Rachael Ray Stoneware Serving and Mixing Bowl Set, 1-Quart and ...

Rachael Ray Stoneware Serving and Mixing Bowl Set, 1-Quart and 2-Quart, PurpleReviewed by on Oct 14 Lay out traditional party favorites in a new and contemporary way with these colorful and uniquely designed mixing bowls. The set includes t Lay out traditional party favorites in a new and contemporary way with these colorful and uniquely designed mixing bowls. The set includes the perfect sizes for whipping, stirring or mixing together your favorite ingredients. Mix and match these pieces with other Rachael Ray? oven-to-table stoneware bakers for a complete and coordinated look. Posted by 220.55

Rachael Ray Stoneware Serving and Mixing Bowl Set, 1-Quart and 2-Quart, Purple

  • Includes 1 quart mixing bowl and 2 quart mixing bowl
  • This stoneware is dishwasher, microwave, freezer safe and oven safe to 500 degrees fahrenheit for ultimate versatility and convenience.
  • The contemporary and playful shapes in vibrant and fun colors go directly from oven to table.
  • The extra wide handle holes allow you to get a good grip from any angle.

Lay out traditional party favorites in a new and contemporary way with these colorful and uniquely designed mixing bowls. The set includes the perfect sizes for whipping, stirring or mixing together your favorite ingredients. Mix and match these pieces with other Rachael Ray? oven-to-table stoneware bakers for a complete and coordinated look.

Source: http://hobrosolutions.com/rachael-ray-stoneware-serving-and-mixing-bowl-set-1-quart-and-2-quart-purple/

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What The Swedish Pirate Party Wants With Patents, Trademarks, And

14

Infopolicy ? Christian Engstr?m

Infopolicy ? Christian Engstr?m

This afternoon, I?ll make a presentation to a group of patent lawyers in Stockholm, with the title ?What does the Pirate Party want with Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright??. Here?s a rough summary of what I?m about to tell them, including a few links that will probably get mentioned.

Patents should be abolished as soon as possible. An increasing amount of research, predominantly in the United States, shows us that the patent system as a whole has a negative effect on society. It can be positive for specific actors (mostly pharma companies and patent trolls), but for society as a whole, the patent system is damaging to innovation, to competition, and to economic growth.

The study The Case Against Patents (25 pages) by Michele Boldrin and David Levine at Washington University in St Louis is a good read on our view of the patent system (summary here).

When it comes to pharmaceutical patents, we agree that it?s not feasible to abolish the patent system and hope that the market makes sure enough research just happens anyway. Therefore, we?d like to replace pharmaceutical patents with the system known internationally as delinkage. It means that pharmaceutical research is financed directly from the public coffers, with research results made freely available for anyone to use in any way, spurring a free competition between manufacturers of generic (non-patent-encumbered) drugs. This system would save at least half of the taxpayers? bill for pharmaceuticals, while at the same time channeling more money to research. As a positive side-effect, besides the savings, it would also save hundreds of thousands ? or millions ? of lives in the third world.

When it comes to patents in all other areas, we?re willing to listen to anybody and everybody who believes they can show that the patent system provides any kind of net positive effect to society in additional areas, but so far, nobody has been able to show such a net positive (with the exception of pharma). In every such case, the burden of proof is on those who argue for an introduction or continuation of these governmentally-sanctioned monopolies, and not on us who argue for their abolition.

Trademarks are basically good, as they primarily serve as consumer protection. If it says ?Coca-Cola? on the can, I know that The Coca-Cola Company guarantees its quality. If I am dissatisfied with the product, I know where I can go to complain, but if I like it, I also know where I can go to get more. This also gives the trademark system a long-term effect of rewarding good and honest companies. While this is a positive effect, the protection of consumers is the foundation and the most important.

In some countries, like France and Italy, the trademark rights have grown to also include punishments for consumers who buy counterfeit goods (either because they want to, or because they were fooled to). This is a bad development that we?re firmly against. The legitimacy of the trademark system comes from protecting consumers. Should it be distorted into legislation that punishes consumers, like patents and copyrights do, it would lose its legitimacy.

