Monday, January 24, 2011
That’s dirty, Sanchez – Jets QB Mark Sanchez picks nose and wipes it on Mark Brunell
During the first quarter of tonight’s Jets-Steelers AFC Championship game, Jets QB Mark Sanchez was caught on camera picking his nose and then unabashedly wiping it on the jersey of veteran QB Mark Burnell.
As our good friends @ticketradio tweeted: that’s dirty, Sanchez.
Video: Mark Sanchez picks nose and wipes it on Mark Brunell
Man's Wheelchair "Tank" Banned From Street in Britain
posted by: Robin Marty
from: http://www.care2.com/
It's a huge blow for a disabled man in Britain, who was hoping to enjoy the outdoors the way he used to -- his specialty wheelchair has been banned from public roads and sidewalks.
Apparently, it's technically a tank.
Via The Mercury:
"It is ridiculous that I should have found a chair that could help me do all that, then told I could use it, only for the authorities to turn around and say that if I used it on the roads I would be doing something illegal," he said.
Jim has used a wheelchair since 1999 due to chronic back and joint conditions, neurological problems and arthritis which leave him in constant pain.
He was given the chair for Christmas by a friend who had it made by US firm TC Mobility, for £15,000 ($24,000) after Jim found he was limited by his basic wheelchair.
"NHS wheelchairs are fine but when they get to anything other than a flat, even surface they are useless," he said.
"I used to be someone who was very into outdoor pursuits before I had to use a wheelchair and I had hoped the tracks would mean I could get back out and do the kinds of think I used to love doing."
As Gizmodo puts it: "At a cost of $24,000, that's one helluva pricey toy to hoon around on in his backyard."
Keanu Reeves Reveals Plans For Matrix Four And Five
From: http://www.contactmusic.com/
The fourth and fifth sequels to 'The Matrix' may be shot in 3D, with creators Andy and Larry Wachowski reportedly keen to ''truly revolutionise'' the action movie genre.
Keanu Reeves has revealed plans are underway for two more sequels to 'The Matrix'.
The actor - who appears as Neo in the first three movies of the sci-fi action drama - hinted he and the writers of the franchise, Andy and Larry Wachowski, have discussed the possibility of shooting the two new movies in 3D and are reportedly seeking further advice from 'Avatar' creator James Cameron.
However, the Wachowskis are said to be keen to deliver something which has "never been seen" in the movie world and would "truly transform" the action movie genre.
Hearing Keanu commenting during a key note speech at the London School of Performing Arts, a reporter for Ain't It Cool News said: "They have completed work on a two picture script treatment that would see him return to the world of 'The Matrix' as Neo.
"Keanu says the brothers have met with Jim Cameron to discuss the pros and cons of 3D and are looking to deliver something which has never been seen again. He stated that he still has an obligation to the fans to deliver a movie worthy of the title 'The Matrix' and he swears this time that the treatment will truly transform the action genre like the first movie."
However, according to the reporter, the Wachowskis are looking to complete their current work on new movie 'Cloud Atlas' before discussing the possibility of adding to 'The Matrix' series.
Solar power enters the plastic age
London (CNN) -- Cheaper and lighter compared to its more expensive, cumbersome silicon cousin, plastic photovoltaics (PV) could herald a revolution in the solar power market, according to a UK solar panel expert.
"Plastics are much cheaper to process than silicon. In principle the devices we've been making might be very, very cheap and cover large areas," said David Lidzey from the UK's University of Sheffield.
Unlike rigid silicon panels, plastic (or organic) PV is far more flexible making it easier to install, which Lidzey says could hand it a huge advantage.
"If you've got panels that almost roll up like a big sheet of wallpaper then that might be a very good way of powering developing countries," he said
Polymer solar panels differ from most commercial plastics like polythene which are essentially insulators.
Turning them from a material that prevents conductivity into ones that promote it requires chemists to "tweak their molecular structure," says Lidzey.
But he says some everyday plastic products aren't a million miles away from the plastic PV he's researching.
"If you look at a (chip) packet, what you've got is a plastic film, a few layers of inks and a printed metal layer to keep the materials fresh. Rearrange the order of those layers and you get to a structure that's very similar to the PV devices we're looking at," Lidzey said.
