Source: www.cbsnews.com --- Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Company plans to recalibrate vehicle control systems on Ford C-Max, Fusion and Lincoln MKZ hybrids from 2013 model year ...
Source: http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsBusiness/~3/ZFjspdT3NF8/
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Watching yourself slide from a deadend life into the decay of madness is terrifying, regardless of the adorable animation. This mind-bending short by David Maingault follows a frustrated desk clerk as his neurosis, fantasies, and fears gradually meld into a single, beautiful full-blown psychosis.
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Source: catalogs.indiamart.com --- Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Offering The superb and Classy Looking Neck set,which simple spell bound the people surrounds you... This is 'Royal Wedding Neck Set',consisting GB stones with fresh water pearls.It has beautiful beaded jhumkis." One Cannot Takes His Eyes Off To This Beauty... Company: Kumar Jewels, Jalandhar, India Website: http://www.indiamart.com/kumar-jewels/ ...
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/indiamart-gems-jewellery/~3/I_C2Gm1Y0Js/wedding-neck-set.html
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14 hours ago
Nintendo
The original box for the Nintendo Entertainment System.
The Nintendo Entertainment System, which turned 30 Monday, may seem like a relic in an era of consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One ? but it helped define those systems and the games on them in more ways than one.
Lasting franchises
Nintendo
New Super Mario Bros Wii, one of the latest titles in the Mario line of games.
The power of the series was apparent to Nintendo, existing as it did in the days of "Star Wars," "Indiana Jones" and "Back to the Future." So the company was happy to make and publish sequels and spin-offs, even if it had little to do with the original. The result is that the "core" franchises became a staple of gaming. That began on the Nintendo, perhaps best exemplified by "Super Mario Bros."
The original game smashed records (largely due to being included in the box), the second was a bizarre cult hit (but still an excellent game) and the third is hailed by many as one of the best games ever made, regardless of age.
Nintendo and its stable of developers would continue this pattern for decades with other major properties: with repetition, "Legend of Zelda," "Mega Man," "Castlevania," and many more became ingrained in the minds of young gamers ? gamers who grew up to compose Nintendo's current core audience.
It may have been a tactical move to avoid risk and stick with what worked, but the fact is that Mario and Link have become utterly iconic through their constant presence, an accomplishment others have tried with varying success to imitate.
Games that defined genres
While "Super Mario Bros." may be the most obvious success story, the NES was also home to games that both inspired genres and still define them.
For instance, "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Warrior" elevated the comparatively obscure role-playing game genre to playable form. The extreme length and depth of these games created gamers who would not be satisfied by mere arcade thrills, helping move games from then-rare PCs and arcades into the home. And their sequels (now numbering in the double digits) still act as yardsticks for others in the genre.
Nintendo
The original "Legend of Zelda," still used as a reference and inspiration by gamers and developers.
But it's not just sequels that inherited Nintendo game qualities. To this day, games can be described in terms of the Nintendo games that preceded them: "Zelda"-esque item hunting, "Metroid"-style exploration, "Contra"-quality shooting, "Battletoads"-level difficulty. If you want to make someone understand the basic gameplay of even a major modern game, NES titles are the common vocabulary, something that everyone understands.
For better or worse, it made gaming child's play
Nintendo
An ad for the original NES emphasizing its family-friendly nature.
Nintendo's most dubious legacy, in full force on the NES, was its insistence on being family-friendly. The NES was, after all, originally called the Famicom, or family computer. From the beginning, games and accessories were designed with friends and family in mind ? and while that meant lots of bright, accessible games, it also meant mature themes were generally avoided.
This occasionally resulted in some mind-boggling mix-ups and errors ? the neutered "Mortal Kombat," the inexplicably un-censored exploding Hitler head in "Bionic Commando" ? but its main effect was to establish home gaming systems as the province of kids. Never mind that some games were more difficult than anything that came before or after ? the stigma, which Nintendo worked actively to promote, was that games were Disney-level entertainment.
30 years later, the games industry is still recovering from this: games are often reduced in the public eye to "blasting aliens" or "saving the princess" despite having shed those limitations long ago. And that which helped Nintendo reach millions of living rooms in the 1980s and 1990s may now be holding it back: more gamers than ever want Hollywood-level content in both tone and setting, meaning sex and violence that Nintendo even now is barely willing to tolerate.
The NES may not have been the first game console by a long shot, but for millions it was the first they owned and loved. After 30 years it still resonates with gamers, and probably will for decades to come.
Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.
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Illustrator Andrew DeGraff thinks about films differently to you and I: he sees them as giant maps of physical locations, just waiting to be explored. Can you work out which films these wonderful treasure maps drawn by DeGraff are supposed to represent?
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BALTIMORE (AP) ? With one final power surge before the All-Star break, Chris Davis earned himself a place in baseball's record book and generated momentum for the Home Run Derby.
Davis hit his 37th home run to tie the AL mark prior to the break, and the Baltimore Orioles cruised past the Toronto Blue Jays 7-4 Sunday.
Davis doubled in two runs in the first inning and hit a two-run homer in the third to give him 93 RBIs, second-most in the majors behind Detroit's Miguel Cabrera. He and Cabrera are the only players in major league history to have 30 homers and 90 RBIs before the All-Star game.
"Superhuman," Toronto manager John Gibbons said. "He's having some kind of year. I saw him a little bit when he was in Texas coming up. He could always hit home runs. He got his opportunity here to play every day and he's taken advantage of it. It's pretty impressive."
By going deep in a fourth straight game, Davis equaled Reggie Jackson's AL mark of 37 homers before the break, set in 1969. The major league record is 39, by Barry Bonds in 2001.
Davis has already reached career highs in home runs and RBIs with 66 games left in the regular season.
"I think it's something definitely to be proud of," Davis said. "It means I've been doing my job, but it also speaks volumes about the guys in front of me getting on base and really swinging the bats well."
Davis has been facing a shift lately, but there's no defending a ball that clears the wall.
"You can't shift to the stands," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "They don't allow you to put anybody out there. So hit it where the grass doesn't grow."
Davis will next put his sweet swing on display at the Home Run Derby on Monday night in New York.
"I expect it to be a lot of fun," he said. "I think it's going to be definitely high energy, and I'm definitely looking forward to it."
