency, because that's exactly what we've been doing on a number of fronts."

Obama for America was joined in the lawsuit by the Democratic National Committee and the Ohio Democratic Party.

Ohio is one of 32 states that allow voters to cast an early ballot by mail or in person without an excuse. About 30 percent of swing state's total vote ? or roughly 1.7 million ballots ? came in ahead of Election Day in 2008.

Obama won Ohio in last presidential election, but Republican rival Mitt Romney is expected to make a strong play for it.

The state doesn't track its early voters by party, so the stats don't show exactly how much Obama might have benefited from early voting in Ohio. But both parties are sure he did.

An extended voting period is perceived as benefiting Democrats because it increases voting opportunities for those harder to reach for an Election Day turnout ? Hispanics, blacks, new citizens and poor people.

It's the first time Obama's re-election campaign has stepped in to challenge changes to the state's election law.

His campaign supporters helped circulate petitions last year in an effort to have voters this fall overturn a contentious bill that overhauled election rules. State lawmakers later repealed that measure, in a move that also reaffirmed a technical change made in a separate bill that resulted in early voting ending on Friday evening before Election Day.

Asked why the lawsuit shouldn't be seen as a political play by the campaign, the state's Democratic Party chairman, Chris Redfern, told reporters Tuesday that he assumes that both parties will be working to get out the vote this fall.

"It's a chilling notion that we should be opposed to those voting in the final three days because they may or may not vote on our side of the issues," said chairman Chris Redfern. "What is important in this lawsuit is that there are two sets of standards ? and Ohioans, Americans are offered equal protection."

The state's GOP chairman, Bob Bennett, called the lawsuit "just another circus sideshow."

"Nobody is being disenfranchised here, as Ohio's voters who choose to vote early can do so by mail 24 hours a day, seven days a week or at early voting polls," Bennett said in a written statement.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2012-07-17-Ohio-Early%20Voting-Obama/id-4fed8692878547eea7393d321fb89d1e

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Pentagon sending aircraft carrier to Mideast early (The Arizona Republic)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories Stories, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/237806270?client_source=feed&format=rss

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LinkedIn gets a redesigned homepage

22 hrs.

Suzanne Choney

LinkedIn unveiled a?redesigned homepage Monday, one that takes away some of the clutter that was starting to dominate the site.

Call it an update or a badly needed professional makeover, LinkedIn's spiff-up brings a cleaner look and makes it easier to find things. For most people, that means finding other?people ? it's a professional social network, not Pinterest, for goodness sake (although the new look bears some resemblance to Facebook).

LinkedIn product manager Caroline Gaffney said in a blog posting, where you can check out the new look,?that the changes are being rolled out over the next several weeks, so all 161 million users worldwide?won't see them immediately.?

Gaffney wrote that the "simpler and cleaner?design makes it easier to navigate the page and quickly find the updates you?re looking for ? whether that?s a news article your boss has recently shared or it?s to see who has just started a new job."

Users will also will?be able to see "the most important network updates and articles" at the top of their feeds, and there are bigger and better (LinkedIn calls them "richer") visuals for "easier scanning and viewing."

More specifics about the changes are shared on this LinkedIn help page.

That clutter-y Twitter feed is already gone, but that's not at LinkedIn's behest. Twitter sought that change recently?because of its own "evolving platform efforts."?

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on?Facebook,?and on?Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

Source: http://www.technolog.msnbc.msn.com/technology/technolog/linkedin-gets-redesigned-homepage-887657

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Travel Wisely With These Handy Tips And Advice | articlereference.net

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://articlereference.net/travel-leisure/travel-wisely-with-these-handy-tips-and-advice-2.html

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Betaworks Acquires Digg For A Reported $500K

Betaworks, the company behind bit.ly, news.me, Chartbeat and a number of other successful products, has acquired the social news site Digg.com for an undisclosed amount (rumor has it that the price was just $500k). Betaworks' founder John Borthwick will become the new CEO of Digg. The site's current CEO Matt Williams will join Andreessen Horowitz as Entrepreneur in Residence after the Betaworks transition is complete. Digg's founder Kevin Rose joined Google a few months ago after the search engine acquired his latest startup Milk.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/TMs1VN4a-V8/

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Sporting KC moves into US Open Cup finals

Associated Press Sports

updated 12:12 a.m. ET July 12, 2012

CHESTER, Pa. (AP) - Jacob Peterson and Graham Zusi each scored second-half goals to lead Sporting KC to a 2-0 victory over the Philadelphia Union in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals Wednesday night.

