Kingston 8GB SDHC Flash Memory Card (Class 6) - $9.99
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hp pavilion g50 112 nr notebook
office depot want be selling the hp pavilion g50-112nr notebook as regards equitable $349.99 on foul friday. this is a $250 discount off of the
G50-112NR’s retail price, making it one of the most affordable 15.4-inch notebooks available this Black Friday.
Rain, quake prompt evacuations near L.A.
The G50-112NR comes with 3GB of RAM, a 160 GB hard drive and an Intel Dual Core T3200 processor.
The $250 in savings for Black Friday is split into a $200 discount and a $50 rebate.
This notebook is hardly a speed demon, but at $349 you’ll likely get your money’s worth.
This laptop is a must buy if your after something cheap but powerful enough to do your day to day tasks such as email / browsing and playingthe odd game on the internet.
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Funcom confirms US office layoffs but won’t give specific numbers
Filed under: Biz, MMO, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
funcom had a massive best selling hit in late may with the release of the wish awaited fantasy mmo stage of conan. however, the “fun” has gone out of funcom a suggestion over with the summer with blizzard execs reporting they have gotten back a sizable fraction of their world of warcraft subscribers that went over to adulthood of conan.now it looks kidney the developer is doing some cutting of their personnel numbers in their us offices. according to a rumor assertion at tentonhammer, funcom laid off 70 percent of their us positions late last week, mostly in their customers ceremony and qa departments. the report was unclear as to the specific numbers of layoffs. funcom has issued an official comeback but even that was fairly unclear: “we did have some staffing cuts at funcom this week as ooze as fashionable positions opening in the organization as division of our ongoing expenditure based efficiency and completion initiatives that are main to any business.”
Gallery: Age of Conan
Marine life faces ‘acid threat’
Funcom confirms US office layoffs but won’t give specific numbers originally appeared on Big Download Blog on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The ill-advised memoir from Eminem’s mom
To hear Debbie Nelson tell it, none of what Eminem said about her was true. They were never on welfare, she didn’t pop pills, she wasn’t an alcoholic. She has written “My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem” to, as the subtitle says, set the record straight.
To hear Eminem tell it, things were the other way around. From two 1999 interviews:
“I kid you not, my family is … Jerry Springer, the epitome of white trash.”
“My mother’s acheter viagra a …. My mother never had a job. My mother never had nothing. We didn’t have ….”
I didn’t have to go digging for those quotes ? they’re on the back cover of Nelson’s book, in large type. Which seems counter to Nelson’s goal. Wouldn’t she want to include quotes from her son saying how wrong he was? That he made all that stuff up to fit his street persona?
Such quotes may be hard to find. Nelson once sued her son for $10 million for defamation, and while she now claims the lawsuit wasn’t her idea, that hasn’t seemed to warm their relationship. “So many years have passed since we really talked,” she writes at the end of the book.
People have accused me of writing this book for the money, but that’s the last reason for doing it. I wanted to set the record straight to let both of my sons know how much they are loved, despite my many struggles in life…. I want so much to reconcile with Marshall before it’s too late.
Whatever happened to letters and phone calls? Is a book really the best way to tell your celebrity child you love him?
As if this weren’t a sad enough state of affairs, as if the cover photo of the two of them together didn’t have a strange awkwardness, Nelson writes, in the book, of her own experiences of abuse and neglect. “I’d climbed a big old apple tree to escape my drunken stepfather,” she writes on the first page. “It didn’t matter what went wrong at home; it was always my fault…. I heard Mom scream from inside, ‘Find the kid and beat her!’ ”
In the song “Cleanin’ Out My Closet (I’m Sorry Mama),” Eminem turned a seeming apology into an attack against Nelson, accusing her of wishing him dead, of saying, after his uncle died, that it should have been him. “I had said I wished Marshall were dead,” she admits. “But I’d apologized immediately…. The words just tumbled out of my mouth. I thought Marshall had accepted that I didn’t mean it. But here he was, ten years later, throwing it back in my face, telling the world what I’d done.”
It’s hard not to see “My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem: Setting the Record Straight on My Life as Eminem’s Mother” as Nelson taking her turn to tell the world. She may have a harder time with that reconciliation because of it.
?Carolyn Kellogg
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More popular than …
More than 40 years after Christians were infuriated by the Beatles’ claim that they were “more popular than Jesus”, the Roman Catholic Church has made peace achat cialis with the Fab Four.Saturday’s edition of the Vatican’s official newspaper absolves John Lennon of his notorious remark, saying that “after so many years it sounds merely like the boasting of an English working-class lad struggling to cope with unexpected success”.In a lengthy editorial marking the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ famous White Album, L’Osservatore Romano heaps lavish praise on the British band.”The talent of Lennon and the other Beatles gave us some of the best pages in modern pop music,” said the newspaper, which has recently tried to shake off its stuffy image by covering popular culture events such as the Oscars and inviting articles from Muslim and Jewish contributors. [article]
Though when it comes to John Lennon’s “Imagine”, Anathema Sit.
