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Web pioneers warn on regulation

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Eric Schmidt have warned governments worldwide not to over-regulate the internet.

Mr Zuckerberg said governments cannot cherry pick which aspects of the web to control and which not to.

The two are leading a group of internet pioneers to the G8 summit in France.

The delegation will deliver recommendations thrashed out at the first e-G8 gathering in Paris this week.

Although e-G8 had the blessing of President Sarkozy, world leaders are under no obligation to listen to its findings.

The comments by Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Schmidt reflect growing concerns in the industry about government censorship.

"People tell me on the one hand 'It's great you played such a big role in the Arab spring [uprisings], but it's also kind of scary because you enable all this sharing and collect information on people'," said Facebook's founder.

"But it's hard to have one without the other. You can't isolate some things you like about the internet and control other things that you don't."

Mr Schmidt echoed his sentiments: "Technology will move faster than governments, so don't legislate before you understand the consequences".

One of the most hotly-debated subjects at the e-G8 was protection of intellectual property on the internet.

In sometimes heated discussions, senior figures from the music, TV and film industries faced criticism from proponents of internet freedom.

Critics claimed that the event was designed to promote the views of rights holders, seeking to lobby governments for tougher copyright laws.

Professor Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law School warned delegates: "We should say to modern democratic governments, you need to be aware of incumbents bearing policy fix-its.

"Their job is profit for them. Your job is the public good."

Echoing the views of many participants, Professor Lessig suggested that governments should exercise light touch regulation or risk damaging the still-young internet.

Others made the case that if politicians remained hands-off in the belief that it would help innovation, then existing industries such as music and film would suffer.

James Gianopulos of Fox Filmed Entertainment said governments needed latitude to legislate, as in the case of the French three-strikes law designed to target illegal file sharing.

"The political process is imperfect," Mr Gianopulos told the BBC.

"Private entities, individuals and industries are more likely to come to an agreement if they know that the next step is the litigation or legislation process."

Originally Published On: www.bbc.co.uk – Original Article Here

When she’s not expecting

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

Editor’s note: TV and film comedy writer Marc Sedaka is also the author of "What He Can Expect When She’s Not Expecting: How to Support Your Wife, Save Your Marriage, and Conquer Infertility!" The Sedakas have twin daughters and a son.

(CNN) — "Hey, did I tell you my old girlfriend’s pregnant?"

It doesn’t take a genius to know that you probably shouldn’t share that information with your wife. But it takes an absolute moron to share it with a wife who’s spent the past six years of her life trying to get pregnant.

Allow me to introduce myself. I’m a moron. Or at least, I used to be.

For almost seven years, I stumbled, flopped, backpedaled and apologized while my wife went from one failed infertility procedure to another.

It’s not that I didn’t care. It’s just that I didn’t know … what to do, how to act, who to be. And, amazingly, there wasn’t that much information out there to help me.

So now that I’m on the other side of all this (and the father of three beautiful children), let me share with you the five most important things to remember when your wife is going through infertility.

1) Communicate.

Yes, you’ve heard it all before. Communication is a vital component of any marriage. But never so much as when you’re in the throes of infertility.

From the first twinge of concern to the last IVF treatment, you have to make sure your voice is heard, and make sure hers is heard as well.

First off, confirm that you both want the same things before you so much as step into a fertility doctor’s waiting room.

You might think it best to keep your opinions to yourself right now, but believe me, it’s a lot better to air those concerns before you invest all this time, money and energy than after.

No wife wants to hear that you never really wanted kids when she just had a painful steel probe stuck up her … well, you get the point.

And don’t assume that your wife is going to initiate all these discussions, either. In fact, this might be the only time in your marriage when she’s even more closed off than you are.

This is because many women consider infertility to be a shameful topic. And, because of it, there’s a good chance your wife is feeling scared, embarrassed and inadequate.

So it’s up to you to assume that these feelings exist and keep those lines of communication open. You can’t know how to help her unless you know what she needs.

2) Empathize.

Don’t just sympathize, empathize. The last thing your wife wants right now is pity.

In my own case, I used to get my wife flowers after every failed IVF (we had nine), and after maybe the fifth or sixth, she finally confessed that the flowers weren’t making her feel better.

In fact, they were just a sad reminder of how she had failed. Pity flowers, as it were.

Now, maybe your wife loves flowers. Maybe she’ll find the gesture endearing.

