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Apple's tagline of "it just works" feels like it's been replaced by "it used to work."
The problems are getting to the point where I'm seriously considering dumping the iPhone and switching to Android (I mean, what other option is there? Windows Mobile? BlackBerry?). At least there if I can't rely on Google or the OEM to fix the issue there's an active aftermarket firmware community carrying out bugfixes and doing some really good work. Projects such as CyanogenMod are a win to the openness of Android.
I'm in no way saying that Android is perfect, but the way things stand with iOS right now, I'm loathe to put down several hundred dollars for a new iPhone in a year or so just so I can suffer through a few more years of bugs and shoddy builds. I'm just not prepared to do that.
Apple, I've given you fair warning. Buggy releases are sucking away at both the pleasure I once felt from using the iPhone and my desire to buy another. Fix this mess, or lose a customer.
Emma Bridgewater, pottery designer and entrepreneur, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs.
Emma Bridgewater is a British ceramic designer and businesswoman. She set up her pottery business in 1985 in Stoke-on-Trent, when many other manufacturers in the city were either closing down or going overseas. Her pottery is instantly recognizable, decorated with polka dots, stars, hearts or elegant lettering using 19th century sponge-printing techniques.
It is an unlikely career for someone who studied English at University. Together with her husband, illustrator Matthew Rice, Emma Bridgewater has played a part in keeping the pottery tradition alive in Stoke-on-Trent. The factory also now hosts an annual literary festival.
She was awarded a CBE in 2013 for services to industry.
Performer: Central Band of the Royal Air Force. Conductor: Eric Banks.
The Very Best of The Doors.
Performer: Janet Baker. Performer: English Chamber Orchestra. Conductor: Sir Anthony Lewis.
Performer: St Paul's Cathedral Choir. Performer: English Brass Ensemble. Conductor: John Scott. Performer: Christopher Dearnley.
Christmas Music from St Paul’s.
Millions of pit bull terriers – commonly referred to as Pibbles – now have a voice during the first ever One Million PIBBLE March organized by comedian Rebecca Corry (Comedy Central, King of Queens, Last Comic Standing). Founder of the Stand Up for Pits Foundation, Corry will lead this historic event on the West Lawn of U.S. Capital in Washington D.C. on May 3, 2014 from 12:30 – 2:00 pm.
With the goal of raising awareness, inspiring federal funding and creating new programs, the March will discuss ways to eradicate the discrimination and abuse. Recently, President Obama spoke out about the ineffectiveness of the breed specific legislation (BSL) laws and ways to see it abolished. The reality is the dog fighting epidemic is worse than ever before, with the majority of abuse being committed by youth ages 13 to 21.
"My goal is to create safe and humane communities for humans and pets alike through raising awareness and identifying solutions," said One Million PIBBLE March organizer Rebecca Corry. "I believe through laughter, positive images and education, we can make a difference. Quite frankly, this is a societal problem that affects us all as abuse that begins with pets can quickly extend to children. The targeting of pit bull terriers is unfortunately a direct reflection of broken society, but one that can be fixed and starts with constructive, awareness-building events like our One Million PIBBLE March."
This historic international event – inspired by Corry's own pit bull terrier, Angel -- is attracting attendees from all over the United States as well as Canada, England and Germany to name a few. With more than 5,000 registered attendees to date and growing, Corry is spearheading a PIBBLE movement. She will also be performing during the Stand Up for Pits comedy tour at Gotham Comedy Club in New York on April 23rd and the Arlington Drafthouse in Virginia on May 4th to continue efforts for this cause.
"For 20 years I believed entertaining people was what I was meant to do until Angel came into my life and showed me that standing up for pits through entertainment is my true calling," continued Corry. "She has given my life a greater sense of purpose. Angel is the inspiration for this March, Stand Up For Pits and living proof that Pit Bull Terriers are in fact, inherently good."
The One Million PIBBLE March, produced by C3 Presents, is sponsored by The Honest Kitchen, KAE-O, The Pit Bull Princess, Pit Bulls of Instagram, Urban Suburban Apparel, Pit Bulletin Legal News Network & Radio, Pit Bulls are for Lovers, Show Your Softer Side and Stand Up for Pits Foundation. To attend the One Million Pibble March, learn more about how to create change, or donate to the Stand Up for Pits Foundation, visit standupforpits.us. The "Be Their Voice" video promoting the One Million PIBBLE March with Angel can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO6KgvaQHpo.