Compared to patents and copyrights, it seems that the trademark business has kept their house cleaner against degenerate subversion, and the trademark practices haven?t fallen for the same unhealthy expansion as the patent and copyright laws have. There have been a few upsetting cases of abuse or attempted abuse, like when Louis Vuitton tried to censor a Danish artist ?to protect its brand? (it?s likely they haven?t done anything more damaging to the brand in modern years), or when a guitar maker who got the phrase ?Born to Rock? registered as a trademark for guitars starts suing T-shirt vendors to ban them from printing the phrase at all, despite clearly not being used as a trademark in the latter case.

This type of abuse must be fought down, primarily by the industry itself, secondarily by the courts, and tertiarily by legislators if nothing else works. But the foundation of trademark law remains sound: forcing and rewarding honesty towards consumers.

Copyright must be reformed. We?d like to keep the copyright monopoly for commercial use (but with shorter, more sensible terms of protection). The big problem is that copyright has expanded in the past 20 years, going from being something that only corporations needed to care about, into something that criminalizes the entire young generation (and more and more people who aren?t even particularly young anymore).

The Swedish Pirate Party wants to;

  • Legalize file-sharing and other non-commercial sharing of culture between private individuals, both up- and downloading. As a direct consequence, search engines like The Pirate Bay will also be legal, as nobody can be charged with ?aiding and abetting? an activity that is fully legal in itself (the file-sharing between private individuals).
  • At most 20 years of protection from the publication of a work. Among other things, this also solves the problem with orphan works and the ?black hole of the 20th century?.
  • Registration after five years. Rightsholders who want to keep using their commercial monopoly after the first five years must register their works, so that commercial users who want to pay for use know where they can get a license to do so. This also solves the problem with orphan works.
  • Sensible regulation for quotations, parodies, and remixes even when it comes to audio, video and more (today, you can only quote text ? Ed.), and a harmonization within the EU of exceptions to copyright (?exceptions and limitations?).
  • A ban on DRM (digital restriction mechanisms), or at a bare minimum, making it explicitly legal to break digital restriction mechanisms if needed for any use that is itself legal.

If we reform copyright law according to this proposal, it would solve 99% of the serious problems that today?s copyright causes, while at the same time, 99% of the business models that work today in the entertainment and cultural sectors would keep doing so if the companies would adapt ever so slightly to a new world.

It?s not just the Swedish Pirate Party that thinks copyright law should be reformed like this. Since one year back, it?s also the official position of the entire Green group in the European Parliament.

There?s more on this proposal for copyright reform in the book The Case For Copyright Reform, written by me and Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the Pirate Party. The book is available for a free download as an e-book, or available at-cost as a print-on-demand book, at copyrightreform.eu.

This is a translation of an article originally in Swedish at MEP Engstr?m?s blog.

You've read the whole article. Why not subscribe to the RSS flow using your favorite reader, or even have articles delivered by mail?

About The Author: Christian Engstr?m

Christian Engstr?m is a Member of European Parliament (MEP) for the Swedish Pirate Party. He has previously been an activist in FFII in the fight against software patents, and has a background as an entrepreneur and a coder.

Source: http://falkvinge.net/2012/10/13/what-the-swedish-pirate-party-wants-with-patents-trademarks-and-copyright/

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Paris prosecutor opens preliminary probe into LVMH

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/paris-prosecutor-opens-preliminary-probe-lvmh-192357324--finance.html

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NFL 2012

Beano Cook

Longtime ESPN commentator Beano Cook had a little-known impact on the way we watch the NFL.

Rick LaBranche, ESPN Images

Back in the dark ages, before Sunday Ticket and the Red Zone Channel, NFL fans were at the mercy of the television networks. Your Sunday afternoon entertainment depended on whatever game CBS or NBC (and later Fox) decided to broadcast to your local affiliate. All you could do was hope that the folks running those networks made smart decisions when it came to beaming games to the football-worshipping country.

For years, nobody paid much attention to how these programming decisions were made. That changed in 1981, a seminal year in the history of sports broadcasting. That year, Terry O'Neil, a protege of the legendary Roone Arledge, left ABC to lead CBS' languishing sports division. O'Neil revamped the network's crusty coverage, moving the main cameras from the 50-yard line to the 35 on either side, introducing the "Telestrator" to network productions (it was then called the "CBS Chalkboard"), and promoting John Madden to the role of No. 1 analyst.

O'Neil also listened when a fellow ABC refugee and football fanatic named Beano Cook, a publicist at the network, burst into his office and declared that the fellows making the NFL's broadcast map were buffoons. Cook, who died Wednesday at age 81, is well known for his work as a college football broadcaster. But in this meeting with O'Neil, Cook did something that would have a dramatic impact on the pro game.

