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Saturday, November 29, 2014
Intrigued by the idea of reincarnation? Read my book Divinitas to get a whole new take on the phenomena! http://t.co/uqUYJBZLlw
Intrigued by the idea of reincarnation? Read my book Divinitas to get a whole new take on the phenomena!... http://t.co/f05A8XTBEC
Intrigued by the idea of reincarnation? Read my book Divinitas to get a whole new take on the phenomena! http://t.co/uqUYJBZLlw
Intrigued by the idea of reincarnation? Read my book Divinitas to get a whole new take on the phenomena!... http://t.co/f05A8XTBEC
Intrigued by the idea of reincarnation? Read my book Divinitas to get a whole new take on the phenomena!... http://t.co/f05A8XTBEC
Intrigued by the idea of reincarnation? Read my book Divinitas to get a whole new take on the phenomena! http://t.co/uqUYJBZLlw
Friday, November 28, 2014
Trecho Menino (@TrechoMenino) | Twitter http://t.co/CSVSrs8oSH
I have a new follower on Twitter
Trecho Menino
Skype: jc1internauta
Following: 38077 - Followers: 35509
November 28, 2014 at 08:44PM via Twitter http://ift.tt/123L49K
Trecho Menino is now following me on Twitter! http://t.co/dIc8kwhebk
Thursday, November 27, 2014
The Princess by Laura Tolomei http://t.co/3z0wxktDqF
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@LallaGatta Blog 7 Things Authors Need in Their Virtual Media Kits. Learn all my tricks! #LallaGatta http://ift.tt/1uOALfH
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How to make a book more special? Get it from All Romance Ebooks! The Lord #VirtusSaga 8 #LallaGatta
@LallaGatta Blog 7 Things Authors Need in Their Virtual Media Kits. Learn all my tricks! #LallaGatta
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The Princess #VirtusSaga 7 is now available @All Romance Ebooks! Get your copy today!!! #LallaGatta
Reading never felt better @Smashwords with The Lord #VirtusSaga 8! #LallaGatta
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Discover the sensual pleasures In The Hot Seat! Author Laura Tolomei Erotic Romance with an Edge #LallaGatta
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Meccanotessile, l'Italia si fa largo con le tecnologie eco-sostenibili - CINAFORUM http://t.co/DgHyjFlqOC
Meccanotessile, l'Italia si fa largo con le tecnologie eco-sostenibili - CINAFORUM http://t.co/DgHyjFlqOC
Meccanotessile, l'Italia si fa largo con le tecnologie eco-sostenibili - CINAFORUM http://t.co/DgHyjFlqOC
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Suzanne Barr is now following you on Twitter! Bio: Crime author; suspense author; ghostwriter. (206 followers)
Suzanne Barr is now following you on Twitter! Bio: Crime author; suspense author; ghostwriter. (206 followers)
I have a new follower on Twitter
Suzanne Barr
Crime author; suspense author; ghostwriter.
Cape Coral, Florida
http://t.co/EK5NUGKrDB
Following: 800 - Followers: 206
November 27, 2014 at 03:20AM via Twitter http://ift.tt/1AUpsep
Suzanne Barr (@SuzanneRBarr) | Twitter http://t.co/TONrAr6U3A
Suzanne Barr is now following me on Twitter! http://t.co/hqsHJj9Xzj
Reconsider Keeping A Second Refrigerator In Your Garage
There are times––say, a major food-oriented holiday––that it comes in handy to have a spare refrigerator to store a case of soda, a thawing turkey, or a half-dozen boxes of wine. Usually, though, that second fridge sits empty, not doing much. Do you know what it’s mostly doing? Wasting energy, and your money.
The second-fridge phenomenon might be unfamiliar to you, but in a Washington Post article denouncing the practice, we learned that in the Midwest, up to 30% of families keep a spare fridge. They tend to correlate with larger homes, which makes sense: plenty of extra space in the basement or garage means plenty of extra space for spare appliances. There was inexplicable increase in second fridges from 1997 to 2009.
There are two main problems with second-fridge energy usage. Usually, it’s your old refrigerator that gets demoted to second-fridge status. These are usually older, or at least old enough to be retired. Yet new rules for appliance energy consumption and general strides in refrigerator technology mean that the new refrigerator is probably much more efficient than its replacement.
