Dear Reader,Your dilemma of wanting to get your parents to change their ways to eat better and exercise reminds me of an old joke:How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.Sounds like your parents may be about as motivated as the light bulb right now. Still, there are things you can do to encourage them to move in...
Obama to Turn Up Pressure for Deal on Budget Cuts
Label: BusinessDoug Mills/The New York TimesPresident Obama spoke at a White House auditorium surrounded by emergency responders. WASHINGTON — President Obama, back from his three-day golf getaway, on Monday made use of his bully pulpit, while Congress remains out all week, to turn up the pressure for a bipartisan agreement to avoid indiscriminate across-the-board budget cuts that will otherwise hit March 1. ...
Feb
18
Jerry Buss dies at 80; Lakers owner brought 'Showtime' success to L.A.
Label: WorldLongtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss has died at the age of 80. Last week, it was revealed that he was hospitalized with an undisclosed form of cancer. ...
At 80, Yoko Ono sees a world full of new activism
Label: LifestyleBERLIN (Reuters) – Half a life-time ago, artist Yoko Ono lay in an Amsterdam hotel bed with husband John Lennon, staging a week-long “bed-in” for peace and feeling they were very alone in their activism.
Today, Ono, whose own energy for campaigning has never tired, sees a world full of activists, maintaining her energy and faith in humanity.
“When John and I did the bed-in, not many people were with us. But now there are so many activists, I don’t know anyone who is not an activist,” she told Reuters in an interview in Berlin on Monday, her 80th birthday.
“Even the corporations – John always used to say the corporations need to be with us… Corporations now say 10-20 percent of their profits will go to such and such charity. They have to do that almost for people to feel good about it.”
The late Beatle and Ono’s 1969 bed-in to protest against the Vietnam war was repeated in Montreal, Canada. Press attention was huge, but much of it was mocking.
Ono, who gave a sell-out concert in Berlin on Sunday alongside their son Sean Lennon which closed with the anthem “Give peace a chance”, said it was still critical to stand up for peace despite new conflicts in the intervening decades.
“I don’t want to be drowning in sadness. I think we have to stand and up and change the world,” she said.
The artist, born to a wealthy Japanese family in Tokyo in 1933, has recently become a passionate opponent of fracking, a controversial procedure which has sharply lifted energy output in the United States but which critics fear pollutes drinking water deep underground and could increase earthquake risks.
“Fracking is an incredible risk to the human race, I don’t know why they even thought of doing it,” she said.
Ono, whose birthday is being marked by a major retrospective of her work in Frankfurt, said she feels she is becoming freer in her art.
“My attitude has changed… I’m allowing things to happen in a way I hadn’t planned before,” she said.
Asked about her feelings on becoming an octogenarian, she said: “I’m surprised. It is a miracle in a sense that I am 80, I am proud about it. Not everybody gets there.”
(Reporting by Alexandra Hudson, editing by Gareth Jones and Paul Casciato)
Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News
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Well: Twins Don't Need C-Sections
Label: HealthObstetricians increasingly recommend planned Caesarean sections for women having twins, but a new study has found that a C-section for healthy twins usually provides no advantage over vaginal delivery.
Researchers randomly assigned 2,800 mothers carrying healthy twins to either a planned C-section or a planned vaginal delivery. There was no difference in outcome between the two groups. There were serious medical problems, like bone fracture or abnormal levels of consciousness, in 36 babies delivered by C-section and 35 delivered vaginally. Twenty-one babies delivered by C-section died, as did 17 delivered vaginally.
Mothers fared equally well in each group, with serious health problems in 7.3 percent of the C-section mothers and in 8.5 percent of the vaginal delivery group.
The trial was carried out in well-equipped health care settings and by practitioners experienced in multiple births. “These skills should be available to anyone trained in obstetrics,” said the lead author, Dr. Jon Barrett, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto. “This indicates the need for the current generation of obstetricians who have these skills to impart them to their students and give women the opportunity for the best choice.”
Results of the study were presented at a medical conference in San Francisco last week.
Hollywood directs its star power toward a campaign closer to home
Label: WorldA stylish crowd waited beneath a flashing marquee outside the Fonda Theatre. "Appearing tonight!" the sign read. "Eric Garcetti 4 Mayor."
