Plasmonic cloak makes objects invisble, but only in the microwave region of the spectrum originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink
BBC News | 
NJP | Email this | Comments
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/yF2R7ph1M1o/
marlins marlins wormwood bcs bowl games jose reyes college football bowl schedule college football bowl schedule
CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio -- It began quietly, as an email to 40 friends.
But when a steady stream of customers began coming through the door before the family-owned Chagrin Hardware had even opened for the day on Saturday, it was clear that it had turned into much more than that.
The idea started with Jim Black, a resident of Chagrin Falls, a close-knit village in Cleveland's eastern suburbs that is part artist colony and part bedroom community. Black posted the email to a group of his friends. "Let's show our support for one of our local businesses," he wrote. "I challenge everyone to spend AT LEAST $20 at the hardware on the 21st."
Although his email referred to the idea of a "Cash Mob" or the notion to "Occupy CF Hardware," he really had no political agenda. And it wasn't meant as a protest against the big-box stores that have created an ever-tightening circle around the community.
It was just a way to thank Chagrin Hardware's owners for a beloved shop that has been a fixture in the village since 1857.
"These are good people who needed our support," Black said. "It's just that simple."
The store, overlooking meandering Riverside Park and the Chagrin River in the middle of town, has been run by the Shutts family for the last 72 years. It passed from uncle to father to older brothers Rob and Kenny and the three youngest, Steve, Susie and Jack, who run the store today.
Black's note was forwarded and forwarded and forwarded again. Calls started coming in from folks out of state who wanted to make a purchase over the phone.
And when the day came, so did the shoppers ? one by one, with dogs on leashes and children in tow, hour after hour until the hardware was teeming with customers.
"This is small-town America," said resident Martine Scheuermann, a bag of pet-safe ice melt in her arms and her Springer Spaniels tapping their toes on the worn wooden floor at her feet. "This is a special family business in a town where everybody knows you."
The store has seen its share of tough times. Road construction on Main Street at the store's front door some years back crippled business for a time. More recently, the weakened economy and the big boxes have stolen away customers.
On this day, though, those storylines were forgotten.
By 10 a.m. the place was jammed. By 1:30 p.m., the credit card machine was overloaded and had to be reset. "This is so cool," said Steve Shutts, a mix of joy, wonder and happy exhaustion spread across his face. "I've seen people today I haven't seen in years."
The line at the checkout stretched in two directions as people with snow shovels and light bulbs and fireplace grates and vintage movie posters and horse shoe caulk ? yes, horse shoe caulk ? waited to pay.
Chad Schron, 38, came with his 8-year-old son Robert. "We didn't have anything we had to get, but we found things we had to get," he said. As he spoke, Robert clutched an Ohio State desk lamp and two flying monkey toys to his chest.
"When I was a kid, my Mom would send me down here with a note to let me buy BB's," Schron recalled. "Lots of kids did that back then. The notes still are in a drawer over there," he said as he pointed past the register to a wall of wooden drawers containing everything from old springs to screws. In the drawer still labeled "BBs" were stacks of crumpled notes dating to the '50s, from mothers just like Schron's
When the final customer had finally left well after closing time with her fuzzy dice and floodlights, Schwind and Steve Shutts tallied the day's receipts. Shutts shook his head at the wild and unexpected ride.
He wouldn't say how much the store made that day, but was clearly pleased with the outcome.
"Thanks to Jimmy Black," he said. "Thanks to everyone. Thanks to Chagrin Falls.
"What a place to live."
"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/27/in-the-era-of-big-boxes-a_n_1236835.html
walmart black friday walmart black friday raiders vincent jackson veterans day oakland raiders carson palmer
More severe weather and heavy rain is on the way and may alleviate the state?s drought. Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore reports.