O'Neil recounts the moment in his memoir,?The Game Behind the Game:

"O'Neil, do you have any idea how many millions of dollars these guys have wasted over the years?" Beano said.

"The NFL ratings, O'Neil. Do you have any idea how much advertising money they've let get away? Forget that. Do you think the stockholders know? Do you think they know about the fucking idiots who've been doing their NFL maps?"

For years, the decisions on which games to beam to which affiliates had been made by network vice presidents from the entertainment and affiliate relations divisions. These weren't men who grasped the nuances of regional rooting interests, or the idea that fans often wanted to watch teams they hated as much as ones they loved. Generally, these fellows just glanced at the standings and dropped in the games accordingly.

Cook changed that. He crashed a map-making meeting in 1980, explaining to the execs that Packers fans also cared about watching the hated Bears. Not the first-place Vikings, not the Giants, not even the Cowboys. The locals wanted to watch the Bears lose almost as much as they wanted to see the Pack win?and vice versa throughout Illinois.

A simple notion today, perhaps, but in those days Beano's advice was ignored. As he stood at the vice president's desk, tracing the shores of Lake Michigan with his fingertip, he was told?in O'Neil's words?to "mind his own business and get the hell out" of the man's office.

Now O'Neil seized control of the process. Working with Cook, the men broke the country into 23 regions. Some were NFC-controlled terrain, like Detroit and Washington, some AFC strongholds, like the Ohio-Pennsylvania corridor. And there were several "swing" regions, with no natural rooting interest.

Cook and O'Neil began showing Redskins games throughout the South, where they were still considered the neighborhood team despite the presence of the Atlanta Falcons, who began play in 1966. They also gave more airtime to the newly high-flying San Francisco 49ers, boosted in 1981 by Bill Walsh and Joe Montana.

When they didn't know what game to show a neutral region, Cook and O'Neil called local sportswriters, television personalities, and sometimes random fans to get a sense of what the local populace was thinking. Often, there was a simple solution. "The two most important people to CBS are J.R. Ewing and Tom Landry," Cook said in 1981. "We have a rule we go by when planning NFL telecasts. Give people the best game possible, and when in doubt, give them the Cowboys." America's Team was always a good option, but until that point fans in Washington, D.C., who then as now rooted against the Cowboys, were unlikely to get Dallas as a doubleheader game or a replacement telecast if the Skins were off the air.

CBS' NFL ratings, buoyed by exciting teams in D.C., San Francisco, New York, and Dallas, exploded in 1981. The regular-season telecasts averaged a then unheard-of 17.5 rating, and the network's NFL profits increased from $28.4 million to $48.7 million, according to O'Neil.

More than anything else, the league's ever-increasing windfalls have accompanied the game's rise as a fantastic television product. And for that, the NFL and the networks should thank Beano Cook. His time in the pro game was short?Cook left CBS the next year when it declined to give him an on-air gig. Soon after, he became everyone's favorite crusty, Notre Dame-loving uncle at ESPN. But in all the decades he yakked about the college game, he'd never have as big an effect as he did on the NFL in 1981.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=2e3b5ea33628fa3e1103767eaadcd13f

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Armstrong foundation fighting for future

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) ? Lance Armstrong can never ride again in the world's top cycling races. His attempt to win elite triathlons in middle age is over. He even got booted from the Chicago Marathon.

His cancer-fighting foundation, however, plans to plunge ahead, despite the sanctions laid on Armstrong by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and its blistering report that portrays the cyclist as cheating his way through seven Tour de France victories. The agency has now ordered those wins erased.

To the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a $500-million charity built on the "Livestrong" brand, it's not about the bike. Chief executive and president Doug Ulman said the goal is to "keep fighting for the mission" of helping cancer victims.

He and the charity's other leaders are banking on the idea that the good done by Armstrong the cancer fighter will overcome any damage to the organization done by the fall of Armstrong the athlete.

"His leadership role doesn't change. He's the founder. He's our biggest advocate and always will be," Ulman said. "People with cancer feel ownership of the brand. It was created for them."

Although Armstrong canceled a public appearance in Chicago on Friday, Ulman said he will be a big part of several days' worth of events in Austin next week to celebrate the foundation's 15th anniversary, including a fundraising gala expected to raise $2 million.