In a city where political campaigns are typically waged at neighborhood meetings, not Hollywood concert halls, last week's star-studded fundraiser for Garcetti highlighted the entertainment industry's outsized role in this year's mayoral race. Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel started the show with a stand-up routine and musician Moby got the crowd of several hundred dancing. Actress Amy Smart urged everyone to tweet about the campaign, and actor Will Ferrell beamed in via video to pledge that if Garcetti is elected, every resident in the city will receive free waffles.
Hollywood is taking to City Hall politics like never before, veterans say, with power players such as Steven Spielberg leading a major fundraising effort and celebrities such as Salma Hayek weighing in via YouTube. A Times analysis of city Ethics Commission records found that actors, producers, directors and others in the industry have donated more than $746,000 directly to candidates, with some $462,000 going to Garcetti and $226,000 to City Controller Wendy Greuel.
Several of Greuel's big-name celebrity supporters, including Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson and Zooey Deschanel, recently hosted a fundraiser for her at an exclusive club on the Sunset Strip. She is getting extra help from Spielberg and his former partners at DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, who have given at least $150,000 and are raising more for an independent group funding a TV ad blitz on her behalf.
The burst of support is coming from an industry often maligned for paying little attention to local politics.
While Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is often photographed at red carpet events and former Mayor Tom Bradley was famously close to actor Gregory Peck, serious Hollywood money and star power has tended to remain tantalizingly out of reach for local politicians. "It's no secret that the entertainment industry has never really focused on the city that houses it," said Steve Soboroff, who ran for mayor and lost in 2001.
Political consultant Garry South, who has worked on mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns, recalled having to pay celebrities to appear at fundraisers in the past. Hollywood has long embraced candidates in presidential and congressional elections, South said, in part because they have more influence over causes favored by celebrities.
"The mayor of L.A. is not going to get us out of Afghanistan. The mayor of L.A. is not going to determine whether or not gay marriage is legal," South said. "The local issues are just not as sexy."
But this year, if you're a part of the Hollywood establishment, chances are you've gotten invitations to fundraisers for Greuel, Garcetti or both.
The difference this time is that both candidates have worked to cultivate deep Hollywood connections, observers say. Garcetti has represented Hollywood for 12 years, overseeing a development boom and presiding over ceremonies to add stars — Kimmel recently got one — on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Greuel is a former executive at DreamWorks, where she worked with the moguls who founded the studio. She has also served for 10 years on the board of the California Film Commission.
City Councilwoman Jan Perry and entertainment attorney Kevin James have reaped far less financial support from the industry, records show, although each claims a share of celebrity endorsements. Dick Van Dyke sponsored a fundraiser for Perry and Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black has given to James.
Agent Feroz Taj, who attended Garcetti's Moby concert, said a flurry of activity around the race, involving friends and colleagues, piqued his interest. He said he's never been involved in a political campaign, but now when he receives invites to Greuel events, he says he is supporting Garcetti.
Industry insiders have been buzzing about a letter they say is being circulated by an advisor to Spielberg and Katzenberg, urging people to give $15,000 to an independent group supporting Greuel. The DreamWorks founders have made a difference for Greuel in previous elections. In 2002, financial support from the studio executives and their allies helped her squeak out a victory in one of the closest City Council races in history.
This time around, billionaire media mogul Haim Saban is getting involved, providing his Beverly Hills estate for a Greuel fundraiser featuring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Greuel has also received contributions from Tom Hanks and actresses Mariska Hargitay and Eva Longoria, neither of whom have given to a local political campaign before, according to records.
Garcetti, on the other hand, has picked up contributions from former Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner, as well as newcomers to local politics Jake Gyllenhaal and Hayek, who once traveled with Garcetti on a global warming awareness mission to the South Pole. The actress released a video endorsing Garcetti and thanking him for helping her find her wallet in the snow.
Campaign consultant Sean Clegg linked the industry's burgeoning interest in mayoral politics to President Obama's election, which he said had "a catalyzing effect on Hollywood." Indeed, many Greuel and Garcetti supporters were Obama backers. Hayek hosted a fundraiser for Obama and Longoria served as a co-chair of his reelection campaign.