Adam Jones homered and scored three runs for the Orioles. The home run was his 19th of the season and third in three games.
Scott Feldman (1-1) allowed three runs and five hits over 7 1-3 innings to earn his first win with the Orioles in three starts since being traded from the Chicago Cubs on July 2. The right-hander struck out seven and walked one.
"I think command-wise I was a little better today," he said. "I was able to throw in that first strike when I need to, which was helpful."
After Maicer Izturis singled in a run in the ninth off Tommy Hunter, Jim Johnson got three outs for his 33rd save.
Izturis had three RBIs for the last-place Blue Jays, who staggered into the break with 13 losses in 20 games. Toronto dropped two of the three to the Orioles and fell to 4-11 in its last 15 games at Camden Yards.
"Definitely frustrating," Gibbons said. "These four days will be good for us. A little breather (to) regroup. We will find out what we're made of and how good we are in the second half."
Josh Johnson (1-5) yielded a career high-tying seven earned runs and seven hits in six innings. Johnson's only win in 12 starts this season came against Baltimore on June 23.
"They hit him pretty well," Gibbons said. "First inning they dropped four on us. It's tough to come back from that."
Baltimore bolted to a 4-0 lead in the first, getting hits from four of its All-Star selections: Manny Machado, Jones, Davis and J.J. Hardy.
After Nate McLouth opened with a single, Machado singled and Jones hit an RBI single. Davis followed with a double into the right-field corner and Hardy capped the uprising with a run-scoring single, his 200th RBI with the Orioles.
Davis made it 6-0 with an opposite-field drive to left after Jones drew a walk.
"When you got guys hitting opposite field that are decent pitches," Johnson said, "it's tough."
Izturis singled in two runs with two outs in the fourth, and Jones hit a solo shot in the fifth for a 7-2 lead.
After Feldman gave up a single to Jose Reyes in the eighth, Hunter allowed a two-out RBI single to Juan Encarnacion.
NOTES: The Orioles announced before the game that RHP Chris Tillman (11-3) was added to the AL All-Star squad. ... Baltimore has homered in 17 straight games against AL East foes, a franchise record. ... Actor Kevin Spacey threw out the ceremonial first pitch, floating a soft strike to pitcher Jim Johnson. ... Chris Dickerson, who came in 6 for 10 lifetime against Josh Johnson, went 0 for 3 with three strikeouts against the right-hander. ... Feldman improved to 1-4 in his career against Toronto. ... The Blue Jays lead the season series 7-6. The teams don't play again until Sept. 13.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/davis-hits-37th-hr-orioles-defeat-blue-jays-201807259.html
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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/QsZg0CJzr5Q/130715105650.htm
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NEW YORK (AP) ? Citigroup is reporting earnings that beat Wall Street's expectations for the second quarter.
Profit for the March-to-June period was $3.9 billion after excluding an accounting gain, the bank reported Monday. That's up 26 percent from a year ago.
The profit amounted to $1.25 per share, beating the $1.18 per share predicted by analysts polled by FactSet.
Revenue was $20 billion after excluding the accounting gain, up 8 percent from the same period a year ago. That beat the $19.8 billion predicted by analysts.
Citi's earnings from investment banking soared 63 percent, boosted by strong stock and bond markets. Citi also did well in private banking, which caters to wealthy clients, and the bank set aside less money to cover bad loans.
Profits from consumer banking slipped 1 percent. Citi funded and serviced fewer mortgages in the U.S. and said it expects mortgage results will continue to be crimped. Interest rates have been rising as the Federal Reserve contemplates pulling some of its support from the economy. Mortgage rates have risen as a result, though they still remain near historic lows.
The loss at Citi Holdings, where the bank keeps troubled assets from the financial crisis, shrank again. The bank released some of the reserves it has set aside to cover bad home loans stored in Citi Holdings, only the second time Citi has done so.
Like most of its big-bank peers, Citigroup continued to cut jobs. Head count fell to 253,000 from 261,000 a year ago.
Citi's stock jumped 3 percent in pre-market trading to $52.26.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/citi-reports-higher-profit-revenue-shares-rise-122159479.html
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UFC on Fox Sports 1
Bisping vs. Munoz
Date: October 26, 2013
Venue: Manchester Arena
Location: Manchester, England
-Michael Bisping (24-5) vs. Mark Munoz (13-3)
UFC on FS1 Bisping vs. Munoz Times:
Preliminary Bout: TBA
Main Card on Fox Sports 1: TBA
Source: http://www.mmaweekly.com/ufc-on-fox-sports-1-bisping-vs-munoz-fight-card-rumors
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BY BABJIDE KOMOLAFE
Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has appealed for the support of the judiciary to tackle the challenge of legal bottlenecks in the performance of its mandate.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation, Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim, made this call in Abuja at the opening ceremony of the NDIC sensitization seminar for Appeal Court Justices. He said excessive litigations and lack of proper understanding of the distinction between the legal status of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) as a corporate entity and its role as liquidator are? critical challenges confronting the Corporation in discharging its mandate.
He said the Corporation had been experiencing the execution of court judgements against its assets over the liabilities of banks in-liquidation, adding that the Corporation had also faced difficulties associated with the recovery of debts owed to failed banks.
Ibrahim therefore appealed to the judiciary to address these legal challenges to enable the Corporation achieve its mandate of depositor protection and stability of the Nigerian banking sector. ?We recognise that no matter how robust the legal framework operated by the NDIC is, the Corporation cannot achieve much without the cooperation and vital input from the Nigerian Judiciary?, he said.
The NDIC Chief Executive also described the role of the Court of Appeal as a critical arm of the judiciary, given its constitutional appellate jurisdiction over decisions of the State and Federal High Courts where most of the failed banks related cases were being handled. He urged the judiciary and legal practitioners to play their respective roles effectively, which would thereby empower the Corporation to discharge its mandate in the interest of depositors and the Nigerian banking system.
The seminar for the Court of Appeal Justices with the theme: ?The Challenges to Deposit Insurance Law and Practice? was the fourth in the series of the capacity building programme embarked upon by the NDIC to sensitize the judiciary and other stakeholders on their roles in the discharge of the deposit insurance law and practice in the country. The first run of the seminar was jointly organised by the Corporation and National Judicial Institute (NJI) for Judges of the Federal and State High Courts while the second run was organised in collaboration with the Federal High Court for all Judges of the Federal High Courts and the third run was organised for External Solicitors of the Corporation.
Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/ndic-seeks-support-of-judiciary-to-tackle-legal-bottlenecks/
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PARIS (Reuters) - A body found in northern Mali is likely to be that of French geologist Philippe Verdon, taken hostage in November 2011, France's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
President Francois Hollande had said in his Bastille Day speech on Sunday that it was possible Verdon had died several weeks ago but his death was not officially confirmed.
"There is a very strong chance that the body found recently in northern Mali is unfortunately that of our compatriot Philippe Verdon," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that further checks were being made.
Citing an unnamed source, Radio France Internationale said earlier on Sunday that DNA checks had shown that the body found in the north of Mali was that of Verdon and it would be repatriated to France within days.
Al Qaeda's arm in the Islamic Maghreb said in March it had beheaded Verdon in response to France's military intervention in Mali.
Hollande justified the intervention partly by saying it would prevent northern Mali being used as a launchpad for Islamist militant attacks in Africa and in the West.
(Reporting by Astrid Wendlandt; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/body-french-hostage-found-mali-rfi-192617200.html
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NOTE: You can use your keyboard's 
and 
arrow keys to cycle through the list.Meg 'Man Hands' Grish of Chicago Salmon pitches the ball during the northern Illinois vintage baseball festival at Cantigny Saturday, July 13.
Sarah Minor ? sminor@shawmedia.com
Source: http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/2013/07/13/vintage-baseball-7-photos/dqp1jnb/
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Source: www.streetinsider.com --- Friday, July 12, 2013
Visit StreetInsider.com at http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/QIAGEN+Receives+FDA+Approval+for+therascreen%C2%AE+EGFR+RGQ+PCR+Kit+as+a+Companion+Diagnostic+for+Lung+Cancer+Patients/8495973.html for the full story. ...
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Two astronauts, NASA?s Chris Cassidy and the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano, will work for six and a half hours outside the International Space Station on Tuesday.
The state of Texas is captured in this photograph by one of the NASA Expedition 36 crew members aboard the International Space Station, some 240 miles above Earth, using a 50mm lens in this image released in June 2013.
NASA/Reuters
EnlargeLadies and gentlemen, it?s spacewalk time.
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Two astronauts, NASA?s Chris Cassidy and the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano, will float outside the International Space Station for about 6 1/2 hours on Tuesday, beginning at 8:10 am EDT. Live footage of the spacewalk will be available starting at 7:00 am EDT.
As romantic as a spacewalk sounds, the venture is more of a cleaning exercise: the astronauts, both from Expedition 36, will curl around the spacecraft as it floats somewhere above the Sinai Peninsula, doing a number of chores that have piled up over the years. The work includes replacing failed equipment, prepping the station to receive the Russian Multipurpose Laboratory Module as an attachment, and assessing damage.
During the trip outside, the astronauts will also collect equipment used in the Materials International Space Station Experiment-8 (or MISSE-8), which assessed the impacts of the space environment on various materials. Those experiments will be ferried back to Earth aboard the SpaceX-3 commercial cargo craft later this year.?
The pair will finish up the work on a second spacewalk scheduled for July 16th .
Since spacewalks are time-consuming and punishingly exhausting (in the pressurized suit, the astronaut must strain to move his or her hands in the gloves), the Space Station had allowed broken equipment and needed maintenance to accumulate, in order to justify the trip outside. The Space Station has been serviced in two previous spacewalks this year.
The first spacewalk, in March 1965, set a precedent for keeping spacewalks to just the necessary minimum needed to keep the craft in functional order. That month, the Soviets sent astronaut Alexey Leonov outside the Voshkod 2 affixed to a 50-foot tether for about 12 minutes. Leonov made it back into the spacecraft, but not without considerable difficulty, and the Soviets did not attempt the feat again for another four years. The first American spacewalk that summer was similarly successful but troubled, after a hatch-latching mechanism failed and imperiled the entire crew.
But despite the challenges, astronauts who have stepped outside their crafts for a balcony view to the entire Earth have called the experience an unforgettable one. Astronaut Ed White, who spent time outside Gemini 4, said being instructed to climb back in the spacecraft was "the saddest moment of my life."?
Rex Walheim, who ventured outside the Atlantis space shuttle in 2002, remembered the rapid succession of day and night - the world was going from dark to bright every some 45 minutes, since the craft was orbiting Earth every hour and a half.?And?John Herrington, who logged three spacewalks on the space Shuttle Endeavour,?noticed the smell - space, he said, has a strange odor, something akin to burnt metal.
This spacewalk is the 170th walk to maintain the station. The station?s external care has involved 111 astronauts from eight countries who have logged some 1,067 hours and 43 outside the craft, Florida Today reported.
This is the first spacewalk for an Italian astronaut, and Parmitano will wear a red, white, and green flag affixed to his spacesuit as he floats out of the station. This is Cassidy?s fifth spacewalk.
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Nadeem Lalani. Picture credit: Bloomberg
While tea is an integral part of British culture ? the UK consumes 165 million cups each day ? the majority is drunk with milk and made with low-grade leaves.
However, London?s Lalani & Co is seeking to change the way tea is treated by working closely with the capital?s leading hotels and restaurants when it comes to sourcing the best possible teas, and offering advice on how to serve it.
Set up by three brothers, the company has already encouraged a number of London outlets to champion tea consumption, as well as work with Riedel to select a suitable glass for drinking tea.
?It?s a really exciting time for tea now,? said Nadeem Lalani, co-founder of the company, in a discussion with the drinks business at Sake no Hana, where Lalani sencha teas are served in Riedel?Pinot and Cabernet ?O??glasses?alongside sushi.
Spring picked Okumidori Cultivar Sencha 2012 at The Modern Pantry in Riedel Pinot O glass. Photo credit: edibleexperiences.com
Continuing, he noted the emergence of ?a contemporary British tea culture? stemming from a fusion of wine and tea appreciation in which tea is sipped slowly from stemware and enjoyed with a range of foods in leading London outlets.
