The Forgotten Plane

If you end up losing your very existence, lost in a forgotten plane of your world like a ghost, would you do anything, even abuse the newly unlocked ability this world gives, to find a way back?

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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?The Forgotten Plane?. Anything posted here will also show up there.

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Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.
This is the auto-generated OOC topic for the roleplay "The Forgotten Plane"

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Oblivian

Member for 4 years

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May I reserve the Imagination Key?

A rose without it's thorns is just a flower.

KitKit

Member for 0 years

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I would love to reserve the Light Key if I may. Also, are we allowed to play multiple characters?

Sometimes your family can be the strangest of all.
Could you kill your best friend?
Dolls have just as much life as people do.

SlightlyInsane

Member for 1 years

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Hmm well I like a one character per person in my RPs, I believe it helps better in concentrating you know? ^^; and sure, be sure to give me good ones then XD

Oblivian

Member for 4 years

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Alright, I was just wondering as I like to help balence the gender ratio if it gets out of hand. I will submit my character tomorrow when I'm not running on a can of Sprite. XD

SlightlyInsane

Member for 1 years

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Atrix 4G, Photon 4G and Electrify will not receive Ice Cream Sandwich, says Motorola

Well this is tough news. Motorola Mobility has been maintaining an update chart and evaluating its current device lineup as to which devices should go forward with Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean. Just a few days ago, they delayed several devices having previously said they would get the upgrade in Q3. Now, they have announced the Atrix 4G, Photon 4G and Electrify will not be receiving the update and will be remaining on Gingerbread.

This is not good news.  We hope this is just a difficult transitional period for Motorola and that they will learn from this. We bet that they will, but that still doesn't help all of you who currently own these devices.

So we feel for you and we'll be here to help you install unofficial updates. You'll probably want to sound off in the forums, and we don't blame you, so here are the links:

• Atrix 4G Forum
• Electrify Forum
• Photon 4G Forum

Their update chart has also been updated to reflect the changes.

Source: Motorola Mobility

 

 

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/BhGAjuIBb68/story01.htm

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Preventing Productivity "Leakage" - SharePoint Expert Blog

By Christian Buckley, Director of Product Evangelism at Axceler

September 29, 2012 - 7:14 PM

How productive are your end users? We all have this idea running through our minds about what productivity means, and whether or not we think our organizations are good at getting the most out of our people. I'm not talking about the strengths or weaknesses of any single individual around time management or effectiveness in their roles (although that is certainly important) but at whether the platforms we use to get our work accomplished are designed and managed in a way that unleashes productivity, in general. So I ask again, how productive are your end users?

I've given a number of presentations of late on the idea of building productivity into SharePoint planning, always beginning my talk with a short history lesson in collaborative tools and platforms. Back to the early interweb years of bulletin board services and fledgling instant messaging platforms, the goal of these technologies has been to help teams work together more collaboratively. BBS, IM, email, blogs, wikis, social networking, business process management and workflow -- tools that manage and generate content and social interactions are becoming more integrated and seamless. Enterprise platforms are increasingly looking at not just solving core workstreams, but in ensuring productivity when moving between workstreams.

There is a definite ROI in improving productivity: faster employee onboarding and training, more business output, more usage of the platform (whether it be SharePoint or other system, like Salesforce), and of course, faster realization of the financial investments you've made in the platform.

So how can you prevent productivity "leakage" from happening in your environment? Some questions you might consider:

• Are you optimized for search? At the core of any collaborative platform is the need to catalog and then, at some point in the future, location the content and data within your platform. Your plans should include a detailed search strategy.
  ?
• Have you adopted a metadata strategy? This is a key component of your search strategy, but concentrates more around understanding the kinds of content/data/artifacts within your system. I like to describe the difference between these two steps as improving searchability (optimizing the experience for how people search within your platform) and findability (optimizing for the artifact, so that it? can be better located).
  ?
• Have you developed a social strategy? This is become a critical piece of every organization's productivity planning. If you don't have a plan, people will use the commercial tools to improve collaboration, which may not be secure, compliant, or scalable for your business. Look at how your end users are working, and find a way to build your enterprise platform to match their work patterns.
  ?
• Have you prioritized feature and solution requests? Have you established a cycle for continuous improvement on what you?ve already built? No platform is ever static -- people will need modifications, customizations. Have a process defined and in place to capture their feedback and requests. Make it transparent, as the more you involve people in the process, the more likely they are to accept the end results (whether or not it matches their request 100%).?

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This post and comment(s) reflect the personal perspectives of community members, and not necessarily those of their employers or of AIIM International

Source: http://www.aiim.org/community/blogs/expert/Preventing-Productivity-Leakage

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Another big Supreme Court term kicks off Monday

WASHINGTON (AP) ? When last we saw the chief justice of the United States on the bench, John Roberts was joining with the Supreme Court's liberals in an unlikely lineup that upheld President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

Progressives applauded Roberts' statesmanship. Conservatives uttered cries of betrayal.

Now, the Supreme Court is embarking on a new term beginning Monday that could be as consequential as the last one, with the prospect for major rulings about affirmative action, gay marriage and voting rights.

