NATO meets on Turkey jet, fierce clashes in Damascus

NATO members were holding emergency talks on Syria's downing of a Turkish warplane, as a monitoring group reported fierce clashes on Tuesday around elite Republican Guard posts in suburbs of Damascus.

The United States, meanwhile, denounced the UN's "colossal failure" to protect civilians inside Syria.

The NATO meeting in Brussels was being held after a fuming Ankara told the UN Security Council that Syria's downing of one of its fighter jets last Friday posed a "serious threat to peace and security".

Damascus insists the plane had violated its airspace and "sovereignty."

"The aircraft did not display any hostile attitude or manoeuvre and was flying with its identification systems open. The shooting came without any prior warning," Turkey said in a letter to the Security Council and UN chief Ban Ki-moon and which was obtained by AFP.

Turkey's UN ambassador Ertugrul Apakan said the incident was "a serious threat to peace and security in the region, in the context of the Syrian crisis" but did not call for the world body to act against Damascus.

Syria has defended its downing of the Turkish F-4 Phantom jet.

"The Turkish warplane violated Syrian airspace, and in turn Syrian air defences fired back and the plane crashed inside Syrian territorial waters," foreign ministry spokesman Jihad al-Makdissi said Monday.

"What happened is a gross violation of Syrian sovereignty," he added.

The incident has reignited international concern over the Syria conflict.

European Union foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday condemned the attack and announced new measures targeting Syrian government ministries and companies, including a bank and a television channel.

But the ministers also warned of the dangers of a military escalation in the crisis, and praised Turkey's "measured and responsible initial reaction".

NATO members Britain, France and the United States have all condemned Syria, with Britain saying Damascus should not be allowed to act with impunity.

Iran, an ally of Turkey and Syria, called on Tuesday for regional countries rather than outside powers to help resolve the row.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said that "key players in the region" would be able to prevent the incident escalating into a problem involving other countries.

"We will use our good relationship with the two countries to resolve the issue," he said.

Turkey called the emergency NATO meeting by invoking Article Four of the alliance's founding treaty, which covers threats to members' security.

"The facts in our possession show that our plane was hit by a heat-seeking guided laser missile," Turkey's Vice Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said.

The jet had been "intentionally shot down... in international airspace," he added.

"To target an aircraft in this fashion without any warning is a hostile act of the highest order," he said, adding that Ankara could soon announce a cut in power supplies to Syria.

Later Monday, Arinc accused Syria of having opened fire on a rescue plane searching for the jet's two pilots who are still missing. "Everyone must know that this sort of behaviour will not go unpunished," he said.

On Tuesday, Syrian armed rebel forces and regime army units were locked in fierce clashes around elite Republican Guard posts in the suburbs of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"Violent clashes are taking place around positions of the Republican Guard in Qadsaya and Al-Hama," eight kilometres (five miles) from central Damascus, the Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"This is the first time that the regime uses artillery in fighting so close to the capital," he said. "This development is important because it's the heaviest fighting in the area and close to the heart of the capital."

"These suburbs are home to barracks of troops which are very important for the regime like the Republican Guard. This is also where families of (army) officers live," he said.

The sustained bloodshed in Syria saw Washington lashing out at the United Nations on Monday.

"The situation in Syria represents a colossal failure by the Security Council to protect civilians," Washington's UN ambassador Susan Rice said as the 15-nation body debated the crisis.

"It is a shame that this Council continues to stand by rather than to stand up," she said giving a withering assessment of the situation in Syria.

Rice called for tougher sanctions against Syrian President President Bashar al-Assad, a position backed by Britain.

Inside Syria, the killing saw 95 people including 61 civilians killed on Monday, as the army pounded rebel strongholds and other towns and cities.

According to the Britain-based Observatory, the conflict has cost more than 15,000 lives since it erupted in March 2011.

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Seven summer books for smarties

Duane Hoffmann / msnbc.com file

Can summer reading make you smarter? Definitely!

By Alan Boyle

Just because it's summer doesn't mean you have to turn your brain off. And just because it's a science book doesn't mean it has to be boring. If you're trying to beat the heat, here are seven recently published or soon-to-be-published books that will keep your brain purring along even when you're at the beach?? or inside your air-conditioned heat-wave hideaway.

"2312": This is the only fictional work on the list, but it's a doozy. This 576-page novel from Kim Stanley Robinson (who's best-known for his Mars Trilogy) is a crime-and-politics thriller set in an era when humans have colonized most of the solar system. There's even an asteroid-mining angle, which fits well with the recent revelations about Planetary Resources' plan to build a trillion-dollar industry. Some reviewers say the book meanders too much, but isn't that part of the appeal of a summer read? "2312" is one of the books on NPR's list of summer sci-fi recommendations.?

"Before the Lights Go Out": BoingBoing's Maggie Koerth-Baker focuses on two big questions in her book about the looming energy crisis. "Why should I care about energy?" and "Now that I care, what do I do?" She teases apart what's happening to the electricity grid and other elements of the world's infrastructure, then delves into the strategies that are being developed to change energy policy as well as personal lifestyles. The subject matter is serious fare, but Koerth-Baker takes you on a readable ride ??and there's no better time than a heat wave to get smarter about global warming.

