Strategies For VCs To Increase Startup Success Odds | TechCrunch

Editor?s note:?David Teten is a partner with?ff Venture Capital?and founder and chairman of?Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York. Follow him on his blog or on Twitter?@dteten.

Lots of venture capitalists claim to add value to the companies in which they invest. But how do they do it?? And does it really produce better?returns?for their investors??We recently wrapped up a?study?on best practices of venture capitalists in creating portfolio company value through operational support, exploring exactly these questions.

We found that certain VCs are aggressively building out a focused portfolio operations skill set and recruiting more people with operational backgrounds. Based on a range of sources, we believe that most funds with well-developed portfolio operator models have top-quartile returns (typically above 20 percent IRR in the relevant time periods).

Given the mediocre median?returns?of the VC industry and the high?failure rate?of the typical entrepreneur, techniques to improve the odds of success are highly needed.

?Adding Value

VCs can add more value to their portfolios through team building, operations, perspective, skill building, customer development, analysis, and the network (the ?TOPSCAN? framework):

Team Building:?Designing and?recruiting?for a startup?s most important asset, its human capital base.

Operations:?Enhancing administrative, accounting, legal, and technological capabilities.

Perspective:?Strategy, competitive positioning, defining the target market, and scoping the product.

Skill Building:?Building the right skills, especially for senior management.

Customer Development:?Identifying and gaining access to the right customers.

Analysis:?How entrepreneurs measure, understand, and report the performance of their early-stage companies.

Network:?The cheapest and sometimes most value-added service that an investor can provide is access to his/her network, particularly to?potential investors?and acquirers.

The portfolio operator strategy has potential to boost returns.

A company?s need for these services is greatest in its earlier life. However, even among private-equity funds that invest in late-stage, stable, established companies, we see many such funds?building portfolio operations groups.?Later-stage, private-equity firms clearly believe that their portfolio companies benefit from a similar pool of operational talent, despite the fact that their companies are far more complete in their management and developed in their strategy than the companies backed by VCs.

The portfolio operator strategy has potential to boost returns. Our thesis that greater participation correlates with higher returns is consistent with two other formal studies: ?Returns to Angel Investors in Groups?, and ?Prediction and Control Under Uncertainty: Outcomes in Angel Investing.? Both studies found that higher levels of angel participation in investments, as measured by number of hours per week interacting with a portfolio company, correlates with higher returns.

In addition, VCs (particularly those focused on Internet investments) live in a social-media-enabled world where almost every investor has a very visible public resume on LinkedIn; many have a public blog; and blogs and sites such as?TheFunded.com?closely track their behavior. Social media footprints make it exceptionally easy for entrepreneurs to assess precisely how much value a potential investor can add and reach out to those investors specifically.?Deal origination?becomes very easy for firms with a strong reputation for adding value.

Current Practices

VCs have five main resources with which to increase portfolio company value: cash, brand, industry network, funding network and in-house expertise.

1. Cash.?A significant operational toolkit is expensive. Given the?low average returns of the VC industry, and the modest assets under management of VCs relative to the assets under management of a typical private-equity fund, many VCs simply cannot afford to invest meaningful dollars in a large portfolio acceleration infrastructure.
2. Brand.?The fact that a company has been funded by a well-respected fund/partner alone can increase a company?s odds of success, because that brand makes it easier for the company to attract talented employees and follow-on investors. By definition, startups have no brand at launch.
3. Industry network.?One entrepreneur observed about one of the most prominent VCs in America: ?[X]?s default response to all problems is to email introduce you to 3-10 people in his network who can help.?
4. Funding network.?Later-stage VCs pay careful?attention?to the earlier funders in a company, using the reputations of the funders as a proxy for their own diligence. The next-best asset to a large pool of capital in-house is the ability to easily help raise more capital in later rounds from past syndicate partners.
5. In-house expertise.?VCs can provide consulting, accounting, or operational resources, both directly from their own staff and from preferred service providers.

All of the resources above are synergistic, i.e. more success creates more cash, which strengthens the brand, which increases the industry and VC network, which strengthens the in-house expertise. This is one of the key reasons that venture capital is one of the few asset classes in which?past performance is predictive of future results.

There are three common categories of VCs in terms of attitude and practices toward investing and portfolio company support: financiers, mentors, and portfolio operators, ranked in order of increasing level of operational involvement.

1. Financiers: ?I?m a banker, not an operator.?

The financiers are the most traditional group of VC investors; one said he views venture capitalists as ?glorified commercial bankers.? Financiers believe that the most value added by a VC comes from carefully scrutinizing early-stage companies, generating leads, conducting a thorough due diligence process, and eventually investing the right amount of capital at the right valuation and structure. The relationship to their portfolio after making the investments primarily consists of monitoring.

Of course, the financiers are not completely detached from what is going on in their portfolio companies, but they tend to focus more on formal interaction. Examples include VCs taking board seats, suggesting structures for board meetings, and providing monthly reporting templates.

The most perfect example of a financier is?Correlation Ventures, which some have called the ?Moneyball? of venture capital. Even though the firm?s two managing partners are both former startup entrepreneurs, Correlation never takes board seats and has only modest operational involvement. They gain access to investment opportunities by offering a very rapid?investment decision (two weeks or less), with a very low hassle process, leveraging their large investment in predictive analytics. They have $165 million in assets under management. Other examples are?Right Side Capital Management?and?i2x.

2. Mentors: ?I try to be the CEO?s consigliere.?

Most VCs can be classed as mentors. Mentors believe their fund and personal assets can improve the performance of the ventures they invest in. The most important asset they bring to the table is their personal and professional network, which they leverage to strengthen portfolio companies. Throughout our research, we observed many examples of this: introductions to potential customers, suppliers, partners, and executive-level employees.

What distinguishes the mentors from the portfolio operators, however, is that they deliberately choose not to institutionalize the support they give to their portfolio companies. Support is almost always initiated by the entrepreneur and does not involve preset systems or processes. As one mentor said, ?My entrepreneurs have my cell and email address ? and I always answer them.? As a result, mentors assessing a new investment need to be comfortable that their input will be heard by the companies ? that the CEO is coachable.

In the past few years, there has been a?surge?of small, solo-GP funds, typically with under $40 million in assets. Although in many cases, these solo GPs have strong operational track records, they typically have limited resources to engage in-depth with their portfolio, and so would normally be classified as mentors.

3. Portfolio Operators: ?We have a structured, standard process for adding value.?

Portfolio operators agree with mentors that their unique personal and fund assets can be used to develop their portfolio companies. However, unlike mentors, portfolio operators do this in an institutionalized and structured way. Whereas mentors tend to be reactive in their support, portfolio operators pro-actively look for ways to improve the performance of their investments through systems and processes. We know of numerous instances in which companies took lower valuations to win portfolio operator VCs as investors versus other categories of VCs, because the entrepreneurs so valued the resources a portfolio operator could bring to bear. In other cases, entrepreneurs have offered board options or other sweeteners to highly attractive portfolio operator VCs.

