Norton Dam, Kan., hit 118 F. on Thursday, and?32 communities from Colorado to Indiana just posted their highest temperatures ever. Forecasters say back-to-back La Ni?as are partly to blame.
By Pete Spotts,?Staff writer / June 29, 2012
A four-year-old finishes his popsicle while he and his family help set up a fireworks stand in the parking lot of K-Mart, Tuesday, in Hutchinson, Kan., as the state is blanketed in temperatures in the 100s.
Sandra J. Milburn/The Hutchinson News/AP
Enlarge
Across the US, high-temperature records are falling like beads of sweat, thanks in part to back-to-back La Ni?as and a current jet-stream pattern that is steering storm systems coming off the Pacific well up into Canada.
These records appear to be falling into step with a longer-term trend in which record highs are being set more often than record lows for each decade since the 1970s ? a trend many climate researchers have attributed to global warming.
As June 2012 draws to a close, it feels more like mid-July or August to people in wide swaths of the country.
Between June 27 and June 28, 32 communities stretching from Colorado to Indiana posted the highest temperatures on record ever for their locations ? with a handful tying or topping records set only a few days before, according to data kept by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
Norton Dam, Kan., for instance, recorded an all-time record of 118 degrees F. on Thursday, two degrees above Death Valley's July average. The 118-degree reading shattered Norton Dam's previous record of 113 degrees F. ? set just three days before.
More than 350 sites across a broad swath of the continent's interior have posted daily record highs since June 27, with heat advisories on Friday covering all or parts of 23 states from Kansas east to the Carolinas and into the Northeast, and from Wisconsin south to Mississippi and Alabama.
At the same time, other parts of the country are reporting record lows for this time of year.
Anyone looking for relief might put the Northwest on their itinerary. Over the same two-day period, 57 locations, largely clustered in Washington state and northeastern Oregon, posted at least one daily high temperature that tied or beat the lowest for the date on which it was measured. Waterville, Wash., posted the biggest drop among the group ? a high of 51 degrees on Wednesday, nine degrees below the previous record-low high of 60 degrees on June 27, 1946.
And it's all coming out of a spring that was the warmest on record in the US, bringing a heat wave to the center of the country in March the likes of which the US hasn't seen since 1910. Indeed, Spring 2012 in the US was 2 degrees warmer than the previous record-holder, the spring of 1910.
One reason for the seemingly relentless high temperatures is the presence of a broad ridge of high pressure inching its way across the continent, forecasters say. With skies generally clear, sunlight has a clear path to travel on its way to baking what in many places is an already parched surface.
As of Tuesday, a broad swath of the US was experiencing either severe or extreme drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center, based at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.
The vast majority of the region stretching from southern Texas north into Nebraska and across to eastern California is experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions that in some cases have lasted for more than a year. Similar conditions cover a patch of the country from Arkansas northeastward through parts of Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, and Indiana. A similar patter is persisting in the Southeast from eastern Mississippi through Georgia and into South Carolina, with some areas there experiencing exceptional drought conditions.
Taking a page from the Alienware book of style, the Origin EON17-S ($3,499 list) has the look and feel of a high-end gaming laptop, and more importantly, it performs like one. Fueled by Intel's latest Extreme Edition Core i7-3920XM (Ivy Bridge) processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX675M GPU, this 17-inch gamer turned in impressive benchmark scores and gave us over 2.5 hours of battery life, which is quite good for a laptop in this class. You'll have to shell out some big bucks for this notebook, and while its graphics performance is good it can't match the frame rates put out by our reigning Editors' Choice, the Alienware M18x ($4,529 direct, 4 stars).
Design and Features
The EON17-S has a decidedly Alienware-esque look to it. The lid is done up in a matte black rubbery finish reminiscent of last year's Alienware M17x ($2,254 direct, 4.5 stars). Of course instead of an illuminated alien head, it sports the Origin logo, a bright red O with a dot in the middle. Origin offers this model with a matte red or glossy silver finish as well. At 8.3 pounds, the EON17-S weighs the same as the MSI GT70-0NC-011US ($1,999.99 direct, 4 stars), and like most 17-inch gaming laptops, is big and bulky. Factor in the two-plus-pound power brick, and you've got close to 11 pounds of laptop to lug along to your next LAN party.
Beneath the lid sits a beautiful 17.3-inch full HD display framed by glossy black bezels. The screen delivers bright, bold colors with good viewing angles but the reflective glossy coating is mirror-like, particularly when a black background is being displayed. I much prefer a matte coating like the one used on the MSI GT70-0NC-011US. A webcam is embedded in the upper bezel and the Origin badge is affixed to the lower bezel.
The spacious keyboard deck offers a full size traditional style keyboard with three zone backlighting and seven color options to choose from. The keyboard not only looks cool but is also a pleasure to type on. The touchpad is smooth and responsive, and there's a fingerprint reader sandwiched between the two textured mouse buttons. Above the keyboard are two Onkyo speakers which, with the help of a 3-watt subwoofer, deliver a powerful wall of sound. You can customize and optimize your audio output with Creative's THX TruStudio Pro software (included) which offers Surround, Smart Volume, and Crystalizer settings.
There are plenty of ports scattered around the outside of the chassis. Along the left edge are three USB 3.0 ports, a mini-FireWire port, a LAN port, and a 9-in-1 card reader. The right side has four audio jacks (headphone and 7.1 channel surround-out) and a USB 2.0 port. There's an optical drive bay here that you can have outfitted with any type of CD/DVD/BD drive or an additional storage drive; our review unit was configured with a 1TB hard drive and came with an external USB Blu-ray drive. DisplayPort, HDMI, and DVI video ports are positioned on the rear of the chassis along with the power jack.
In addition to the 1TB storage drive, our EON17-S came with two 120GB solid-state drives set to RAID 0. It also has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios and is loaded with Windows 7 home Premium. Thankfully, there is no bloatware. Instead you get Cyberlink PowereDVD12 Ultra and a webcam utility. Origin covers the EON17-S with a one year parts and labor warranty and lifetime 24/7 technical support.
Performance
Origin engineers ratcheted the Intel Core i7-3920XM Extreme Edition clock speed up to 3.10GHz from its stock speed of 2.9GHz. Aided by 16GB of system RAM and a pair of SSD's in RAID 0, the EON17-S's PCMark 7 score was the highest we've seen from a laptop of any stripe, beating the Alienware M18x by more than 2,300 points and the Eurocom Leopard 2.0 ($3,606 direct, 4 stars) by 704 points. Likewise, the EON17-S took top honors on our Cinebench R11.5 test with a score of 7.29. The Eurocom scored 5.96 on this CPU-intensive test and the M18x scored 6.52 points. The over-clocked processor and memory combo helped earn the EON17-S top scores on our Handbrake (1:01) and Photoshop CS5 (2:27) multimedia tests as well.