But if you have to put your money into something, better to put it into something that celebrates your successful marriage (let’s say a romantic dinner at your wife’s favorite restaurant) rather than mourn the temporary failure to conceive children.

3) Set unbreakable goals. Be willing to break them.

Conviction is great. A single-minded purpose is great. But you have to be willing to shift gears as the situation warrants, and you have to make sure your wife is willing to do so, as well.

I cannot stress enough that infertility is a process. And yesterday’s "never in a million years" may easily become tomorrow’s "I want it more than anything."

So, for example, when you feel like shouting "I’ll never adopt!" consider altering that to a more open-minded "I’m not ready to adopt."

Your point will still be heard, your priorities will still be addressed, but you’ll save yourselves heaps of stress and aggravation should your wife be of a different mindset right now.

4) Put your machismo aside.

We’re men. We never admit wrongdoing. We never ask for directions. And we never surrender to anything that may emasculate us, embarrass us or otherwise jeopardize our prized masculinity. All well and good.

But not in the world of infertility. Don’t want to take the semen analysis test? Too bad. Feel uncomfortable discussing your personal life with the nosy doctor? Get over it. Infertility is demoralizing, invasive and messy. That’s just the way it is. Sorry.

The bottom line is — and you know it’s true — you’re just going to wind up doing all the stuff anyway, so are you really helping anybody by putting up a stink? Probably not.

Plus, as hard as this might be to believe, by being a willing participant, you’re actually being a bigger man.

5) Share the burden

Remember when you walked down the aisle and said all those words about better or worse and sickness and health? Well, nowhere are those words more fitting than when you’re going through infertility.

There is no "she is infertile." There is no "her last test failed." It is "we," and it is "us." Probably more than any other time in your marriage, your wife needs her partner now. An equal, split-down-the-middle, 50/50 partner.

One who is as willing to share the credit as he is to share the blame. Anything less is unacceptable. Anything less, and you’re not even worthy of her.

Remember these points, and never forget them. Put them on stone tablets if you have to. They may very well save your marriage.

And this is coming from a guy who knows.

Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here

Retail Sales

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Retailers booked another strong month of sales in April, thanks to a rush of Easter shopping.

Because Easter was later this year — April 24 compared to April 4 last year — many consumers did most of their holiday shopping last month, as opposed to March.

While this provided a boost to sales, retailers have continued to post monthly gains since last August, according to Thomson Reuters’ chain store sales index, which tracks 25 major retailers.

The fact that sales continued to pick up despite soaring gasoline prices last month indicates that a consumer rebound has really taken hold, said Jharonne Martis, director of consumer research at Thomson Reuters.

Same-store sales jumped an average 8.9% in April, according to the Thomson Reuters index. That’s up from a mere 0.7% rise a year ago, and follows a 1.7% rise in March. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected retail sales to increase 8.2% in April. About 61% of retailers beat estimates.

"A 3% rise indicates a healthy consumer, so to see an 8.9% increase is really outstanding," said Martis. "There has been a lot of concern about gasoline prices, but consumer income has been on the rise, and that has a stronger correlation with consumer spending — so people are still spending."

Martis said some retailers in the Midwest reported that bad weather hurt sales during the month, but strong sales in the South more than offset any weakness — especially as it warmed up in other parts of the country.

"We had such a long winter, now that warm weather is finally here, consumers want to have a new fresh wardrobe," she said. "And we’re seeing that consumers are not only willing to buy merchandise, they’re willing to pay full price."

Where people shopped: The apparel sector — which doesn’t include discount chains — posted an average 9.6% jump in sales. Limited (LTD, Fortune 500) saw sales soar 20%, and even Gap (GPS, Fortune 500), which has struggled over the past year, logged an 8% sales gain.

Teen retailers benefited the most from the Easter shopping rush, with the Buckle (BKE) reporting a 14.5% increase in sales and Zumiez (ZUMZ) logging a 17.5% rise. Overall, sales in the sector increased an average of 12.6%.

But that doesn’t mean that shoppers stopped bargain hunting. Discounters reported an average 12.1% increase in sales. Target (TGT, Fortune 500) saw sales surge nearly 14% in April, while BJ’s Wholesale (BJ, Fortune 500) posted a 12% jump. Sales at Costco (COST, Fortune 500) rose 11%, and increased 6% excluding gas. Sales in the overall sector ticked up 12.1% in the month.

Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500), the world’s largest retailer, does not report same-store sales on a monthly basis. (Wal-Mart rules the Fortune 500)

Department store sales also came in strong. Macy’s (M, Fortune 500) logged a 10.8% increase in sales, while JCPenney (JCP, Fortune 500) saw sales increase 6.4%. Higher-end department store Nordstrom posted a 7.6% sales gain. Overall, department store sales jumped 9%. 

Originally Published On: money.cnn.com – Original Article Here

Obama leads country in honoring the fallen

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

Arlington, Virginia (CNN) — President Barack Obama led the nation’s Memorial Day observances Monday, laying a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknowns and declaring that Americans owe "a debt to our fallen heroes that we can never fully repay."

"The blessings we enjoy as Americans came at a dear cost," Obama told a crowd at the cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater. "To those of you who mourn the loss of a loved one today, my heart goes out to you. … This day is about you. And the fallen heroes that you loved."

Obama names new head of Joint Chiefs

Military servicemen and women killed while serving their country "gave of themselves until they had nothing more to give," he said. "It is their courage, their unselfishness, their devotion to duty that has sustained this country through all its trials and will sustain us through all the trials to come."

We need to hold "their memories close to our hearts and (heed) the example they set," he said.

Obama visited Arlington’s Section 60 — a burial site primarily for soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

U.S. and coalition casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan

Earlier in the day, the president and first lady Michelle Obama hosted a breakfast for Gold Star families at the White House.

Gold Star families are those who have lost relatives serving in the military.

The president was joined for the ceremony at Arlington by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen. Both men are retiring later this year.

"It is up to us to be worthy of (the) sacrifice" of the fallen, Gates said. "For the rest of my life, I will keep these brave patriots and their loved ones in my heart."

"God bless our fallen, the missing, and their families," Mullen said. "And God bless America."

Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here

Sheer magnetism

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

The stars of X-Men: First Class talk about playing mutants, James Bond and the practicalities of appearing in a blockbuster comic-book prequel.

In those films the role was portrayed by Sir Ian McKellen. His successor, though, opted not to base his portrayal too closely on what went before.

"When I got the job I thought about studying McKellen – getting my hands on everything I could of him as a young man on screen, studying his voice and physicality and what not.

"And then I sat down with Matthew and he decided that wasn't the way he wanted to go. So I ditched that idea totally and just used the comic book material that was available."

British actor James McAvoy had a similar quandary. In playing the young Charles Xavier, aka Professor X, how closely should he cleave to Sir Patrick Stewart's version?

"There was no point playing him the same way in a different suit," shrugs the 32-year-old star of Atonement and the first Chronicles of Narnia film.

"It was important that we started at a different place while still taking cues from his performance.

"So I looked at Sir Patrick's performance and saw how to make it different. Where he was wise I would be foolhardy; where he was chaste I'd be randy.

"By the end of three films – if we make three films – I'll end up doing something much more like Patrick Stewart."

As McAvoy's remarks suggest, First Class is unlikely to be the final big-screen outing for Marvel's band of occasionally fractious "mutants".

There is the potential, for example, for its heroes to feature in one or more of the other Marvel-based feature films currently in production.

The studio's over-arching concept is for the likes of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and the Incredible Hulk to come together as a single fighting force.

For the moment, however, the X-Men will continue to exist in their own distinct universe – one that, according to McAvoy, subtly mirrors the real world we live in.

"One of the things that runs through all the movies is they're about people who feel like outsiders," he says.

"They're people who don't like themselves, who are afraid of themselves, who want to be normal or who rejoice in the fact they're not normal."

"Aside from the powers the characters have, they are all really human," reflects US actor Kevin Bacon, whose role as criminal mastermind Sebastian Shaw sees him use his fellow mutant outcasts to pursue his own villainous ends.

"They feel things, they get jealous, they hate and fear and get drunk together.

"That was the challenge from an acting standpoint – to forget about the powers and constantly bring it back to the human side.

"I've also never played a billionaire playboy megalomaniac, so that was cool as well."

X-Men: First Class is out in the UK on 1 June.

Originally Published On: www.bbc.co.uk – Original Article Here

Quiz: Are you a workaholic?

