This is the Modem World: Social networking makes us feel alone

Each week Joshua Fruhlinger contributes This is the Modem World, a column dedicated to exploring the culture of consumer technology.

I was listening to someone, somewhere, on something -- not really sure where, and it doesn't matter -- but someone said that they'd rather be alone than have friends who make them feel alone. It's probably been said by many people in many different ways, but for some reason, that saying has attached itself to me as I engage in my twice-daily social networking while comparing it to what I'm actually doing in my downtime that doesn't qualify as "work."

Social networks make us feel alone. I'm not claiming to be the first to notice this, but now that there's a social network for pictures, for videos, for 140-character updates, for business networking, for food, for our pets...

Filed under: Misc, Internet, Facebook

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Microsoft pushes U.S. Customs to enforce phone import ban

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp, which won a ban last year on importing some phones made by a Google Inc subsidiary, filed a motion in a U.S. court on Friday asking the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Border Protection to enforce the measure.

The U.S. International Trade Commission, which hears a long list of high-tech patent complaints, said in May 2012 that Google's Motorola Mobility infringed a Microsoft patent for generating and synchronizing calendar items. It barred any infringing Motorola Mobility device from being imported into the United States.

All phones with Google's Android software are affected by the ban, Microsoft said. But Google said that it should have applied to only some Motorola Mobility Android phones.

That order was to have gone into effect 60 days after it was issued but, according to Microsoft's court filing, it still has not been enforced.

"CBP (Customs and Bureau Protection) has repeatedly allowed Motorola to evade that order based on secret presentations that CBP has refused to share with Microsoft," the complaint said.

Google argued that Microsoft tried to broaden the order beyond what the ITC had intended.

"U.S. Customs appropriately rejected Microsoft's effort to broaden its patent claims to block Americans from using a wide range of legitimate calendar functions, like scheduling meetings, on their mobile phones," said Matt Kallman, a Google spokesman.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Customs declined comment.

The filing is the latest salvo in an international smartphone patent war that has embroiled a half dozen companies in lawsuits filed in about a dozen countries.

The dispute is a sign that deciding which product infringes a patent is harder now that the world has gone high tech, and that Customs may not have the needed expertise to make that determination and perhaps should rely on the ITC, said Deanna Tanner Okun, a former ITC chairman who is a partner at Adduci, Mastriani & Schaumberg, LLP.

"Problems have increased. The system is outdated," she said. "They're using practices and procedures that are 20 years old."

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Richard Chang and Lisa Shumker)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/microsoft-pushes-u-customs-enforce-phone-import-ban-211453595.html

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An Invitation to Travel with A Few of America's Most Fascinating ...

Sophisticated Cruise Specialists at Crown Cruise Vacations Assist With the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Cruises

PRINCETON, N.J. (July 9, 2013) ? Crown Cruise Vacations is issuing an invitation to public broadcasting aficionados and intellectuals to join PBS and NPR personalities aboard an ultimate travel adventure in January 2014 ? exploring NOVA, the highest-rated science series on television and the most-watched documentary series on public television.

Throughout the Artful Travelers? PTV at Sea journey, private dinners, receptions and shore excursions will allow for one-to-one conversations with some of America?s most fascinating minds. This and other once-in-a-lifetime PTV at Sea adventures feature leading authorities participating in panel discussions and presentations in the areas of science, politics, culture, current events, the arts and more.

The NOVA event takes place aboard Regent Seven Seas Cruises? all-suite, all-balcony ship Seven Seas Mariner. Crown Cruise Vacations is the official travel agency for this 14-night travel experience. Guests will sail from Miami on Jan. 25, 2014, and arrive in Lima, Peru, on Feb. 8, 2014. Ports of call include Curacao, Aruba, Colombia and Ecuador. Fares begin at $9,749 per person, double occupancy. Fares include all-suite accommodations, round-trip air, highly personalized service, acclaimed cuisine, fine wines and spirits, sightseeing excursions in every port, a pre-cruise luxury hotel package and gratuities.