On of the leading lights in developing plastic PV is U.S.-based tech company, Konarka who are already applying their "Power Plastic" technology to a wide range of products including luggage and parasols.
Larger arrays are also being fitted to street furniture, as can be seen with San Francisco's bus shelters.
Researchers are also hopeful that buildings could also get the plastic treatment in the future.
In 2009, Konarka installed a "curtain wall" to an outside section of its Florida offices as part of a pilot project.
Plastic PV, say the company, can absorb sunlight from "all sorts of ranges" allowing it to be installed onto vertical walls.
Founded in 2001, Konarka are one of many companies trying to perfect the technology. And the news is increasingly promising. But there are some issues to be resolved before plastic can truly find its place in the sun.
Whereas silicon has an efficiency of around 15-18%, plastic devices can only achieve 7-8% at best, currently.
Problems also remain with operational lifetime. Silicon devices will generally last around 20 years and are very stable, Lidzey says.
Organic-based (plastic) systems are less so, degrading much more quickly. But things are improving.
"There is a lot of activity to find out what the mechanisms are by which these materials degrade so we can produce better packaging materials to prevent this," Lidzey said.
He concedes there is some way to go before plastic PV catches up with silicon's superior efficiency and durability, but even that might not be an issue, he says.
"The idea is that you might not need to catch up provided you can make them cheap enough," he said.
"My guess is that it will be between five and ten years, and then we will see a significant volume of devices being made from plastic."
Why shoppers find it so hard to escape from Ikea: Flatpack furniture stores are 'designed just like a maze'
By James Tozer
From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
If you've ever found yourself hopelessly lost in an Ikea store, you were probably not alone.
The home furnishing chain’s mazy layouts are a psychological weapon to part shoppers from their cash, an expert in store design claims.
The theory is that while following a zig-zag trail between displays of minimalist Swedish furniture, a disorientated Ikea customer feels compelled to pick up a few extra impulse purchases.
According to Alan Penn, director of the Virtual Reality Centre for the Built Environment at University College London, Ikea's strategy is similar to that of out-of-town retail parks - keep customers inside for as long as they can.
'In Ikea's case, you have to follow a set path past what is effectively their catalogue in physical form, with furniture placed in different settings which is meant to show you how adaptable it is,' he said.
'By the time you get to the warehouse where you can actually buy the stool or whatever's caught your eye, you're so impressed by how cheap it is that you end up getting it.'
While its stores have short-cuts to meet fire regulations, shoppers find the exits hard to spot as they are navigating their way through displays of flat-pack furniture, he added.
'Also you're directed through their marketplace area where a staggering amount of purchases are impulse buys, things like lightbulbs or a cheap casserole that you weren't planning on getting.
'Here the trick is that because the lay-out is so confusing you know you won't be able to go back and get it later, so you pop it in your trolley as you go past.
'It's not like somewhere like John Lewis where everything has a logical lay-out and you know you'll probably be able to navigate your way back to the same spot again.'
Alongside its reputation for good, cheap design, Ikea's distinctive labyrinth has been phenomenally successful with 283 stores in 26 countries and profits of £2.3 billion last year.
The sometimes gruelling strategy - dubbed 'more like S&M than M&S' by Prof Penn - is similar to that employed by out-of-town shopping centres to attract customers then keep them in side for hours on end, he added.
Studies at the Bluewater centre in Kent found that shoppers spent an average of just over three hours inside, with a significant number spending eight hours at a time there.
Malls are subtly designed to keep shoppers moving around the retail floor, rather than towards the exit, while the frequent need to drive to the middle of nowhere means visitors are encouraged to make a day of it.
Along with familiar cafes and play areas, a common design is the 'dog bone' mall, where a large store at either end - such as Marks & Spencer or Debenhams - is attracted at knock-down rent, while smaller stores like Next or Mothercare cluster in-between to take advantage of the custom they generate.
Supermarkets use similar tactics, according to Prof Penn.
'They couldn't get away with having shoppers going in one single route like Ikea, so what they do is put popular purchases like milk and bread at the far end of the store so you have to walk past shelves of other products on the way.'
