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Wednesday, October 14, 2009

9-year-old Girl's Death Is Seven People's "Miracle"

Kristen Johnson's picture


Jessie

"She had love in her heart and never met a stranger," Robert Starnes says of his daughter Jessie.

But the life of the little girl, known to give away her own school supplies to needy classmates, would be cut suddenly short.

"I was doing something in the kitchen - and she hollered out for me and she fell and she was having a seizure. I called 911 and they started an ambulance but before they got there I started CPR," Jessie's mom Lisa Roussea recalls.

Jessie suffered a brain aneurysm.

There was nothing doctor's could do.

"We decided early on that we wanted to donate her organs," Starnes said.

"If she was in the position to choose, she would have chosen to give her organs," Lisa added.

Seven people benefited from Jessie's donations.

Her lungs, kidneys, corneas and heart were all able to be used.

"My hope is to one day listen to Jessie's heart in this 13 year old girl," Starnes said.

"The letter I got from the kidney recipient - she talked about her Easter miracle and that's what the Easter holiday symbolizes and she had new life and that she would take very good care and her family was thankful and how now she can play with her grandchildren without getting tired," Rousseau noted.

According to Tennessee Donor Services - one person can help more than 50 people through organ or tissue donations.

"When the decision to save another life is made you may not feel it that day you will know without question their life story carries on there is not greater gift," Jonathan Malloch with Tennessee Donor Services told News 12.

More than a hundred thousand people are on the National Transplant Waiting List.

The need for life-saving organs is so great it's estimated that 18 people die every day waiting.

"I think that in this community alone it's something we don't talk about at the dinner table, but sharing with your family your wishes is the most important thing," Malloch added.

A billboard is set to go up on Amnicola Highway that shares Jessie's story.

It's her parents hope that someone else will see it and share the gift of life.

"We can't control life but we can control the gifts of life," Starnes said.

"I am very glad that her legacy is living on and I feel like on days that I don't want to go on, if she could come back here one day and see me..what would she want to see me doing and I think she would want to see me doing this," Rousseau added.

To learn more about organ donation, click here.

Airport scanner 'shows passengers naked'



An X-ray machine which produces ''naked'' images of passengers has been introduced at Manchester Airport, enabling staff to instantly spot any hidden weapons or explosives.


The full body scanner, which is being trialled, will also show up any breast enlargements, false limbs, piercings, and a clear outline of passengers' private parts.

Some travellers might not want to be scanned because of the graphic nature of the images, bosses admit.

They can refuse to undergo the virtual strip search at Terminal 2, opting for the traditional ''pat down'' search instead.

But the black and white image will only be seen by one officer in a remote location before it is deleted, Sarah Barrett, head of customer experience at the airport, said.

''Most of our customers do not like the traditional ''pat down'' search, they find it too intrusive, but they still want to be kept safe.

''This scanner completely takes away the hassle of needing to undress. The images are not erotic or pornographic and they cannot be stored or captured in anyway,'' she said.

The scanner, made by the firm RapiScan Systems, makes the check-in process much quicker for passengers, who will not have to remove their coats, shoes or belts.

Frequent fliers do not need to worry about radiation from the low-level X-ray, she said, and a dental X-ray transmits 20,000 times more radiation.

''Passengers can go through this machine 5,000 times a year each without worrying, it is super safe and the amount of radiation transmitted is tiny,'' Ms Barrett said.

The scanners, which cost £80,000 each, were also trialled at Heathrow Airport in 2004. The Department for Transport will decide whether to install them permanently at the end of the trial, which is expected to last for a year.

Electromagnetic waves are beamed on to passengers while they stand in a booth, and a virtual three-dimensional ''naked'' image is created from the reflected energy.

Security officials in the United States have pioneered their use at New York and Los Angeles airports, and they are gradually being rolled out in other airports in the country.

ImageVis3D Mobile – New iPhone apps allow for detailed analysis of human body in 3D

We’re getting used to hearing about new weird and wonderful apps for the iPhone, everything from cosmic ordering to your own personal voodoo doll app.

200px ImageVis3Mobile ImageVis3D Mobile   New iPhone apps allow for detailed analysis of human body in 3D

The biggest problem with iPhone apps these days is the sheer number of them, tens of thousands of them in fact, so you basically have to sort out the treasures from the trash.