Other PTV at Sea Cruise Adventures available through Crown Cruise Vacations:

Indian Ocean Odyssey, sails from Dec. 3-23, 2013, aboard Regent Seven Seas Cruises? luxurious all-suite, all-balcony ship, Seven Seas Voyager. The adventure begins on the historically rich Persian Gulf coast and travels to incredible ports in India, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka aboard Regent?s Seven Seas Voyager while celebrating the work of PBS? award-winning series FRONTLINE and American Experience.

The worlds of filmmaking, politics, and history are explored by luminaries including David Fanning (FRONTLINE); Mark Samels (American Experience); electoral analyst Charlie Cook; Raney Aronson-Rath (FRONTLINE); Arun Rath (PRI?s The World); and Renata Simone (FRONTLINE). Some of these fascinating guests were born or raised in regions travellers will explore on this sailing, providing an added layer of engagement and education. Fares begin at $9,249 per person, double occupancy. Fares may include an automatic donation to a specified local public television station. This voyage features a specially-priced Business Class air upgrade for only $1,999 each way.

Celebrate Drama and the Arts, from Aug. 27 to Sept. 8, 2014, aboard Regent Seven Seas Cruises? luxurious all-suite, all-balcony ship, Seven Seas Voyager. Travel through the beautiful Baltic Sea, sailing from London to Stockholm. Celebrate acclaimed dramatic favorites and the very best of arts and cultural programming as you sail this this unique 12-night travel experience while supporters and friends of PBS and NPR will gather to celebrate the acclaimed dramatic programs and exceptional arts programming of public broadcasting entities in America. Fares begin at $10,749 per person, double occupancy.

To participate in exclusive Artful Travelers? PTV at Sea events and activities, reservations can be made directly with Crown Cruise Vacations by calling toll-free 1-855-788-7880 (USA/Canada) or emailing ptvinfo@crowncruisevacations.com. For more information about these unparalleled cruise events, contact Crown Cruise Vacations, preferred provider in partnership with Artful Travelers, promoters of PTV at Sea cruises.

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About Crown Cruise Vacations

Crown Cruise Vacations is the preferred provider of Artful Traveler?s PTV at Sea cruises, which enrich, inspire and entertain with informative programming presented by some of public broadcasting?s most acclaimed personalities.

Based in Princeton, New Jersey, Crown Cruise Vacations specialists are comprised of a unique team of experienced, accredited travel agents and managers with a multitude of years selling leisure travel. Crown Cruise Vacations was named North America?s Leading Cruise Travel Agent 2012 by the prestigious World Travel Awards, which acknowledges excellence across all sectors of the global travel and tourism industry

For more information, please visit http://www.crowncruisevacations.com

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Source: http://www.travelvideo.tv/news/cruise-ships/07-12-2013/an-invitation-to-travel-with-a-few-of-americas-most-fascinating-minds-on-the-ultimate-voyage

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Bill would outlaw job, housing discrimination for troops, vets

A bill protecting current and former service members from discrimination in housing and employment was introduced Thursday in the House and Senate.

The Veterans and Servicemembers Employment Rights and Housing Act of 2013 would build on legal and financial protections already in law.

Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., chief sponsor of the House version of the bill, HR 2654, said it is a response to complaints he has received from service members and veterans about being denied housing and turned down for jobs solely because of their military service.

?If you fight for our country, you should not have to fight for a job when you come home,? Kilmer said.

A federal law, the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, already prohibits discrimination in hiring for veterans, but it does not specifically cover current service members looking for part-time jobs. Service members and veterans also are not a specifically protected class under federal housing discrimination laws.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is chief sponsor of the Senate version, S 1281. ?By making military service a protected status, this bill will ensure that those who sacrificed to keep us safe are not discriminated against when they return home,? he said. ?Shamefully, veterans who served our country return from deployment and too often struggle to find a job or a place to call home.?

The bill would add military status to existing anti-discrimination laws for housing and employment, and set up a process for those who face discrimination to get legal assistance.

Kilmer previously sponsored a similar Washington state law.

Veterans of Foreign Wars, AmVets and the National Guard Association of the United States have endorsed the bill.