"Darwin's Ghosts": The way some people talk, you'd think the theory of evolution was born full-grown from Charles Darwin's head, like Athena springing from Zeus' brow. Novelist Rebecca Stott tells the stories of the thinkers who blazed the trail for Darwin to follow, from Aristotle, to the 9th-century Islamic scholar al-Jahiz, to Alfred Russel Wallace, Darwin's lesser-known contemporary. If you're looking for a historical grand tour with a biological bent, this one's for you.

"The Ocean of Life": A sea tale always makes for great beach reading, but this one has a salty bite to it. Callum Roberts, a marine scientist at the University of York, traces how the world's oceans have changed over the decades?? and why we don't seem to notice the degradation. "Roberts is that precious pearl: a practising scientist who not only knows his field inside out, but also understands how to write compelling, persuasive non-fiction," The Guardian's Leo Hickman says. Roberts sets forth his case for a "New Deal" that could stem the tide and save the oceans.?

"Trinity": My?book list for last year's holiday season?included a graphic book about the bongo-playing pioneer of quantum physics, "Feynman." This summer's graphic recommendation is "Trinity," Jonathan Fetter-Vorm's illustrated saga about the creation of the first atom bombs and their use at the end of World War II. The thin volume covers the science of radioactivity as well as the political and moral dimensions of the Manhattan Project. Fetter-Vorm tells the tale in complex shades of gray ? literally and figuratively.

"The Violinist's Thumb": Sam Kean's tribute to the periodic table, "The Disappearing Spoon," was heaped with praise a couple of years ago, and a similar reception awaits his book about genetics and its effects on our past, present and future. Kean throws in lots of historical tales with genetic twists ? for example, why Niccolo Paganini was naturally suited to play the violin, and?why JFK's skin was perennially tan.?"Our whole history is packed into DNA, back to the proverbial soup; think of it as a really long bedtime story, and then be sure to put 'The Violinist's Thumb' by your bed," Library Journal's Barbara Hoffert writes. Due out in July.

"Why Is the Penis Shaped Like That?" If you're hankering to learn more about the human body's naughty bits, psychologist Jesse Bering's book should be right up your alley. Even if you're not obsessed with the shape of sex organs or the evolution of body fluids, you'll find lots of facts to fascinate you, or maybe infuriate you, in this compilation of essays from the "Bering in Mind" blog on Scientific American's website. If this is the kind of thing you're into, be sure to check msnbc.com's Body Odd blog as well. Bering's book is due out in July.

What's on your reading list for this summer? Share your faves in a comment below, or on the Cosmic Log Facebook page. And for still more book suggestions, check out the Cosmic Log backlist:

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

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Seeing inside tissue

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Imagine if doctors could perform surgery without ever having to cut through your skin. Or if they could diagnose cancer by seeing tumors inside the body with a procedure that is as simple as an ultrasound. Thanks to a technique developed by engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), all of that may be possible in the not-so-distant future.

The new method enables researchers to focus light efficiently inside biological tissue. While the previous limit for how deep light could be focused was only about one millimeter, the Caltech team is now able to reach two and a half millimeters. And, in principle, their technique could focus light as much as a few inches into tissue. The technique is used much like a flashlight shining on the body's interior, and may eventually provide researchers and doctors with a host of possible biomedical applications, such as a less invasive way of diagnosing and treating diseases.

If you crank up the power of light, you might even be able to do away with a traditional scalpel. "It enables the possibilities of doing incision-less surgery," says Changhuei Yang, a professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering at Caltech and a senior author on the new study. "By generating a tight laser-focus spot deep in tissue, we can potentially use that as a laser scalpel that leaves the skin unharmed."

Ying Min Wang, a graduate student in electrical engineering, and Benjamin Judkewitz, a postdoctoral scholar, are the lead authors on the paper, which was published in the June 26 issue of the journal Nature Communications.

The new work builds on a previous technique that Yang and his colleagues developed to see through a layer of biological tissue, which is opaque because it scatters light. In the previous work, the researchers shined light through the tissue and then recorded the resulting scattered light on a holographic plate. The recording contained all the information about how the light beam scattered, zigzagging through the tissue. By playing the recording in reverse, the researchers were able to essentially send the light back through to the other side of the tissue, retracing its path to the original source. In this way, they could send light through a layer of tissue without the blurring effect of scattering.

But to make images of what is inside tissue?to get a picture of cells or molecules that are embedded inside, say, a muscle?the researchers would have to be able to focus a light beam into the tissue. "For biologists, it's most important to know what's happening inside the tissue," Wang says.

To focus light into tissue, the researchers expanded on the recent work of Lihong Wang's group at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL); they had developed a method to focus light using the high-frequency vibrations of ultrasound. The WUSTL group took advantage of two properties of ultrasound. First, the high-frequency sound waves are not scattered by tissue, which is why it is great for taking images of fetuses in utero. Second, ultrasonic vibrations interact with light in such a way that they shift the light's frequency ever so slightly. As a result of this so-called acousto-optic effect, any light that has interacted with ultrasound changes into a slightly different color.