The most common service portfolio operators offer their portfolio companies is recruiting assistance. Most of the VCs in this category not only provide personal references to interesting candidates, but also use their own websites as job boards for portfolio companies. First Round Capital takes this a step further by running a program in which they recruit MBAs for internships and full-time positions with their portfolio companies.

We find that portfolio operator VCs are building teams of employees that are unusually large for the VC industry and include many people with strong?operational backgrounds. These larger teams tend to be accompanied by a transition toward pyramidal organizations, which are increasingly becoming the norm in portfolio operator funds.

As Harvard Business School professor Noam Wasserman discusses in his?paper??Upside-down Venture Capitalists and the Transition Toward Pyramidal Firms: Inevitable Progression, or Failed Experiment?? ?VCs have long been structured as ?upside-down pyramids? in which general partners outnumber more junior employees. This phenomenon is attributable to the fact that VCs are ?knowledge intensive firms in which esoteric expertise predominates over standard knowledge.?

Moving Toward The Pyramid

The need to exchange rich information in the course of pre-investment activities (e.g. due diligence) serves as a dis-incentive to expand the firm beyond a certain size or adopt formal, pyramidal structures. Those structures are, to a certain extent, an emergent property of large and/or complex organizations, in which workers become specialized and need to structure their interactions more. Although later-stage VCs have the luxury of concrete quantitative data, early-stage VCs rely on more tentative information for which analysis cannot be easily delegated.

Post-investment activities such as operational support for portfolio companies, however, can be delegated and benefit from economies of scale. Pyramidal structures are the most efficient means of systematizing and delivering this support due to the benefits of leverage, delegation and specialization.

Three trends are accelerating the transition to pyramidal models and operational focus. First, the cost of starting a company has come down dramatically, and as a result young entrepreneurs with modest capital and only angel/Series A investors can find themselves leading significant businesses beyond their management capacity.

Second, the rate at which startups can scale has increased dramatically, so the judicious application of VC resources can have an exponential impact.

The pyramidal model ultimately won out in more mature knowledge-intensive industries.

Finally, we have moved to a more transparent world in which both VCs and entrepreneurs find it easier to conduct due diligence. This puts pressure on VCs to differentiate themselves substantively. The pyramidal model ultimately won out in more mature knowledge-intensive industries, such as law and investment banking, and the same may occur in venture capital.

Snapshots: Portfolio Operators

An example of a portfolio operator VC is?Andreessen Horowitz, which has raised $2.7 billion since it was founded in 2009 and has made investments in Airbnb, Facebook, Skype, Twitter, Instagram and many other highly successful startups. They give their portfolio companies structured support through one of their four operational support teams, focused on executive recruiting, marketing/PR, technology, and business development. The fund has seven partners and employs?more than 40 operational staff, helping portfolio companies with preparing negotiations, making client introductions and providing preferred suppliers.

My firm,?ff Venture Capital, has a similar strategy; it?has made more than 160 investments in more than 60 companies since 1999. As of October 2011, the firm had $38 million in assets under management and today has 16 full-time employees (including three general partners). We offer our portfolio companies resources,?including a?job board,?recruiting assistance,?strategy consulting, a?mentor network, a pool of service providers, a portfolio?executive community and?accounting services.

First Round Capital?is another example, with seven partners with more than $400 million in assets under management and 22 full-time employees. FRC has a wide range of initiatives to support portfolio companies. For example, they organize yearly CEO, CFO and CTO summits in which executives of all portfolio companies in certain roles come together, as well as a related online community. Because of the internal, closed nature of the platform, it has become a trusted source for advice (e.g. ?Our finances are out of control and we need a CFO yesterday; what should we do??). They offer the portfolio free access to a ?venture concierge,? a lightweight consulting and research service that helps their entrepreneurs save time on research-related tasks.

Google Ventures?has over 115 portfolio companies, makes 60-80 investments per year, and is investing north of $100 million per year. They leverage both Google?s vast resources and a dedicated?54-person?team, including 10 partners. Joe Kraus, partner,?observed, ?We believe helping companies plays more of a role than most people give it credit for.?

Given the economic constraints of the industry, how else can VCs systematically increase the odds that their portfolio companies will be successful?

This is a summary of the full original study, which was co-authored with Adham AbdelFattah, founder and CEO of CircleVibe and a consultant on leave from McKinsey & Co.;?Koen Bremer,?a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in Amsterdam, Holland; and?Gyorgy Buslig, a consultant with McKinsey & Co. in Budapest, Hungary.??

[Image via]

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/30/the-lower-risk-startup-how-venture-capitalists-increase-the-odds-of-startup-success/

walmart black friday Target Black Friday PacSun apple store bestbuy bestbuy gamestop

Kansas couple: Indoor gardening prompted pot raid

LEAWOOD, Kan. (AP) ? Two former CIA employees whose Kansas home was fruitlessly searched for marijuana during a two-state drug sweep claim they were illegally targeted, possibly because they had bought indoor growing supplies to raise vegetables.

Adlynn and Robert Harte sued this week to get more information about why sheriff's deputies searched their home in the upscale Kansas City suburb of Leawood last April 20 as part of Operation Constant Gardener ? a sweep conducted by agencies in Kansas and Missouri that netted marijuana plants, processed marijuana, guns, growing paraphernalia and cash from several other locations.

April 20 long has been used by marijuana enthusiasts to celebrate the illegal drug and more recently by law enforcement for raids and crackdowns. But the Hartes' attorney, Cheryl Pilate, said she suspects the couple's 1,825-square-foot split level was targeted because they had bought hydroponic equipment to grow a small number of tomatoes and squash plants in their basement.

"With little or no other evidence of any illegal activity, law enforcement officers make the assumption that shoppers at the store are potential marijuana growers, even though the stores are most commonly frequented by backyard gardeners who grow organically or start seedlings indoors," the couple's lawsuit says.

The couple filed the suit this week under the Kansas Open Records Act after Johnson County and Leawood denied their initial records requests, with Leawood saying it had no relevant records. The Hartes say the public has an interest in knowing whether the sheriff's department's participation in the raids was "based on a well-founded belief of marijuana use and cultivation at the targeted addresses, or whether the raids primarily served a publicity purpose."

"If this can happen to us and we are educated and have reasonable resources, how does somebody who maybe hasn't led a perfect life supposed to be free in this country?" Adlynn Harte said in an interview Friday.

The suit filed in Johnson County District Court said the couple and their two children ? a 7-year-old daughter and 13-year-old son ? were "shocked and frightened" when deputies armed with assault rifles and wearing bulletproof vests pounded on the door of their home around 7:30 a.m. last April 20.

"It was just like on the cops TV shows," Robert Harte told The Associated Press. "It was like 'Zero Dark Thirty' ready to storm the compound."

During the sweep, the court filing said, the Hartes were told they had been under surveillance for months, but the couple "know of no basis for conducting such surveillance nor do they believe such surveillance would have produced any facts supporting the issuance of a search warrant."

