mimblr.com

Moving skyscrapers to be built in Moscow, Dubai

Tybalt — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:00:29 +0000

The cities of Moscow and Dubai will soon boast some new state-of-the-art attractions – the world’s first moving buildings.
Architect Dr David Fisher announced the launch of the Dynamic Tower concept in New York this week.
The Dubai building, which is set to be complete in 2010, will comprise 80 floors and be 420 metres tall, while the Dynamic Tower in Moscow is currently in the advanced design phase.
Dr Fisher revealed that Dynamic Architecture, the company behind the idea for the unique structures, plans to build its third moving skyscraper in New York.
He added: ‘Additional Dynamic Towers will be built around the world, following an expression of interest from developers, governments and public officials to construct a Dynamic Tower in Canada, Germany, Italy, Korea and Switzerland.’
Each floor of the Dynamic Tower skyscrapers will rotate independently, meaning that the building can constantly change shape and appearance.
The structures will also be environmentally friendly, with a wind turbine between each floor reportedly making the towers the first buildings to be entirely self-powered.
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news.opodo.co.uk

Tags: architect, david, fisher

Wolves taking advantage of summer practice

Glenna — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:45:10 +0000

SPRING VALLEY — Yes, it’s June, but head out to the Spring Valley High School gym and it looks as though the boys basketball season is in full swing.
The Timberwolves are taking advantage of the WVSSAC three-week coaching period by holding practices and playing scrimmages. Hopefully, the summer work will pay off when the season does roll around.
Spring Valley has a team motto that says someone might have more talent, speed and athleticism, but nobody will outwork the Timberwolves.
"All this goes a long way toward getting ready for next season and for us these three weeks are very important," Spring Valley coach Steve Morrison said. "If we don’t put in the work during this time then we won’t be very competitive next season."
The WVSSAC summer workout window opened June 8 and closes Saturday.
Spring Valley’s success is built around Jeremy Adkins, a Class AAA all-state selection. Adkins averaged about 18 points and led the Timberwolves to a 13-11 record in their third consecutive winning season. Spring Valley is known for its defense, but to make it farther than the sectional finals, the Timberwolves will need to supply Adkins with help on the offensive side.
"It’s hard to say how important Jeremy is to our program because he does a little bit of everything," Morrison said. "He is just a great role model that exemplifies the type of player we are looking for on and off the court."
Adkins scored more than 20 in nine games last season and carried a 25-point average in the final five games. His high game was 32 against Riverside.
Next season Adkins, a senior, will be one of the top players in the state. Ethan Dishman will be the only other senior on the team.
Junior Jordan Wells is already closing in on the starting point guard spot, while junior Zak Robateau also fits nicely into a starting role at the two-guard. Both players benefited from valuable playing minutes last season.

herald-dispatch.com

Tags: county, morrison, record

An Oral History of RT, Part One: The Beginning

Buster — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:45:10 +0000

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Rotten Tomatoes, we asked some of the founding members of RT to share their memories. What follows is an oral history of Rotten Tomatoes’ early years, from the people who were there at the beginning. In this installment, we cover the genesis of the site — how the founding Tomatoes turned their love of movies into a destination for cinema fanatics the world over.
In 1998, Senh Duong (right) was working as the creative director of Design Reactor, a Bay Area web design firm founded by a group of University of California-Berkeley graduates. A big movie buff, Senh was looking for reviews of Jackie Chan movies one night when a light bulb went off in his head.
Senh Duong: My first visit to the theater was in junior high. And it was a double bill — Raw Deal starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Cobra with Sylvester Stallone). My friends and I thought Cobra was the better of the two. So my inclinations tended toward action movies. It’s my favorite genre. And my favorite actors then were action stars: Arnold, Stallone, and Bruce Willis.
I discovered Jet Li and Jackie Chan during high school, and I’ve always felt it was a shame that neither were known in the US then. When I got to college and was living in the dorms, I would always put on a Jackie or Jet movie, and they would always draw a crowd. When Rumble in the Bronx came out in the US, I was really curious to see how critics would react to it. I would search the web for reviews of each of his Asian imports.
I had the idea while searching for reviews of Jackie Chan imports — Rumble in the Bronx, Supercop, Twin Dragons, and First Strike.
In high school, I started looking at the box office charts every week to see what movies were popular. I also started watching Siskel & Ebert, which obviously had a huge influence on me. When I was started picking a domain name for Rotten Tomatoes, I was gonna call it “Thumbs Up” as a tribute to them, but luckily (for copyright reasons), all variations of the show’s trademarked rating system were taken. I ended up with Rotten Tomatoes because I didn’t think anyone had used it as domain name. And I was right!