>>> we are again covering violent weather tonight. as you watch this, keep in mind it's january after all. we are talking about tornados in the south again on top of a pounding already. look at that front, that weather system today was texas in the crosshairs of an enormous storm system. weather channel meteorologist jim cantore with us with the latest. jim, when you and i meet up after a bad weather event it's the spring, summer or fall, but it is rarely winter.
>> yeah. when you take a look at this month and add the five tornados we had today, brian, this will be a top five january in terms of numbers of tornados. all fresh on people's minds, especially in alabama what happened tuesday morning. let's take a look where we go from here. on a positive note though, we are going to see potentially half the drought wiped out in texas. tomorrow morning it's new orleans, jackson, mississippi, the potential for high winds . possibly an isolated tornado. by 4:00 in the afternoon, it looks like it's going to be birmingham once again down into the florida panhandle . at least during the daylight hours. either way, more severe weather and heavy rain for the south.
>> unbelievable stuff. jim cantore , thank you as always.
Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/46139435/
martin luther king jr i have a dream speech fox news debate school closures mlk mlk being human
GIGLIO, Italy (Reuters) ? The captain of the Italian liner Costa Concordia said he was told by managers to take his ship close to shore on the night it ran aground and capsized, but the company denied having any prior knowledge of the maneuver.
The daily La Repubblica published transcripts of a conversation Captain Francesco Schettino had with a person identified only as Fabrizio in which he implicates an unnamed manager of the vessel's owners, Costa Cruises.
"Fabri ... anyone else in my place wouldn't have been so nice as to go there because they were breaking my balls, saying 'go there, go there'," Schettino says in the conversation taped while he was being held following his arrest over the incident.
"...the rock was there but it didn't show up in the instruments I had and I went there ... to satisfy the manager, 'go there, go there'."
The conversation, in a thick Neapolitan dialect which the transcription translates into standard Italian, was apparently taped without the knowledge of Schettino. It was posted on the website of the newspaper.
A source in the prosecutor's office said the transcript was genuine. Schettino's lawyer Bruno Leporatti did not dispute it but said his client should not be treated as a "scapegoat."
Investigators say Schettino steered the 114,500-tonne vessel to within 150 meters of the shore to perform a maneuver known as a "salute" in which a ship makes a special display by coming in very close to land.
"Taking a tourist ship close to shore is allowed under certain conditions and is a practice adopted by all the cruise ship companies around the world," Pier Luigi Foschi, chief executive of Costa Cruises, told the Senate on Wednesday.
"In this case the company wasn't aware of such a maneuver, and the program distributed to the cruise's passengers spoke of the ship passing Giglio island at a distance of miles."
Schettino is under house arrest and blamed for causing the accident by steering too close to shore. He is accused of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship before the evacuation of more than 4,200 passengers and crew was complete.
At least 16 people died when the cruise ship struck a rock which tore a hole in its side and caused it to capsize off the Tuscan island of Giglio on January 13. Another 16 people are still unaccounted for. Six bodies are still unidentified.
Whether or not "salute" maneuvers were encouraged by the ship's operators is one of the key questions in the investigation.
Costa Cruise's Foschi said it was common practice "and is not dangerous by definition, but of course one cannot proceed at 16 knots there in that location."
The practice is a matter of discretion that must be planned, recorded in the ship's log beforehand and performed safely, but it is allowed, a Coast Guard source said on Wednesday.
SEARCH RESUMED
Divers resumed their search on Wednesday after blasting four new holes to open up submerged interior space in the ship almost 12 days after the accident.
"It's obvious that for all the time that has passed, and given the conditions, finding someone alive today would be a miracle," said Franco Gabrielli, head of the civil service agency, who is in charge of the state's emergency operations.
Salvage teams are continuing preparations to pump more than 2,300 tons of diesel fuel from the hulk, an operation expected to start by Saturday and last about a month.
Giulia Bongiorno, one of Italy's best-known criminal lawyers, is to represent passengers who are planning to seek damages from the cruise company.
