Friday, November 30, 2012

Record $500 million Powerball jackpot drives ticket-buying frenzy

(Reuters) - Dreams of vast riches from a record Powerball jackpot of at least half-a-billion dollars drove enthusiastic ticket-buying across the United States ahead of the Wednesday night draw, and continued heavy sales could nudge the payout higher, authorities said.

Powerball has not had a winner for two months, and the pot has already grown by nearly $175 million due to brisk ticket sales after no one won the top prize in Saturday's drawing.

The next draw for the prize on Wednesday night would dish out a whopping $327.4 million and counting if paid as a lump sum. Alternatively, the $500 million can be paid out in an annuity over three decades.

"It's been crazy," said Chris Lewis, manager of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Westminster, Colorado, that sold 2,000 tickets in 11 hours on Tuesday. "I'm worn out because it's been so busy today. Amazing."

Powerball is sold in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There have been nearly 300 jackpot winners over the past 20 years, taking home payouts of over $11.6 billion.

Among dreamers lining up at an Arizona grocery store in Tucson for a shot at Wednesday's prize was metal shop worker Errol Simmons, 54, entrusted with a list of lucky numbers by a dozen or so co-workers.

"I've got to get this right," he said as he checked through the list. "I don't want to be the guy who lost us half a billion dollars because I couldn't count.

"If we win, I'll buy a new truck," he said. "For each day of the week."

Looking sharp in a blue pin striped suit, Portland, Oregon, financial adviser Aaron Pearson, 36, said he was taking care to pick his own numbers for the first time - although he was unsure what he would do with the huge jackpot should he win.

"I have no idea. I'd invest it and live off of it. I'd give to charities. I'd start a foundation," he mused.

The chance of winning the jackpot are about one in 175 million, compared to about one in 280,000 for being struck by lightning.

Despite the long odds, the record payout has drawn interest from around the world, said Mary Neubauer, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Lottery, where Powerball is based. Lottery officials have received calls and emails from people outside the United States asking if they can buy a ticket from afar. They cannot.

"Sales across the country are just through the roof. It means lots of people are having fun with this, but it makes it difficult to keep up with the (jackpot) estimate."

The previous top Powerball prize of $365 million was won in 2006 by ConAgra slaughterhouse workers in Nebraska.

In March, three winning tickets shared the largest U.S. lottery jackpot, the $656 million Mega Millions drawing.

(Reporting by Teresa Carson in Oregon,; Keith Coffman in Colorado,; Paul Ingram in Tucson and Jonathan Kaminsky in Washington state; Writing by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Vicki Allen)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/record-500-million-powerball-jackpot-drives-ticket-buying-090306439.html

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

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Obese flier turned away by airlines dies overseas

12 hrs.

An ailing, 425-pound woman who was turned away by three airlines as she tried to return to the U.S. from Europe has died overseas, prompting legal action from her family.

Vilma Soltesz and her husband traveled to Hungary in September to spend a month in their former homeland ? a trek the Bronx residents made every year to visit family.

They flew from New York to Budapest on KLM without any problems, with Soltesz purchasing two seats for herself because of her size, said Holly Ostrov Ronai, the family?s attorney.

But when the couple tried to return to New York in October, the problems began.

?They were sent from airline to airline, they were sent driving around, they were just treated completely inhumanely,? Ronai told NBC News. ?(The airlines) had a duty to get her home to her doctors.?

Soltesz, 56, and her husband came on board their scheduled KLM flight to New York on Oct. 15 with the help of a Skylift elevator, but the captain told them to disembark because of an issue with the seatback and because the airline didn?t have a seatbelt extender, Ronai said.

KLM countered that it was not physically possible for Soltesz to board the aircraft, despite every effort made by the airline.

?A seat or belt extender did not offer a solution either,? said KLM spokeswoman Ellen van Ginkel, in a statement to NBC News.

?Subsequently, KLM and its partners Delta and Air France did its utmost to find an alternative in the two days that followed. The passenger also took the initiative herself to approach her ticket agent to look for alternatives with other airlines.?

