Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Imaginext Mega T-Rex

Introducing the Imaginext Mega T-Rex by Fisher-Price, complete with motorized action, sound effects, and removable armor that puts a new spin on classic dinosaur play. With ferociously cool features and accessories, boys aged 3 to 5 years old will love Imaginext's dinosaur toys that turn imaginary play into a roarin' good time. It's a whole new adventure with Imaginext, every time you play.

The Mega T Rex measures 16 by 12 by 8 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.4 pounds. It comes with a helmet, rear control pod, two projectile launchers, and extended tech arms that have large mechanical claws. A button on his back makes his arms move, his neck swing back and forth, and his jaws open. There's also an activation disk on his back that opens the door of the pod. It takes three AA batteries and one 1.5V battery.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/82XqKWEvu9k/0,2817,2396647,00.asp

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Obama says Iranian isolation will continue

(AP) ? President Barack Obama says that as long as Iran continues down a dangerous path with its nuclear program, the United States will continue to find ways to isolate and increase the pressure on Tehran.

Obama issued the statement after his administration announced a new set of sanctions against Iran. The actions were coordinated with Britain and Canada and follow a new report from a United Nations watchdog suggesting Iranian work toward the development of atomic weapons.

Obama says Iran's actions jeopardize international peace and stability. Still, he says the U.S. is still prepared to start a new chapter with Iran if it fulfills its international obligations. But if it continues to defy its responsibilities, he says Iran faces even more pressure.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-11-21-Obama-Iran%20Sanctions/id-d07f7ff84b114af6b74539355cdf66bb

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Monday, November 21, 2011

Toshiba Portege Z835-P330


The Toshiba Portege Z835-P330 is the newest member of the Portege line, and Toshiba's first ultrabook. Available exclusively through Best Buy, with other configurations coming soon through Toshiba, the Portege Z835-P330 is currently the cheapest of the new slim laptop category of ultrabooks, selling for $799.99 (list). Aside from price the Z835-P330 has three other things going for it: A featherweight chassis, an unusually full feature set, and a long-lasting battery that will take you through an entire workday. Whether or not those highlights are enough to make you overlook its middling performance and mediocre graphics capability is up to you.

Design
The Z835-P330 sports a dark grey magnesium alloy chassis, providing a light but sturdy base. The lid is also covered in magnesium, but is layered on top of a flexible?some might say flimsy?plastic bezel. Inside the magnesium chassis, Toshiba has also reinforced the structure with a honeycomb-patterned plastic ribbing. As a result the Z835-P330 manages to feel far more stable than the Acer Aspire S3 ($899.99 direct, 3.5 stars), which also went with a magnesium and plastic approach. Neither, however, can match the look and feel of the solid aluminum chassis on the Editors' Choice Asus Zenbook UX31 ($1,099 direct, 4 stars). While you're carrying the Z835-P330 around, watch out for its corners. The sharp 90-degree corners, reinforced with magnesium, are just sharp enough to hurt if they were to jab somebody. While people may occasionally chop their food with the MacBook Air as a joke, most ultrabooks have rounded corners.

The Z835-P330's solid feel is especially surprising given its size (0.6 by 12.4 by 8.9 inches, HWD) and weight?just 2.4 pounds. That's a half-pound lighter than the 2.9-pound Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (Thunderbolt) ($1,299.99 direct, 4 stars), Acer Aspire S3 (2.94 pounds), and far lighter than the Asus Zenbook UX31 (2.86 pounds).

The chiclet-style keyboard is made of plastic, while the palm rest is brushed magnesium, with a plastic deck. The keyboard uses the same island-style keys seen on Acer Aspire S3, but the Z835-P330's keys have a black glossy finish to them, which I didn't care for. The keys themselves are also surrounded with plastic instead of magnesium. As a result, the keyboard flexes quite a bit during regular typing. The keyboard is spill resistant and also has a backlight, which is ideal in low-light situations. The accompanying multitouch trackpad is small but responsive, with a light texture across its surface. The separate right and left mouse buttons are a little too firm for my tastes, but they are also covered in a glossy chrome finish, which shows every fingerprint. It's a puzzling choice for the two most often touched buttons on the unit.