Crisis management experts, however, think that might be the wrong approach.

Gene Grabowski, executive vice president of Levick, a Washington, D.C.-based crisis and issues management firm, suggested Armstrong step away from his public role for a while. The charity must be allowed to keep the focus on the work and should not engage in the public debate over whether Armstrong doped, he said.

"We have an iconic leader of an organization shown to allegedly have feet of clay," Grabowski said. "If the organization is that important to Lance, he might consider handing the reins to another high-profile person."

Armstrong denies doping and has said he'll no longer comment on the accusations.

He founded the charity in 1997 after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain. The charity grew rapidly after he won the first of seven consecutive Tour de France titles in 1999. And in 2004, the foundation introduced the yellow "Livestrong" bracelets, creating a global symbol for cancer awareness and survivorship.

Armstrong has given every indication he plans to stay visible.

About 24 hours after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's report, Armstrong tweeted that he was visiting headquarters and stayed about 30 minutes. He chatted with staff and picked a place to hang a new painting he recently bought for his personal art collection.

The foundation reported a spike in contributions in late August in the days immediately after Armstrong announced he would no longer fight doping charges and officials moved to erase his Tour victories. Ulman said the foundation felt a bigger pushback from donors in 2009 when it endorsed President Obama's federal health care plan.

Daniel Borochoff, founder and president of Chicago-based CharityWatch, which monitors the financial records of nonprofit groups, said it may take some time for donors to digest the allegations against Armstrong.

"Individuals that admire and support an individual who is later found out to be severely tarnished, don't want to admit it, don't want to admit that they've been duped," Borochoff said. "People, though, do need to trust a charity to be able to support it."

For now, the foundation can count on major donors like Jeff Mulder, a Michigan businessman who had previously purchased two tables at next Friday's anniversary gala for $150,000.

Mulder said he "doesn't care" about the doping charges and likely won't read the details in the USADA report.

"I don't know Lance. I've shaken his hand a few times. I feel bad for him," Mulder said. "But I don't do stuff for Livestrong because of Lance. He got it started, but I raise money because people have cancer."

Corporate sponsor Nike Inc. said Wednesday it is sticking by Armstrong and the foundation.

"Lance has stated his innocence and has been unwavering on this position. Nike plans to continue to support Lance and the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a foundation that Lance created to serve cancer survivors," the company said.

Corporate sponsors rarely pull out when the spotlight on controversy is white hot, Borochoff said. When the issue calms down, companies start to re-evaluate their commitment.

"Usually in a big crisis, companies hold back. They know from a marketing, (public relations) point, it would not look good," Borochoff said.

George Merlis, founder of Experience Media Consulting Group in Los Angeles, said Armstrong's defiance is risky for his charity.

"Every stone wall eventually crumbles," Merlis said. "There are second acts in American life. He needs to do a mea culpa and ask that the charity not be hurt."

___

Associated Press reporter Teresa Crawford in Chicago contributed.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/armstrong-foundation-fighting-future-094022447--spt.html

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Silent Circle to offer secure, private iPhone operation | TUAW - The ...

Silent Circle to offer secure, private iPhone operation

Two former Navy SEALs have teamed up with cryptographers including PGP developer Phil Zimmermann to develop an iPhone app to provide military-level encryption for unlimited VoIP phone calls, texts, email and video for US$20 per month. Silent Circle debuts on the App Store next week, filled with a bag of tricks that make it virtually impossible for identity thieves -- or governments -- to tap into your conversations.

In a post about the app on Buzzfeed, blogger Russell Brandom notes that warrantless domestic wiretapping is a "matter of record by now," and that last year "1.3 million cell records were pulled by law enforcement, covering anything from stored text messages to location-tracking data."

Silent Circle uses a "portable code room" model that performs all encryption on the iPhone. The keys to unscramble the data are deleted at the completion of each call, so the call can't be decoded after the fact. Silent Circle also stores use logs with minimal user data in Canada and Switzerland, where privacy laws make it difficult for even that info -- which does not include any of the encrypted conversations -- to be released to law enforcement officials.

A feature called Burn Notice allows users to send self-destructing texts and photos to friends. Send a potentially embarrassing image or text to a pal during a drunken party, and it's erased in five minutes. Politicians and celebrities are sure to find this feature to be very helpful.

While such powerful encryption technology could be used by drug cartels or terrorists, Silent Circle is primarily targeted to individuals or companies concerned about identity or intellectual property theft.