We were fortunate the other day to stumble upon a trio of new apps that could prove pretty useful.

The apps, available in Apple’s iTunes store, were developed by University of Utah researchers, who say they could make life easier for medical professionals and students as well as patients.

So let’s take a look at them:

• ImageVis3D Mobile – This app allows the user to manipulate, display and rotate 3D images from CT (computerized tomography) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans, as well as other images. It is free to download and is based on software from Utah University’s Scientific and Computing and Imaging Institute (SCI).

• AnatomyLab – If you want to view a virtual dissection of a human body (unless you are a medical student then I can’t imagine why you would), activate the “view cadaver” button. The app, which costs $9.99, allows the user to view no fewer than 40 different stages of dissection of a real human body.

• MyBody – Basically a watered down version of AnatomyLab, developed with the general public in mind. It basically gives the viewer an idea of what the human body looks like inside and out, but not so detailed that it’s meant for medical students. It’s cheaper, too, just $1.99.

The researchers at SCI are developing another iPhone app: ViSUS, which already enables those with a laptop or desktop computer to view, edit and analyze massive image files.

Both ImageVis3D Mobile and ViSUS will “help people visualize and manipulate large amounts of image data,” said Chris Johnson, director of the SCI Institute.

Apparently many medical professionals are already buying AnatomyLab in order to show images to their patients to help explain a diagnosis or injury. Johnson said Image Vis3DMobile could be used for this as well, using the patient’s own scan image.

So don’t be too surprised next time you’re at the doctor’s and he whips out his iPhone to show you what’s wrong.

Welcome to life in the 21st century.

Funky Shapes Rodeo Hot Air Balloons

Funky Shapes Rodeo by MikeJonesPhoto.

From Flickr:

Still in Albuquerque... Today was the final day of the big Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, and it was CANCELLED! SHIT! That sucks! This was taken a couple days ago when they launched all the special shaped balloons. Yesterday would have been a fantastic day to shoot the event, but I made the BAD decision to drive up to the top of a big mountain. I've always wondered what the balloon festival would look like from up on top of that mountain, looking down on Albuquerque with all these balloons floating by. Now I know... It looks like CRAP from up there!!! Where are the balloons? Way, way off in the distance there were these tiny little colored specks. Are those the balloons? The mountain looks so close from down here.



View Large, On Black

Green Graffiti: Monstrous footprints of the mysterious creatures

Desh

big animal footprints

Since the prehistoric times, our planet has been home to so many mysterious creatures. While some vanished out of existence completely, others are still there peeping through those remote haunts of extinction. They keep on reminding us that their tale, the Yetis’ and the dinosaurs in particular, is not yet over. Various reports citing researchers and paleontologists confirming their existence through some massive footmarks substantiate the above-stated belief. Here are the images of the monstrous footprints of the mysterious creatures to alert those who are skeptical about their existence in the past and present as well.

5 Companies Making Fuel From Algae Now

Ubiquitous and easy to grow, algae has long been a promising biomass-to-fuel candidate in the eyes of researchers. Now algae is a burgeoning sector in biofuels with several high-profile start-ups, including Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics, and the interest of big-time investors like Bill Gates and ExxonMobil. Of course, hurdles still exist to make a competitive fuel. Algal biofuels still cost too much to produce—over $8 a gallon (pdf), according to the DOE. Furthermore, most existing strains do not yield oil in the quantities needed to quickly scale up to commercial production of biofuels. Companies also need to worry about contaminating local ecosystems and the amount of water needed to grow cultures in large batches. Despite these challenges inroads—and actual fuel—are being made in the nascent field. Here are 5 projects leading the pack today.


1. Algenol Biofuels

Algenol Biofuels
The Project /// $850 million committed to build algae farm that sells ethanol fuel for $3 per gallon

The Location /// Sonoran Desert (Mexico)

The Technology /// The company’s goal is to produce fuel directly from the algae without killing or harvesting the creatures, allowing for a shorter turnaround time to make fuel. The company claims its process lets it make around 6000 gallons per acre per year.

To Market /// Production is expected to begin by the end of 2010. Algenol intends to produce 1 billion gallons annually by 2012. They say their production costs will be around 85 cents per gallon.