The Z835-P330 sports a 13.3-inch widescreen display, with 1,366-by-768 resolution?the same size and resolution offered on the Acer S3, but lower than the 1,600-by-900 resolution on the Asus UX31. Like the Acer S3, the screen is backlit (400 nits) for visibility in environments with lots of ambient light. Unlike the Acer S3, the Z835-P330 also offers fairly wide viewing angles, providing clear visibility for yourself and anyone else you want to share the screen with. The screen, while extremely thin, also feels fragile. The slender lid warps and bends at the slightest pressure, and the hinge is just loose enough to wobble at any motion.

The built-in speakers feature Waves MaxxAudio, but even with software enhancement they leave something to be desired. The speakers were disappointing, with low overall volume, and a flat sound that thins out as it gets louder. There's also very little low end, meaning you'll want an external speaker system to hear any bass at all.

There's very little room for air flow in this slim chassis, so you may notice the Z835-P330 getting uncomfortably hot. During testing, the Toshiba got very hot?up to 102-degrees Fahrenheit on the keyboard and 110-degrees on the underside (as measured with a Fluke IR thermometer). Granted, our testing process may push the components a bit harder than the average user would, but you still might want to watch out for a possible case of toasted leg syndrome.

Features
The slim profile of an ultrabook is often attained by stripping the feature set down to the bare minimum. Not so on the Z835-P330. Rather it's outfitted with the best selection of ports we've seen on an ultrabook thus far, taking advantage of the extra fraction of an inch on the hinge edge to put a full-size HDMI port and two USB 2.0 ports?one of which is equipped with Toshiba's Sleep'n'Charge technology. In addition to the pair of ports on the back, there's also a faster USB 3.0 port on the right hand side, accompanied by a case-lock slot on the right and SD card slot and jacks for headphones and a microphone on the left. Set above the screen is a 1.3-megapixel webcam.

A Gigabit Ethernet port on the back is a rare find on an ultrabook, since most rely exclusively on 802.11n Wi-Fi. Unexpectedly, the Z835-P330 comes with WiDi 2.0, Intel's wireless streaming solution that allows you to stream HD content to any HDTV through a Netgear Push2TV adapter (a $99 dollar extra). It's an unexpected feature in this form factor and price range, seen only in the much more expensive Lenovo IdeaPad U300s ($1,199, not yet rated).

The Z835-P330 has a 128GB solid-state dive (SSD), which is large enough to accommodate the operating system, a healthy number of programs, and a modest selection of media. But if you're a prolific downloader of music or movies, you'll definitely want to add a speedy USB 3.0 portable hard drive. Because flash memory provides the speed and responsiveness needed for Intel's Rapid Start Technology (one of the defining characteristics of the ultrabook category) SSDs are the rule, rather than the exception. Thus far, the only ultrabook to offer a larger mechanical drive is the Acer S3, which offers 500GB of storage on a spinning drive plus the flash memory needed for Rapid Start. The Z835-P330 leverages its SSD to achieve a cold boot time of 22 seconds, and a 2-second restart.

As a Best Buy configuration, the Z835-P330 comes pre-loaded with the Best Buy PC App, which minimizes the amount of bloatware installed on the hard drive while still providing access to a wide range of programs. Also included on the drive are Google Chrome, Microsoft Office Starter 2010, and a 30-day trial of Norton Internet Security. You'll also get a number of Toshiba-branded programs and utilities, like Toshiba BookPlace, Toshiba BulletinBoard, and Toshiba ReelTime.

Toshiba covers the Z835-P330 with its standard one-year warranty, but Best Buy offers further protection via its extended service plans. Their basic service plan extends the manufacturer's warranty from 1-year to 2-years ($149.99) and additional accident and spill protection can be included for another $120.

Performance
Toshiba Portege Z835-P330 The Z835-P330 is equipped with a low-voltage dual-core Intel Core i3-2367M processor paired with 4GB of RAM. It's a significant step up from the AMD and Intel Atom CPUs found in traditional netbooks, but it's not as powerful as the Core i5s that have appeared in the Macbook Air 13-inch, the Asus UX31, or the Acer S3. This difference is best seen in the results of our PCMark 7 benchmark test, where the Z835-P330 scored 2,496 points, putting it ahead of the Acer S3 (1,899), but behind the Asus UX31 (3,531) and MacBook Air (3,186). The Z835-P330 was also the slowest of the bunch on our Cinebench R11.5 rendering test, where its score of 1.33 points fell just a fraction of a point behind the Samsung Series 9 (1.36), and was seriously outpaced by the Asus UX31 (2.19) and Acer S3 (1.93). It provided mixed results in multimedia tasks, completing Handbrake in 3 minutes 29 seconds. The only slower competitor was the Samsung Series 9 (4:45), while the Acer S3 (2:36), Asus UX31 (2:19), and MacBook Air (2:09) finished in under three minutes. Photoshop was an entirely different story: The Z835-P330 took 8 minutes 17 seconds, lagging behind the slowest competitor, the Samsung Series 9 (NP900X3A) ($1,599 street, 4 stars) (5:53) by more than 2 minutes.

