Ticket rush: Film fans hand Hollywood record cash

FILE - In this publicity film image released by Disney, Chris Hemsworth portrays Thor, left, and and Chris Evans portrays Captain America, in a scene from "The Avengers," expected to be released on May 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Disney, Zade Rosenthal, File)

FILE - In this publicity film image released by Disney, Chris Hemsworth portrays Thor, left, and and Chris Evans portrays Captain America, in a scene from "The Avengers," expected to be released on May 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Disney, Zade Rosenthal, File)

In this publicity photo provided by Warner Bros. Pictures, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as John Blake, is shown in a scene in Warner Bros. Pictures? and Legendary Pictures? action thriller ?The Dark Knight Rises," a Warner Bros. Pictures release. TM & ? DC Comics. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Ron Phillips)

FILE - In this file photo of a publicity film image released by Disney, Iron Man, portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., left, and Captain America, portrayed by Chris Evans, are shown in a scene from "The Avengers." (AP Photo/Disney, File)

In this publicity photo provided by Warner Bros. Pictures, Tom Hardy, center, as Bane, is shown in a scene in Warner Bros. Pictures? and Legendary Pictures? action thriller ?The Dark Knight Rises," a Warner Bros. Pictures release. TM & ? DC Comics. (AP Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures, Ron Phillips)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? The big deal for Hollywood is not the record $10.8 billion that studios took in domestically in 2012. It's the fact that the number of tickets sold went up for the first time in three years.

Thanks to inflation, revenue generally rises in Hollywood as admission prices climb each year. The real story is told in tickets, whose sales have been on a general decline for a decade, bottoming out in 2011 at 1.29 billion, their lowest level since 1995.

The industry rebounded this year, with ticket sales projected to rise 5.6 percent to 1.36 billion by Dec. 31, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. That's still well below the modern peak of 1.6 billion tickets sold in 2002, but in an age of cozy home theater setups and endless entertainment gadgets, studio executives consider it a triumph that they were able to put more butts in cinema seats this year than last.

"It is a victory, ultimately," said Don Harris, head of distribution at Paramount Pictures. "If we deliver the product as an industry that people want, they will want to get out there. Even though you can sit at home and watch something on your large screen in high-def, people want to get out."

Domestic revenue should finish up nearly 6 percent from 2011's $10.2 billion and top Hollywood's previous high of $10.6 billion set in 2009.

The year was led by a pair of superhero sagas, Disney's "The Avengers" with $623 million domestically and $1.5 billion worldwide and the Warner Bros. Batman finale "The Dark Knight Rises" with $448 million domestically and $1.1 billion worldwide. Sony's James Bond adventure "Skyfall" is closing in on the $1 billion mark globally, and the list of action and family-film blockbusters includes "The Hunger Games," ''The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn ? Part Two," ''Ice Age: Continental Drift," ''Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted," ''The Amazing Spider-Man" and "Brave."

Before television, movies were the biggest thing going, with ticket sales estimated as high as 4 billion a year domestically in the 1930s and '40s.

Movie-going eroded steadily through the 1970s as people stayed home with their small screens. The rise of videotape in the 1980s further cut into business, followed by DVDs in the '90s and big, cheap flat-screen TVs in recent years. Today's video games, mobile phones and other portable devices also offer easy options to tramping out to a movie theater.

It's all been a continual drain on cinema business, and cynics repeatedly predict the eventual demise of movie theaters. Yet Hollywood fights back with new technology of its own, from digital 3-D to booming surround-sound to the clarity of images projected at high-frame rates, which is being tested now with "The Lord of the Rings" prelude "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," shown in select theaters at 48 frames a second, double the standard speed.

For all of the annoyances of theaters ? parking, pricy concessions, sitting next to strangers texting on their iPhones ? cinemas still offer the biggest and best way to see a movie.

"Every home has a kitchen, but you can't get into a good restaurant on Saturday night," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros. "People want to escape. That's the nature of society. The adult population just is not going to sit home seven days a week, even though they have technology in their home that's certainly an improvement over what it was 10 years ago. People want to get out of the house, and no matter what they throw in the face of theatrical exhibition, it continues to perform at a strong level."

Even real-life violence at the movie theater didn't turn audiences away. Some moviegoers thought twice about heading to the cinema after a gunman killed 12 people and injured 58 at a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Colorado last summer, but if there was any lull in attendance, it was slight and temporary. Ticket sales went on a tear for most of the fall.

While domestic revenues inch upward most years largely because of inflation, the real growth areas have been overseas, where more and more fans are eager for the next Hollywood blockbuster.

International business generally used to account for less than half of a studio film's overall receipts. Films now often do two or even three times as much business overseas as they do domestically. Some movies that were duds with U.S. audiences, such as "Battleship" and "John Carter," can wind up being $200 million hits with overseas crowds.

Whether finishing a good year or a bad one, Hollywood executives always look ahead to better days, insisting that the next crop of blockbusters will be bigger than ever. The same goes this time as studio bosses hype their 2013 lineup, which includes the latest "Iron Man," ''Star Trek," ''Hunger Games" and "Thor" installments, the Superman tale "Man of Steel" and the second chapter in "The Hobbit" trilogy.

Twelve months from now, they hope to be talking about another revenue record topping this year's $10.8 billion.

"I've been saying we're going to hit that $11 billion level for about three years now," said Paul Dergarabedian, a box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. "Next year I think is the year we actually do it."

___

Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-26-Film-Hollywood's%20Year/id-df6a82e44d8d4e57bc551c529ad706c1

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Adverse action or not: Do you know the subtle differences ...

Sharpen your pencils and put on your thinking caps. Here?s a list of ?adverse employment actions.? Or maybe not. See if your definition of ?adverse? jibes with that of our court system. If it doesn?t, you may just be in for some adverse legal action of your own.

1. Three senior employees had their chairs taken out from under them. Adverse or not?
2. A female employee suffered an ankle injury, but her boss wouldn?t give her a special parking permit for four days. Adverse?
3. Two black employees were switched out of office jobs to ditch-digger positions, with no loss of pay or benefits. Adverse?
4. A Jamaican employee had his job title changed from project engineer to mechanical engineer. Adverse?

Definition at work

Before we give you the answers, you may have your very own question: Why do I need to know what constitutes an adverse action and what doesn?t?

When a discrimination or retaliation claim is filed, one of the factors an aggrieved employee needs to prove is that he or she suffered. Usually, that suffering comes in the form of termination, cut pay or lost benefits. But there is always other evidence that employees? lawyers toss up against the wall to see what sticks. And those are the factors juries analyze.

Take the first situation listed above. Three senior employees lodged age discrimination claims, in part based on the fact that the workstation chairs they had used for years were taken away. Key point from court: Similarly situated younger workers were allowed to continue to sit. Answer to No.1: Definitely an adverse action. (Ryan v. O?Halloran Int?l, Inc.)