The couple spent five hours at the airport and then drove through the night to Prague, where they were told a bigger Delta Air Lines plane could take them home the next day. But that attempt was also unsuccessful because Delta only had a plastic wheelchair that was not able to hold Soltesz's weight, Ronai said.

Delta did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman for the airline told The New York Post that ?despite a determined good-faith effort by Delta in Prague, we were also physically unable to board her on our aircraft.?

Finally, the couple tried to return to New York on a Lufthansa flight on Oct. 22. They boarded the plane, but the captain asked them to disembark because he thought Soltesz could not fasten herself in properly, Ronai said.

Lufthansa said the decision was unavoidable.

?Lufthansa, together with its local partners, fire brigade and technical experts at Budapest Airport tried its utmost to accommodate Mrs. Vilma Soltesz on board our flight from Budapest,? said spokeswoman Christina Semmel.

?After several, time consuming attempts it was decided that for the safety of this passenger and the over 140 fellow passengers, Lufthansa had to deny transportation of the passenger.?

Hungarian television footage of the couple after the incident showed Soltesz???an amputee who suffered from kidney disease and diabetes???with a severely distended belly. She died two days later.

Ronai, who plans to sue the three airlines involved for $6 million in federal court next week, said they violated the Air Carrier Access Act by not providing Soltesz with proper assistance or making the proper accommodations for her to be able to fly home and seek medical care from her doctors. This ultimately caused her death, Ronai said.

Under the Air Carrier Access Act, airlines may not refuse to fly people because of their disability, but they may exclude anyone from a flight ?if carrying the person would be inimical to the safety of the flight.??

?Airlines are responsible for determining whether or not they can carry passengers safely, and that includes those with disabilities. They may decline boarding if they believe they?re not able to do so,? said DOT spokesman Bill Mosley.

A carrier that excludes a person with a disability on safety grounds must provide a written explanation, but the Soltesz family never received any such document, Ronai said.

Meanwhile, the European Union, which includes Hungary, mandates that air travelers with ?reduced mobility? can't be denied boarding, unless the aircraft is physically too small or there are security concerns.

Obesity in itself is not considered a disability and it?s up to each airline to decide how to deal with large passengers, Mosley said.

There is also no specific rule that requires airlines to carry seatbelt extenders, said Les Dorr, an FAA spokesman. Planes must be equipped with an approved safety belt for each passenger, but the only way to meet the "approved" requirement for large fliers is for the airline to furnish the extenders, Dorr said.

With more than one-third of U.S. adults now obese, airlines continue to grapple with how to accommodate those fliers. Most now have policies addressing ?customers of size? ? usually asking them to buy two seats if they can?t lower their armrests or overflow into a neighbor?s seat.

Airfarewatchdog.com recently put together a guide listing each carrier?s approach and was surprised by the lack of uniformity.

Meanwhile, Soltesz?s family is grieving their loss.

?This should not have happened at all and it should never happen to anyone else, ever,? Ronai said.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/obese-flier-turned-away-airlines-dies-overseas-1C7277987

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Tuesday, November 27, 2012

AP IMPACT: Will NYC act to block future surges?

This artist's rendering provided by DLANDSTUDIO and Architecture Research Office shows a proposed perimeter wetlands and an archipelago of man-made barrier islets on New York's Manhattan island, designed to absorb the brunt of a huge storm surge. The concept was worked up by DLANDSTUDIO and Architecture Research Office, two city architectural firms, for a museum project. (AP Photo/DLANDSTUDIO and Architecture Research Office)

This artist's rendering provided by DLANDSTUDIO and Architecture Research Office shows a proposed perimeter wetlands and an archipelago of man-made barrier islets on New York's Manhattan island, designed to absorb the brunt of a huge storm surge. The concept was worked up by DLANDSTUDIO and Architecture Research Office, two city architectural firms, for a museum project. (AP Photo/DLANDSTUDIO and Architecture Research Office)

FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012 file photo, Joseph Leader, Metropolitan Transportation Authority vice president and chief maintenance officer, shines a flashlight on standing water inside the South Ferry 1 train station in New York in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. A map of the original topography of Manhattan is seen on the wall behind Leader. By century's end, researchers forecast up to four feet higher seas, producing storm flooding akin to Sandy's as often as several times each decade. Even at current sea levels, Sandy's floodwaters filled subways, other tunnels and streets in parts of Manhattan. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)

This 1939 photo made available by the Library of Congress shows New York City Park Commissioner Robert Moses with a model of the proposed, but never built Brooklyn Battery Bridge in New York. Retired geologist Jim Mellet of New Fairfield, Conn., recalls hearing a story told to him by the late Bill A. O'Leary, a retired city engineer at the time: He and other engineers, concerned about battering floods, had approached Moses more than 70 years ago to ask him to consider constructing a gigantic barrier to hold back storm tides at the entrance to the city's Upper Bay. Moses supposedly squashed the idea like an annoying bug. "According to Bill, he stood there uninterested, with his arms folded on his chest, and when they finished the presentation, he just said, 'No, it will destroy the view.'" Or perhaps he was already mulling other plans for the same site, where he would build the Verrazano Narrows Bridge years later. (AP Photo/Library of Congress, C.M. Spieglitz)

FILE - This February 1953 file photo shows an aerial view of a windmill pump elevated above the floodwaters in the coastal village of Oude Tonge in The Netherlands. It took the collapse of dikes, drowning deaths of more than 1,800 people, and evacuation of another 100,000 in 1953 for the Dutch to say "Never again!" They have since constructed the world's sturdiest battery of dikes, dams and barriers. No disaster on that scale has happened since. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - This Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2005 file photo shows apartment buildings built just behind a small dike which separates them from the Maas River in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. It took the collapse of dikes, drowning deaths of more than 1,800 people, and evacuation of another 100,000 in 1953 for the Dutch to say "Never again!" They have since constructed the world's sturdiest battery of dikes, dams and barriers. No disaster on that scale has happened since. (AP Photo/Fred Ernst, File)

Think Sandy was just a 100-year storm that devastated New York City? Imagine one just as bad, or worse, every three years.

Prominent planners and builders say now is the time to think big to shield the city's core: a 5-mile barrier blocking the entryway to New York Harbor, an archipelago of man-made islets guarding the tip of Manhattan, or something like CDM Smith engineer Larry Murphy's 1,700-foot barrier ? complete with locks for passing boats and a walkway for pedestrians ? at the mouth of the Arthur Kill waterway between the borough of Staten Island and New Jersey.

Act now, before the next deluge, and they say it could even save money in the long run.

These strategies aren't just pipe dreams. Not only do these technologies already exist, some of the concepts have been around for decades and have been deployed successfully in other countries and U.S. cities.

So if the science and engineering are sound, the long-term cost would actually be a savings, and the frequency and severity of more killer floods is inevitable, what's the holdup?

Political will.

Like the argument in towns across America when citizens want a traffic signal installed at a dangerous intersection, Sandy's 43 deaths and estimated $26 billion in damages citywide might not be enough to galvanize the public and the politicians into action.

"Unfortunately, they probably won't do anything until something bad happens," said CDM Smith's Murphy. "And I don't know if this will be considered bad enough."

Sandy and her 14-foot surge not bad enough? By century's end, researchers forecast up to four feet higher seas, producing storm flooding akin to Sandy's as often as several times each decade. Even at current sea levels, Sandy's floodwaters filled subways, other tunnels and streets in parts of Manhattan.

Without other measures, rebuilding will simply augment the future destruction. Yet that's what political leaders are emphasizing. President Barack Obama himself has promised to stand with the city "until the rebuilding is complete."

So it might take a worse superstorm or two to really get the problem fixed.

The focus on rebuilding irks people like Robert Trentlyon, a retired weekly newspaper publisher in lower Manhattan who is campaigning for sea barriers to protect the city: "The public is at the woe-is-me stage, rather than how-do-we-prevent-this-in-the-future stage."

He belongs to a coterie of professionals and ordinary New Yorkers who want to take stronger action. Though pushing for a regional plan, they are especially intent on keeping Manhattan dry.