As an example of this new trend, Nadeem cites Brown?s Hotel, which is now serving a range of Lalani teas in Riedel ?O? glasses selected by Jameel Lalani, Riedel and a panel of sommeliers,?alongside handmade tea ware pieces designed by British ceramic artist Billy Lloyd.
Nevertheless, Nadeem also records the prevalence of poor quality teas in top London hotels. ?It?s true that lots of hotels are using catering grade tea bags and charging a huge mark-up,? he told db.
In his many meetings with leading restaurants and hotels he notes either an enthusiastic response or a complete lack of interest when it comes to elevating the quality of tea on offer.
?Some chefs and sommeliers understand that tea is a provenance-based, seasonal product, but then, with others, we?re asked, ?what?s the price?? and that?s the end of the discussion.?
Lalani & Co Makaibari Grand Reserve Darjeeling 2012 at the Modern Pantry in a Riedel Pinot O glass. Photo credit: edibleexperiences.com
Establishments that have listed Lalani leaf teas aside from Brown?s Hotel include restaurants Hibiscus, Hakkasan, Sake no Hana, Gauthier Soho, Bubbledogs and new Peruvian restaurant Coya, as well as?Trishna, Zuma, The Modern Pantry and Kempinski.
?The market is changing and the public are crying out for a more artisan dining experience and London is the capital of tea consumption, so now is the right time for hotels and restaurants to be introducing seasonal tea libraries,? remarked Nadeem.
In terms of the benefits of tea drinking, he stressed that tea is tax and duty free, packed with anti-oxidants, and, after a tea flight with food, the diner is left feeling alert, but not wired.
?Tea is a contemplative drink, it is not a fix like coffee, and you should drink tea as slowly as wine,? he commented.
Over the following pages are a handful of top sources for tea:
Source: http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2013/07/luxury-tea-londons-latest-drink-trend/
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Fragments of two ancient stone axes found in China could display some of the world's earliest primitive writing, Chinese archaeologists say.
The markings on the axes, unearthed near Shanghai, could date back at least 5,000 years, the scientists say.
But Chinese scholars are divided on whether the markings are proper writing or a less sophisticated stream of symbols.
The world's oldest writing is thought to be from Mesopotamia from 3,300 BC.
The stone fragments are part of a large trove of artefacts discovered between 2003 and 2006 at a site just south of Shanghai, says the BBC's Celia Hatton in Beijing.
But it has taken years for archaeologists to examine their discoveries and release their findings, our correspondent adds.
The findings have not been reviewed by experts outside China, reports say.
"The main thing is that there are six symbols arranged together and three of them are the same," lead archaeologist Xu Xinmin told local reporters, referring to markings on one of the pieces.
"This clearly is a sentence expressing some kind of meaning".
Cao Jinyan, a well-known scholar on ancient writing, also told local media that the markings could be an early form of writing.
"Although we cannot yet accurately read the meaning of the 'words' carved on the stone axes, we can be certain that they belong to the category of words, even if they are somewhat primitive," he said.
Some scholars, however, remain unconvinced. Archaeologist Liu Zhao from Fudan University in Shanghai told the Associated Press news agency they "do not have enough material" to make conclusions.
If proven, the stone axes will be older than the earliest proven Chinese writing found on animal bones, which dates back 3,300 years.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-23257700
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Cheap approach, natural ingredients may prove useful in foods, medicines
By Rachel Ehrenberg
Web edition: July 11, 2013
COATS AFLOAT
Mix iron and tannic acid in water and they'll bond, forming little capsules (shown), scientists have discovered. The process is quick, easy and reversible.
Credit: Courtesy of Science/AAAS
It?s not often that chemists find a quick, simple and cheap method for making things using widely available ingredients, but researchers have done just that: They?ve created elegant little capsules and coatings in water simply by mixing iron and a compound from plants called tannic acid. The soft coatings form on their own around whatever else is in the water ? glass beads, bacteria, gold nanoparticles and more. Just changing the solution?s pH can prompts the coatings to disassemble.
The coatings? ingredients are considered safe ? tannic acid is found in wine, while iron is an important element for living things. That means the capsules might help in delivering drugs in the body or find use in cosmetics or foods, says bioengineer Gregory Payne of the University of Maryland in College Park.
The work fits with an ongoing effort to find biologically friendly, useful materials, Payne says, and it takes advantage of materials that are right under everyone?s noses. ?It opens up a lot of opportunities.?
Using ordinary lab equipment, the research team, led by materials scientist Frank Caruso of the University of Melbourne in Australia, create the tiny coatings at room temperature. When the researchers add tannic acid to water, it tends to congregate around surfaces, whether they be a piece of polystyrene or an E. coli bacterium. When the researchers add iron ions to the mix, the iron latches onto the tannic acid molecules, connecting them into a thin film. At a pH of 7.4, the capsules were still intact after 10 days; at a pH of 3, they disassembled within four hours, the team reports in the July 12 Science.
Suggested Reading
W.E. Bentley and G.F. Payne. Nature?s other self-assemblers. Science. Vol. 341, July 12, 2013, p.136. doi:10.1126/science.1241562. [Go to]
R. Ehrenberg. Microsculptures made easy. Science News Online, May 16, 2013. [Go to]
D. Castelvecchi. Hooking up. Science News. Vol. 172, November 10, 2007, p.301. [Go to]
Source: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/351501/title/Coatings_have_simple_recipe_for_success
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By Richard Weizel
NEWTOWN, Connecticut (Reuters) - The families of the 20 children and six adults who were killed when a gunman opened fire at a Connecticut elementary school in December should each get $281,000 from donations that poured in after the shooting, a committee recommended on Thursday.
The families of the 12 children who witnessed and survived the attack at Sandy Hook Elementary School would each get $20,000 and two teachers who were injured would get a combined $150,000.
The remaining $3.7 million of the $11.4 million in donations raised with the help of the United Way charity would be set aside as a community fund, according to the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation, which is overseeing the donations. The committee gave no details on how the money in the community fund would be used.
The committee will make a final decision by July 15.
Advising the committee was Kenneth Feinberg, an attorney who also oversaw compensation for victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the theater shootings in Aurora, Colorado, and the Boston Marathon bombing.
"Solomon himself could not distribute this money in a fashion that everyone would find fair," he told the more than 50 gathered at a public meeting in Newtown on Thursday evening. "Money is a pretty poor substitute for loss of life."