Like any gaming notebook worth its salt the EON17-S features a beefy GPU; it uses Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 685M graphics controller, which like the Core i7 processor, is over-clocked for enhanced performance. On our 3DMark 11 (DX11) Extreme test its score of 1,145 trumped the less expensive MSI GT783 (1,056) and GT70 (963) notebooks but fell way short of the more expensive M18x (2,024) and Leopard 2.0 (2,199), both of which use dual GPUs. Results were similar on our Lost Planet 2 DX11 test; the EON17-S managed a very playable 32.6 fps on the native (1920 x 1080) test but the M18x and Leopard 2.0 had scores of 64.4 fps and 55.7 fps, respectively. Its DX10 performance was also quite good but still not on par with the multi-GPU notebooks; the EON17-S scored 41.3 fps on the high quality Crysis test, as did the MSI GT783, while the M18x scored 71.1 fps and the Leopard 2.0 scored 75.8 fps.
The EON17-S lasted an admirable 2 hours and 33 minutes on MobileMark 2007, which is a little more than an hour longer than the M18x and just shy of an hour longer than the Leopard 2.0. The MSI GT70 is the clear battery life leader with a score of 5 hours and 29 minutes.
Conclusion
The Origin EON17-S delivers the fast frames rates and processing power that gamers crave. While not as menacing as Alienware's M17x, the EON's rubbery finish and colorful keyboard lighting give it an edgy look, and its audio output is loud and robust. However, if you're not a big fan of glossy screens you may want to consider spending your $3,500 elsewhere. At the end of the day, if you must have the very best gaming laptop on the block the Alienware M18x is still the king of the hill, but it costs around $1k more than the EON17-S.
BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:
COMPARISON TABLE Compare the Origin EON17-S with several other laptops side by side.
More laptop reviews: ??? Eurocom Monster 1.0 ??? Origin EON17-S ??? Lenovo ThinkPad X230 ??? Dell XPS 14 (Summer 2012) ??? Samsung Series 5 Chromebook 550 (XE550C22-H01) ?? more
Chinese President Hu Jintao waves to reporters during a visit to the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal Building in Hong Kong Saturday, June 30, 2012. A Hong Kong reporter has briefly thrown Chinese President Hu Jintao?s tightly scripted visit to the semiautonomous city off course by asking about the 1989 military crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square. The reporter for the Apple Daily newspaper was detained on Saturday for about 15 minutes by several security officers, who told him he was noisy and broke rules. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
Chinese President Hu Jintao waves to reporters during a visit to the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal Building in Hong Kong Saturday, June 30, 2012. A Hong Kong reporter has briefly thrown Chinese President Hu Jintao?s tightly scripted visit to the semiautonomous city off course by asking about the 1989 military crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square. The reporter for the Apple Daily newspaper was detained on Saturday for about 15 minutes by several security officers, who told him he was noisy and broke rules. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
Chinese President Hu Jintao inspects People's Liberation Army soldiers at a camp in Hong Kong Friday, June 29, 2012. Hu arrived here on Friday to install Hong Kong's new but already unpopular leader, whose swearing-in on Sunday's anniversary is expected to draw large-scale protests. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
A protester shouts slogans during a protest outside the exhibition center where Chinese President Hu Jintao was scheduled to attend a concert in Hong Kong, Saturday, June 30, 2012. Police used pepper spray on the demonstrators, who had been corralled into a small protest zone across the street from the site. They were far outnumbered by hundreds of police ringing the venue. The placard reads "End the one party rule " (AP Photo/Wally Santana)
Police officers stand guard during Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal Building in Hong Kong Saturday, June 30, 2012. A Hong Kong reporter has briefly thrown Chinese President Hu Jintao?s tightly scripted visit to the semiautonomous city off course by asking about the 1989 military crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square. The reporter for the Apple Daily newspaper was detained on Saturday for about 15 minutes by several police officers, who told him he was noisy and broke rules. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)
Protesters chant slogans in front of police blockades during a protest rally in Hong Kong Saturday, June 30, 2012. Protesters demanded a full investigation into the death of China's labor activist Li Wangyang, who was released last year after serving 20 years in prison. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
HONG KONG (AP) ? A Hong Kong reporter briefly threw Chinese President Hu Jintao's tightly scripted visit to the semiautonomous city off course Saturday by asking about the 1989 military crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square.
The reporter for the Apple Daily newspaper said he was detained for about 15 minutes after the incident by three to four security officers, who told him he was too noisy and had broken rules. Other reporters also shouted questions to Hu, but they weren't detained.
Hu was touring a new cruise ship terminal when the reporter shouted out a question to him from behind a security cordon.
"President Hu, have you heard that Hong Kong people hope to reverse the verdict of June 4?" the reporter, Hon Yiu-ting, asked. "Have you heard?"
Many in Hong Kong have long called for Beijing to overturn its condemnation of the weekslong 1989 pro-democracy protests that the military crushed on the night of June 3-4, killing hundreds, possibly thousands. On mainland China, dissidents, intellectuals, relatives of the victims and even ordinary citizens also have called for a reassessment of the incident, though their voices are usually muffed because of government censorship.
Hu did not respond to the reporter's question and it's not clear whether he even heard it. The encounter was shown on local television.
Saturday's incident was one small flaw in a carefully orchestrated visit by Hu that underscores the widening tensions between Hong Kong and its mainland rulers 15 years after the end of British rule. Hu is on a three-day visit to the southern Chinese financial hub to mark the handover's anniversary on Sunday.
While the visit is aimed at emphasizing strengthening ties and coincides with a raft of measures to boost Hong Kong's economy with the mainland's help, stark differences remain. Hong Kongers have grown increasingly uneasy about life under Beijing's rule and the mainland's growing influence on the territory.
A group of pro-democracy protesters scuffled with police on Saturday, with the two sides pushing and shoving on metal crowd-control barricades outside the hotel and conference center where Hu was scheduled to attend a concert. Police used pepper spray on the demonstrators, who had been corralled into a small protest zone across the street from the site. The protesters were far outnumbered by hundreds of police ringing the venue.
"We want Hu Jintao hear from us," said Lee Cheuk-yan, a pro-democracy lawmaker who helped organize the protest. The group wanted to give Hu a letter outlining their concerns about the death of Li Wangyang, a labor activist released from a Chinese prison last year whose death in June was initially labeled a suicide. Activists said years of beatings and mistreatment had taken such a toll on his body that he would not have been able to kill himself that way.