Harte said he built the hydroponic garden with his son a couple of years ago. He said they didn't use the powerful light bulbs that are sometimes used to grow marijuana and that the family's electricity usage didn't change dramatically. Changes in utility usage can sometimes lead authorities to such operations.

When law enforcement arrived, the family had just six plants ? three tomato plants, one melon plant and two butternut squash plants ? growing in the basement, Harte said.

The suit also said deputies "made rude comments" and implied their son was using marijuana. A drug-sniffing dog was brought in to help, but deputies ultimately left after providing a receipt stating, "No items taken."

Pilate said no one in the Harte family uses illegal drugs and no charges were filed. The lawsuit noted Adlynn Harte, who works for a financial planning firm, and Robert Harte, who cares for the couple's children, each were required to pass rigorous background checks for their previous jobs working for the CIA in Washington, D.C. Pilate said she couldn't provide any other details about their CIA employment.

Pilate said any details gleaned from the open records suit could be used in a future federal civil rights lawsuit.

"You can't go into people's homes and conduct searches without probable cause," Pilate said.

Leawood City Administrator Scott Lambers said Friday that he couldn't comment on pending litigation. The sheriff's office also had no comment.

"Obviously with an ongoing lawsuit we are not able to talk about any details of it until it's been played out in court," said Johnson County Deputy Tom Erickson.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/kansas-couple-indoor-gardening-prompted-pot-raid-182449463.html

roger goodell psychosis dianna agron million hoodie march tebow trade mike the situation jacksonville jaguars

Afghanistan's Karzai in Qatar, Taliban talks in focus

DOHA (Reuters) - President Hamid Karzai held talks with Qatari leaders on Sunday, official media reported, on a visit the Kabul government has said would seek to explore the possibility of talks with Taliban insurgents on ending Afghanistan's war.

Karzai's trip to the Gulf Arab state, a U.S. ally which has mediated in conflicts in Arab or Muslim countries, follows years of stalled discussions among the United States, Pakistan and the Taliban about a possible Afghan settlement.

Afghanistan's embassy in Doha confirmed Karzai's arrival on Saturday for a two-day visit to the Qatari capital, but declined to give any details on the purpose of the visit.

Qatar's state news agency QNA said Karzai held talks with the emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, attended by the Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani.

QNA gave no details of the discussions, and later reported without elaborating that Karzai had left the country.

Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Janan Mosazai, announcing the visit last week, said Karzai would "discuss the peace process and the opening of a (Taliban) office for the purposes of conducting negotiations with Afghanistan."

The Kabul government has been pushing hard to get the Taliban to the negotiating table before foreign troops withdraw.

Afghan officials have not held direct talks with the militants, who were toppled in 2001 and have proven resilient after more than a decade of war with Western forces.

DIALOGUE

Earlier this month, Karzai said the Taliban and the United States had been holding talks in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar on a "daily basis", but the militant group and Washington denied they had resumed efforts on dialogue that stalled a year ago.

The Taliban suspended those talks, saying Washington was giving mixed signals on the nascent Afghan reconciliation process.

However, the United States has said it would support setting up a Taliban office in Qatar where peace talks between the Taliban and Afghanistan could take place.

On a visit to Kabul last week, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry repeated a U.S. call for the Taliban to enter into talks and a wider political process.

He issued a veiled threat if they did not, saying U.S. President Barack Obama had yet to say how many U.S. troops will remain in the country after 2014.

Karzai has stressed the need to bring neighboring Pakistan into such a negotiation. U.S. and Afghan officials have long said the Taliban forces have sanctuary across the border in Pakistan.

Pakistan denies any senior insurgents enjoy sanctuary within its borders.

(Reporting by Regan Doherty; Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by William Maclean and Sophie Hares)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/afghanistans-karzai-qatar-taliban-talks-focus-134115125.html

dancing with the stars cast kristen stewart Shirley Bassey adele Oscars 2013 barcelona vs real madrid renee zellweger

No CATA bus service on Easter | Ingham County Chronicle

By Tyler Clifford
Ingham County Chronicle staff writer

Capital Area Transportation Authority bus route services will not operate Sunday in observance of Easter.

?It allows our employees, particularly the drivers and the folks that would be in the dispatch center, to actually spend time with their families,? said a spokesperson in the by company?s marketing department. ?We close only seven days out of the year and that is to celebrate the seven major holidays.?

The spokesperson said that those most will be those who use Route 1 on Sundays. This is CATA?s busiest and most consistent route throughout the week and weekends.

?Typically, those who use our services to travel to and from Sunday church services as well as riders trying to get to Meridian Mall will be most affected by these changes,? the spokesperson said.

CATA has informed riders of the closings through social media, the CATA website and by phone for riders that tend not to use the Internet.

However, some Ingham County residents had not received the message and were not expecting the change in service.

Michigan State University student Jennifer Onwenu said college students would be affected, but many of her peers are returning home for the weekend.

?I think it?s a smart move that CATA is closing its Sunday campus services because there will not be many students on campus that really need to get around and they would be losing money because many students go home for the holidays to be with family,? she said Tuesday. ?But I know many like to go to the mall on their Sunday rest day or even catch the bus to church, so those who are not going home may have a hard time getting around.?

CATA plans to continue operating its campus Night Owl service at its usual operation time Monday at 2 a.m.

?I know this will affect many Lansing area residents who depend on the CATA to get around,? Onwenu said. ?They will have to seek out other ways to get around town.?

Lansing resident Delorean McKinney is a frequent CATA rider that will be affected by the Sunday holiday. She said she will have a hard time getting to where she needs to go.

?They take off for the holiday, but this won?t be a holiday for me away from church,? she said Wednesday while waiting on the Route 1 bus at Frandor. ?I depend on the CATA and I pay good money to get where I need to get. It?s still another day for people to get to work or anywhere else as well, so it will be difficult for those who do not have any other alternatives.?

The CATA spokesperson said that there are no local competitors that will be able to benefit from its Sunday closing.

?The only service that we will provide is Lot Link which will end at 11:30 p.m. Saturday and resume 3 p.m. Sunday,? the spokesperson said.

CATA?s Spec-Tran lines will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday for Monday ride services. Spec-Tran can be contacted at 517-394-2282.

All CATA services will resume at regular schedule times on Monday, April 1, according to its website.

CATA customer service can be contacted at 518-394-1000 or by email at info@cata.org.

Source: http://news.jrn.msu.edu/ingham/2013/03/30/no-cata-bus-service-on-easter/

jay z Oscar Pistorius Carnival Triumph charles barkley valentines valentines day George Ferris

Look out squirrels: Leopards are new backyard wildlife

Friday, March 29, 2013

A new study led by WCS-India scientist Vidya Athreaya finds that certain landscapes of western India completely devoid of wilderness and with high human populations are crawling with a different kind of backyard wildlife: leopards.

The study found as many as five adult large carnivores, including leopards and striped hyenas, per 100 square kilometers (38 square miles), a density never before reported in a human-dominated landscape.