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Editorial: School board stalls acheter viagra a promising program
A man named Steve Glazerman sat before the Guilford County school board Wednesday and said, in so many words: “I’m here with money acheter levitra from Washington for some of your best teachers to help some of your neediest students.”
Superintendent Maurice Green and his top staff members urged the board to accept the gift. The program from Washington fits one of the strategies they think can help children learn.
So, after asking many questions, the board told the man, in so many words: “We’ll think about it. Come back in a couple of weeks.”
read more
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Pirates Transform Villages Into Boomtowns
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia’s increasingly brazen pirates are building sprawling stone houses, cruising in luxury cars, marrying beautiful women _ even hiring caterers to prepare Western-style food for their hostages.
And in an impoverished country where every public institution has crumbled, they have become heroes in the steamy coastal dens they operate from because they are the only real business in town.
“The pirates depend on us, and we benefit from them,” said Sahra Sheik Dahir, a shop owner in Harardhere, the nearest village to where a hijacked Saudi Arabian supertanker carrying $100 million in crude was anchored Wednesday.
These boomtowns are all the more shocking in light of Somalia’s violence and poverty: Radical Islamists control most of the country’s south, meting out lashings and stonings for accused criminals. There has been no effective central government in nearly 20 years, plunging this arid African country into chaos.
Life expectancy is just 46 years; a quarter of children die before they reach 5.
But in northern coastal towns like Harardhere, Eyl and Bossaso, the pirate economy is thriving thanks to the money pouring in from pirate ransoms that have reached $30 million this year alone.
“There are more shops and business is booming because of the piracy,” said Sugule Dahir, who runs a clothing shop in Eyl. “Internet cafes and telephone shops have opened, and people are just happier than before.”
In Harardhere, residents came out in droves to celebrate as the looming oil ship came into focus this week off the country’s lawless coast.
Businessmen gathered cigarettes, food and cold bottles of orange soda, setting up kiosks for the pirates who come to shore to resupply almost daily.
Dahir said she even started a layaway plan for them.
“They always take things without paying and we put them into the book of debts,” she told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “Later, when they get the ransom money, they pay us a lot.”
Residents make sure the pirates are well-stocked in khat, a popular narcotic leaf, and aren’t afraid to gouge a bit when it comes to the pirates’ deep pockets.
“I can buy a packet of cigarettes for about $1 but I will charge the pirate $1.30,” said Abdulqadir Omar, an Eyl resident.
While pirate villages used to have houses made of corrugated iron sheets, now, there are stately looking homes made of sturdy, white stones.
“Regardless of how the money is coming in, legally or illegally, I can say it has started a life in our town,” said Shamso Moalim, a 36-year-old mother of five in Harardhere.
“Our children are not worrying about food now, and they go to Islamic schools in the morning and play soccer in the afternoon. They are happy.”
The attackers generally treat their hostages well in anticipation of a big payday, hiring caterers on shore to cook spaghetti, grilled fish and roasted meat that will appeal to Western palates.
And when the payday comes, the money sometimes literally falls from the sky.
Pirates say the ransom arrives in burlap sacks, sometimes dropped from buzzing helicopters, or in waterproof suitcases loaded onto skiffs in the roiling, shark-infested sea.
WWII soldier learns of brother’s death camp hell
“The oldest man on the ship always takes the responsibility of collecting the money, because we see it as very risky, and he gets some extra payment for his service later,” Aden Yusuf, a pirate in Eyl, told AP over VHF radio.
The pirates use money-counting machines _ the same technology seen at foreign exchange bureaus worldwide _ to ensure the cash is real. All payments are done in cash because Somalia has no functioning banking system.
“Getting this equipment is easy for us, we have business connections with people in Dubai, Nairobi, Djibouti and other areas,” Yusuf said. “So we send them money and they send us what we want.”
Despite a beefed-up international presence, the pirates continue to seize ships, moving further out to sea and demanding ever-larger ransoms. The pirates operate mostly from the semiautonomous Puntland region, where local lawmakers have been accused of helping them and taking a cut of the ransoms.
For the most part, however, the regional officials say they have no power to stop piracy.
Meanwhile, towns that once were eroded by years of poverty and chaos are now bustling with restaurants, Land Cruisers and Internet cafes. Residents also use their gains to buy generators _ allowing full days of electricity, once an unimaginable luxury in Somalia.
There are no reliable estimates of the number of pirates operating in Somalia, but they number in the thousands. And though the bandits do sometimes get nabbed, piracy is generally considered a sure bet to a better life.
NATO and the U.S. Navy say they can’t be everywhere, and American off …
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The Conversation: Tatiana Stefanes, restaurateur
Crepes & Bread restaurant, at 94 High St., reopened under new management Oct. 15 after being closed since the beginning of September. Tatiana Stefanes of Leominster is the new manager, the restaurant’s third since it first opened in the summer of 2007.
