The Kale Stevens Backcountry Show

Posted by: Evan Litsios / added: 11.04.2013 / Back to What Up

Kale Stephens puts on a backcountry jump clinic in this edit of his latest and greatest. He covers all the essentials: switch backside booters, half-cabs down cliffs, classic front sevens, lots of step downs and all with a solid no-frills-attached style. 

Kale Stephens Latest and Greatest from 8MILELIFE on Vimeo.

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Source: http://www.frqncy.com/news/2013/11/04/the-kale-stevens-backcountry-show?utm_campaign=blog_feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feed_reader
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Gay rights bill clears first hurdle in Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) — A major gay rights bill has cleared its first hurdle in the Senate.

On a vote of 61-30, the Senate voted to move ahead on the legislation that would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The bipartisan vote increases the chances that the Senate will pass the bill by week's end, but its prospects in the Republican-led House are dimmer.

Speaker John Boehner remains opposed to the bill, arguing that it will lead to frivolous lawsuits and undercut job creation.

A vote would come 17 years after the Senate rejected a similar discrimination measure by one vote.

The Obama administration has said passage of the bill is long overdue.

• Politics & Government
• Government

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gay-rights-bill-clears-first-hurdle-senate-233849440--finance.html
Category: Edith Head   college board   Avril Lavigne   us open   Katy Perry Roar  

Author Catherine Chung: 'I Want To Embrace The Things That I Am'

Catherine Chung's first novel, "Forgotten Country" was given an honorable mention for a PEN/Hemingway award in 2012.

Ayano Hisa/Courtesy of Catherine Chung

Catherine Chung's first novel, "Forgotten Country" was given an honorable mention for a PEN/Hemingway award in 2012.

Ayano Hisa/Courtesy of Catherine Chung

Catherine Chung went from mathematics to writing, though she says words were always her first love. She was named one of Granta's New Voices in 2010, and her first novel, Forgotten Country, received honorable mention for a PEN/Hemingway award last year.

In Forgotten Country, Chung writes of a family with a curse that stretches back generations — from the family's time in Korea, to their life in America. Each generation of the family has lost a daughter since the Japanese occupation of Korea.

"I tried to pull my hand out of my mother's grasp, but she held on. She had lost her sister; she had lived in the aftermath of war. This was always what it came down to, in the end. My grandmother had told me once that my mother had never gotten over the death of my aunt. 'Never talk of it,' my grandmother had said. 'Never bring it up.'"

Chung weaves in old Korean folklore as her characters deal with a flurry of tumultuous family happenings: The youngest daughter, Hannah, cuts ties with the family for no reason just before their father is diagnosed with terminal cancer. The oldest daughter, Janie, is told to find her sister, who has moved cities without telling the family. And Janie — ever the dutiful one — is livid that her sister could be so absent during a family crisis. This all takes place while Janie recalls foggy memories of her childhood in Korea and her family's move to Detroit, Mich.

Some say that her work is different from that of other Asian-American writers. Mary Pols, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote of Chung's novel: "The agony of assimilation has been well chronicled by writers from Amy Tan to Jhumpa Lahiri, but Chung brings a gentle, special gravity to this Korean family's tale of endurance."

The story starts as though it'll be one of loss and the inevitable search for a missing sister. That momentum builds but is cut short when the 'missing sister' reappears early in the plot. The story then morphs quickly and explores the tenuous line between freedom and selfishness.

"'Unni,' Hannah said, the word for older sister: I could feel it pulling on me like a tide. She said, 'I've stopped wasting time on things I can't save.'

I wish I could tell her how anxious my parents had been, how much she'd been missed. I thought of my grandmother telling me to always keep my sister safe. I remembered our father bowing to his trees. 'What do you know,' I said, 'about who you can save?'"

Chung, who studied math at the University of Chicago, later earned an MFA in creative writing from Cornell. She talked with me about the way her culture has influenced her work, the transition from working at a think tank to writing a novel full-time, and the moment she realized she could be a writer.

Interview Highlights

On language and writing

So I always wanted to be a writer. And to talk about, very briefly, my relationship to language: English is not my first language. Korean is my first language. I didn't learn English until I went to school.... I feel like my mother tongue is Korean and that English is the language of school...

My dad was a professor and my mom was an academic. So they spoke English in life, but at home, they spoke Korean. I actually think they just didn't think about [teaching us English].... I think maybe they thought I'd learn English when I went to school, which is what happened. For me, because of that, the language of me being the outsider — that was my introduction to it. I went to school, everyone spoke this language I did not, I suddenly had this other name that I was not called at home that I was called in public.

I love English.... I wrote my first poem when I was seven in second grade. It was a haiku; it was my first moment where I felt like I had control over language in a way that I could express myself or understand myself. I was seven and I still remember the thrill of it, and I feel like because of that moment, I became a writer.

When I became a math major in college, it felt like really a deviation, if that makes sense — like a vacation from my desire to be a writer. Part of that happened — the math — because I didn't realize that being a writer was actually a possibility. I always knew that I wanted it, and I knew that I wanted it more than I wanted anything and still it didn't seem like anything I could do and I think part of it was because I was Asian.

On the writers she read growing up

... And you know I think I read three Asian writers growing up. You know: Amy Tan, and Chang-rae Lee — who I loved. I remember, it was such a revelation to read his book. I mean, he [was] one of the only contemporary writers that my entire family just sat down and read. It spoke to me so deeply....

The thing about Chang-rae Lee that was such a revelation was not that I was hungry to read about what it meant to be Asian-American, but that he actually gave words to a part of my experience... that I had never seen expressed before and that I didn't even know was possible. And that was incredible to think that, "Oh, there's this writer and he writes beautifully and movingly and it's not because this person is Asian, it's not because this character is Asian that I'm relating, but the fact that I'm relating to a character who can speak to an experience that I've never read about in literature before." It was so tremendously moving and empowering.

... You know, the people who influence us when we're children or when we're just becoming adults, it's just [a] tremendous influence. It just opened me up in a sort of way that was so important. Actually, when I was older, a little bit older, the other Asian-American writer [who] had such an influence on me was Alex Chee [Alexander Chee], and personally for me as well, I met him later.... I remember he wrote an essay about how he was a "unicorn." When he was writing [it], he might've been the only Asian-American gay man writing. And I think about that, how difficult it is to do a thing when you don't feel like anyone else like you has done that before. And I feel like, I am really lucky because I had examples that I discovered young enough that made it seemed possible.

On being an Asian-American writer and the balance between seeing seen as one and not

Something I was thinking about before we started this conversation — I feel like there are a lot of minority writers who say, "I'm not just this kind of writer or that kind of writer." I'm definitely an Asian-American writer, I'm definitely a female writer, and I want to embrace the things that I am and not have to feel like it's pigeon holing me. It's not actually a worry I have, but at the same time, having a conversation about the ways I am those things can be tricky because I don't actually feel the... limits of those things....

And I think that actually one of the challenges of being an Asian-American writer is that the expectation [to represent] tends to be there. They tend to think that you're writing about that thing. That is something that comes up, it's like a condition that exists in my writing.

.... Someone asked me, "Given your book... do you have hope that the two Koreas will be reunited and how do you think that could happen?" And there are sometimes moments — like that, that sort of expectation — and I think, "I write fiction. I'm trying to illuminate." I think what writing does is it takes a particular situation to try to illuminate the universal, so even speaking for a people is trying to show how it is for someone.... I think fiction is suggestive. It's not prescriptive.