The study, called "Big Cats in Our Backyards," appeared in the March 6 edition of the journal PLoS One. Authors include: Vidya Athreya and Ullas Karanth of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Centre for Wildlife Studies in Bangalore; Morten Odden of Hedmark University College; John D. C. Linnell of the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research; and Jagdish Krishnaswamy of Asoka Trust for Research of Ecology in the Environment.

Using camera traps, the authors founds that leopards often ranged close to houses at night though remained largely undetected by the public. Despite this close proximity between leopards and people, there are few instances of attacks in this region. The authors also photographed rusty spotted cat, small Indian civet, Indian fox, jungle cat, jackal, mongoose ? and a variety of people from the local communities. The research took place in western Maharashtra, India.

"Human attacks by leopards were rare despite a potentially volatile situation considering that the leopard has been involved in serious conflict, including human deaths in adjoining areas," said big cat expert Ullas Karanth of WCS. "The results of our work push the frontiers of our understanding of the adaptability of both humans and wildlife to each other's presence."

The authors say that the findings show that conservationists must look outside of protected areas for a more holistic approach to safeguarding wildlife in a variety of landscapes.

###

Wildlife Conservation Society: http://www.wcs.org

Thanks to Wildlife Conservation Society for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 46 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/127521/Look_out_squirrels__Leopards_are_new_backyard_wildlife

Harlem Shake Miami Heat stephen curry dr seuss mariah carey Macklemore History Channel The Bible alex smith

New DNA-Based Transistor Brings Us One Step Closer to True Human Computers

The increasingly ambiguous divide between man and machine just got blurred that much more with Stanford's recent announcement: scientists have successfully created the first truly biological transistor made entirely out of genetic material. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/qeyEoC9D-Ns/new-dna+based-transistor-brings-us-one-step-closer-to-true-human-computers

rob dyrdek oberon donald driver donald driver robin thicke mariana trench transcendental meditation

Remains of the Day: Hacker-Friendly Game Console OUYA Goes on Sale June 4th

The OUYA gets a concrete release date, Vine now supports embeds, and Microsoft may be prepping to release a 7" tablet.

• OUYA Available at Retail on June 4 for $99 Hackable Android game console OUYA received a release date at this week's Game Developer's Conference. The system will retail on June 4th for $99 and come with a controller, power/HDMI cables, and two AA batteries for the controller. [Engadget]
• Embed Vine Posts Today, social video service Vine updated both its website and iOS app to support embedded posts. Previously, users were only able to share links. [Vine]
• New Windows 8 Hardware Specs Hint at 7-Inch Tablets and a Microsoft Reader A new set of logo guidelines from Microsoft lowers the minimum display resolution required for a device to be certified with the Windows 8 logo. This could mean that Microsoft is preparing to release devices with a smaller form factor and enter the popular 7" tablet market. [ZDNet]

Photo by photastic (Shutterstock), a2bb5s (Shutterstock), and Feng Yu (Shutterstock).

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/wQCJIkeUFUs/remains-of-the-day-hacker+friendly-game-console-ouya-goes-on-sale-june-4th

new edition austerity rihanna and chris brown back together pebble beach cause of whitney houston death keanu reeves whitney houston national anthem

Philadelphian jumps on tracks to help fallen man

In this still image taken from security video provided by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), Christopher Knafelc jumps off a subway platform in north Philadelphia to help a man who fell onto the tracks Thursday afternoon, March 28, 2013. Knafelc, 32, jumped down to help the man, knowing that a train would be arriving in a few minutes. Train traffic was halted and the man was taken to a hospital and listed in stable condition. (AP Photo/SEPTA)

In this still image taken from security video provided by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), Christopher Knafelc jumps off a subway platform in north Philadelphia to help a man who fell onto the tracks Thursday afternoon, March 28, 2013. Knafelc, 32, jumped down to help the man, knowing that a train would be arriving in a few minutes. Train traffic was halted and the man was taken to a hospital and listed in stable condition. (AP Photo/SEPTA)

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Transit police in Philadelphia are calling a local man a hero for jumping onto subway tracks to help a man who fell off a platform.

Christopher Knafelc, 32, was waiting for a train in north Philadelphia on Thursday afternoon when he saw a man walk off the platform and fall on the tracks. He jumped down to help the man, knowing that a train would be arriving in a few minutes.

"I had a plan if a train came I was going to roll him underneath," Knafelc told WPVI-TV, "or if I couldn't, I was going to ask someone to jump down and help me roll him."

He held the man's head and neck stable until firefighters arrived. Train traffic was halted.

"I was like 99.9 percent positive that I wouldn't get electrocuted," Knafelc told the Philadelphia Daily News. "I can't see (the tracks) being able to electrocute you, because too many people would get hurt."

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority Police Chief Thomas J. Nestel III called Knafelc a hero.

"This is what Philadelphia is all about," Nestel said.

Investigators don't know what caused the man to fall on the tracks. He was taken to a hospital and listed in stable condition.

"He didn't thank me, but I know he was thankful," Knafelc told the Daily News. "You know what I mean? In my heart I believe he was."

Knaflec said he has battled substance abuse since he was in middle school in Baden, a small town outside Pittsburgh, where he said he was first introduced to OxyContin and moved on to heroin by high school.

He said he studied neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh but dropped out as his addiction worsened, then spent a decade in and out of rehab.

He came to Philadelphia, where his mother and a cousin live, two years ago to get his life back on track, he said. A telephone message left at what was believed to be his mother's home was not immediately returned Friday.

"With addiction, you really struggle to be you," he told the newspaper. "I reacted, and that was me. It helps reinforce that I am good. That I am a good person."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-03-29-Philly%20Subway%20Hero/id-3ce262aa5bb84a4187bc52c6dcdd089e

Atlanta school shooting Superbowl Kickoff Time 2013 30 rock What Time Is The Super Bowl 2013 Super Bowl 2013 Time BlackBerry 10 superbowl

Outsourcing Telemarketing Services for Win Solution

For many small and medium sized businesses, outsourcing telemarketing services is an important and necessary step. ?If you don?t have the manpower or resources to handle telemarketing in house, outsourcing your telemarketing can free you and your employees to focus on the important, day to day operations of your business. ?Outsourcing telemarketing services turns over that job to those people who specialize in it. ?Outsourcing can also save your business some money. ?It?s a win/win situation, right?

Well, it is a good option for many businesses. ?However, don?t overlook the fact that outsourcing does require some maintenance on your part. ?Outsourcing telemarketing services is not just a matter of hiring a company and walking away. ?You will have to do some follow-up work along the way.