Key point for you: Minor or trivial acts that make employees unhappy, bruise their egos, or inconvenience them, don?t count as adverse actions. But a tangible change that causes a material disadvantage does. And that change doesn?t have to be economic. It can, as in this case, be changed working conditions that cause physical pain or injury.

On the other hand, denial of a temporary parking permit was not materially adverse or a significant change in employ??ment conditions. Answer to No. 2: Not an adverse action.

Transfers often trigger claims

One of the main instigators of discrimination/retaliation claims, and the proof of their viability, is the dreaded job transfer.

Key point for you: Transfers and changes that are reasonable or trivial are not fodder for discrimination/retaliation claims, no matter what an employee might think. Here are some other employer acts, transfer-triggered and otherwise, judged not adverse:

• Lengthened commute through transfer to another facility
• Poor performance evaluation
• Assigning additional work
• Changed job title with no loss of prestige or responsibilities (Answer to No. 4: Not an adverse action)
• Refusing to grant annual leave when work was backlogged.

On the other hand, here are some acts, besides loss of wages or benefits, that were judged worthy of being logged as adverse:

• Less distinguished job title
• Significantly diminished material responsibilities
• Poor performance appraisal used as basis to detrimentally alter terms or conditions of employment
• Transfer to a less skilled job or one with harsher working conditions (Answer to No. 3: Adverse action, for sure)
• Normally lateral transfer without change in financial conditions, but which reduces the employee?s career prospects.

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Website Design Companies In UK - Work On the Internet

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Miscellaneous

Written by Anonymous ??

Monday, 24 December 2012 00:28

Website Design Companies in UK In today's buyer business, for the most part individuals would give anything to be capable get all things in one place. At the point that you are getting a load of Website Design associations, it is suggested that you enquire about Content Management Systems an Search Engine Optimization to see if the aforementioned utilities are offered or not, as you may decently need them. The capacity to coddle all client prerequisites makes a Web Design Company more pleasing and it will safeguard you needing to include countless distinctive Web Designing UK Companies. Website Design Nottingham is well known for advancing alluring and inventive sites. Each business or industry in today???s globe needs sites to display their item and talent to draw in clients. Web space is one of the best and simple routes to achieve clients onto every part of the world. Before composing a resource it goes under numerous transforms. Countless web space planning groups exist. Nottingham is the one group which conveys value site incorporating every last trace of the revamped headlines in reasonable cost. Visual communication is a creative process which is the work of art and utilizing images and letters as a part of preferred route to pass on importance inform to the clients. Masters take a shot at design to exhibit surface considerations take every available opportunity to make an association logo, which could be utilized as a distinguishing proof stamp, publication work and raising notices and numerous more. Visual creators work out with numerous pictures and colors to get the effect. Web Design Nottingham centers just in the business and the item. The principle two items that the visual fashioners make utilize of is the pictures and the statements. Today more than enough programming is accessible to configuration, which makes the designers work simple and speedy. There is much rivalry in this visual depiction field. Composing is an imagination to accumulate out the content a picture to snatch the customer???s consideration and draw in them. Visual planners work in quite a route, to the point that a specific visualization or an outline is worth thousand expressions. All the more Designers utilize statements yet those expressions can be more important and alluring. Web Design Nottingham constructs an association between client and their clients. Nottinghamshire is the well known website Design Nottingham in UK which has brilliant crew parts like programming designs, substance scholars, net originators who are masters in improving network requisition according to their customers. Nottinghamshire website Design Nottingham raises and improves a site for any sort of business and additionally causes to unfold your business. Their net outline work is particularly arranged and incorporates all revamped headlines. Nottinghamshire are extremely popular for their engaging configuration and client well disposed access in the web space. Summary: They manage online provisions where they principally center on the site movement. The resources composed by Nottinghamshire are exceptionally delightful and stacking time is absolutely quick. Author Bio: website design Nottingham is Design Company. It gives also other different services like content management service, E-commerce solutions, SEO. It is established in 1998. And it gives web design services. Article Tags :

Last Updated on Monday, 24 December 2012 00:28

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Source: http://www.workoninternet.com/business/reviews/miscellaneous/221783-article.html

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The King's Speech: How King George Overcame His Stutter Struggle

Prince Albert, a.k.a. England's King George VI was never supposed to be King George VI at all. In fact, his older brother, Edward, was the country's reigning monarch until he abdicated to marry a divorc?e. And thus, soft spoken stammering George was thrust into a position of power on the eve of the second world war. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/x2xh-SYIbDo/the-kings-speech-how-king-george-overcame-his-stutter-struggle

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Successful Sales Management: CRM Is Yesterday's Answer To The ...

Why doesn't CRM work? Because its an answer to the wrong problem. Another heretical thought from the people who suggest sales managers need to change just about everything. Of course, that's nothing to do with the technology, and everything to do with the way its used. It's the bean counters' tool for controlling sales people.
The original sales pitch for CRM was really quite innovative, and engaging, and very attractive to the big software companies who'd max'd out the ERP market with solutions for the Millennium Bug problem. ?The consultants loved it too. It was a new way of keeping the gravy train running, with big companies spending even bigger budgets on software to fix problems they didn't understand.

Understand more about your customers. Get on top of sales. Make your business more predictable. CRM is the answer.

In all too many cases CRM has been simply about collecting information from the sales team about how hard they were working, and where they were getting it wrong. And that's why it's yesterday's answer to the wrong problem. Today's problem is the sales people don't have systems to help them do a better job in the new paradigm.

In today?s flatter, faster world, prospects are smarter and better informed. They?re suspicious of claims made by sellers, more demanding of personalised offers, insistent on controlling the relationship. Vendors must know what will make the customer happy, prove how they?ll deliver it, and do it at a price which can be paid.

• Sales managers need to evolve from lion tamers into engineers, with resources, strategies and processes which can be continuously improved.
• Sales people need to evolve from robotic drones into intelligent capable entrepreneurs ? business people who can develop value adding and sharing relationships with customers.
• The sales model needs to evolve, targeting the right prospects, defining a scope of delivery, planning and executing a process through which both buyer and seller agree what will work for both parties, and how that will be achieved, and paid for.
• Businesses need to evolve. Instead of simply making product because they can, they need to offer value propositions customers want, and can be delivered. They need a sales strategy to decide which offers are put to which potential customers, and how. They need a sales process which minimizes the cost of sale, by not selling to those unlikely to buy.

They need ?business people? sales guys who can collaborate, negotiate and manage. And they need to measure the results, and find ways to improve the efficiency of the process. They need a continuous cycle of improvement ? just like the engineers in the factories.

And the sales people need systems to help them do it, not software which helps beancounters measure the wrong numbers.

Why doesn?t the traditional approach to selling and sales management work so well any more? What can the modern sales professional do to stay relevant in today?s customer driven markets?? Check out our eBook?Reengineering Sales Management?for ideas on how to embrace the new order of customer driven buyer/seller relationships.