Sporting KC will host the winner of the other semifinal game between Chivas USA and the Seattle Sounders on either August 7 or 8.

The victory by Sporting KC, tied for first in Major League Soccer's Eastern Conference with D.C. United, avenged their worst defeat this season, when they lost 4-0 to Philadelphia on June 23.

? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/48155881/ns/sports-soccer/

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Social Media Lead Generation Strategy For Real Estate Agents ...

Ben Kinney, Keller Williams Bellingham, WA

Social Media Lead Generation Strategy For Real Estate Agents

Are you looking for a proven social media lead generation strategy for real estate agents to generate free & ongoing real estate leads for real estate business? ?Why would you try to figure it out on your own, when there are top real estate agents like Ben Kinney, that are willing to share with you how they use social media to generate real estate leads at the highest level. ?If you?re not familiar with Ben Kinney, he is a Keller Williams mega producing agent whose real estate team did over 530 transactions in 2011. He?s also the founder of IMSD, the Internet Marketing Specialist Designation(Discount Code: TopRealtor), a online lead generation training program and designation for real estate agents, ?where he shares his entire real estate business, the same things he?s doing that lead to his real estate team having over 530 transactions last year. No one is better at sharing practical and actionable real estate training that leads to more real estate business (and that you can start to work on right away) than Ben. ?In this recorded. Watch this recorded realtor coaching presentation below and start learning and building a proven social media lead generation strategy to take your real estate career and real estate business to the next level. ??This presentation was recorded during the April 19, 2012 RainCamp event that was attended by over 1600 agents.

More Social Media Tips For Realtors:

How To Use Pinterest To Generate Real Estate Leads

How To Use Yelp To Generate Real Estate Business

Facebook Prospecting For Real Estate Agents

Facebook Strategy For Real Estate Agents

Using The Internet & Social Media To Build Your Real Estate Brand?

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What Are The Best Sources For Online Real Estate Marketing?

Creative & Unique Lead Generation Techniques for Real Estate Agents

Everplaces for Realtors

Keller Williams NEWS:

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Gunboat diplomacy on a rebound?

Russia deploys warships off Syria. China sends threatening vessels to its neighbors over island disputes. The world can't afford a return to 19th-century naval intimidation.

By the Monitor's Editorial Board / July 11, 2012

On July 11, a Japan Coast Guard patrol ship (right) sailed around a Chinese patrol ship near disputed islands in the East China Sea known as the Senkaku in Japan or Diaoyu in China.

REUTERS

Enlarge

Just when the world had begun to view aerial drones as the weapon of the 21st century, the 19th-century practice of ?gunboat diplomacy? seems on a rebound.

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Here are recent examples:

On Monday, Russia began to deploy warships off Syria ?for exercises? ? or perhaps to influence events there.

For more than a year, China has sent paramilitary vessels or its naval ships to intimidate Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines over island disputes and undersea resources.

Last year, President Obama deployed an aircraft carrier for joint exercises with South Korea to send a message to both North Korea (and its ally China) after a North Korean attack on the South.

Iran has threatened to disrupt oil-tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for sanctions against its nuclear program. Even Turkey has flexed its naval muscle over disputes with Cyprus and Israel.

Then there?s the Arctic. The melting of the icecap has touched off a tense display of naval ships from several nations trying to claim maritime rights to newly opened ocean passages.

Meanwhile, in Britain ? the country that defined gunboat diplomacy in the 19th century to maintain its empire ? the head of the Royal Navy offered a defense of the practice last February:

?Even a cursory glance at the numerous ?gunboat diplomacy? publications penned by diplomats, historians and academics over the years tells us that the supreme advantage of maritime power is that it can leverage ?effect without regret,? ? said First Sea Lord Adm. Sir Mark Stanhope.