Many people on both the left and right expect Roberts to return to the fold and side with the conservative justices in the new term's big cases. If they're right, the spotlight will be back on Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose vote typically is decisive in cases that otherwise split the court's liberals and conservatives.

But Roberts will be watched closely, following his health care vote, for fresh signs that he's becoming less ideologically predictable.

It may be that the dramatic health care decision presages "some shift in his tenure as chief justice," said Steve Shapiro, the American Civil Liberties Union's national legal director. "Or does it give him cover to continue to pursue a conservative agenda?"

The first piece of evidence could be in the court's consideration of the University of Texas' already limited use of race to help fill its incoming freshman classes, which comes before the court Oct. 10. The outcome could further limit or even end the use of racial preferences in college admissions.

Roberts has expressed contempt for the use of race in drawing legislative districts, calling it "a sordid business, this divvying us up by race," and in assigning students to public schools, saying that "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."

The written arguments submitted by both sides in the Texas case leave little doubt that Kennedy, not Roberts, holds the prized vote. The challengers of the Texas program and the university itself cite Kennedy's prior writings on affirmative action a combined 50 times.

The court also is expected to confront gay marriage in some form. Several cases seek to guarantee federal benefits for legally married same-sex couples. A provision of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act deprives same-sex couples of a range of federal benefits available to heterosexual couples.

Several federal courts have agreed that the provision of the law is unconstitutional, a situation that practically ensures that the high court will step in.

A separate appeal asks the justices to sustain California's Proposition 8, the amendment to the state constitution that outlawed gay marriage in the nation's largest state. Federal courts in California have struck down the amendment.

Once again, many legal analysts expect Roberts essentially to be against gay marriage. "The outcome clearly turns on how Anthony Kennedy votes," said Georgetown University law professor Michael Seidman.

The justices may not even consider whether to hear the gay marriage issue until November.

Another hot topic with appeals pending before the high court, and more soon to follow, is the future of a cornerstone law of the civil rights movement.

In 2006, Congress overwhelmingly approved, and President George W. Bush signed, legislation extending for 25 more years a critical piece of the Voting Rights Act. It requires states and local governments with a history of racial and ethnic discrimination, mainly in the South, to get advance approval either from the Justice Department or the federal court in Washington before making any changes that affect elections.

The requirement currently applies to the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. It also covers certain counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some local jurisdictions in Michigan and New Hampshire. Coverage has been triggered by past discrimination not only against blacks, but also against American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaskan Natives and Hispanics.

The court spoke skeptically about the provision in a 2009 decision, but left it mostly unchanged. Now, however, cases from Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas could prompt the court to deal head on with the issue of advance approval. The South Carolina and Texas cases involve voter identification laws; a similar Indiana law was previously upheld by the court.

It is unclear when the justices will decide whether to hear arguments in those cases. Arguments themselves would not take place until next year.

Yet there still is a chance that the court could become enmeshed in election disputes, even before the ballots are counted. Suits in Ohio over early voting and provisional ballots appear the most likely to find their way to the justices before the Nov. 6 election, said Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California at Irvine law school.

Among other important cases already on the court's docket:

? A high-stakes dispute, to be argued first thing Monday, between the business community and human rights advocates over the reach of a 1789 law. The issue is whether businesses can be sued in U.S. courts for human rights violations that take place on foreign soil and have foreign victims.

? A challenge to the use of drug-sniffing dogs in two situations. Florida police used a marijuana-sniffing dog's alert at the door of a private home to obtain a search warrant to look inside the house. The question is whether the dog's sniff itself was a search. A separate case looks at the reliability of animals trained to pick up the scent of illegal drugs.

? A challenge to the detention of a man who police picked up a mile away from an apartment they had a warrant to search. Occupants of a home may be detained during the search for the safety of officers, but this case tests how far that authority extends away from the place to be searched.

? Environmental disputes involving runoff from logging roads in Oregon and water pollution in Los Angeles.

Paul Clement, the Republican lawyer who lost the health care case and could again be before the justices on gay marriage and voting rights, said last term punctured the notion that in close cases, the court goes where Kennedy wants.

"We've all been reminded that's not always the case," he said.

The idea that could be tested this term is whether Roberts' concern for the court as an institution that is apart from politics will influence his votes, or at least his reasoning, in the year's biggest cases.

___

Online:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourt.gov

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/another-big-supreme-court-term-kicks-off-monday-122359004.html

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FAVI's $50 Streaming Stick adds apps, streaming services to any HDTV with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Why get a Smart TV when you can enhance your existing HDTV with a dongle? That's the precise inquiry FAVI is aiming to answer with its SmartStick, a device that lets you access streaming movies, music, apps, and games just by plugging it into your television's HDMI port. It runs Jelly Bean, the latest Android OS, and supports services like Netflix, Hulu, Epix, YouTube, and Pandora. Other features include a full internet browser, 4GB of memory, and the ability to wirelessly stream media from your computer via its MediaSHARE app. Since it runs Android, you can download apps from the Google Play store as well. While we're still fans of the Roku Streaming Stick, the SmartStick's $50 price tag is hard to beat. You can also get a mini wireless keyboard and touchpad mouse for $39.99 for easier navigation. The FAVI Streaming Stick will be available this November, though you can pre-order it now for an October 30th ship date. Check after the break for the SmartStick promo video and the press release.