Source: http://successfulsalesmanagement.stevensreeves.com/2012/11/crm-is-yesterdays-answer-to-wrong.html

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Do Alabamians spend too much on Medicaid? ? Training Family ...

Governor Bentlley and the state legislature agree that they do not like the open-ended nature of our state?s health care obligation to the poor. The state?s policy makers are debating (actually, posturing may be a better description) accepting the Medicaid expansion offered through the ACA that would open up Medicaid to those with household incomes up to 133 percent of the poverty level or about $31,000 for a family of four. The federal government would pay 100 percent of the cost of services for new enrollees for the first three years, but that eventually would drop to 90 percent.

Governor Bentley said ?that he would not expand Medicaid ?as it exists under the current structure.?

?It?s a broken system. It?s a totally broken system right now. It is not working well, not only in Alabama, it?s not working well anywhere,? Bentley said this week.

Predictably, the legislature is divided into the pro and anti expansion factions with the Democrats taking the pro as House Minority leader Craig Ford stated

?He should know better being a physician,? Ford said. ?We?ve got a lot of people without insurance in the state of Alabama.?

and the Republicans the anti

Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, said this summer that the 90-10 match is not a bargain if ?you can?t afford the 10.?

Part of the problem is that the policy makers are looking at an unpredictable (and ever increasing) cost that they see as having little ability to control. Medicaid provides for care in a ?fee-for-service? model in Alabama, meaning that when folks become eligible the state pays the bills. The state gets a Medicaid bill and pays it. Without coverage dictated by income and private insurance for those not on Medicaid, state has no control over who it might have to care for. Consequently, for the major categories of people it must now care for, the costs are unpredictable (Data from this paper and this website unless otherwise stated):

• Nursing homes- Two-thirds of nursing home stays are paid for by Alabama Medicaid. Eligibility is determined by inability to provide a certain level of care for oneself and not having any resources. The state of Alabama has little contact with those who might be eligible and cannot at this time provide alternatives to nursing home care to those people. Thus, under the current structure, the system rewards allowing people to get so sick they need to be in a nursing home, and almost all nursing homes are dependent on Medicaid at some level. We spend 61% of our Medicaid long-term care dollars in nursing homes, compared to 41% on average in the rest of America. The elderly are currently 13% of the enrollment and 26% of the cost.
• Maternity care ? a little more than half of all maternity deliveries are already paid for by Medicaid before any expansion takes place. No woman who has not been pregnant and is not currently disabled is currently Medicaid eligible in Alabama, even those with $0 income. Many people with an income above $0 but below 138% of the poverty line are employed in jobs that have no health coverage. I have cared for many women who first get care for their diabetes, hypertension, or asthma as a consequence of finding out they are pregnant and Medicaid eligible. An unplanned (due to lack of access to safe and effective contraception) pregnancy complicated by one of these chronic conditions is much, much more expensive than even a ?normal? unplanned (due to lack of access to safe and effective contraception) pregnancy. Adults are 16% of the enrollment and 8% of the cost.
• Care of children ? Alabama has historically taken advantage of opportunities to deliver health care to its children. As a consequence, only 6% of Alabama?s children do not have health care coverage.? Part of our success is that more than 40 percent of the state?s children are covered through Medicaid. Alabama offers coverage to 133% of the federal poverty level (FPL) through age 9 and offers CHIPS eligibility to 300% of the FPL. Health insurance isn?t everything. We rank 37th in children?s health measures but we are able to work to improve these as a result of our almost universal coverage. While these children are an ?open-ended? obligation, they are very inexpensive to care for if done correctly. Children currently are 49% of the enrollment and 29% of the cost.
• Adult chronic illness (disability) ? 15.5% of Alabama?s population between the ages of 21 and 64 is disabled. This entitles them to Medicaid eligibility in addition to Medicare in most cases. Only 10% of all Americans in this age group are disabled. Alabamians report an average of 1 full day of limited activity per month above that of the average American. Having cared for a number of these people who on disability, it is clear that inattention to chronic conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, smoking, and others have led to the final illness that ?qualified? them for disability. In addition, many of people have a coexisting mental condition that contributes to their disability but often escapes notice. Inattention to these also leads to decreased productivity and workplace disruption. The disabled are 22% of the enrollment and 37% of the cost.

And the one it doesn?t have to care for:

• Adult acute illness ? In Alabama, unless you are in a nursing home, pregnant or a single parent in a family with young children, or on disability, you are not a ?cost? to Medicaid. However, Alabama has an access crisis for all of her citizens. We have 8 counties with no hospitals, 35 counties that provide no obstetrical care, and there is only 1 county that does not include a medically underserved area. Alabamians are more likely to die of influenza, pneumonia, heart disease, strokes, notor vehicle collisions, and have a shorter life span than the average (or indeed most) Americans. This is because not only are we spending a lot of money in the wrong places, we are not spending enough money in a manner that would allow a better care delivery system to grow and flourish. The hospital is not the optimum place to go for a flu vaccine. If there is no one delivering care in a county because the care delivery system is broken beyond repair, there is nowhere to go for a flu vaccine or to receive life saving care for severe influenza, either.

If you have not heard of the story of the community by the river and the babies floating downstream, I refer you to this version. The question for the villagers is always how to best deploy their assets. Do they stay and catch babies or do they go upstream and find the baby source, perhaps risking some babies floating down in the interim. Medicaid was created as a sick people catcher, a way to partially reimburse doctors for caring for the sick poor who showed up in their offices and hospitals. In the interim, it has become the primary source of payment for pregnancy care and childhood illness care. It only catches sick adults after the harm of chronic illness cannot be undone. It doesn?t catch poor sick adults who, while working, are too poor to purchase health coverage.

While catching babies is inefficient and ineffective, we still need to pay some folks to stay here and catch them. Meanwhile, let?s use the expansion and other programs made available through the Affordable Care Act to go upstream. Let?s keep people from becoming disabled, keep babies from accidentally being born to women who cannot carry them to term, keep people out of the nursing home, and work to improve our child health standings. Let?s use Medicaid to make our health system work.

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Source: http://usafamilymedicine.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/do-alabamians-spend-too-much-on-medicaid/

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Technology goes green | Finance & Commerce

Image: Dreamstime

How to boost?an office?s efficiency?with eco-friendly computing

Eco-friendliness doesn?t have to stop at the IT department?s door.

For a few years now, many enterprises have embarked on green computing initiatives, making changes to their technology and practices to become more efficient and environmentally aware.

?Green computing? is an umbrella term that describes a wide range of strategies, including computer and peripheral manufacturing. For small businesses, the term is likely to mean small shifts in operations that can add to larger savings and benefits.

Here are just a few ways to green up your business.

Try power-management tactics

Many people believe that when computers go into ?sleep? mode, they?re using significantly less power than when they?re active. While that can be true, it?s not always the case. Graphics-heavy screensavers can actually draw more power than heavy normal usage.