He has a 'nightmarish' vision of a clothing store like Primark directing shoppers on a single route through the store, passing displays of different styles of outfits en route, but questions whether the Ikea template would work on the high street.
'It would be interesting to have customers go past lots of mannequins showing different lifestyles the clothes were meant to inspire before they actually got to try them on, but so far no-one's tried it.'
However Prof Penn said the trend was towards more subtle techniques, with new city centre malls having better links to surrounding shops while supermarkets devised more sophisticated tactics for targeting their preferred customers.
Ikea denied that its store layouts were designed intentionally to bewilder customers.
'Our furniture showrooms are designed to give our customers lots of ideas for every area of the home including your kitchen, bedroom and living room,' said Carole Reddish, Ikea's deputy managing director for the UK and Ireland.
'While some of our customers come to us for a day out to get inspiration for every room, we appreciate that others may have looked at the Ikea catalogue or online offer, have a specific shopping list in mind and would like to get in and out quickly.
'So to make it easier for those customers, we have created shortcuts.'
From: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
If you've ever found yourself hopelessly lost in an Ikea store, you were probably not alone.
The home furnishing chain’s mazy layouts are a psychological weapon to part shoppers from their cash, an expert in store design claims.
The theory is that while following a zig-zag trail between displays of minimalist Swedish furniture, a disorientated Ikea customer feels compelled to pick up a few extra impulse purchases.
A-mazing: A route a customer took through a store. Professor Alan Penn said they are designed to stop customers leaving
'In Ikea's case, you have to follow a set path past what is effectively their catalogue in physical form, with furniture placed in different settings which is meant to show you how adaptable it is,' he said.
'By the time you get to the warehouse where you can actually buy the stool or whatever's caught your eye, you're so impressed by how cheap it is that you end up getting it.'
While its stores have short-cuts to meet fire regulations, shoppers find the exits hard to spot as they are navigating their way through displays of flat-pack furniture, he added.
'Also you're directed through their marketplace area where a staggering amount of purchases are impulse buys, things like lightbulbs or a cheap casserole that you weren't planning on getting.
'Here the trick is that because the lay-out is so confusing you know you won't be able to go back and get it later, so you pop it in your trolley as you go past.
Mesmerising: Ikea's store in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.The flatpack store is designed to make it difficult for us to escape
The sometimes gruelling strategy - dubbed 'more like S&M than M&S' by Prof Penn - is similar to that employed by out-of-town shopping centres to attract customers then keep them in side for hours on end, he added.
Studies at the Bluewater centre in Kent found that shoppers spent an average of just over three hours inside, with a significant number spending eight hours at a time there.
Malls are subtly designed to keep shoppers moving around the retail floor, rather than towards the exit, while the frequent need to drive to the middle of nowhere means visitors are encouraged to make a day of it.
Along with familiar cafes and play areas, a common design is the 'dog bone' mall, where a large store at either end - such as Marks & Spencer or Debenhams - is attracted at knock-down rent, while smaller stores like Next or Mothercare cluster in-between to take advantage of the custom they generate.
Supermarkets use similar tactics, according to Prof Penn.
'They couldn't get away with having shoppers going in one single route like Ikea, so what they do is put popular purchases like milk and bread at the far end of the store so you have to walk past shelves of other products on the way.'
Big success: The Ikea store in Wembley, north London. Last year the Swedish giants made a profit of £2.3bn
'It would be interesting to have customers go past lots of mannequins showing different lifestyles the clothes were meant to inspire before they actually got to try them on, but so far no-one's tried it.'
However Prof Penn said the trend was towards more subtle techniques, with new city centre malls having better links to surrounding shops while supermarkets devised more sophisticated tactics for targeting their preferred customers.
Ikea denied that its store layouts were designed intentionally to bewilder customers.
'Our furniture showrooms are designed to give our customers lots of ideas for every area of the home including your kitchen, bedroom and living room,' said Carole Reddish, Ikea's deputy managing director for the UK and Ireland.
'While some of our customers come to us for a day out to get inspiration for every room, we appreciate that others may have looked at the Ikea catalogue or online offer, have a specific shopping list in mind and would like to get in and out quickly.
'So to make it easier for those customers, we have created shortcuts.'