rottentomatoes.com

Tags: 1, history, part, world

Carlin's times in Dayton were good, mostly

Derren — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:45:10 +0000

There’s always a Dayton connection. Always.
In the case of George Carlin, who died Sunday, June 22, in California, the connection was strong and long-term, cemented through his marriage to Dayton native Brenda Hosbrook, who died of complications from liver cancer in May 1997, two months shy of the couple’s 34th wedding anniversary. She was 57.
Carlin fell for Hosbrook when he was in town for a two-week stand at the old Dayton Racquet Club on South Dixie Drive, appearing with his partner Jack Burns.
“It fell together very quickly,” Carlin told the Dayton Daily News in a 1997 interview. “We spent a lot of time together during those two weeks.”
The couple got married in 1963 at the Hosbrook family home on River Ridge Road; their only child, a daughter, Kelly, was born at Good Samaritan Hospital.
Carlin has done his share of stand-up shows in Dayton, too, appearing at nearly every venue possible: the old Suttmiller’s on North Main; Memorial Hall, Fraze Pavilion and, most recently, at the Schuster Center in 2005, a show the Dayton Daily News’ reviewer found to be “one of the most unpleasant hours I’ve spent in a theater seat in some time.”
Carlin’s time in Dayton wasn’t always great for him, either. In the early 1980s, he was admitted to St. Elizabeth Hospital after wrecking his car and hitting his head on the windshield.
“I was drinking and driving,” he admitted later. “I’ve never been one to refuse a party.”

daytondailynews.com

Tags: burns, jack

ALVIRNE HIGH GRADS 'A TRULY LEGENDARY CLASS'

Digby — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:45:14 +0000

MANCHESTER — How do you follow in the footsteps of the valedictorian of Alvirne High’s Class of 2008, possibly the most accomplished group of seniors in the 58-year history of the school?
You don’t, according to Cory Hogan, 11, younger brother of this year’s brainiest Bronco, Chelsea Hogan.
“Probably not, it’s too hard,” responded Cory, when asked if he intends to graduate first in his class, like Chelsea, seven years from now.
“She studies a lot, all the time, every night,” Cory added. “It’s annoying!”
Putting his considerable state championship Academic Decathlon public speaking skills to work, senior class President Mike Maglio managed to weave in a list of Alvirne’s most remarkable academic and athletic feats of the past year into his speech from the stage of the Verizon Arena June 14. Among the many notable accomplishments that Maglio listed: the Aca-Deca squad’s 10th straight state title; Alvirne becoming the first high school in New England to have its yearbook recognized with a national award;
17 seniors graduating with “Academic Excellence” (3.7 grade point average or higher); and becoming the first Alvirne senior class to host a homecoming dance at the school.
He also praised the school’s athletes, including “the best basketball team of the last four years,” and an extraordinary number of individuals who achieved “all-state” or “honorable mention” status in various sports.
“Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the credentials of a truly legendary class,” Maglio concluded.
In her salutatory address, Nancy Merlino referred to a serious health scare she experienced during her senior year. “It really made me think about what’s important in life,” said Merlino, who urged fellow graduates to value the pursuit of happiness above that of wealth.
“The average person spends 75,000 hours, in his or her lifetime, working,” said Merlino. “Why not find a job you enjoy?”