On when she realized that she could be a writer

I think when I was in college, I took one fiction writing class with this man named Richard Stern, who was a wonderful writer. When I graduated from college, he said, "You could be a writer." He said, "You should be a writer." And I said, "Really?" And he said it so casually, like it was the simplest, easiest thing in the world and I thought, "Oh my god." But then I graduated college and I went and worked for a think tank for two years, in statistics and economics. But I carried that with me but I still didn't believe it.

I thought, "No, no I can't be a writer." But then I applied to graduate MFA programs and got in. And even then, I spent my entire MFA time feel like a total fraud. "I'm not a writer, I don't belong here, I don't know how to write." And the real moment that I felt like it was possible actually came in the middle of writing my first book. I was at the MacDowell [artists'] colony. It was my first residency, I hadn't published anything yet. I had graduated from my MFA program and I was surrounded by these artists and writers at all different levels. And you know, I suddenly felt like — James Baldwin had been at MacDowell — there's a list of people who had been at McDowell that's long and illustrious.

“ A friend of mine said to me, "Cathy, I'm worried you're becoming a loser."

.... I was in this sort of despairing moment where my book wasn't making any progress and I didn't know what I was doing and I was so poor and I didn't have health insurance. And a friend of mine said to me, "Cathy, I'm worried you're becoming a loser." ... I was just like, "What?" It was also a time where I had started to feel like a loser. I was poor... I hadn't published. I sort of thought, "What am I doing?"

....And I think I just... decided to totally accept failure. I was like, "Yes. If this book totally fails, I will write another book. And if that book totally fails, I will write [another]." This is how I deal with stress: ... I imagine the worst case scenario and I try to decide whether or not I can take it. And [I thought], "If I'm like 85, and I'm lucky enough to live that long, and I have [not] published a single book but I've dedicated myself to trying to write something that matters and is true, then yes, that will be a life that I'm willing to accept."

On how her family compares to the characters in her book

My own family is an entirely different family. But my family is also a Korean immigrant family. You know when you read a book and you think your family is just like that, but actually they're not, you're talking about a certain feeling or a certain dynamic or a certain something.... Or when you talk to a friend and you say, "Oh my mom is just like that." But your mothers are completely different.

.... I don't have a sister and my family wasn't cursed. We weren't chased out of Korea. I was born in the states. The autobiographical details are very different and even the day-to-day relationships of my family are different. But at the same time, I think that commitment to family is there, and then the resulting conflict of that of being American and the desire for freedom and the desire that that freedom should be mine is there. But it acts out in a different way.

The way that I think of fiction, I guess, is I feel like writing a novel is like having a really, really long, really intense friendship with somebody that may or may not be like you. But the thing about friendship... is whether or not you seem similar on the surface or don't seem similar on the surface is that you learn to make connections.

....My father passed away from cancer a few years ago while I was writing this book and I don't feel like I wrote about his death in my book. But I feel like what I got was that I very close to a family that was going through a similar loss. And you know how that is, when you talk to somebody that's had a similar experience where you can say, "Oh, it was like that for me," or "Oh, it wasn't like that for me." And then there's that emotional connection, which is what I think fiction does.

For the writer, but also for the reader — if it goes well — where you feel connected, where you feel like your experience comes to bear understanding this fictional characters' experiences.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/11/04/242975960/author-catherine-chung-i-want-to-embrace-the-things-that-i-am?ft=1&f=1032
Tags: packers   south park   legend of korra   burn notice   Wentworth Miller  

Big data blues: The dangers of data mining

More than simply bits and bytes, big data is now a multibillion-dollar business opportunity. Savvy organizations, from retailers to manufacturers, are fast discovering the power of turning consumers' ZIP codes and buying histories into bottom-line-enhancing insights.

In fact, the McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of McKinsey & Co., estimates that big data can increase profits in the retail sector by a staggering 60 percent. And a recent Boston Consulting Group study reveals that personal data can help companies achieve greater business efficiencies and customize new products.

[ InfoWorld presents the Bossies 2013, the best open source software for clouds, mobile, developers, and more. | Get the latest insight on the tech news that matters from InfoWorld's Tech Watch blog. ]

But while harnessing the power of data analytics is clearly a competitive advantage, overzealous data mining can easily backfire. As companies become experts at slicing and dicing data to reveal details as personal as mortgage defaults and heart attack risks, the threat of egregious privacy violations grows.

Just ask Kord Davis. A digital strategist and author of Ethics of Big Data: Balancing Risk and Innovation, Davis says, "The values that you infuse into your data-handling practices can have some very real-world consequences."

Take Nordstrom, for example. The upscale retailer used sensors from analytics vendor Euclid to cull shopping information from customers' smartphones each time they connected to a store's Wi-Fi service -- a move that drew widespread criticism from privacy advocates. (Nordstrom is no longer using the analytics service.)

Hip clothing retailer Urban Outfitters is facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly violating consumer protection laws by telling shoppers who pay by credit card that they had to provide their ZIP codes -- which is not true -- and then using that information to obtain the shoppers' addresses. Facebook is often at the center of a data privacy controversy, whether it's defending its own enigmatic privacy policies or responding to reports that it gave private user data to the National Security Agency (NSA). And the story of how retail behemoth Target was able to deduce that a teenage shopper was pregnant before her father even knew is the stuff of marketing legend.

Online finger-wagging, lawsuits, disgruntled customers -- they're the unfortunate byproducts of what many people perceive to be big data abuses. According to a September 2013 study from data privacy management company Truste, 1 of 3 Internet users say they have stopped using a company's website or have stopped doing business with a company altogether because of privacy concerns.

Source: http://podcasts.infoworld.com/d/business-intelligence/big-data-blues-the-dangers-of-data-mining-230107?source=rss_business_intelligence
Tags: suntrust   Joseph Gordon-Levitt   CJ Spiller   Anna Gunn   russell wilson  

Gay rights bill clears first hurdle in Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) — A major gay rights bill has cleared its first hurdle in the Senate.

On a vote of 61-30, the Senate voted to move ahead on the legislation that would prohibit workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The bipartisan vote increases the chances that the Senate will pass the bill by week's end, but its prospects in the Republican-led House are dimmer.

Speaker John Boehner remains opposed to the bill, arguing that it will lead to frivolous lawsuits and undercut job creation.

A vote would come 17 years after the Senate rejected a similar discrimination measure by one vote.

The Obama administration has said passage of the bill is long overdue.

• Politics & Government
• Government

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gay-rights-bill-clears-first-hurdle-senate-233849440--finance.html
Category: Gary Kubiak   james franco   washington post   the voice   Robin Quivers  

Switched On: If it ain't broke, fix it

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.