The best tactic is to switch machines off during evenings and weekends and use a power-management software application (typically affordable) that can track power spikes and disruptions. Another advantage to shutting down more frequently is that it extends the life of electronics. The U.S. Department of Energy notes on its website that ?the less time a PC is on, the longer it will last.?

Try cloud computing

?The cloud can eliminate onsite equipment, and transition the IT load to highly efficient data centers,? says James Matheson, president of Network Medics, a Minneapolis-based IT support company.

Still, cloud strategies aren?t perfect and challenges can come up as a company moves to cloud-based applications. But in general, using cloud computing can lower the amount of server hardware and other equipment in an office, which reduces power and cooling usage.

Take control of e-waste

As technology advances, a small business will likely have a steady flow of fresh equipment like laptops, desktops, servers, printers and routers.

So, what happens to the old stuff? Proper disposal of electronics (known as e-waste) is crucial and can free up office space as well as drive down electricity costs.

Because of their components, equipment with circuit boards and batteries can?t be sent to a landfill, especially in Minnesota, which has extensive hazardous material guidelines. Look for opportunities to recycle instead by contacting local nonprofits who take electronics donations, or contact a ?registered collector? who handles e-waste. A list of collectors can be found on the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency website. Don?t forget to do a thorough data wipe before getting rid of any electronics, even on photocopiers.

Extend the life of electronics

The typical lifespan of a computer is about three years, but that?s only because companies tend to buy new equipment when they run out of hard drive room or experience slowdowns. Extending the life of computers through strategic upgrades can be more cost-effective and much kinder on the planet because technology manufacturing requires enormous resources.

?Some careful management of upgrades can really make a difference in terms of performance,? says Chad Ness, director of IT at Bloomington-based WD Larson Companies Ltd., a transportation sales company. ?Even something like doubling the RAM in a computer can prevent waste.?

If a small business doesn?t have an IT guru on hand, services like The Tech Outfit or Geek Squad can easily upgrade computers and perform other enhancements within just a few hours.

Switch to laptops

Although desktop computers are still better for some jobs than laptops ? graphic design or project management are two examples ? opt for laptops when it comes to greening up an office.

In recent years, manufacturers have become quite innovative with mobile technology, including laptops and notebooks, and the resulting machines can be up to 80 percent more efficient than desktops, according to some estimates.

Another point for laptops comes with power surges or blackouts. To keep running, desktops need to be connected to uninterrupted power supply units, which can eat up electricity.

In general it?s a good idea to regularly review technology components like laptops, desktops and even software to gauge where efficiencies can be realized. Extending the schedule for new purchases will not only save on environmental resources, but also will make better sense for small-business budgets.

Elizabeth Millard has been writing about technology for 17 years. Her work has appeared in Business 2.0, eWeek, Linux Magazine and TechNewsWorld. She attended Harvard University and formerly served as senior editor at ComputerUser.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2012 at 6:00 am and is filed under Small Business Resource Guide. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://finance-commerce.com/2012/11/technology-goes-green/

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Photo Coverage: Amber Riley, Joshua Henry, Adriane Lenox and More in COTTON CLUB PARADE Curtain Call!

Amber Riley?(GLEE),?Joshua Henry,?Jared Grimes?and?Adriane Lenox?star in New York?City Center?s acclaimed production of?Duke Ellington?s Cotton Club Parade, returning to?City Center?through tonight, November 18th, 2012. BroadwayWorld brings you photos from the show's curtain call below!

Conceived by?Jack Viertel?and presented under the auspices of?City Center?s Tony Award?winning Encores! series, Cotton Club Parade is once again be directed and choreographed by?Warren Carlyle, with music direction by Jazz at Lincoln Center Artistic Director?Wynton Marsalis. The show features the Jazz at Lincoln Center All Stars under the direction of?Daryl Waters.

Cotton Club Parade opened at?City Center?on November 18, 2011 for a limited, six-performance run and received unanimous rave reviews. Cotton Club Parade is a Broadway-style revue celebrating Ellington?s years at the famed Harlem nightclub in the 1920s and ?30s, when the joint was jumping with revues featuring big band swing and blues.

As in the original shows, Cotton Club Parade will feature singers, dancers and variety acts, with songs by the greatest jazz composers of the time, including?Jimmy McHugh?and?Dorothy Fields?(?I Can?t Give You Anything But Love? and ?Digga Digga Doo?), a young?Harold Arlen?(?Stormy Weather,? ?I?ve Got the World on a String,? ?Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,?), and of course,?Duke Ellington?(?Rockin? in Rhythm,? ?Cotton Club Stomp,? ?Black and Tan Fantasy,? and ?Creole Love Call?).

For more information, visit?NYCityCenter.org?and?jalc.org.

Photo Credit:?Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

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Amber Riley and Company

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/broadwayworld/pWRb/~3/Y4lDk93ziBo/Photo-Coverage-Amber-Riley-Joshua-Henry-Adriane-Lenox-and-More-in-COTTON-CLUB-PARADE-Curtain-Call-20121118

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2011 Range Rover HSE Lease - Lease a Land Rover Range Rover ...

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Sci Tech Watch: Invisible Computing / Putting information ...

With each passing year, computers become faster and more powerful, not to mention smaller, cheaper, and more stylish. But whether they are becoming easier to use is a matter of considerable debate. On the one hand you have technology pundits who point out that Mac OS X is a great leap forward in usability from Mac OS 9 or that Windows XP makes computing a lot simpler than Windows 2000 did. I don?t dispute those claims, as far as they go. But on the other side of the debate you have people complaining?rightly so?that improvements in computers have not resulted in shorter work weeks or reduced stress. We spend more time per day in front of our computers now than ever before, and on the whole, this time is not relaxing or fulfilling. And although operating systems have matured and improved, the range of activities we?re expected to be able to perform using computers, and the complexity of individual tasks, have increased tremendously. The net result is that computers require an increasing amount of our time, money, and attention?valuable resources most of us would like to use elsewhere.

It?s Not the Mousetrap, It?s the Mouse
In the world of computer software, in which I?ve worked for many years, the solution to the problem of computer complexity is always assumed to be improving the user interface. If an activity currently requires three mouse clicks, change it so that it only takes one. If text on the screen is too confusing, replace it with a picture. If a menu contains too many commands, group them into smaller lists. And so on. These are all important and worthwhile steps, and I?ve spent a lot of time and effort learning about the principles of good user interface design. But when all is said and done, this is an inadequate solution to the problem. You may have, for example, the slickest and easiest-to-use disk repair utility in the world, but a more fundamental problem is that you need to use such a tool in the first place.