2. Solix Biofuels

Solix Biofuels
The Project /// A demonstration facility that could produce up to 3000 gallons of algal biofuels per acre per year by the end of 2009

The Location /// Coyote Gulch, Colo.

The Technology /// Solix uses specialized photo-bioreactors in which batches of microalgal cultures are grown in large, closed-growth chambers under controlled light and temperature conditions. The company claims its closed systems can produce up to seven times as much biomass as open-pond systems. Once the cultures are fully grown, their oil is extracted through the use of chemical solvents like benzene or ether. The solvents are mixed into the chambers to separate the oil from the algae, and it is then collected from the surface. Solix is also collaborating with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to use its acoustic-focusing technology to concentrate algal cells into a dense mixture by blasting them with sound waves. Oil can then be extracted from the mixture by squeezing it out; this makes the extraction process much easier and cheaper, obviating the need for chemical solvents.

To Market /// Tentatively by the winter of 2009.

3. Sapphire Energy

Sapphire Energy
The Project /// A 300-acre integrated algal biorefinery

The Location /// Southern New Mexico

The Technology /// Sapphire’s focus is on “green crude," a liquid that has the same composition as crude oil, and is therefore compatible with existing refineries. The company has already shown that its fuel can be used in cars and even jets. Sapphire has a 100-acre pilot facility near Las Cruces, N.M.

To Market /// The plan is to make 1 million gallons of diesel and jet fuel per year by 2011, 100 million by 2018, and 1 billion gallons per year by 2025. There are no figures as of yet for the now-running 300-acre facility.

4. Solazyme

Solazyme
The Project /// Along with Sustainable Oils (camelina-based biofuel) and Honeywell subsidiary UOP (biodiesel), Solazyme plans to supply 400,000 gallons of fuel to the Air Force and 190,000 gallons to the U.S. Navy 1500 gallons of jet fuel for the U.S. Navy by 2010.

The Location /// South San Francisco

The Technology /// Solazyme engineers designer algal cultures using DNA from different strains to maximize oil production and size and grows them in large fermentation vessels before harvesting their oil. It first tested its jet fuel in late 2008.

To Market /// Solazyme claims that it is on track to produce over 20,000 gallons of fuel for the Navy by 2010. The company hopes to bring the cost of its fuel down to $60 to $80 per barrel within next two to three years.

5. Seambiotic

Seambiotic
The Project /// 5-hectare commercial plant

The Location /// Israel

The Technology /// Seambiotic grows microalgal cultures in open ponds using flue gases like carbon dioxide and nitrogen from a nearby coal plant as feedstocks. Its 1000-square-meter facility produces roughly 23,000 grams of algae per day—three tons of algal biomass would yield around 100 to 200 gallons of biofuel. It recently formed a partnership with NASA to optimize the growth rates of its microalgae.

To Market /// Up and running since 2003, Seambiotic set up a pilot plant in 2005. Seambiotic expects its commercial plant to be ready by late 2009.

Base Jumping in Switzerland (HD)

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8 Sexy Halloween Cocktails - Trick Your Drink

Posted by: Brandon Johnson

8 Sexy Halloween Cocktails on Food2

Rather have your treat in a glass versus a bag? It's Witching Hour meets Happy Hour in this round-up of sexy, tricked-out Halloween cocktails for your costume party. Trick Your Drink.

A Halloween Party of wickedly sexy cocktail recipes with tips on ghoulish garnish for your glass, candy eye balls included! Take a sip...

Sexy, Seaonal Classics -- Halloween Cocktails

Cut through the blackest night with this trio of tasty orange libations.

1. The Halloween Candy Corn Cordial
Bet you haven't tried candy corns like this...

candy_corn_cordial

2. Rumpkin Cocktail
Garnish with a vertical cinnamon stick to serve as the "stem". Round the look out with a green napkin to complete the pumpkin motif.

Rumpkin_cocktail

3. Long Hot Roll Night in the Pumpkin Patch
Tie off a knot on one end of a long, black licorice whip and serve it as the swizzle stick.

long_hot_night

Oozing Green Fluids -- Halloween Cocktails

While slimy cocktails aren't sexy, sharing a vivid description of these may trigger your love target to hold you tight.