In a Microsoft strategy that embraces contradiction -- licensing software while trying to build its own devices -- it is unsurprising that goals for the Surface support competing priorities. On one hand, it is a ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/HB424dx4iVg/
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Dolly Parton Defends "Shocking" Goddaughter Miley Cyrus

Just as we suspected, Dolly Parton is basically a fairy godmother. The country legend, who is the godmother of Miley Cyrus, cracked a few jokes about twerking and wrecking balls when she appeared on The Queen Latifah Show (rapping!) in October. But when the conversation gets serious, Dolly is 100 percent on Miley's side.
Source: http://www.ivillage.com/dolly-parton-defends-goddaughter-miley-cyrus/1-a-552098?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Adolly-parton-defends-goddaughter-miley-cyrus-552098
Category: Veterans Day 2013   world series   Texas A&m Football   liam hemsworth   Xbox One Release Date  

Bariatric Surgery Keeps Pounds Off For Years

Just knowing that someone is obese doesn't mean they would benefit from bariatric surgery, doctors say.

iStockphoto.com

Weight-loss surgery is becoming increasingly popular because it's the only treatment that pretty much guarantees weight loss.

There is very little evidence on how it will affect people's health over the long haul. But people who had surgery maintained substantial weight loss three years later, according to a study that's trying to figure out if it works.

But the amount of weight lost varied according to the type of surgery, and so did the effect on diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol. Researchers say that may have to do with both the type of surgery and variations among the patients. The variation also reflects the fact that there are lots of reasons why people become seriously obese, and doctors aren't sure how treatment should be tailored to match those differences.

Very few studies have tracked people with weight-loss surgery for more than a year. The LABS study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was launched in 2005 to overcome that problem.

The 1,738 people who had Rouen-en-Y gastric bypass surgery, which creates a new connection between the top of the stomach and the small intestine, had maintained a weight loss of about a third nt of their pre-surgery weight three years out, or 90 pounds on average.

The 610 people who had lap-band surgery, where an elastic band is used to make the stomach smaller, maintained an average 16 percent weight loss, or 40 pounds.

The death rate for both surgeries was about the same, at just under 1 percent. But the lap-band patients were much more likely to need further surgery, with 18 percent going in to get things fixed. The median weight for people in the study before surgery was 284 pounds.

Many people end up getting weight-loss surgery because they have diabetes or other weight-related health issues. In the bypass group, almost three-quarters of the people with diabetes had at least a partial remission of the disease. In patients with lap-band surgery, that number was 27 percent. The more invasive gastric bypass was also better at reducing blood pressure and improving lipid levels.

Lap-band surgery has been popular because it is less invasive and has a quick recovery time. But because of the need for more operations to adjust the band and deal with other problems, surgeons instead have been turning to vertical sleeve gastrectomy, which reshapes the stomach into a banana-shaped tube but doesn't remove the valves at the top and bottom of the stomach. It also may not interfere with absorption of iron and other nutrients as much as does a Rouen-en-Y bypass. This study didn't evaluate the vertical sleeve procedure.

The LABS study is big, but it's not a randomized trial; the patients chose which surgery they would have. So that could affect the results. The results were published Monday in JAMA, the American Medical Association's journal.

The varied response shows that more effort needs to go into figuring out what type of obesity a person has, and not treating them all the same, according to Alison Field, an epidemiologist at Children's Hospital Boston who studies obesity. She wrote an editorial in JAMA to accompany the report.

"We don't think all breast cancer should be treated the same — not at all," Field told Shots. "We need to start thinking the same way with obesity."

Current approaches to weight loss, including diets and exercise, result in only small amounts of weight loss when averaged out across the American population, Field notes. And with 70 percent of American adults and 33 percent of children overweight or obese, there are a lot of people who could do with some help. Bariatric surgery isn't appropriate for almost all of those people, she notes. There need to be tailored non-surgical approaches, too.

"If you look at Weight Watchers, it's focused on education and navigating social situations," Field adds. "It works very well for some people, but not others. We need to figure who the subgroups are and how to match the best treatment to them. We have a ways to go to get there."

The LABS study is also looking at how weight-loss surgery affects teenagers, and published a very short-term study Monday in JAMA Pediatrics. It found that 242 teenagers who had bariatric surgery did fairly well in the first 30 days afterwards. Eight percent had major complications, like needing more surgery, and 15 percent had minor complications, like dehydration. That study will continue to see how the teens fare over the next few years.

Weight-loss surgery in children is controversial because they aren't able to give legal consent, and because any ill effects would dog them for many more years than in adults, who typically have bariatric surgery in their 30s or 40s.

Parents and doctors should think about non-medical reasons why surgery may help teenagers, according to Michael Sarr, a bariatric surgeon at the Mayo Clinic. He wrote an editorial in JAMA Pediatrics arguing that having to go through adolescence weighing 300 or 400 pounds can result in "psychosocial retardation."

"The elephant in the closet is social ostracism and social isolation," Sarr told Shots. "Many of these kids are markedly obese from age 10. They're isolated. They're made fun of. They're excluded from things."

That, he says, can stunt a life as much as Type 2 diabetes and other health issues in seriously obese children.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/11/04/242970720/bariatric-surgery-keeps-pounds-off-for-years?ft=1&f=1001
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AFM: Recent Box-Office Bombs Make Buyers Nervous

A version of this story first appeared in The Hollywood Reporter's November AFM stand-alone issue.

Some are expecting a distinctly chilly American Film Market thanks to several films that recently have bombed or underperformed at the international box office (duds include Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, while Ron Howard's Rush hasn't lived up to expectations), leaving buyers rightly nervous.

PHOTOS: 25 of Fall's Most Anticipated Movies

And just as foreign distributors prepared over the weekend for their journey to Los Angeles for AFM, which gets underway Wednesday and runs through Nov. 13, the big-budget film adaptation Ender's Game continued to do lackluster business offshore (it's faring better in North America).

To boot, international sales agents continue to fight over the same stars, making it difficult to close deals on projects at script stage. "In a way, we're reaping what we've sown," says The Solution Entertainment Group's Lisa Wilson. "There is a handful of actors and actresses whom we've made valuable, and we're all making the same offers to the same people."

Added another top sales agent: "I would say buyers are cautious and slightly disappointed. You hope that a lot of projects come in at the last minute, but it's not going to happen to the level everyone expected."

STORY: 5 Hot Indie Directors on Why Studios Don't Make Their Kinds of Films Anymore

Nevertheless, there are still enough high-profile projects to get buyers in the door. Good Universe's Elton John biopic Rocketman is generating sizeable interest, and the pop icon himself may make an appearance at AFM to personally plug the project. Another buzzed-about title is Voltage Pictures' Adam Sandler comedy The Cobbler.

Buyer Dylan Wiley, senior vp/general manager of Entertainment One Films U.S., says the continued advantage of coming in early on a project is that the finished film market is so competitive. "Distributors are willing to accept some execution and timing for more reasonably priced product purchased in advance at AFM and other film markets," he says.

In addition to touting new wares, sales agents will use AFM to update foreign distributors on projects they've already invested in, including Johnny Depp action-comedy Mortdecai, which David Koepp began shooting last month for Lionsgate and OddLot Entertainment. Lionsgate International is selling the film overseas. Radiant Films' Madame Bovary, starring Mia Wasikowska, also began shooting in recent days.

The Age of Adaline

→ Director: Lee Toland Krieger

→ Stars: Blake Lively, Ellen Burstyn

→ Sales agent: Sierra/Affinity

→ Buzz: The romantic drama centers on a young woman who stops aging after she's in a life-threatening accident and embarks on a journey spanning the 20th century. Sidney Kimmel and Lakeshore Entertainment are eyeing a March start date. Lionsgate is distributing domestically.

American Ultra

→ Director: Nima Nourizadeh

→ Stars: Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg

→ Sales agent: FilmNation

→ Buzz: Eisenberg plays a lazy stoner who lives with his girlfriend in a small town. Their lives are upended when his past comes back to haunt him, and he becomes the target of a government operation.