Indeed, many voiced frustration that the entire sum had not been given to families and survivors.
"The public gave money after seeing the faces of those precious children and brave school staff who were senselessly murdered on December 14," said Caryn Kaufman, who described herself as an advocate for victims of violence. "The public intent was clear - to help ease the burden of those families who lost the most that day. Period."
David Lewis, whose grandson, Jesse, was among the slain children, said he was surprised that so much money would go into a community fund.
"If a person gives a donation, I think they expect the money to go directly to the victims," Lewis said.
Robert Accomando, a Newtown resident, also faulted the decision to create a community fund. As the director of a separate effort, the My Sandy Hook Family Fund, he said he had ensured that all of the $1.6 million raised went to the 26 families.
The committee is made up of retired federal Judge Alan Nevas, and two Newtown residents, John Woodall and Joe Smialowski.
"We had absolutely no say in the amount decided upon for the victims. That was strictly decided by the board who appointed us, and our only charge was to find a protocol that we deemed fair," Nevas said.
(Reporting by Richard Weizel; Editing by Edith Honan, Phil Berlowitz and Lisa Shumkaer)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/families-connecticut-shooting-victims-may-281-000-034913977.html
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Linden Lab is continuing with its mini-acquisition spree in gaming: it has just announced that it is buying Desura, a Australia-based digital distribution service for PC gamers. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but it follows on from the company?s acquisition of LittleTextPeople in February 2012 and Blocksworld in January of this year. Linden Lab says it will keep Desura operating for now: ?The service will continue uninterrupted for current customers as the team and technology become a part of Linden Lab,? it notes in an emailed statement announcing the deal.
The move underscores the transformation that Linden Lab has been making under CEO Rod Humble, who took the reins in 2011 amid declining usage for Second Life, the web-based virtual world that took the online gaming and social worlds by storm after it first launched in 2003. That has included a shift into more mobile experiences, as well as monetizable games experiences.
Desura is not a games maker itself but provides all other services around them. Specifically, users can buy and play games, get free access to mods and add-ons, use the platform to distribute their own games if they?re developers, and use the platform to create a social layer around games for communicating with other players.
?Desura?s talented team, thriving business, and impressive technology are a great fit for Linden Lab,? said Humble in a statement. ?This acquisition gives us a global platform for serving creative developers of all kinds, and we?re looking forward to growing both Desura?s global community of gamers and its fantastic portfolio of thousands of games, mods, and other content. Our aim is to invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world.? It?s not clear how many users Desura has today.
The move also puts Linden Lab more squarely in competition against the likes of Steam from Valve and Origin, owned by EA.
As we note here, it?s not clear how Desura will be utilized longer-term ? whether it will remain as a standalone entity or merge with something else out of the Linden Lab. It notes that Blockworld, the iPad game it acquired earlier this year, will soon be released globally. Besides Second Life, Linden Lab also offers a ?3D universe? called Patterns; the tablet and mobile game Creatorverse; an online creative space called dio; and interactive fiction ?experience? called Versu, which ?makes the reader a part of a living story.?
Linden Lab to date has raised $19 million from Benchmark, Omidyar Network, Jeff Bezos and others; Desura has raised considerably less: only $100,000.
Linden Lab is the company that created The Second Life Grid platform and hosts the Second Life virtual world. The Second Life Grid is the technology platform used to power the Second Life virtual world. In 2007, Linden Lab opened the Second Life Grid platform to the public, enabling businesses of all sizes to develop their own virtual world environments. As of August 2008, Second Life boasts approximately one million active residents with 40-60 thousand online at any given...
? Learn moreDesura a community driven digital distribution service for PC gamers. Desura provides an ???app store??? like interface, with free and paid for content from publishers, available for gamers to buy and play. Released in 2010 by an Australian games company (which also runs the IndieDB and ModDB), Desura was in stealth development for 2 years.
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Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/video/cnbc/52427910/
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As many as 3,321 pensioners were detained by police, a figure that exceeded for the first time since records began in 1989 the 3,195 teenagers who were also arrested for the same offence last year.
Around a quarter of Japan's population is aged over 65, with the average woman having 1.39 children, a figure that is significantly below potential replacement birthrates.
As recently as 1999, only 336 elderly were detained for shoplifting in the capital ? accounting for only 6 per cent of total arrests ? compared to 2,092 shoplifters under the age of 19.
Loneliness is believed to be a key factor fuelling the current surge in shoplifting, with a growing number of elderly living on their own and fewer households accommodating generations of the same family as was once customary.
Meanwhile, as many as 70 per cent of the thefts among over-65s involved food, highlighting the issue of poverty among the growing armies of pensioners living alone in the capital.
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Invitation to the ILRI Side Event at the Africa Agriculture Science Week 2013, Accra, Ghana, 15 July 2013
Invitation to the ILRI Side Event at the Africa Agriculture Science Week 2013, Accra, Ghana, 15 July 2013
Source: http://www.slideshare.net/ILRI/invitation-fara
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An investigator looks at the tail of Asiana Flight 214 on Sunday, July 7, 2013, after the passenger jet crashed at the San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco on Saturday. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
An investigator looks at the tail of Asiana Flight 214 on Sunday, July 7, 2013, after the passenger jet crashed at the San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco on Saturday. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Egyptian army soldiers take their positions near armored vehicles to guard the entrances of Tahrir square, in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, July 8, 2013. Egyptian military officials said gunmen killed at least five supporters of the former president when people tried to storm a military building in Cairo. The official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to brief reporters, also said a group had tried to storm the headquarters of the Republican Guard. He added that those killed had been supporters of former President Mohammed Morsi camped outside the building in protest at his overthrow. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Andy Murray of Britain reacts after winning against Novak Djokovic of Serbia in the Men's singles final match at the All England Lawn Tennis Championships in Wimbledon, London, Sunday, July 7, 2013. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
1. 40 KILLED, HUNDREDS WOUNDED IN CAIRO ATTACK
A ministry official says gunmen targeted supporters of former president Mohammed Morsi holding a sit-in outside a military building.