1. Split Your Melon Open - Brain Fluid Float
Skin a few green grapes to float on top as garnish for MORE BRAINS impact.

booger_melon_cocktail_copy

2. Ghoulishly Ghostly Ecto-'rita
This hot little 'rita is slimed with little floating bits of pulp. Garnish the top with gummi ghosts and use mezcal with the worm if you're feeling ballsy.


brian_on_ice_margarita

The Bloody, Bobbing Bunch -- Halloween Cocktails

Want bloody good cocktails at your next Twilight - Vampire Diaries - True Blood sesh? Or for your next adult apple bobbing contest? Try these lip-licking libations at your next Halloween party…

1. Bobbing for Apples and Thyme Martini
Garnish with apple rounds. Use a melon baller to get your perfect curve on.

apple_thyme_martini


2. Vampire’s Blood Tequila Cocktail
Guests will suck these dry. Garnish each with a set of candy vampire teeth, placing the love bite into the lime on the rim.

vampire_blood_cocktail

3. Blood-Red Lime Rickey
Cherry lime ricky lovers -- this is for you. Top off with an edible candy severed finger. Sexy meets Saw V, anyone?

blood_red_ricky

Amazing lead photo credit: Jonathan Haas, Flickr | Learn how he shot it here. | DIGG this.

Need an awesome food Halloween costume idea? Start with Katy Perry here.

Dr. Dre Invites Jay-Z To Rap On Detox

'Jay, come holler!,' Dre says.

Songs that leaked from Dr. Dre's Detox recording sessions earlier this year revealed that Nas and R. Kelly are among the artists in consideration to appear on the long-awaited opus. And T.I., Lil Wayne and Drake are among the MCs believed to be ghost-writing for the album.

But if Dre gets his way, a certain renowned Brooklyn rhymesmith will be pulling double-duty on Detox, both writing and delivering a guest verse.

"Well, actually, Jay-Z's just been in the studio doing some writing," Dre told MTV News on Friday while promoting his new Beats by Dr. Dre/ HP notebook collaboration. "Hopefully I'll get him to perform on the record. Jay, come holler!"

Detox is the follow-up to Dre's 2001 album and will complete the trilogy that began with 1992's The Chronic.

In May, a snippet of a Detox track was released on a Dr. Pepper commercial that features Dre. The song, tentatively titled "Sh-- Popped Off," features production similar to a track that leaked in February with Tip referring Dre.'s vocals. "It's the D.R. ... Made the West side worldwide, no PR/ Gangsta-rap God, I'm the end-all, be-all/ California love from the Bloods to the C-Dogs."

Earlier this month, Dre told ABC News he'd like to finally put the finishing touches on Detox by the end of this year in time for a 2010 release. "Hopefully, I'll get it done at the end of this year, and we can hear it next year," the normally press-shy producer said.

Fencing + Wheelchairs = Awesomeness Incarnate

Tina Kelley/The New York Times

Mickey Zeljkovic, center, judges a bout between Timothy Mooney, left, and Bianca Hollywood.



MAPLEWOOD, N.J. — “Circle six, parry four, parry, riposte,” Mickey Zeljkovic chanted, running Bianca Hollywood, 13, through her fencing moves.

Bianca has spina bifida and a pronounced S curve to her spine. But when she wears her mask and lamé, the underjacket that conducts electricity during fencing bouts, she can compete with fencers who can walk, as well as those who cannot.

“It’s a lot of fun, but it takes a lot of time to learn some of the moves,” she said after her session at the New Jersey Fencing Alliance.

The fencing club, in this suburban Essex County township, is developing what are believed to be the only wheelchair fencing classes for young people in the Northeast. Mr. Zeljkovic, who has coached Tariq al Qallaf, an adult world-champion wheelchair fencer, trains a handful of young people in the program, which began in May.

At the club’s headquarters, essentially a 17,500-square-foot room that holds 200 able-bodied competitors some weekends, the wheelchairs are secured to brackets that keep them from moving. Each bracket costs up to $8,000 and positions the duelers an appropriate distance from each other (determined by the fencer with the shorter reach).

