Bizarro Lamp Illuminates a Room With Its Shade [Lighting]

Thanks to the relatively compact nature of LED technology, lighting designers have been able to create some truly unique designs now that they don't have to accomodate a bulb. Like Peter Stathis' Symtra lamp which turns the fractured shade into the source of illumination. More »

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EU leaders support growth, give few concrete plans

BRUSSELS (AP) ? European Union leaders concluded their latest summit early Thursday with few concrete steps to fix the continent's festering financial crisis even as the potential for a messy Greek exit from the euro appears to be rising. Some leaders stressed the importance of planning for just such an event but offered no measures that might help Greece avoid it.

Also left unresolved was what Europe should do to spark economic growth and restore the confidence of investors, who have driven some countries' borrowing costs to unsustainable levels. The fiscal austerity agenda that Germany has promoted as the solution to Europe's problem of too much government debt has been met with rising skepticism in other euro countries.

The leaders of the 27 EU countries agreed to give institutions such as the European Investment Bank the task of drawing up proposals for growth in time for another summit in June. But there was discord over more aggressive actions promoted by some leaders heading into the summit, such as issuing bonds jointly as a way of reducing borrowing costs for heavily indebted nations in the eurozone, which is made up of 17 countries.

The perception that European leaders lack the political will to tackle the continent's financial and economic problems has left markets on edge for weeks. Recession is spreading. Banks are under pressure. The biggest fear is that if Greece cannot be saved, other larger economies ? like Spain or Portugal ? might face the same fate.

The eurozone countries "have to consider all kinds of events," Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters after a European Union summit, but insisted that "the working assumption" was that Greece would remain part of the euro. Leaders gathered in Brussels recognized that Greece had endured significant hardships and promised to release development funds aimed at spurring growth.

But the statement from Juncker, who also chairs meetings of eurozone finance ministers, was a frank admission that Greece could wind up abandoning the euro. The country's fringe political parties, which are threatening to renege on commitments made to secure bailout loans, saw their popularity surge in recent elections. No party has been able to form a government, and the country will vote again June 17.

Many analysts have said that Greece, already in its fifth year of recession, has no hope of recovery if it sticks to the spending cuts and tax hikes it agreed to in order to secure bailout loans.

"We want Greece to remain in the euro area," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said after the meeting. "We expect that they will stick to the commitments that they have entered into."

Political uncertainty in Greece is just one of the fires the Europe needs to put out. Leaders are also worried about rising borrowing costs in Spain and Italy that could force them to seek bailouts, just like Greece, Portugal and Ireland did.

Markets had expected the latest EU summit to disappoint and it did. Europe's stock markets had fallen heavily during trading on Wednesday and the euro hit a near two-year low against the dollar.

Asian stock markets struggled to make headway early Thursday as the lack of a breakthrough in Europe unnerved traders. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 was marginally down at 8,550.62 while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.2 percent to 18,749.19.

Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong, said Thursday: "Europe is not doing enough, and the market may not wait for them."

One of the biggest questions facing Europe is whether it's time to cut Greece some slack. Some European countries seemed ready to ease the pressure, and international organizations have called for the pace of austerity measures to be slowed in some struggling countries.

But Thursday's summit of 27 European Union leaders ended with no apparent concessions. A final statement said Greece had to respect its commitments and trumpeted the money the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund had loaned Greece as a sign of their "solidarity." It did say that funds for economic development would be sent to Greece ? though it's unclear how much of an immediate impact on growth they would have.

Juncker insisted early Thursday that he had not asked the euro nations to prepare national contingency plans for a possible chaotic departure of Greece from the currency.

French President Francois Hollande said that to evoke the even the possibility was dangerous ? and would send a signal to the markets that the eurozone wasn't standing behind Greece.