The 13-mile-long island serves as the country's financial and entertainment nerve center. Within a 3-mile-long horseshoe-shaped flood zone around its southernmost quadrant are almost 500,000 residents and 300,000 jobs. Major storms swamp places like Wall Street and the site of the World Trade Center.

Proven technology already exists to blunt or virtually block wind-whipped seas from overtaking lower Manhattan and much of the rest of New York City, according to a series of Associated Press interviews with engineers, architects and scientists and a review of research on flooding issues in the New York metropolitan area and around the globe.

These strategies range from hard structures like mammoth barriers equipped with ship gates and embedded at entrances to the harbor, to softer and greener shoreline restraints like man-made marshes and barrier islands.

Additional landfill, the old standby once used to extend Manhattan into the harbor, could further lift vulnerable highways and other sites beyond the reach of the seas.

Even more simply, the rock and concrete seawalls and bulkheads that already ring lower Manhattan could be built up, but now perhaps with high-tech wave-absorbing or wave-reflecting materials.

Seizing the initiative from government, business and academic circles have fleshed out several dramatic concepts to hold back water before it tops the shoreline. Two of the most elaborate proposals are:

? A rock causeway, with 80-foot-high swinging ship gates, would sweep five miles across the entryway to inner New York Harbor from Sandy Hook, N.J., to Breezy Point, N.Y. To protect Manhattan, another shorter barrier is needed to the north, where the East River meets Long Island Sound, and another small blockage would go up near Sandy Hook. This New Jersey-side barrier and a network of levees on both ends of the causeway could help protect picturesque beach communities like Atlantic Highlands, in New Jersey to the west, and the Rockaways, in New York City to the east. This so-called outer barrier option was conceived for a professional symposium by the engineering firm CH2M HILL, which last year finished building a supersized 15-mile barrier guarding St. Petersburg, Russia, from Baltic Sea storms.

? An extensive green makeover of lower Manhattan would install an elaborate drainage system beneath the streets, build up the very tip by 6 feet, pile 30-foot earthen mounds along the eastern edge, and create perimeter wetlands and a phalanx of artificial barrier islets ? all to absorb the brunt of a huge storm surge. Plantings along the streets would help soak up runoff that floods the city sewers during heavy rains. This concept was worked up by DLANDSTUDIO and Architecture Research Office, two city architectural firms, for a museum project.

What's missing is not viable ideas or proposals, but determination. Massive projects protecting other cities from the periodic ravages of stormy seas usually happened after catastrophes on a scale eclipsing even Sandy.

It took the collapse of dikes, drowning deaths of more than 1,800 people, and evacuation of another 100,000 in 1953 for the Dutch to say "Never again!" They have since constructed the world's sturdiest battery of dikes, dams and barriers. No disaster on that scale has happened since.

It took the breach of levees, a similar death toll, and flooding of 80 percent of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to marshal the momentum finally to build a two-mile barricade against the Gulf of Mexico.

A handful of seaside New England cities ? Stamford, Conn.; Providence, R.I.; and New Bedford, Mass. ? have built smaller barriers after their own disasters.

However, New York City, which mostly lies just several feet above sea level, has so far escaped the horrors visited elsewhere. Its leaders have been brushing off warnings of disaster for years.

Retired geologist Jim Mellet of New Fairfield, Conn., recalls hearing a story told to him by the late Bill A. O'Leary, a retired city engineer at the time: He and other engineers, concerned about battering floods, had approached power broker Robert Moses more than 80 years ago to ask him to consider constructing a gigantic barrier to hold back storm tides at the entrance to the city's Upper Bay.

Moses supposedly squashed the idea like an annoying bug. "According to Bill, he stood there uninterested, with his arms folded on his chest, and when they finished the presentation, he just said, 'No, it will destroy the view.'" Or perhaps he was already mulling other plans for the same site, where he would build the Verrazano Narrows Bridge years later.

Many city projects, like the Westway highway plan of the 1970s and 1980s, died partly because of the impact they would have on the cherished view of water from the congested cityscape. Imagine, then, the political viability of a project that might further block access to the harbor or the view of the Statue of Liberty from the tip of Manhattan.