Without a dedicated graphics processor, you won't be using the Z835-P330 for any sort of gaming, except perhaps the latest Facebook flash offerings. The integrated Intel graphics were unable to support 3DMark 06, and stuttered through our gaming tests like a poorly timed slideshow. It ran both games at medium detail settings and 1024-by-768 resolution, but only scored 14 frames per second in Crysis and 16fps in Lost Planet 2.

Toshiba's claimed battery life of up to 8 hours for the Z835-P330 was pretty accurate. In MobileMark 2007, its 47W battery lasted 7 hours 35 minutes . That's a full hour longer than the 6:32 offered by the Asus UX31 (with a 50Wh battery), and an additional 2 hours longer than either the MacBook Air (5:46 with a 50Wh batter) or Acer S3 (5:20 with a 36Wh batter). Unlike other manufacturers, Toshiba hasn't made any claims regarding standby time.

The Toshiba Portege Z835-P330 may not be the best ultrabook on the market, but it does stand out due to its light weight, exceptional feature set, and category-leading battery life. The Editors' Choice Asus Zenbook UX31 still reigns supreme among ultrabooks because of its solid construction, stellar audio, and better performance, but it's $300 more. If you favor portability over performance, the Z835-P330 is a solid choice.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Toshiba Portege Z835-P330 with several other laptops side by side.

More laptop reviews:
??? Toshiba Portege Z835-P330
??? Dell Latitude E6420-ATG
??? Acer Aspire One AO722-0828
??? Acer Aspire AS5750-6667
??? Acer Aspire TimelineX AS4830T-6841
?? more

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Gaddafi's son captured, scared and without a fight (Reuters)

ZINTAN, Libya (Reuters) ? Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam has been captured in the Libyan desert by fighters who vow to hold him in the mountain town of Zintan until there is a government to hand him over to.

Crowds across the country fired guns and hooted car horns to celebrate the seizure of the British-educated 39-year-old, who a year ago appeared a possible successor to rule the oil-producing desert state.

Hundreds of people crowded round the plane carrying him after it landed in Zintan, trapping him inside and raising fears he might suffer a similar fate to his father, who was beaten and shot after his capture a month ago Sunday.

Saif al-Islam was later taken away uninjured and Prime Minister-designate Abdurrahim El-Keib promised that Gaddafi's son would face a fair trial.

"We assure Libyans and the world that Saif al-Islam will receive a fair trial ... under fair legal processes which our own people had been deprived of for the last 40 years," Keib told a press conference in Zintan.

Saif al-Islam, who had vowed to die fighting but was taken without a struggle, was arrested overnight, officials said.

"At the beginning he was very scared. He thought we would kill him," Ahmed Ammar, one of his captors, told Reuters.

Saif al-Islam told a Reuters reporter on his plane he had wounded his hand during a NATO air strike a month ago. Asked if he was feeling all right, Gaddafi said simply: "Yes."

The Zintan fighters, who make up one of Libya's most powerful militia factions that hold effective power in a country still without a government, said they planned to keep him in Zintan until they could hand him over to the authorities.

Keib is scheduled to form a government by Tuesday, and the fate of Saif al-Islam will be an early test of its authority.

The incoming premier said Gaddafi's son remained in the hands of "the revolutionaries in Zintan" and heaped praise on their fighters, acknowledging the authority the tribal militia continued to hold over its territory.

"They (the Zintan fighters) will keep him in peace, take care of him. He will be treated as any human being with respect. He will get his day in court," El-Keib said. He said the detention was the "crowning" of the uprising that overthrew Muammar Gaddafi.

Libyans want to try Saif al-Islam at home and believe he knows the location of billions of dollars of public money amassed by the Gaddafi family. His captors said they found only a few thousand dollars and a cache of rifles in seized vehicles.

The European Union urged Libyan authorities to ensure Saif al-Islam was brought to justice in cooperation with the International Criminal Court, which accuses him of crimes against humanity.