Food Freezing Technology Preserves Human Teeth. Organs Next?
by Constance J. Woodman
Chefs and scientists alike can use magnets to prevent the formation of ice crystals during freezing.
Interest in the CAS technology has spread all over the world. In the first video below, a bottle of water is super cooled below freezing in a CAS freezer. The bottle is slammed against the freezer door, inducing ice crystals to form. The bottle of water is instantly turned to solid ice. Supercooling water is a trick you can Try At Home but the CAS system is able to do more than supercool pure liquids. It can supercool, then freeze, meat and vegetables and anything else. In the second video, CAS frozen flowers are dethawed and arranged in a vase. The perfect preservation of the flowers is an enormous contrast to my painful childhood memories of sloppy, limp, dinnertime vegetables. The frozen vegetables were train-wrecked by ice, while these flowers received much, much less damage during freezing.
The transition of this tech from food to longevity science is slowly evolving, but the steps forward are real. You can, right now, pay to store your teeth. Hiroshima University tested the cooling technology for teeth, and uses ABI CAS freezer tech at The Teeth Bank, the world’s first commercial tooth bank. Dr. Toshitsugu Kawata, a Hiroshima University professor who has done extensive research at the Teeth Bank, helped prove that CAS is a viable technology to preserve teeth. Spare teeth used to be worthless medical waste. Now, removed wisdom teeth aren’t garbage, they can be frozen and re-implanted at any point during your life. (The Teeth Bank’s re-implant success rate is 87% according to the Taipei Times. ) Thanks to scientific advances, surgeons can even alter your old teeth by sculpting them, transforming a molar into an incisor. To quote Dr. Kawata, “It’s like having a spare tire.”
In the journal Cryobiology in 2010, a research team including Dr. Kawata published the use of ABI’s CAS freezing technology on teeth. A very tricky part of tooth preservation is keeping tooth ligaments alive, or even some of the ligament cells. Implanting ligaments is important. We have ligaments attached to teeth because the force of chewing could grind our chompers out of our jaws. When the research team tried slow freezing a whole fresh tooth without the CAS magnetic fields, the ligaments didn’t survive and were severely damaged. However, a CAS magnetically vibrated tooth’s ligaments survived. CAS frozen ligament cells grew as well as those from a fresh tooth, and showed only minor damage.
See the intact cell walls? This wasabi suffered very little damage due to ice.
Rat heart transplant for ABI's research
Looking into the future, imagine you have heart failure ten years from now. Rather than a frightening race against time to find a donor organ from a cadaver, a spare heart is thawed from a well stocked frozen organ bank. Hell, you’ve got a CAS freezer full of replacement parts grown from your own cells. Humans are learning how to grow replacement organs through bio-scaffolds and printing (As reported in Singularity Hub.) Combining organ printing and organ freezing may lead to growing and freezing our own spare parts, well beyond the extra teeth and perfectly preserved wasabi.
[Images, ABI incorporated, World Business Satellite]
[Sources: Journal of Cryobiology, Forbes Magazine, Journal of Biomedical Research]
Sundance: Kevin Smith debuts bloody 'Red State' and severs relations with Hollywood
from: http://insidemovies.ew.com/
Image Credit: Danny Moloshok/AP Images
Seventeen years ago at Sundance, a chubby New Jersey convenience store worker broke into Hollywood.
Sunday night, he broke out of it.
Kevin Smith, who became a hero to aspiring filmmakers everywhere by selling his comic book collection and maxing out credit cards to create 1994′s Clerks, premiered that film at Sundance and sold it to Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax, which turned it into a cult-hit that spoke to a generation.
“Cult” was the operative word Sunday as Smith premiered his latest movie, the bizzaro horror thriller Red State, about a gay-hating minister (Michael Parks) who goes on a blood-drenched rampage against an equally murderous squad of federal agents, with some sex-crazed teens stuck in the middle. In addition to Red State being a film about a cult, Smith also announced plans to leverage his own cult-fanbase to break out of the studio distribution system and put the film out there for audiences on his own.
Though Smith had promised via Twitter he would auction the film to a distributor live from the stage after the premiere, it turned out to be a joke. When the auction started, he immediately “bought” the $4 million movie himself for $20, and announced he would use Twitter (where he has 1.7 million followers), his popular comedy podcast, a 15-city roadshow tour, and word-of-mouth from fans to release the picture himself.