"We are demanding to investigate the truth behind his death and release his family. People in Hong Kong are very angry," said Lee.
Under Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the city is guaranteed until 2047 a high degree of autonomy and Western-style civil liberties not seen on the mainland, such as freedom of speech.
Hu's visit is also intended as a sign of support for Hong Kong's incoming leader, known as the chief executive. Pro-democracy protesters are planning to rally again Sunday outside the exhibition center, where Hu will oversee Leung Chun-ying's inauguration, but heavy security means it's unlikely he'll see them.
___
Follow Kelvin Chan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/chanman
Our fitness tips, workout plans, exercises, and cardio techniques power of determination help you build a stronger, slimmer material substance.
Womens Health & Womens Suitableness Secrets With Womens Soundness And ?
Womens health fitness heaviness loss & nutrition news and strategies you can use straight away. You can prevent many distinct womens health and fitness issues from occurring.
Get expert advice on suitableness, nutrition, exercise, diet foods, recipes, sex, relationships, soundness & beauty, lifestyle, workouts and suitableness videos.
Women Fitness|Women's Fitness|Women Soundness
Women Fitness a resource on Women Soundness, Weight Loss, Women's Suitableness, Healthy Recipes, Fitness Program,Suitableness Analysis,Fitness Tools,Suitableness Trainers,Yoga, Beauty ?
Women's Soundness: Fitness, Issues & Guide to Soundness Living ?
Get women?s health adroit advice about women?s suitableness, issues, medical conditions and nourishing. Find reproductive health and pregnancy facts too.
MSN Health & Suitableness is your source for health articles and intelligence about nutrition, diseases, of medicine conditions, weight loss, practice and more.
Women S Health Suitableness ? News Results
FitnessDay.com
That which is National Women's Soundness & Fitness Day? Women?s Health & Suitableness Day is the nation?s largest annual soundness promotion event for women of all ages.
Be Inspired, Be Sound: Women's Health & Suitableness Expo | khou ?
Do you want to perceive strong, empowered and inspired to be sound? Stop by The Women's Soundness & Fitness Expo, Saturday, June 23. It's a independent event featuring ?
Save time when typing on an iPhone. Go to the settings, select the keyboard and add your own phrases. Enter words and phrases that you use frequently. This short cut feature will eliminate a lot of time for you in the future by auto-filling the long phrases.
You might want to buy an app aimed at managing your battery usage. One of these apps will tell you when your battery use is the highest and how to make changes to extend the life of your battery. they?ll help you extend your battery?s lifetime too, by reminding you of when your battery needs calibrating.
As you type on your iPhone, tap on the space bar twice when done with the sentence. The phone is programmed to place a period followed by a space at the end of your sentence when you do this. This is quicker because you do not have to switch to the numerical keyboard.
A great way to communicate via your iPhone is FaceTime. You can actually see who you are speaking with as you talk. The FaceTime button can be found next to the name of the person in your contacts. Select that feature and you will soon hear and see another person.
Do you have a number of background programs running that you want to shut off? You can close them by first double-clicking the home button. Look for the item that you want to shut down and place your finger there. After the icon shakes, push the red minus sign to end the program.
The iPhone can enable your life to run a bit smoother, but it only helps if you know how to use it. Try putting the tips you have read here to use with your iPhone and start getting more value and enjoyment out of it!
Learn more about Designer iPad 2 case or iPad cases uk
Niacin : 5. 7 mg. Even slight exercises like walking can be very useful. mind at relaxation and also at peace. The limitations have grown to be blurred through the years, stretching into the national health care areas that influence healthcare. Two opposing arguments developing from two values. Is the price of the insurance coverage likely to help you save money or finish up squandering your for services that you simply will not use? To explore College of Phoenix nursing Degree programs hospital and which campus is nearest for you just go here and take the initial step for your greater education. Look in case your mouth has signs and symptoms of gums and teeth. Anderson, guaranteed and health protection to your family may be the help to encourage their future needs. Once you get a number of these in hands denver contact the organization directly and request him if there? s in whatever way that exist this stuff lower. ColdFusion web design can be used for building e- commerce websites. The exercise does national not need to be an activity or of the particular type to become advantageous, it might include taking a stroll or travelling to school. Moderate utilization of denver health and hospital authority alcohol includes two drinks for any guy and just one for any lady daily, younger than health 65. These surgical procedures combined with the kitchen connoisseur and healthy yet small intakes of food can help the dangerously obese individual to get rid of the surplus pounds. These studies prove that coffee is pretty good for all of us, however it offers many health advantages. The director from the Mental Health Network, Steve Shrubb, also welcomed these new reforms. Sprouted grain breads are extremely healthy. Shopping online allows you sign in numerous sites at one go, to help you buy in in the cheapest cost seller, and sign in the authenticity. Trail mix is vegan authority and vegetarian. You are feeling tired from work, exhausted from being careful from the kids, the home, and the daily stresses which make getting national health care intimate care nights appear just like a factor from the honeymoon past. Previously, studies have linked coffee intake throughout pregnancy to birth defects health and low birth rate in newborns. Important because, it? s about this medical health insurance plan the one thing indicated your vigor greatly is dependent throughout problems else ways any minor otherwise important excitement problems. com gift certificates via email, print them out of your printer, send them by mail as well as via Facebook.
Related Post National health care
To obtain more information visit this website on Texas Medical Health Insurance Rate . Most insurance providers could be more than prepared to consult These flavonoids have been discovered good at disease prevention and be capable of transport harmful toxins from the body. s . Within the short- If this problem is presented drug companies will condition that the price of the prescription medication is not merely a result of production costs Access it the health Mogo bandwagon and discover yourself on the path health to a healthy body. A dependancy changes a few of the This isn? t to express the government isn? t involved with their operation whatsoever. This can be a great career to get involved with.
Personal injury legislations is probably the only one of the most extremely widespread law routines right now. Through very simple fall law suits in order to complicated pain statements on account of auto accidents and neglectfulness, you never know once you might have a physical injury lawyer. Injury solicitors have been available for many years assisting those who have been damage caused by disregard find reimbursement, closing, and reassurance. It is no surprise in which every year, a large number of unsuspecting men and women put up with many injuries and turn qualified for compensation. Automobile accident lawyers together with fall attorneys get years of combined law suit encounter, and so are veteran in helping consumers receive the cash people are worthy of concord business lawyers.