Candy Store

→ Director: Stephen Gaghan

→ Stars: Robert De Niro, Jason Clarke, Omar Sy

→ Sales agent: Lotus

→ Buzz: The long-gestating crime thriller, about a beat cop in Brooklyn whose past comes back to haunt him, finally could be a go now that Worldview Entertainment and Lotus have come aboard to finance and produce.

Cymbeline

→ Director: Michael Almereyda

→ Stars: Ethan Hawke, Dakota Johnson, Milla Jovovich, Ed Harris, Anton Yelchin, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman, Delroy Lindo

→ Sales agent: International Film Trust

→ Buzz: The high-profile cast could prove a potent selling point (Johnson has rocketed into the public eye thanks to her casting in Fifty Shades of Grey). Made in the vein of Sons of Anarchy, the just-wrapped film charts an epic battle between dirty cops and a drug-dealing bike gang.

The Disappointments Room

→ Director: D.J. Caruso

→ Stars: Kate Beckinsale

→ Sales agent: Foresight Unlimited

→ Buzz: The supernatural thriller stars Beckinsale as a mother who moves her family to a mansion in the country. She slowly starts to lose her mind when she learns of the home's bloody past.

Exists

→ Director: Eduardo Sanchez

→ Stars: Dora Madison Burge, Brian Steele, Roger Edwards, Samuel Davis, Denise Williamson

→ Sales agent: International Film Trust

→ Buzz: Expect a market screening of the completed film to be full, even if just out of curiosity to see what Sanchez — co-director of The Blair Witch Project — has come up with. Exists follows five friends who take off for the deep woods of Texas, where they come face-to-face with a vicious beast who in fact might be Bigfoot.

Fathers and Daughters

→ Director: Gabriele Muccino

→ Stars: Russell Crowe, Amanda Seyfried

→ Sales agent: Voltage

→ Buzz: Crowe's casting should prove a major attraction in terms of getting buyers in the door. Voltage is producing and financing the film, about a father and daughter who live in Manhattan 25 years apart.

Gods of Egypt

→ Director: Alex Proyas

→ Stars: Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Geoffrey Rush

→ Sales agent: Lionsgate International

→ Buzz: The epic, now in preproduction, could be a home run in terms of snagging early foreign deals.

Gold

→ Director: James Watkins

→ Stars: Daniel Radcliffe

→ Sales agent: Embankment Films

→ Buzz: The biopic of British Olympian Sebastian Coe, who spearheaded the 2012 London Summer Olympics, reteams Watkins and Radcliffe for the first time since the box-office hit The Woman in Black. Co-writers Simon Beaufoy, who won the Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, and William Davies, whose credits include How to Train Your Dragon, lend additional pedigree to the project, which is backed by BBC Films, the British Film Institute and AI Films.

A Hologram for the King

→ Director: Tom Tykwer

→ Star: Tom Hanks

→ Sales agent: Lotus

→ Buzz: The project, which begins shooting early next year, pairs Hanks with one of his Cloud Atlas directors. Hanks is enjoying a box-office renaissance with Captain Phillips, providing a potential boost for the Lotus title. He plays a down-and-out businessman who flees to Saudi Arabia in the hope of a better fortune.

Jenny's Wedding

→ Director: Mary Agnes Donoghue

→ Stars Katherine Heigl, Tom Wilkinson, Linda Emond, Grace Gummer

→ Sales agent: The Solution Group

→ Buzz: Considering its A-list cast, the romantic comedy, now in production, could have broad appeal if the script is good. It stars Heigl as a woman whose decision to finally wed wreaks havoc on her family.

The Lobster

→ Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

→ Stars: Jason Clarke, Ben Whishaw, Lea Seydoux, Olivia Colman

→ Sales agent: Protagonist Pictures

→ Buzz: The unconventional romance pic, set in a dystopian future where finding a partner is a matter of life and death, marks Lanthimos' English-language directing debut. The Greek filmmaker was nominated for an Oscar for Dogtooth (2009).

London Fields

→ Director: Matthew Cullen

→ Stars: Amber Heard, Billy Bob Thornton, Johnny Depp, Jim Sturgess

→ Sales agent: IM Global

→ Buzz: The crime thriller, based on Martin Amis' book about a promiscuous psychic, has upped the stakes with a cameo by Depp, who can be a huge draw overseas.

London Has Fallen

→ Director: TBA

→ Stars: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman

→ Sales agent: Nu Image/Millennium

→ Buzz: The newly announced project, now in the script stage, is a sequel to Millennium's White House terrorist pic Olympus Has Fallen, which grossed a solid $161 million worldwide in the spring, including a foreign take of $62.1 million. This time, the action is set in London, where the U.S. president (Eckhart) and his trusted Secret Service agent (Butler) are attending the funeral of the British prime minister. Freeman plays the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who also is in London.

Murder of a Cat

→ Director: Gillian Greene

→ Stars: Nikki Reed, Fran Kranz, Greg Kinnear, Blythe Danner, J.K. Simmons

→ Sales agent: Exclusive Media

→ Buzz: Produced by Sam Raimi and billed as a modern-day mystery full of surprises and romance, it follows Clinton Moisey, who sets out to uncover the truth behind the double life of his murdered cat.

1:30 Train

→ Director: Chris Evans

→ Stars: Evans, Alice Eve

→ Sales agent: Sierra/Affinity

→ Buzz: Like Russell Crowe and Don Cheadle, Evans (aka Captain America) is making his feature directorial debut. Thanks to The Avengers, Sierra/Affinity is banking on Evans' star power to win over foreign buyers. The romantic dramedy revolves around two strangers who meet in New York City's underbelly.

Rob the Mob

→ Director: Raymond De Felitta

→ Stars: Michael Pitt, Andy Garcia, Ray Romano, Nina Arianda, Aida Turturro

→ Sales agent: The Exchange

→ Buzz: The Mafia film, about a couple who boldly steals from some of New York City's most powerful mobsters, will have its first market screening at AFM.

Rocketman

→ Director Michael Gracey

→ Star: Tom Hardy

→ Sales agent: Good Universe

→ Buzz: The Elton John biopic is being executive produced by the pop icon and is set to start shooting in fall 2014 with John rerecording many of his hits for the soundtrack.

Shoot the Trumpeter

→ Director: Don Cheadle

→ Stars: TBA

→ Sales agent: IM Global

→ Buzz: The Miles Davis biopic is a passion project for Cheadle, who makes his feature directorial debut. Zoe Saldana and Ewan McGregor are in talks to co-star (and in June, Cheadle issued a casting call for a young black trumpeter). Herbie Hancock has signed on as music supervisor.

A Slight Trick of the Mind

→ Director: Bill Condon

→ Star: Ian McKellen

→ Sales agent: FilmNation

→ Buzz: McKellen starring as the legendary Sherlock Holmes should make this adaptation of author Mitch Cullin's mystery novel a hot property. Condon's involvement also doesn't hurt, even though his WikiLeaks pic The Fifth Estate is a dud. Len Blavatnik's AI Films is co-financing with BBC Films.