“What we want to do is, like, ‘Yes, anybody can make a movie,’” Smith said – at the tail end of a nearly half-hour long speech. ”We know that now. We know that because I’ve made ten, you know what I’m saying? That means anybody can make a f—ing movie. What we aim to prove is that anybody can release a movie now as well. It’s not enough to make it and sell it now, I’m sorry.”
He compared laboring to make a truly independent film and selling it to a studio distributor to having a child and giving it to someone else to raise.
Smith said the one thing he can’t do in-house is get the movie onto screens. So he put out the invitation for theater owners to cut a special deal with him, which he pledged would be better terms than what they get from studios. “We want to partner up, man,” he said, taking a shot at his last movie, the critically slammed Warner Bros. comedy Cop Out: “We won’t screw you over. We won’t be like, ‘You gotta f—ing take this piece of s—. If you want The Dark Knight, you better take this piece of s— Cop Out.”
His plan is to have the movie in theaters nationwide Oct. 19, the anniversary of the Clerks release. He didn’t make the project sound especially inviting to potential exhibitors, however, saying he would not do any advertising or interviews to promote the film, instead relying on his fanbase to spread the word. The ecclesiastical irony was not lost on many in the audience. “Kevin Smith intends to market Red State, a film about a church-cult, directly to his fans.The irony of ‘preaching to the choir’ is piquant,” tweeted James Rocchi of MSN Movies.
Smith apologized to studio scouts in the audience who may have thought he was sincere about selling the film. Then he joked: “I’m not that sorry. It’s a film festival — come see a movie…. I will say this in my own defense, a lot of you work for studios and s—. Studios make movies. Movies have trailers. So you guys make a lot of trailers; you’ve lied to me many times.”
His next project is the hockey film Hit Somebody, which he announced would be his last film as a director. After that, he said he wanted to focus on his fledgling distribution company, helping other indie filmmakers get their films to an audience without going through Hollywood.
Or would his becoming a successful distributor actually make him just another part of Hollywood?
To put it in one of Smith’s beloved geek-friendly Star Wars metaphors, is he defying the Darth Vader of studios — or simply joining them to help rule the indie movie galaxy?
Footnote: About six members of an anti-gay extremist church used as the model for the religious group in Red State showed up outside the theater to protest, but few festival-goers paid attention to them besides a few dozen counter-protesters carrying goofy signs. Smith marched over himself with one that read: “God Hates Fat.”
'Wonder Woman' project finds a home at NBC
from http://insidetv.ew.com/
Image Credit: DC Comics
The ol’ girl may fly this fall after all: NBC has picked up the Wonder Woman pilot from David E. Kelley. Ironically, NBC was the final network to pass on bringing back the superhero over a week ago, but that was before the new regime was officially in place in light of the impending Comcast takeover. Robert Greenblatt is now spearheading primetime as chairman. (On Thursday, head of programming Angela Bromstad announced she was leaving).
The pilot’s cost may not be a concern to Greenblatt, the wunderkind who revitalized Showtime with critical faves like Dexter and Weeds. One factor that seemed to have sunk the Wonder Woman project the first time around was the price of rebooting the series, with the studio requiring a rich license fee to bring the iconic character back to life. But then, NBC has been down this road before: It rebooted Bionic Woman. Kelley’s take incorporated the superhero’s signature lasso, cuffs, and plane in the script, and insiders said it was a serious, non-campy take on the DC Comics character. For years, various writers and producers (including Joss Whedon) have tried to bring back Wonder Woman, but the character has proved difficult to resurrect.
Kelley is already executive producing Harry’s Law for NBC, the new drama starring Kathy Bates. The pilot, like all the others ordered by NBC during the current development season, will have to pass the final smell test this spring before its ordered to series in May.
In other business Friday, NBC also ordered a drama pilot from Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City), dubbed Mann’s World. It chronicles a celebrity hair stylist in Los Angeles.
Drew Barrymore to direct another Wizard of Oz film
Drew Barrymore has reportedly signed on to direct Surrender Dorothy, which joins at least five other Wizard of Oz films announced in recent weeks
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.
Posts