Car crash legal professionals plus slip and fall law firms are both injuries legal professionals exactly who offer your realm of both mental and physical incidents. Quite a few circumstances spring from auto accidents, or a fall damages within a open website. Famously nonetheless, numerous reported situations have become caused from elderly care neglect plus neglect, that is beginning induce open outcry as well as concern for the elderly concord injury lawyers. End up being which as it could, injuries attorneys will be top of the number of go-to people today if you wish the situation taken care of while using maximum volume of treatment and reliability. Even though most of these cases just like get and tumbles may not seem like significantly, a benefits may be intense.
Great health is a first concern in order to all people, therefore insurance lawyers cope with themes which have been all around customers' hearts. The particular hypersensitive dynamics to become in a position bodied simply to have a person's neglectfulness purge you of the, is inexcusable and they often tough to take care of. Occasionally these types of conditions slide throughout the crevices based on the new design regarding several legal representatives, and the like an experience could be rather unsatisfactory. A great way to locating an experienced legal representative would be to to listings for insurance lawyers. Here you can aquire contact lenses and learn which rules a specific attorney at law centers on. Sitting down as well as ending up in your associate makes perfect locating anyone you can trust in order to represent you.
A lot of scenarios usually are chosen the final results and discoveries regarding some other circumstances using the same predicaments for analyze walnut creek injury lawyers. This specific operates continue to keep damage solicitors on their toes, requesting these to be in continual alert using related rulings for car accident laws and regulations. Moreover understanding how preceding very similar conditions have been wrapped up may help these individuals obtain loopholes in these taking over to use for the patient's advantage. This is a repetitious along with boring method so that you can constantly be doing analysis, yet this is certainly among the many explanation why through an knowledgeable attorney in your tends to make all the difference. These types of personal injury attorneys contain the require to be certain a person's event is it being seen, and also evidently considered when making certain there won't be problems that might destroy the actual pay out course of action.
?
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
To do that, Sergey Brin rushed onstage at Google I/O wearing the glass units to give us a brief live action demo courtesy of a skydive over San Francisco. Video of the jump, performed by four divers in a blimp, was streamed live through Google Hangouts to attendees at the Moscone Center. In keeping with the extreme vibe of this demonstration, the showcase was handed off to bikers on the rooftop, also outfitted with the lenses, who jumped from building to building via ramp and then eventually cycled into the arena and right up to Sergey, himself. As a finishing touch, Brin also snapped a shot of the team using his own headset. All told, it's a pretty incredible way to once again officially tease this forward-looking tech.
Check out our full coverage of Google I/O 2012's opening keynote at our event hub!
Itinerant megabadass Jack Reacher, a modern-day ronin with a head like the inside of a Swiss watchmaker's studio and a thirst for justice, is coming - scratch that, storming - towards our screens. And we have the first shot of Tom?Cruise as Lee?Child's iconic hero, from the forthcoming movie of the same name (Jack Reacher, not Lee?Child's Iconic Hero).
What's more - if you pick up the new issue of Empire, in which the shot made its debut, you can read the thoughts of Cruise and McQuarrie on the challenges of bringing Child's bone-crunching badass to the big screen.?And yes, McQuarrie talks about the disparity in size from the Reacher of the books. "That's to confuse character with characteristics," laughs McQuarrie. "I?don't think there was a Wolverine that satisfied the fans, and there wasn't a Jason?Bourne that matched everyone's interpretations. Right from the outset, I?thought, 'let's get the character down on paper' and then see who's the best person to bring the movie forward."
For more from McQuarrie and?Cruise on Jack Reacher, from the decision to make One Shot (the ninth Reacher book) Reacher's big screen debut ("It's the one movie where the story starts before Reacher enters") and the casting of Werner Herzog as the bad guy, The Zec ("I?wanted him to feel like he was a real monster!") and, indeed, Reacher's brutal physicality ("He is absolutely ruthless and devastating"), pick up the new issue of Empire (now on sale for print and iPad).
You can also head over to last year's Lee Child's webchat transcript for the thoughts of the Reacher author on Cruise and the movie itself.
O Heauen! O sorrow droppe from mine brest, Ne'er hath been svch a sovl of maiden faire, Thieved of her covntenance; nights of un-rest, Ador'd curve of shoulder and coif of hair. Dark paines of loue; no waxing inundation of sunne, How doth saints talk of goodnesse where there is none? What sorowe full desyn; a pouertye of swete yet richesse soure, Swallowed in an Abyssian cloake; a lyfe of miserrie in but an houre, Absent her; a bodie lacking heade, a window absent glasse, Vnlike ships; transitory as their wont mine griefe shall not passe.
Ophelia, A Certaine Iewel Iohann Nashe, 1582
"Well?"
Thomas Spencer looked up from the parchment and rubbed his eyes. It would be easily digested by the cretins that lived for such pitiful stuff. To Spencer it was a farce; a fool's jest complete with piebald cap. "I pray you did not spend your entire purse on such brilliant calligraphy?" John frowned."Calligraphy? That is what stirred you when heartsblood is as plain in that composition as heat from fire?" John Nashe drank the remainder of his beer. "It's flowing with-"
"Pompous twaddle." Thomas Spencer interjected, rolling his eyes. Nashe scoffed. "Oblige me to read it aloud and then you shall see." Thomas listened, his eyes looking up in vexation or as this was a first tried dish and he was unsure of the flavour. When John finished the other man sighed. "It's floral John, sugary adolescence but now you need to write more like John Heathgrave than John Nashe. Less verbose homily more crudely described fornication." Thomas said in all jocularity. John winced. Never had his works been compared to the offensive scrawlings of that Scotsman. Gone are the pastoral settings replaced with crowded streets of toothless peasants slinging defecate where their shoeless bastards beg for coins. Perhaps all culture will soon be judged by the merits of the Heathgraves of the world. "I say John, my boy you were a thousand leagues away. I understand your story, many a life has been taken for lost love but in truth you saw this beauty last when?"
"She was fifteen," John begrudgingly admitted. "I was seventeen."
"There you have it, you are twenty four! Some romanticised riverside fumblings with a lass just encroaching upon womanly budding and you write of sorrow? Something truly of immeasurable grief would have to happen for you to be a noted Tragedian. Indecently, where did this dove fly so you cannot follow?" John sighed. "Wurzburg, working the kitchen of a nobleman. I wrote her three years ago letting my intentions be known. She did not respond." He finished his beer and ordered another.
He smiled at John as the fresh beers were poured. "A broken heart is a malady easily cured sans a visit to an apothecary. John, buy a woman and lay with her. Or find something worth lamenting and make us both rich."