At present, the US law that allows wiretapping -- the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act -- does not cover VoIP communications. Law enforcement agencies have been pushing for an update to the law, and any change could eventually outlaw Silent Circle. For the time being, the app will provide highly secure communications to anyone with the need.


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Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/10/12/silent-circle-to-offer-secure-private-iphone-operation/

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German city battles elusive new-look neo-Nazis

DORTMUND, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's neo-Nazis are hanging up their bomber jackets, unlacing their black leather boots and even grabbing a bite to eat at their local Turkish kebab shop.

Eschewing their predecessors' fierce aversion to anything "un-German", they blend into the local community and easily escape detection. But police and experts say this new generation of young fascists is potentially far more dangerous and reckless than their older peers.

"Today a neo-Nazi can eat Turkish kebabs and still go out and beat up immigrants," said journalist Johannes Radke, who has reported on the German far-right for more than a decade.

"They say, 'We'll let everyone do whatever they want as long as they're a Nazi at heart.'"

Headquartered in the down-at-heel western industrial city of Dortmund, a new group known as the Autonomous Nationalists (AN) is at the forefront of this transformation.

They share the hard-core xenophobia of older cadres in the far-right, but their appearance and tactics are those of a dynamic, Internet-savvy youth movement.

They wear stylish running shoes and expensive brand name windbreakers and communicate with each other via Twitter. The use of English slogans at protests, for decades taboo in far-right circles, is widespread.

"They see themselves as the avant-garde of the Nazi scene," Radke said. "They're much more professional than some drunk, dim-witted skinhead - and more dangerous."

Authorities and residents across Germany have become more sensitive to the threat of far-right militants since revelations last year that a neo-Nazi cell waged a seven-year racist killing spree throughout the country, murdering nine people, mostly ethnic Turks, one of them in Dortmund.

The cell's existence only came to light by chance after two members committed suicide following a botched bank robbery. The murders forced an overhaul of Germany's intelligence services.

HITLER BANNERS

Nearly seven decades after the fall of Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime, far-right groups remain marginalized in Germany, with most of their support tending to come from the impoverished former communist east.

But the so-called 'Zwickau cell' shows that the danger is not confined to any one area of the country. Left unchecked, experts say, neo-Nazis could again stage deadly attacks.

This year, keen to show they take the threat seriously, federal authorities have been weighing a possible ban on the only far-right party to hold seats in any German legislature.

The National Democratic Party (NPD), which sits in two state assemblies, is racist and anti-Semitic, intelligence services say. The party is careful not to break German laws forbidding Nazi symbols, denial of the Holocaust and public expressions of support for Hitler.

The Autonomous Nationalists have no such qualms. They have no appetite for political maneuvering and readily unfurl banners quoting Hitler at their protest rallies.

"Many Nazis moved here because they thought this was a broken city," Dortmund mayor Ullrich Sierau told Reuters, adding that extremists exploited the fact the city of half a million has one of the highest unemployment rates in the region.

Dortmund's new police chief Norbert Wesseler said there were 131 crimes tied to far-right militants including violent assaults in the city in the first half of the year.

"The number of offences has risen considerably over earlier years," he added, without giving comparative figures.

A former neo-Nazi from eastern Germany, who has since left the scene and spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said new recruits discover the Autonomous Nationalists are a restless bunch, always plotting their next move.

"When you're in that scene, it's like you're living in a parallel universe to normal society," said the 25-year-old, who never joined the AN but often stayed at its flats.

The neo-Nazis methodically prepare their attacks against anyone who opposes their radical views, he said.

Much of the work they do mirrors that of private investigators: researching targets, staking out locations and taking pictures of opponents to match faces to names.

Many do not work, living off welfare from a democratic state they vehemently oppose as well as donations from sympathetic outsiders.

"They are also able to secure weapons through contacts in other countries, such as Bulgaria or Switzerland," he said. "If you need something, it's possible for them to get it across the border."

PUSH-BACK

Alerted to the threat, Dortmund is among the cities that is taking measures.

Police raided AN clubhouses and apartments in Dortmund and two other cities in August, seizing weapons and propaganda material.

The authorities also outlawed the AN's local branch there although no arrests were made.

"We've all gotten better at recognizing the relationship between criminal offences and far-right extremist ideologies and realizing that there is an organization behind the scenes that is calling the shots," Wesseler said.