Q: Why did you open here? Why did you decide to reopen the store?
A: I was walking outside, I saw Crepes & Bread, and I saw it’s French. Crepes are popular in Brazil, and I’m from Brazil. I was walking by and I see it had a sign to sell. I looked in the window, and it was very cute. It just happened. I just called the owner [Samuel Alves] and asked the price. We made some agreements, and then I opened. I believe this is a gift from God because always I have dreamed to open my own store.
Q: What is your favorite food outside of what you sell here?
A: Four years ago I tried for the first time, the Thanksgiving party. It’s turkey, never [had] I eat[en] it before. Turkey with cranberry sauce, it’s amazing. … Coffees and pumpkin pie and pecan pie, everything’s great. I eat a lot of Chinese food. I love pasta and I like so much different food.
Q: What’s your favorite dish to make and why?
A: Crepes … I like to make my warm soup. Sometimes the customer comes in and says “oh, chicken noodle.” Yeah, it’s a chicken, but I don’t have a recipe, I just make it how I think is good. So maybe every day’s going to be different.
Q: What do you like to do for fun?
A: Usually I like to go watch my son [Fabeo Machado] go play soccer. He’s the new youth player on the Revolution team. It’s amazing and I like to watch him every time I can.
I’m a Christian person, I go like two, three times a week to my church [World Revival Church Assembly of God in Leominster]. … It’s so hard now, so much things happen. So I think that God can show you the way, the best one for you can go. … I like to watch TV sometimes in the wintertime with a hot chocolate. But for me the most important is keeping with my family.
Three Questions with Tatiana Stefanes
Q: What you hope to bring to the restaurant?
A: I’m going to put in a TV here and wireless Internet connection. I want people to come in and say, “You know what, Crepes & Bread is warm inside, it has hot chocolate, coffee and crepes.” Especially since winter’s coming up. My goal is to make it here a nice place to keep warm with delicious [chicken noodle and butternut squash] soup, have a snack, sell Portuguese bread. I’m going to mix American pastries and Portuguese pastries. Cakes and cold desserts are Brazilian. … I put in a very nice smoothie with real fruit, yogurt and ice cream. … I hope in the future to have something to put into your home. It will be a gift shop, too. We have a gift card now. It’ll take, I don’t know, one or two months.
Q: Where was your last vacation?Where else would you like to travel?
A: Florida, Orlando was the last vacation. Oh my god, it’s a nice place to go. … It was seven days, it was lots of fun. I saw different things. … But I want to go in Hawaii, and Cancun, too … Italy. France. Maybe in Japan. I am so curious, because, like China, a lot of things come from China. I want to see how it is there. … I like to travel, but I just don’t have chance. And I don’t have time to. And I don’t have money. But I like to meet different people, different cultures.
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Credit crisis diary: Jamie picks the wrong time to expand
The Diary bows to no one in its admiration for the “naked chef”, right, but is it possible that Jamie Oliver’s sense of timing has gone awry? Fresh from a gruelling stint persuading the people of Rotherham to eat more healthily, Oliver’s next venture will be in a slightly more glamorous location. He plans a trendy new eatery in Canary Wharf. Shame the once-bustling malls beneath Docklands’ finest investment banks are now beginning to resemble the south Yorkshire industrial wastelands with which our favourite chef is now all too familiar.
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WiiEarthVR ? A Fully Immersive 3D Experience with Virtual Earth 3D
Virtual Earth is the 3D interface to Microsoft’s Live Maps service. Normally this control is loaded via the web browser and allows interaction with a keyboard, mouse, and Xbox 360 controller. In this article, we will take the Virtual Earth 3D control out of the web browser, use it in a WinForms application, and control it with a Nintendo Wii Remote (Wiimote) and a pair of Vuzix VR920 glasses, while also providing a stereoscopic 3D image to the glasses, creating the illusion of a fully three dimensional environment. Note that use of the Virtual Earth 3D control in this way is undocumented and unsupported at the moment. Because of this, some of the descriptions in this article are educated guesses and may not be 100% accurate?
Originally, this project started as a simple Wiimote interface to Virtual Earth 3D as shown in the video below. Since I wrote that application, I learned of the VR920 glasses and the Wii Fit Balance Board was released, so I’ve decided to create a more immersive experience using all of these controls which was demonstrated at PDC2008.
Before we get started, you will need to install the Virtual Earth 3D control. If you haven’t done this already, browse to http://maps.live.com/ and click on the 3D link to install the control and supporting software.
Additionally, if you haven’t already, please review my Managed Library for Nintendo’s Wiimote article on this site. We will be using the library in this article, but I will not repeat the basic information that is located in the original article. You will also need to have the Vuzix VR920 glasses installed and setup according to its own user manual. That will also not be covered here.
The Virtual Earth
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