Ammar told Reuters that his unit of 15 men in three vehicles, acting on a tip-off about a possible high-profile fugitive, had intercepted two cars carrying Gaddafi and four others in the desert about 70 km (40 miles) from the small oil town of Obari at about 1:30 a.m. (2330 GMT on Friday).

"SERVANT OF PEACE"

After the fighters fired in the air and ground to halt the cars, they asked the identity of the passengers. The man in charge replied that he was "Abdelsalam" - a name that means 'servant of peace'. But the fighters quickly recognized Saif al-Islam and seized him without a fight.

The fighters said they put him at ease and he accepted he would be taken to Zintan, a town in the western mountains south of Tripoli that was a stronghold of anti-Gaddafi rebels.

Saif al-Islam appeared relatively at ease and was not handcuffed as he sat on a bench at the rear of the plane.

Wearing traditional robes with a scarf pulled over his face, Saif al-Islam had a heavy black beard and wore his rimless spectacles.

His thumb, index and another finger were heavily bandaged from the wounds sustained in the NATO strike.

Muammar Gaddafi's beating, abuse and ultimate death in the custody of former rebel fighters was an embarrassment to the previous transitional government. Officials in Tripoli said they were determined to handle his son's case with more order.

"The capture presents a challenge to the NTC. If they want to try Saif then what can they do to make Zintan hand him over?" said Henry Smith, an analyst with the Control Risks group, referring to the National Transitional Council which won international recognition as Libya's new interim government.

"They may leave his fate to Zintanis but then where does that leave Libya's embryonic judicial system? This is an acid test of the NTC's authority."

Memories are still fresh of the days Gaddafi's father's corpse spent rotting and on public view in the city of Misrata, another rebel stronghold, as its militia leaders trumpeted their capture of the fallen leader as part of their campaign to extract power and patronage from the new interim authority.

A fighter from an anti-Gaddafi unit, the Khaled bin al-Waleed Brigade, which said it seized Saif al-Islam in the wilderness near the oil town of Obari, told Free Libya television: "We got a tip he had been staying there for the last month.

"They couldn't get away because we had a good plan," Wisam Dughaly added, saying Saif al-Islam had been using a 4x4 vehicle: "He was not hurt and will be taken safely for trial so Libyans will be able to prosecute him and get back their money.

"We will take him to Zintan for safekeeping to keep him alive until a government is formed and then we will hand him over as soon as possible," Dughaly said.

He added that Saif al-Islam, once seen as a reformer who engineered his father's rapprochement with the West, appeared to have been hiding out in the desert since fleeing the tribal bastion of Bani Walid, near Tripoli, in October.

"I'm really surprised that Saif al-Islam has not met the same fate as his father and his brother," Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, told BBC TV.

"The best thing that the new leadership can do is to hand Saif al-Islam to the International Criminal Court because I don't believe it really has the resources and the means to try Saif al-Islam and give him a fair trial."

"ALMOST ZERO"

Asked of the chances of that, he said "Almost zero." He said he expected him to get the death penalty and be executed in Libya. "This is unfortunate for the new Libya," he said.

The ICC only acts if a country is unable or unwilling to investigate or prosecute a suspect, for instance when its legal system has collapsed.

Justice Minister Alagy said he was in touch with the ICC over how to deal with Gaddafi.

"We Libyans do not oppose the presence of international monitors to monitor the trial procedures that will take place for the symbols of the former regime," he told Al Jazeera.

Other Libyan officials have said a trial in Libya should first address killings, repression and theft of public funds over the four decades of the elder Gaddafi's personal rule.

There was no word of the other official wanted by the ICC, former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.

The ICC said Saturday it had received confirmation of the arrest of Saif al-Islam from Libya's Ministry of Justice.

"We trust that the Libyan authorities and the International Criminal Court will ensure that justice runs its course, so that the new Libya can be built on the rule of law and respect for human rights," NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said.

In June, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam and al-Senussi on charges of crimes against humanity after the U.N. Security Council referred the Libyan crisis to the court in February.

The ICC said last month that Saif al-Islam was in contact via intermediaries about possibly surrendering, but that it also had information that mercenaries were trying to take him to a friendly African nation where he could evade arrest.

France and Britain, which both pushed for a military intervention in Libya in March, welcomed the news of the detention.