Slow West

→ Director: John Maclean

→ Stars: Michael Fassbender, Kodi Smit-McPhee

→ Sales agent: Hanway

→ Buzz: Westerns can be a tough sell, but Fassbender has plenty of pedigree, as do producers Iain Canning and Emile Sherman of The King's Speech fame. The three are producing the film along with Conor McCaughan and Rachel Gardner.

Untitled Lance Armstrong project

→ Director: Stephen Frears

→ Stars: Ben Foster, Chris O'Dowd, Jesse Plemons, Guillaume Canet

→ Sales agent: StudioCanal

→ Buzz: StudioCanal has come aboard to finance the Working Title film, based on journalist David Walsh's book Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong. Frears began shooting in October.

The Water Diviner

→ Director: Russell Crowe

→ Stars: Crowe, Olga Kurylenko

→ Sales agent: Mister Smith Entertainment

→ Buzz: Crowe in the director's seat should spark interest (he hasn't made a narrative feature, only two documentaries). Financed in part by Brett Ratner's RatPac Entertainment, the post-World War I drama stars Crowe as an Australian farmer who goes to Turkey to look for his missing sons. Crowe begins shooting in December.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/news/~3/4-Bgjl_ocxw/afm-box-office-bombs-make-652367
Similar Articles: Brad Ausmus   Voyager 1   Robin Quivers   nfl scores   cbs sports  

Fla. man convicted in killing of Redskins' Taylor

FILE - In this Oct. 29, 2013, file photo, Eric Rivera, Jr., talks with his the defense team during his trial for the slaying of Sean Taylor in MIami. Rivera was convicted Monday, Nov. 4, 2013, of second-degree murder in the 2007 killing of Washington Redskins star Sean Taylor during a botched home burglary. The jury reached its verdict after deliberating about 16 hours over several days in the case of Eric Rivera Jr. Rivera was also convicted of armed burglary. (AP Photo/The Miami Herald, Peter Andrew Bosch, Pool, File) NO SALES

FILE - In this Oct. 29, 2013, file photo, Eric Rivera, Jr., talks with his the defense team during his trial for the slaying of Sean Taylor in MIami. Rivera was convicted Monday, Nov. 4, 2013, of second-degree murder in the 2007 killing of Washington Redskins star Sean Taylor during a botched home burglary. The jury reached its verdict after deliberating about 16 hours over several days in the case of Eric Rivera Jr. Rivera was also convicted of armed burglary. (AP Photo/The Miami Herald, Peter Andrew Bosch, Pool, File) NO SALES

FILE - In this Aug. 24, 2005 file photo, Washington Redskins football player Sean Taylor is shown at training camp in Ashburn, Va. A 23-year-old man was convicted of second-degree murder Monday, Nov. 4, 2013, in Miami, in the 2007 slaying of Taylor during what witnesses say was a botched burglary. The jury deliberated about 16 hours over four days before returning the verdict in the trial of Eric Rivera Jr., who admitted in a videotaped confession to police days after Taylor's death that he fired the fatal shot after kicking in the bedroom door. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson, File)

MIAMI (AP) — A 23-year-old man was convicted of second-degree murder Monday in the 2007 slaying of Washington Redskins star Sean Taylor, who was shot outside his own bedroom after witnesses said he confronted young men who had broken into his home looking for money.

The jury deliberated about 16 hours over four days before returning the verdict in the trial of Eric Rivera Jr., who admitted in a videotaped confession to police days after Taylor's death that he fired the fatal shot after kicking in the bedroom door. At the trial, he said on the witness stand that his confession was given only under police pressure and amid purported threats to his family.

Rivera was also convicted of armed burglary. Although Rivera did not get the maximum first-degree murder conviction, he still faces a potential life prison sentence. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dennis Murphy did not immediately set a sentencing date but will hold a related hearing on Dec. 10.

Rivera sat quietly at the defense table with his lawyers after the verdict was announced, showing no reaction or emotion. The courtroom was packed with Taylor and Rivera family members — and about two dozen security personnel — but there were no outbursts.

Neither prosecutors, Taylor's family nor the family of the football player's girlfriend would comment after the hearing. Rivera's parents, sisters, lawyers and friends also left without comment, as did the 12 jurors.

In the confession, Rivera said the group of five young men, all from the Fort Myers area, had driven to Taylor's house planning to steal large amounts of cash he kept inside. They thought Taylor, 24, would be out of town at a game against Tampa Bay, but didn't realize until it was too late that he was home with a knee injury. Taylor's then-girlfriend, Jackie Garcia Haley, and their 18-month-old daughter, were also home at the time. They were not hurt.

Four other men were also charged in the case and three will be tried later. Venjah Hunte, 25, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and burglary charges in a deal that calls for a 29-year prison sentence.

Testifying in his own defense, Rivera claimed it was Hunte who brought the 9mm handgun and who shot Taylor. Rivera insisted that he was not told about the burglary plot until the group was driving toward Miami, and that he stayed in the car outside Taylor's house the whole time.

The murder weapon was never found. Police say it was stuffed in a sock and thrown into the Everglades.

Legal experts said Monday's verdict appeared to be a compromise, with at least some jurors doubting the confession and questioning whether Rivera, who was 17 at the time, truly pulled the trigger — but not that he played a role in the burglary plot.

"They believed that he was part of the burglary and was present when it occurred," said David S. Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice. "There was no eyewitness to put the gun in Rivera's hand and that is what at least one juror needed to convict him of first-degree murder."

Taylor, a Pro Bowl safety who had starred at the University of Miami, was shot in the upper thigh, damaging his femoral artery and causing massive blood loss. Witnesses say Taylor was shot when he confronted the group with a machete outside his bedroom. A medical examiner said he was essentially dead on arrival at a hospital on Nov. 26, 2007, although doctors did manage to restart his heart for a while.

Aside from Rivera's confession, police found shoe prints outside Taylor's home that matched sneakers some in the group were wearing that night. Witnesses testified Rivera was seen driving a rented black Toyota Highlander believed used in the crime, and another witness said the group of five had burglary tools when they came to her house after Taylor was shot.

Taylor, a first-round Redskins draft pick in 2004, signed an $18 million contract with the team and was becoming one of the NFL's top defensive players when he was slain. Several witnesses, including Garcia Haley, testified that he liked to keep large amounts of cash around his Miami house.

One of the men charged in the slaying, 25-year-old Jason Mitchell, attended a birthday party a few weeks earlier at the house for Taylor's half-sister, Sasha Johnson — who lived in Fort Myers and knew Rivera. She testified that Taylor gave her a purse containing $10,000 in cash at the party, which was witnessed by all the guests.

That event put the wheels in motion for the burglary plot, witnesses said. Rivera himself testified that some in the group thought they would get between $100,000 and $200,000 to split up.

Also charged and awaiting trial are Mitchell, Charles Wardlow, 24, and 22-year-old Timothy Brown.

___

Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-11-04-Redskins-Taylor%20Slain/id-af774afe572a4075a3058dbc3a989071
Related Topics: TSLA   Miley Cyrus Pregnant  

Drew Barrymore Pregnant, Jon Gosselin Denies Cheating on Kate Gosselin: Top 5 Stories

Drew Barrymore is pregnant with her second child, Jon Gosselin denies cheating on Kate Gosselin, and Amber Portwood gets released from prison: See Us Weekly's top 5 stories from Monday, Nov. 4, in the roundup!