2. CRASH PILOT HAD LITTLE EXPERIENCE WITH BOEING PLANE
The pilot was guiding a 777 into the San Francisco airport for the first time, and tried unsuccessfully to abort the landing after coming in too slow.
3. RECORDS ON BIN LADEN RAID PURGED
The AP's Richard Lardner reports the nation's top special operations commander moved the records from Defense Department computers to the CIA.
4. RISING DEATH TOLL EXPECTED IN CANADA DERAILMENT
About 40 people were still missing a day after the runaway train ignited explosions that destroyed a district in downtown Quebec and killed at least five.
5. WHAT HACKERS WANTED FROM SOUTH KOREA
A California research firm says they were targeting South Korean and U.S. military secrets with malware they've been sending through the Internet for years.
6. WIFE OF SECRETARY OF STATE AILING
Teresa Heinz Kerry, heir to the Heinz ketchup fortune, was hospitalized in Boston in critical condition for an undisclosed illness.
7. ANOTHER COUNTRY BACKS SNOWDEN'S ASYLUM REQUEST
Cuban President Raul Castro threw support behind Venezuela and Bolivia, which agreed to provide the NSA leaker refuge.
8. IMMIGRATION TOPS AGENDA AS CONGRESS RETURNS
Student loans and the farm bill are also key unresolved disputes.
9. DISGRACED EX-GOVERNOR EYES COMEBACK
Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as New York's governor in 2008 in a prostitution scandal, is planning to run for New York City comptroller this year.
10. TENSE FINAL GAME BEFORE MURRAY BREAKS WIMBLEDON STREAK
He blew three championship points and fended off three break points before defeating Novak Djokovic, becoming the first British Wimbledon champion since 1936.
Associated Press
Apple, along with Google, Microsoft, and Facebook has once again been accused of granting the U.S. government, and the NSA in particular, access to private user data. In the second part of an interview conducted back in June, Edward Snowden tells The Guardian:
Beyond that we've got PRISM which is a demonstration of how the US Government co-opts US corporate power to its own end. Companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft, they all get together with the NSA and provide the NSA direct access to the back ends of all of the systems that we use to communicate, to store data, to put things in the cloud. And even just to send birthday wishes and keep a record of your life. And they give NSA direct access that they don't need to oversee so they can't be held liable for it.
Previously, to address the issue, a "commitment to customer privacy" was posted by Apple which said in part:
We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer content must get a court order.
We can choose to believe the accusations, or the denials, but it points to a far larger issue: the need the believe. Where there's no transparency, there's no real trust. Unfortunately, with not only the U.S. and other governments implicated in massive, unprecedented, horrific surveillance, along with pretty much every major technology platform owner and communications companies there's no one and nothing that can be trusted.
You can't switch phones. You can't switch networks. You can't switch countries. You can apply better security on your own end, put PGP on your email and use onion routers for your internet traffic, but when data is stored our privacy isn't only violated now, but into the future, where decryption technology might chew through in milliseconds what it takes months to chew through today.
It also removes the illusion of being a needle in the haystack, because long-term storage means nothing can be lost to the stream, it's always and only just a query away. It's the microphones we speak into while walking down the street, and the cameras we may or may not know are even on in our bedrooms. It's the transition from an expectation of privacy to an expectation of no privacy. It's a violation so deep, and so enormous, the mind recoils from it. It's the loss of innocence, the type that occurs after any human-engineered disaster, only far more subversive because it exists in bits and not atoms. We can't see the loss, and we can't appreciate the repercussions. And we can no longer answer this seemingly simple question: Who can we trust?
Apple has used the privacy card to compete against the likes of Google and Facebook in the past. Why not use it to compete for us now? Make our data as difficult as possible to collect and access, from adding super-easy PGP to Mail.app and encrypting iMessage, FaceTime, and other communications in a way that's not only secure, but openly, verifiably secure?
It may well be impossible to stop the widespread accumulation of raw bits, but there's nobility in the attempt, and where goes Apple, so often do others follow.
Source: The Guardian
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/i59NNqlgT6k/story01.htm
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I googled ?homeschool? to see what pictures came up. Many of them had to do with socialization and the messages that homeschool parents get and give about it. So I figured I?d talk about homeschooling and the issue of socialization today and use some of the cartoons I found in the process. Some of them are a little disconcerting in the way they point out issues I see, just maybe not quite in the ways the cartoonists intended.
What is This ?Socialization Problem? You Speak Of?
So first a bit about what socialization is and how it relates to homeschooling. This diagram explains socialization pretty simply and it comes from a site that talks abut stopping cycles of discrimination that are often passed on intergenerationally.
I think the site the diagram comes from ? Parenting for Social Change ? makes an excellent point ? that this is generally how socialization is done but socialization can sometimes be bad. You can absolutely be taught harmful things as well as positive things in the course of your socialization and most people are taught a mix. What homeschooling parents often become inclined to do though is try to eliminate or greatly reduce these ?bad? things by winnowing their child?s socialization opportunities down to only parentally vetted and approved sources and quite often those approved sources are fellow homeschoolers, religious leaders, highly edited texts and media, other ?likeminded families,? and sometimes, when the parent is particularly controlling or inept at socialization themselves, nobody at all except for the immediate family. Yes, this last one is a real big problem because terrible things can happen when families get isolated like that and it is a big risk factor for all kinds of abuse, neglect, and poor mental and physical health. Thing is, this social isolation problem happens in homeschooling much more frequently than it should. In fact, even in Brian Ray?s wacky (and so methodologically unsound that I am stopping myself from going on a rant about how many problems it has) ?Strengths of Their Own? study included something I found interesting about it. See if you can catch it.
That?s right. The third bar from the bottom. The yellow one. If 87% of the children in Brian Ray?s highly self-selective study play with ?people outside the family? (and I will leave you to ponder right along with me as to why this wording is not ?other children outside the family?) then that means that 13% of children in Brian Ray?s study do not play with others outside of their own family, which I would most definitely define as a socialization problem. If Brian Ray, excellent fudger, misconstruer, self-quoter, and ideological spit-shiner of homeschool data extraordinaire, has almost 15% of the kids in his rather cherry-picked study having this issue, how common must it actually be in real life and how do people in homeschooling react to this issue? Well, lets see?