"I can assure that many New Yorkers would have strong opinions about high seawalls," said an email from a retired New York commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bud Griffis, who was involved in the permitting process for the failed Westway.

However, global warming and its rising sea levels now make it harder simply to shrug off measures to shield the city from storms. Sandy drove 14-foot higher-than-normal seas ? breaking a nearly 200-year-old record ? into car and subway tunnels, streets of trendy neighborhoods, commuter highways and an electrical substation that shorted out nearly all of lower Manhattan.

The late October storm left 43 dead in the city, and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn estimated at least $26 billion in damages and economic losses. The regional cost has been estimated at $50 billion, making Sandy the second most destructive storm in U.S. history after Katrina.

Yet heavier storms are forecast. A 1995 study involving the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers envisioned a worst-case storm scenario for New York: High winds rip windows and masonry from skyscrapers, forcing pedestrians to flee to subway tunnels to avoid the falling debris. The tunnels soon flood.

With its dense population and distinctive coastline, New York is especially vulnerable, with Manhattan at the center.

The famous island can be pounded by storm surges from three sides: from the west via the Arthur Kill, from the south through the Upper Bay, and from the Long Island Sound through the East River. Relatively shallow depth offshore allows storm waters to pile up; the north-south shoreline of New Jersey and the east-west orientation of Long Island further channel gushing seas right at Manhattan.

Some believe that Sandy was bad enough at least to advance more serious study of stronger protections. "I think the superstorm we had really put the fear of God into people, because no one really believed it would happen," said urban planner Juliana Maantay at Lehman College-City University of New York.

But nearly all flood researchers interviewed by the AP voiced considerable skepticism about action in the foreseeable future. "In a half year's time, there will be other problems again, I can tell you," said Dutch urban planner Jeroen Aerts, who has studied storm protections around the world.

William Solecki, a Manhattan-based Hunter College planner who has been at the center of city and state task forces on climate change, guessed that little more will be done to prevent future flooding beyond "nibbling at the edges" of the threat.

In recent years, the city has been enforcing codes that require flood-zone builders to keep electrical and other critical systems above predicted high water from what was until recently thought to be a once-in-a-century storm. Sealing other key equipment against water has been encouraged. The city has tried to keep storm grates free of debris and has elevated subway entrances. The buzz word has been making things more "resilient."

But this approach does little to stop swollen waters of a gigantic storm from pouring over lower Manhattan. "Resiliency means if you get knocked down, this is how you get back up again," huffs activist Trentlyon. "They just were talking about what you do afterward." He said Sandy's flood water rose to 5 feet at street level in Chelsea, where he lives on the western side of lower Manhattan.

The city has at least toyed with the idea of barriers and even considered various locations in a 2008 study. "I have always considered that flood gates are something we should consider, but are not necessarily the immediate answer to rush toward," said Rohit Aggarwala, a Stanford University teacher who is former director of the New York mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.

Unswayed by Sandy, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his assistants have been blunter. Bloomberg said barriers might not be worthwhile "even if you spent a fortune."

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said no specific measures ? whether more wetlands, higher seawalls or harbor barriers ? have been ruled out because "there's no one-size-fits-all solution." But he compared sea barriers to the Maginot Line, the fortified line of defenses that Germany quickly sidestepped to conquer France at the beginning of World War II.

"The city is not going to be totally stormproof, but I think it can be very adaptable," he added. He said that new flood maps informed by Sandy are being drawn up, and he suspects they will extend the zones where new developments must install critical equipment above flood level.

Computer simulations indicate that hard barriers, which have worked elsewhere around the world, would do a good job of shielding New York neighborhoods behind them. But they'd actually make flooding worse just outside the barriers, where surging waters would pile up with nowhere to go.

The patriarch of this research is Malcolm Bowman, a native New Zealander who leads a passionate cadre of barrier researchers at Stony Brook University on the northern shore of Long Island. His warnings have mostly gone unheeded. "I feel like a biblical prophet crying in the wilderness: 'The end is near!'" Bowman said.