The wheelchair-adapted sport traces its roots to veterans returning from World War II, and is only recently attracting followers among young people, with training programs in Atlanta, San Antonio and San Diego, among others. There are now only 27 wheelchair athletes in the United States Fencing Association, so the staff at the club believes there is ample opportunity for young people who start now to reach national-level competitions and even the Paralympic Games.

George Janto, president of the fencing club, hopes to have at least a dozen young fencers in training this year, and is looking for more participants, whose training and competition costs would be covered by the club and its fund-raising efforts. His first six fencers have conditions like spina bifida and cerebral palsy, as well as spinal cord injuries, and were referred by the Children’s Specialized Hospital in Mountainside, N.J.

“Of all the sports they can participate in, that are offshoots of standing sports, fencing has the least amount of special circumstances to fit a handicapped person,” he said. “It uses the same equipment and the same weapons. If there are 10,000 rules in fencing, 9,990 apply to wheelchair fencers.”

In fact, fencing at such short range, without the use of a lunge — the fundamental offensive move — can prove a challenge for able-bodied fencers who sit down for bouts with their peers in wheelchairs.

Mr. Zeljkovic’s wife, Jelena, who also works at the club, said, “You’ve got to use everything in a closer distance, and you have a shorter amount of time to think of what you’re going to do — you’ve got to think very fast.”

Mr. Zeljkovic, a five-time Serbian national fencing champion in all weapons who came to Maplewood via Kuwait to coach wheelchair fencing, added: “Fencing is like physical chess for them. They have to be very quick, and make the right decision in a particular time. They must think two to three movements in front.”

Bianca’s mother, Toni Hollywood, remembers watching her daughter sit alone in her chair at the playground at her elementary school during recess. The staff brought a desk out for her so she could play board games, but she was excluded from the physical fray.

Bianca throws the discus and shot on the Lightning Wheels track team at the hospital, but wanted to try more activities. After rejecting opportunities to play wheelchair hockey, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis, Bianca was excited to attend a fencing demonstration at the club in May.

“She was ear-to-ear smiling that night, and she’s been coming back ever since,” Ms. Hollywood said. “For her, she’s not that strong an athlete. She has perseverance. I think this is more of an intellectual sport, and it seems to suit her.”

Trisha Yurochko, marketing coordinator for the hospital and the head coach of Lightning Wheels, said of the team members who have started fencing, “Everybody looks at them differently.”

For some of the duelers, she said, “In track, they give me their all, all the time, but they’re not consistent medal winners.” But in fencing, they have found a new competitive edge.

“It’s something they can compete in and do well,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Janto has plans to raise money so the group of wheelchair fencers can compete in the Summer National Championships in Atlanta in July. Colleen Mooney of Clark, N.J., who brings her son, Timothy, 15, to the weekly lessons, has noticed changes in the young people since May.

“They have a lot more confidence in themselves, that they can do what other children can do,” she said. “They may have their own special way of doing it, but they can it do like anyone else.”

Chris Higgins Ultra Slo-Mo Video of Bullet Impacts


This is weird and mesmerizing: ultra slow-motion video of bullets impacting various materials (glass, wood, metal, hollow-points on ballistics gel, and so on). The soundtrack adds nothing to the experience, so you might as well mute it (unless you want to have a rave while watching the video). But from a scientific perspective, there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on here…what was most interesting to me was watching the bullets instantly liquify when they hit hard surfaces (like harder metals). There are also several shots in which the bullets are impacted by other projectiles in mid-flight.

The best news: there’s nothing gross here, just very cleanly photographed bullet impacts on non-gross objects.

(Via Kottke.org.)

Clever New Fan Has No Blades

By Robert Roy Britt, Editorial Director

http://www.livescience.com/

Few inventions have lent themselves to as little improvement over the years as the simple fan, with its whirring blades that blow air across a desk or through a room.

But now even the conventional fan has been transformed.

James Dyson, the British inventor behind the vacuums that bear his name, has come up with an incredibly simple-looking, circular fan that has no blades. It uses "Air Multiplier" technology to push 119 gallons of smooth air out every second.

The conventional fan relying on blades has been largely unchanged for about two centuries; the first mechanical fans are said to have been built in the Middle East in the early 19th century. Ceiling fans blew onto the scene in the 1860s, powered by running water and a setup that turned a series of belts with the ability to operate several fans at once (some of these still exist in old buildings). A personal electric fan hit the market in the 1880s.