"Thomas, were you a gentleman I'd demand this be settled by the sword." John said. "Wonderful luck that, me being common." Thomas replied. The men shared a laugh but once again John grew distant. "I've simply lost my taste of this place; I find no joy in drink or when I sup. I feel as though this world is passing me by, I stumble through this grey fog, wasting time. I'm waiting Tom; I'm waiting to find a light, something to illuminate a road I know not." Spencer nodded. It was common to experience a pall when one reached middle age. "I'm thirty one John. I walked the very halls of uncertainty that vexes you now, but it passes like a consumed harvest feast."
"You are poignantly uncouth."
"A trait some find endearing, you need not walk the halls alone. I will publish your poem in a collection later this month because I find it distasteful to see such an aged man in morose exposition." The John smiled. "Yet I still wish to do something daring; mayhap obtain a commission and marry Ophelia? I'm going to go to the ships now and might be gone by the morning. You may write of my adventures." He chuckled."Or write your eulogy." Tom frowned."Such a glower, you?ll see. I will make her proud to have me." With that comment he stood and left the tavern. Thomas could have retrieved him, but he wanted John to find what he was seeking nevertheless sleep came difficultly that night.
***
The tavern was filled with patrons due to the recently berthed ships. The atmosphere was a cacophony of foreign songs and vulgarity. It caused Thomas an internal distemper and he would rather take his leave from the horde. As he stepped out the door into the early afternoon air a young woman bumped into him. "Is this The Pembrooke tavern?"
"It is but it's somewhat over populated now, best come back early evening." He said.
"I'm looking for a boarder here."
"I stay here, one Thomas Spencer is it I you seek? This would make a disagreeable day rather brighter." He smiled. The woman returned the smile. "A man named John Nashe."
"The lost Ophelia."
"You know of me?" She asked."By reputation, John did mention you yet I'm afraid he left for sea in an effort to quiet his thoughts regarding you. "But I wrote him every month he never responded, did he get my letters?"
Of course not you soft-headed sow. I burned them all. "I cannot say, perhaps your words spurred him to the action he decided. There may still be a chance to catch him. Wait here in case he may return."
Thomas made haste until he rounded the corner of the tavern; one could see the harbour from the Pembrooke it was but a five minute brisk walk but he would take his time this day. He strolled past the alley that always smelled like piss, acknowledged the vendors; their button eyes and gypsy sneers adding to the unsavoury air of commerce. "Pork Pie today Tom?"
"Ah, but you see I?ve already had diarrhoea this morn." He whistled a jaunty tune and saw John right away; the man wore an indigo doublet complete with ruff. "You look like a valet. How goes your naval charge?"
"It has been an experience. My ship is a claimed French frigate, crewed by Turks and Poles. Only I the captain and one rigger are English. Did you see the name Tom?" The other man read it and clicked his tongue "Phillip's Decumbence." He looked at John and frowned. "A tad incendiary for the moniker of her majesty's vessel, you're a pirate then. Your father would be proud." Tom sighed, growing more proud by the moment. "Supposition is the tools of a simple mind; we are a sealed privateer with direct orders to sink anything flying Spanish colours." John beamed. "A gentleman stands before me; perhaps it's enough to win your lady fair? At any rate, I am proud of you. I've enjoyed our time together."
"And me, Tom. Take care of yourself. I will write." The men nodded at each other and parted ways.
Walking in the Pembrooke Tom glared where Ophelia sat, out of place like a stone in a field. "Dear girl, he left but this morning. They said his ship along with three others is to hunt Spanish standards. A dangerous mission, some say a mortal mission they don't expect any of them to return. He left almost as soon as you arrived; likely you passed each other on dock would be my guess. Regrettable you did not arrive sooner."
The woman began to cry, daubing at her eyes with her apron.
"There is a place behind Sommersette Inn atop the hill where other women with longing in their hearts frequent to stare at the sea to find a quiet. Some swoon and meet tragic ends due to loose rocks and unsure footing. I don't believe in self-murder but it really wouldn't be if one ponders it, due to the rocks you see." He gave her arm a knowing squeeze. She nodded and stood to leave; already beginning to pine and yearn for an escape.
"Good-bye Ophelia." He said watching her walk away to what will most likely be her death. He ordered wine and felt invigorated; it was not everyday one could orchestrate such a profitable misfortune.
According to the major travel site, Mac users are just willing to pay more
It's no secret that Mac users aren't exactly cheapskates ? after all,?Apple equipment tends to be priced at something of a premium. But does that mean Mac users are willing to pay a premium on just about anything? That's what travel site?Orbitz is noticing, and they're changing the way their site works to reflect that.
It's not that Apple users are gullible and more likely to spend $100 on a room at a Motel 6 than a Windows user. It's that,?according to the?Wall Street Journal, Apple users prefer more upscale arrangements, while Window users are more budget-minded. Apple users often buy more expensive rooms on the site anyway, so Orbitz is only changing to help Mac users find the hotels they're looking for easier. Reminds the?Journal, "The company isn't showing the same room to different users at different prices," reminds the?WSJ.
If you want the absolute lowest priced room, you should still be able to find the same rooms for the same price no matter what computer you use with a little bit of effort. If you remain concerned, you can always check out other travel sites that?don't discriminate based on operating system.
[Image credits:?tara hunt]
(Source)
This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Tecca
First-ever Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon unleashes big data API to push neuroscience forwardPublic release date: 25-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steven Cooper press@alleninstitute.org 646-358-2765 Allen Institute for Brain Science
Allen Institute for Brain Science's abundance of public neuroscience data and open API foster creative innovation and new tool development to fuel breakthrough scientific discoveries
The Allen Institute for Brain Science convened the first ever Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon last week, opening its doors to a diverse group of programmers and informatics experts for a non-stop week of collaboration, learning and coding based on its public online platform of data, tools and source code. The event brought together more than 30 participants from top universities and institutes ranging from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston to the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Poland, as well as from start-ups and established technology companies, to develop data analysis strategies and tools based on the newly enhanced Allen Brain Atlas application programming interface (API).
"This hackathon stems from our longstanding, open approach to science and our belief that putting our data-rich resources in the hands of the many and varied experts around the globe is the most effective way to drive progress in brain research," said Chinh Dang, Chief Technology Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. "The hackathon projects delivered innovative ways of handling data, offering direct contributions to the informatics and programming communities as well as to neuroscience. We hope that this event serves as a springboard for others out in the community to use our API, and we look forward to seeing what can be done with it."