Stand Up For Pits Foundation was created in honor of Rebecca Corry's pit bull terrier, Angel, who was found roaming the streets of Los Angeles as a victim of horrific abuse. Through a live, nationwide comedy show with performers such as Bill Burr, Kaley Cuoco and Whitney Cummings, the Foundation raises money to positively advocate and educate about the true nature of Pibbles. The Foundation is also organizing the first ever One Million PIBBLE March in Washington D.C. to further their educational and awareness-based platform. All funds raised up until May 3 go to the One Million PIBBLE March. Learn more at standupforpits.us.
Portico Quartet found the young audience that put them on the 2008 Mercury prize shortlist through the unique sound they invented as buskers – hooky and danceable systems music coloured by the melodic chime of the tuned hang drum, with jazzy textures furnished by a double-bass and a sax. It was a seductive mix, but one with limited growth potential. By 2009's Isla, Portico were expanding with synthesised strings and other electronics, and this year's eponymously titled release takes that process further, with a guest appearance from Swedish singer and producer Cornelia Dahlgren adding her silvery vocals and composing input to the evocative Sleepless, the best track.
Portico's message is clear from the pulsating opener, Window Seat, with its lazy, swerving long notes for bowed bass and electronic strings – it could almost be a piece from Australian sonic trance legends the Necks. The smoky melody to the ensuing Ruins makes Jack Wyllie's sax more like a stringed instrument crossed with a trumpet, its quivering vibrato spooky but turning more guttural and free-jazzy as the backbeat pushes on. Snappy groovers with chattery percussion patterns underpin cinematic sax themes. The eight-minute Rubidium turns from a slow dreamscape to a fierce percussion thrash and ends as a deep-brass glow. With its simple stick-clicking and sombre piano turning to foreboding electronic patterns around Dahlgren's childlike tones, Sleepless is a triumph. Ambient brass sounds thicken into electronic buzzings and then stop dead; drum pieces with Indian-percussion booms and rocking piano figures develop orchestral, bowed-bass drones and then melodiously groove. It sounds less like a jazz album than anything the group has recorded, but in stepping away from a method they never seemed comfortable with, Portico have found a contemporary sound to thrill their fans and attract new listeners.
A stroke occurs somewhere in the U.S. about once every 40 seconds, killing roughly 133,000 Americans every year, according to the American Heart Association. New emergency treatment guidelines recently released by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association mean more Americans who suffer large vessel strokes such as an acute ischemic stroke are eligible for treatments that can save their lives and reduce the risk of disability. An acute ischemic stroke is caused by a blood clot that reduces or stops blood flow to a portion of the brain.
The guidelines recommend that large vessel strokes can safely be treated with mechanical thrombectomy up to 16 hours after a stroke in selected patients. Under certain conditions, based on advanced brain imaging, some patients may have up to 24 hours. A mechanical thrombectomy is a procedure during which doctors remove blood clots using a device threaded through a blood vessel. The guidelines also suggest that more people should be considered eligible for a clot-dissolving IV medication called alteplase.
According to Dr. Ringer, this widely expanded window of treatment applies to a small subset of stroke patients who wake up with stroke symptoms or for some other reason do not know when their stroke began. They also must have experienced a certain type of stroke that is diagnosed with specialized MRI or perfusion CT scans. This is to ensure that a certain amount of the brain tissue fed by the blocked artery is not dead yet and that the patient can recover once the clot is out and the stroke is minimized.
The TriHealth Neuroscience Institute has the specialized imaging and clot-retrieval devices for treating eligible patients who have suffered large-vessel strokes, and Dr. Ringer has already treated patients with acute stroke who woke up with stroke symptoms.
Dr. Ringer cautions that having a small stroke after a large vessel has been closed for more than six hours is the exception, not the rule.
Balance – Watch for a sudden loss of balance.
Eyes – Is there a sudden loss of vision in one or both eyes? Or double vision?
Face – Ask the person to smile and check to see if one side of the face droops.
Arm – Ask the person to raise both arms and see if one arm drifts downward.
Speech – Ask the person to repeat a simple sentence and check to see if words are slurred or the sentence is repeated incorrectly.
Time – If a person shows any of these symptoms, call 911 immediately. It is important to get to the hospital as quickly as possible.
Former President of the Portuguese Republic, Jorge Sampaio, will be honoured for his dedication in the fight against tuberculosis. The ceremony will take place on Monday, April 15th, at 2 pm at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva. "Dr Sampaio has been an envoy of the first order for tuberculosis, but also for the values of public health for what WHO stands for", said WHO Director General Margaret Chan.