The debate reflects the fine line European leaders must walk between pressuring Greece to stick to a program of spending cuts and tax hikes that have exacerbated its economic slowdown and trying to ensure its presence in the eurozone.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy suggested the European Central Bank resume some of its emergency measures, such as buying the bonds of weak countries, which has the impact of lowering countries' borrowing rates. The ECB has suspended the purchases because, as an independent body, it does not want to be seen supporting governments directly. Instead, it has given European banks massive amounts of cheap loans to bolster confidence in the financial system and allow banks to buy up their country's debt.

Leaders on Thursday also addressed the contentious issue of whether the countries that use the euro should spread the risk and borrow money jointly - issuing so-called "eurobonds." This would mean every country could borrow funds at the same rate, substantially lowering the costs for the more indebted countries.

Hollande has pushed for them as an important way to ensure such a crisis never happens again, but Merkel has rejected them, fearing they would reduce the pressure on heavily indebted governments to heal their finances and force Germany to borrow at higher rates.

___

Don Melvin also contributed to this story.

Associated Press

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Trainer Jillian Michaels Welcomes Two Babies!

The former Biggest Loser trainer adopted a daughter and her partner gave birth! Plus, see more stars who welcomed new bundles of joy

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California Could Net $2 Billion From Facebook IPO

Tami Luhby

POSTED: 4:57 pm EDT May 15, 2012

UPDATED: 7:14 pm EDT May 15, 2012

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Facebook's employees and investors aren't the only ones who will get a windfall from the company's IPO this week.California is hoping to reap a cool $2 billion in income taxes when those Facebook insiders cash in on their stock and options.The exact numbers are still up in the air, but all sides agree that they will be large. Governor Jerry Brown's office is predicting that California will receive $1.9 billion over the next 13 months, while the Legislative Analyst's Office pegs the figure at $2.1 billion.The gift will keep on giving for several years. The state could get $800 million more between 2013 and 2015, as well as tens of millions per year through 2017.About one-fifth of the growth in California's personal income tax revenue this year can be attributed to the social networking titan's IPO, according to the analyst's office. Nearly 1% of all personal income in the state this year will be related to Facebook.That figure could grow. In a review, released Tuesday, of the governor's newly revised budget, the analyst's office warned that it's very difficult to forecast how much the Golden State will receive. Facebook's share price hasn't been finalized, and more importantly, no one knows where the stock will trade in six months. That's when Facebook will issue stock to many of its 3,500 employees -- most of whom will owe taxes immediately on their paper gains.As Facebook's share price rises, so do its employees' tax payments. Facebook said Tuesday that it now expects its employees' post-IPO tax obligations to total $4.4 billion, up from the $4 billion it previously estimated. That money will cover both state and federal tax obligations.The Golden State desperately needs this golden egg. On Monday, Brown said the state's budget shortfall has grown to nearly $16 billion.

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Union general known for his 'bravery, coolness under fire'

BY CLINT SCHEMMER

Daniel Davis Wheeler is hardly a household name. Yet he can be considered a Civil War hero--a fact that had, until recently, largely escaped public notice.

Now, if you visit Wheeler's resting place in Fredericksburg's City Cemetery, near a venerable magnolia and the brick wall along Washington Avenue, you'll spot something shiny and new.

Affixed to Wheeler's gravestone are two brass plaques. One reads "Medal of Honor." The other bears his name, unit--the 4th Vermont Infantry Regiment--and birth and death dates. Both feature the distinctive design of the medal awarded as the nation's highest military honor.

Here in Fredericksburg, Wheeler is something of an odd man out: a Union brigadier general interred in a cemetery known for its Southerners.

Nonetheless, Wheeler is of Fredericksburg. He lived his last 15 years here, having married into one of the area's most prominent families.

And when his time came, Brig. Gen. Wheeler was laid to rest by his adopted community. At his funeral on July 29, 1916, pallbearers included Fredericksburg Mayor J.P. Rowe and Charles Hurkamp, a longtime City Council member.

His grave, however, made no mention of his Civil War years, although he was involved in some of its most famous battles: Malvern Hill, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Salem Church and Cold Harbor, among others.