Unbowed, he continues to preach against incremental measures. "If you get a storm and a big oak tree falls on your house, then whether you fix your gutter doesn't matter," he said.

In recent years, his logic has finally begun to resonate a bit more. Nicholas Kim, an oceanographer with engineering firm HDR HydroQual who studied with Bowman in the 1980s, said his mentor has been thinking about barriers since then: "Everybody said, 'You're crazy!' But now it's becoming clear that we need protection."

Even massive structures don't shield everyone, though. A 2009 four-barrier study co-authored by Kim found that in a simulated storm, barriers still failed to protect large swaths of Queens and sections of other outlying boroughs with a total of more than 100,000 people.

Researchers also have predicted at least a modest additional one-foot rise of stormy seas as water piles up outside the barriers. "If you're the guy just outside the barrier, and you're paying taxes and you're not included, you're not going to be very happy," said oceanographer Larry Swanson at Stony Brook University.

How such barriers would affect water movement, silt and marine life also remains an open question requiring further study for each case.

The scale and costs of hard barrier schemes have further put off many critics. After flooding from Hurricane Irene last year, city representatives asked Aerts, the Dutch planner, to compare the cost and benefits of barriers to existing approaches. His initial analysis will not be finished until February, but his early cost estimate for barriers and associated dikes for New York City is $15 billion to $27 billion ? comparable to that of the record-setting $24 billion Big Dig that reshaped Boston's waterfront ? not to block storms, but to unblock traffic and views of the waterfront.

Barrier defenders counter by pointing to the cost of storm damages. Stony Brook meteorologist Brian Colle said: "When you think of the cost of a Sandy, which is running in the billions, these barriers are basically going to pay for themselves in one or two storms." Advocates say tolls on trains or cars riding atop a barrier could help finance the project.

While appealing for rebuilding, Council Speaker Quinn also has said that "the time for casual debate is over" and called for a bold mix of resiliency with grander protective structures. She has estimated the cost of her plan at $20 billion.

Other massive protection schemes, like the green makeover of lower Manhattan, also would probably run into the billions. And soft protections are meant only to defuse, not stop, rising waters. Sandy battered parts of Long Island behind barrier islands and wetlands.

Nor is it clear that Manhattan has enough space to fashion more extensive wetlands of the sort that help protect the Gulf Coast, however imperfectly. "New York is too far gone for wetlands," said Griffis, the retired Army Corps commander for New York.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has announced he will spearhead efforts to request a corps study of whether barriers or other options would work better. However, it remains unclear if Congress would be willing to fund such a study, which would undoubtedly take several years and cost millions of dollars.

And even before a dime has been appropriated, the corps is lowering expectations. Says spokesman Chris Gardner: "You can't protect everywhere completely at all times."

___

Associated Press National Writer Adam Geller and AP researcher Julie Reed contributed to this report.

___

The AP National Investigative Team can be reached at investigate(at)ap.org

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-11-25-Superstorm-Blocking%20the%20Sea/id-7673cc1940be446892755e614988accc

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Monday, November 26, 2012

Pre-Fabricated Solar Carports for Private and Commercial Use - TRCB

Solar panels or solar trackers are considered as a complete package where the photovoltaic cells are connected together. You can use solar panel as a component of a larger photovoltaic system in order to generate and supply electricity in commercial as well as residential applications. Each of these panels is rated by its own DC output power under standard test conditions. They typically range from 100 to 320 watts. Actually a single solar panel can only produce a limited amount of power. This is the reason why most of the modern illustrations contain multiple panels.

Photovoltaic racking system generally includes several solar panels, an inverter, and a solar battery or solar tracker. Apart from that, there are interconnected wirings. A typical solar panel uses the following technology:

Generally the solar panels use light energy or photons from the sunlight in order to generate electricity by using the photovoltaic effect. Most of the systems use wafer-based crystalline silicon cells based on cadmium or silicon. In order to protect the cells from mechanical damage and moisture, there is a structural module either at the top or the back layer. Traditionally, most of the cells are rigid. However, during these days semi-flexible solar cells are also available.