In both the WUSTL and Caltech experiments, the teams focused ultrasound waves into a small region inside a tissue sample. They then shined light into the sample, which, in turn, scattered the light. Because of the acousto-optic effect, any of the scattered light that passes through the region with the focused ultrasound will change to a slightly different color. The researchers can pick out this color-shifted light and record it. By employing the same playback technique as in the earlier Caltech work, they then send the light back, having only the color-shifted bits retrace their path to the small region where the ultrasound was focused?which means that the light itself is focused on that area, allowing an image to be created. The researchers can control where they want to focus the light simply by moving the ultrasound focus.

The WUSTL experiment was limited, however, because only a very small amount of light could be focused. The Caltech engineers' new method, on the other hand, allows them to fire a beam of light with as much power as they want?which is essential for potential applications.

The team demonstrated how the new method could be used with fluorescence imaging?a powerful technique used in a wide range of biological and biomedical research. The researchers embedded a patch of gel with a fluorescent pattern that spelled out "CIT" inside a tissue sample. Then, they scanned the sample with focused light beams. The focused light hit and excited the fluorescent pattern, resulting in the glowing letters "CIT" emanating from inside the tissue. The team also demonstrated their technique by taking images of tumors tagged with fluorescent dyes.

"This demonstration that we can focus significant optical power deep within tissues opens up significant possibilities in optical imaging," Yang says. By tagging cells or molecules that are markers for disease with fluorescent dyes, doctors can use this technique to make diagnoses noninvasively, much as if they were doing an ultrasound procedure.

Doctors might also use this process to treat cancer with photodynamic therapy. In this procedure, a drug that contains light-sensitive, cancer-killing compounds is injected into a patient. Cancer cells absorb those compounds preferentially, so that the compounds kill the cells when light shines on them. Photodynamic therapy is now only used at tissue surfaces, because of the way light is easily scattered. The new technique should allow doctors to reach cancer cells deeper inside tissue.

The team has been able to more than double the current limit for how far light can be focused into tissue. With future improvements on the optoelectronic hardware used to record and play back light, the engineers say, they may be able to reach 10 centimeters (almost 4 inches)?the depth limit of ultrasound?within a few years.

Still, the researchers say, their demonstration shows they have overcome the main conceptual hurdle for effectively focusing light deep inside tissue. "This is a big breakthrough, and we're excited about the potential," Judkewitz says. Adds Caltech's Wang, "It's a very new way to image into tissue, which could lead to a lot of promising applications."

###

California Institute of Technology: http://www.caltech.edu

Thanks to California Institute of Technology for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

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With Half A Billion Video Recommendations Daily, Taboola Gets $10 Million From Marker

Over the last several years, Taboola has quietly emerged to offer video recommendations on a number of top publisher websites in the U.S. Now it's setting its sites on international growth and a whole set of new devices that it can make recommendations on. To expand those capabilities, Taboola has raised a $10 million Series C round led by Marker LLC, a New York City-based fund founded by Rick Scanlon and Thomas Pompidou. The round also includes existing investors Evergreen Venture Partners and WGI Group, and brings total funding to $25 million. Taboola provides a platform that publishers can use to recommend videos on their sites. It frequently appears as a widget that shows a series of three-to-five thumbnails users can click through to watch videos related to whatever they are currently reading or watching. Those videos can come from the publisher's own site, or can include related content from Taboola's network of content creators.

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Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe

It?s little wonder that Asus triumphs across so many PC hardware categories: The company never quite knows when to quit. We?ve seen this on its Editors? Choice?winning motherboards of the past, such as the P9X79 Deluxe (for Sandy Bridge?Extreme processors), and we?re seeing it again now with the latest honoree, the P8Z77-V Deluxe. It may be a tad on the expensive side (it runs $284.99 list), but it offers a broad, forward-thinking feature set that other similarly priced LGA1155 motherboards have trouble matching. You can find boards with still more bling if you really want them, but the blend offered with the P8Z77-V Deluxe is impossible to beat at this price.

Based on the full-size ATX form factor, the P8Z77-V Deluxe can accept processors from both the current third-generation Core (aka ?Ivy Bridge?) and second-generation (?Sandy Bridge?) families, providing slightly more versatility than Intel usually allows. The motherboard also utilizes Intel?s Z77 Express chipset?the most powerful of those in the company?s mainstream line?which gives you the ability to overclock the CPU and even specify a solid-state drive (SSD) for use in data caching with Intel?s Smart Response Technology, or SRT. (We covered SRT in greater detail in our review of the Intel SSD 311 Series.)

As you might expect, the P8Z77-V Deluxe offers a considerable amount in terms of hardware and connectivity options. Starting with video, it has two display outputs, HDMI (for maximum resolutions of 1,920 by 1,2020) and DisplayPort (2,560 by 1,600), for use with the processors? integrated graphics systems. If you prefer to go the discrete route (which we always recommend), there are three PCI Express (PCIe) version 3.0 x16 slots; one always operates at x4, but you can use the others as either a single x16 or two x8s. LucidLogix?s Virtu MVP technology will switch dynamically between on-chip video and your discrete card if both are present. (Four PCIe x1 slots complete the expansion slot lineup.)

Four memory slots on the P8Z77-V Deluxe support up to 32GB of dual-channel DDR3 1600 RAM (or DDR3 2800 when overclocked). On the Intel storage controller you can connect four 3Gbps SATA II drives and two 6Gbps SATA drives (using RAID Levels 0, 1, 5, and 10); a secondary Marvell PCIe 9128 controller drives two additional SATA III ports. (The two eSATA ports work by way of yet another controller, from ASMedia.)