This is one of the arguments that forms the basis of Donald Norman?s 1998 book The Invisible Computer. Norman has some serious technology credentials, particularly in the area of human interface design. He was an executive at both Apple Computer and Hewlett Packard, taught cognitive science and psychology at the University of California, San Diego and computer science at Northwestern University, and wrote several books on design. In The Invisible Computer Norman says what many technologists believe deep inside but are ashamed to admit: ?I don?t want to use a computer,? he says, ?I want to accomplish something. I want to do something meaningful to me.? (p. 75) In other words, he doesn?t want to use ?applications? or ?utilities,? he doesn?t want to worry about file formats, IP addresses, or database structures. He wants to communicate, to play, to learn. He wants the computer and its software to fade into the background, become ?invisible??replaced with simple, task-centered devices.

The Invisible Motor
Norman uses the example of the electric motor to illustrate his point. When motors first became commercially available, they were large, heavy, and expensive. To accomplish different tasks, you?d purchase accessories?a sewing machine, fan, mixer, or whatever?and hook them up to your motor. Nowadays, motors are smaller and cheaper and appear inside devices of all kinds. Most people don?t even think about the fact that there?s a motor in their hair dryer, blender, or heater; it?s become invisible. Now we just buy a device that does whatever task we need instead of having all appliances require a separate motor, which by itself is useless. Norman would like to see the same thing happen with computers.

To some extent, things are already moving in that direction. Devices such as pagers, cell phones, CD players, cameras, and watches already have computers invisibly inside them, and are designed to do just one task in a relatively simple way. You can even buy devices that just send and receive email, or just provide a Web browser. From digital TV recorders to electronic musical keyboards, single-task computing devices are becoming more and more common. Norman calls this whole class of devices ?information appliances,? after a term coined by Jef Raskin (another legendary user interface maven).

Building Invisibility
For computers to become entirely invisible, according to Norman, two main things must happen. First, the range of simple, inexpensive information appliances must increase significantly. There are still a number of important tasks I do every day that can only be done with a computer. And second, the infrastructure that allows such devices to communicate with each other seamlessly must exist. At the moment, there are a great many wired and wireless technologies for connecting electronic devices, and an even greater number of protocols, formats, and encodings that make communication challenging. For example, my computer can communicate with my cell phone or with my digital camera, but my camera and my cell phone can?t talk to each other. And none of these can communicate directly with my television or my stereo.

Without a doubt, the infrastructure is improving. More and more digital devices use standardized, open formats and protocols and mutually compatible interfaces, much to the chagrin of a certain large software company. If I had enough money and time, I could probably put together a set of a couple dozen information appliances today that could handle most of my computing tasks, share information with each other, and require me to have only minimal contact with a conventional computer. And that would indeed get partway toward the vision of invisible computing. But there would be little point in attempting such an exercise today, because the total cost would be dramatically higher than the cost of a single computer that can do all those things, and for many daily activities I?d have to switch repeatedly from one specialized device to another. Moreover, even the best of today?s information appliances are sometimes overly complex. You might have to update the software on your pocket music player, whereas you?ll never have to reboot your dishwasher.

Beyond the Personal Computer
What I really want is not a shiny, powerful digital hub on my desk. I?d rather just have an empty desktop. There should be space for a coffee mug, a stack of papers, a couple of books, and a picture frame?without a keyboard and monitor getting in the way. Right now, however, the computer forces itself to be the central focus of my desk (or my lap, as the case may be). I would like all the activities that currently require looking at a computer screen, running applications, and concerning myself with the operation of the machine to be replaced by versions of those activities that require me only to think about the task itself. This will take more than a great set of inexpensive and interconnected devices. It will take a rethinking of how tasks are accomplished.

This is basically Norman?s bottom line. Computer and technology companies, he says, are currently focused on the technology. Norman wants these companies to start thinking about human beings first. By this he doesn?t mean ?creating cooler industrial design? or ?improving user interface? or ?extending battery life.? In the ideal future world of information appliances and invisible computers, the design of every product would start with the real underlying task. What does a person actually want to do? How would someone want to accomplish something? As long as the starting point is ?What color or shape shall we make our computer?? or ?How many buttons should our remote control have?? technology companies will be missing the point.

Picture some day in the future when you?ve forgotten the last time you had to update software, back up a hard drive, or check for viruses. The word ?internet? is strangely familiar, as if it meant something in your childhood. You watch an old movie in which a wife complains that her husband is ?always on the computer,? and you don?t understand what that means. You haven?t lost your mind or become a hermit; in fact, you?re much better-connected and culturally sophisticated than you ever were. You haven?t purchased a computer in years, and yet there are dozens in your home. You just don?t think about them being there, because they do what they need to do and stay out of your way. That?s the idea of invisible computing. Speaking as a self-professed computer geek, I can?t think of a more idyllic future than one in which the computers have disappeared. ?Joe Kissell

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More Information about Invisible Computing...

Don Norman?s home page is located at jnd.org.

On Thursday, June 24, 2004, in Irvine, California, Tony Givargis and Cristina Lopes of UC Irvine?s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences gave a talk on The Age of the Disappearing Computer .

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Source: http://www.sci-tech-watch.com/2012/11/invisible-computing-putting-information.html

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Public nudity ban considered in San Francisco

Nov 18, 2012 5:11pm

(Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP Photo)

San Franciscans may be forced to wear clothes outside of their homes and some nude activists aren?t pleased.

City lawmakers are scheduled to vote Tuesday on an ordinance that, if passed, would make it illegal for anyone over the age of 5 to expose their genitals in public. Exemptions will be made for parades and festivals held under a city permit, according to the ordinance.

A group of activists filed a federal lawsuit against the city on Wednesday, asking that a judge issue a temporary restraining order to stop the vote on Tuesday and provide the court enough time to determine the merits of the case.

One of the plaintiffs, Mitch Hightower, has organized an annual ?nude-in? demonstration over the past several years.

?The ?Nude In? is intended to promote a spirit of tolerance, peace and fellowship among the attendees,? the lawsuit said, claiming that if enacted, the ordinance would violate the constitutional right of free speech.

?It attempts to criminalize nudity even when engaged in for the purpose of political advocacy,? the lawsuit said.

George Davis, who ran for mayor in 2007 and District 6 supervisor in 2010, both times as the ?nude candidate,? joined the suit, claiming he uses nudity ?as part of his political expression.?

If the ordinance is enacted, first time offenders would be fined $100. The fine increases to $200 if it?s the second offense within 12 months. The third time a nudist is caught, they could be slapped with a $500 fine and potentially charged with a misdemeanor.