Is this any way to run the world, especially with so many rules and methods these days that can resolve conflicts?

Not according to Leon Panetta, the US Defense secretary who oversees the world?s most powerful navy.

?If we?re going to engage in gunboat diplomacy everywhere we go in order to assert our rights, then the end result of that is going to be conflict,? he told Congress in May. He was trying to persuade the Senate to pass the Law of the Sea Treaty, one of many diplomatic tools that can help restrain the use of naval threats.

Naval intimidation comes in many forms. The United States has carrier fleets around the world that are usually seen as benign keepers of the peace for the world?s shipping lanes or as forward deployment in case of all-out war. China, on the other hand, has lately used its vessels in threatening ways, scaring many of its neighbors.

The better approach, said Mr. Panetta, is to ?make very clear the power we have, but then sit down and engage these other countries in a rules-based format.?

?We are strong because we play by the rules, not because we go against those rules,? he added.

That is in sharp contrast to the approach advocated by China. Last year, the state-run Global Times newspaper stated in an editorial about the maritime disputes with other Asian nations: ?If these countries don?t want to change their ways with China, they will need to prepare for the sounds of cannons.?

Before gunboat diplomacy really catches on again, the world needs to affirm that nongun diplomacy is the preferred method of resolving disputes. Today?s cannons are just too big to do otherwise.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/GrnqDufuH-I/Gunboat-diplomacy-on-a-rebound

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Spanish miners march against austerity cuts

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/spanish-miners-march-against-austerity-cuts-122624875.html

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GameCircle brings achievements, save game sync to Amazon's tablet

Get ready Kindle Fire fans, Amazon is throwing down the gaming gauntlet and taking on all comers. The content giant just announced GameCircle, a new tool available to developers publishing games on its customized Android platform. It allows the easy integration of an achievement system and leader boards that don't pull a user out of a game. Instead a simple pop up launches when you've been awarded a new trophy and closing it out lets you go right back to where you were (presumably cutting ropes, flinging birds or shooting zombies). Perhaps most exciting though, is the ability to sync progress between devices. Wherever you leave off, your data is sent to Amazon's magical cloud and pulled back down in the event that you sign on to a new device or accidentally delete your game. Of course, we're not too sure how much time you spend switching between Kindle Fires... unless....

Continue reading GameCircle brings achievements, save game sync to Amazon's tablet

Filed under: Gaming, Tablet PCs, Software

GameCircle brings achievements, save game sync to Amazon's tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/11/gamecircle-brings-achievements-save-game-sync-to-amazons-table/

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Ask the GAL: Incentives, tax credits exist for adopting children in ...

Q: Is there an incentive to adopt children out of foster care?

A: The state and the federal government both provide incentives for the adoption of children in foster care. There is both a tax credit and a potential subsidy available.

The tax credit: For parents who adopted children in 2011, there is a refundable tax credit of $13,170. This means that a family with a tax liability of only $10,000 will receive a refund of $3,170 on their 2011 taxes. Families with a modified adjusted gross income of more than $185,210 may not get the full amount of the adoption credit and the credit is totally phased out if that income is more than $225,210.

For people who adopt in 2012, there is a nonrefundable tax credit of $12,650. There will not be a refund for families with less than $12,650 of tax liability, but families can carry forward a credit for five more years until they use up the credit or the five years run out.

Chapter 409 of the Florida Statute outlines the adoption subsidies in Florida, available to families who adopt foster children. Of course, families who are a good match and willing to adopt without a subsidy are preferable, unless it can be shown that such placement is not in the best interest of the child. Florida Statute 409.166 says that "the Legislature intends to make adoption assistance, including financial aid, available to prospective adoptive parents to enable them to adopt a child in the state's foster care system who, because of his or her needs, has proven difficult to place in an adoptive home."

Q: Who are these difficult-to-place children?

A: According to state law, a child who is not likely to be adopted because he or she is: 8 years of age or older; developmentally disabled; physically or emotionally handicapped; of black or racially mixed parentage; or is a member of a sibling group of any age, provided two or more members of a sibling group remain together for purposes of adoption.