Jorge Sampaio ended his tenure as Special Envoy of the Secretary-General of the UN to Fight Tuberculosis in December 2012. The event aims to celebrate their commitment and dedication to raise the profile of public health and tuberculosis. In this ceremony the Director General of WHO will honour Jorge Sampaio for his efforts in defending better control of tuberculosis among world leaders. The tribute will take place following the debate on the future of high-level political advocacy.
During his appointment as UN Secretary-General Special Envoy to Stop Tuberculosis, Dr Sampaio has embarked on an ambitious programme to raise its visibility, including contacting all the G8 leaders to encourage them to prioritize tuberculosis.
Archives|DR. CHARLES PLITT, EDUCATOR, IS DEAD; Professor of Botany in the School of Pharmacy at University of Maryland.
DR. CHARLES PLITT, EDUCATOR, IS DEAD; Professor of Botany in the School of Pharmacy at University of Maryland.
FANTASTIC to see our first minister launching a campaign to raise awareness of Welsh- medium education, Live in Wales: Learn in Welsh.
The three-year campaign will target expectant parents and parents with children aged from birth to three, offering them information and advice so that they are fully informed when making a decision on whether to send their child to a Welsh-medium school. Only a Welsh-medium education can guarantee a Welsh-speaking child when the parents are English-speakers, It has been proved that those able to speak Welsh fluently will earn more money. For further information about the campaign, parents can visit the Welsh Government website and the Choice-Dewis Facebook page.
Folk artist Thornton Dial's relationship with his agent, William Arnett, was discussed during a segment on CBS' "60 Minutes" last Sunday. One of the charges was that Arnett not only controlled Dial's work, but held the title to Dial's home.
During an October trip to Alabama, sponsored by The American Museum of Folk Art, a group of people visited Dial's spacious house, which sits high on a hill overlooking a large pond outside of Bessemer. There, they found a camera crew hired by Arnett videotaping the visit. Before entering the house and studio, the visitors were cautioned by Dial's wife, Clara Mae, not to take photographs of any of Dial's unfinished paintings.
Dial is a humble man who prefers to stay in the background. "Mr. Dial, I can't believe that I am here talking with you," gushed one of the women. "I can't believe so many white folk are here in my house," answered Dial, wearing a baseball cap, jacket and work pants.
Soon, Arnett arrived and took his place next to Dial. At one point, a woman asked Arnett about "60 Minutes" doing a segment on his relationship with Dial and asked Arnett if he was making a fortune selling Dial's work.
"I have spent more than $2 million of my own money helping him," said Arnett angrily. "I bought him this house and I helped pay for the books that were written about him."
The group had been told initially that none of Dial's works was for sale. Later, Arnett offered to show them some of Dial's drawings, and about 10 minutes before the tour was scheduled to leave, he offered a few of them for sale. The asking price was $3,000 apiece. Several members of the group bought some.
Last week at the Folk Art Museum's opening, one of the members of the group asked to buy another. "Here's my address," said Arnett, who is the only dealer who handles Dial.
"Bill Arnett plays his hand too close," said Robert Cargo, a respected folk-art dealer in Tuscaloosa, Ala., for more than 10 years, during a telephone interview on Tuesday. "Dial does not receive any visitors without Arnett. There's something to be said about a gallery or an agent promoting an artist's work, but this is a rigorously controlled market."
As for Dial's artistic merit, "There is no doubt that Dial's work is superb, but I feel there has been an artificial market created," said Cargo, who doesn't sell or own any of Dial's work. "I don't think that we know the work's real worth."
Cargo admits he was disturbed by the "60 Minutes" interview. "I thought some of the people interviewed were not forthright in their replies. I found the program more troubling than reassuring. We in the business will have to re-examine ourselves. Some of the museums should rethink who they want to do business with."
"I watched the program and I thought it was one of their weakest shows," countered Folk Art Museum public relations spokeswoman Susan Flamm. "We don't see it as an issue. Dial says that he is totally happy and that he has no problems with Arnett. Does it really matter who owns an artist's house as long as the man is happy?"
Siddarth Kaul is a right-arm pace bowler from Punjab. Coming from a cricketing family, he made his debut in 2008 against Orissa picking up 5/97 playing alongside his brother Uday. He was an integral part of the Under-19 World Cup winning squad for India in 2008.
Siddharth was the second highest wicket taker in the Ranji Trophy 2012-13 season picking up 44 wickets in nine matches which led him to be signed by the Delhi for the Indian T20 League’s sixth edition. He will once again feature in their squad for the 2014 edition of the League.