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

Read each of the statements below and select which option best describes the veracity of each statement. Then click submit to view your score to see whether or not you’re a workaholic.

Credit: Bryan E. Robinson — from his book, “Chained to the Desk: A Guidebook for Workaholics, Their Partners and Children, and the Clinicians Who Treat Them.”

I prefer to do most things rather than ask for help.

I get impatient when I have to wait for someone else or when something takes too long.

I always seem to be in a hurry and racing against the clock.

I get irritated when I am interrupted while I am in the middle of something.

I stay busy and keep many irons in the fire.

I find myself doing two or three things at one time, such as eating lunch and writing a memo while talking on the phone.

I over commit myself by biting off more than I can chew.

I feel guilty when I am not working on something.

It’s important that I see the concrete results of what I do.

I am more interested in the final result of my work than in the process.

Things just never seem to move fast enough or get done fast enough for me.

I lose my temper when things don’t go my way or work out to suit me.

I ask the same question over again after I’ve already been given the answer once.

I spend a lot of time mentally planning and thinking about future events while tuning out the here and now.

I find myself continuing to work after my coworkers have called it quits.

I get angry when people don’t meet my standards of perfection.

I get upset when I am in situations where I cannot be in control.

I tend to put myself under pressure from self-imposed deadlines when I work.

It is hard for me to relax when I’m not working.

I spend more time working than socializing with friends or on hobbies or leisure activities.

I dive into projects to get a head start before all the phases have been finalized.

I get upset with myself for making even the smallest mistake.

I put more thought, time and energy into my work than I do my relationships with loved ones and friends.

I forget, ignore or minimize celebrations such as birthdays, reunions, anniversaries or holidays.

I make important decisions before I have all the facts and have a chance to think them through.

Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here

Crews work to rescue injured man from Tennessee cave

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

(CNN) — Emergency crews freed an injured caver Monday who fell during a difficult expedition through a remote Franklin County, Tennessee, cave, a county spokesman said.

The nature of the man’s injuries was unclear, according to county spokesman Chris Guess, who said the victim would be transferred to Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga for treatment.

The man fell Sunday afternoon on the seventh of eight vertical descents, or drops, inside the Sinking Cove Cave in southern Tennessee, not far from the Tennessee-Alabama boarder, according to Brian Krebs with the Southeastern Cave Conservancy. The group holds the lease on the cave.

The expedition being attempted by the man, who is an experienced caver according to Krebs, would rate about a 9.5 on a difficulty scale of 10, he said.

Before the rescue, Krebs said extracting the injured man from the cave would be a challenge. Not only did he have to be lifted through the seven drops, but the man had to pass through a small crawl space that is about eight inches high and 14 inches wide, Krebs said.

Rescue workers made that crawl space bigger so they could get him out, according to Guess.

The rescue was complicated by the lack of cell service and the remote location. Krebs said the site is "about as far back in the wilderness as you can go."

CNN’s Aaron Cooper contributed to this report.

Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here

Are spouses flaws all in your head?

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

(Oprah.com) — In his heretical book, "Mindful Loving," Henry Grayson, an eminent New York psychologist, relates a story that perfectly captures his mind-altering theory of love.

A despondent patient had come to Grayson’s office, complaining about being married to "the world’s biggest shrew." As patients frequently do, Jon seemed to want commiseration from his loyal shrink.

Grayson isn’t that kind of doctor. "What are you willing to do?" asked the therapist, turning the tables back on Jon.

"Anything," he replied. Grayson’s instructions were oddly simple: The next time Jon became anxious over his wife’s behavior, he was to focus on his own upsetting thoughts, replacing the inner wife-hating voice — "She’s ruining my life!" — with a tender memory of the woman he’d once loved.

At first Jon couldn’t recall such a woman; finally, a happy moment oozed up from the distant past. He promised Grayson he’d give it a try.

Jon was confused at his next appointment. He told Grayson his wife seemed more subdued somehow. "She must be coming down with a bug," Jon said.

"Try the experiment again," Grayson suggested.

At the following session, Jon was genuinely suspicious. He and his wife had spent their first tirade-free weekend at home in years.

Perhaps she’d begun to see a therapist, Jon said, still failing to connect the dots. But a week later, Jon realized that the internal shift in his attitude had created the external shift in his wife’s attitude.