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is one of the biggest data producers in neuroscience, with rapidly growing data stores in the petabyte range that it makes publicly available through its Web-based Allen Brain Atlas resources. These resources include, among others, anatomically and genomically comprehensive maps of genes at work in the mouse and human brains and receive approximately 50,000 visits each month from researchers around the globe.
The public API was created as an additional form of data sharing to spur community technology development and further empower scientists to make groundbreaking discoveries about the brain in health and diseaseincluding insights into learning, cognition, development, Alzheimer's, obesity, schizophrenia, autism, and morethat will deliver better treatment options sooner. The hackathon coincided with the public release of the full Allen Brain Atlas API earlier this month, and a key goal of the event was to ignite community momentum and interest in using it.
Using the Allen Brain Atlas API, developers can create entirely new software applications, mashups and novel data mining tools for making sense of the large and ever-growing volumes of neuroscience data. The API offers data access across species, ages, disease and control states, providing a powerful means to compare many types of data (e.g., histology images, gene expression, and MRI) among many types of samples (e.g., ages, species or diseases).
"The Allen Institute is a leader in large-scale open science, known for providing high-quality data and online tools that advance brain research," said Sean Hill, Executive Director of the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF). "With the Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon and their public API, they are bringing the same collaborative, community-focused approach to technology development and innovation that is at the core of INCF's mission."
The hackathon program was designed to provide scientists and programmers a solid foundation in using the Allen Brain Atlas API for data mining, data analysis and tools development. The event featured a handful of speakers from the Allen Institute, as well as external experts who had leveraged earlier versions of the API in their work. As a hands-on workshop, participants spent most of the time working on projects of their choice. The Allen Institute development team actively participated throughout the week to provide specific examples of API usage, as well as to team up with community participants to develop collaborative projects. Participants' presentations throughout the week showcased their projects and progress, stimulating new ideas and benefiting from the collective feedback and troubleshooting power of the entire group.
Projects ranged from practical applications, such as using a list of glioblastoma-related genes to discover biological patterns that could shed new light on the biology of the disease and developing strategies to use gene expression data with functional brain scanning technologies, to purely creative applications, including translating genomic data into music.
Source code from participants' projects will be made publicly available on the Allen Brain Atlas data portal was part of the Allen Institute's next public data release in October, as well as a through the INCF website.
The Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon was hosted by the Allen Institute for Brain Science and funded jointly with the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF).
###
About the Allen Institute for Brain Science
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit medical research organization dedicated to accelerating the understanding of how the human brain works in health and disease. Using a team science approach, the Allen Institute generates useful public resources used by researchers and organizations around the globe, drives technological and analytical advances, and discovers fundamental brain properties through integration of experiments, modeling and theory. Launched in 2003 with a seed contribution from founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, the Allen Institute is supported by a diversity of government, foundation and private funds to enable its projects. Given the Institute's achievements, Mr. Allen committed an additional $300 million in 2012 for the first four years of a ten-year plan to further propel and expand the Institute's scientific programs, bringing his total commitment to date to $500 million. The Allen Institute's data and tools are publicly available online at www.brain-map.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
First-ever Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon unleashes big data API to push neuroscience forwardPublic release date: 25-Jun-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Steven Cooper press@alleninstitute.org 646-358-2765 Allen Institute for Brain Science
Allen Institute for Brain Science's abundance of public neuroscience data and open API foster creative innovation and new tool development to fuel breakthrough scientific discoveries
The Allen Institute for Brain Science convened the first ever Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon last week, opening its doors to a diverse group of programmers and informatics experts for a non-stop week of collaboration, learning and coding based on its public online platform of data, tools and source code. The event brought together more than 30 participants from top universities and institutes ranging from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston to the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Poland, as well as from start-ups and established technology companies, to develop data analysis strategies and tools based on the newly enhanced Allen Brain Atlas application programming interface (API).
"This hackathon stems from our longstanding, open approach to science and our belief that putting our data-rich resources in the hands of the many and varied experts around the globe is the most effective way to drive progress in brain research," said Chinh Dang, Chief Technology Officer of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. "The hackathon projects delivered innovative ways of handling data, offering direct contributions to the informatics and programming communities as well as to neuroscience. We hope that this event serves as a springboard for others out in the community to use our API, and we look forward to seeing what can be done with it."
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is one of the biggest data producers in neuroscience, with rapidly growing data stores in the petabyte range that it makes publicly available through its Web-based Allen Brain Atlas resources. These resources include, among others, anatomically and genomically comprehensive maps of genes at work in the mouse and human brains and receive approximately 50,000 visits each month from researchers around the globe.
The public API was created as an additional form of data sharing to spur community technology development and further empower scientists to make groundbreaking discoveries about the brain in health and diseaseincluding insights into learning, cognition, development, Alzheimer's, obesity, schizophrenia, autism, and morethat will deliver better treatment options sooner. The hackathon coincided with the public release of the full Allen Brain Atlas API earlier this month, and a key goal of the event was to ignite community momentum and interest in using it.
Using the Allen Brain Atlas API, developers can create entirely new software applications, mashups and novel data mining tools for making sense of the large and ever-growing volumes of neuroscience data. The API offers data access across species, ages, disease and control states, providing a powerful means to compare many types of data (e.g., histology images, gene expression, and MRI) among many types of samples (e.g., ages, species or diseases).
"The Allen Institute is a leader in large-scale open science, known for providing high-quality data and online tools that advance brain research," said Sean Hill, Executive Director of the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF). "With the Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon and their public API, they are bringing the same collaborative, community-focused approach to technology development and innovation that is at the core of INCF's mission."
The hackathon program was designed to provide scientists and programmers a solid foundation in using the Allen Brain Atlas API for data mining, data analysis and tools development. The event featured a handful of speakers from the Allen Institute, as well as external experts who had leveraged earlier versions of the API in their work. As a hands-on workshop, participants spent most of the time working on projects of their choice. The Allen Institute development team actively participated throughout the week to provide specific examples of API usage, as well as to team up with community participants to develop collaborative projects. Participants' presentations throughout the week showcased their projects and progress, stimulating new ideas and benefiting from the collective feedback and troubleshooting power of the entire group.
Projects ranged from practical applications, such as using a list of glioblastoma-related genes to discover biological patterns that could shed new light on the biology of the disease and developing strategies to use gene expression data with functional brain scanning technologies, to purely creative applications, including translating genomic data into music.
Source code from participants' projects will be made publicly available on the Allen Brain Atlas data portal was part of the Allen Institute's next public data release in October, as well as a through the INCF website.
The Allen Brain Atlas Hackathon was hosted by the Allen Institute for Brain Science and funded jointly with the International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility (INCF).