Clegg is a consultant for Working Californians, an independent campaign committee that hopes to raise and spend at least $2 million supporting Greuel, with donations from Spielberg and others in Hollywood, as well as the union representing Department of Water and Power employees.
Generally, Clegg argued, Hollywood money is different than the special-interest funding campaigns collect. "Money is coming out of the entertainment industry more on belief and less on the transactional considerations," he said.
But Raphael Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., said Hollywood's new interest in local elections may be tied to growing concerns about film production being lured elsewhere by tax incentives.
Garcetti and Greuel have both pledged to reverse job losses tied to runaway television and film production, with Garcetti touting a recent proposal to eliminate roughly $231,000 in annual city fees charged for pilot episodes of new TV shows. The number of pilots shot locally has dropped 30% in recent years, but city budget analysts say the tax break would have a minimal effect because city fees represent only a small portion of production costs.
On the council, both candidates voted to eliminate filming fees at most city facilities. Greuel tells audiences she has an insider's perspective on the industry's needs and says she will create an "entertainment cabinet" to help it thrive. "I have sat with studio heads," she said in a recent interview. "They want a city . . . that is a champion for film industry jobs in Los Angeles."
Greuel may have Garcetti beat on experience in the studio front office, but he is the only candidate with his own page on IMDb.com — a closely watched industry website that tracks individuals' film and television credits.
The councilman, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, has made several television appearances, including one for the cable police drama "The Closer." He played the mayor of Los Angeles.
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Times staff writer Maloy Moore contributed to this report.
<cite>Halo</cite> Creator Unveils Its Next Masterpiece, a Persistent Online World
Label: Technology"Citadel": Concept art from Bungie's Destiny.
BELLEVUE, Washington — Destiny, the new game from the creator of Halo, isn’t just another shooter. It’s a persistent online multiplayer adventure, designed on a galactic scale, that wants to become your new life.
“It isn’t a game,” went the oft-heard tagline at a preview event on Wednesday. “It’s a world where the most important stories are told by the players, not written by the developers.”
This week, Bungie Studios invited the press into its Seattle-area studio to get the first look at Destiny. Although the event was a little short on details — Bungie and Activision didn’t reveal the launch date, handed out concept art instead of screenshots, and dodged most of my questions — it gave an intriguing glimpse at what the creator of Halo believes is the future of shooters.
Bungie was acquired by Microsoft in 2000, and its insanely popular shooter was the killer app that put the original Xbox on the map. Bungie split off from its corporate parent in 2007, and Microsoft produced Halo 4 on its own last year. The development studio partnered up with mega-publisher Activision for its latest project, which was kept mostly secret until now.
Destiny, slated for release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, isn’t exactly an MMO. Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg called it a “shared-world shooter” — multiplayer and online, but something less than massive.
“We’re not doing this just because we have the tech,” Hirshberg said. “We have a great idea, and we’re letting the concept lead the tech.”
Built with new development software created specifically for Destiny, this new game is set in Earth’s solar system and takes place after a mysterious cataclysm wipes out most of humanity. The remaining survivors create a “safe zone” underneath a mysterious alien sphere called “The Traveler.”
The enigmatic sphere imparts players with potent weapons, magic-like powers and defensive technology. Thanks to these gifts, people have begun reclaiming the solar system from alien invaders that moved in while humanity was down.
Bungie fired off a list of design principles that guide Destiny’s creation: Create a world players want to be in. Make it enjoyable by players of all skill levels. Make it enjoyable by people who are “tired, impatient and distracted.” In other words, you don’t have to be loaded for bear and pumped for the firefight of your life every time you log on to Destiny.
After this brief overview, writer/director Joseph Staten used concept art and narration to outline an example of what a typical Destiny player’s experience might be.
Beginning in the “safe zone,” a player would start out from their in-game home and walk into a large common area. From here, the player would be able to explore their surroundings and meet up with friends. Then, they might board their starships and fly to another planet, let’s say Mars, in order to raid territory held by aliens.