"It is a great achievement for the Libyan people and must now become a victory for international justice too," said British Prime Minister David Cameron.

(Additional reporting by Ismail Zeitouny and Mahmoud al-Farjani in Zintan, Ali Shuaib, Alastair Macdonald, Omar Younis, Hisham El-Dani in Tripoli, Francois Murphy in Benghazi, Erika Solomon in Beirut, Peter Apps and Michael Holden in London, Nicholas Vinocur in Paris and Gilbert Kreijger in Amsterdam; Writing by Alastair Macdonald and Peter Millership; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111119/wl_nm/us_libya

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Store Frozen Corn and Peas in Plastic Water Bottles [Kitchen Hacks]

Store Frozen Corn and Peas in Plastic Water BottlesI routinely use small portions of frozen corn, peas, and green onions in dishes like fried rice, soups, and casseroles. Bento weblog Lunch in a box recommends using a water bottle to store frozen small vegetables to avoid freezer burn and make it easy to dispense the amount you need.

You can pour bagged frozen vegetables into a water bottle using a funnel. If you have fresh veggies, you should spread them out on a baking sheet and flash freeze them before storing in the bottle.

Speed tip: Frozen corn in plastic drink bottles | Lunch in a Box

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/ZwPOH7xMJUg/store-frozen-corn-and-peas-in-plastic-water-bottles

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In which reference frame could I use these neutrinos to change the results of the 2000 election? (Unqualified Offerings)

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Sunday, November 20, 2011

India: Should New Delhi Intervene in Troubled Manipur? (Time.com)

India's northeastern state of Manipur has been under siege for more than 100 days, as rival tribes, the Kukis and the Nagas, vie for power. The isolated, landlocked state depends on two main highways for essential goods. On Aug. 1, 2011, the Kukis blockaded both routes, demanding the creation of a Kuki-dominated district. After 92 days, the government agreed, only to have the Nagas launch their own blockade against the settlement.

Three months later, the state is at risk of an acute humanitarian crisis, with fuel stocks and medical supplies running short. Indian television channel NDTV reported recently that the state's largest government hospital was running out of medicines and oxygen and doctors unable to carry out surgeries. Manipuris have been paying 3 to 5 times more for petrol and cooking gas. As the situation worsens, many Indians are calling on the federal government to get involved. "There is an immediate need for federal intervention," says Pradip Phanjoubam, editor-proprietor of Imphal Free Press and a resident of Manipur. "They are national highways, and hence the union government does have the right to intervene and open up the highways and ask the agitators to agitate somewhere else." (See how an 11-year hunger strike was virtually ignored.)

That might be tough. There are as many as 23 separatist groups waging a decades-old insurgency in Manipur. The rivalry between the majority Meiteis, who live in the valley, and the martial tribes of Nagas and Kukis who live in the mountains makes governing difficult. On Nov. 8, the 100th day of the blockage, Manipur's Chief Minister Ibobi Singh said the government's patience was running out and promised "stern action." A week later, the blockade persists and calls are mounting for direct intervention from New Delhi.

The federal government, though, seems wary of wading into a distant conflict between old rivals. "The problem lies as much in [the state capital] as in Delhi, which is totally ignorant of the strong emotions which these ethnic loyalties have," Ved Marwah, a former governor of Manipur told TIME. "There is no democracy" in Manipur, he said "but rather the trappings of democracy and a combination of tribal society, various insurgent groups and total corruption." (See photos of India's turning points.)

For these reasons, some observers have called for the state to be placed under President's rule. Others have argued against it for Manipur, which has seen political instability since the 1970s and has been under the President's rule seven times already. The last time President's rule was imposed in Manipur was in 2001 on the recommendations of Marwah, who was the then governor of Manipur. He doesn't think it is the solution anymore. "As long as Manipur remains polarized on ethnic lines, any long-standing solution is impossible."

One of the loudest voices in favor of direct federal rule in Manipur is the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). "There is a failed government in Manipur which is not doing anything to ameliorate the sufferings of the people there," BJP party member and former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha told reporters in New Delhi last Friday. He demanded that the state government be dismissed immediately and President's rule imposed. The federal government, however, has shown little interest in this approach, preferring to offer money instead. When Home Minister P. Chidambaram visited Manipur on Nov. 2, he said keeping peace in the state would ensure "no shortage of fund[s] from the central government." While New Delhi mulls its options, Manipur is left waiting, hoping for change somewhere down the road.

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