That disconnect has been examined by Josef Rokus of Orange County, a volunteer researcher for the National Park Service who chronicled Wheeler's life.

Rokus' profile was published in the 2009 edition of the Fredericksburg Journal of History and Biography, published by the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust.

"He had a low profile while he was here, maybe because it was Fredericksburg and he was a Northerner," Rokus said. "At that time, Northerners--particularly generals--may not have been the most welcome people in this part of the country."

Rokus' research was sparked by a tour led some years ago by John Hennessy, chief historian of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park.

"He pointed out Gen. Wheeler's grave, and said, in one of those casual comments, 'You might be interested in researching him, because we know very little about him,'" Rokus recalled.

Thursday, Rokus was present when John Parrish of Carroll Memorials affixed the plaques to Wheeler's gravestone, lending new luster to a 42-year military record.

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Google Drive

Recently, some lucky Google users received an invitation to Google Drive (free to $4.99 per month). If you haven't yet been invited to Drive, relax because you actually have most of the product and service already. It's called Google Docs, and it's fantastic.

Confused? The newly launched Google Drive is merely a rebranding of Google Docs with a few added features, chief among them local file syncing. In other words, Google Docs?ahem, Drive?now works more like Dropbox , SugarSync, CX, or any other file-syncing service you care to name, while still retaining the core Docs functionality, too. You can upload files to your Google account, convert them to Google's file format to edit them online or create new docs in the Web interface, collaborate with others in real time, and export the finished products to more standard file formats, like .doc, .rtf, .pdf, .csv, and so on.

Because of these wide-ranging capabilities, Google Drive is an Editors' Choice, although there isn't any one product or service that directly competes with it at the moment. Google Drive was the first file-syncing service to include a free online office suite and?seamlessly incorporate cloud-based file-syncing (Skydrive is the only other service that has all these features). While Google has positioned its new Google Drive cloud-storage service as one that straddles the consumer and business space, those using it for collaboration will probably get the most out of it. We have no hesitation recommending Google Drive, as it is an excellent platform and service, but that doesn't mean it's the only file-syncing service you should use either.

Main Features of Drive
The gist of Google Drive, and the main attraction to it, is it can store your files in the cloud where they are accessible to you and your collaborators, and become highly searchable.

One feature related to "search" stands out: Google's ability to scan a photo and "read" it using optical character recognition, or identify it using its own technology. The only other app of this kind that uses built-in OCR nearly as well is Evernote , although you have to have a paid Premium account to use it.

Google also claims Drive allows videos to be uploaded, but we encountered some issues with that part of the service.

Like many other general file-syncing services, Google Drive works better for document files than multimedia. It's not ideally meant to be a music and video streaming service?for that kind of product, you'll likely need a paid service and device, such as the Verbatim Mediashare Mini, although SugarSync does offer some neat capabilities and support for streaming iTunes music. Amazon Cloud also offers some special support for music and movies. However, within the Google universe you can use Google Play in tandem with Drive (more on that in a bit).

The toughest criticism Google Drive has faced so far amount of concerns over privacy and IP ownership. My feeling on the topic is this: If you are comfortable using Gmail, you should be comfortable with Google Doc. If you are skeptical of Google's user agreements, don't use Google products. For more in-depth analysis, see "Google Drive's Terms of Use: Lazy People Should Worry."

Carryover Features from Google Docs
The core services and functionality that were in Google Docs, namely, a free online office suite where files are also hosted, are still intact in Drive. Google Docs is one of the best known free alternative to Microsoft Office, although it's entirely Web-based?there's no software to install to use it (the only downloadable part is the app for local syncing with Drive).

As with Microsoft Office, Google Docs/Drive (the old name still shows up if you haven't signed up for Drive yet) lets you create word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentation documents, forms, vector drawings, and now in beta, tables. Google hosts your files, too, so when you log in, all your files are there. You can sort them into customizable folders, which appear along a left pane, or just search for what you need, using a standard search bar in the Web app.