Joining the HDMI, DisplayPort, and eSATA ports on the P8Z77-V Deluxe?s rear panel are four USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, two Gigabit Ethernet jacks (one Intel 82579V, one RealTek 8111F), optical S/PDIF out, and six analog ports (controlled by the RealTek ALC898 chipset) for setting up an eight-channel surround-sound system. Finally, a button flashes back to the motherboard?s default BIOS, so you can make changes without fear you won?t be able to get the system to boot again).

Should you still be hungry for these types of ports, headers on the motherboard make it possible to add up to six more: two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0. There?s also a header for an even more interesting kind: Thunderbolt. This lets you add the ultra-fast transfer technology later, and only if you want; Asus also offers the port itself on its (considerably more expensive) P8Z77-V Premium.

Don?t worry about wireless capabilities on the P8Z77-V Deluxe, either. Plug in the included Wi-Fi GO! card, and your system will also have 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi (supporting both 2.4GHz and 5GHz) and Bluetooth 4.0. (Antennas for both come in the box.) With the included Wi-Fi Go! software you have easy access to the other systems and DLNA-compliant devices on your home network, so you can listen to music and view videos and use a Remote Desktop program to control your computer from anywhere (even your Android or iOS smartphone or tablet).

Asus provides plenty of additional extras as well. Two Q connectors ease some of the frustration of hooking up your case?s front-panel wiring or USB ports by letting you do more of the precision work outside the case first. Then there are the design features the motherboard boasts: Smart Digi+, which gives you finer-grain control over voltage regulation of key components (the CPU, integrated graphics, and RAM) when overclocking, as well as automated power saving and 20-phase power design for the CPU and graphics and two-phase power design for the RAM (all utility-controlled). The on-disc software library is also extensive, with a hefty selection of overclocking and BIOS utilities, as well as helpful tools like USB 3.0 Boost for increasing transfer speeds by tailoring USB 3.0 ports? performance to the devices you connect to them. Asus? graphical UEFI remains one of the best on the motherboard market, with both normal and advanced modes that give you just the access you need to system-tweaking features.

Although most similarly priced motherboards that use the same chipset deliver roughly equivalent performance, in our tests the Z77H2-AX routinely came out near the upper end of the scale. When using a Core i7-3770K, our test system turned in the best results we saw in our Adobe Photoshop CS5 (2 minutes 46 seconds), CineBench R11.5 (7.57 for all CPU cores, 1.66 for just one), Futuremark PCMark 7 (3,893), Geekbench 2.2.7 (16,260), POV-Ray 3.7 RC5 (3 minutes 12 seconds with all cores active, 13 minutes 54 seconds with only one working), and data rates of 230MBps in TrueCrypt 7.1a.

In terms of power usage, the Z77H2-AX was not the leanest Ivy Bridge motherboard we?ve yet tested?all things considered, that?s the Intel Desktop Board DZ77GA-70K. As measured with an Extech Datalogger, it finished second highest when idling (77.6 watts, behind the 85 watts of the ECS Z77H2-AX) and second lowest under full load (138.9 watts, just above the Intel?s 136.3 watts).

The ECS Z77H2-AX wins in the looks department; its gorgeous gold plated elements make it look more adult than the Asus? P8Z77-V Deluxe?s blue, white, and black, and the ECS offers a couple of features the Asus doesn?t (dual full-speed PCIe x16 slots and a Mini PCIe jack). It?s also weighed down by a noticeably higher price ($309.99 list), somewhat lower ease of use, and eye-poppingly higher power usage.? For those reasons the P8Z77-V Deluxe is our Editors? Choice; it?s definitely the best all-around board you can currently get for the foundation of your LGA1155 system.

More Chipset and Processor Reviews:
??? Intel Desktop Board DZ77GA-70K
??? Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H
??? ECS Z77H2-AX
??? Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
??? Intel Core i5-3470
?? more

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Fabian Zanzi Sues John Travolta For Assault

Fabian Zanzi, the cruise ship employee who claims John Travolta exposed himself to him during a massage in 2009, is suing the actor for assault.

Zanzi is suing for unspecified damages, TMZ reports.

Travolta, who was a passenger on the ship, ordered food and asked that Fabian Zanzi personally deliver it to his Royal Caribbean room, the accuser says.

When Zanzi came in, Travolta allegedly asked for a neck massage, then when Zanzi asked for his neck, John exposed his erect penis instead.

He then forcefully embraced him, Fabian said. Zanzi resisted.

Fabian, who did not initially claim sexual assault, claims that Travolta offered him $12,000 to not say anything, and that the cruise ship management "refused to allow him to write out any details regarding nudity or sexual contact" with the star.

Two masseurs also came forward with lawsuits this spring, claiming the Hollywood legend assaulted them sexually; both suits have since been dropped. Robert Randolph and Doug Gotterba have separately alleged gay trysts with Travolta.

Travolta's attorney just released a statement regarding Zanzi's lawsuit, claiming, "This is another ludicrous lawsuit with inane claims."

[Photo: WENN.com]

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5 Tips for Blended Families | Everyday Christianity - A Sarcalogos ...