Continue reading FAVI's $50 Streaming Stick adds apps, streaming services to any HDTV with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

FAVI's $50 Streaming Stick adds apps, streaming services to any HDTV with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 03:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/98E0V-t9THk/

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2 more Somali journalists murdered; 1 is beheaded

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) ? One Somali journalist was shot dead by gunmen on Friday while a second journalist was beheaded and his body dumped in the street, officials and residents said, two attacks that bring the number of Somali journalists killed this year to 15.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the latest killings, but the deaths fit into a year-long pattern of targeted attacks against Somali journalists. Reporters must watch for attacks from militants and criminals and know that such deaths have been met with judicial inaction in a capital city with crippled government institutions.

Residents in an area just north of Mogadishu discovered the headless dead body of Abdirahman Mohamed Ali, a 26-year-old sports writer with his hands tied behind his back on Thursday. His body also showed signs of torture. No previous killing of a journalist has involved a beheading, and the method of death could be an indication that al-Qaida-linked militants from al-Shabab were responsible.

"His decapitated body was dumped near a restaurant. We were shocked to see his severed head placed on his chest," Ahmed Abdinur, a resident in the restive Suqa Holaha area, said by phone. "We don't know who beheaded him, but our village has seen several such headless bodies before."

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed Ahmed Abdulahi Fanah, a 32-year-old reporter who was working for the Yemeni news agency, the Somali journalists union said Friday. He was shot and killed as he walked out of his home on the way to work, it said.

The killings have made going to work a life-and-death decision for Somali journalists. One female television journalist said she won't risk her life any longer.

"I have decided to leave the country because the time we expected would bring peace and liberty has turned into the worst we have ever seen," Sahra Abdulahi Isse said. "The death threats have increased. ... I will be leaving for Uganda for my own safety."

Most of the 15 deaths appear to have been targeted killings, though last week three journalists were killed when a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a cafe popular with journalists and politicians. The day after that attack gunmen shot and killed another journalist.

Most of the killings have taken place in areas of Mogadishu nominally under the Somali government's control. Despite government promises of prosecutions, no arrests have yet been made for any of the killings in 2012.

"The terrible killings of two more journalists within the space of 36 hours makes clear that tackling the culture of impunity surrounding such atrocities can no longer wait," said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The new president should make investigating the killings a priority, today."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-09-28-Somalia-Journalists%20Killed/id-5bec6a0b23634537855dc00ba336b172

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Congresswoman wants to protect you from silly internet laws

BOWLING GREEN, O.H. ? President Obama will head to Henderson, Nev., on Sunday for three days of debate prep behind closed doors, ABC News has learned. While he is there he will also hold one grassroots rally and likely make some unscheduled local stops in...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/congresswoman-wants-protect-silly-internet-laws-002611165.html

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Debate Momentum Changer?

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Prestige Names New Marketing Communications Manager | PRLog

PRLog (Press Release) - Sep 26, 2012 -
Prestige Employee Administrators, Inc, a world-class Human Resources outsourcing firm that offers support to small and medium sized businesses, has named Monique Merhige as Marketing Communications Manager. ?Ms. Merhige is an experienced marketing professional who has more than 15 years of experience in Marketing and Public Relations. ?She has proven successes in launching integrated marketing campaigns for companies ranging from small service firms and manufacturers to a $1.5 Billion dollar division of Motorola.
Ms. Merhige has most recently served as an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Dowling College and CEO of Infusion Direct Marketing, a Long Island based marketing consulting firm. ?In addition, she has served on the board of the Direct Marketing Association of Long Island and is currently a contributing author to Digital Ethos. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Marketing and an MBA in General Management from Dowling College in Oakdale.
In this new role, Ms. Merhige will work closely with the executive team to ensure the marketing initiatives carry out the company?s mission of surrounding clients with the highest quality of Human Resources Services. ??Prestige is excited to appoint Ms. Merhige to this new position and utilize her talents to drive new business at Prestige by executing an integrated marketing plan that will consist of public relations, direct marketing, advertising campaigns, and social media.? States, Brian Lehmann, Prestige?s COO.

About Prestige Employee Administrators, Inc.

Prestige Employee Administrators, Inc. is a full service Human Resources outsourcing firm that offers strategic Human Resources support, payroll services, employment services and outstanding benefit programs to small and medium sized firms. ?As a PEO ? Professional Employer Organization, Prestige combines the purchasing power of many smaller companies and can often deliver this expertise at little or no incremental cost to its clients. When you partner with Prestige, companies receive a comprehensive array of services to care for their staff and ease the burden that complex, time-consuming and costly employment related rules, regulations and filing requirements place on a firm. For further information, please visit www.prestigeemployee.com.