When you create a document in Google Docs (or Drive as it were), the file format used is Google's own. However, the system couldn't be more flexible. You can export Google documents to more standardized files formats, like .doc, .rtf, .ppt, .pdf, and more; and you can import practically any document with the option of keeping it in its native format (which may limit your ability to edit it) or translating it into a Google doc file, which makes it editable in the online service. I've certainly had my share of moments when I was stuck on a computer that didn't have Microsoft Office at the very moment someone emailed me an important file that required my feedback pronto. Google Docs saved the day. I could open the file in Google Docs/Drive, edit it, and export the revised file back out to its original form. Occasionally some formatting will go haywire during this process (bullet points, the bane of my formatting existence!) but it gets the job done.

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Howard Stern Debut Doesn't Boost 'America's Got Talent' Ratings

Despite the hype surrounding Stern's debut, the show's ratings are down more than 15 percent from last year.
By Gil Kaufman

Howard Stern
Photo: MTV News

Over the past week it has felt like Howard Stern was everywhere. The self-proclaimed "King of All Media" was doing his best to make that title sing in the lead-up to his debut as a judge on "America's Got Talent," by doing a rare publicity swing of talk shows and feature interviews.

He was excited and he wanted America to be excited, and by the looks of the blanket ads, billboards and promotional stunts, NBC clearly thought that adding the controversial shock jock to the mix on the family-friendly show was going to be big news. Stern did his part
, delivering a warmer, fuzzier version of his outrageous radio persona on Monday night's two-hour debut and earning almost universal praise
 for his playful, personal touch.

The ratings, however, were another matter. According to overnight figures from Nielsen, Monday's show was seen by 10.3 million viewers and earned a 3.6 rating, which was solid, but meant that viewership was down 33 percent (from 15.3 million) and ratings fell 16 percent from last year's debut (4.3).

Stern spent a while on his SiriusXM satellite radio show on Monday tamping down expectations for the first night's ratings, mixing a cocktail of his own self-deprecation with the cold-hard facts about the competition. According to Entertainment Weekly unlike last year, when "AGT" bowed at the end of May and was paired with the first season of "The Voice," Monday night's episode went up against the one-hour season finale of "How I Met Your Mother," as well as the season finales of "Two and a Half Men" and "Mike & Molly." Oh, and it also had to contend with the penultimate performance night on "Dancing with the Stars."

While the ratings may not have been the kind of slam-dunk success NBC was hoping for, Stern may have one less potential headache to deal with (for now). After lambasting NBC for hiring Stern for the show
, citing the broadcasting veteran's more risqué radio bits over the years, the Parents Television Council was mostly mute when reached by MTV News on Tuesday (May 15).

"My understanding was that he was actually very clean," said Melissa Henson, director of communications and public education at the PTC. While she was unable to watch the show, Henson said she was glad to hear Stern toned down his act, "because it's a family show and that's what's appropriate. I'm glad he decided to rein it in or maybe the bosses at NBC told him to do that. I'm not surprised by that ... maybe he's initially keeping it clean so he can say, 'I told you so.'"

That doesn't mean Henson and her group have put their guard down, though. She said Stern's safe-as-milk debut doesn't change what she called NBC's track-record of misogyny, citing last year's swiftly canceled "Playboy Club' series and Stern's reputation for sexually-explicit radio programs.

"He may keep it clean on 'AGT' for a couple of episodes, or maybe the whole season," she said of Stern. "But that doesn't change the fact that for most of his career has been one of the most misogynistic entertainers out there."

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International Day Office Program Is Now Recruiting US Business ...

Published Monday, May 14th, 2012, by admin.

Dayoffice Card, the leading day office service for independent business centers is now inviting U.S. business centers to join the program. Dayoffice Card enables business centers to offer their clients a service very similar to the Regus BusinessWorld Card allowing clients to book and use offices, by the day, at hundreds of locations around the country and the world.?