But the traditional design is not perfect, Dyson figured. Fan blades chop the air, creating an uneven airflow with buffeting bursts and moments of weaker flow.

Here's how the new setup works:

Air is pulled into the machine's cylindrical base with an impeller that draws from jet-engine technology. The air rushes up into a hollow ring. The air is then forced out of a 1.3-millimeter-wide slit (less than 1/16th of an inch) that runs all around the ring.

Here's the tricky part, developed during four years of testing:

As the air exits through the slit in the ring, it flows over the inner edge of the ring, which was modeled after an airplane wing. Imagine an airplane wing bent around into a loop. The air encounters what would be the leading edge of the wing, said Dyson engineer Andy Samways. When it hits the wing-like structure, the air speeds up, creating an area of low pressure.

"Air or any fluid will tend to hug a smooth surface," Samways explained in a telephone interview. "Air over a wing follows the profile, and that creates lift."

As the air exits the loop, the lower pressure pulls air from behind the fan along with it, and air around the front of the fan also gets pulled into the stream. That's simple physics. But it was the wing-like ramp that served as a breakthrough.

"We realized that this inducement, or amplification, effect could be further enhanced by passing airflow over a ramp,” said James Dyson. “This was the point where the idea of a bladeless fan became a real possibility. Here was a way to create turbulent-free air and finally do away with blades.”

Getting rid of blades has visible benefits: The new fan needs no safety grill, and what few parts there are can be easily cleaned. It runs on a small motor, and airflow can be fully regulated with a dimmer switch.

The 10-inch fan is available now starting at $299.99.

7 Reasons To Go See ‘Where The Wild Things Are’

Posted by Dr. Cole Abaius (cole.abaius@filmschoolrejects.com)

WTWTA-Header

Where the Wild Things Are is note after note a love song to childhood – and every facet of that world that we live in when we’re not quite a part of this concrete world, where we can see beyond what things really are to what they might be, when we still feel like kings of the universe even when we’re scared and alone. I realize that you’ve probably already figured out whether you want to see it or not, but I loved this film so much that I felt the need to nail down exactly what I loved about it.

For the cynical – my usual disclaimer that this isn’t paid for by the movie or the studio or that trippy girl wearing a wolf costume to the screening I was at. At FSR, we believe in the magic of movies we love and feel comfortable shouting from the rooftops about them.

And I flat out loved this movie.

Here’s why:

1. A Time Machine To Ten Years Old

WTWTA-TimeMachine

From the opening scenes, the movie is completely from Max’s young perspective. Spike Jonze has done a great job of making a hole in some snow look like an ice fortress to the audience. The camera angles are low which helps getting back down to that level, but over all the feel of the film is an excuse to remember things how you used to remember them. To see a toy boat as an adventure on the high seas, and to see a pile of clothes and cardboard boxes as the rocketship that it really is.

2. It’s Darker Than You Think

WTWTA-Dark

I feel like most of the reasons I give should come with the disclaimer that the film isn’t all that perfect for children, but I don’t pretend to be an expert on that sort of thing. I’d probably be surprised by what most kids can handle, but suffice it to say that this flick isn’t all bluebirds singing songs about how fun working all day in the forest is. Reverting to childhood means reverting to a time where everything is bigger than you, you don’t understand most of what’s going on around you, and things are genuinely scary. The film essentially mirrors the darker tone of the book where the absence of a father looms large over everything, a family doesn’t always act like you want it to, and the seas are choppy. At the heart is an emotional truth that it’s tough being a family, and Where the Wild Things Are doesn’t pull back from how hard that can really be. Even if your family includes a giant goat-monster. Fortunately as a balance, it also populates the world with great bits of humor and life that come from left field or from the strong characters that have been created on screen.

3. The World is Breathtaking

WTWTA-Breathtaking

At first, the sweeping landscapes occupied with strange, wonderful beasts will seem ethereal, but I started to realize that everything in the film essentially exists within our world. It’s just the best-looking stuff from it. Wild forests, warm deserts, and crashing sea shores all captured by beautiful cinematography combine to make the film a postcard tour of a place from our imaginations that’s reachable in real life. The look of the Wild Things is perfect, and the giant fort they make is also a sight to see stemming straight from the sketchbook of my childhood.