SHOWS: Good Morning America World News

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/public-nudity-ban-considered-in-san-francisco/

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The Smith Family Maternity Portraits| Reno

This year so far has been all about the pretty prego mamas and I?m loving it! This one in particular has a special place in my heart since the prego mama below is one of my dearest friends. She?s one of those people you meet and you instantly want to be her best friend. And I was lucky enough to call her mine. She?s an extremely supportive, caring, always there for you kind of person who laughs at all my jokes, even the ones when I?m the only person who would be laughing if she wasn?t there. She?s just flat out awesome. She married this great guy who?s perfect for her and 2 years ago they had Elijah aka Duders. To be closer to family and so that she could be a stay at home mom, they moved up to Reno, NV and shortly after found out that they were expecting baby no. 2. We were all so excited to find out if she was having a girl and then she broke the devasting news?.she wouldn?t be finding out the sex of the baby. Uhhhh I?m sorry say what??? ??It was a grueling 6 more months for all of us who were dying to know what she was having but they held strong and stuck to it.

I went up to visit Shilo at her new home in Reno, NV for her baby shower and to shoot her maternity portraits. She brought me to this beautiful location with amazing light and this random little forest of birch trees that I wanted to pack up in my suitcase and set up in a field in my town. But I guess it just gives me one more reason to head up to Reno right?? Anyways..I digress?Shilo totally rocked this shoot with her perfectly round belly and gorgeous looks. There?s something about these photos that has this calmness to them which I think has to do with how comfortable Shilo is in her own skin. She just radiates happiness.

I bet you?re wondering what they had right?? ??.. In June they welcomed their 1st daughter, Elsa, into the world and she?s just gorgeous. Big brother (at age 2) is already talking about protecting his new baby sister. He?s in love and it?s sooo cute! Congratulations to a family I hold dear to my heart. I?m beyond excited for your new journey in life with baby Elsa.

Source: http://www.sarahtylerphotography.com/maternity/reno-maternity-portraits-in-birch-trees/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=reno-maternity-portraits-in-birch-trees

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The Best Blog and Reference for Investors and Traders

The Best Blog and Reference for Investors and Traders

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The Best Blog and Reference for Investors and Traders.?We could refer to hundreds of recommendations given here resulting into millions in profits to our subscribers.

No, we also are not going to refer to Vieira Trade Calls, the best historical stock track record ever. It is not necessary. Going forward, we cannot count on him to share information outside his services: Trading for a Living and Wealthy Investors and Fund Managers.

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Instead, we are going to mention just couple of recommendations out of hundreds recently mentioned in this same blog quite clear.

NUMBER 1: Selling Short Fusion (FIO)?Against?Cody Willard Scam (Thank You for Mr. Vieira help!)

NUMBER 2: Selling Short J.C. Penney Against Oppenheimer Funds and American fund manager Bill Ackman, a complete idiot and loser according to Vieira. JCP crashed to $17 in a matter of weeks!

NUMBER 3: Beyond Trading Blog: Source of FREE Profits (LNKD), share price plunged $122 to $95 according to Vieira instructions.

NUMBER 4: How to Make the Most Trading Mosaic (MOS), a masterpiece in stock market trading.

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Beyond Trading Elite?an introductory level to stock market trading for small investors by the world leader established in 2003.

Vieira?s?Trading and Coaching for Professionals and Fund Managers,?is the reference in Professional Live Trading and Online Trader?s Education. He has been coaching traders, hedge fund managers and investors around the globe for the past twenty years. Besides coaching investors trading live the stock market, Vieira develops priceless and unique e-learning content for professional traders: basic and advanced trading courses based on actual trading shared with subscribers.

Vieira?s?Trading for a Living?service, the most successful Professional Trading & Educations program worldwide.?More than 3000 individuals including institutions around the world, every day login to their account to listen to the most recent Vieira updates, comments, perspective, opinion.?It is worth millions to them! Listen to some of them?here

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Facebook's Fischer And Lessin Say User Experience And ...

Do Facebook?s efforts to make money come at the cost of the user experience? Company executives David Fischer (vice president of marketing and business partnerships) and Sam Lessin (who heads the Identity Product Group) said today that they don?t see it that way ? instead, Fischer argued that the Facebook team thinks about user experience and advertising as ?either side of the same coin.?

Fischer and Lessin were speaking at the Techonomy conference, where Fischer argued that the right piece of advertising in your newsfeed is ?actually better content in a lot of cases.? For example, he said that he?s passionate about snow, so an ad from Squaw Valley would be very relevant to him right now.

Lessin, meanwhile, repeatedly compared Facebook?s newsfeed to the ?ideal newspaper,? one that the company is always trying to improve so that it delivers the most relevant content to each user. So it?s natural to try to think about ?the economic component? of the experience as well, rather than treating it as something completely separate.

?There are plenty of brands and companies that I want to interact with,? Lessin said.

Moderator David Kirkpatrick (who runs the conference and also wrote The Facebook Effect) praised Facebook?s recent efforts to incorporate advertising into its product decisions, and he suggested that this is a big change in the company?s thinking. Lessin countered that it depends on the ?time horizon.? Facebook?s monetization plans are a relatively recent development, but he said that even a few years ago, if you asked someone at the company how they saw the product evolving decades from now, they would have given answers that were similar to his.

Lessin didn?t stop at the newspaper comparison. He also said that Facebook and other new technologies have given us three new superpowers ? the ability to remember anything, to talk to someone across the world, and to process massive amounts of data. Facebook didn?t invent those technologies, but it?s a big part of the change.

?How do we want to leverage our new superpowers?? he asked.

Elaborating on the idea that Facebook is dramatically transforming industries, Kirkpatrick asked if Facebook might eventually expand beyond just convincing people to buy new products and eventually create new types of commerce and new types of companies. Lessin agreed, but he said also we shouldn?t devalue the ability to sell ?things like toothpaste more effectively.? After all, he said, ?Toothpaste is an awesome product.?

Kirkpatrick also asked about a specific product, namely the Promoted Posts feature, where individual users can pay to promote their content in the newsfeed. Kirkpatrick has tested out the feature (as have other writers), and he complained that there?s not enough transparency about the results. Fischer and Lessin said that Facebook actually provides metrics like organic reach, paid reach, and engagement ? it sounds like Kirkpatrick just didn?t find them. There?s no ?philosophical? reason Facebook couldn?t make those numbers more prominent, Lessin said, but there?s a tension between making the data visible and not overwhelming the user.

The interview both opened and closed with one of the big issues facing Facebook ? its mobile strategy, particularly its ability to monetize. Fischer kicked things off by pointing to Facebook?s most recent earnings report, which stated that 14 percent of the company?s ad revenue came from mobile. Lessin closed things off by declaring that Facebook?s mobile opportunities are ?unbelievably exciting,? in part because smartphones unlock the social network?s latent potential: ?In some ways, we were a mobile company that got started ahead of mobile.?

February 1, 2004

NASDAQ:FB

Facebook is the world?s largest social network, with over 1 billion monthly active users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original...

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Dave is a founding partner of Gold Hill, and has provided financing to early and growth stage technology and life science companies for over 20 years. Prior to Gold Hill, Dave was involved with market development, deal sourcing and credit underwriting for 12 years at Silicon Valley Bank and for 5 years at Bank of New England?s Technology Lending Division. Dave?s primary markets include the Boston area, New York, Texas and Colorado. Dave?s past and current investments include Akamai...