Oprah.com: Improve your marriage without talking about it

The notion that relationships succeed or fail according to how we think about them may seem far-fetched. The science of relationships has tended to emphasize modifying outward behavior — which is why, according to Grayson, most couples therapy doesn’t work.

"It’s like trying to clean up a river downstream rather than at its source," he says, settling his rangy, handsome self — think Mr. Rogers much better dressed — into the nook of a pale leather sofa.

"We have to go upstream to what we’re thinking — to the beliefs and behavior that come from our thoughts — instead of trying to change our emotions or, even worse, other people’s behavior."

This principle applies to all relationships and not merely to the ones we call special. Specialness makes loving more difficult, Grayson claims — counterintuitive though that may sound — since casting people in the role of lover, mentor, spouse, or best friend raises expectations, which leads to fantasy, heartbreak, and pain.

We suffer at the hands of those we love the most — that’s the conundrum. "So much expectation," says Grayson, "blinds us to love."

There are two forms of attachment, apparently, both of which are known by the L word but which, in fact, are very different.

"There’s ego-based love," he tells me, using ego not to denote the Freudian sense of self that’s indispensable to negotiating daily life but to refer to the illusory armor that suffocates and cuts us off, the self-obsessed me that renders us so unspeakably lonely, stripped of the feelings of belonging and connection.

"That’s the irony," Grayson says. "First we imagine our separation from others, then we spend our precious lives trying, and failing, to bridge this false divide."

Spiritual love works on an opposite principle, he continues. Instead of the doomed attempt to "complete" ourselves through another person — the ego being chronically hungry, unworthy, unsatisfied — spiritual relationships hinge on the knowledge that each of us is already whole.

"We’re complete," Grayson insists, joining his fingers to form a circle. "We are made from the very same energy as the rest of creation — love, as it is called in the gospels — in its myriad forms. Our essential nature is divine. In other words, we are already this wholeness, this love, that we seek outside ourselves."

Oprah.com: How to build support a supportive community around you

To appreciate how an agnostic scientist came to this mystical understanding, we need to trace Grayson’s pilgrim’s progress from choirboy to quantum clinician. Born 68 years ago in Alabama, he’d planned to become a Protestant minister till a few months in theology school convinced him that he had no faith — not of the church-approved kind, anyway.

"I had stopped believing in the traditional concepts of a medieval, flat-earth ‘sky God,’ a deity that was far removed from us humans here on earth," he writes in the preface to his book.

Grayson completed his studies nevertheless, earning degrees in psychology and pastoral counseling, then worked briefly as a parish minister, struggling to reconcile traditional teachings with his desire to help his congregants feel God in "every aspect of their lives."

Oprah.com: How self-acceptance can crack open your life

The strategy failed, at least for Grayson. Neither church religion nor advanced psychological studies satisfied his need to address what he calls the "massive problem of human suffering" — no less to enable our birthright of "indisturbable joy and peace."

It was not until he found himself at a lecture in physics that a theory of how to heal the mind — and in turn solve the riddle of love — finally emerged in his thinking.

"David Bohm turned my life upside down," says Grayson, referring to the innovative physicist who wrote, among other things, the classic Quantum Theory.

"Bohm helped me understand that the reality we perceive is a tiny fraction of the universe as it really exists. At an invisible level, everything and everyone is interconnected in a most profound way, not only as human beings but as energy, mind, and matter."

With the barriers between inner and outer, self and other, cause and effect expanded in this prismatic light, Grayson came to see all relationships as being, in large part, an "inside job."

Our core beliefs lead to thought constellations, which lead to perceptions, give rise to emotions, and cause, domino-like, outward behavior. What’s more — and here’s where Grayson’s theory requires thinking outside the box — the behavior stemming from our own thoughts may manifest in the people around us.

Jon’s wife acted differently once he’d found a new way of viewing her, proving Heisenberg’s principle that objects, including human ones, are changed somehow by the very act of being seen.

Lofty as this may sound, Grayson is a pragmatic man for whom ideas matter because they help people.

"This means," he says, "that everyone is our soul mate. We share the same last name, which is God." In his popular tape series, "The New Physics of Love," as well as in his book, he offers advice on how to apply this cosmic law to our everyday lives.

We start, he says, with awareness of our own minds and the development of the inner "witness," either through formal meditation or simple self-reflection. By stepping back from our thoughts, noticing how they tumble toward feelings, trigger opinions, and cause knee-jerk reactions, we learn to interrupt this sequence, to crack the ego’s prison so that love can pass more freely between us.

