RefBan

Referral Banners

Friday, March 30, 2012

Top Stories from the last 24 hours


Hi David,

These are the top stories from The Next Web over the last 24 hours.

See you at The Next Web Conference (April 26-27) in Amsterdam? We're taking it to the next level!

The Next Web

P.S. Want to be the first of your friends and followers to spread our breaking news stories? Now you can, with Spread.us.






Keith Olbermann: Current Won't Pay $50 Million Deal, Cites Breach of Contract, Sabotage, Disparagement


© 2011 The Hollywood Reporter, All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Exclusive: Current Retains Crisis PR Experts for Anticipated Battle With Keith Olbermann


© 2011 The Hollywood Reporter, All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Box Office Report: 'Wrath of the Titans,' 'Mirror Mirror' Can't Overpower 'Hunger Games'

This message contains graphics. If you do not see the graphics, click here to view.
The Hollywood Reporter Box Office
 
March 30, 2012
Box Office Report: 'Wrath of the Titans,' 'Mirror Mirror' Can't Overpower 'Hunger Games'
Early returns show "Titans" grossing $11 million to $12 million on Friday for a weekend debut in the $33 million to $35 million range; the Snow White update should gross in the $6 million range on Friday for a $22 million to $24 million weekend.

More news: Top Stories | Movies | TV | Music | Tech | Style | The Business | Awards


You are currently subscribed to The Hollywood Reporter Box Office newsletter as dwyld.kwu.11muchado2011@blogger.com
Newsletter Preferences | Unsubscribe | Forward to a Friend | Share on Twitter or Facebook
© 2011 The Hollywood Reporter 5700 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90036
All rights reserved. Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy.

To ensure delivery of our emails, please add email@mail.hollywoodreporter.com to your address book.

Politics: A Court of Radicals

Slate Magazine
Now playing: Slate V, a video-only site from the world's leading online magazine. Visit Slate V at www.slatev.com.
Politics
A Court of Radicals
If the justices strike down Obamacare, it may have grave political implications for the court itself.
By Richard L. Hasen
Posted Friday, Mar 30, 2012, at 08:36 PM ET

In the middle of this week's three-day health care oral argument marathon at the Supreme Court, the justices pondered how Congress would react if the court struck down the individual mandate and perhaps either part or all of the rest of the 2,700-page health care law. Justice Kennedy, recognizing that the current hyperpolarized Congress cannot get much done, asked if the court in thinking about congressional reaction to its ruling should consider "the real Congress or a hypothetical Congress."

Justice Kennedy's question introduced a dose of realism into the debate. Of course the current Congress won't overcome its differences and do anything constructive if the court kills Obamacare. For the foreseeable future, the court's word on the health care law will be final.

And if that word is a death knell to Obamacare, it would likely mark the end of any remaining illusions of a "hypothetical Supreme Court." You know which court I'm talking about—the one where justices act as "umpires," calling balls and strikes, discovering but not making law, acting with humility and judicial minimalism. The one which Chief Justice John Roberts promised the country at his 2005 confirmation hearing.  

The smart money before the argument was on an 8-1 upholding of Obamacare. A 5-4 decision striking the law down for exceeding congressional power will reveal a "real" Supreme Court unafraid of ignoring well-established legal precedent in a favor of its own ideological preferences: It is an activist conservative court that has ...

To continue reading, click here.

Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Also In Slate

Why Does the Supreme Court Fret About Penalties for People Who Don't Buy Health Care? They Already Exist.


Obama's Hot-Mic Gaffe Isn't Nearly as Embarrassing as the Republican Reaction to It


Oh No! A Stock Photo of Me Is Being Used To Advertise Online Dating Services.

Advertisement


Manage your newsletters subscription: Unsubscribe | Forward to a Friend | Advertising Information


Ideas on how to make something better? Send an e-mail to slatenewsletter@nl.slate.com.