Source: http://www.militarytimes.com/article/20130712/NEWS05/307120021

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Current Nuclear Energy Plants and Public Communication | The ...

A good friend shared a link to a blog titled Taking physics to new audiences: a realisation. It is a wonderful story about a particle physicist who has a twin sister who is a professional historian.

Following a conversation about nuclear energy, the physicist has avoided talking to her sister about what she does at work.

The last time we discussed science was when I was in my fourth year of my undergraduate physics course at Melbourne University. We ended up in a heated argument about nuclear power in which she refused to acknowledge or even discuss the possibility that it might not be evil incarnate destined to mutate our children into three-eyed monsters in the way that she supposed had happened in Chernobyl. I believe our conversation ended with her announcing she had no interest in science and that I knew nothing. Well, that was that.

This situation apparently lasted for about six years before the physicist decided to broach the subject again; this time, the conversation took a decidedly different turn and the historian sister displayed a dramatically different response. Here is the line that worked its wonders and opened a new topic of discussion for the accomplished women ? the professional physicist and the professional historian.

I?m currently working on designing a high power proton accelerator to drive something called an Accelerator Driven Subcritical Reactor. It?s nuclear fission but without the nasty a) waste, b) proliferation risk, c) meltdowns and d) public perception issues. It uses Thorium instead of Uranium in the core & doesn?t produce plutonium. As a bonus, it could transmute the long lived nuclear waste of existing power plants.

The physicist, probably unconsciously, successfully implemented a communications strategy that would make Dr. Peter Sandman proud. She followed at least three of his five recommended steps towards outrage management and convinced her sister that her work really wasn?t ?evil incarnate?. She acknowledged prior misbehavior, acknowledged current problems and did so with humility.

Unfortunately, her success may not have been a step forward for the beneficial use of nuclear energy to solve the pressing problem of producing large quantities of emission free power without polluting our common atmosphere.

Here is the comment that I submitted on High Heels in the Lab. I hope that it gets through moderation and begins a useful discussion both there and here.

Suzie ? Unfortunately, your story of communications success makes my own self-appointed task of sharing the good news about nuclear fission just a little bit harder. I don?t agree that there is anything actually ?nasty? about uranium. Plutonium, for all of the demonization it has received over the past 55 years, is actually a very valuable fission fuel material that contains 2 million times as much energy per unit mass as oil.

The volume of the world?s used nuclear fuel is quite tiny compared to the amount of emission free energy it has produced. The really good news is that it still contains about 95% of the initial potential energy. There are known ways to safely use a substantially larger portion of that energy before the material has to be isolated as ?waste?.

I applaud the fact that people are working hard to make nuclear fission better and to find ways of converting what some think of as waste into energy, but the nuclear technology that we already have working today is FAR safer and environmentally friendly than all other competing products. Keeping ?old? nuclear plants running is a much more important benefit than keeping old cars running to prevent new ones from being produced; a single large nuclear plant can produce about 8 billion kilowatt hours of zero carbon electricity every year. If one is shut down out of misplaced fear, no matter what replaces it, the world?s carbon footprint will increase.

In the past two years, dozens of useful nuclear plants have been forced off line in an irrational response to a massive natural disaster that destroyed three nuclear plants without causing a single injury due to radiation. As a direct result of the excess fear, the world?s fossil fuel industry has captured an increase in sales worth several tens of billions of dollars.

Keep up the good work in trying to share the excitement of solving problems, but please take a harder look at the reasons why self-sustained nuclear fission (the kind that does not need any expensive accelerators) has such a negative ?public perception issue.?

Rod Adams, Publisher, Atomic Insights

My issue with the apparent success is that the historian will probably still fight the use of any nuclear fission technology that is not produced using particle accelerators and thorium. She will still feel justified in thinking of nuclear waste as a big issue and still worry about the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation with regard to existing commercial nuclear power plants. No matter how successful the physicist is in her research efforts, it is going to be a very long time before any significant quantities of power are produced using subcritical reactors supported by particle accelerators.

Changing topics completely, I recommend a visit to Canadian Energy Issues where Steve Aplin has once again explained why Ontario?s mostly nuclear supplied grid is so much cleaner than it would be if that power was produced by burning natural gas instead.