By learning to better navigate our mental terrain, we’re better able to choose how we think about the world around us, to alter the frame through which we perceive our lives, ourselves, and our challenging loved ones.

What’s more, there are reliable litmus tests for distinguishing counterfeit love from the real thing, Grayson says. Infatuation, the need to control, confusing love with worry, ensnaring someone as "special" — these are signs that ego, rather than heart, is driving a relationship.

This counterfeit path is marked by potholes most of us recognize all too easily — demanding that love be earned, trying to change another’s behavior, becoming addicted to someone’s presence, and wanting to punish the other for disappointing us.

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The big giveaway to ego-based love, however, is the spoiling presence of fear. "For the ego in love," he tells me, "the greatest fear is losing the other person or losing yourself." Terrified by the threat of loss, we often fulfill our own prophecies.

The only remedy is commitment to practicing self-awareness. This starts with realizing once and for all that we vastly underestimate our capacity for love and are more profoundly interconnected than we can possibly know.

The only thing blocking our awareness of this is ego’s self-protecting harangue.

"Love never hurts," Grayson tells me, having arrived at this wisdom through his own two marriages. "When my feelings are hurt, it’s nearly always my interpretation of what has happened that causes the pain."

Just think of the last time you misread someone’s innocuous action as all about you. "I’ve come to understand my wife as a kind of mirror of my inner life. She’s far more likely to be critical of me when I think critically of her."

By turning attention away from our partners, over whom we have little control, and focusing on this inside job, we begin to make love a path of enlightenment. This is Grayson’s primary goal.

"If the purpose of relationships is understood to be cultivating our own true nature and supporting our partners in finding theirs" — as opposed to sharing the bills, say, raising kids, or having a lot more sex — "then the label we place on the form love takes becomes secondary."

Indeed, his chapter on "spiritual divorce" is likely to surprise some readers; according to Grayson, even "unhappy endings" can deepen — indeed transform — a continuing bond between once-married couples.

Knocking down more boundaries, Grayson claims that "once we’re aware of who we really are, there’s no big difference between giving and receiving. If I’m generous and attentive, it’s because I want the best for you. This brings me joy and fulfillment rather than the drain that comes from a feeling of obligation. That’s the kind of love that empowers, without desire for payback. If I want love," he says, "the best thing I can possibly do is extend this desire into the world as a loving thought — such as ‘may all beings live in peace’ — within my own mind."

The shift to mindful loving begins with acknowledgment that infatuation isn’t real.

"The bad news about ‘falling in love’ is that it isn’t genuine love," he says. "It’s based on an illusion, a fantasy of who someone will be. When the other person doesn’t fulfill our dreams — which, of course, he or she never does — all sorts of bad things happen. You realize you’ve been living in a dream state, something you need to awaken from in order to love as your true self."

But, we protest, we want to find comfort in romantic love. Don’t take l’amour away from us, we groan in adolescent despair.

Love seems to be the last respectable place, in our too-grown-up lives, where we allow ourselves to be idiots, ridiculous messes, dramatic, impulsive, less than our p.c. best. Grayson’s cure may seem bitter to the die-hard romantics among us.

But one might ask, Do we need more grief and fear, more isolation, illusion, and heartbreak, in our love-starved world? Or do we need a change of mind, a liberated vision?

Shall we whitewash the fences we build with our egos, or wake up to the glaring fact that love, according to every sage from every single wisdom tradition, is already here?

If Henry Grayson prevails over Hallmark, the answer will be clear as day.

Oprah.com: How to uncover your deepest desires

By Mark Matousek from O, The Oprah Magazine © 2011

Subscribe to O, The Oprah Magazine for up to 75% off the newsstand price. That’s like getting 18 issues FREE.
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Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here

Read the signs

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

Online advertising is currently growing faster than any traditional means of getting messages out.

The promise of pixels

Last year the company invested in a 40% increase in its stock of digital displays, giving a total of 6,500 screens globally.

These screens include billboard-sized displays in train stations right down to poster-sized displays on street stands and in bus-stops – but always in high traffic locations are where the risk of vandalism is minimised.

Many of the screens are designed to work in harmony with specific advertising campaigns – particularly ones which try to engage consumers using interactivity.