In order to hold up your end of the bargain as the outsourcer, these are some of the things that you must do:

1. Prepare job information list.
   Provide the information that the telemarketing service needs to do its job. ?You will have to give them some basic information to get started with. ?Make sure that you give your name and contact number to the telemarketing service, even if you are just casually looking for information online. ?They are trying to develop new leads, just like you are.
2. Tell them what you want.
   The telemarketing service cannot give you what you want from them if you do not make your needs explicitly clear. ?The importance of this point cannot be stressed enough. ?If you expect results from your telemarketing service, you must equip them to do their job by clearly outlining and defining what you expect from them. ?If you are looking for an increase in revenue, specifically state the number that you are looking for. ?If you want the telemarketing service to make a certain number of calls per day, say so. ?If you want a certain number of representatives to be assigned to your account, let them know. ?The most critical step in determining your outcome is clearly stating your goals and objectives.
3. Learn where to get access to your results.
   Telemarketing services keep track of all sorts of statistics related to your campaign. ?They will prepare reports on things like total increase in revenue, number of calls made, the increase in sales by demographic, and sales by customer service representative. ?All the reports in the world don?t do you any good if you don?t know where or how to get them, though. ?Find out if the reports will be sent to you on a regular basis. Some companies give you access to their database so that you can check the reports whenever you wish. ?Whatever the system for relaying reports, you should know what you are signing up for.

When you outsource your telemarketing services, you can save a lot of time, stress and money. You just need to do a little bit of work at the outset and some periodic follow up. ?The clearer you are at the outset of your relationship, the better your results will be.

Let the expert team at Forlex Sales handle all of your outsourced telemarketing activities. Our team is highly trained to meet the needs of every business owner. In addition to telemarketing, we also offer application verification, lead generation, prospect research, rapid inquiry response, live real time transfers, market research, and everything else you need to grow your business.

Forlex Sales was founded by a group of experts who specialize in marketing and information technology, so we understand how important it is to stay up to date with your information and your technology.

Contact us for?complimentary consultation?to make sure we are the best partner for your business.

?

Source: http://www.forlexsales.com/general-information/outsourcing-telemarketing-services/

obama trayvon martin pietrus cheney tori spelling marion barber marion barber syracuse

Ashley Judd says she won't seek Senate seat

Ashley Judd (JB Lacroix/Getty Images)

Ashley Judd, a Democrat who was mulling a challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for his Kentucky U.S. Senate seat in 2014, won't run after all, the actress announced Wednesday.

"After serious and thorough contemplation, I realize that my responsibilities and energy at this time need to be focused on my family," Judd said in an announcement on her Twitter page. "Regretfully, I am currently unable to consider a campaign for the Senate. I have spoken to so many Kentuckians over these last few months who expressed their desire for a fighter for the people & new leader. While that won't be me at this time, I will continue to work as as hard as I can to ensure the needs of Kentucky families are met by returning this Senate seat to whom it rightfully belongs: the people and their needs, dreams, and great potential."

Had she decided to run, Judd's campaign would have faced an uphill battle against the Kentucky Republican. For starters, Judd's family lives in Tennessee, not Kentucky, and Republicans had already begun to attack her for it. (Judd was a Tennessee delegate at the Democratic National Convention last year.) Her public history of liberal activism and repeated controversial statements?she said, for example, ?I have been raped twice, so I think I can handle Mitch McConnell"?also may have made it difficult for her to connect with Kentucky voters.

With Judd out, Kentucky Democrats are still searching for a candidate to run against McConnell.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ashley-judd-won-t-run-senate-kentucky-report-211208871--election.html

London 2012 Track And Field Jordyn Wieber michael phelps Kerri Strug Ledecky Nadia Comaneci Rebecca Soni

Razer Edge Pro review: can a tablet double as a gaming PC?

Portable gaming isn't what it once was. Sure, you can still snag a handheld device from Sony or Nintendo, but today's video game industry is far more diverse. Gamers on the go have no shortage of hardware to pick from: tablets, smartphones, gaming laptops and purpose-built handhelds are redefining what a mobile gaming platform is. Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan must have felt the winds of change blowing his way when he cooked up Project Fiona, now known as the Razer Edge. The company's marketing material frames the curious device as an all-in-one gaming arsenal; it's a tablet, says the product page, as well as a PC and console. Above all, it's modular, a souped-up tablet with a small collection of docks and cradles designed to scratch your gaming itch from all angles. All told, Razer calls it the most powerful tablet in the world. Kitted out with the specs of a mid-range gaming laptop, it may very well be that -- but we couldn't let the proclamation pass without giving it the once-over ourselves.

Filed under: Gaming, Tablets

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/sicF-fYk6dw/

Pope John Paul II Galaxy S4 google reader carnival cruise nfl nfl lil wayne

Rapper Gucci Mane denied bond in assault case

ATLANTA (AP) ? Gucci Mane has been denied bond on charges stemming from a fan's accusation that the rapper hit him in the head with a champagne bottle at an Atlanta nightclub.

A fan says the rapper, whose real name is Radric Davis, hit him in the club's V.I.P. area on March 16 while he tried to take a picture with Gucci Mane. The fan, James Lettley, says he needed 10 stitches.

Davis was in custody on a charge of aggravated assault with a weapon and appeared in court Wednesday.

The rapper's attorney, Drew Findling, tells WSB-TV (http://bit.ly/XdhFoP ) that Davis' criminal history made it difficult for a judge to set bond. Fulton County jail records show Davis has been arrested 10 times since 2005.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rapper-gucci-mane-denied-bond-assault-case-131949635.html

kentucky wildcats oakland school shooting nike nfl jerseys katie couric barista university of kentucky oakland news

11 key moments from the argument over the Defense of Marriage Act

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg discusses federal benefits at Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing as they relate to the Defense of Marriage Act.

By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared highly skeptical of the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law that blocks federal recognition of gay marriages, according to courtroom observers.

Here are 11 key moments from the arguments, which followed Tuesday's session on California's ban on same-sex marriage. The two cases could reshape the legal status of hundreds of thousands of gay couples.

----

1. Early in the proceedings, Vicki Jackson, a law professor appointed by the court to argue that it does not have the jurisdiction to decide the constitutionality of DOMA, makes the heart of her case:

Jackson: "While it is natural to want to reach the merits of such a significant issue, as in Raines v. Byrd, this natural urge must be put aside because, however important the constitutional question, Article III prevents its decision here and requires this Court to await another case, another day, to decide the question."

----

2. Chief Justice John Roberts strongly takes issue with the Obama administration?s decision to continue enforcing DOMA while believing that it is unconstitutional -- and appears to question the courage of the president:

Roberts: "And if he has made a determination that executing the law by enforcing the terms is unconstitutional, I don't see why he doesn't have the courage of his convictions and execute not only the statute, but do it consistent with his view of the Constitution, rather than saying, oh, we'll wait till the Supreme Court tells us we have no choice."

----

3. Justice Elena Kagan speaks of $300,000, an apparent reference to the $363,000 that Edith Windsor claims she had to pay in federal taxes on her late wife?s estate because of DOMA. She's addressing the issue of whether Windsor meets the legal standard of injury.