The business launched in the UK last year and rapidly built up there, the largest network of business centers offering day offices. Now they are aiming to do the same in the U.S. The Alliance Business Centers Network has partnered with Dayoffice Card to bring the program to its members throughout the Americas.?

Some of the country?s leading operators, including Premier Business Centers, Metro Office and NYC Suites have already committed to the program and it?s easy to understand why. The Dayoffice Card program does not cost the business center operator anything to join and delivers 99% net profit on all revenue received. Dayoffice Card handles membership sales, marketing and support. They even manage all day office bookings with their 24/7 call center and real time, web-based booking system.?

The Dayoffice Card program does not require any new software or systems to be installed in the center and takes very little work on the part of the operator. Dayoffice Card adds substantial incremental revenue to business centers and also delivers a steady flow of high quality prospective clients for full time offices.

Following the U.S. launch, Dayoffice Card will roll out its offering to Europe and Asia creating a global membership program with more locations than any other.

Many independent operators have been waiting for a program that allows them to offer a national/international day office membership card to help ?level the playing field?. Now there is a proven and professional solution available but operators should move quickly to secure their involvement. Dayoffice card is interested to hear from U.S. business center operators of all sizes in all states. If you are interested in finding out more contact Rich Kraus, CEO the Americas by email at?rich.kraus@dayofficecard.com,?by phone at 949 681-3530 or using our online form.

?

Officing Today Related Posts:

1. ALLIANCE NETWORK Partners with Visa
2. Should Your Business Center Run a Loyalty Program
3. Instant Offices Launches User Reviews on Website
4. Executive Offices Group Targets High Class Business Center Users With Harrods Gift Cards
5. Abbey Business Centres Satisfaction Guarantee Launch of New Industry Trend

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Sullivan

Mike Sullivan is an entrepreneur and marketing professional who tries to keep things humming along as best as possible. From time to time, he updates Officing Today, but mostly he can be found on Skype talking with someone about virtual offices. Connect with Mike Sullivan on LinkedIn.

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LightSquared officially files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy

As expected, May 14th is indeed a dark day for LightSquared. The company has just filed paperwork in order to initiate Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in Manhattan's US Bankruptcy Court, effectively killing its dream of providing a high-speed mobile wireless network to upwards of 260 million people. Not quite a year after Sprint and LightSquared put together an agreement that would ensure 15 years of blissful LTE enjoyment together, Philip Falcone's baby looks weaker than ever. With the Sprint tie-up now void, and over $1.6 billion in debt, there's probably not too many places for LS to turn. The primary hurdle -- one it never could seem to overcome -- was the FCC's outright refusal to believe any of the company's mitigation proposals in relation to GPS interference issues. Despite "profoundly disagreeing" and raising all sorts of chaos in an effort to get its way, LightSquared never did manage to convince the powers that mattered. Where it turns from here is anyone's guess, but it won't be a quiet fall from grace, we're surmising.

LightSquared officially files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 May 2012 14:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Want a chance to win 1 of 4 new iPads?

iMore has teamed up with the amazing folks at Scout to give away FOUR new iPads (with 16GB & WiFi) featuring Retina Display, iSight camera, & more! You can enter for your chance to win over one our iMore Facebook Page, and you can get more chances to win by sharing with your friends. The contest starts now and ends May 21, 2012 at 11:59pm PDT so don't waste any time -- Enter now!

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Warm water threatens vast Anatarctic ice shelf

A new study indicates that a large ice sheet is at risk. Warm water from below is causing it to melt.

Scientists are predicting the disappearance of another vast ice shelf in Antarctica by the end of the century that will accelerate rising sea levels.

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The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf fringing the Weddell Sea on the eastern side of Antarctica has so far not seen ice loss from global warming and much of the observation of melting has focused on the western side of the continent around the Amundsen Sea. But new research from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany says the 450,000-sq-km ice shelf is under threat.

"According to our calculations, this protective barrier will disintegrate by the end of this century," said Dr Harmut Hellmer, lead author of the study, published in the journal Nature this week.