The other problem is that second fridges usually end up in the garage, which isn’t climate-controlled as well as the kitchen. That works out in your favor in the winter, but not so much during the summer, or if you live in a temperate climate. Refrigerators and freezers keep things cold better when they’re packed full, and rarely opening that second fridge doesn’t balance out the amount of electricity that it uses when there’s only a box of wine inside.
You could keep the second fridge and simply unplug it during the off-season when you don’t have 25 relatives coming over for dinner.
Why it’s not okay to have a second refrigerator [Wonkblog/The Washington Post]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
Maybe We Should All Just Stop Eating Sprouts
Sprouts are exactly what they sound like: the first sprouts from plants like beans or alfalfa, grown for a short time and then packaged for maximum deliciousness in a stir fry or on a salad. However, two pieces of sprout-related news from this week might make you pause before adding them to your salad.
First, we learned about an ongoing outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis that has made 68 people ill so far. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, authorities know that 33 of the people infected with this strain of Salmonella remember eating bean sprouts. These sprouts have been traced to sprouts from one company, Wonton Foods, Inc. 11 of the people infected have been hospitalized. Most of the reported cases have been in Massachusetts.
While the distributor, Wonton Foods, Inc., hasn’t announced a recall, the CDC recommends that consumers avoid bean sprouts from this company, and the company has agreed to stop producing and selling their sprouts. If you have eaten bean sprouts in the Northeast in the last few weeks, watch for fever, abdominal cramps, and diarrhea, and call your health care provider if you become ill 12 to 72 hours after eating sprouts.
Meanwhile, nobody had to get sick to discover a different foodborne pathogen, Listeria monocytogenes, in bean sprouts distributed by Henry’s Farm in Virginia and Maryland. The Department of Agriculture in Virginia discovered the bacteria as part of random sampling. Those sprouts were distributed mostly in Asian specialty stores and in 10-pound bags for restaurants.
Multistate Outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis Infections Linked to Bean Sprouts [CDC] (via Food Safety News)
Henry’s Farm Inc. Recalls Soybean Sprouts Due To Possible Health Risk [FDA]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
Mobile Companies Leaping To Sell You A New Phone — With A New Contract — On Black Friday
Is your phone getting old? Has it met with the unfortunate confluence of liquids, young children, and boisterous pets lately? If you’re in the market for a replacement or upgrade, it looks like Black Friday might be your day… as long as you’re willing to sign a contract.
The big mobile companies are all gearing up to beat each other out for the ability to sell you the cheapest device at the end of this week,
FierceWireless reports.
Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon are all offering major deals on handsets and tablets to kick off the holiday shopping season.
Verizon, reportedly, will be offering $100 off of all new Android smart phones. Additionally, as long as you sign a new two-year contract you can get the Samsung Galaxy S5 and Sony Xperia Z3v for free (after a rebate, with the Samsung), or significant discounts on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4. The mobile behemoth is also rumored to be offering free Verizon Ellipsis 8 or 7 tablets.
AT&T, meanwhile, is pushing hard on wearables. They’re offering the Samsung Galaxy Gear Fit, Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 Neo, Martian Notifier, LG G Watch, and Pebble Smart Watch for $99 each. AT&T is also offering discount deals for buying certain bundles or pairings of LG or HTC devices.
T-Mobile, unlike the other three big carriers, doesn’t subsidize handset purchases. However, they are offering substantial discounts: $150 off the Samsung Galaxy S5 and $100 off the Galaxy Note 3. T-Mobile is also offering discounts on the LG G3, the Sony Xperia Z3 and the HTC One M8.
Sprint’s deals are slightly different. Instead of big discounts up front, they’re offering different financing terms to customers who spread the cost of a phone out over a two-year installment-based leasing plan.
Best Buy is also offering deals on the Galaxy S5 through November 29 (Saturday).
For the full run-down of devices, data plans, and bundle details, hit up the links FierceWireless has compiled.
Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and more unleash device deals for Black Friday [FierceWireless]
by Kate Cox via Consumerist
1-In-5 Shoppers Has Done Something Awful To Obtain A Coveted Holiday Gift
Because there’s this widely held assumption that people should get the thing they desire most during the holidays, and because a lot of people desire the same things, some holiday shoppers will cross that line between naughty and nice to make sure they check certain items off their shopping lists.