During this raid, other real players who traveled to the same zone (like visiting a particular server on an MMO) would be free to come and go as they please. For example, a random participant could simply walk on by. They could stop and observe. Or they could get involved in the fight. In this instance, Staten suggested that a passerby would join the raid and then break off from the group after the spoils were divvied up without any user interface elements to fuss with. Walk away, and it’s done.
Bungie made a point of saying several times over that Destiny will not have any “lobby”-type interfaces, or menus from which to choose from a list of quests. Instead, players will simply immerse themselves in the world and organically choose to participate in whatever activities they stumble upon. Bungie promised solo content, cooperative content, and competitive content, though it provided no further examples of these.
The developer said that by employing very specialized artificial intelligence working entirely behind the scenes, players will encounter other real players who are best suited for them to interact with, based on their experience levels and other factors.
Staten didn’t say how many players would be able to exist in the world at the same time, but said that characters will be placed in proximity to each other based on very specific criteria, not simply to “fill the world up.”
Bungie showed off three distinct character classes throughout the day’s presentations: Hunter, Titan and Warlock. Although no differences were outlined between them apart from the Warlock being able to use a kind of techno-magic, the developer was keen to emphasize the idea that each character in Destiny would be highly customized and unique, and will grow with the player over an extended period of time.
While many games make the same promise, Destiny’s vision of “an extended period of time” isn’t 100 hours. It’s more like 10 years.
Bungie’s plan is for the Destiny story to unfold gradually over the course of 10 “books,” each with a beginning, middle and end. Through this will run an overarching story intended to span the entire decade’s worth of games, although like many other topics covered during the day, Bungie gave little detail about how this will work.
The developer spent a lot of time emphasizing its claim that no game has been made at this scale before. Bungie says it has a whopping 350 in-house developers working on Destiny.
Senior graphics architect Hao Chen gave examples of the sort of impenetrable mathematics formulas that allow Bungie to craft environments and worlds at a speed that it claims was previously impossible.
Bungie’s malleable team system was also said to increase its output. With the ability to co-locate designers, artists, and engineers at any time, Bungie says it can go through exceptionally rapid on-the-spot iteration and improvement for each facet of the game.
Apart from highly improved technology and the basic concept of humanity taking back the solar system, there’s just not a lot of hard information on Destiny at the moment. One thing that was made quite clear is that the game will not be subscription-based. Every presenter was clear in stating that players will not pay a monthly fee to participate in this persistent world.
While fees may not be required, a constant connection to the Internet will be. Since the core concept of Destiny is exploring a world that exists outside of the player’s console and is populated by real people at all times, it “will need to be connected in order for someone to play,” said Bungie chief operating officer Pete Parsons.
Representatives from both Bungie and Activision gave vague answers when Wired pressed for further details, often stating that they “were not ready” to discuss specifics. Whether that means those things are still being kept from the press, or whether they have not yet been determined by the development team, was unclear.
Questions currently unanswered: How will players communicate? How will players interact with each other outside of combat? What content exists in the non-combat “safe zones”? Subscriptions may be out, but what about in-app purchases? Will player versus player combat be available? Will the game ship on a disc or be download only? Will its persistent world allow Xbox and PlayStation gamers to play together? What content and interactions will be possible via smartphones and tablets (which Bungie alluded to)? Will the fancy new tools be licensed to other developers?
And so on.
For now, Bungie is asking us to take it for granted that it will execute on a bold 10-year plan for a very different sort of shooter. In the history of the always-changing gaming industry, no one’s ever been able to pull off a 10-year plan for anything. Can Bungie do it?
Hey… they made Halo, right?
Cuomo Bucks Tide With Bill to Lift Abortion Limits
Label: HealthALBANY — Bucking a trend in which states have been seeking to restrict abortion, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is putting the finishing touches on legislation that would guarantee women in New York the right to late-term abortions when their health is in danger or the fetus is not viable. Mr. Cuomo, seeking to deliver on a promise he made in his recent State of the State address, would rewrite a law...
A First Step on Continent for Google on Use of Content
Label: BusinessPARIS — Publishers in France say they have struck an innovative agreement with Google on the use of their content online. Their counterparts elsewhere in Europe, however, say the French gave in too easily to the Internet giant. The deal was signed this month by President François Hollande of France and Eric E. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, who called it a breakthrough in...
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