The huge ice shelves that float on the seas fringing Antarctica provide a buffer against warming waters eating away at the base of the much larger glaciers behind them that sit on the land.

"Ice shelves are like corks in the bottles for the ice streams behind them," said Hellmer. "They reduce the ice flow.

"If, however, the ice shelves melt from below, they become so thin that the dragging surfaces become smaller and the ice behind them starts to move."

Hellmer and his team predict the melting of the Filchner-Ronne shelf could add up to 4.4 mm per year to rising global sea levels.

According to the latest estimates based on remote sensing data, global sea levels rose 1.5 mm a year between 2003 and 2010 due to melting glaciers and ice shelves, the scientists say. This is on top of an estimated 1.7 mm annual rise due to the expansion of the oceans as the water warms.

Costly Sea Defences

The research was funded by the European Union's ?Ice2sea' program, set up in the wake of the 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that highlighted ice-sheets as the most significant remaining uncertainty in projections of rising sea levels. Projections from the Ice2sea project will feed into the fifth IPCC report due in 2013/2014.

It will also inform plans for major capital spending on sea defenses to protect Europe's coastlines, particularly areas of economic importance like London, with its tidal barrier on the River Thames, and the port of Rotterdam. A large part of the Netherlands is below sea level and protected by an elaborate system of dykes.

Professor David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey, who heads the Ice2sea program, told Reuters the Alfred Wegener Institute's findings add to evidence that warming oceans are having the greatest impact on the ice sheets, as opposed to atmospheric changes or the legacy of some long-term change decades or even hundreds of years ago.

"What people need to know with a sense of urgency is what is going to happen to sea levels over the next few decades," said Vaughan. "In those terms, these results are very big news indeed."

Vaughan is cautious about precise projections of the impact on sea levels. "For me, those numbers are about what might be plausible," he said. "I think we need to do some more work with the ice sheet models to determine exactly what sea level rises we might expect, but those are plausible numbers."

All other things being equal, the polar ice sheets reach a balance where the amount of snow going in each year is broadly matched by the number of icebergs coming out, but subtle changes like those associated with global warming, can affect that balance quite rapidly.

Vaughan said there was clear evidence that the widely-reported disintegration of the Larsen A and Larsen B ice shelves in 1995 and 2002 respectively, had led to the ice sheets that fed them moving faster into the sea, some of them many times the rate seen before collapse.

The scientific focus on the melting ice in the Amundsen sea is down to the fact that this is where it is happening now, but Vaughan said although the Weddell

Sea is not seeing ice loss at the moment, the German research supports the view that it will spread to other areas.

If there is a lesson for climate scientists, it's "don't behave like the infant school football team and follow the ball," he said.

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Women ponder how they became a campaign issue (The Arizona Republic)

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Does a military solution for Somali piracy work?

Somali pirate attacks have dropped, from 45 in 2010 to 24 in 2011, but there's no evidence that more naval patrols and aggressive private security firms are actually keeping pirates ashore.?

To some, the solution to Somali piracy is blindingly obvious. Patrol the seas. Capture the pirates. Send them to the briny deep. If it worked on the Barbary Coast, it should work in Somalia.

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But with Somali pirates going further out to sea, such a solution is more difficult than it sounds. Patrolling the narrow waters of the Gulf of Aden ? as the European Naval Force and some other countries such as China, India, Japan, Russia, and Taiwan are doing ? is relatively simple. Patrolling the much broader Indian Ocean, where Somali pirates have moved, is more difficult.

And for those pirate crews who do get captured, there?s one more consideration. Where do you take them for trial? Very few nations ? none of them, interestingly, in the countries providing naval patrols off the Somali coast ? have taken Somali pirates to put them on trial. Most pirates who do get captured are simply disarmed, dragged in their skiffs closer to Somali shores, and released.

As a Guardian headline this week sums it up, ?Outgunned Somali pirates can hardly believe their luck.?