1. Drew Barrymore Is Pregnant, Expecting Second Child With Husband Will Kopelman; See Her Bump!

Olive Barrymore Kopelman is going to be a big sister! The Hollywood tot's famous mom, Drew Barrymore, is pregnant again, multiple sources confirm to Us Weekly. The baby-to-be is the second for the actress-producer, 38, and husband Will Kopelman, whose daughter Olive is just 13 months old.

2. Jon Gosselin Denies Cheating on Kate Gosselin, Says Kids Have Problems "Developmentally

Is 15 minutes of fame worth a lifetime of repercussions? Jon and Kate Gosselin learned the hard way that there's a dark side to living in the spotlight. In a Nov. 3 interview for Oprah Winfrey's OWN show Where Are They Now?, Jon opened up about how filming his family's reality TV series Jon and Kate Plus 8 damaged his marriage, his reputation, and his eight young children.

3. Amber Portwood, Teen Mom Star, Released From Prison Almost Four Years Early: Picture

Is it 2017 already? Teen Mom alum Amber Portwood, who was sentenced to five years in prison in January 2012, was released on Monday, Nov. 4, 2013 -- almost four years earlier than originally anticipated.

4. Kate Middleton: How Prince William's Wife Renovated Kensington Palace

Welcoming newborn Prince George wasn't the only special project Kate Middleton had in the works for 2013: Prince William's wife has spent the last 18 months renovating Apartment 1A in the famed Kensington Palace, where her new family of three will reside as Prince George grows.

5. Exclusive: Lydia McLaughlin Is Leaving Real Housewives of Orange County: I'm "Doing the Right Thing"

So long, Lydia. After just one season on The Real Housewives of Orange County, Lydia McLaughlin has decided not to return for season nine of the Bravo smash, she tells Us Weekly exclusively. "It's bittersweet," McLaughlin, 32, tells Us. "I compare it to breaking up with a boyfriend you know you're not going to end up with -- it's hard, but overall you know you're doing the right thing." (Bravo had no comment.)

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/drew-barrymore-pregnant-jon-gosselin-denies-cheating-on-kate-gosselin-top-5-stories-2013411
Tags: edward norton   SAT   stenographer   breast cancer awareness   Pope Francis  

NJIT professor invents a flexible battery

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

4-Nov-2013

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Contact: Tanya Klein
973-596-3433
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Researchers at NJIT have developed a flexible battery made with carbon nanotubes that could potentially power electronic devices with flexible displays.

Electronic manufacturers are now making flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, a pioneering technology that allow devices such as cell phones, tablet computers and TVs to literally fold up.

And this new battery, given its flexibility and components, can be used to power this new generation of bendable electronics. The battery is made from carbon nanotubes and micro-particles that serve as active components -- similar to those found in conventional batteries. It is designed, though, to contain the electro-active ingredients while remaining flexible.

"This battery can be made as small as a pinhead or as large as a carpet in your living room," says Somenath Mitra, a professor of chemistry and environmental science whose research group invented the battery. "So its applications are endless. You can place a rolled-up battery in the trunk of your electric car and have it power the vehicle."

A patent application on the battery has been filed, and the battery will be featured in an upcoming issue of "Advanced Materials." Mitra developed the new technology at NJIT with assistance from Zhiqian Wang, a doctoral student in chemistry.

The battery has another revolutionary potential, in that it could be fabricated at home by consumers. All one would need to make the battery is a kit comprised of electrode paste and a laminating machine. One would coat two plastic sheets with the electrode paste, place a plastic separator between the sheets and then laminate the assembly. The battery assembly would function in the same way as a double-A or a triple-A battery.

"We have been experimenting with carbon nanotubes and other leading technologies for many years at NJIT," says Mitra, "and it's exciting to apply leading-edge technologies to create a flexible battery that has myriad consumer applications."

###

NJIT, New Jersey's science and technology university, enrolls approximately 10,000 students pursuing bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in 120 programs. The university consists of six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, College of Architecture and Design, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, College of Computing Sciences and Albert Dorman Honors College. U.S. News & World Report's 2012 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT in the top tier of national research universities. NJIT is internationally recognized for being at the edge in knowledge in architecture, applied mathematics, wireless communications and networking, solar physics, advanced engineered particulate materials, nanotechnology, neural engineering and e-learning. Many courses and certificate programs, as well as graduate degrees, are available online through the Division of Continuing Professional Education.

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

4-Nov-2013

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Contact: Tanya Klein
973-596-3433
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Researchers at NJIT have developed a flexible battery made with carbon nanotubes that could potentially power electronic devices with flexible displays.

Electronic manufacturers are now making flexible organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, a pioneering technology that allow devices such as cell phones, tablet computers and TVs to literally fold up.

And this new battery, given its flexibility and components, can be used to power this new generation of bendable electronics. The battery is made from carbon nanotubes and micro-particles that serve as active components -- similar to those found in conventional batteries. It is designed, though, to contain the electro-active ingredients while remaining flexible.

"This battery can be made as small as a pinhead or as large as a carpet in your living room," says Somenath Mitra, a professor of chemistry and environmental science whose research group invented the battery. "So its applications are endless. You can place a rolled-up battery in the trunk of your electric car and have it power the vehicle."

A patent application on the battery has been filed, and the battery will be featured in an upcoming issue of "Advanced Materials." Mitra developed the new technology at NJIT with assistance from Zhiqian Wang, a doctoral student in chemistry.

The battery has another revolutionary potential, in that it could be fabricated at home by consumers. All one would need to make the battery is a kit comprised of electrode paste and a laminating machine. One would coat two plastic sheets with the electrode paste, place a plastic separator between the sheets and then laminate the assembly. The battery assembly would function in the same way as a double-A or a triple-A battery.

"We have been experimenting with carbon nanotubes and other leading technologies for many years at NJIT," says Mitra, "and it's exciting to apply leading-edge technologies to create a flexible battery that has myriad consumer applications."

###

NJIT, New Jersey's science and technology university, enrolls approximately 10,000 students pursuing bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in 120 programs. The university consists of six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, College of Architecture and Design, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, College of Computing Sciences and Albert Dorman Honors College. U.S. News & World Report's 2012 Annual Guide to America's Best Colleges ranked NJIT in the top tier of national research universities. NJIT is internationally recognized for being at the edge in knowledge in architecture, applied mathematics, wireless communications and networking, solar physics, advanced engineered particulate materials, nanotechnology, neural engineering and e-learning. Many courses and certificate programs, as well as graduate degrees, are available online through the Division of Continuing Professional Education.

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-11/njio-npi110413.php
Related Topics: brandon marshall   Jacoby Jones   james spader   Ken Norton   twerking  

Cloud Printing & Shipping Service Lob Raises $2.4 Million Seed Round

This summer, the Y Combinator-backed startup Lob launched a new developer API which lets companies easily integrate printing and shipping services into their applications. Today, the company is announcing $2.4 million in seed funding from various YC partners and angel investors. Participating in the round were Kevin Hale, Dalton Caldwell, Sam Altman, Joshua Schachter, Alexis Ohanian, Paul Buchheit, Garry Tan, Polaris Partners, and other undisclosed investors.

With Lob, whose early adopters include CrowdTilt, ZenPayroll, LendUp, LocalOn, and others, developers can automate or print a variety of products on demand, including postcards, photos, flyers, posters, bills, checks, invoices, and more.