As the rates for divorce and remarriage increase there are more and more married couples who both have children from a previous relationship. When they live together they are considered to be a blended family. Combining two families in this way can be problematic, especially if the parents have drastically different parenting techniques. In order to maintain harmony in the home and help the children and parents to blend together effortlessly, use these five tips with your own family.

1. Set Clear Boundaries

Having two families living together under one roof can make it difficult to determine what is allowed and what is not. Many children may view the living situation as an extended slumber party rather than everyday life. It is important that both parents set clear boundaries for their children. While it is important that they enjoy the company of their new siblings, it should also be clear that life includes chores, schedules, homework and the like.

2. Maintain Equal Parenting Duties

One problem that many blended families deal with is having one parent deal with their biological children and not their stepchildren. If you have committed to a serious relationship or marriage with another person you need to accept responsibility for their children as well. Make sure that you feel comfortable scolding, punishing or just talking to your spouse?s children as well as your own. While this process may take time, it is vital for a blended family.

3. Decide on Punishments Together

If you and your spouse have drastically different parenting techniques for your children, it is important to write down punishments that you can agree on for all children. For example, children will be upset if one of them is grounded for a week and the other child is merely scolded for making the same mistake. Having set punishments across the board will help you come across to children as one combined parental unit.

4. Be Fair Among All Children

One issue that is raised time and time again in blended families is the issue of fairness. Some parents will naturally favor their own biological children, while in other cases they will favor their stepchildren. While this may be a natural reaction, parents need to treat all children equally. Rewards, praise and even punishments should be the same for all children. This will show that you care for all members of your family equally, and will foster a tighter bond between all family members.

5. Bond as a Family

Although many of these tips relate to parenting techniques, it is also important to set some time aside to bond as a family. Spend one on one time will all of your children in order to foster better relationships with each.

Blending two families can be a challenging task, but the outcome is well worth the effort. Each of these tips can help you to combine two families into one happy, healthy and loving family unit.

Kelly Helmes writes for higher education blogs nationwide. She recommends www.bestmastersincounseling.com as a great resource for students interested in finding more information on getting an online masters in counseling.

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Deploying Windows 8 Virtual Desktop Infrastructure on Windows Server 2012

Several months ago, fellow blogger Kees Baggerman covered?RDS: Windows 8 Scenario-based RDS deployment?which included a 10 minute YouTube video on RDS Session Virtualization (aka terminal services).? In this article, I am going to cover the other element of RDS scenario-based installation, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. Microsoft VDI technologies have been around for several iterations of Hyper-V and Server 2008. With 2008 R2 SP1 Microsoft introduced RemoteFX, a promising technology for virtual desktop GPU acceleration.? However, in the past there have been several challenges with deploying Microsoft VDI, namely the initial desktop provisioning and stateless pooling.? With Server 2012, these two components have several promising enhancements.

First, Server 2012 now has a built-in provisioning mechanism whereby a powered down and SysPrep?d Hyper-V virtual machine can be used as a master desktop to provision collections of virtual desktops. This means that System Center Virtual Machine Manager is no longer a requirement or nicety for the initial provisioning of the systems. Additionally, this built-in provisioning mechanism uses VHD differencing disks, similar to the VMware linked clone and Citrix MCS disk chaining technologies.? Second, Server 2012 now has a stateless pooling and reverting mechanism whereby changes to the virtual desktops are reverted upon logoff. This means pooled VDI desktops are no longer tainted by previously logged in users. To demonstrate these capabilities, let?s start by deploying a simple VDI infrastructure including three servers: a Connection Broker (CB01), a Web Access server (WA01), and a Virtualization Host (HV01). Each of these three systems consists of typical installations of Server 2012, joined to a single domain.

Read the entire article here:?Deploying Windows 8 Virtual Desktop Infrastructure on Windows Server 2012 at ITVCE.com

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Robber captured from Facebook posts

PORTLAND, Ore. ?

James Tindell skipped out of state this spring rather than attend drug treatment and follow other conditions he accepted to avoid prison after pleading guilty to robbery in 2010.

But rather do everything possible to avoid detection, he used Facebook to taunt his probation officer and write angry messages about the Multnomah County judge who sentenced him, The Oregonian reported (http://is.gd/V6j63U).

"Fresh out of another state," Tindell wrote April 20, "Catch me if you can." Later, he signed a rant about the criminal justice system: "the 1 who got away."

Tindell apparently didn't realize who might be reading his Facebook page, with such posts as, "I'm in Alabama." He also posted a sonogram of his unborn son that showed the name of the county general hospital in Alabama where it was taken.

But probation officer Todd Roberts does monitor the social network and he collected the posts. He figured out where Tindell might be, and asked prosecutors to issue a nationwide arrest warrant, which Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber signed.

"The way we found out where James Tindell was, was through Facebook," deputy district attorney Michael Schmidt said. "And, it's not because we were super sleuths."

Last month, Tindell was arrested for speeding in Daphne, Ala. An officer ran his license and found the warrant.

Soon, he was on a flight to appear before the same judge he had criticized on Facebook.

"Mr. Tindell," Judge Eric J. Bloch said at a June 8 hearing in Multnomah County Circuit Court. "You turned in some good periods of performance. And then, for whatever reason, you decided that you had had enough, and you just took off, and you never looked back."