All the electrical connections in such solar trackers are generally made in a series in order to achieve a desired voltage and/or in a parallel to provide a desired current capability. The conducting wires that take the current off the panels may literally contain silver, copper, or the other non-magnetic conductive transition metals. It is really important that all the cells are connected electronically to one another and to the rest of the system.

Solar Carports are widely used and it is really popular among the users. Solar carports with electric vehicle chargers provide you with a new opportunity. It can be a great solution for the private lots to large commercial spaces.

A complete solar carports package includes the following:

? PV Modules

? Carport Structures

? Solar Inverters

? Chargers

? Combined Boxes

? Safety Switches

? Lightning Panels

? System Designs

These unique solar energy systems provide you with huge opportunities. The most important advantage it provides is that it reduces energy bills for building owners. It also increases the revenue opportunity from the sale of solar renewable energy credits (SREC) to the brokers.

Apart from this, there are many other components used in solar panels. Some of the components include the following:

Solar Trackers: These are used to increase the amount of energy produced per panel at a minimum cost of mechanical complexity and need for maintenance. They actually sense the direction of the sun.

Fixed Racks: The fixed racks generally hold the panels stationary as the sun moves across the sky. The operator needs to set these racks according to the angle at which the panel is held.

Ground Mounted: They are another solar power system that consists of solar panels held in place by the racks as well as frames attached to the ground based mounting supports.

?

Orion Solar Racking specializes in the development, manufacturing and marketing of photovoltaic racking, solar carports, roof mount, ground mount solutions and provides all types of solar panels for residential, agriculture, industrial, government, commercial and utility grade projects. Our mission is to promote renewable energy solutions and making solar trackers installation simple.

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Source: http://www.trcb.com/shopping-and-product-reviews/electronics/pre-fabricated-solar-carports-for-private-and-commercial-use-80040.htm

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Sunday, November 25, 2012

Improving 3-D image capture in real time

ScienceDaily (Nov. 23, 2012) ? Researchers at the UPNA-Public University of Navarre develop a technique to improve the capture in real time of three-dimensional images. The work, published in a leading scientific journal on Computation and Artificial Intelligence, has applications in aeronautics, the automotive sector and operating rooms.

A team of researchers of the Public University of Navarre has developed a technique that enables the processing in real time of 3-D images to be improved. The work, which has applications for 3-D video, aeronautics, the automotive sector or intelligent systems for operating theatres, for example, has been published in the American journal "IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence," a leading publication in terms of its impact in the field of Computational Sciences and Artificial Intelligence.

This research comes within the framework of the PhD thesis that Leonardo de Maeztu-Reinares, a Telecommunications Engineer, has developed at the Public University of Navarre. Co-authors of the paper are Rafael Cabeza-Laguna and Arantxa Villanueva-Larre, lecturers in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Electronics.

The work is based on stereoscopic vision, a technique for obtaining 3-D images. "The basic principle of stereoscopy is the use of two or more cameras that simultaneously pick up the same scene from different positions, similar to what human eyes do," say the authors. That way, two or more images are captured for each instant in time and are compared with each other to work out how far the objects are from the cameras, and that way capture the depth lacking in a classical photograph, which is two-dimensional."

According to the authors, this comparison of two stereoscopic images requires "a considerable computational load and great algorithmic complexity," if accurate results are to be produced. In actual fact, the work published proposes that three modifications be made to the algorithms (understood as operations or instructions) that allow a technique to be reused; this used to be known as the so-called anisotropic diffusion in order to compare pairs of stereoscopic images.

"The algorithm proposed," says Leornardo de Maeztu, "yields better results than other previous ones in the same class and, what is more, presents a very interesting competitive advantage: it can be implemented in real time using a standard graphics card. Although they are algorithms that require a great calculating capacity, if the whole potential of current graphics processors is used, it is possible to execute in real time, in other words, to process as many images per second as those caught by the corresponding camera."