According to researchers at 1010Data, 21% of shoppers have done something just downright awful to make sure their kid got the G.I. Joe with the kung fu grip, or the pair of Uggs they’ll ruin within a week by wearing them out in the slushy snow.
Among the most egregious examples, include taking an item out of another shopper’s cart, cutting in front of other shoppers in line, pushing or shoving a shopper out of the way, and even paying
another shopper to get what they want.
All for gifts that will likely disappoint, be broken, or be forgotten about shortly after being received.
But there’s a reason that 1-in-5 of us act like A-holes during the holiday shopping season, because more than half of us have seen what happens when you give a loved one something other than what they asked for, because heaven forbid someone have to buy something on their own.
According to 1010Data’s survey, 20% of respondents said they were given the silent treatment after giving an unasked-for gift. Nearly the same number (18%) learned that the gift’s recipient had gone and complained to friends or family, with 11% choosing to actually bring up the topic of the disappointing at a social gathering or party.
The good news is that only 1% of respondents said that a lackluster gift ended their relationship. And honestly, if a so-so Christmas gift is enough to cause a breakup, either the recipient is a horrible person you don’t need to be around, or that relationship wasn’t long for this world anyway.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
Some Workers Step Up, Love Working On Thanksgiving
While many commentators (this site included) have complained about the ascent of Brown Thursday and how the shopping frenzy has gradually devoured the holiday once known as Thanksgiving, perhaps we’re being unfair. There are workers who enjoy spending Thanksgiving Day on the job, and who volunteer for duty.
Well, okay, CNN was only able to find and interview three, but there are plenty of others out there. They spoke to a couple who work at Target, then celebrate Thanksgiving as a family the following weekend. The crowd is friendly and fun, they explained, and being able to earn 1.5 times their normal pay for working a holiday is worth it.
One Kohl’s employee…isn’t actually a Kohl’s employee anymore. He used to work at the store, and volunteered to work because he has the day off at his new job, and would rather earn some extra money and get an employee discount. Some stores even offer extra discounts to employees who work on holidays, alongside their festive holiday food that is probably from Boston Market.
We love working on Thanksgiving! [CNN]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
Senator Pressures Visa, MasterCard To Stop Serving File-Sharing Sites
File-sharing and copyright infringement have been a bugaboo among lawmakers since internet speeds got fast enough to swap music in the late 1990s. No tactic so far has actually yet stopped audiences from swapping music and movies among themselves, and while some sites and services have been shuttered, another two or three are always ready to pop up. So now a lawmaker is trying a new strategy: appealing to the middlemen who actually move the money.
This week, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont (chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee) sent letters to the heads of both Visa and Mastercard (PDF) asking them to pull service from a set of 30 “cyberlocker” cites. His list of targeted sites comes from a report (PDF) issued recently from NetNames and the Digital Citizens Alliance, a group that creates and publishes reports about the nature and volume of online crimes.
“Cyberlockers” are just cloud-storage file hosting services. But unlike workplace-friendly names like DropBox, they’re the ones with a less, shall we say, savory reputation.
“Unlike lawful cloud storage services,” Leahy writes, cyberlockers “exist to unlawfully store and disseminate infringing files around the world.” Basically, they’re where you get and store your shared music, movies, TV, and other media of a not-legally-purchased nature.
“The cyberlockers listed in the report bear clear red flags of having no legitimate purpose or activity,” Leahy continues. Although the report doesn’t find that all of the traffic to the sites it cites is illegal, it did find a very high amount to be. Roughly 80% of the files the survey looked at across the 30 named services infringed copyright in some way. (Including, the report mentions as an aside, the 13% of content that was pornographic.)
The 30 services that the NetNames report looked at all provide “premium” subscription-level service, and those services can be paid for with a credit card. This is where Visa and Mastercard come in. The theory goes like this: if file-hosting sites can’t process payments, they don’t make a profit and can’t keep the lights and servers on.
No profit, no motivation. And if they can’t keep the lights and servers on, then they stop being. And when they stop being, sharing of copyrighted material stops. Confetti ensues.