Why? One of the most exciting and unusual trips of the year looks set to be the inaugural train journey on the Golden Eagle from Budapest to Iran, via the shores of the Bosphorus and Istanbul. Steppes Travel (steppestravel.co.uk) will be taking bookings for the 15-day trip in October, but Iran may see a gentle influx of tourists well before then according to Jonny Bealby, managing director of tour operator Wild Frontiers. “In 2013 we had two group tours to Iran” he says. “This year we are planning to run six, as well as some tailor-made trips. ” But this recommendation comes with a caveat. The British embassy in Tehran has been closed since 2011 and the Foreign Office currently advises against all non-essential travel to Iran (fco.gov.uk).
Rumours have been circulating for months that this advice will change, but at the moment the FCO is simply keeping it under review. Until the warning is lifted, it will be difficult to get insurance for travel to Iran, although Wild Frontiers offers clients a policy covering travel there. Those making the journey to Iran will find epic scenery, an extraordinary history and culture and a warm welcome. True, as a woman I found it hot and cumbersome to cover up in public, and the driving is terrifying - like a real-life version of Grand Theft Auto. But the rewards are huge: glimpses of caravan cities from the days of Marco Polo, ancient mud villages, gardens of roses and fountains, exquisite mosques and palaces - and in the great ruined city of Persepolis, one of the wonders of the world.
How to go: Wild Frontiers (020 7736 3968; wildfrontierstravel.com) has 15-day group tours of Iran from £2,795 per person excluding flights.
Actors Pia Miranda and Ben Mendelsohn have a lot in common - and now even have Tennessee Williams in the family, writes Robin Usher.
Film and television stars performing at the Melbourne Theatre Company have become standard fare, and partly as a result the company has nearly doubled its subscribers to about 20,000 in the past three years.
The approach also appeals to actors, according to Ben Mendelsohn, one of the leads in Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, which opens tomorrow night.
"If an actor is going to stay in Australia, he has to be able to do it all to survive: television, film, advertisements and theatre," he says.
Mendelsohn is proud of the fact that he is in demand in each category, even if interest from theatre directors is relatively recent. It follows his performance in a David Hare play, My Zinc Bed, in Sydney two years ago after only 13 days of rehearsal.
"The people who saw it were excited about what I could do and word seems to have spread," he says.
One of his Menagerie co-stars, Pia Miranda, has also been in demand from all media since winning an AFI award for the 1998 film, Looking for Alibrandi.
Both actors are concentrating on theatre this year - Miranda is appearing at the Sydney Theatre Company as soon as Menagerie ends, while Mendelsohn is having talks about shows at both the Sydney Theatre Company and Belvoir Street.
Since his award-winning film debut as a teenage car thief in John Duigan's classic rites-of-passage film, The Year My Voice Broke, which earned him a 1987 AFI award, Mendelsohn has seldom been out of work.
He won another acting award in 2001 for his performance in the film Mullet, but says his experience with My Zinc Bed helped him prepare for his MTC appearance.
This is because The Glass Menagerie is also on a tight schedule after being cast by director Kate Cherry at short notice, following the decision to cancel a Belvoir Street co-production, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, three months ago.
An autobiographical play about Williams's mother and sister, The Glass Menagerie (1944) was the playwright's first popular success and launched his controversial career.
Set in St Louis during the Depression, it describes a family's gradual disintegration under pressure from outside and within. Williams used his own familial relationships as inspiration. His mother allowed doctors to perform a frontal lobotomy on his sister, Rose, an event that greatly disturbed the writer who cared for her throughout much of her adult life.
Mendelsohn says there is a surprising amount of humour in the play, for all its gut-wrenching earnestness. While he acknowledges that not everyone will appreciate the levity, he thinks it is a crucial ingredient in the longevity of Williams's writing.
"He mixes up different dramatic forms and has very strong female characters, as well as being such a good writer," he says. "It is a very dense and emotional play."
Mendelsohn has spent a lot of time trying to unravel his character, the son who wants to leave the family to be able to write.
"When we see him, he is a tortured soul who has to tell his story, but it is very hard to judge yourself correctly. He has been wrung out by guilt and shame for a long time."
Mendelsohn grew up in Melbourne and first performed with an amateur group, the Heidelberg Theatre Company, while at high school. He has been based in Sydney for the past 10 years.
"It's line ball which is the best place to be, but I think the fact that I come from Melbourne influenced my decision," he says, adding: "It might be getting time to leave Sydney soon."