Tindell, in tears, pleaded for leniency.

Bloch cut him off. "Sir, you could have stayed here and done treatment. You decided to run away. So how could you now be asking for me to give you another chance to avoid prison? "

Crying, Tindell admitted, "I messed up."

Bloch sentenced him to 2 1/2 years in prison and ordered him to reimburse the state for the cost of flying him back: $2,600.

---

Information from: The Oregonian, http://www.oregonlive.com

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Did scientists find the 'God Particle'? Higgs Boson announcement expected.

European scientists say they are close to discovering the so-called God particle, which, if it exists, would help explain why matter has mass.

By Clara Moskowitz,?LiveScience / June 22, 2012

This track is an example of simulated data modelled for the ATLAS detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The Higgs boson is produced in the collision of two protons at 14 TeV and quickly decays into four muons, a type of heavy electron that is not absorbed by the detector. The tracks of the muons are shown in yellow.

CERN/ATLAS

Enlarge

Anticipation is rising over the expected announcement soon of more evidence for the existence of the long-sought Higgs boson particle.

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The Higgs has been theorized for years, but never found. Humanity's best hope of discovering the particle lies in the?humongous atom smasher?buried underneath Switzerland and France called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). There, physicists collide protons head-on to create explosions that give rise to new, exotic particles, including, maybe, the Higgs.

LHC researchers plan to share their latest findings at the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP) in Melbourne, Australia, from July 4-11.

In December of last year, LHC scientists at the machine's home facility, the CERN physics laboratory in Geneva, reported they'd seen?hints of what could be the Higgs boson?in an excess of particles weighing about 124 or 125 gigaelectronvolts, or GeV, a unit roughly equivalent to the mass of a proton. However, the physicists hadn't accumulated enough data to announce a discovery, which in science requires a certain level of statistical significance called "five sigma."

Experts say it's still unlikely the LHC researchers have reached the five-sigma level yet, but they have collected substantially more data since their last public announcement. [Top 5 Implications of Finding the Higgs Boson]

"They will have quite a bit more data now, but the analysis is still ongoing," said CERN press officer Renilde Vanden Broeck. "So we will have to wait and see."

The findings reported so far have been called "tantalizing hints" of the Higgs' existence by LHC physicists, but it remains possible that the signal researchers see is merely a statistical fluke.

"This is science," Vanden Broeck told LiveScience. "They are not going to announce a discovery until they are absolutely sure, when it's a real five-sigma."

And if the signal does come through more strongly in the new data, it will still take some investigation to determine if it represents the Higgs boson or something else even more exotic.

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Mexico got wrong man in high-profile drug arrest

A man accused of being a cocaine trafficker and the son of Mexico's most wanted drug lord Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman is an automobile dealer swept up in a case of mistaken identity, Mexico's attorney general's office confirmed late Friday.

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Mexican marines seized the suspect on Thursday outside Guadalajara and flew him to Mexico City, where they paraded him in front of the media and identified him as Jesus Alfredo Guzman, alias "El Gordo" or "The Fat One."

They said they found him with an arsenal of rifles, pistols and grenades and about $160,000 in cash.

But lawyer Veronica Guerrero told a news conference that her client's real name is Felix Beltran and that he is an innocent car dealer.

Mexico's attorney general's office confirmed later that several identity tests reveal the man was indeed Leon and not the drug trafficker, Telemundo reported.

"This is a case of total confusion over people," said Guerrero, who was accompanied by a woman who said she is the suspect's mother.

Mexico's attorney general's office confirmed late Friday that several identity tests reveal the man was indeed Leon and not the drug trafficker.

Thursday's arrest won praise from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which has sought Jesus Alfredo Guzman since he was indicted for cocaine trafficking in 2009.

His father, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, faces dozens of charges of racketeering and drug smuggling in U.S. courts. There is a $5 million reward for his capture.

The arrest came just over a week before Mexicans vote for a leader to replace President Felipe Calderon.

Brutal clashes between drug cartels and Mexican authorities have killed more than 55,000 people since Calderon launched a crackdown on the gangs in late 2006.

The candidate of Calderon's National Action Party, Josefina Vazquez Mota, is in third place, partly because of public dissatisfaction over the drug war.

On Thursday Vazquez Mota congratulated the marines on the arrest.

Enrique Pena Nieto, candidate for the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has a double-digit lead in most polls.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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North Carolina Symphony Celebrates Independence Day in ...

?Good, Old-Fashioned Salute to the Red, White and Blue

?

The North Carolina Symphony invites Wilmington residents to beat the summer heat and join the orchestra inside Kenan Auditorium to celebrate our nation?s 236th birthday. Music Director Grant Llewellyn leads the Symphony in ?Stars and Stripes,? featuring patriotic highlights and symphonic favorites to honor the USA right before its birthday.

The concert takes place at Kenan Auditorium on the UNC-Wilmington campus, Monday, July 2 at 7:30 p.m. The performance marks Music Director Grant Llewellyn first Independence Day performance in Wilmington.

Llewellyn last conducted an Independence Day concert in 2008, and that audience can attest that though he is Welsh, Llewellyn has American patriotism to spare. He launches into the festive program with The Star-Spangled Banner and leads the orchestra in rousing, all-American selections including Sousa?s Semper Fidelis March, music from South Pacific and Saving Private Ryan and?in anticipation of the upcoming London Olympics?John Williams?s commanding Olympic Fanfare and Theme.