Wesseler said he had also increased police patrols in the area where the group rents its apartments.

There are signs the campaign may be working.

On September 1, a date neo-Nazis mark to commemorate Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, the only visible banners were those urging fascists to leave town.

Lamp posts were newly painted with a special anti-adhesive to deter far-right vandals from defacing them.

A message has been displayed on top of Dortmund's landmark U-Tower - a 1920s-era skyscraper crowned with an illuminated letter "U" and giant TV screens.

"I, the tower, have always thought Nazis were uncool," it read.

Hajo Funke, a professor of political science and far-right expert at Berlin's Free University, cautioned against complacency, however.

"If the ban isn't enforced properly then nothing will happen," Funke said. "Then they'll be just as dangerous as before."

(Editing by Gareth Jones and Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/german-city-battles-elusive-look-neo-nazis-085338883.html

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New book digs into Netflix's origins, evolution

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ? Netflix is probably hoping a new book about its early history never gets made into a movie.

The book, "Netflixed: The Epic Battle for America's Eyeballs," tries to debunk a widely told tale about the company's origins and paints a polarizing portrait of its star CEO Reed Hastings.

Set to go on sale Thursday, the book arrives at a pivotal time for Netflix Inc. The video subscription service is still recovering from a customer backlash triggered by Hastings' hasty decision to raise U.S. prices by as much as 60 percent last year. Investors remain leery of Netflix as its expenses for Internet video rights steadily climb. That's the main reason Netflix's stock remains about 75 percent below its peak of nearly $305 reached right around the time Hastings announced the price increases 15 months ago.

The book, written by journalist Gina Keating and published by the Penguin Group, draws its insights from interviews with Netflix's lesser known co-founder, Marc Randolph, and other former employees. It also depends on information from former executives at Blockbuster Entertainment, the once-dominant video rental store chain driven into bankruptcy by the rise of Netflix and Redbox's DVD-rental kiosks.

Hastings declined to be interviewed for the book.

Keating nevertheless illuminates the competitive gauntlet that Netflix had to navigate to get where it is today. The book also dishes up juicy morsels about various negotiations that could have reshaped Netflix.

According to the book, Hastings and Randolph flew to Seattle sometime in 1998 to meet with Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos. The topic of discussion: a possible partnership. At one point, Hastings proposed that Amazon buy Netflix, only to be disappointed when Bezos offered a mere $12 million.

Netflix spokesman Jonathan Friedland called the Amazon anecdote "totally untrue."

The book asserts the Amazon talks weren't the only time that Hastings flirted with a possible sale before the company went public a decade ago.

In the spring of 2000, Hastings and other Netflix executives flew to Blockbuster's Dallas headquarters where they tried to sell Netflix for $50 million, only to be told the price was way too high, according to the book. That was one of many miscalculations Blockbuster made in its rivalry with Netflix. Despite its recent downfall on Wall Street, Netflix still boasts a market value of $4 billion.

Blockbuster eventually built its own online DVD-rental service and began to hurt Netflix so badly that Hastings made an informal bid to buy his rival's roughly 3 million Internet subscribers for about $600 million, according to the book.

"People interpret history in all kinds of different ways and a lot of the anecdotes in the book don't square with the way we remember them," Friedland said. "The gist of the story, that Marc and Reed created Netflix together, is correct."

Although the book sometimes casts Hastings in an unflattering light, Keating remains convinced he is the main reason that Netflix was able to transform home entertainment.

"I hope that people recognize he is a genius," Keating said in an interview with The Associated Press. "There is no question in my mind that there is nobody like this guy. Wall Street and naysayers are wrong to bet against this company, especially as long as he is in charge."

The book captures Hastings' vision, focus, charisma and chutzpah ? traits that helped him transform Netflix from a quirky service with fewer than 100,000 customers in the late 1990s into a cultural phenomenon with 30 million subscribers in the U.S. Canada, the United Kingdom and dozens of Latin American countries.

But readers also will be introduced to a cold-hearted side of Hastings that never surfaces in his public appearances, or the many interviews that he has done with reporters during his 14-year tenure as Netflix's CEO.

Viewed through Keating's lens, Hastings "seemed to lack an empathy gene." He is depicted as a brilliant mathematician who looks at almost everything as an equation to be solved. Once he's convinced he has figured out all the variables, Hastings never let compassion trump his logic, based on anecdotes in the book. In one scene, Hastings fires Netflix's first human resources manager in front of her coworkers' because he wanted to bring in a former colleague from his previous company, software maker Pure Atria.