Kagan: "But, Ms. Jackson, I mean, to go back to Justice Kennedy's point, we have injury here in the most classic, most concrete sense. There's $300,000 that's going to come out of the government's treasury if this decision is upheld, and it won't if it isn't. Now, the Government is willing to pay that $300,000, would be happy to pay that $300,000, but whether the Government is happy or sad to pay that $300,000, the government is still paying the $300,000, which in the usual set of circumstances is the classic Article III injury."

----

4. Roberts again takes issue with the administration?s decision to enforce DOMA while opposing it on constitutional grounds. He is addressing Deputy Solicitor General Sri Srinivasan, arguing for the administration:

Roberts: "So this is totally unprecedented. You're asking us to do something we have never done before to reach the issue in this case."

Srinivasan: "Let me say two things about that if I might, Your Honor. First is that it's -- it's unusual, but that's not at all surprising, because the -- "

Roberts: "No, it's not just -- it's not unusual. It's totally unprecedented."

----

5. Later, as Roberts and Srinivasan continue to argue about the administration's enforcement of DOMA, Justice Antonin Scalia joins the fray:

Srinivasan: "But -- but my point is simply that when the president makes a determination that a statute is unconstitutional, it can follow that the Department of Justice won't defend it in litigation."

Roberts: "Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. What is the test for when you think your obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed means you'll follow your view about whether it's constitutional or not or you won't follow your view?"

Srinivasan: "Mr. Chief Justice, I'd hesitate to give you a black-and-white algorithm. There are -- there are several considerations that would factor into it. One of the considerations --"

Scalia: "Excuse me. It's not your view. It's the president's. It's only when the president thinks it's unconstitutional that you can decline to defend it? Or what if the attorney general thinks it's unconstitutional?"

Srinivasan: "No, no. Of course -- "

Scalia: "Or the solicitor general, is that enough?"

Srinivasan: "28 U.S.C. 530(d) presupposes -- Congress presupposes that there are going to be occasions in which a statute is -- is not defended because of a conclusion by the attorney general that it's unconstitutional."

Scalia: "Oh, it can be either the attorney general or the solicitor ceneral?"

Srinivasan: "It could be, but this is a situation in which the president made the determination."

----

6. Paul Clement, defending the law on behalf of House Republicans, returns to the point about the administration?s enforcement of the law, and suggests that the move is undermining Congress:

Clement: "But what I would say is I just -- I would continue to resist the premise, which is that the House's prerogatives aren't at stake here. The House's single most important prerogative, which is to pass legislation and have that legislation, if it's going to be repealed, only be repealed through a process where the House gets to fully participate."

----

7. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg cites some of the federal benefits denied to gay couples under DOMA:

Ginsburg: "Mr. Clement, the problem is if we are totally for the states' decision that there is a marriage between two people, for the federal government then to come in to say no joint return, no marital deduction, no Social Security benefits; your spouse is very sick but you can't get leave; people -- if that set of attributes, one might well ask, what kind of marriage is this?"

Clement: "And I think the answer to that, Justice Ginsburg, would be to say that that is a marriage under state law, and I think this court's cases when it talks about the fundamental right to marriage, I take it to be talking about the state law status of marriage; and the question of what does that mean for purposes of federal law has always been understood to be a different matter."

----

8. Justice Samuel Alito questions the intent of certain benefits provided by the federal government -- challenging the pro-DOMA side:

Alito: "Suppose we look just at the estate tax provision that's at issue in this case, which provides specially favorable treatment to a married couple as opposed to any other individual or economic unit. What was the purpose of that? Was the purpose of that really to foster traditional marriage, or was Congress just looking for a convenient category to capture households that function as a unified economic unit?"

Clement: "Well, I think for these purposes actually, Justice Alito, if you go back to the beginning of the estate tax deduction, what Congress was trying to do was trying to provide uniform treatment of taxpayers across jurisdictions, and if you look at the brief that Senator Hatch and some other senators filed, they discussed this history, because what was happening in 1948 when this provision was initially put into federal law was you had community property states and common law states, and actually there was much more favorable tax treatment if you were in a community law state than a common law state."

----

9. Justice Anthony Kennedy suggests that the federal government should leave questions of marriage to the states. Ginsburg says the benefits at the heart of the argument over DOMA have a wide scope -- with an analogy to a dairy product. And Kagan questions the motives of Congress when it passed DOMA:

Kennedy: "We're helping the states do -- if they do what we want them to, which is -- which is not consistent with the historic commitment of marriage and -- and of questions of -- of the rights of children to the state."

Clement: "With respect, Justice Kennedy, that's not right. No state loses any benefits by recognizing same-sex marriage. Things stay the same. What they don't do is they don't sort of open up an additional class of beneficiaries under their state law for -- that get additional Federal benefits. But things stay the same. And that's why in this sense -- "

Ginsburg: "They're not -- they're not a question of additional benefits. I mean, they touch every aspect of life. Your partner is sick. Social Security. I mean, it's pervasive. It's not as though, well, there's this little Federal sphere and it's only a tax question. It's -- it's -- as Justice Kennedy said, 1,100 statutes, and it affects every area of life. And so he was really diminishing what the state has said is marriage. You're saying, no, state said two kinds of marriage; the full marriage, and then this sort of skim milk marriage."

(Laughter.)

Clement: "With respect, Justice Ginsburg, that's not what the federal government is saying. The federal government is saying that within its own realm in federal policies, where we assume that the federal government has the authority to define the terms that appear in their own statute, that in those areas, they are going to have their own definition. And that's -- "

Kagan: "Mr. Clement, for the most part and historically, the only uniformity that the federal government has pursued is that it's uniformly recognized the marriages that are recognized by the state. So, this was a real difference in the uniformity that the federal government was pursuing. And it suggests that maybe something -- maybe Congress had something different in mind than uniformity. So we have a whole series of cases which suggest the following: Which suggest that when Congress targets a group that is not everybody's favorite group in the world, that we look at those cases with some -- even if they're not suspect -- with some rigor to say, do we really think that Congress was doing this for uniformity reasons, or do we think that Congress's judgment was infected by dislike, by fear, by animus, and so forth? I guess the question that this statute raises, this statute that does something that's really never been done before, is whether that sends up a pretty good red flag that that's what was going on."

----

10. Later, Kagan presses Clement directly on the intent of Congress.

Clement: "Up until 1996, it essentially has it both ways: Every state has the traditional definition. Congress knows that's the definition that's embedded in every federal law. So that's fine. We can defer. OK. 1996 -- "

Kagan: "Well, is what happened in 1996 -- and I'm going to quote from the House report here -- is that "Congress decided to reflect an honor of collective moral judgment and to express moral disapproval of homosexuality." Is that what happened in 1996?"

Clement: "Does the House report say that? Of course, the House Report says that. And if that's enough to invalidate the statute, then you should invalidate the statute. But that has never been your approach, especially under rational basis or even rational basis-plus, if that is what you are suggesting."