Company Contacts:

Brian Lehmann, COO
Prestige Employee Administrators, Inc.
516-692-8505
Email: blehmann@prestigeemployee.com

Monique Merhige
Marketing Communications Manager
Prestige Employee Administrators, Inc.
516-692-8505
Email: mmerhige@prestigeemployee.com

Source: http://www.prlog.org/11984924-prestige-names-new-marketing-communications-manager.html

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Vets with disabilities get virtual roadmap for VA navigation

By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

A packed convention center ? even a place staffed with PTSD experts???is precisely the type of environment most service members and veterans are likely to avoid.?

For many military folks dealing with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress, crowds make them jumpy. And due to the attached social stigma of the disorder, the thought of being spotted at such an gathering would make lots of veterans cringe.?

But a virtual get-together where disabled veterans can anonymously ask questions about the anxieties weighing them down?

That's part of the thinking behind the first True Help Disability Web Expo taking place Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Central Standard Time. The free event, organized by Allsup ? a nationwide provider of services for people with disabilities???loops together more than a dozen leading health, disability, advocacy and social service organizations, several of them adept at working specifically with current and former service members.

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Attendees simply need to register to chat all day from the comfort of their homes, local coffee shops, or their places of work. The expo will provide a "veterans booth" where military personnel past and present can seek and find suggestions, tips and advice on how and where to get treatment ? including a primer on how to successfully access and steer through the monolithic U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said?Brett Buchanan, an Allsup?s VA-accredited claims agent.?

"In my experience dealing with veterans with PTSD and with depression, I find that the veterans do much better over the phone, when they?re in their house," Buchanan said. "I can have better conversations with them then when I meet them face to face.

"I think, absolutely, when you?re going to compare a Web expo to a live expo at an actual convention center, I don?t think you would get those individuals anywhere near that environment with those crowds," he added.

Allsup will bring together representatives from 15 national nonprofit groups that specialize in disabilities, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Brain Injury Association of America, the Invisible Disabilities Association and the National Family Caregivers Association.?

"Our hope is that veterans will find valuable information and resources that they just didn?t know existed," said Rebecca Ray, director of corporate public relations for Allsup. "We know veterans have a lot of options through the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. But there are a lot of groups that help veterans that may be new to them."?

While attendees can live chat with experts throughout the day, the expo will offer two moderated sessions for service members and their families: "What You Need to Know About Veterans Disability," from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. CST, and "Wounded Warriors ? A Discussion on Veteran Disability Resources," from?2:35 to 3:00 p.m. CST.

"We dive into little nuances of the VA disability system," Buchanan said. "There are special considerations for different veterans ? specifically if the veteran has more than one disability that?s related to service, or if they?re a combat veteran they are given special consideration.

"We?ll be talking about the VA process," he added. "We?ll be taking people through, step by step, on filing a claim, what happens if the claim is denied, or what happens if you get a decision and you?re not satisfied with it: are you able to appeal it?"

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Source: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/26/14114268-web-expo-for-veterans-with-disabilities-to-offer-roadmap-for-va-navigation?lite

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How Ohio Began To Slip Away From Mitt Romney

With each recent poll, Ohio has begun to look less like a swing state and more like a road map back to the private sector for Mitt Romney.

A series of miscues on important Ohio issues and a successful effort by President Barack Obama's campaign to define the Republican challenger have made Romney's odds look increasingly long in the Rust Belt bellwether. Eight of the 12 public polls conducted after the Democratic National Convention have shown Romney with at least a 4-point deficit and one on Wednesday showed him down by 10. No Republican candidate has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio.

Doug Usher, managing partner of research at the bipartisan polling firm Purple Strategies, said the reasons why Romney has lagged behind start with the automotive industry, which figures so prominently in both the state's economy and the Obama campaign's pitch to Ohio voters.

Democrats there have jumped at the chance to highlight Romney's opposition to the restructuring of the U.S. auto industry, epitomized by his 2008 New York Times op-ed with the now-infamous title, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." But those attacks against Romney are of a piece. The Obama campaign has also hammered the former Massachusetts governor's career at the private equity firm Bain Capital, as well as the murky nature of his tax returns. Meanwhile, Romney's surreptitiously recorded remarks made at a swanky fundraiser earlier this year gave substance to the caricature Obama and Democrats have drawn of the Republican nominee.

For a candidate running in a state like Ohio, that amounts to a potential coup de gr?ce.

"You combine the 'let Detroit go bankrupt' quote with the '47 percent' remark and you create a pretty powerful narrative across the country, but especially in Ohio," Usher told TPM.

The PollTracker Average shows Romney has always had trouble gaining traction there, but his deficit has grown even wider as the attacks have begun to stick.

Plenty of critics ? including some Democrats ? cried foul when the Obama team opened the general election campaign with a flurry of criticism toward Romney's time at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he helped found. But there has long been reason to believe that Ohio provided fertile ground for such a strategy. A survey from Purple Strategies in June showed that Bain-centric attacks carry far more potency in Ohio than other battlegrounds. The state's populist champion, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D), urged the Obama campaign to keep bringing the heat to Romney's professional biography, predicting to TPM earlier this summer that drawing attention to layoffs by companies bought out by Bain would strike a chord with Ohio voters.