The Symphony?s principal trumpet, Paul Randall, is featured as soloist on a pair of challenging numbers: Jacques Offenbach?s American Eagle Waltz and Leroy Anderson?s A Trumpeter?s Lullaby. Audience members will also have the chance to lend their voices to the Symphony?s Fourth of July salute with James Stephenson?s Sing Along, America!

Tickets for the performance are just $22, with $10 tickets for students. They are available online at the North Carolina Symphony?s website, www.ncsymphony.org, or by calling the Symphony Box Office at 919.733.2750 or toll free 877.627.6724.

Kenan Auditorium is located at 601 S. College Road in Wilmington. The Symphony?s statewide partner is Progress Energy.

About the North Carolina Symphony

Founded in 1932, the North Carolina Symphony performs over 175 concerts annually to adults and school children in more than 50 North Carolina counties. An entity of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, the orchestra employs 67 professional musicians, under the artistic leadership of Music Director and Conductor Grant Llewellyn, Resident Conductor William Henry Curry and Associate Conductor Sarah Hicks.

Based in downtown Raleigh?s spectacular Meymandi Concert Hall at the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts and an outdoor summer venue at Booth Amphitheatre in Cary, N.C., the Symphony performs about 60 concerts annually in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Cary metropolitan area. It holds regular concert series in Fayetteville, New Bern, Southern Pines and Wilmington?as well as individual concerts in Many other North Carolina communities throughout the year?and conducts one of the most extensive education programs of any U.S. orchestra.

Concert/Event Listing:

North Carolina Symphony

Stars and Stripes

Grant Llewellyn, Music Director

Paul Randall, trumpet

Monday, July 2, 2012, 7:30pm

Kenan Auditorium, UNC-Wilmington, Wilmington

Program Listing:

North Carolina Symphony

Stars and Stripes

Grant Llewellyn, Music Director

July 2, 2012

The Star-Spangled Banner

John Stafford Smith/arr. Walter Damrosch/John Philip Sousa

Semper Fidelis March

John Philip Sousa

South Pacific: Symphonic Scenario

Richard Rodgers

American Eagle Waltz

Jacques Offenbach

Paul Randall, trumpet

Superman March

John Williams

Hymn to the Fallen from Saving Private Ryan

John Williams

Servicemen on Parade

Richard Hayman

Olympic Fanfare and Theme

John Williams

The Dam Busters March

Eric Coates

Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1

Edward Elgar

A Trumpeter?s Lullaby

Leroy Anderson

Paul Randall, trumpet

American Fantasie

Victor Herbert

Sing Along, America!

James Stephenson

VN:F [1.9.17_1161]

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

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A Health Insurance Mandate Libertarians Can Support ? Pileus

Libertarians have generally opposed government mandates to participate in commerce on moral, economic, and constitutional grounds. Certainly, a federal government mandate to buy private health insurance contradicts standard libertarian understandings of the right to property and self-determination and the ability of individuals to decide for themselves their need for insurance (and concomitant skepticism of paternalist justifications for government involvement in health insurance), and runs afoul of textualist interpretations of the U.S. Constitution. A state government mandate would not violate the Constitution, but libertarians would nevertheless still tend to oppose it on the moral and economic grounds already cited.

However, there is one type of insurance mandate to which standard libertarian objections fall short. This is not to say, by any means, that all libertarians would support it, merely that opposition would have to find grounding in contingent, disputable facts. The mandate to which I refer is a requirement that parents purchase health insurance for their children.

The moral objection to health insurance mandates for adults doesn?t hold here. Parents do not have a right to dispose of their children?s lives as they see fit. One could easily argue that health insurance is a virtual necessity that every responsible person will seek to obtain, provided that regulations have not driven its cost out of reach. Adults should perhaps be left to endure the consequences of their own folly (or seek to remedy their condition through voluntary aid) should they fail to purchase health insurance for themselves, but helpless children should be rescued from the gross failures of their parents to provide for them.

The economic objection doesn?t necessarily hold either. Parents usually want the best for their children and will try to provide for them as they would for themselves. But not all parents are good parents, and for bad parents, it may well not be the case that their children?s welfare matters sufficiently. They may not be able to make the best decisions for their children when it comes to health insurance coverage. In economic jargon, lack of sufficient parental care imposes a negative externality on children, and therefore insurance coverage for children will be less than socially optimal in the absence of a mandate.

The main reason for opposing a children?s health insurance mandate is that many states have imposed regulations, such as community rating and guaranteed issue ? policies that the PPACA imposes on the whole country, that make insurance too expensive for too many people. Even good parents may often not be able to afford insurance for their children. A mandate might, in theory, bring prices down by bringing in a pool of largely healthy people (children). On the other hand, a mandate increases the demand for insurance, which is normally thought to raise prices. The evidence from Massachusetts is inconclusive. Yet this objection assumes a world of the second- (or third-)best, in which one bad policy (no mandate for children) can be changed, but others (community rating, guaranteed issue, and other restrictions) cannot. A better course is to revise insurance regulations comprehensively.