----

11. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, also representing the administration, lays out his case against DOMA, and the chief justice poses a hypothetical. Section 3 is a reference to part of the law that says that marriage shall be considered a legal union between one man and one woman:

Verrilli: "The equal protection analysis in this case should focus on two fundamental points: First, what does Section 3 do; and second, to whom does Section 3 do it? What Section 3 does is exclude from an array of federal benefits lawfully married couples. That means that the spouse of a soldier killed in the line of duty cannot receive the dignity and solace of an official notification of next of kin."

Roberts: "Suppose your -- you agree that Congress could go the other way, right? Congress could pass a new law today that says, We will give federal benefits. When we say 'marriage' in federal law, we mean committed same-sex couples as well, and that could apply across the board. Or do you think that they couldn't do that?"

Verrilli: "We think that wouldn't raise an equal protection problem like this statute does, Mr. Chief Justice."

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2a10b70c/l/0Lusnews0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A30C270C17488910A0E110Ekey0Emoments0Efrom0Ethe0Eargument0Eover0Ethe0Edefense0Eof0Emarriage0Eact0Dlite/story01.htm

gabrielle giffords juliette lewis chelsea handler mitch daniels shirataki noodles prince fielder state of the union address 2012

Personal Health: What Causes Hearing Loss

Noise, not age is the leading cause of hearing loss. Unless you take steps now to protect to your ears, sooner or later many of you ? and your children ? will have difficulty understanding even ordinary speech.

Tens of millions of Americans, including 12 percent to 15 percent of school-age children, already have permanent hearing loss caused by the everyday noise that we take for granted as a fact of life.

?The sad truth is that many of us are responsible for our own hearing loss,? writes Katherine Bouton in her new book, ?Shouting Won?t Help: Why I ? and 50 Million Other Americans ? Can?t Hear You.? The cause, she explains, is ?the noise we blithely subject ourselves to day after day.?

While there are myriad regulations to protect people who work in noisy environments, there are relatively few governing repeated exposure to noise outside the workplace: portable music devices, rock concerts, hair dryers, sirens, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, vacuum cleaners, car alarms and countless other sources.

We live in a noisy world, and every year it seems to get noisier. Ms. Bouton notes that the noise level inside Allen Fieldhouse at the University of Kansas often exceeds that of a chain saw.

After poor service, noise is the second leading complaint about restaurants. Proprietors believe that people spend more on food and drink in bustling eateries, and many have created new venues or retrofitted old ones to maximize sound levels.

When I?m told about a new restaurant, my first question is, ?Is it noisy?? My friends and I will never return to one in which the racket makes it impossible to converse with tablemates. Perhaps the young diners the restaurateurs covet ?talk? by texting.

The ears are fragile instruments. When sound waves enter the ear, they cause the eardrum to vibrate. The vibrations are transmitted to the cochlea, in the inner ear, where fluid carries them to neatly organized rows of hair cells. These in turn stimulate auditory nerve fibers, each attuned to a different frequency. These impulses travel via the auditory nerve to the brain, where they are interpreted as, say, words, music or an approaching vehicle.

Damage to this delicate apparatus results from both volume and length of exposure to sound. Very loud noises, or chronic exposure to sound even when it is not particularly loud, can wreak havoc on hair cells, causing them to become disarranged and to degenerate.

We are born with a fixed number of hair cells; once they are dead, they cannot be replaced, and auditory sensitivity is permanently lost. Usually, sensitivity to high-frequency sounds is first to go, followed by an inability to hear the frequencies of speech.

Furthermore, the effects of noise exposure are cumulative, as Robert V. Harrison, an auditory specialist at the University of Toronto, noted recently in The International Journal of Pediatrics. Although we start out with a redundancy of hair cells, with repeated noisy insults, enough are destroyed to impair hearing. Thus, damage to hair cells incurred early in life, as has happened to many rock musicians and rock concert aficionados, can show up in midlife as difficulty understanding speech.

Sound volume is measured in decibels (dB), and the level at which noise can cause permanent hearing loss begins at about 85 dB, typical of a hair dryer, food processor or kitchen blender.

Dr. Michael D. Seidman, the director of otolaryngology at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital in Michigan, told me to use ear plugs when I dry my hair or mow my lawn with a gas-powered mower, and to cover my ears when an emergency vehicle passes with siren blasting. Ear protection is a must for people who shoot guns as well as those who ride motorcycles or use snow blowers, leaf blowers, hand or pneumatic drills or chain saws.

But even noisier than many of these is the maximum output of some portable music players, which can exceed occupational safety levels and produce sound levels in the ear on a par with that of a jet taking off. If you listen to music with earbuds or headphones at levels that block out normal discourse, you are in effect dealing lethal blows to the hair cells in your ears, Dr. Seidman said.

A national study in 2006 by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association found that among users of portable music devices, 35 percent of adults and up to 59 percent of teenagers reported listening at loud volumes.

Dr. Harrison urges purchasers of such ?personal entertainment devices? to read and heed the warnings and practical advice on package inserts. Too often people turn up the volume to overcome surrounding noise. A better plan is to set a maximum volume while in a quiet environment and never go above that.

In general, if other people can hear what you?re listening to, the volume is turned up too high. Many times I?ve had to change my seat on the subway or bus because the rider next to me was using a music player as if it were a boombox.

Some portable listening devices come with the ability to set a maximum volume, which may be worth the added cost to parents concerned about protecting their children?s ears.

At a given volume level, earbuds deliver higher noise levels than over-the-ear headphones. If earbuds are used, Dr. Harrison suggests selecting ones that fit loosely and never inserting them tightly into the ear canal. Alternatively, when you are alone and not at risk of missing important environmental cues, like an approaching vehicle, consider using noise-canceling over-the-ear headphones that block out background noise and enable you to listen at a lower volume.

Even toys meant for young children can generate ear-damaging levels of noise. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association lists as potential hazards cap guns, talking dolls, vehicles with horns and sirens, walkie-talkies, rubber squeaky toys, musical instruments and toys with cranks. According to the association, some toy sirens and squeaky rubber toys can emit sounds of 90 dB, as loud as a lawn mower.

It suggests that parents with normal hearing test new toys before giving them to a child. ?If the toy sounds loud, don?t buy it,? is the recommendation. For noisy toys already bought, consider removing the batteries or taping over the speaker.

Additional protective information can be found online. Check out It?s a Noisy Planet; Keep It Hear; Listen to Your Buds; Hear-It Youth; and Dangerous Decibels.