nhbroadcaster.com

Tags: allison, brennan

Santa Cruz fire 70 percent contained

Brack — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:45:03 +0000

(05-26) 19:08 PDT Corralitos — Some residents who had been forced to evacuate from their homes in the Santa Cruz Mountains last week were allowed to move back in Monday as moist weather and calmed winds helped firefighters contain 80 percent of a wildfire that has scorched 4,270 acres.
Fire officials hope to have all the evacuees back in their homes by Thursday, said Henry Dekruyff, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. They expect to fully contain the blaze by today and have it under control by Friday.
The fire, which started Thursday, has destroyed 36 residences and 18 outbuildings such as sheds and barns. A hundred homes remained threatened as of Monday night.
People had voluntarily evacuated 1,400 homes and authorities mandated the evacuation of 450 more, said Chris Morgan, a Cal Fire prevention specialist.
On Monday afternoon, fire officials allowed an unidentified number of people to return to their homes, which were mostly in Santa Cruz County. Those allowed to return include people with homes along Eureka Canyon Road and Rider Road to Ormsby Road; Hazel Dell Road; Buzzard Lagoon Road; Browns Valley Road; and Croy Road in Santa Clara County. People had been allowed back on Saturday on guided tours with fire officials but weren’t allowed to stay.
Holly Waddle, who lives on Mount Madonna Road, said the three-bedroom home she built 33 years ago was spared even though it sits roughly 100 feet from where the blaze started. Living in a fire-prone area where winds can get as high as 125 mph, Waddle keeps a plastic container with old photos and papers handy in case she needs to flee. She grabbed those as well as her father’s ashes and sped down her road after her husband spotted the blaze early Thursday morning. She said she stopped at neighbors’ houses and leaned on her horn, screaming for them to leave. One of those houses ended up burning to the ground. She is grateful she can eventually return to hers.

sfgate.com

Tags: fire, hill, morgan

Power-reduction details determine a chip's overall power …

Alissa — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:45:04 +0000

Although many power-reduction methods have been standardized for WLANs and Bluetooth, the way a wireless chip implements these techniques has a profound effect on power consumption in real-world applications.
For example, shortening the time needed to go into standby mode achieves better results than reducing the amount of power consumed in standby mode. Increasing data rates can also achieve significant power reductions.
Power relationships such as these are explored in this article—the second in a two-part series on power-reduction methods for wireless devices. The first article in the series provided an overview of device operating modes and the power-saving protocols available in today’s wireless standards.
To read Part 1:
System behavior and host interaction
Beyond protocol-based power savings, several additional methods can save power equally well for Bluetooth or WLAN systems:
Quick wakeup and return to sleep
System and host interaction
These methods look at the entire host system and involve interactions between a wireless chip and its host.
As Table 1 shows, high data rates can save power. This idea is somewhat counterintuitive because higher data rates usually increase a device’s instantaneous power consumption while actively transmitting and receiving.
Table 1: Effect of Data Rate on Power Consumption.
The truth is that radios have a large amount of power-consumption overhead that is independent of the data rate. The synthesizer, low-noise amplifier (LNA), mixers, filters, and other components have to be on for transmitting and receiving independent of the data rate. That power consumption is a fixed overhead.
The increase in the power of the ADC and digital processing to support higher data rates is actually fairly modest. For most wireless systems, scaling the data rate up and down does not significantly change the average power consumption while in active transmit-and-receive mode.
However, the protocols allow the radio to enter an order-of-magnitude, lower-power sleep mode as soon as data has been transferred. So when moving a file or sending data for VoIP or video, the system can spend more of its time in sleep if the data rate is high.