After school, Mendelsohn performed in the Crawford TV series The Henderson Kids before winning the role in The Year My Voice Broke.
There are surprising similarities between his career and Miranda's: growing up in suburban Melbourne; being based in Sydney; and achieving prominence through a film. But while Mendelsohn is single, Miranda is married and considering starting a family.
"That is such an important part of life and I can't wait to be part of that," she says. She married Luke Hanigan in the Elvis Presley chapel in Las Vegas in 2001 because she thought it would make "a good story to tell the kids".
But after the publicity about Britney Spears's decision to end her all-too-brief Las Vegas wedding, Miranda says it was not a glamorous experience.
"You have to get a wedding certificate first, and that means a lot of people in trackies and drunks," she laughs. "It's like a Jerry Springer episode."
Miranda says she regularly travels between Melbourne and Sydney to stay in touch with friends and family. She puts a high value on her friendships with five women from school who have become "full-on career women with their own businesses".
After enrolling at La Trobe University, Miranda then signed up for a BA with a strong theatre content at Victoria University; she laughs that she was lucky enough to make all of her youthful mistakes before she was well known.
She learnt much of her technique on the job by watching people like Georgie Parker while making guest appearances on All Saints and realising that each medium made different demands. She proved her theatrical ability in the 2001 Sydney Festival production of a German play, Fireface, but says she is finding The Glass Menagerie a deceptively difficult script.
"I forgot how hard theatre can be," she says, saying she tends to become obsessive about whatever her latest project is. After starting rehearsals, she went back to the script to take note of the pauses that Williams recommends and found they had a strong impact on her performance.
Because her character is lame, she had to learn to limp on stage, and she says that now happens automatically when she puts on the slightly adapted stage shoes. "It is an exhausting and draining play," she says. "There is humour there but it's essentially about the sadness of life."
Proposal for the Brooklyn-Queens Park,by Bjarke Ingels Group.
One of the city’s leading architecture firms has a new plan to fix a crumbling stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, and they say it’s better, faster and cheaper than the $4 billion option put forth by the Department of Transportation.
The idea, dubbed the Brooklyn-Queens Park, would save the revered Brooklyn Heights Promenade from closing for six years while rehab work is completed on the highway, and would turn the triple-stacked road into a multi-tiered green space.
The proposal, expected to be revealed to the public Wednesday, was done pro-bono by Bjarke Ingels Group, which is also behind the “Big U" flooding mitigation solution for lower Manhattan.
The team wants to build a new, capped six-lane highway at ground level that is topped with a public park, an addition that would expand Brooklyn Bridge Park by more than 10 acres.
One option put forth by the DOT would construct a temporary highway above the promenade while rehab work is done on the BQE. Another option would reconstruct the highway on a lane-by-lane basis, which would come with regular closures and traffic issues.
In its proposal, BIG floated two options for the crumbling parts of the stacked BQE: leave them in place and turn them into a three-level park, or deconstruct them and use the rubble to create a sort of cliff-scape.
Because the plan would not involve building a temporary roadway, Siegel said it would require less time and less money than the DOT’s proposals.
BIG’s plan comes three weeks after city Comptroller Scott Stringer released a proposal to make the stacked stretch of the BQE truck-only and turn one of the lanes into a two-mile park that extends above the highway all the way to Carroll Gardens.
The Brooklyn Heights Association and advocacy group A Better Way are hosting a town hall meeting on the BQE construction plans Wednesday night, an event that’s estimated to draw more than 1,000 attendees as well as three potential 2021 mayoral candidates: City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and Stringer.
BIG has already shown its proposal to city officials and community groups. Representatives from the firm will present it to the public at the town hall.
The Regional Plan Association, which assisted with BIG’s proposal, put out a study of its own Tuesday, noting that congestion pricing and carpool lanes could allow the stretch of the BQE between the Gowanus Expressway and the Brooklyn Bridge be reduced to four lanes.
The proposals for the project are set to begin environmental review later this year, a process that will drag on for up to two years.
*A couple of people have suggested to me that the closest local parallel to the ending of the Saints/Rams game is the Drew Pearson touchdown catch for the Cowboys in the 1975 playoffs, which stunned the Vikings. In Dallas, it’s called a Hail Mary. In Minnesota, it’s called a push-off.
I can see some similarities in that a non-call on pass interference directly influenced both outcomes — though the Vikings had virtually no chance to win after the call, whereas the Saints did … and the Vikings were playing in the divisional round while the Saints were in the NFC title game, upping the ante in the latter case.