4. Max

WTWTA-Max

My usual hatred of children in film should make this point even stronger. The actor they got to play Max – Max Records – is perfect. He’s fun to watch and manages to be (for lack of a better word) an every-kid who fills his day and his mother’s ears with stories. His character is stuck at an age where he’s starting to think and ask questions, but he’s not quite old enough to be told or understand the answers. Records is fantastic at characterizing that and pulling every bit of sympathy or joy out of a scene. He’s also joined by good performances from Catherine Keener and great voice performances from James Gandolfini, Paul Dano, Chris Cooper and Lauren Ambrose.

5. The Music

WTWTA-Soundtrack

This may be a splitting point for some, but the soundtrack is tailor-made for any indie kid sensibility. Using simple instruments or the convenient sound of a toy xylophone or children’s choir, Karen O and the Kids have created something that balances between film score and playroom symphony. It’s subtle, but it always elevates what’s happening on screen, especially since a lot of the film is a slow-burn with minimal dialog.

6. It’s Challenging But Fair

WTWTA-Challenge

It would have been all too easy to create another children’s escapism movie where the parents are cruel, the big sisters are cruel, and a fantasy land of no worries awaits us all. Where the Wild Things Are has its fair share, but it’s more rounded than that. Catherine Keener’s character is a mother trying to make life work who clearly loves her son and sweetly dotes on him but doesn’t understand what to do when his built-up frustration is unleashed. What’s created is a realistic-looking family which helps paint a better picture of childhood, family, and gives the flow of the story (and where it ends up) a natural, understated feel. Simply put, there’s not an insincere bone in this movie’s body, but that doesn’t make it easier to swallow. It makes it much harder. Plus, instead of following a standard story arc where things are great, things get tough, and a solution lets everyone sail off into the sunset – it’s a film where a kid gets a chance to solve things his way. And since a child doesn’t always know how to make sense of the world or how to fix things, it takes the story in some very challenging directions.

7. Kid Logic

WTWTA-KidLogic

One of my favorite things in life is the completely accurate, yet completely wrong logic of children. They see the world in a different way, and have a lot to teach those of us who have forgotten how to look at a tree and see the crow’s nest of a pirate ship. It’s a difficult task to capture that point of view, and beyond Records playing his character well, the writing from Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers nails down the world from the view of someone who’s 4-feet, 4-inches tall with incredible accuracy. The way Max sees the world makes logical sense, but is usually wrong, and since we’re already seeing the world his way, we have to go on the journey and learn the lessons along with him. Get ready, for better or for worse, to revert back to your childhood.

Magnificent Sculputures.....That's what I call True Artist



telegraph.co.uk Sudarsan Pattnaik has won international awards for his sand sculptures and now you know why because they are truly magnificent.

click here for this amazing Gallery(27 pics): Magnificent Sculputures.....That's what I call True Artist

Nokia tells all on Booklet 3G: $299 with a 2-year contract on AT&T

Nokia, AT&T, Best Buy and Microsoft are all holding hands and singing the same song about Nokia's Booklet 3G today. The good news is that the device will be subsidized by AT&T, at $299 with a 2-year contract at a $60 a month data plan -- with other rate plans and prices to be announced -- and a $599 non-subsidized price. It'll be out with the launch of Windows 7 on October 22nd and available exclusively through Best Buy through the holidays. Nokia's also pretty strong about stating that 12 hour battery life isn't a "brochure number" but a real number -- though we doubt that since Nokia is using Mobile Mark '07 which doesn't include wireless in its base tests.

10 Highest-Paying Jobs in America

money.cnn.com Anesthesiologists take home a median $292,000 salary annually. What other great jobs offer big paychecks?



1. Anesthesiologist
Anesthesiologist
Best Jobs rank: 11*
Median salary: $292,000
Top pay: $408,000
The high pay for anesthesiologists reflects inherent stress in a job that is literally about life and death. "Anesthesiologists get patients safely and intact through operations while surgeons do things that would otherwise kill them," says Roger Moore, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. The big salaries are also a payback for the 12-plus years of training required before an anesthesiologist can start practicing.