Keating thinks Hastings' data-driven approach also makes it difficult for him to anticipate how Netflix subscribers will react to things like last year's price increases and the botched attempt to spin off the company's DVD-by-mail rental service into a separate company called Qwikster.

"He has one blind spot and that he just doesn't understand the consumer-facing aspects of the business," Keating said in the interview. "It's illogical the way consumers act and I think it's frustrating for him because he is trying to do the best thing for customers. But he just doesn't understand that you can't dictate to them. They have to be ready to go at their own pace."

From Keating's vantage point, Hastings used a $2 million investment he made in Netflix's early day to muscle his way into the company's management and persuade then-CEO Randolph that they should share the top job. Eventually, Randolph was relegated to other management positions with fewer responsibilities and lost his spot on the board of directors.

Randolph, who now dispenses advice to entrepreneurs launching startups, left Netflix as a rich man after the company's initial public offering of stock in 2002. He owned nearly 840,000 shares worth about $12.5 million at the time of Netflix's IPO.

The book makes the case that Randolph never got the credit he deserved for coming up with the idea for sending DVDs through the mail ? the concept that turned Netflix's red envelopes into a ubiquitous sight.

"Marc co-founded Netflix with me, was our first CEO, came up the name Netflix, and was instrumental in our success," Hastings said in a statement to the AP. Friedland said Hastings wasn't available to be interviewed for this story.

Randolph told the AP he remains on good terms with Hastings, even though they have different recollections of Netflix's early days.

"When we talk, it's like two friends reaching out and saying, 'We still cool, we still OK?'" Randolph said. "I still have tremendous pride... about what Reed and I accomplished."

Randolph's version of how Netflix began is much different than the story that Hastings used to tell media outlets, including the AP, about how the service started.

Hastings' spin went something like this: The idea for a video subscription service came to him after a Blockbuster store hit him with roughly $40 in late fees when he returned a VHS tape of the Tom Hanks movie, "Apollo 13". A few years later, the story would be amended so the late fees were charged by an unnamed independent video store.

"That's a load of crap," Randolph says in the book. "It never happened."

The truth, according to the book, is that Netflix was born out of conversations that Randolph and Hastings had while they were carpooling to their Silicon Valley jobs at Pure Atria from their homes in the beach town of Santa Cruz, Calif.

Randolph, who was a marketing manager at Pure Atria while Hastings was the boss, had always been fascinated by the moneymaking potential of direct mail and started wondering how it might be combined with DVDs, a still nascent technology in 1997.

One day, while they were at a cafe in downtown Santa Cruz, Randolph and Hastings decided to test whether a DVD could make it through the U.S. postal system's processing equipment without being damaged. They couldn't find a DVD, so they bought a compact disc from Logo's Book and Records in Santa Cruz and an envelope from a nearby gift shop. They then inserted the CD into the envelope and mailed it to Hastings' home.

When they met for their commute a day or two later, Hastings showed Randolph that the CD arrived in the mail undamaged.

Randolph then spent months getting Netflix launched while Hastings attended Stanford University's graduate school and worked for a technology lobbying group. It sometimes bothered Randolph that his early work seemed to be forgotten, but he says he's over it.

"The people who I really care about know about my role in starting Netflix," Randolph told the AP. "Do I wish it would have been more accurately portrayed (in the company's history)? Of course, but not to the point where I was prepared to make a stink about it."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/book-digs-netflixs-origins-evolution-144730201--finance.html

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West Nile outbreak closer to being second worst in U.S

DALLAS (Reuters) - The outbreak of West Nile disease in the United States moved a step closer on Wednesday to becoming the second worst on record with federal health authorities reporting 280 cases of the virus-caused illness over the past week.

There have now been 4,249 cases of West Nile recorded this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20 cases fewer than in 2006, the second-largest outbreak on record.

The number of deaths rose by five to 168 since last week, the CDC said.

The worst year on record for West Nile disease was 2003, when 9,862 cases were reported, the CDC said.

The pace of new cases of the disease - which is transmitted from infected birds to humans by mosquitoes -- has slowed since late summer, authorities said.