Socialization Sarcasm
This cartoon makes fun of the concept that socialization problems exist in homeschooling. To me it implies that socialization happens so naturally that it simply isn?t something a homeschool Mom could forget. Why? Well, I?m honestly not exactly sure. Socialization is a component that definitely can be ignored or accidentally left out and it has openly (and wrongly) been discounted as being unimportant by many prominent homeschool leaders. Because its been ignored and dismissed as a necessary part of many homeschool curriculums is the main reason why homeschoolers have gotten the reputation for being unsocialized in the first place.
Most homeschool kids don?t like being stereotyped as unsocialized or feeling like they are unsocialized (I mean really, who would?) so there?s also some memes and jokes that have been spread by teenage homeschoolers implying how inherently dumb or inappropriate they think it is when people make socialization an issue. Most of these involve poking fun at the ?myth? that socialization is a problem in homeschooling. There is this YouTube video by a homeschooled girl who is trying to do this by distinguishing ?the homeschooled? from ?the homeschoolers? and while I find it funny, I?m quite sure that her pie chart is wrong and she perpetuates elitist stereotypes she has likely heard throughout her homeschooling experience.
This blog had a post by a homeschool graduate complaining about people asking what?s become known as the ?socialization question? and in her post she uses a picture I?ve seen fairly often. There?s even t-shirts with this printed on them that you can buy.
Socialization is Fishy
So what do homeschooling parents think about the socialization issue when they do actually address it? Lets start out with this cartoon, as it?s used a lot. It claims that a lack of socialization in homeschooling isn?t just a rare problem, but an outright myth. It implies that homeschool kids are not only actually in diverse environments as part of a natural ecosystem but are thrilled about it. It also implies that children who are socialized in public school are like half-dead sardines in a can rather than the school of likeminded fish they are expected to be.
This cartoon is a direct dismissal of there being any merit to the ?socialization problem? and its compounded with a public school counter-stereotype. This is unsurprising to me as the argument that homeschool socialization problems are an outright myth is quite often included with something disparaging about public school or insulting to teachers (and this cartoon is no exception). Notwithstanding how insulting it is to imply that most people who go through public school are like dead fish, is this depiction of homeschool versus public school in any way accurate? Well, I imagine for the occasional situation it is, but in general, certainly not.
Oddly this cartoon was actually almost the exact opposite of my experience. In the CHEF homeschoolers group I was in it was all white Christian families and our parents had to sign a statement of faith to join. It was absolutely a school of fish all swimming the same way and because we got together infrequently, I generally felt like that fish in the fishbowl. Also, when I went to public school in 9th grade I was certainly no canned sardine, even if I wasn?t exactly the manic fish thrilled at the ecosystem in the upper righthand corner. The teachers often tried to corral us into all doing things the same way but we didn?t make it altogether easy for them and generally I expect it was a bit like herding cats. We were all individuals, as were the teachers. I had favorite teachers and subjects and ones I didn?t like and I made friends of different races and beliefs and political persuasions, many of whom who are still my friends and acquaintances to this day.
The Dark Knowledge of Teen Degenerates
Here?s another cartoon about homeschool kid socialization from a slightly different angle, and this one does address the idea that kids don?t always do what you want them to do and by invoking the dreaded ?peer pressure,? implies that its all bad. Which one is it ? are they lobotomized sardines in a can or are they violent and rebellious ingrates? Make up your mind! Also, how realistic is this, do homeschool Moms actually think public school kids are like this? Where are the public school kids who are not ?at-risk? of being part of the school to prison pipeline? Why aren?t there any of those at the bus stop?
Also, in this little dystopian cartoon, gang members with knives read books on values (morally relativistic ones, no doubt), evolution, meditation, and ?new age? religion (if that isn?t a culture wars fearmongering buzzword, I don?t know what is) and pregnant girls read about sex ed and still don?t know what made them pregnant. This cartoon is crazy stuff. People don?t drink beer and shoot up heroin (yeah, there?s a needle on the ground in the cartoon) while waiting for the school bus (although some do smoke cigarettes). People who read a lot don?t typically join gangs. People who know about comprehensive sex ed aren?t any more likely to have sex than kids who don?t and they are much less likely to accidentally get knocked up. Honestly, if this is what anyone actually thinks the world is like then they are not fit to educate other human beings and they probably need some mental help themselves.
Sweet Homeschool Girl in the Ghetto
This cartoon is similar to the previous one in that it also indicates that public school socialization is all bad, but it depicts the expected reaction of the homeschool girl in the public school and implies that if your daughter goes to public high school (obviously radiating her feminine purity with a big hair bow and below-the-knee church skirt) that she will soon be shocked and horrified to encounter people dressed immodestly, young people openly dating, tattoos and piercings everywhere, vandalism and crime, blatant teenage rebellion, and big scary black boys that look more like grown men. So obviously the answer is to just have her at home not knowing that people who are different from her exist, and make most of the people her age out to be disgusting, immoral, and scary, right?
I followed this cartoon to its site, a blog called Heart of Wisdom, trying to get a higher resolution picture. The blog talked about how homeschool kids should only selectively socialize with other Christians and claims this is biblical. Yep, this is just the type of homeschooling ?socialization? I am familiar with. It?s a form of social isolation and indoctrination called ?sheltering.? This stuff is all about parental fear and desire for control and helicopter parenting to this extreme is very unhealthy for your child. It will mean that in adulthood that they won?t know how to function at an optimal level. You cannot shield your kid from all ?bad influences? and indeed there is nothing in the bible that says your kids cannot play with the kids of people who have different beliefs. That is quite a stretch and it is insular, cultish thinking.
My Homeschool Kid is Smarter than Your Honors Student
That same Heart of Wisdom blog had this other cartoon about homeschooling, so I followed that link and it was to a page dedicated specifically to homeschool cartoons. When I see stuff like this cartoon I have to once again ask ? is this supposed to be funny? Do these people actually think this is accurate? My main question though is why the elitism and negativity? Even if your kid is getting a much better education in homeschooling, why talk trash about children who through no fault of their own don?t have as good of an education? Why make it into a competition, act like homeschool kids in general are ?better? than other kids? It shows me some immature and defensive parenting, really. If you revel in it when someone else isn?t doing as good as you it shows you are 1) being a jerk and 2) secretly worried that you?re no good at what you?re doing. Nobody should ever be excited about other kids having a sub-par education, thinking it makes them and their kids look better. That?s just gross.