The company says it now has over 1,000 paying customers, and just hit $40,000 in revenue at the end of last month. It has also printed a million dollars worth of checks. On the horizon, there’s the potential for Lob to grow even larger, with now two Fortune 500 companies testing the service on a smaller scale. If those trials come to fruition, they could be multi-million dollar deals, the founders tell us.

A graduate of Y Combinator’s summer 2013 program, Lob was started earlier this year by University of Michigan grads Harry Zhang and Leore Avidar. Zhang had been inspired to create the service after previously working as a product manager at Microsoft, where he saw the difficulties involved with customer mailings – the company had interns stuffing envelopes in a mailroom for weeks, at times.

Today, Lob’s use cases go beyond your typical printed materials, like postcards, invoices or promotional mailings, for example. The company already offers tools like address verification, and “Smart Packaging” (where it picks the best packaging type automatically), and now it’s also working to enable printing of other products, too, including photo albums/photo books, and even t-shirts and mugs. Longer term, the team is considering moving into physical books as well, given customer demand.

“When we think of printed products, it’s anything that ink can touch,” explains Zhang. He wants Lob to be a one-stop shop where companies can manage all their printings. And although it’s still early days, the solution is growing in popularity. Customers generally come in with a single request, but then realize how they can use Lob in other areas, too. Today, almost every customer is using two products at the minimum, even though over half had arrived seeking just a single solution.

The team was also surprised to see international sign-ups, given its U.S. focus, with customers arriving from South America, Europe, Asia and Australia, then opting to have Lob print and ship items overseas. “A lot of international companies don’t have local ways to do this, so they’re willing to pay a little more,” Avidar says.

In terms of its pricing, Lob has been competitive, but maybe not the cheapest option, though that’s changing as it begins to scale. In a few months’ time, Lob’s pricing will drop by an average of 10% across the board, we’re told. (Some products might not change, while others may drop by as high as 20%-30%, to give you an idea).

But Lob’s advantage hasn’t necessarily been one based just on price – it’s about the model. Competitors have traditionally required businesses to pay large amounts upfront, or even pre-pay for their entire order, but Lob lets its customers pay as you go.

“The fact that it’s a variable expense and you can do everything on a minimum quantity of one – that’s really the differentiator,” says Avidar. “You can’t really go anywhere and say: ‘I want to print one postcard’,” he adds.

With the additional funding, Lob is working to add new product categories and hire engineers to help build out its API. The company wants to double (or more) its four-person team over the next few months, and support for photo albums and t-shirts is arriving soon.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/IjOyg2MY458/
Similar Articles: Google Glass   TLC Movie   national coffee day   VMA 2013   Eydie Gorme  

Scientists Think They Can Cure Alzheimer's with Lasers

Finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease has defied medical researchers for decades now, but a team of scientists just gave us new reason to hope. They've discovered a way to zap away the bad proteins that cause diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Creutzfeldt-Jakob (a.k.a. mad cow) disease—with lasers.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/DGQuGc1AKEw/scientists-think-they-can-cure-alzheimers-with-lasers-1458326276
Category: Batman Arkham Origins   obamacare   Joseph Gordon-Levitt   Aaron Alexis   Delbert Belton  

Search For a Cool Place: A Movie About Snowboarding and Some Strange Trips

Contributor, Liam Gallagher spent last season travelling with a gang of notoriously adventurous snowboarders filming his new movie, "Search For a Cool Place." Chronicling the journeys, places and personalities of these riders, "SFACP" holds a unique spirit, one of high mountains, long nights spent in campers and summit cabins, trains, busses, exploring unfamiliar places and ripping pow. 

Liam spent the winter travelling around in a bus inspired by Ken Keasy and the Band of Merry Pranksters. It's the perfect formula for a snowboard movie. The trips that these guys get into are all time, and Liam gives us an intimate look into the rider's minds as they find themselves in new environments. When it all comes down to a close, it's about these guys doing what they love: travelling, being with the homies, and riding as much as possible. 

Liam wrote a feature on his trip through Las Vegas with Jake O-E, Nick Dirks, the Burki Brothers and Dom Morelli for this season’s first issue of frequency TSJ. 

Featured riders include: Mark Landvik, Wyatt Stasinos, Cory Stasinos, Nick Russell, Forrest Burki, Ryland Bell, Shaun McKay, Lucas Debari, Kael Martin, Alex Yoder, Blake Paul, Nick Dirks, Jake Olson Elm, Harry Kearny, Luke Thorington, Brendan Keenan, Jason Robinson, Ralph Backstrom and many more...

Thought provoking, fun and creative; it's everything you can expect from Mr. Liam O. Gallagher. Enjoy.

Search For A Cool Place from Liam Gallagher on Vimeo.

Source: http://www.frqncy.com/news/2013/11/04/search-for-a-cool-place-a-movie-about-snowboarding-and-some-strange-trips?utm_campaign=blog_feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feed_reader
Category: cnet   ny giants   ncis   Sleepy Hollow   FedEx Cup standings  

20 percent of nation's GME funds go to New York while 29 states get less than 1 percent, study says

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

4-Nov-2013

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Contact: Kathy Fackelmann
kfackelmann@gwu.edu
202-994-8354
George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services

WASHINGTON, DC (Nov. 4, 2013)New York state received 20 percent of all Medicare's graduate medical education (GME) funding while 29 states, including places struggling with a severe shortage of physicians, got less than 1 percent, according to a report published today by researchers at the George Washington (GW) University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS).

New York suffers from no lack of physicians yet in 2010 the state received $2 billion in federal GME funding according to the study, which appears in the November issue of Health Affairs. At the same time, the researchers found that many states struggling with severe physician shortages received a fraction of that funding: For example, Florida received one tenth the GME funding ($268 million) and Mississippi, the state with the lowest ratio of doctors to patients in the country, received just $22 million in these federal payments.

"Such imbalances play out across the country and can affect access to health care," said lead author Fitzhugh Mullan, MD, the Murdock Head Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, a joint position at SPHHS and the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. "Due to the rigid formula that governs the GME system, a disproportionate share of this federal investment in the physician workforce goes to certain states mostly in the Northeast. Unless the GME payment system is reformed, the skewed payments will continue to promote an imbalance in physician availability across the country."

Other authors of the study include Candice Chen, MD, MPH, assistant professor of health policy and pediatrics and Erika Steinmetz, MBA, senior research scientist at the SPHHS Department of Health Policy.

The study adds to the evidence suggesting that the current system of allocating graduate medical education or GME money is based on an inflexible and outdated method, one that contributes to large imbalances in payments and a growing shortfall of physicians in some areas of the country. Since its start, the Medicare GME program has paid teaching hospitals to provide residency training for young physicians. In 2010, those teaching facilities received $10 billion in GME payments, an amount that represents the nation's single largest public investment in the health workforce.

To find out how that $10 billion was distributed, the researchers analyzed the 2010 Medicare cost reports that list federal GME payments to teaching hospitals all over the country. The team found a disproportionate amount of Medicare GME dollars flowing to Northeastern states such as New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In fact, the study shows that in these three states Medicare supports twice as many medical residents per person as the national average. And New York alone has more residents than 31 other states combined.

"Teaching hospitals in the Northeastern United States have a long history of large residency training programs, which capture a large share of GME funding," Mullan said. "But these states also have the highest physician-to-population ratios. They are not doctor shortage states."