embedded.com

Tags: nanojoules

Little League: Aptos, Watsonville American win in Majors TOC …

Laz — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:45:18 +0000

Little League: Aptos, Watsonville American win in Majors TOC; Minors games rescheduled
REGISTER-PAJARONIAN STAFF REPORT
Both the Majors and Minors Tournament of Champions were affected by the Trabing Fire Friday, but while the Majors games were simply delayed to allow teams to beat the re-routed traffic on Highway 1, the Minors bracket fell into disarray.
The Majors games are all being played at Harvey West Park in Santa Cruz, where the Watsonville American Yankees beat the Scotts Valley Braves 10-9 in the first of two elimination games. Aptos eliminated San Juan/Aromas 6-5 in the nightcap.
Watsonville American advances to face Live Oak today at 10 a.m.

none

Hertz offers free holidays

Aureole — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 08:45:08 +0000

, 2008. Hertz will award a total of five prizes, allowing the lucky winners to choose from a handful of tropical and exotic resorts, including Voyages Bedarra Island, North Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef, as well as the Voyages Wrotham Park Lodge. This last option gives visitors a unique taste of the legendary Australian outback.
Hertz is well known across Australia as the rental firm with the largest number of Toyota hybrid vehicles. These cars are ideal for all those who want to save money on gasoline and also limit the rental industry’s negative effect on the environment. What is especially impressive about the Toyota Prius is that it is possible to travel for up to 1,000km with a single tank of fuel, thanks to this sedan’s unparalleled fuel efficiency. In order to match the “green” nature of the Prius, all complimentary holidays currently offered by Hertz are also considered to be environmentally friendly, due to the business strategies of the given resorts.
In order to be eligible to enter the draw, clients must rent a Toyota Prius for at least one day, prior to the end of July. The five winners will selected at random, shortly after this date.
Our main rental suppliers operating worldwide are : Alamo | Budget | Thrifty | Easycar | Opodo | Ebookers | Expedia | Economy | Holiday Autos | SixT
Copyright 2007 ASAP Ventures Ltd. All rights reserved. Registered in England and Wales. Company number 4278063.
Registered office address: 1 The Square, Lightwater, Surrey, GU18 5SS.

news.carrentals.co.uk

Tags: park, wrotham

Dewberry moving into luxury hotel market

Ernesta — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:45:08 +0000

Dewberry moving into luxury hotel market
Former Tech quarterback branching out from mixed-use, office projects
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
John Dewberry is adding another job title to his resumé: hotel magnate.
The developer and former Georgia Tech quarterback is creating Dewberry Hotel Co., a luxury brand he hopes will resemble the high-end standards set by famed British hotelier Rocco Forte.
“I love his hotels,” he said of Forte, whose holdings include the Hotel de Russie near the Spanish Steps in Rome and the Hotel Savoy in Florence. “They are classic, elegant, clean, not over-designed.”
And the first hotel he’ll add to this new strategy will be the Wyndham Hotel he owns on 10th Street between Peachtree and Juniper streets. While he does not think it will carry the Dewberry Hotels name — he says the building physically doesn’t fit his vision for the chain — he will re-flag it at the end of August with a yet-to-be-determined name.
Dewberry, who is known for mixed-use developments and office projects like Peachtree Pointe in Midtown, hopes to open 10 Dewberry hotels over the next 10 years, he said. He is scouting locations in Atlanta, Washington, New York, San Francisco and Chicago, as well as some secondary markets like Charleston, S.C.
Interest in the hotel industry has grown over the years — especially in Atlanta — as demand has outstripped supply in some segments, like the luxury market and extended stay, experts said. While the weak economy has slowed the pace of hotel growth this year as it has other industries, lodging experts still see demand increasing over the next decade.
In Atlanta such well-known entrepreneurs as former Ritz-Carlton head Horst Schulze and Novare Chief Executive Officer Jim Borders have gotten into the game. Schulze has developed the Solis and Capella brands through his company West Paces Group while Novare launched Twelve Hotels in 2006.

ajc.com

Tags: atlanta, home, restaurant