Not all of the navies patrolling for pirates use gentle methods, of course. In November 2008, the Indian Navy sank a pirate ship in the Gulf of Aden. Russian Navy sailors apparently captured a Somali pirate ship earlier this year, and blew it up afterward. The video of this action went viral, alleging that the Russian sailors blew up the ship with the pirates on board, but there is no proof of that. (Advisory note: the video contains violence and may be difficult for sensitive viewers to watch). And on March 25, 2011, private security guards aboard a commercial freighter called the Avocet opened fire on an apparent Somali pirate crew aboard a skiff. The pirates never made it aboard the ship, but the video stirred controversy about the use of force in commercial shipping.

Does militarizing the seas actually deter piracy? The data don?t provide easy answers.

Since 2008, Somali pirate gangs have launched more than 800 attacks on commercial ships, with 170 ships hijacked, and 3,400 sailors held for ransom. Shipping firms have paid more than $530 million on private security firms during that time period, and $160 million was paid out to pirate gangs last year alone.

That, clearly, is the reason Somali gangs get into the pirate business. Do a few well-armed security guards onboard commercial ships, or a few naval patrol ships deter those pirates from taking to the high seas? Some point to the dropping number of pirate attacks ? from 45 attacks in 2010 to 24 in 2011 ? as a sign that naval patrolling and private security may be working.

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Biden Rolls into Buckeye Territory (TIME)

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Obama heads to Clooney gala fundraiser with gay marriage stance figuring to invigorate backers (Star Tribune)

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Drumma Boy Wants To Unify Memphis With New Mixtape

'We've been overlooked or been the underdogs and really haven't gotten that just due,' multiplatinum producer tells Mixtape Daily.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by FLX

Drumma Boy
Photo: MTV News

Behind the Beats: Drumma Boy
Drumma Boy has already put on for everyone else, now the multi-platinum rap producer is just trying to put on for his hometown. The Memphis, Tennessee, beatmaker has delivered hits to Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, T.I. and Waka Flocka Flame, just to name a few. But on his latest mixtape, Welcome to My City 2, Drumma marches to the beat of his own drum — literally.

"Welcome to My City, first and foremost, is the unification process of Memphis. It's like bringing the city together," said Drumma, who raps as well as produces on the tape.

The tape's stand-out single, "Where I Come From," features reggae star Junior Reid, and on it Drumma Boy aims to inspire those in his town to be the best they can be. "Only way we gonna get seen is if we keep on winnin'/ Only way we gonna get heard is if we keep on singin'," he raps.

It's not that Memphis doesn't have its share of stars. In the early 1990s, 8Ball and MJG put the Southern city on rap's map, leading the way for Three 6 Mafia to have their infamous run. Now Yo Gotti, Don Trip, Zed Zilla and, of course, Drumma look to further cement the city's legacy.

"We're really just showing and emphasizing the city of Memphis, showcasing the talent that's in the city," Drumma explained to Mixtape Daily of his mission. "Because a lot of the opportunities we've had, we've been overlooked or been the underdogs and really haven't gotten that just due."

The time is now.

For other artists featured in Mixtape Daily, check out Mixtape Daily Headlines.

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TiVo Premiere XL4 review

With the recent spring TiVo Premiere update we figured it was as good of a time as any to spend some quality time with the newly-renamed TiVo Premiere XL4. The highest model in the TiVo line, the XL4 costs $399 plus $15 a month, or $499 for lifetime service. For the money, it records four HD shows at once with a single CableCARD and offers 2TB of storage. More tuners and space aren't the only things that have changed since we gave the original TiVo Premiere a once-over just two years ago. No, there have been a few notable releases as well as the release of the TiVo Slide Remote and a number of TiVo companion apps for phones and tablets. How all that comes together is exactly what you'll find out should you choose to click on through to the other side.

Gallery: TiVo Premiere XL4

Continue reading TiVo Premiere XL4 review

TiVo Premiere XL4 review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 May 2012 00:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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