Bongiorno represented Raffaele Sollecito when he was acquitted last year on appeal, with U.S. student Amanda Knox, of murdering Briton Meredith Kercher.
In the transcript published by La Repubblica, Schettino also suggests that he abandoned ship soon after realizing that the vessel was listing dangerously.
During questioning by magistrates, Schettino said he fell into a lifeboat while investigating the state of the ship, which suffered an electrical blackout after it struck the rock. In the confusion, he had been unable to return to the ship.
Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise ship operator, has blamed the captain and suspended him. The company has begun disciplinary action against Schettino, a legal source told Reuters on Wednesday.
Neither the company nor individual executives, apart from Schettino and the ship's first officer, have been placed under investigation even though Schettino's lawyer has said that the probe will be extended to other parties.
(Additional reporting by Cristian Corvino and Ilaria Polleschi in Grosseto, Roberto Landucci in Rome, Emilio Parodi in Milan, and Laura Viggiano in Naples.; Writing By James Mackenzie and Steve Scherer; Editing by Giles Elgood and Robert Woodward)
bernie fine bernie fine matt leinart cyber monday 2011 cyber monday 2011 turkey pot pie turkey pot pie
The Engadget Show 29: Red Cameras, MakerBot and the coolest gadgets of CES 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/1AGjifrtInA/
penn state game radiohead tour cbsnews ufc on fox fight card florida marlins ncaa basketball boise state football
The Miz spends an inordinate amount of time telling the WWE Universe just how awesome he is. Fans might debate that point, but right now Miz can honestly claim that he?s No. 1 ? though we have a feeling the Superstar isn?t too thrilled by this newfound ?glory.? After his Monday night loss to former tag team partner R-Truth, The Awesome One was forced to come to terms with the fact that he?ll be the No. 1 entrant in this Sunday?s Royal Rumble Match. (PHOTOS | WATCH)
?It never really looked like being No. 1 was not something you wanted to be,? Michaels said. ?I recognize that you?ve got longer to go, and you?ve got to face everybody and endure to the end, but I saw that as a badge of honor.?
Royal Rumble 1995 marked the first time ever the match?s first two competitors ? HBK and The British Bulldog ? were also the final two competitors in the ring, giving hope to every Superstar unlucky enough to draw a low number. As with most things in life, Shawn saw his early entry not as a detriment, but as ?a privilege to go in No. 1 and to see if you could endure to the end."
Michaels wore that badge of honor proudly in January 1995, not only overcoming his early entrance, but also coming back from certain defeat to win the match. That match?s finish ? in which Bulldog clotheslined HBK over the top rope ? has become the stuff of legend. After the clothesline, the beloved Superstar started celebrating in the ring.
Imagine his surprise when, moments later, HBK delivered a double ax-handle, sending Bulldog sailing over the ropes. Confusion set in as the referee raised Michaels? hand in victory, but as the replay would show, The Showstopper was able to grab onto the ropes and keep his left foot from touching the floor. It?s a moment that will live forever in WWE lore. (WATCH)
Getting to the end of the Royal Rumble Match takes a lot of work beforehand ? a notion Michaels fully understood going in.
?At that point in my career,? he explained, ?I was so into wanting to be a ?WWE Iron Man?? the match a couple years later notwithstanding. I can remember at that time very vividly being a fan of Ric Flair. The prot?g? of going long distances and working hard for a long period of time ... it?s what I wanted to be.?
The WWE Hall of Famer knew that a positive outlook, although important, wasn?t everything, especially in the grueling environment of the Royal Rumble Match. ?I was never going to match guys from a standpoint of size or strength,? Michaels told WWE.com. ?But I always felt that the longer I could go, I was going to neutralize whatever strengths they had.?
Displaying a flair for both philosophy and common sense, Michaels opined, ?There?s an old saying that ?fatigue makes cowards of us all.? And, it may not make a coward of you, but it certainly makes a 300-pound guy a lot easier to maneuver and manipulate when he?s tired and just doing everything he can to keep up.