To gauge the effect of the Obama campaign's focus on Bain, consider Romney's low favorability rating in Ohio. Half of Ohioans currently have an unfavorable view of Romney, according to the PollTracker Average. His favorability rating there has marginally improved since the doldrums of the summer, when Bain scrutiny was arguably at a fever pitch.

Compounding matters for Romney in Ohio, his central campaign message has often been muddled by a prominent in-state surrogate. Republican Gov. John Kasich has frequently touted Ohio's steadily declining unemployment rate, but his rosy outlook undermines the message pushed by Romney, who has tried to parlay economic pessimism into votes. Nationally, Romney has lost his previously consistent edge on the economy over the last month, and Obama has also claimed the upper-hand on the issue in Ohio. Tuesday's poll from the Washington Post showed Ohio voters preferring Obama over Romney to handle the economy, 50 percent to 43 percent.

Matthew Henderson, communications director for the Ohio Republican Party, told TPM that the state's successes underscore the urgency to replace Obama and give Kasich a stronger partnership with the White House.

"Just imagine what we could do with an ally in Washington," Henderson said.

But if Ohio Democrats are brimming with confidence, it may also come from strength in numbers. The Obama campaign boasts 96 offices in the state to the Romney campaign's 36. A low number of undecided voters this year places an even greater emphasis on efforts to get out the vote, which could make a robust field organization an even greater asset. Early voting is slated to begin in Ohio next week.

Seth Bringman, an Ohio-based Democratic consultant, credits the Obama campaign for remaining engaged in the state since 2008, saying the Romney campaign's ground operation "started light-years behind and they have not caught up."

"I don't know what [the Romney campaign's] strategy is, quite frankly," Bringman told TPM. "They made a run at it, but it just seems like their playbook was to rely on super PAC ads while the Democrats knew we had to outwork them on the ground. And we certainly have done that over the past year."

Henderson dismissed the disparity in organizational size, suggesting that some of the Obama camp's offices are merely for show.

"If you drive past a lot of their headquarters, the lights are off. They're just there to have a presence," Henderson told TPM. "Our folks on the ground are fired up. They're knocking on doors every day. Our state party has made 28 times more phone calls than we had at this point in 2008."

Echoing the line voiced by the Romney campaign on Tuesday, Henderson also pushed back against recent polling data, saying many of the pollsters have been including too many Democrats in their samples.

"They're heavily weighted toward Democrats and it's not really reflective of the way the rest of this state thinks," Henderson said. "Everything on the ground is telling us that this race is still neck-and-neck."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ohio-began-slip-away-mitt-romney-175949509--politics.html

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Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh On Building A Virtuous Business In The ...

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh believes hard in the value of community. That might sound a little... namby-pamby. Except that it really isn't. Consider the evidence: Hsieh engineered Zappos to be synonymous with excellent customer service, engendering cult-like loyalty among customers. Then last November, Zappos sold the business to Amazon for $1.2 billion, a transaction that earned Hsieh a cool $400 million. Moral of the story? Community=kaching.

Which helps explain Hsieh's latest, seemingly crazy move: He has staked $350 million on revitalizing downtown Vegas--the seedy, largely abandoned areas of Fremont East and Arts Districts north of the Strip--and he has done so by infusing it with the fired-up fraternal spirit that made Zappos a success. Some call Hsieh?s plan visionary; others wonder aloud if it?s an ego-trip by a restlessly ambitious CEO. It might even be understood as a lavish bid to keep Zappos employees happy, at work or not.

Whatever the story, one thing is clear: Entrepreneurs could learn a lot from Hsieh's big gamble on community. We talked to Hsieh along with Kim Schaefer of the Downtown Project and Dylan Bathurst, CEO of Rumgr, a company funded by Hsieh, to find out more.

Slash your marketing budget and pour it all into customer service.

Zappos was founded in 1999 and quickly built its reputation for outstanding service. As Hsieh likes to say, Zappos is a customer service company that happens to sell shoes (and now quite a few other things).

?At Zappos, we've made company culture our No. 1 priority and have formed our entire company strategy around that,? Hsieh explains in an email. ?Culture drives brand, customer service and [ultimately] growth.? In other words, if your startup has any customer-service component at all, that?s core to your product--it?s no frill to be skimped on.

In his book Delivering Happiness, Hsieh writes a mantra (originally by Maya Angelou) that you should scrawl on the walls surrounding your customer-service team: ?People may not remember exactly what you did or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.? Word-of-mouth is infinitely cheaper than traditional advertising costs, but it?s a mistake to call it free. Instead think of word-of-mouth as the culmination of well-tended investments in every customer touch-point. Invest in the right things, according to Hsieh?s thinking, and you don?t have to outpace your competitors? monster-marketing budget.

So how can this mission apply to an entire city, in this case downtown Vegas? ?Culture is to a company as community is to a city, just at a different scale,? Hsieh says. ?You need to bring together people with shared values and a desire to be part of something bigger than themselves.?

Aim for the densest part of any crowd.