Copyright 2011 The Slate Group | Privacy Policy
The Slate Group | c/o E-mail Customer Care | 1350 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 410 | Washington, D.C. 20036


Moneybox: The Hidden Health Care Mandate

Slate Magazine
Now playing: Slate V, a video-only site from the world's leading online magazine. Visit Slate V at www.slatev.com.
Moneybox
The Hidden Health Care Mandate
The Supreme Court can wring their hands about penalizing people who don't buy health insurance. But it's actually been that way for a long time.
By Matthew Yglesias
Posted Friday, Mar 30, 2012, at 05:50 PM ET

The idea of financially penalizing people for not buying health insurance sounds dodgy, even repugnant. It's long been a popular idea among health policy wonks that, until 2009, enjoyed a bipartisan imprimatur. That said, voters hate the idea. Judging by oral arguments at the Supreme Court this week, the justices are skeptical, too. Even President Obama himself denounced it repeatedly when campaigning against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. And yet you might be surprised to learn that this seemingly controversial idea—that preferring more money and less health insurance should be penalized—is already at the core of the American health care system and has been for decades.

If you're not retired and you do have health insurance, the odds are good that you get that insurance through your employer as compensation for the work you do. But at first glance, it's not obvious why that should be the case. After all, your employer doesn't give you car insurance or homeowners insurance. Why should health insurance be different?

The mystery deepens when you consider that, in a sense, your employer really does give you your car insurance. Or, rather, your employer gives you money and you use the money to buy car insurance and whatever other kinds of insurance you want. By the same token, your employer doesn't give you shoes or furniture. You get paid money and you do what you want with your money. This is better for you, since money is ...

To continue reading, click here.

Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Also In Slate

Why Does the Supreme Court Fret About Penalties for People Who Don't Buy Health Care? They Already Exist.


Obama's Hot-Mic Gaffe Isn't Nearly as Embarrassing as the Republican Reaction to It


Oh No! A Stock Photo of Me Is Being Used To Advertise Online Dating Services.

Advertisement


Manage your newsletters subscription: Unsubscribe | Forward to a Friend | Advertising Information


Ideas on how to make something better? Send an e-mail to slatenewsletter@nl.slate.com.

Copyright 2011 The Slate Group | Privacy Policy
The Slate Group | c/o E-mail Customer Care | 1350 Connecticut Ave NW Suite 410 | Washington, D.C. 20036


How to Train Your Brain and Boost Your Memory Like a USA Memory Champion

March 30th, 2012Top Story

How to Train Your Brain and Boost Your Memory Like a USA Memory Champion

By Melanie Pinola

How to Train Your Brain and Boost Your Memory Like a USA Memory ChampionHere's a little secret you might never have guessed: The people who can accomplish incredible mnemonic feats like memorizing the order of a shuffled deck of cards or hundreds of random numbers in minutes don't have photographic memories. They have normal brains like you and, yes, me. This past weekend I competed in the 15th annual USA Memory Championship—an olympiad of sorts where "mental athletes" test their power of recall. Lucky for me, I learned a few tricks from the reigning champ for the second year in a row, Nelson Dellis. Here are the techniques Nelson taught me that you can start incorporating into your everyday life to make your memory stronger.

Memory Techniques Anyone Can Learn

Although my memory is fine in general, I have to admit, I'm horrible with names. I am so bad that I forget a person's name before he even finishes saying it—it's like I don't even want to hear it. After one conversation/training session with Nelson, however, I was able to remember dozens of strangers' names in a couple of minutes.

Nelson, a 28-year-old former software developer turned "mnemonic mountaineer," was an average student in school with, he says, an average memory. When his grandmother Josephine started losing her memory—and memory of him—to Alzheimer's disease, he was prompted to learn more about improving memory. Now he has two national memory competition wins under his belt and the record for memorizing 303 random numbers in five minutes (beating his record last year of 248 numbers). His message is that anyone can do it. It's all in the training and technique.

My Memory Training Boot Camp

My boot camp for this event started two weeks before the competition. I received two bottles of brainstrong DHA supplements (from the event's sponsors), a t-shirt, a training manual, and a list of the events, which included: a 15-minute memorization of 117 names and faces, 5-minute memorization of 500 numbers, 15-minute memorization of a 50-line unpublished poem, and 5-minute memorization of a shuffled deck of cards. I seriously had no idea what I was getting into.