?I pride myself on the fact that there wasn?t anybody in the locker room that could last longer in the ring than me,? he added.
That was then; but what about this year?s Royal Rumble Match? What advice does The Heartbreak Kid have for its combatants ? most specifically, for The Miz?
?In the Rumble, everybody is your potential friend and your potential enemy,? the WWE Hall of Famer said. ?You make alliances that you wouldn?t normally make, and you stab anybody in the back that you want to stab in the back.?
Michaels acknowledged that, at the end of the night, ?only one guy can be standing there .... Pride and all of those things get thrown out the window, and you do whatever you?ve got to do to win. Miz is a sleazy enough dude ? that fits him ? so I think that?s gonna be his strength.?
Miz?s ?sliminess? aside, Michaels also recognizes something inherent in The Awesome One?s makeup that just might give him a built-in advantage over much of the WWE roster this Sunday. ?You have to appreciate a guy that causes you to look at yourself and call into question those attributes that you want to pretend you don?t have. In desperate situations, we all have them to some degree.?
Want more HBK? Check out Shawn?s show on Outdoor Channel, Shawn Michaels' MacMillan River Adventures, winner of the 2011 Golden Moose Award for Best Conservation. And be sure to follow The Showstopper on Twitter (@ShawnMichaels), where you can find out how to win two tickets to WrestleManiaXXVIII and a meet-and-greet with The Heartbreak Kid himself!
Source: http://www.wwe.com/shows/royalrumble/2012/hbk-advice-miz-royal-rumble
beverly hills hotel beverly hills hotel tori spelling brian williams patrice o neal patrice o neal paulina gretzky
In this Feb. 5, 2009 photo, Research In Motion co-CEOs Jim Balsillie, left, and Mike Lazaridis talk to media after an Ontario Securities Commission hearing in Toronto. The company on Sunday, Jan. 22 2012 says Balsillie and Lazaridis are stepping down, and will be replaced by Thorsten Heins, a chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette)
In this Feb. 5, 2009 photo, Research In Motion co-CEOs Jim Balsillie, left, and Mike Lazaridis talk to media after an Ontario Securities Commission hearing in Toronto. The company on Sunday, Jan. 22 2012 says Balsillie and Lazaridis are stepping down, and will be replaced by Thorsten Heins, a chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette)
This undated photo provided by Research in Motion shows Thorsten Heins, who on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012 was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Research In Motion. Heins succeeds co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who announced they are stepping down. (AP Photo/Research In Motion via The Canadian Press)
TORONTO (AP) ? The new chief executive of Research in Motion said Monday that drastic change is not needed, even as the once iconic maker of the BlackBerry smartphone confronts the most difficult period in its history.
The Canadian company turned the smartphone into a ubiquitous device that many couldn't live without. But following the departure of Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, who stepped down as co-CEOs and co-chairmen on Monday, Thorsten Heins assumes the chief executive role at a time when Americans are abandoning their Blackberrys for flashier touch-screen phones such as Apple's iPhone and various competing models that run Google's Android software.
RIM's U.S. market share of smartphones dropped from 44 percent in 2009 to 10 percent in 2011, according to market researcher NPD Group. The company still has 75 million active subscribers, but many analysts believe the company will lose market share internationally, just as it has in the U.S.
Heins, a little known chief operating officer who joined RIM four years ago from Siemens AG, replaces RIM's founders after the company has lost tens of billions in market value. Balsillie acknowledged in December that the last few quarters have been among the most challenging times the company has seen.
Even so, Heins said on a conference call on Monday that he didn't think significant change was needed. He said the leadership change was not a "seismic" event. Heins said he's committed to switching the company's phones over to a new operating system, which is expected late this year. That's the same plan favored by Lazaridis and Balsillie, who announced Sunday they would step down from the top jobs, but serve in other roles.