Visa and MasterCard do prohibit their cards being used for unlawful purposes. Leahy, in his letters, reminds executives of both companies that their predecessors testified to as much before the Senate in 2006.
Since the sites exist for unlawful activity, Leahy’s argument goes, and since Visa and MasterCard don’t support unlawful activity, Visa and Mastercard are both therefore strongly urged to “revisit their policies” and to “ensure that payment processing services offered by [Visa and Mastercard] to those sites, or any others dedicated to infringing activity, cease.”
Leahy has a long history of involvement with copyright protection issues. As TorrentFreak notes, he was the lead sponsor of PIPA — one of the two bills that generated an internet-wide protest — back in 2012.
Senator tells Visa and MasterCard to stop serving “cyberlockers” [Ars Technica]
by Kate Cox via Consumerist
Filippo Ferrante is now following you on Twitter! Bio: Filippo Ferrante รจ un cantautore pugliese. http://t.co/SeXuL4zU91 (8729 followers)
Ubisoft Admits Assassin’s Creed Is Broken, Offers Free Stuff To Apologize
As I argued a couple weeks back in the wake of the botched release of Assassin’s Creed Unity, video game publishers need to stop treating their biggest customers as guinea pigs on which to unleash broken games that will eventually be fixed via multiple patches weeks after release — or at the very least acknowledge this treatment and give these customers an incentive (lower price, free stuff, etc.) that doesn’t make them immediately regret spending $60 on a new game. And while it’s too late to undo all the damage done, Ubisoft is now attempting to make nice with these users by offering them free content as an apology.
In a blog post published earlier today, Yannis Mallat, CEO of Ubisoft Montreal and Toronto, admits that the anticipation and excitement for the newest title in the popular series was undercut because “the overall quality of the game was diminished by bugs and unexpected technical issues… These problems took away from your enjoyment of the game, and kept many of you from experiencing the game at its fullest potential.”
The publisher has released multiple patches since the initial launch, but many are still angered by the fact that they paid top dollar for an unfinished game. And the irritation is only made worse by Ubisoft’s decision to strong-arm reviewers into holding back reviews of the game until after pre-orders were released, meaning people had no advance warning that they were buying a glitch-filled mess.
So in order to try to make it right, Ubisoft is going to give everyone who bought the game access to the Dead Kings downloadable content for free. If you paid for a Season Pass, which gives you access to all DLC when it’s released, you’ll be able to pick a free game from a slate of other Ubisoft titles, including Far Cry 4, Watch Dogs, Rayman Legends, Just Dance 2015.
The company has posted more information about the offer here.
Mallat says that the feedback from users — who have not held back from filling in the company on every glitch they discover “has been both humbling and incredibly helpful,” and he says that Ubisoft is “hopeful that with these forthcoming updates, everyone will be able to truly enjoy their Assassin’s Creed Unity experience.”
Please let this be a lesson to the game publishers of the world — if you know in advance that you won’t be releasing a finished product, tell your customers as soon as possible.
Given that it takes months for disc-based games to be made, packaged, shipped and distributed to stores, Ubisoft knew for months that what it would release in November was not going to work properly.
Had the company announced a week or two before launch, “Warning: The game is going to be glitchy at launch, but we’re going to give free DLC to everyone who pre-orders,” I’m betting they would have actually sold even more copies of the game, and people would not have been able to complain when the launch product wasn’t up to snuff.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
Filippo Ferrante is now following you on Twitter! Bio: Filippo Ferrante รจ un cantautore pugliese. http://t.co/SeXuL4zU91 (8729 followers)
Sorry Camel, Fewer People Than Ever Are Smoking Between Every Thanksgiving Course
It’s been 78 years since Camel rans its full-page Thanksgiving ad encouraging smokers to enjoy a cigarette after every course of their holiday meal to aid with “good digestion.” Since then, food has apparently gotten a lot easier to digest — and people aren’t so keen about dying of lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease — as a new CDC report finds that fewer Americans than ever are aiding their digestion with cigarettes.
According to the CDC’s latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report — which has to be our favorite name for all weekly reports and would make a good name for a hybrid prog rock/smooth jazz band — smoking in the U.S. in 2013 was down to only 42.1 million people, down three million from 2005. So even though the U.S. population grew during those years, the number of smokers dropped.