###
About the Allen Institute for Brain Science
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit medical research organization dedicated to accelerating the understanding of how the human brain works in health and disease. Using a team science approach, the Allen Institute generates useful public resources used by researchers and organizations around the globe, drives technological and analytical advances, and discovers fundamental brain properties through integration of experiments, modeling and theory. Launched in 2003 with a seed contribution from founder and philanthropist Paul G. Allen, the Allen Institute is supported by a diversity of government, foundation and private funds to enable its projects. Given the Institute's achievements, Mr. Allen committed an additional $300 million in 2012 for the first four years of a ten-year plan to further propel and expand the Institute's scientific programs, bringing his total commitment to date to $500 million. The Allen Institute's data and tools are publicly available online at www.brain-map.org.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's four-year chief operating officer, has a new position -- and one many people thought she should have gotten long ago. She's now the first woman on the company's board of directors. She'll have her own vote in all company matters, Facebook confirms with us.?Board members of the public company are elected by the existing board or by shareholders (in this case she was elected by the other members).
BEIJING -- A Chinese spacecraft carrying three astronauts docked manually with an orbiting module on Sunday, a first for the country as it strives to match American and Russian exploits in space.
The Shenzhou 9 capsule's maneuver with the Tiangong 1 module was shown live on national television. It follows a docking last week that was carried out by remote control from a ground base in China.
The Chinese astronauts have been living and working in the module for the past week as part of preparations for manning a permanent space station. They returned to the Shenzhou 9 capsule early Sunday and disconnected in preparation for the manual reconnection.
Wu Ping, spokeswoman for China's manned space program, told reporters in Beijing that hand levers were used to control Shenzhou 9 and position it to dock with the orbiting module. The maneuver was "precise and perfect" and the three astronauts carried it out "calmly and skillfully," Wu said.
"This success in manual docking represents a major breakthrough in our space rendezvous and docking technologies," Wu said.
China's next goals include another manned mission to the module later this year and replacing Tiangong 1, which was launched last year, with a permanent space station around 2020. Possible future missions could also include sending a man to the moon.
China's permanent space station is to weigh about 60 tons, slightly smaller than NASA's Skylab of the 1970s and about one-sixth the size of the 16-nation International Space Station.
The Shenzhou 9 crew includes 33-year-old Liu Yang, an air force pilot and China's first female space traveler. Liu is joined by mission commander and veteran astronaut Jing Haipeng, 45, and crew mate Liu Wang, 43.
Their mission, which is expected to last at least 10 days, is China's fourth manned mission. Shenzhou 9 launched June 16 from the Jiuquan center on the edge of the Gobi desert in northern China.
Wu said the astronauts will spend three to four more days in the module before returning to the capsule and manually separating from Tiangong 1. Once back in Shenzhou 9, they will return to Earth within a day, she said.
China is hoping to join the United States and Russia as the only countries to send independently maintained space stations into orbit. It is already one of just three nations to have launched manned spacecraft on their own.
Wu said China spent 20 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion) on its space program between 1992 and 2005. By the time the next Shenzhou mission is completed, Beijing will have spent an additional 19 billion yuan (US$3 billion), she said.
Description: Would you like to know how to play TEXAS HOLDEM? Learn the gaming rules and useful terms at BingoHouse here: https://www.bingohouse.com/info/texas-holdem.html Channels: Birds? Tags: texas? holdem,? online? poker,? play? texas? holdem,? internet? gambling? ?
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia?? The founder of Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei, which has faced security concerns in the U.S. and Australia, is calling for global cooperation to improve data protection.
Ren Zhengfei, in a rare public appearance at an economic forum on Friday, did not mention the controversy surrounding Huawei. But he warned data would be "vulnerable to attack again and again" because technology will develop faster than security. He gave no details of possible joint measures.
"Cyber security is a common issue that the whole industry has to face," Ren said at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. "We must join hands to proactively address this issue."
Huawei Technologies Ltd., which Ren founded in 1987, has faced suspicions it is controlled by China's ruling Communist Party or is a front for the military. The company has denied it is a security threat and says it is owned by its employees.
Huawei was barred from bidding to work on a planned Australian high-speed Internet network due to concerns about cyber attacks traced to China. The company had to unwind its purchase of a U.S. computer company, 3Leaf Systems, last year after it failed to win approval from a government security panel.
The Australian ban highlighted concern about Beijing's cyber warfare efforts, a spate of hacking attempts aimed at Western companies and the role of Chinese equipment providers, which are expanding abroad. A U.S. congressional panel has said it will investigate whether allowing Huawei and other Chinese makers of telecoms gear to expand in the United States might aid spying by Beijing.
Huawei works with 45 of the 50 biggest global phone companies and says it has won the industry's trust. It publicly invited the U.S. government last year to investigate it in order to allay security concerns.
Ren, a former military engineer, said the industry must rapidly develop reliable cyberspace technology to support development of education and social skills.
"It is unfeasible to establish an absolutely impenetrable security assurance system that can keep data flowing securely within the networks (pipes) at all times," Ren said, comparing the flood of data to the global inundation in the Hollywood disaster movie "2012."
"Data floods will never go away," he said. "No matter how well we design and reinforce security assurance systems, they will be vulnerable to attacks again and again."
Ren is one of China's most enigmatic business figures, rarely appearing in public and never talking to reporters. Forbes magazine has estimated his net worth at more than $1 billion.
Huawei reported profit of 11.6 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) last year on sales of 209.9 billion yuan ($32.4 billion). Profit fell 53 percent from 2010, which Huawei blamed on weak global demand and the strength of China's yuan against foreign currencies.
After building its business on making switching equipment that forms the backbone of phone and computer networks, Huawei is trying to become a business and consumer brand. It launched a campaign this year to sell smartphones under its own brand in the United States.
Ren said Huawei plans to expand investment in Russia to take advantage of the country's background in technology. Huawei already has a development lab in Moscow, one of 23 around the world, including in Silicon Valley.
"Russia has a very solid foundation in the military industry, rich assets of wisdom and plenty of talent," Ren said. "This foundation endows Russia with unique advantages in developing the information industry."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A leader of the ruling Hamas said Saturday the militant group had agreed to try anew an Egypt-brokered ceasefire with Israel, after six days of bloodshed in and around the Gaza Strip.
Hamas and "the Palestinian resistance factions will respect the truce as long as the [forces] of the occupation do the same and that's what we told our Egyptian brothers who demanded that we cease fire," Ayman Taha told AFP.
"The Egyptians have demanded that the [forces] of the occupation stop their aggression and have informed us that they are prepared to do so," he added.