Heins said RIM has to improve its U.S. marketing to go beyond the traditional corporate customer.
"I want us to have a bit more of an ear towards the consumer market, understand trends, and not just do what the Street is telling you," Heins said.
Shares of RIM fell 5.8 percent, or 99 cents to $16.01, following his remarks. The stock had initially moved up almost 4 percent in premarket trading.
Vic Alboini, president of Jaguar Financial Corp. in Toronto, which has been pushing for a change in leadership, said the drop in stock price on Monday meant the market saw the leadership adjustment as "more of the same."
Many shareholders and analysts have said a change or sale of the company has been needed, but the sudden departure of the two founders from their top jobs wasn't expected despite their promises that they would examine the co-CEO and co-chairmen structure.
Balsillie and Lazaridis have long been celebrated as Canadian heroes, even appearing in the country's citizenship guide for new immigrants as models of success. They headed Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM together for the past two decades.
"There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim and I went to the board and told them that we thought that time was now," Lazaridis said in a statement.
Lazaridis will take on a new role as vice chairman of RIM's board and chairman of the board's new innovation committee. Balsillie remains a member of the board. The two remain two of RIM's biggest shareholders.
"I agree this is the right time to pass the baton to new leadership, and I have complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company," Balsillie said in the statement. "I remain a significant shareholder and a director and, of course, they will have my full support."
Analysts have said RIM's future depends on its new software platform as RIM has tried and failed to reinvigorate the BlackBerry.
RIM said last month that new phones deemed critical to the company's future would be delayed until late this year. And its PlayBook tablet, RIM's answer to the Apple iPad, failed to gain consumer support, forcing the company to deeply discount it to move the devices off store shelves.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said in late 2010 that RIM would have a hard time catching up to Apple because RIM has been forced to move beyond its area of strength and into unfamiliar territory of trying to become a software platform company.
BlackBerrys made email mobile and were dominant in the North American smartphone market until the iPhone came along. Under Lazaridis and Balsillie, the company struggled to adjust to the times and match the iPhone's facility with Web browsing, third-party applications and multimedia.
Heins, 54, said Lazaridis and Balsillie took RIM in the right direction and they are "more confident than ever that was the right path."
Barbara Stymiest, a former chief operating officer of the Royal Bank of Canada who has been a member of RIM's board since 2007, has been named chair of the board of directors. RIM also announced that Prem Watsa, the chief executive of Fairfax Financial Holdings, is a new board member. Watsa has become a significant shareholder.
Lazaridis said he was so confident in the future direction of the company that he intends to purchase an additional $50 million of the company's shares on the open market.
RIM was worth more than $70 billion a few years ago but now has a market value of around $8.9 billion. Some industry analysts believe RIM is following the same trajectory as struggling Finish handset maker Nokia or former Canadian tech giant Nortel, which declared bankruptcy in 2009.
BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis agrees that a change in marketing is needed, but it will take more than that to reverse the decline. Gillis said the move is two years late and said he'll get more excited when RIM announces positive news about their new software platform.
"It's just a shuffling of the deck," Gillis said. "He's got a pretty rough road to drive up. The other part is that Mike and Jim are still around. Think about Jerry Yang in Yahoo. When he finally stepped down people said he was still a really big influence on the company."
Stuart Jeffrey at Nomura Securities said the management switch could remove an obstacle toward selling the company, but still believes a buyer is unlikely to surface. The value of the company is uncertain, since the new operating system, BlackBerry 10, is unproven.
Private-equity buyers might be enticed to buy the company for its cash flow, he said, but the fair value for the company is about $15 per share on that basis, meaning private-equity firms are unlikely to pay much above $10.
___
Associated Press writer Peter Svensson in New York contributed to this report.
Associated Pressobama speech elizabeth smart solar flares gabby giffords gabby giffords tim gunn tim gunn