Zappos announced their move into the former City Hall back in December 2010. In January 2012 Hsieh upped the ante in supporting downtown Vegas by helping to launch the Downtown Project.

?We've been primarily relying on Edward Glaeser's work in his book Triumph of the City," Hsieh says, referring to the acclaimed Harvard economist. ?Specifically, we are focused on residential density (100 residents/acre) combined with street level activity for residents to collide in (bars, cafes, restaurants, etc.) and most importantly a culture of openness, sharing, collaboration, and optimism.? This emphasis on urban density as a multiplier of human potential is all the rage among urban-planning wonks, but the hard data around cities confirms this theory.

That means startups should aim for the densest, most culturally rich spot for their office location, and build such nodes of density into their office floorplan.

Downtown Vegas has a serious density problem: it?s urbanized, with sidewalks and so forth, but it's almost a tabula rasa. ?For a number of reasons during Las Vegas? evolution, development of large-scale casino projects migrated from Downtown to the Strip, which is in unincorporated Clark County, not the City of Las Vegas,? says Kim Schaefer, the Downtown Project?s chief spokesperson. ?We?re unlike most other urban redevelopment efforts because our downtown isn?t full of dilapidated buildings; it?s full of vacant lots.?

Hsieh concurs. When asked for downtown Vegas? most pressing need, Hsieh immediately responds, ?Not enough buildings. There are a lot of empty lots in downtown Vegas and we're working on different ways to activate them as quickly as possible.? $200 million of the initial $350 million goes towards real estate acquisition and residential development, with another $50 million devoted to the kinds of street-level small businesses that boost a city?s walking score: coffee shops, yoga studios, bodegas, bars, and so on. (Another $50 million each goes to education and to funding tech startups via VegasTechFund.) Two hundred mill may or may not prove a sufficient cash infusion to jump-start density downtown; right now there aren?t enough downtown residents to justify a grocery store, according to Schaefer.

The Downtown Project aims to close the real estate gap with--wait for it--jerry-rigged shipping containers. Glamorous it?s not, but the plans call for a steep discount on Vegas? already-depressed rates for commercial square footage. ?The purpose of the shipping containers is more about lowering the obstacles to entry for some businesses, giving them an opportunity to prove their concept,? says Dylan Bathurst, CEO of Rumgr, a mobile location-based marketplace, funded partly by Hsieh, and based downtown. Bathurst is involved in numerous downtown-revitalization efforts, including organizing the ?Jelly,? a weekly networking event for Vegas tech startups.

For those who want more ambiance, a coworking space is nearing completion, while a more modestly scaled space called CoBiz opened in late May. Residential housing is sparser: it consists primarily of the Ogden, the only luxury high-rise in the
area, although additional buildings are under construction.

Put your teams in a real room together--an awesome room.

Zappos offices have become famous for their perk-bedecked offices (take a virtual tour here). Your startup?s budget may not stretch to complimentary dry-cleaning or a constant supply of free food and drink, but there are other cost-effective ways to give your employees license to infuse their working space with personality. Zappos offices are entirely open-plan; the cubicles are positively littered with personal touches. The conference rooms are similar encrusted with the teams? enthusiasms: skateboard shells plastered to the walls, a mountain bike hanging from the ceiling. It ain?t going to impress a VC who values formality ? but if it keeps the troops happily at home when they work super-late, that?s another story.

Keep learning, especially outside your discipline.

Much of Hsieh?s project rests on a belief in the creative power of accidental collisions between different-thinking folks. Those friendly collisions happen daily within Zappos unstructured offices, as they do every time a random Zappos customer gets offered the perk-filled VIP program, and they?ve fueled the company?s success. Now it?s Hsieh?s turn to apply that logic to his chosen hometown.

Partly the Downtown Project Vegas enthusiasts seem drawn to the plan because it?s well outside their professional comfort zone, a crazy locus around which many likewise dreamers are now revolving. ?I?ve been living in Las Vegas since the mid-90s,? says Schaefer. ?I?ve been witness to the boom and the bust, the incredible growth, and the despair of the downturn?.[This is] our second chance to decide what we want to be when we ?grow up?, what kind of city we want to be.? It?s a very Vegas storyline, in fact: a glorious crapshoot by amateurs, an attempt to found a cultural oasis in the middle of a desert. Whether it?ll work, or simply evaporate Hsieh?s time and money, is an open question.

Hsieh likes dissenters who are curious enough to head downtown and see what his plans are actually about. ?The doubters are generally people who don't have a full understanding of what we're doing and what's already happening,? he states. ?The Downtown Project team gives tours of what we're up to almost every day. It takes about an hour, and I'd encourage everyone to come take a tour before forming an opinion.?

video: How Tony Hsieh Pivoted Zappos Into A $1.2 Billion Amazon Acquisition

[Image: Flickr user Thomas Hawk]

Corrections: An earlier version of this article stated that Rumgr was funded by Zappos, it was funded by Hsieh; it also erroneously said that Zappos was founded in Nevada in 2005, it was founded in California in 1999.

Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/3000839/zappos-ceo-tony-hsieh-building-virtuous-business-city-sin

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The Advantages Of Gaining An Affordable Internet Hosting Assistance

On the earlier times in the world wide web, aquiring a site wasn?t only pricy but in addition needed substantially technical experience. In these days, a result of the quick enhancement of online technological know-how plus the availability like an array of internet hosting services, developing and internet hosting a web site turns into a reasonably very easy and reasonably-priced. For a rookie, (that may be to mention it?s the primary time as you strive to get your 1st websites online), the usage of a reasonable webhosting business can assist you approach your price range but in addition help you to go browsing. The method of making an internet site is amusing and cheap so long as you decide on a suitable hosting support.

Though, selecting the accurate webhosting service is just not a really easy operation in contrast with organising a web site. That is considering that there are plenty of characteristics that you just should probably concentrate to well before you truly make your preference. And also the most vital element you may need to think about is exactly what variety of online site should be. With the unbelievably commencing you will need to decide your fundamental target of making your web site. Are you currently likely to make a web site to get an exclusive use, for close relatives or for organization use?

When your site is employed for private use, it?s the least difficult to receive commenced with. Often the fundamental website hosting is ready to satisfy your internet site necessities. In general, your individual internet site incorporates multiple conventional options, which includes some webpages on your images and prepared written content and perhaps a further web page listing your ?favorite links?. Suppliers of hosting inside of the marketplace not merely furnish internet hosting services for the blog, additionally they presented you by having an automatic script and establish a private web-site template available for you. This can make it awfully effortless to get a novice such as you to make it happen your self. Should you be program to developing a weblog with upgrades with a typical foundation, it?s always tremendously preferred that use some running a blog software programs, like b2evolution and WordPress. With internet hosting bundle that supports this support, you?ll be able to down load and set up these system in the blog so publishing new posts will become noticeably much easier.

In case you are planning to build your internet site for business function, then you certainly want to be sure you are made available because of the tremendous degree of stability (as an example, information encryption) plus actions to safeguard your community (just like IDS/IPS). As the internet business websites involves huge server availability, excessive bandwidth, you require to pay a visit to the uptime proportion with a minimum of ninety nine.9% and bandwidth is adequate in your web pages site visitors. With these characteristics in a single internet hosting answer, you?re viable to achieve regular and steady movement of incoming customers with your internet site then your company enhancement is achievable.

Right before deciding upon an online internet hosting supplier, come up with a minimal groundwork to enroll which has a hosting firm that satisfies your demands and conditions. You will need to constantly consider your time and effort when selecting an online host. The choice of what host to make use of is just not a person that ought to be designed hastily. Internet hosting is vitally fundamental towards your web page. For people who have affordable finest notch internet hosting that hundreds little by little and it is in a slump sometimes, it?ll be arduous to encourage men and women to finish up with in your webpage. Return people are positively crucial to the website. Regardless of whether your internet site is business or particular, you?ll be a lot much more and a lot more productive as soon as you encourage these to return to the websites.

You should browse to Decide On one Of The Best Internet Hosting Companies For Windows VPS Resolution for those who demand alot more facts around the subject.

Source: http://www.tourismarticles.org/country-tourism/netherlands/the-advantages-of-gaining-an-affordable-internet-hosting-assistance.html

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Women in Real Estate: New Opportunities - Heroic Investing

Welcome! If this is your first time visiting Jason Hartman's website, please read this page to learn more about what we do here. You may also be interested in receiving updates from our blog via RSS or via email if you prefer. If you have any questions about first responder finance feel free to contact us anytime! Thanks!

Recent statistics on Social Security and retirement pensions reveal that a disproportionately large number of those struggling to survive on fixed incomes are women, many of whom are seeking ways to create a more stable long-term cash flow. As Jason Hartman advises, investing in rental real estate offers the best avenue for building that kind of income stream. But many women are reluctant to give real estate investing a try.

The reasons? According to a recent NuWire report on women in real estate, a lack of knowledge about real estate investing, fear of risk, and misperceptions about the process hold back many women from becoming real estate entrepreneurs and freeing themselves from a dependence on pensions and Social Security checks. Some simply don?t know where to start.

Women may perceive investing as a man?s game, not open to women. But throughout the United States, networking groups for women investors are springing up, offering potential real estate investors a way to talk with others and get information and support. These groups empower women to envision a future as entrepreneurs, and offer ways to meet successful women investors and learn from them.

Likewise, groups for women business professionals and entrepreneurs such as the National Association of Women Business Owners offer ways to learn about being your own boss, managing a home office and handling taxes ? all essential skills in managing rental real estate.

But one crippling factor for many women is fear. Lack of confidence and a fear of risking limited finances can stop a new investor before she even gets started. Credit issues, not knowing where to get funding for a purchase, and uncertainty about the future also add concerns that keep women out of real estate investing. Even smaller issues such as having to manage repairs and upkeep on rental properties, or dealing with problem tenants, can derail a potential investor from taking the first step.

The keys to beating these fears are education and preparation. Defining goals and identifying ways to overcome potential obstacles such as funding can help to create a realistic picture of what?s possible. Learning about real estate in general, and the investing process in particular, can help create confidence as well.