"How's your memory?" Nelson asked, at the start of our training conversation. Um, ok. I guess?

When I flipped to this frightening grid of the 500 random digits (there are 25 rows of 20 numbers), which I was supposed to be able to memorize in 5 minutes, I nearly fell off my chair:

How to Train Your Brain and Boost Your Memory Like a USA Memory Champion

Make a Picture and Anchor It Somewhere

That grid of numbers was the most intimidating part, but in my training session with Nelson he taught me how to look at it so it was slightly less intimidating. (I have to admit, I only decided to do the numbers event at the last minute, on a whim.) There are two steps, basically, for all memory challenges, whether you're in a strange mental sport/hobby or trying to remember where you parked your car:

  1. Turn abstract, boring things that the brain doesn't like to remember and can't really latch onto (like names and numbers) into more visual ones.
  2. Find a place to store or anchor mental images where you're more likely to remember them—in your "memory palace," a.k.a., in the journey method.

So, for example, for remembering names and faces, he said to take a name like Nelson and try to turn it into a picture by associating it with a famous person like Nelson Mandela (step 1). Then for step 2, find a prominent place on that person to anchor it, for example on his biggish nose—so imagine Nelson Mandela crawled up inside his nose. The more vivid, grotesque, sexual, or unusual, the better.

For the name, don't look at how the name is spelled, but how it sounds. Break it up into syllables and turn it into pictures. (If you didn't know a Nelson, you could think Nel is like kneeling and son is like the sun, so someone kneeling or a knee pointing at the sun.)

A prominent place (or peg or anchor) could be a piece of clothing, an eye, mustache, or whatever stands out to you on that person.

During the competition, one of the photos had a guy named Neil with sunglasses on and I thought of Neil Gaiman, the science fiction/fantasy/graphic artist, so I drew skulls on his sunglasses, which helped me remember his name. In another photo there was a girl named Laurie, like the snotty-nosed one I knew in grade school, so I imagined a tissue box underneath her nose. I think I got those two names right, at least.

My brainstrong Boot Camp manual suggests Joe might be Sloppy Joe for the image and if the person Joe's anchor is a mole on his face you could imagine licking a Sloppy Joe off of Joe's mole. Gross.

In truth, the more exaggerated and absurd the better (I had to tap into my inner, secret, lurid side sometimes.) And the more personal the associations, the better, too.

In sum: When you meet someone: Catch and say her name, make a picture out of the syllables of her name and place that picture onto whatever anchor/feature you've chosen for that person. The next time you see that person, you'll see that image in that feature and remember her name, instantly. (Just don't blurt out what prominent feature you've chosen to remember her by or the image you've made up, and try not to stare at the feature!)

Kevin Spacey Fencing Doughnuts with a Sneaker on My Couch

For remembering lots of digits and random cards, the same fundamental techniques (make abstract things more visual and anchor it somewhere) still apply, but stronger techniques and systems are also needed.

The technique everyone used is the Dominic System, invented by memory champ Dominic O'Brien, which basically translates numbers to letters. We turn digits into two-letter initials for people and associated actions and objects, so we can better visualize them. So, for example, the number 0, because it is round, is an O, and since it's at the start gets the two-letter translation OO. Many people use Ozzy Osbourne as their person for that number 0, the action could be biting the head off a bat, and the object a bat. It's easier to remember Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat than a 0 in a sea of numbers.

But for the system to work, you have to make it personal, so for memorizing the deck of cards, for each of the 52 cards I had to create a person with an action and object. The Jack of Hearts became my husband frying eggs and the object was eggs in a pan. The King of Spades (KS) was Kevin Spacey as Kaiser Soze in The Usual Suspects (which I thought worked out well initials-wise), lighting a gold lighter, and the object was a gold lighter. Edward Scissorhands (ES) was trimming hedges, and the object was hedges.