To ensure that no child is denied adoption due to a lack of funding by the adoptive parents, a maintenance subsidy may be negotiated, to be paid on a monthly basis until the child's 18th birthday. The amount may be adjusted based on changes in the needs of the child or circumstances of the adoptive parents. However, in no case shall the amount of the monthly payment exceed the foster care maintenance payment

that would have been paid during the same period if the child had been in a foster family home.

When a child is adopted with pre-existing medical or therapeutic needs and the family insurance does not cover the services needed, a medical subsidy may be available until the child's 18th birthday.

Children adopted from foster care are Medicaid eligible until they are 18. If the child is adopted at age 16 or 17 and participates in a program called Road to Independence, the child will be eligible for Florida Medicaid until age 21. These same children are eligible for a college tuition waiver if they attend a state school.

Adoptive parents may be reimbursed for adoption fees and nonrecurring expenses such as attorney's fees, court costs, birth certificate fees, travel expenses, etc., up to $1,000.

Q: Who makes the final determination of a child's subsidy eligibility?

A: The Community Based Care adoption specialist determines the adoptive child's subsidy. In Manatee County that would be the adoption specialist at the Safe Children Coalition.

If you are interested in adopting a child from foster care, more information can be found at www.adoptflorida.com or www.heartgallerysarasota.org or by calling 1.866.661.5656.

Pam Hindman, director of the Guardian ad Litem program for the 12th Judicial Circuit, writes this weekly column for the Herald. Readers who have questions for "ASK the GAL" about child abuse, foster care, child protection, adoption, or who might be interested in learning more how to become a GAL volunteer can e-mail Pam at askthegal@12gal.org, or write to her at Guardian ad Litem Program, 1051 Manatee Ave. W., Hensley Wing, Suite 330, Bradenton 34205.

Source: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/07/11/4110127/ask-the-gal-incentives-tax-credits.html

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Hafeez, Azhar fight for Pakistan

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/hafeez-azhar-fight-pakistan-071359103.html

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5 Reasons Why You Need a Content Managed Website

I am often surprised when I meet with a new web design client and they describe the kind of site they want and they make no mention of a content management system (CMS.) Now to be fair, I understand that there are still a lot of people out there who are unfamiliar with what exactly a CMS is, and how it can positively impact their business.

A CMS is a computer system that allows for publishing, editing and modifying content all without having to touch the website?s code. This is great news for business owners who aren?t particularly tech savvy. Typically, the process you would go through to have a site designed for you is the same as it has always been. You meet with your web designer and communicate your needs with them. They then design and build the site, but they do it within the framework of a specified CMS. Then you can take control of the site by adding content and expanding the site as needed.

There are many CMS? out there, but the most popular today are WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Many of my clients think of WordPress as purely a blogging platform, but that really isn?t true anymore. It can be used accomplish any number of tasks, and I have done and seen some pretty cool things done with WordPress.

Many design firms can also provide you with a custom CMS built to your exact specifications if what you want cannot be built within any of the existing systems. In my experience however, any of the Big 3 will work just fine.

I always recommend a CMS to my clients, even if they don?t think they need one. Once I explain the benefits, they almost always agree, and are actually really excited about the possibilities that a CMS can open up for their business.

Here are the five big reasons why you need a CMS:

You Can Control Your Content

In the days of static websites, you would not only pay a web design firm or freelancer to design and build your site, but to update it as well. After all, you probably don?t know how to write code, so it would only make sense to let the experts handle that. Because of this, most websites would remain unchanged for years. Well times have changed. It is no longer acceptable to run a ?set it and forget it? website. We are living in a social media driven world now and people expect new, fresh content on a regular basis.

With the CMS platforms available today, it is extremely easy to maintain a website. Even with absolutely no coding knowledge, anybody can add articles, news, photos and videos through a user-friendly back-end interface. You no longer have to wait for your web designer/developer to get to your updates. You can add your new content and upload it either instantaneously or schedule it for later.

Its Expandable

Let?s say you are a start-up company. Not big yet, but plenty of room to grow. Wouldn?t it be great to have a custom website that can grow as your business does? With a CMS, your designer can build you a site to grow on. If you have an e-commerce store, all that needs to be designed is a set of templatized product pages that you can use to add more products as you acquire them.