A recent campaign for the Ford Galaxy in the UK targeted dads out with their children on a holiday break. Bus shelters were equipped with two separate screens, one on top of the other. The higher screen presented information about the Ford Galaxy while the lower screen kept the children occupied using interactive games.

A separate bus shelter campaign for Aero Caramel chocolate bars tried to engage passersby with a "love-a-bubble" test. The screen presented moral dilemmas and asked viewers to pick a response from a set of options – after five questions it scored them on how 'love-a-bubble' they were.

Real-time ads

What makes digital screens even more powerful is the fact that many of them are equipped with 3G sim cards, allowing them to be updated wirelessly from a central hub.

"Suddenly we now have real-time outdoor advertising, which makes what we do far more flexible than it was in the past," says Mr Male.

"We can have adverts that react immediately to events, or that only display a certain message when the weather is a certain temperature."

When Louis Hamilton won the Brazilian Grand Prix, JCDecaux screens across the UK announced the news within 10 minutes.

As those lag times get shorter, digital signage might one day be considered another branch of online advertising, rather than a traditional medium.

Happy shoppers

The ease with which digital signs can be updated has led to their adoption by a broad range of businesses – not just the big brands who promote themselves through JCDecaux's screens, but also retailers who want to advertise specific promotions on the shop floor.

The TRN duty free shop at Oslo airport does exactly that. On a good day the shop sells as many as 15,000 bottles of wine, with 1000 customers passing through its doors every hour – and it depends on shopfloor advertising to sell as much as possible.

"Before the screens we only had a brochure to tell people about our special offers, but none of our customers were interested in it," says TRN's web administrator Christine Toemte.

"We have new offers every month and printing brochures is a lot of hassle – not just printing them, but also making sure that the right ones were being distributed in the store in any given month.

"Now we make one film and put it on all the screens at the same time."

TRN uses a system called Ziris, made by Sony, which runs off a rack of modified Playstation 3 consoles sitting in a back office.

These consoles are connected to the internet, and any approved member of staff can generate new content via a web page.

When a member of staff wants switch to a different ad, it's as simple as pressing a button on a Playstation controller.

Ultra-specific

The result is that ads can be extremely specific and work in real-time – and according to Sony that is the key to a good display.

"There are dos and don'ts when it comes to designing messages," says Sony's Damien Weissenburger.

"If you're looking to sell something, you need to be very specific and very targeted. Promoting an overall brand will not help to sell a specific item in your warehouse."

Customers at Oslo airport do seem to notice the screens, and some even acknowledge that it affects their buying decisions.

"It grabs your attention, especially when its a high resolution screen with bright colours. But it also depends on the quality of the clip being displayed – it has to be something worth watching," said Constantine Salnikow, who was passing through duty free on a visit from Lithuania.

A number of older customers, however, barely seemed to notice the screens and in any case denied that their purchases might be affected.

"I'm just concentrating on what I want to buy," says Brit Brenne, returning from a holiday in Poland.

"If I'm interested in special offers, maybe on groceries, then I prefer to get them through the post."

Staff announcement

The use of digital signage in retail is steadily expanding, but not merely in terms of the number of screens.

Increasingly, larger companies are beginning to use the screens to talk to their staff as well as their customers, by placing screens in canteens and other staff areas.

"There are often hundreds of staff, working on different shifts and in different shops and warehouses, and they are very seldom near a computer," says Paul Sigvaldsen from Norwegian company 3C Technology, which installed the Sony Ziris system at Oslo airport.

"So instead of sending a passive email and expecting staff to open it, you can address them where they are."

The same eye-catching qualities of the screens can be used to attract the attention of staff too – if companies know how to use the technology to full effect.

"The most common trick is to put up some news and weather forecasts, which all the staff are interested in", say Mr Sigvaldsen.

"Once you get their attention, you can deliver any message more effectively."

Originally Published On: www.bbc.co.uk – Original Article Here

BRIEF-Israel’s Bank Hapoalim to resume dividends

Posted by TerranceV | Uncategorized | Posted on May 31st, 2011

<span class="articleLocation”>May 31 (Reuters) – Israel’s Bank Hapoalim (POLI.TA):

* Says will resume paying dividends

* Had been prohibited to pay dividends in wake of financial
crisis.
(Reporting by Steven Scheer)

Originally Published On: www.reuters.com – Original Article Here