Source: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/what-causes-hearing-loss/?partner=rss&emc=rss

tesla model s tesla model s act Black Ops 2 Secede ben roethlisberger Diwali

Ashley Judd is not running for Senate (Washington Post)

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

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295060791?client_source=feed&format=rss

news channel 9 insanity workout mass effect 3 launch trailer yelp huntsville al channel 2 news adrienne bailon

You're Doing It Wrong, BlackBerry

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins recently confirmed with CNET that the company would launch a midtier device yet this year and an "exciting" new flagship device could launch around the holidays. "It [the new flagship] takes BlackBerry 10 to another level in terms of the user experience," he said. Great! There's a new BB10 device launching by the end of the year. How's the Z10 doing, Mr. Heins?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/_mJbjznV5XM/

Nathan Adrian London 2012 Synchronized Swimming London 2012 hurdles Taylor Kinney Beach Volleyball Olympics 2012 Jessica Ennis Aliya Mustafina

F.A.A. may soon allow iPads to be used during takeoff and landing

You may soon be able to use your iPad on flights during takeoff and landing, as the Federal Aviation Administration is considering loosening restrictions on devices that can be powered on during those times. The list of permitted devices would not include cellphones, and would be restricted to so-called ?reading devices? such as Kindles and iPads, and all devices would be required to be put in airplane mode. A working group is currently studying the issue and hopes to release its results by the end of July, according to Nick Bilton at the New York Times:

Last year, the agency announced that an industry working group would study the issue. The group, which first met in January, comprises people from various industries, including Amazon, the Consumer Electronics Association, Boeing, the Association of Flight Attendants, the Federal Communications Commission and aircraft makers. The group plans to introduce its findings by July 31.

What exactly is meant by ?reading device? isn?t quite clear apart from ereaders. Is an iPad a reading device? You can certainly read on it yes, but does it qualify? Given that airplane crew members are now able to use iPads during takeoff and landing to do their jobs, it seems reasonable that iPads would be on this list. But this raises other questions: what will I be allowed to do with my device? Can I play a game, listen to music, or watch a video? Hopefully this will become clear when the group releases its report in July.

Source: The New York Times

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/1bGkRrAInP4/story01.htm

april 20 secret service prostitution 4 20 george zimmerman sheree whitfield weather dallas pat summitt

AP interview: Couple reflects on gay marriage

This photo taken Feb. 8, 2013, shows Sandy Stier, left, and Kris Perry, the couple at the center of the Supreme Court's consideration of gay marriage, at their home in Berkeley, Calif. Whatever the outcome of their momentous case, Perry and Stier, who have been together 13 years, will be empty-nesters as the last of their children will heads off to college. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

This photo taken Feb. 8, 2013, shows Sandy Stier, left, and Kris Perry, the couple at the center of the Supreme Court's consideration of gay marriage, at their home in Berkeley, Calif. Whatever the outcome of their momentous case, Perry and Stier, who have been together 13 years, will be empty-nesters as the last of their children will heads off to college. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

In this photo taken Saturday, March 23, 2013, Jessica Skrebes of Washington reads while waiting in line with others outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington in anticipation of Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing on California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage, and Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing on the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) ? Big change is coming to the lives of the lesbian couple at the center of the fight for same-sex marriage in California no matter how the Supreme Court decides their case.

After 13 years of raising four boys together, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier are about to be empty nesters. Their youngest two children, 18-year-old twins, will graduate from high school in June and head off to college a couple of months later.

"We'll see all the movies, get theater season tickets because you can actually go," Stier said in the living room of their bungalow in Berkeley. Life will not revolve quite so much around food, and the challenge of putting enough of it on the table to feed teenagers.

They might also get married, if the high court case goes their way.

Perry, 48, and Stier, 50, set aside their lunch hour on a recent busy Friday to talk to The Associated Press about their Supreme Court case, the evolution of their activism for gay rights and family life.

On Tuesday, they plan to be in the courtroom when their lawyer, Theodore Olson, tries to persuade the justices to strike down California's voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages and to declare that gay couples can marry nationwide. Supporters of California's Proposition 8, represented by lawyer Charles Cooper, argue that the court should not override the democratic process and impose a judicial solution that would redefine marriage in the 40 states that do not allow same-sex couples to wed.

A second case, set for Wednesday, involves the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that prevents same-sex couples who are legally married from receiving a range of federal tax, pension and other benefits that otherwise are available to married people.

The Supreme Court hearing is the moment Perry and Stier, along with Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank, have been waiting for since they agreed four years ago to be the named plaintiffs and public faces of a well-funded, high-profile effort to challenge Proposition 8 in the courts.

"For the past four years, we've lived our lives in this hurry-up-and-wait, pins-and-needles way," Perry said, recalling the crush of court deadlines and the seemingly endless wait for rulings from a federal district judge, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, also based there, and the California Supreme Court.

Stier said Olson told them the case could take several years to resolve. "I thought, years?" she said.

But the couple has been riding a marriage rollercoaster since 2003, when Perry first asked Stier to marry her. They were planning a symbolic, but not legally recognized, wedding when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2004. So they were married, but only briefly. Six months later, the state Supreme Court invalidated the same-sex unions.

They went ahead with their plans anyway, but "it was one of the sadder points of our wedding," Perry said.

Less than four years later, however, the same state court overturned California's prohibition on same-sex unions. Then, on the same day Perry and Stier rejoiced in President Barack Obama's election, voters approved Proposition 8, undoing the court ruling and defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Their lawsuit was filed six months later, after they went to the Alameda County courthouse for a marriage license and were predictably refused.

"It's such a weird road we've been on," Perry said.

All the more so because neither woman defined herself as a gay rights activist before the marriage fight.

Perry, a native Californian from Bakersfield, and Stier, who grew up in rural Iowa, moved in together in 2000, with Stier's two children from a heterosexual marriage and Perry's from a previous relationship. Utterly conventional school meetings, soccer games and band practice ? not the court case ? have defined their lives together.

As if to highlight this point, their son, Elliott, briefly interrupted the interview to ask for a pair of headphones. Perry said the boys find her useful for two basic reasons these days. "Do I have any headphones and do I have any money?" she said with a smile.

Perry has spent her professional life advocating on behalf of early childhood education. Stier works for the county government's public health department.

"When you've been out as long as I have been, 30 years, in order to feel OK every day and be optimistic and productive, you can't dwell as much on what's not working as maybe people think you do," Perry said.

Even with Proposition 8's passage, Perry and Stier said they were more focused on Obama's election.

"I was all about health care reform and Kris is all about education reform and that was everything. Gay rights, that would be great, but it's a way off," Stier said.

They don't take the issue so lightly anymore. Of course, they could not imagine a U.S. president would endorse gay marriage along with voters in three states just last November.

When Obama talked about equal rights for gay Americans in his inaugural speech in January, Perry said she felt as if "we've arrived at the adults' table. We're no longer at the kids' table."

They will watch the argument in their case and then return home to wait for the decision, worried that it could come the same day as the boys' high school graduations in mid-June.

They know the court could uphold Proposition 8, which would almost certainly lead to an effort to repeal it by California voters. Recent polls show support for repeal.

Any other outcome will allow them to get married. But Perry said they are hoping the court strikes "a tone of more inclusion" and issues the broadest possible ruling.

They will get married quickly, in a small, private ceremony. "We did the big celebration a long time ago," Perry said. "I hope this will be something a lot bigger than the two of us."

___

Follow Mark Sherman at http://twitter.com/shermancourt

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-03-25-US-Supreme-Court-Gay-Marriage/id-489ea547146f4601b24525ef12765eea

Sports Authority Hollister old navy walmart black friday walmart black friday Target Black Friday PacSun