Photo Credit: Nuclear Energy Communication/shutterstock

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Authored by:

Rod Adams

Rod Adams gained his nuclear knowledge as a submarine engineer officer and as the founder of a company that tried to develop a market for small, modular reactors from 1993-1999. He began publishing Atomic Insights in 1995 and began producing The Atomic Show Podcast in March 2006. He now works for B&W mPower, but his posts on the Internet reflect his personal views and not necessarily the ...

See complete profile

Source: http://theenergycollective.com/rodadams/247701/demonizing-existing-nuclear-technology-poor-communications-tool

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Girls Only!!! Click Here To Register For The W.TEC Girls Technology ...

The?Womens Technology Empowerment Centre?-?W.TEC?is now accepting applications for its 6th Girls Technology Camp, which is scheduled to take place in August.? The W.TEC Girls Technology Camp is a technology education and mentoring programme designed to inspire girls to become more confident in creating digital content and developing technology. For the camp duration, the girls will participate in technology workshops to design graphics, make film, build applications and games. They will also participate in career talk sessions, team-building exercises and excursions.

The camp is open to secondary school students (JSS 2 ? SSS 2) who are no younger than 11 years old. This residential, educational camp will take place from August 11th-24th, 2013 and is targeted at girls in secondary schools who are comfortable using the computer and who would like to take their interest in computers & technology to the next level. It is a two-week program with practical technology workshops including: Introduction to Programming, Building Applications, Introduction To Telecoms, Video Filming and Production, Building Computer Games, Career Talks, Excursions to Technology Companies.

On successful completion of the camp, the girls will be invited to join W.TECs Technology Club for Girls, where they will be able to participate in year-long workshops to build-up their technology skills from the camp. They will also have the opportunity to win a laptop.

W.TEC is a Nigerian non-governmental organization working to encourage Nigerian girls and women to use information and communication technology (ICT) to empower themselves socially and economically. This is done through technology literacy training, technology-based projects, mentoring, work placement and research. W.TEC works in partnership with local and international NGOs, educational and research organizations.

The camp will take place from the 11th to the 24th of August 2013.

To find out more about the camp and to register on behalf of your daughter or ward, visit?www.w-teconline.org/programmes/girls, email info@w-teconline.org or call?08191150387,?08096987541,018509782, and?08171027807.

Source: http://broadstreetng.com/?p=7194&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=girls-only-click-here-to-register-for-the-w-tec-girls-technology-camp

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Golf-Wagner takes control of Greenbrier Classic

July 6 | Sun Jul 7, 2013 3:30am IST

July 6 (Reuters) - American Johnson Wagner moved a step closer to winning his fourth PGA Tour title by seizing a two-shot lead after Saturday's third round of the Greenbrier Classic at White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia.

One stroke off the pace overnight on a tightly bunched leaderboard, Wagner took over at the top as he fired a sparkling six-under-par 64 on a sun-splashed day at The Greenbrier's Old White Course.

The 33-year-old Texan, who played the course several times a year when he was a student at nearby Virginia Tech, mixed seven birdies with a lone bogey to post a 14-under total of 196.

"Today my goal was to go out and make as many birdies as I could, and I did that," Wagner told Golf Channel after sinking a 12-foot birdie putt at the par-three last and pumping his right fist in delight.

"Now I've got to take the same attitude into tomorrow."

Fellow American Jimmy Walker, seeking his first victory on the PGA Tour, was alone in second after matching Wagner for the day's best score, storming home with five birdies in the last nine holes.

Swede Jonas Blixt (67) was a further two strokes back at 10 under, a shot better than Australians Steven Bowditch (69) and Matt Jones (66), and American teenager Jordan Spieth (67).

American Matt Every, the 36-hole leader after opening with scores of 69 and 62, tumbled backwards with four bogeys in the first seven holes on the way to a 74 and a five-under total of 205. (Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Gene Cherry)

Source: http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/INgolf/~3/vy6ttpG5-MU/golf-pga-idINL2N0EY02920130706

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