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Sam Lessin is the co-founder and CEO of Drop.io. Prior to Drop.io he worked at Bain & Company. He graduated from Harvard University (Magna Cum Laude & PBK distinctions) He currently works as a Product Manager for Facebook in California.

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Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/13/facebook-advertising-same-coin-techonomy/

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Pedometers play up every step you take

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While step counting will never be a magic fitness pill, experts say this most pedestrian of gadgets can put extra spring in an ambulatory routine. \\\"Just as a watch can\\'t make a person be on time, a pedometer can\\'t make a person active,\\\" said Dr. Barbara Bushman, an exercise specialist and personal trainer with the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). \\\"But it\\'s a good tool for promoting physical activity. ...","sUltBucketId":"test1","sUltSection":"sentirating","sUltBeaconUrl":"","sUltRecordPageviews":"1","sUltBeaconEnable":"1","serviceUrl":"\/_xhr","publisherContextId":"","propertyId":"2fcd79b5-b3a3-333e-b98e-722536a6698f","configurationId":"435db9ee-c55e-3766-b20d-c8ad3ff889d1","graphId":"","labelLeft":"Smaller works for me","labelRight":"Bigger is better","labelMiddle":"","itemimg":"http:\/\/l.yimg.com\/a\/i\/ww\/met\/yahoo_logo_us_061509.png","selfURI":"","aggregateRatingCount":"54086","aggregateReviewCount":"0","leftBlocksNum":"30754","rightBlocksNum":"23332","leftBlocksPerCent":"57","rightBlocksPerCent":"43","ugcrate_apihost":"api01-us.ugcl.yahoo.com:4080","publisher_id":"news-en-US","yca_cert":"yahoo.ugccloud.app.trusted_proxies","timeout_write":"5000","through_proxy":"false","optionStats":"{\"s1\":5164,\"s2\":2320,\"s3\":5563,\"s4\":13203,\"s5\":4504,\"s6\":23332,\"s7\":0,\"s8\":0,\"s9\":0,\"s10\":0}","l10N":"{\"FIRST_TO_READ\":\"You are first to read this. 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Your response will be seen by your Facebook friends on Yahoo!\",\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s1\":5164,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s2\":2320,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s3\":5563,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s4\":13203,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s5\":4504,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s6\":23332,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s7\":0,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s8\":0,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s9\":0,\"NUM_PEOPLE_RATED__s10\":0}","fbconfig":"{\"message\":\"undefined\",\"name\":\"undefined\",\"link\":\"\",\"source\":\"\",\"picture\":\"http:\\\/\\\/l.yimg.com\\\/a\\\/i\\\/ww\\\/news\\\/2011\\\/09\\\/27\\\/yahoo-tc.jpg\",\"description\":\"\",\"captionLeft\":\"undefined\",\"captionRight\":\"undefined\",\"app_id\":\"196660913708276\",\"redirect_uri\":\"\\\/_xhr\\\/ugcratefbredirect\\\/\"}","template_id":"LONG_SLIDER_SOUTH","obj_id":"ratings_5ce7765548a1a7b7a414f6b50b94e581","opt_count":"6","opt_color1":"","opt_color2":"","template_html":"

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/pedometers-play-every-step-104502179--finance.html

charles taylor

Sell More Fiction by Activating the Power of Book Clubs | Jane ...

Today?s guest post is by Rob Eagar, author of Sell Your Book Like Wildfire.

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Book clubs and discussion groups?where millions of readers congregate both in-person and online to discuss their favorite books?offer a powerful marketing opportunity for novelists. Some of the most popular social networks devoted to book readers include?GoodReads?(12 million members strong),?LibraryThing, Red Room, and BookShout. Promoting your book to both physical and digital book clubs can help boost sales by increasing the number of volume orders placed. Below are three ways to get started.

Encourage groups to dive into your novels by streamlining the process to get them talking. First, create a list of interesting questions and add them to the back of your book, your author website, your publisher?s book page, etc. Make it easy for people to find and download these questions.

Second, don?t put a book club to sleep by giving them boring questions. Simple ?yes? or ?no? answers fail to generate curiosity. Likewise, don?t create dull questions, such as ?Did the main character seem scared in Chapter 3?? Instead, push your audience to shake things up with deeper questions, such as:

• If you were in the main character?s position at this point, how would you respond?
• Do you feel as if this book changed your views on the primary subject of the story? Why?
• The main character?s adherence to social customs can seem controversial to us today. Pick a scene where you would have acted differently. Why?
• If you could change something about this book, what would it be and why?

Provide a context for groups to interact with your book; offer ideas for your book to be used as the basis for a mystery dinner, field trip, supper club, Bible study, service project, etc.

For example, you could provide a list of recipes that pertain to the characters, locations, or events in your novel. Or you could build a playlist of songs that evoke the novel?s themes or offer insight into the characters. If your book deals with difficult social subjects, such as soldiers fighting overseas, children at risk, or abandoned animals, you could invite the group to send letters and care packages to forgotten servicemen, volunteer at an after-school program, or volunteer at an animal shelter.

Look for ways to make book clubs view your novel as an experience they can share, rather than just a book to read. Position your book as the catalyst for a meaningful activity. This is a great way to generate excitement and boost word of mouth.

Book clubs thrive on debating how a novelist creates and masterfully tells a story. Allow book clubs to meet you privately by scheduling phone calls or online discussions to answer some of their biggest questions. Just hearing your voice can be a major thrill for fans. Consider using services such as Skype, Facebook chat, or Google Hangouts to make virtual appearances with readers around the world. Plus there?s an added benefit of avoiding bookstore signing events where nobody shows up!

Several of my author clients offer free 30-minute phone calls to book clubs, because they like getting to know their readers without having to leave home. These phone calls allow authors to build stronger relationships with fans and understand why readers appreciate their books.

Never underestimate the desire readers have to meet their favorite authors. Promote such opportunities on your website and social media pages. Plus, notify your publisher, literary agent, and publicist about your availability so that they can help spread the word.

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To learn more about book marketing strategy, check out Eagar?s new release, Sell Your Book Like Wildfire.

Source: http://janefriedman.com/feeder/?FeederAction=clicked&feed=Articles+(RSS2)&seed=http://janefriedman.com/2012/11/13/sell-more-fiction-by-activating-the-power-of-book-clubs/&seed_title=Sell+More+Fiction+by+Activating+the+Power+of+Book+Clubs&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=sell-more-fiction-by-activating-the-power-of-book-clubs

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List of diseases spread by deer tick grows, including malaria-like problems and potentially fatal encephalitis

ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2012) ? An emerging tick-borne disease that causes symptoms similar to malaria is expanding its range in areas of the northeast where it has become well-established, according to new research presented November 12 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH).