And then you need to find a familiar place to store the information. We've noted how previous memory champions have built a memory palace to peg information in familiar places or loci. It's the same technique Nelson taught me. In my memory palace, I walked through my house, starting at my front door, and placed these familiar people or numbers on my furniture.

The system enables you to memorize three cards at a time quickly. Imagine the person of the first card doing the action of the person on the second card with the object of the person on the third card. Flipping three cards up, I saw Audrey Hepburn (Queen of Diamonds) taking a bath (5 of Hearts) with a pirate sword (Jack of Spades) on my couch. Scooby Doo (Six of Diamonds) playing the cello (6 of Spades) with a dumbbell (Ace of Spades) on my kitchen counter. And Nicholas Cage (9 of Clubs) yodeling (3 of Diamonds) with Batman's grapple gun (4 of Clubs) on my entertainment center. Ok, that's not so weird.

It takes a heck of a time to set up and practice, but it also stretches your brain and when you practice putting the cards together, it really does make you think creatively (Kevin Spacey trimming hedges with Edward Scissorhands knife-hands and a hobbit ring?). I was impressed with how fast the memory champs could go through a deck of cards (Nelson has the record for remembering the order of a deck in a minute and three seconds.)

Your Memory Training Boot Camp

For everyday use, the memory palace is helpful for remembering a list or sequence of things. Start a journey beginning at a place you're very familiar with, say, your home, starting with your doorstep. So for a grocery list, the example goes, imagine a container of milk overflowing on your doorstep, and when you get inside, perhaps two giant steaks attacking you in your foyer. Continue to your living room to find pretzels dancing on your rug.

Again, the more animation, exaggerations, and senses you can put into your memory palace or journey, the better for your memorization. And the more you strengthen your memory and keep practicing to sharpen your brain, the better your chances of fighting off Alzheimer's disease.

If you don't think you're a visual person, incorporate other senses: sounds, smells, touch. In everyday life, pay more attention to how things look and sound and feel, which might improve your visualization skills. Start looking more at things and paying more attention. (I confess, pure lack of attention is probably why I always forgot people's names and faces!)

If you really want to train like a memory champ, try this great name remembering game, download Memoriad (Windows) competition training software (it's pretty serious), and lurk in the Mnemotechnics forums. And perhaps we will see you at the memory championship next year!

Number of comments

Maxim Has a Weird 'Gamer Girl' Fetish

March 30th, 2012Top Story

Maxim Has a Weird 'Gamer Girl' Fetish

By Jason Schreier

Maxim Has a Weird 'Gamer Girl' FetishThis week, Maxim launched a contest to find its very own Maxim Gamer Girl. Like a pig hunting truffles in the wild, Maxim will scour the streets of America for the perfect "video game vixen." Wear your "hottest outfit," the magazine commands. "First come, first serve."

Clearly the magazine doesn't realize that this is 2012.

Now on one hand, picking on Maxim for objectifying women might be like picking on a dog for licking its own feces. It's just what they do.

On the other hand, this is more than just objectification. By turning the idea of Gamer Girl into a sexual fantasy alongside the likes of common dreams like Sexy School Girl or The Girl Next Door, Maxim is fetishizing the 42% of gamers who happen to be women. Girls who play video games are no longer human beings who enjoy a certain form of entertainment. Now they're caricatures.

Can you imagine a full-page spread on "Girls Who Read Books?" Would Maxim readers get off to "Filmgoing Vixens"?

I have absolutely no problem with girls showing their skin in Maxim. It's empowering for many models and enjoyable for many readers. But this idea that Gamer Girl should be a category of its own, that the girls who enjoy video games should be placed on some pedestal and treated like a precious unicorn to be captured and worshiped by men everywhere, is absolutely sickening.

Check out the comments on Maxim's piece. Some readers are hilariously acerbic; others are actually interested in the contest:

Maxim Has a Weird 'Gamer Girl' Fetish

Maxim Has a Weird 'Gamer Girl' Fetish

The most disgusting part of this whole thing? High-profile gaming publisher EA supports this.

Casting Call: Maxim Gamer Girl [Maxim via EA]

(Photo (C) Bryan Sikora / Stockfresh)
Number of comments