"We told them that we shall respond to calm with calm; if the occupier stops [its attacks] there will be no further retaliation by the resistance factions."
An official close to the group said the truce would take effect from midnight (2100 GMT).
Earlier in the day Hamas threatened to call off a previous truce attempt announced on Wednesday which was unraveling, with Palestinian officials reporting three Palestinians killed and dozens wounded in seven Israeli air strikes Saturday.
An Israeli military spokesperson said that by Saturday evening 24 rockets had slammed into southern Israel from Gaza, with another five brought down by its Iron Dome air defense system.
More were said to have fallen at sea or inside the Gaza Strip itself.
A man in the town of Sderot was injured in one attack during the morning, Israeli police said.
The current round of Israeli attacks and Palestinian retaliation began with air strikes Monday morning, just hours after gunmen from Sinai carried out an ambush along Israel's southern border with Egypt, killing an Israeli civilian.
Israel has said its sudden spike in Gaza operations was "in no way related" to the Sinai border incident, with the military saying the air force was targeting militants poised to attack the Jewish state.
Since Monday Palestinians have reported 15 dead in Gaza strikes, with dozens wounded. At least 150 rockets and mortar shells have hit Israel, wounding five people, among them four border police officers.
China and Brazil have agreed on a currency swap deal to strengthen their war chest against negative impacts from financial crises in the global econom...
Free trial ended?
Ask for your subscription.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or need aditionalinformation, please write to us.
New details are starting to leak out about the specs and pricing on Microsoft's new tablet, and so far it doesn't sound too good.
Bloomberg reports hearing from two sources that the Microsoft Surface tablets will be Wi-Fi only at first, which may be an effort by the company to keep costs down.
Meanwhile, TheNextWeb hears from another source that Microsoft will price the lower-end Windows RT tablet at $599.
In effect then, Microsoft would be releasing a tablet without a 3G or 4G connection, which would place it more in line with cheaper tablets like the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet, but it will be pricing that device at nearly the same cost as Apple charges for a 16 GB iPad with 4G LTE connectivity ($629). That's not exactly a recipe for success.
Throw in the fact that one new estimate shows the battery life on the two tablets will fall short of the competition, and Microsoft's new tablets start to seem like a much tougher sell.
Gale Swan has lived for 62 years by the eastern slope of the hills below where La Cienega Boulevard and La Brea Avenue crest a few miles south of the Santa Monica Freeway. The upscale homes that spider down these curving streets offer enticing views of the Los Angeles Basin.
Yet, Swan is worried.
She has been through L.A.'s heavy winter rains and the 1963 collapse a few neighborhoods away of the Baldwin Hills Dam.
But now the foundation of her 1946 house in View Park has cracks. Although it's true these hills sit on the Newport-Inglewood fault, Swan is circumspect.
"I've lived through all kinds of earthquakes, and suddenly they're appearing," she said of the cracks.
Farther west, Cheryl Slesthenter and Vivian Harris stand in their Baldwin Hills kitchen where the cabinets are splitting from the ceiling. They have lived here since 1974. In the last few years, hairline cracks have randomly appeared on their walls.
"It's gotten worse over the last year," Harris said. "I'm afraid the walls are going to break open."
No one who lives here doubts that the land is shifting. There are cracked swimming pools, broken driveways, uneven garage doors and displaced sidewalks.
The problem is, no one knows why.
"We've always suspected it was them," Harris said, eyeing their neighbor to the west ? the Inglewood Oil Field.
Now operated by Plains Exploration & Production Co., or PXP, the nation's largest urban oil field is at the center of a study that may provide some answers for residents.
The study is on fracking ? an efficient but controversial method of extracting oil and natural gas from areas once thought to be depleted ? and results should be in hand by next month.
Steve Rusch, vice president of the Texas-based company, said the study is the first of its kind in California.
He acknowledges having received about a dozen claims from residents who allege damage to their homes was caused, at least in part, by PXP's drilling operations.
"We've made contact with those folks," Rusch said, adding that the process of addressing the complaints is ongoing. "We know we have to be a responsible operator."
That didn't stop more than 400 people from gathering at Culver City Hall this month to push for a ban on fracking in California.
Fracking, shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, involves drilling a hole in the earth, then blasting millions of gallons of water infused with sand and chemicals to shatter rock formations deep underground to release natural gas and oil trapped in the shale.
The method has come under criticism. Late last year, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a report in a Wyoming case in which federal regulators said fracking was the probable cause of tainted water supplies. Then in March, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey said fracking may be behind an increase in seismic activity near extraction sites.
L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose district includes the oil field, said residents have contacted his office about property damage, but he wants to see the results of the study before drawing any conclusions.
[ [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 2]], 'http://yhoo.it/KeQd0p', '[Slideshow: See photos taken on the way down]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['Connery is an experienced stuntman', 7]], ' http://yhoo.it/KpUoHO', '[Slideshow: Death-defying daredevils]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['know that we have confidence in', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/LqYjAX ', '[Related: The Secret Service guide to Cartagena]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['We picked up this other dog and', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JUSxvi', '[Related: 8 common dog fears, how to calm them]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 5]], 'http://bit.ly/JnoJYN', '[Related: Did WH share raid details with filmmakers?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['accused of running a fake hepatitis B', 3]], 'http://bit.ly/KoKiqJ', '[Factbox: AQAP, al-Qaeda in Yemen]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have my contacts on or glasses', 3]], 'http://abcn.ws/KTE5AZ', '[Related: Should the murder charge be dropped?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 5]], 'http://yhoo.it/JD7nlD', '[Related: Bristol Palin reality show debuts June 19]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['have made this nation great as Sarah Palin', 1]], 'http://bit.ly/JRPFRO', '[Related: McCain adviser who vetted Palin weighs in on VP race]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj', '[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]
[ [ [['did not go as far his colleague', 8]], '29438204', '0' ], [ [[' the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 4]], '28924649', '0' ], [ [['because I know God protects me', 14], ['Brian Snow was at a nearby credit union', 5]], '28811216', '0' ], [ [['The state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Rosaviatsiya', 6]], '28805461', '0' ], [ [['measure all but certain to fail in the face of bipartisan', 4]], '28771014', '0' ], [ [['matter what you do in this case', 5]], '28759848', '0' ], [ [['presume laws are constitutional', 7]], '28747556', '0' ], [ [['has destroyed 15 to 25 houses', 7]], '28744868', '0' ], [ [['short answer is yes', 7]], '28746030', '0' ], [ [['opportunity to tell the real story', 7]], '28731764', '0' ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]