More than 70 percent of the cases have been reported in eight states: Texas, Mississippi, Michigan, South Dakota, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Illinois and California. Texas has been the hardest hit, recording close to 40 percent of the cases in the country, according to the CDC.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area has been the epicenter of this year's outbreak, with 33 deaths, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday that health officials in Tarrant County, home to Fort Worth, may have vastly underreported cases of the serious neuroinvasive form of West Nile.

The report said the number of cases detected through Tarrant County blood bank screenings - information that helps public officials determine the size of an outbreak - differs significantly from what officials there have reported.

But state health officials said it was unlikely cases were overlooked.

The severe neuroinvasive form of the disease almost always requires hospitalization and can lead to meningitis, encephalitis and death, according to the CDC.

"Neuroinvasive disease is not subtle," said Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas health department. "We're confident physicians knew about the outbreak and were on the lookout for disease."

Nationwide, half of cases reported to the CDC have been of the neuroinvasive form. The other half are West Nile Fever, a milder form which causes flu-like symptoms and is not deadly.

Outbreaks tend to be unpredictable and are typically triggered by a combination of hot weather and intermittent rainfall as well as ecological factors such as the size of the bird and mosquito populations.

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan, James B. Kelleher and Jim Loney)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/west-nile-outbreak-closer-being-second-worst-u-012649839.html

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What the....!!! - Niamah!!!

First off I want to say that I post this without malice to FLOM. Not at all. Seriously. But reading this report from The Malaysian Insider I, as a tax-paying Malaysian, cannot help but feel that her trip and her speech at the event was a waste of Malaysian tax-payers money. Read this and see how you feel...

(from The Malaysian Insider...)

Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, wife of the Malaysian prime minister, yesterday urged women to take a more active role in their institutions and organisations in order to strengthen business ethics.
She said women could play an important role in strengthening ethics in business because their nature of being mothers and nurturers required that they imbued trust in the relationship they built and developed.
?As mothers, we have a responsibility and opportunity to imbue the right values and inculcate morally sound behaviour in our children. These are values and behaviours which will make them ethical people.
?Further, our roles that include multi-tasking between the home and the workplace demands that we deliver promises to the people who depend and count on us,? she said in a keynote address titled ?Role of Women in Strengthening Business Ethics? at the Qatari Businesswomen Association?s programme at the Inside Investor Forum Asia 2012, here.
The two-day forum, organised by the international media group and consultancy Inside Investor, is a high-level business event which brings together heads of state, investors and top-level company executives from the Asean and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to identify investment opportunities in the two regions.
Rosmah said women should extend these qualities in ensuring that the companies they worked for delivered on their promises and upheld governance and ethics at all levels of the organisation at all times.
She said the rising participation of women in the global workforce also provided an opportunity for women to play a bigger role in strengthening business ethics.
?There are many reports that predict the 21st Century as the century for women. We see rising involvement of women in boardrooms and executive positions globally.?
?In March last year, Business Insider revealed that women hold 21 per cent of senior management positions globally. This study shows that women are in an advantageous position to strengthen ethics in business,? she said.
Rosmah said that in Malaysia, the government was also encouraging companies to increase the number of women on their governing boards to at least 30 per cent by 2015 and, currently, on-the-job training programmes ? most of it focused on strengthening ethics in business ? were being held to prepare these women for board positions.
Rosmah said business ethics was important to the company, the consumer as well as the employees and stakeholders, and for the healthy growth of an economy.
?Ultimately, ethics is about doing the right thing; not taking that which isn?t yours; not inflating expenses that you are not entitled to; not manipulating facts and figures with the intention to mislead; not compromising on quality of services and products to maximise profits; and not lying and misrepresenting the truth to look good,? she said.
Those who did not follow ethical rules might have short-term success, but would fail in the market in the long run, she added.
Rosmah said Qatari and Malaysian businesswomen associations could develop a common platform for debates and deliberations on business ethics for insights, learning and sharing experiences.
?We could organise joint programmes regularly that mutually serve both the Gulf and Asean. These could include educational and business programmes as well as exchange of talents that will strengthen business ethics in both regions.?
Meanwhile, in a separate event, Rosmah received the ?Honour for Charitable Commitment and Philanthropy? award in appreciation of her dedication and commitment to charity work.
The award was presented by the vice-chairwoman of the Qatari Businesswomen Association Aisha Al-Fardan.? ? Bernama

Niamah!!!

Source: http://www.niamah.com/2012/10/what-the.html

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