Similarly, lets say you need to add a whole new section to your site a year down the road. Maybe you own a restaurant and you expand to a second location. It would make sense to add another page for the new restaurant. All you would need to do is log in to the CMS, choose a page template, give it a title and add the content. You can then choose for that page to show up on the website?s main menu if you wish.

You Will Save Money

Apart from the hassle of having to go to your web designer every time you need to make an update, there is also the issue of the extra expense involved. Web design doesn?t come cheap, (assuming you go with a skilled designer,) and constant updates can really eat up your bottom line.

With a CMS, you can either take on the duties of updating the site yourself, or task somebody within your company to do it. Either way, bringing site updates in-house is a huge money saving move. On top of that, the start-up cost of having a website built within a CMS is usually not much more than that of a static site.

You Can Add functionality

One of my favorite benefits of using a CMS is the seemingly endless supply of extensions and plugins that can add to your site?s functionality. Did you forget to have your designer add an automated reservation booking system? There?s a plugin for that. Simply do a search, click an button and its installed. There are extensions for everything from search engine optimization to capturing leads.

CMS plugins are amazing for adding new functionality to your site with minimal effort. However, I caution you to not go overboard with them, because if you use too many, they can really slow your site down. But then again, there?s also a plugin to help with that.

It?s Considered ?Best Practice?

It is for all these reasons perhaps, that building a site using a CMS is considered to be today?s best practice. It is now the industry standard because, simply put, building a site the old way just doesn?t make much sense anymore. Mostly this has to do with the fact that web standards, in general, have shifted away from static, unchanging sites over to more dynamic sites with frequent updates. Search engines want to see that you are adding to the online community on a consistent basis, and they will reward you with higher search engine rankings if you do.

Going beyond search engine results, your visitors are much more likely to come back if you have something new to show them on a regular basis. Ultimately, this is what?s most important, as the more times a customer or potential customer visits your site, the more likely they are to make a purchase. This goes for businesses that sell products on their sites, as well as more service-based businesses.

Final Thoughts

With all of these benefits, can you think of any reason to stick with a static website? Even if you don?t plan on updating your content frequently, you are much better off having the option to do so. Chances are, you will learn to see the value in updatable content, as the internet is moving in a more and more social direction every day. When you are ready to start taking control of your own content, you will be glad to have an easy way to do it.

CMS Photo via Shutterstock

About Wes McDowell

Wes McDowell is the principal and lead designer at The Deep End design studio in Los Angeles. Wes is highly specialized in web design and usability, branding and logo design, as well as print and packaging design. He channels his expertise and creativity to help businesses large and small find their voice and help their customers find them.

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Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/07/5-reasons-you-need-content-managed-website.html

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UN envoy Annan warns of possible Syria disaster

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/un-envoy-annan-warns-possible-syria-disaster-083835100.html

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'Frankenstein' Mummies Are a Mix of Corpses

Mummies found off the coast of Scotland are Frankenstein-like composites of several corpses, researchers say.

This mixing of remains was perhaps designed to combine different ancestries into a single lineage, archaeologists speculated.

The bodies were first unearthed in 2001 during excavations beneath the foundations of an approximately 3,000-year-old house on South Uist, an island in the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. The building was one of three roundhouses at Cladh Hallan, a prehistoric village named after a nearby modern graveyard. The site was once populated in the Bronze Age from 2200 B.C. to 800 B.C. ? scientists were digging here to learn more about this era in Britain, where little was known until recently.

The researchers had found what were apparently the remains of a teenage girl and a 3-year-old child at the site. However, two other bodies looked especially strange ? those of a man and a woman found in tight fetal positions as if they had been tightly wrapped up, reminiscent of "mummy bundles" seen in South America and other parts of the world. These bodies were apparently mummified on purpose, the first evidence of deliberate mummification in the ancient Old World outside of Egypt. [8 Grisly Archaeological Discoveries]

Evidence for mummy mix-ups

Evidence of this mummification lies in how all the bones in both these bodies were still "articulated" or in the same positions as they were in life, revealing that sinew and perhaps skin were still holding them together when they were buried. Carbon dating these remains and their surroundings revealed these bodies were buried up to 600 years after death ? to keep bodies from rotting to pieces after such a long time, they must have been intentionally preserved, unlike the bodies of animals also buried at the site, which had been left to decay.