The rate of smoking in the country is at its lowest since 1965, when the CDC’s National Health Interview Survey first started asking that question, in between puffs of its Lucky Strikes of course.
But while cigarette smoking has decreased overall, the CDC says that it is still prevalent among certain demographic groups.
For example, those with less education are more likely to be smokers. While the overall percentage of American adults who smoke is 17.8%, that rate soars to 41.4% for adults with a GED, and 33.2% for people whose education stopped between ninth and eleventh grade. And these numbers remain virtually unchanged between 2005 and 2013.
Income levels also showed a significant difference between prevalence of smoking. Americans living above the poverty line smoked less frequently than the national average at only 16.2%, while 29.2% of adults living in poverty are smokers. And just as in the education example, while the rate of smoking dropped between 2005 and 2013 among those above the poverty line, it remained constant for the lower-income demographic.
In terms of geographic differences, the CDC says that Americans in the West Census Region (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming) had the lowest rate at only 13.6%, in spite of the fact that Native Americans had the highest rate of any single ethnic group at 26.1%.
The region with the highest rate of smoking was the Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin), at 20.9%.
All four geographical regions saw declines in smoking between 2005 and 2013.
For the first time, the report looked at smoking prevalence in two other demographic areas — disability and sexual orientation — and found noteworthy differences in each category.
According to the CDC, nearly 1-in-4 of Americans who identified as having a disability were smokers in 2013, compared to only 17% for those who don’t claim to be disabled. An even bigger gab existed between straight adults (17.6% smokers) and the lesbian/gay/bisexual adults (26.6%).
Since these are new stats for the CDC to track, it’s impossible to say whether there has been an increase or decrease in smoking among these populations during the 8-year time period. Guess we’ll just have to wait until 2022.
The CDC is also taking the opportunity of this report to remind Americans not to fall for the “Well, I only smoke a few times a day” trap.
“Though smokers are smoking fewer cigarettes, cutting back by a few cigarettes a day rather than quitting completely does not produce significant health benefits,” said Brian King Ph.D., a senior scientific advisor with CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. “Smokers who quit before they’re 40 years old can get back almost all of the 10 years of life expectancy smoking takes away.”
by Chris Morran via Consumerist
Warm Up For Black Friday: Here’s A Pop Quiz On The Best Deals
You can’t depend on retailers to tell you whether you’re really getting a good deal or not. Is $89 the cheapest that you can find an Apple TV for? Is a $199 Dyson vacuum cleaner too good to pass up? You can make sure that your deal-finding senses are finely tuned and ready for Black Friday with an interactive deal quiz over at CNN. Some deals are exceptional, and others compare unfavorably to other recent sales, sometimes at the same retailer. [CNN]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
Filippo Ferrante is now following me on Twitter! http://t.co/373tdjBojU
Filippo Ferrante (@FiliFerrante) | Twitter http://t.co/WxLqdYbS1l
I have a new follower on Twitter
Filippo Ferrante
Filippo Ferrante รจ un cantautore pugliese. http://t.co/SeXuL4zU91
Milano
http://t.co/bu0vRy0PXC
Following: 8886 - Followers: 8729
November 26, 2014 at 08:28PM via Twitter http://ift.tt/1zvC4Ev
Where Do People Buy The Stuff They Used To Buy At Sears?
Many American consumers have sworn off shopping at Sears and Kmart, their local stores have closed, or they have just forgotten that the chains exist. Business that once went to Kmart now goes to discount store competitors Kmart and Walmart, logically enough, but where do Americans go for the things that they once bought at Sears?
The Wall Street Journal explains that the main beneficiaries of Sears closing many stores and driving away existing customers has been Home Depot and Lowe’s. Both chains sell large appliances and tools, items that people once visited Sears for. One analyst determined that if Sears loses about half of its anticipated sales in those sectors in the next few years, just that former Sears business could boost each big box’s total sales in a given store by around 1%. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but there is a lot of money at stake.
Sears also once did plenty of business in consumer electronics, like televisions and computers. They’re trying to get out of that sector, which leaves the business wide open for…Best Buy, yet another big-box chain that is staging a successful comeback. Best Buy, incidentally, also sells the major appliances that people used to buy at Sears.
Sears’s Great Holiday Retail Giveaway [Wall Street Journal]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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