While some residents move elsewhere after training, the majority of newly minted physicians set up a practice near where they were trained. Therefore, it is important that states with rural and growing populations receive appropriate support for starting and maintaining residency programs, Mullan said.

The study shows that many other parts of the country lose out when it comes to Medicare GME funding. Many Southern and Western stateswhich already face shortfalls in their physician workforcesuch as Montana, Idaho, Arkansas, Wyoming, Florida and even California do not do well in terms of Medicare GME funding under the current system, according to the authors.

The researchers also found:

• Large state-level differences in the number of Medicare-funded medical residents even when the density of the population is taken into account. For example, New York again is at the top of all the states with 77 Medicare-funded medical residents per 100,000 people while California has 19, Florida 14, and Arkansas has just 3.
  
• Medicare GME payments have not kept pace with factors such as rapidly growing populations in Southern and Western United States. For example, Florida, Texas and California have rapidly growing populations yet they received substantially less GME funding in 2010.
  
• Medicare's current GME formula pays very different amounts to train medical residents depending on the state. For example, the federal government pays Louisiana $64,000 per year to train each medical resident but gives Connecticut $155,000 for the same job.

The findings from this paper document a substantial imbalance in GME payments, one that has been frozen in place since 1997 when Congress passed a law that capped the number of residency positions at each hospital. Under the 1997 law, teaching hospitals can train any number of physicians but Medicare pays for the training only up to the allocated cap, the authors point out.

The end result of the cap and other inflexible attributes of the current GME system is a system that gives teaching hospitals in certain states with large numbers of practicing physicians big incentives to train more residents while shortchanging many smaller and rural states.

Ways to fix the problem include revisiting the GME payment formula and devising one that distributes GME funding so as to stimulate the growth of residency training in parts of the country that are chronically underserved or are growing rapidly. In addition, the authors say the GME funding system needs an oversight body that would look now and in the future at the distribution of GME dollars and make decisions about the best places to steer funding so that the federal government is making the wisest investment in the physician workforce.

###

The study, "The Geography of Graduate Medical Education: Imbalances Signal Need for New Distribution Policies," appears in the November issue of Health Affairs.

About the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services:
Established in July 1997, the School of Public Health and Health Services brought together three longstanding university programs in the schools of medicine, business, and education and is now the only school of public health in the nation's capital. Today, more than 1,100 students from nearly every U.S. state and more than 40 nations pursue undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral-level degrees in public health. The school now offers an online Master of Public Health, MPH@GW, which allows students to pursue their degree from anywhere in the world. http://sphhs.gwu.edu/

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PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

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Contact: Kathy Fackelmann
kfackelmann@gwu.edu
202-994-8354
George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services

WASHINGTON, DC (Nov. 4, 2013)New York state received 20 percent of all Medicare's graduate medical education (GME) funding while 29 states, including places struggling with a severe shortage of physicians, got less than 1 percent, according to a report published today by researchers at the George Washington (GW) University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS).

New York suffers from no lack of physicians yet in 2010 the state received $2 billion in federal GME funding according to the study, which appears in the November issue of Health Affairs. At the same time, the researchers found that many states struggling with severe physician shortages received a fraction of that funding: For example, Florida received one tenth the GME funding ($268 million) and Mississippi, the state with the lowest ratio of doctors to patients in the country, received just $22 million in these federal payments.

"Such imbalances play out across the country and can affect access to health care," said lead author Fitzhugh Mullan, MD, the Murdock Head Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, a joint position at SPHHS and the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. "Due to the rigid formula that governs the GME system, a disproportionate share of this federal investment in the physician workforce goes to certain states mostly in the Northeast. Unless the GME payment system is reformed, the skewed payments will continue to promote an imbalance in physician availability across the country."

Other authors of the study include Candice Chen, MD, MPH, assistant professor of health policy and pediatrics and Erika Steinmetz, MBA, senior research scientist at the SPHHS Department of Health Policy.

The study adds to the evidence suggesting that the current system of allocating graduate medical education or GME money is based on an inflexible and outdated method, one that contributes to large imbalances in payments and a growing shortfall of physicians in some areas of the country. Since its start, the Medicare GME program has paid teaching hospitals to provide residency training for young physicians. In 2010, those teaching facilities received $10 billion in GME payments, an amount that represents the nation's single largest public investment in the health workforce.

To find out how that $10 billion was distributed, the researchers analyzed the 2010 Medicare cost reports that list federal GME payments to teaching hospitals all over the country. The team found a disproportionate amount of Medicare GME dollars flowing to Northeastern states such as New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In fact, the study shows that in these three states Medicare supports twice as many medical residents per person as the national average. And New York alone has more residents than 31 other states combined.

"Teaching hospitals in the Northeastern United States have a long history of large residency training programs, which capture a large share of GME funding," Mullan said. "But these states also have the highest physician-to-population ratios. They are not doctor shortage states."

While some residents move elsewhere after training, the majority of newly minted physicians set up a practice near where they were trained. Therefore, it is important that states with rural and growing populations receive appropriate support for starting and maintaining residency programs, Mullan said.

The study shows that many other parts of the country lose out when it comes to Medicare GME funding. Many Southern and Western stateswhich already face shortfalls in their physician workforcesuch as Montana, Idaho, Arkansas, Wyoming, Florida and even California do not do well in terms of Medicare GME funding under the current system, according to the authors.

The researchers also found:

• Large state-level differences in the number of Medicare-funded medical residents even when the density of the population is taken into account. For example, New York again is at the top of all the states with 77 Medicare-funded medical residents per 100,000 people while California has 19, Florida 14, and Arkansas has just 3.
  
• Medicare GME payments have not kept pace with factors such as rapidly growing populations in Southern and Western United States. For example, Florida, Texas and California have rapidly growing populations yet they received substantially less GME funding in 2010.
  
• Medicare's current GME formula pays very different amounts to train medical residents depending on the state. For example, the federal government pays Louisiana $64,000 per year to train each medical resident but gives Connecticut $155,000 for the same job.

The findings from this paper document a substantial imbalance in GME payments, one that has been frozen in place since 1997 when Congress passed a law that capped the number of residency positions at each hospital. Under the 1997 law, teaching hospitals can train any number of physicians but Medicare pays for the training only up to the allocated cap, the authors point out.

The end result of the cap and other inflexible attributes of the current GME system is a system that gives teaching hospitals in certain states with large numbers of practicing physicians big incentives to train more residents while shortchanging many smaller and rural states.

Ways to fix the problem include revisiting the GME payment formula and devising one that distributes GME funding so as to stimulate the growth of residency training in parts of the country that are chronically underserved or are growing rapidly. In addition, the authors say the GME funding system needs an oversight body that would look now and in the future at the distribution of GME dollars and make decisions about the best places to steer funding so that the federal government is making the wisest investment in the physician workforce.

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The study, "The Geography of Graduate Medical Education: Imbalances Signal Need for New Distribution Policies," appears in the November issue of Health Affairs.

About the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services:
Established in July 1997, the School of Public Health and Health Services brought together three longstanding university programs in the schools of medicine, business, and education and is now the only school of public health in the nation's capital. Today, more than 1,100 students from nearly every U.S. state and more than 40 nations pursue undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral-level degrees in public health. The school now offers an online Master of Public Health, MPH@GW, which allows students to pursue their degree from anywhere in the world. http://sphhs.gwu.edu/

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Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-11/gwus-tpo103013.php
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