Researchers from the Yale School of Public Health reported that from 2000 to 2008, cases of babesiosis -- which invades red blood cells and is carried by the same tick that causes Lyme disease -- expanded from 30 to 85 towns in Connecticut. Cases of the disease in Connecticut, where it was first reported in 1991, also have risen from 3 to about 100 cases per year.

The findings on babesiosis presented at the ASTMH annual meeting were accompanied by discussions of a range of other investigations into newly emerging tick-borne diseases, which include afflictions that can cause fatal encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain.

"Today's findings underscore the shifting landscape of tick-borne diseases, whose rapid emergence can challenge the best efforts of science and medicine to diagnose, treat, and prevent their occurrence," said Peter Krause, MD, a researcher at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut.

ASTMH President James W. Kazura, MD, FASTMH, said: "This is a real-time illustration of the inter-connectedness of human and animal health that many people don't often think about. Ticks are a major carrier for many human diseases and efforts like this offer timely information that is of regional and clinical importance."

Lyme disease -- with 20,000-30,000 cases reported each year in the United States -- is still the best known example of a recently emerged tick-borne disease. But research points to a growing number of pathogens carried by the deer tick, all of which are expanding their range.

Malaria look-alike in United States

A prime example is babesiosis, which is caused by the parasite Babesia microti. It has similarities to malaria in that it invades and destroys red blood cells. In the United States, this parasite is the most common pathogen transmitted through blood transfusions.

Acute cases are commonly associated with fever, fatigue, chills, headache, sweats and muscle pain. Infection can be asymptomatic or severe, causing death in about 6 to 9 percent of patients hospitalized with the illness. If transmitted through a blood transfusion, the mortality rate is about 20 percent. However, if properly diagnosed, babesiosis generally is promptly cured with antibiotics.

Its range is expanding:

• Krause's colleague at Yale, Maria Diuk-Wasser, PhD, said that as Babesia has expanded its range. In some northern Connecticut towns the current rate of deer tick infection is now similar or even higher than in coastal Connecticut or the highly-endemic Nantucket Island, where about 10 percent of deer ticks are carrying the B. microti parasite.
• The expansion of Babesia's range in Connecticut follows a similar explosion of the parasite in New York's Lower Hudson Valley, where the number of cases diagnosed in residents increased 20-fold from 2001 to 2008, from 6 cases to 119 cases per year during 2001 to 2008.
• Babesiosis is now considered endemic in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. And cases have turned up in at least 8 other states, from Washington to northern California in the West and from Maine to Maryland in the East.

In a separate study, Krause, Diuk-Wasser, Durland Fish, MD, and colleagues found evidence that Lyme disease and babesiosis parasite co-infection in mice appears to increase the transmission of Babesia microti and enhance its ability to become established in new areas.

They studied mice that had been deliberately infected with either one of the parasites that cause the diseases -- B. microti in the case of babesiosis and B. burgdorferi for Lyme -- or both at the same time. They allowed ticks to feed on the mice, and then each week over a six-week period they measured the percentage of ticks infected with each pathogen. They found ticks that fed on the mice infected with both the Lyme and babesiosis parasites were more likely to be carrying Babesia -- and at higher concentrations -- than ticks that fed on the mice infected only with the babesiosis parasite.

"This suggests that Lyme disease is somehow intensifying transmission of babesiosis," Krause said.

Encephalitis-causing Ticks Emerging in Northeast

Marc El Khoury, MD, with New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York, reported on two related diseases: deer tick virus, which, as its name suggests, is carried by the hard-bodied deer tick, and Powassan virus (POWV), which is carried by a soft-bodied tick that feeds on groundhogs and woodchucks. But the two diseases share a common ancestor and are difficult to tell apart in standard antibody tests.

Until recently, however, deer tick virus was not considered a threat to human health. The first clue that deer tick virus could cause human disease came in 2001 when deer tick virus RNA, taken from the brain of a man who died in 1997 shortly after a presumed Powassan encephalitis infection, was sequenced.

Now, El Khoury reports that, in Lyme-endemic areas, many, if not all, cases previously diagnosed as POWV are likely deer tick virus. Furthermore, the number of cases appears to be rising rapidly. Between 1958 and 2003 -- a span of 45 years -- only about 40 cases of POWV were reported in the United States and Canada. Then, in four years, from 2008 to 2012, 21 cases were reported from Wisconsin and Minnesota, and 12 cases from New York State.

"Almost all of these cases are in Lyme country, where humans are much more likely to be preyed upon by deer ticks carrying deer tick virus than ticks carrying Powassan virus," El Khoury said. "Now it appears that in Lyme-endemic areas, people can not only get Lyme disease or babesiosis, but also a deer tick virus-related meningoencephalitis."

Many infections are probably mild or asymptomatic. But more severe infections can progress to encephalitis, which can have a case fatality rate of up to 15 percent and cause permanent nerve or brain damage in about 50 percent of diagnosed cases. Powassan virus infections (that may in fact be deer tick virus) have been reported in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Maine, Vermont, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

There's Nothing Like Family

And that's not all. Deer ticks also are known to transmit a bacterial disease known as HGA (human granulocytic anaplasmosis) Also known as ehrlichiosis, HGA has become the third most frequent vector-borne disease in North America and Europe, and is now emerging in Asia, according to J. Stephen Dumler, MD, at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

HGA attacks white blood cells, and while milder forms cause fever and muscle pain, it can also cause serious disease and immune system malfunction that can lead to opportunistic infections. It is related to Rocky Mountain spotted fever (transmitted by another tick species) and typhus (transmitted by lice.)

HGA's rapid spread has been abetted by an expanded family of deer tick relatives, with different, closely related tick species carrying the disease in the Western United States, Europe and Asia, Dumler said. But as in the case of POWV and deer tick virus, limited information can sometimes lead to incorrect conclusions when it comes to the growing menagerie of tick-borne pathogens.

Dumler reported on an unusual outbreak of life-threatening HGA in China between 2007 and 2010 that affected hundreds of patients. But when scientists looked more closely, scrutinizing patients' blood for foreign DNA and sequencing whatever they found, the culprit was identified not as HGA but as a novel tick-borne virus -- one that had a 30 percent case fatality rate. And just this summer, a novel, closely-related and dangerous tick-borne virus infected two Missouri men.

Sam Telford, SD, MS, of Tufts University in Massachusetts noted that one of the biggest challenges posed by the emergence of new tick-borne diseases is the ability to match surveillance capabilities with the discovery of new diseases.

"We increasingly need to apply the most sophisticated genetic tools to identify the numerous new tick-borne microbes that have the theoretical capacity to infect humans," Telford said. "Only by raising awareness among health professionals of what to look for, publishing case reports with good laboratory details, and doing good epidemiology will we be able to truly understand and appropriately respond to emerging disease threats."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Burness Communications, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/zeBOA5Cv8rs/121112135510.htm

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