And there is a good political economy reason for adopting a children?s health insurance mandate: it will reduce the political pressure for more invasive policies in the future, like a universal health insurance mandate or single-payer. If everyone is covered from birth until age 18 (if not by health insurance simpliciter, then by a future ?health status insurance?), then no one will suffer from a pre-existing condition exclusion when he first enters the health insurance market on his own. Universal lifetime coverage will be in reach for everyone. Those who subsequently drop coverage, assuming regulations have been sufficiently revised to make coverage affordable for everyone, will in most cases be blameworthy for their irresponsibility. It will be more difficult to gin up public demands to reorganize the entire health system for the benefit of those few who have acted, in the main, irresponsibly. (Obviously, we should do what we can for them all the same if death or suffering is the alternative. But not reorganize the entire health system.)

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Hands On With The Moshi iGlaze With VersaCover iPad Case

Finding the right iPad cover is sort of a first world problem - there's plenty of choice and you just don't know what to spend your money on. I've been using a Speck case and the smart cover for a while but I think I found my new favorite, the Moshi iGlaze with folding VersaCover. What it lacks in naming finesse it makes up for in beauty. This case features a bonded cover and clear back shell case (called iGlaze). The cover itself is the real draw, however. It is made of soft material and folds in five places. Two magnets hold the edges together, turning it into sort of a cup or beak that you can use to hold up the iPad in portrait or landscape positions.

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Kiss me Kate: Britain's Prince William hits 30

AAA??Jun. 21, 2012?6:52 AM ET
Kiss me Kate: Britain's Prince William hits 30
By GREGORY KATZBy GREGORY KATZ, Associated Press??

In this Wednesday June 6, 2012 photo Britain's Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, feeds a 5-year-old black rhino called Zawadi as he visits Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Port Lympne, southern England . The Duke of Cambridge has called people involved in the illegal trade of rhino horn "extremely ignorant, selfish and utterly wrong". Black rhinos are critically endangered in the wild because of the soaring price of rhino horn, which is worth more than gold due to demand in some countries. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson/Pool)

In this Wednesday June 6, 2012 photo Britain's Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, feeds a 5-year-old black rhino called Zawadi as he visits Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Port Lympne, southern England . The Duke of Cambridge has called people involved in the illegal trade of rhino horn "extremely ignorant, selfish and utterly wrong". Black rhinos are critically endangered in the wild because of the soaring price of rhino horn, which is worth more than gold due to demand in some countries. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson/Pool)

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, center, watch a Royal Air Force fly pass with their family from the balcony of Buckingham Palace after the Trooping The Colour at the Horse Guards Parade in London, Saturday, June 16, 2012. Watching are, from left, Prince Andrew, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles, Prince Edward, Queen, Princess Anne, Prince Philip, Vice-Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, Lady Louise Windsor, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, Princess Eugenie. (AP Photo/Sang Tan)

Sophie, Countess of Wessex, right, and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, center, watch as Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, passes by wearing lavish blue velvet robes and black velvet hats with white plumes, during the procession of The Most Noble Order of the Garter in the grounds of Windsor Castle, Windsor, England Monday June 18, 2012. The Most Noble Order of the Garter, founded in 1348, is the highest order of chivalry existing in England. Recipients of the honor are chosen because they have held public office, contributed to national life or served the sovereign personally. The appointment of Knights of the Garter is in the Queen's gift and is made without consulting ministers. (AP Photo/Paul Edwards, Pool)

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, center, watch a Royal Air Force fly pass with their family from the balcony of Buckingham Palace after the Trooping The Colour at the Horse Guards Parade in London, Saturday, June 16, 2012. Watching are, from left, Prince Andrew, Sophie, Countess of Wessex, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, Prince Charles, Prince Edward, Queen, Princess Anne, hidden behind the Queen, Vice-Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence, Prince Philip, Lady Louise Windsor, Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, Princess Eugenie, Prince Harry and Princess Beatrice. (AP Photo/Sang Tan)

LONDON (AP) ? The man who once was among the world's most eligible bachelors has turned 30 ? but things are not so bad for Prince William as he celebrates his birthday with family and friends.

Palace officials say William will mark the milestone in private with his wife, the former Kate Middleton, and perhaps some close friends. They say a low key celebration is planned.

William has been pursuing a military career as a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot while easing into married life and taking on more royal duties. He is stationed at an air base in north Wales and was recently on a temporary deployment in the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic.

He and his wife have made a number of public appearances in recent weeks, often representing his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, at events to mark her 60 years on the throne, a year-long celebration called the Diamond Jubilee.

He has seemed increasingly comfortable in public, escorting his wife, formally known as the Duchess of Cambridge, to high society soirees and "meet and greet" events.

There has been widespread speculation about the couple possibly starting a family. The talk has been fueled by William indicating that he would like to have children someday.

Along with Prince Harry, they are expected to play a prominent role as special ambassadors at the London Olympics.

William also stands to inherit an estimated 10 million pounds ($15.7 million) on his birthday under the terms of the will of his late mother, Princess Diana.

The precise amount is not known because the current value of the trust set up by his mother has not been made public.

Palace officials decline to comment on William's private finances, and it is possible he may choose to leave the money in a trust.

His brother, Prince Harry, stands to inherit a similar amount when he turns 30 in 2014.

William is second in line for the throne behind his father, Prince Charles.

Associated Press

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