As it is, I find that there is a grain of truth in this cartoon but perhaps not quite in the way the cartoonist intended. I?ve known a lot of homeschool kids who do use big words in conversations and they soon realize that it comes across as awkward when they socialize with other non-homeschool kids. Admission: I was that kid myself. I read a lot of classic literature and became familiar with words that simply aren?t used in everyday speech anymore. Trying to use them in peer-to-peer conversations didn?t reflect on me being smarter. It reflected on me not having a modern day frame of reference as to what is appropriate. It reflected on me being socially backwards. Lots of public school kids who are bookworms like I was know many big words. They also know the right words to use for their audience. Context is everything. An unsocialized homeschool kid doesn?t have that context and very well might find that using 18th century literary terms in a conversation about basketball will indeed get people looking at them sideways. If homeschool parents want to be proud of that, think it makes their kid (and by extension them) ?better,? it shows they truly don?t understand the issue at hand.
Parental Fear & Social Anxiety
That?s where I think we hit the crux of this whole thing. I think the main issue is parental angst and fearfulness. Too many homeschooling parents socially struggled in school themselves and/or got into drugs or unhealthy sexual relationships and instead of taking a broader view today, expect that they need to hide their kid away from these settings or the exact same thing will happen to their kid even though their kid is in a different school district in a different generation and *gasp* a different person. These parents become scared of or hurt by the society we live in, withdraw, and then use homeschooling as an excuse to be separatist, snooty, and helicopter over their kids. These are not positive reasons for homeschooling and these are the exact kind of fearful and overbearing attitudes that lead to socialization problems for homeschool kids.
Because people with strong views often find themselves in positions of leadership, those with exclusionary, separatist, and elitist attitudes often end up running things and then set this negative and divisive tone for the homeschooling group and the community it serves. It?s so pervasive that even some ?second choicers? who start homeschooling simply because the other educational options in the area aren?t up to meeting their child?s particular needs (which is an excellent reason to homeschool, in my opinion), can get sucked into this culture, an ?us versus them? mindset where homeschooling represents everything that is pure and good and healthy for children and public school and the people and structures that support it represents everything bad. This creates a parallel society of sorts and then you see people start calling public schools ?government schools? in a pejorative sense. All this ?us versus them? talk fans the fear that homeschooling parents are vulnerable (although still superior) outsiders who are or soon will be discriminated against and this in turn leads to easy exploitation of these scared people.
Why does widespread homeschool participation in things like the fundamentalist-led HSLDA, which capitalizes on these fears and requires dues money (that then goes into their cultish culture wars arsenal) for unnecessary ?legal protection? exist? Because many these people are too freaked out to do anything more than cling onto a protector, ignoring all evidence that their ?protector? just wants to use them ? financially and for furthering a disturbingly anti-democratic agenda. This fear grows and leads to the kind of mindset that spawns ridiculous cartoons like the one below.
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Put in prison for homeschooling ? really? Of course in this cartoon there?s that same (expected) depiction of scary people with piercings, this time instead of a shocked daughter (projecting much?) it?s got a dejected homeschool Mom being shunned by hardened criminals who sarcastically note that her ?crime? was homeschooling.
Homeschooling parents who follow these ?leaders? (often starting because their local homeschool support group requires or recommends HSLDA membership) hear these divisive messages and become scared to death of being framed, exposed, persecuted, worrying that they will land in jail just for homeschooling. It may be a wacky and unrealistic fear given what?s actually going on, but if people hear it often enough they often come to believe it, along with the bogus stats and stories claiming that homeschooling is as close to perfect an educational option one can get in such a messed up society, and the myth that there is no evidence to the contrary because homeschooling is just so awesome.
Because homeschoolers test scores aren?t made public and often not even expected, registration isn?t even required in many states, and most people don?t pay much attention to homeschooling unless their kids are being homeschooled, homeschool movement leaders have been able to get away with exhibiting the cream of the homeschooling crop as representative of all homeschoolers and it has painted an inaccurate picture and hurt the vulnerable kids by leaving them ignored as they fall through the cracks.
Saying ?our homeschool kids are socialized but socialization doesn?t matter and in fact it generally sucks if it isn?t coming directly from parents? is a very unhealthy attitude to go into educating with. Responsible homeschooling parents really need to do a bit of soulsearching as to why they tolerate these inaccurate depictions of what socialization is and isn?t, why there is this the across-the-board maligning of all public schools within many homeschool communities, and why so many participate in this ugly (and frankly in my opinion undeserved) elitism, and contribute to such extreme (and inaccurate) stereotyping and putting down of children who have had to attend lower quality inner-city schools, all in order to inflate the merits of homeschooling. Two big question ? Does this kind of attitude help do anything beyond artificially boosting homeschool egos? Is there any need for this behavior if homeschooling is really so awesome? Also, if there is no good data on the problems of homeschooling then instead of celebrating the cobwebs we need to be collecting more data. Every single education method in this world has problems and the places where the problems are denied is where child maltreatment can and does flourish.
The Truth Between ?Stereotype? and ?Myth?
I get the message that not all homeschoolers are cloistered and don?t know how to talk to people their own age, but the fact is that too many are and we need to recognize that it is a real problem affecting a sizable percentage of homeschool kids. Also, homeschoolers are simply not the most brilliant people in the world or inherently ?smarter? than other kids, and as such they shouldn?t need to feel pressured to achieve perfection, perform as child prodigies, or that there?s a black mark on them if they mix up ?asocial? and ?anti-social? in a conversation.
This ?myth of the unsocialized homeschooler? is an issue in homeschooling but the prevalent idea that the socialization problem is a myth is what?s the real problem, not the legitimate questions and concerns about socialization that homeschool parents keep being asked. Those questions actually need to keep happening because social isolation and ostracism in any setting (including homeschooling) often follows a person into adulthood, and can leave people struggling with social anxiety, a small social network, low levels of social capital, mental health issues, and an unnecessary amount of sad and lonely memories. The least we can do is stop making fun of people, stop being in denial, stop pointing fingers elsewhere, and acknowledge that it is real, it happens too often and it should be assessed and addressed as the serious problem that it is.
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