The aftermath of the recent real estate crisis has created a climate rich with opportunities for first time investors of all kinds. As the outlook for public sector pension plans becomes even more uncertain, there?s never been a better time for women in retirement or planning for retirement to follow Jason Hartman?s strategies for creating a stable cash flow through investing in rental real estate. (Top image: Flickr/JodiWomack)

The Heroic Investing Team

Related posts:

1. Privatizing Your Public Pension Through Real Estate
2. Real Estate Tax Law: PAL is Your Friend
3. A First Responder?s Real Estate Education
4. Rental Investing: Turning First Responders into Entrepreneurs
5. 7 Reasons Real Estate Is A Better Investment Than Gold

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Tags: jason hartman, National Association of Women Business Owners, real estate investing for women, the investing process, women in real estate

Source: http://www.heroicinvesting.com/women-in-real-estate-new-opportunities/

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No Doubt Reveal Favorite Push And Shove Tracks

Band names 'Undercover,' 'Dreaming the Same Dream' as standouts on first album in more than a decade.
By James Montgomery

No Doubt's Push and Shove
Photo: Interscope

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1694396/no-doubt-push-shove-favorite-tracks.jhtml

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Mimicry beats consciousness in gaming's Turing test

The Turing test might still be too hard for software to crack ? but two programs have already aced video gaming's answer to this famous evaluation of machine intelligence.

The two winning programs, or bots, relied on strategies of direct human mimicry to win an annual software tournament called BotPrize ? and beat an intriguing rival based on a stripped-down model of human consciousness.

As in the original Turing test, BotPrize bots attempt to convince human judges that they too are human. But whereas Turing test bots are judged on their ability to converse, in BotPrize, it's the ability to play and navigate the 3D shoot-'em-up video game Unreal Tournament in a human-like manner that counts.

Multiple bots and human judges play simultaneously, all-against-all, and anonymously, in the same arena of battle. The idea is to design more realistic virtual characters, which, in turn, should make video games more compelling and software simulations used for training more useful. In the future, the software could drive physical robots capable of navigating the real world in a human-like manner.

In only the fifth ever BotPrize contest, the UT^2 bot devised by Risto Miikkulainen and colleagues at the University of Texas, Austin, and Mirrorbot, the brainchild of Mihai Polceanu, currently studying at the European Centre for Virtual Reality in Brest, France, each persuaded the four judges more than half of the time that they were humans. That's more "human" votes than the average human received ? and almost twice as many as any bot has ever scored before. That means the "human-like barrier" has been cracked for the first time: the two teams shared the AU$7000 (?4500) prize ? which has never been awarded before ? for bots considered to be on a par with humans.

How did the winning bots do it? As its name suggests, Mirrorbot's key strategy is mimicry. When the bot meets other players in the game, it observes their behaviour. If it judges a fellow player to pose no immediate threat, it engages in a brief "social interaction", in which it simply copies the actions of that player, including movement, shooting, weapon choice, jumping and crouching. "It plays back what it sees," says Poleanu. The fact that this strategy proved successful at fooling the human says something interesting about AI and about ourselves, says Poleanu. "This result may indicate that our perception of intelligence is not flawless, but significantly influenced by our social nature".

Mimicry is also one of the features of the other winner, UT^2, though not in real time, and only for one of its behaviours. During training, Miikkulainen's team found that the bot's most "un-human" behaviour arose when it became confused by obstacles such as walls. For example, a human knows intuitively how to navigate out of a doorway. A bot, by contrast, relies on its programming to work out that it must turn 90 degrees.

"There are bots that bounce back and forth and don't realise the way out," says Miikkulainen. "It's amusing and interesting how challenging a very basic phenomenon can be."

His team recorded dozens of humans playing Unreal Tournament, spliced out the bits where the human released themselves from different geometries and then programmed the bot to deploy the human strategy used in a situation most similar to whatever it finds itself in. For other aspects of play, UT^2 deployed evolutionary learning, in which successful strategies were bred to produce offspring strategies that were even more human-like.

Neurobot, meanwhile, a bot that came a close second in last year's BotPrize ? and interested New Scientist in the run-up to the contest because it was based on a leading model of human consciousness ? lagged in fourth place out of a total of six bots.

Its creator, Zafeirios Fountas, of Imperial College London, blames this on technical constraints which forced him to "prune" 20 per cent of his bots' simulated "neurons". "As the results indicate, unfortunately, the removed neurons and synapses played a more crucial role than I believed," he says. "The good news is that now I know that and I can investigate what exactly caused this change."

Where does all this leave AI? BotPrize is certainly considered a lesser challenge than the original Turing test. "I am not making any claim that because the bots can appear human that they are intelligent," says Philip Hingston of Edith Cowan University in Perth Australia, who created BotPrize in 2008.

Still, Miikkulainen says that intelligence is made of up of components, at least one of which has now been solved. "In terms of spatial reasoning, it is possible to act human," he says. "Language is a much bigger problem, but it's nice to know that in this part of intelligence, we can do well."

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