Mineral alterations of the outer layer of the bones suggest they were entombed in acidic surroundings, such as those found in nearby peat bogs. Exposures to such bogs for a year or so would have mummified them, stopping microbes from decomposing the bodies by essentially tanning them in much the same way that animal skin is turned into leather.

Ancient writings suggest that embalming was practiced in prehistoric Europe, not just in Egypt. For instance, ancient Greek philosopher Poseidonius, writing in about 100 B.C., "visited Gaul and recorded that the Celts there embalmed the heads of their victims in cedar oil and kept them in chests," said researcher Mike Parker-Pearson, an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield in England.

Bizarrely, the man's remains were composed of bones from three different people, possessing the torso and limbs of one man, the skull and neck of another, and the lower jaw from a third, possibly a woman.

The researchers made this discovery of his Frankenstein-like nature by analyzing his skeleton ? for instance, evidence of arthritis was seen on the vertebrae of the neck, but not on the rest of the spine, revealing these parts came from different bodies. Also, the lower jaw had all its teeth, whereas those of the upper jaw were entirely missing, and the condition of the lower jaw's teeth revealed they once interacted with a full set of teeth in his upper jaw, showing they originally belonged to another man. [Image Gallery: Scanning Mummies for Disease]

To see if the woman's skeleton was also a composite, the researchers analyzed ancient DNA from the skull, lower jaw, right upper arm and right thighbone. This revealed that the lower jaw, arm bone and thighbone all came from different people. Data from the skull was inconclusive. (Oddly, the upper two teeth next to her front teeth had been removed and placed in each hand.)

The first composite was apparently assembled between 1260 B.C. and 1440 B.C., while the second composite was assembled between 1130 B.C. and 1310 B.C. "There is overlap, but the statistical probability is that they were assembled at different times," Parker-Pearson said.

Although one Frankenstein-like mix-up of body parts might be an accident, "the second instance makes this unlikely," Parker-Pearson said.

Mummification apparently took off in Britain about 1500 B.C. "at a time when land ownership ? communal rather than private, most likely ? was being marked by the construction of large-scale field systems," Parker-Pearson told LiveScience. "Rights to land would have depended on ancestral claims, so perhaps having the ancestors around 'in the flesh' was their prehistoric equivalent of a legal document."

"Merging different body parts of ancestors into a single person could represent the merging of different families and their lines of descent," Parker-Pearson said. "Perhaps this was a prelude to building the row of houses in which numerous different families are likely to have lived."

Mummies? Britain?

When the bones were first discovered, Parker-Pearson admitted, "some archaeologists were rightly skeptical," as mummification in the British Bronze Age was pretty much unheard of.

Even Parker-Pearson would've been skeptical of the finding, had he not studied the bones. "But since then, we have applied a battery of scientific methods, of which the ancient DNA analysis is the latest," he said. "Together with archaeological evidence from excavation, these analytical results make a fairly unassailable case for mummification and recombination."

"I don't think it implies any links with ancient Egypt or other distant civilizations at all," Parker-Pearson said about these findings. "Mummification is simple enough to do in your own kitchen, and has been surprisingly widespread among small-scale, traditional societies throughout the world in recent centuries."

In fact, he added, the idea that Egyptian practices of mummification diffused elsewhere was discredited more than 50 years ago.

"Altogether, these results have completely changed our ideas about treatment of the dead in prehistoric Britain," Parker-Pearson said. "Other archaeologists are now identifying similar examples now that the breakthrough has been made ? beforehand, it was just unthinkable."

For instance, he said, what may be two examples of human mummies from Down Farm in Dorset, excavated by Martin Green in 2009, even have drill holes in the long bones, suggesting that their limbs were strung together.

The scientists detailed their findings in the August issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/frankenstein-mummies-mix-corpses-175406389.html

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