Applications of stereoscopic vision

This research into stereoscopic vision has applications in fields like 3-D video recording, the monitoring of the environment in vehicles (unmanned planes and helicopters, vehicles, etc.) or intelligent systems for operating theatres.

According to the classification of Journal Citation Reports (JCR) which appraises world scientific journals, the publication "IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence," which includes the article by the researchers at the Public University of Navarre, leads the world ranking within the ones devoted to Computational Sciences and Artificial Intelligence in terms of its impact factor. It is published by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), a worldwide professional organisation with its headquarters in the United States and which brings together nearly 400,000 professionals in the new technologies.

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/9fuBwTh9pZg/121123103707.htm

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Saturday, November 24, 2012

Hitchcock Movie Review

Anthony Hopkins plays legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock, and as the "master of suspense," Hopkins is scarily good. The film follows the director for only a handful of months, while he's overcoming opposition to make iconic horror film Psycho. It's a fascinating subject ? the studio feared it would be a tasteless slasher film, and the criticism only seemed to fuel Hitchcock's resolve. However, while Hopkins's performance is admirable and the movie is energetic, Hitchcock isn't nearly as memorable as the films the director was known for.

While Psycho's development gives Hitchcock its time frame, "Hitch"'s relationship with his wife, Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), is also used to illustrate his life. At the time the film takes place, the couple is verging on a rough patch due to a host of things, including finances and extramarital temptations. While the marital discord makes you think of them as an average couple and Mirren is predictably fantastic, it's less interesting than the story of Psycho. Find out what else I thought after the jump.

The 1960s Hollywood setting creates a lot of fun, especially from the cast, who look like they're playing a highly elaborate game of dress-up. Scarlett Johansson takes on the role of Janet Leigh (the actress who delivers the most terrifying shower scene in history), and Jessica Biel is Hitchcock regular Vera Miles. James D'Arcy plays Anthony Perkins, the actor who gained fame (but was also pigeonholed) after his turn as Norman Bates in Psycho. The actors are outfitted in wigs, retro costumes, and accents, and though none of these supporting players delivers a standout performance, they're delightful to look at.

However, Hitchcock's actors present a missed opportunity. Janet's function is to illustrate Hitch's complicated relationships with his leading ladies, and it feels like we're going to get a lot of salaciousness when Vera warns her costar about the director and his obsessiveness. But it all falls flat when Hitchcock and Janet get along swimmingly, leading to the conclusion that Hitchcock director Sacha Gervasi was either holding back, or that Hitchcock's fabled fixation on his actresses was more fiction than fact.

There's also the creative way Gervasi shows Hitch's state of mind: dream sequences of Hitch interacting with Ed Gein, the serial killer who inspired the book Psycho. They're the creepiest scenes, but ultimately unnecessary, since we don't learn why Hitchcock was so haunted. It's unsatisfying that we don't get to know him more ? and that's not really fitting for a filmmaker who created such satisfying films.

Source: http://www.buzzsugar.com/Hitchcock-Movie-Review-25981253

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Friday, November 23, 2012

Uh, I Think I Have Too Many Kindles

I just started yelling about license limits on Kindle books in Gizmodo's chatroom... until someone reminded me that I have like 15 registered devices on my account (not counting the ones someone else has activated since, which get wiped out). More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ak6CMTCRMVw/uh-i-think-i-have-too-many-kindles

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Thursday, November 22, 2012

History, Technology Combine in Ottoman Empire Lecture Nov. 28 ...

An approach that combines geographic mapping technology with the study of ancient cultures is shaping the way some historians approach their research.

Amy Singer, a leading historian in Middle Eastern studies, will speak Nov. 28 at the University of Mississippi about the use of Geographic Information Systems in her Ottoman Empire research. The lecture, ?Historical Geographic Information Systems and Ottoman History: the Connection Between Cutting Edge Technology and Historical Research? begins at 5 p.m. in Croft Room 107. It is free and open to the public.

?The talk will discuss the preliminary results of a meeting between Ottoman history and Geographic Information Systems, one of the most common and widespread geography methodologies-technologies of our time,? Singer said. ?The discussion aims to present the advantages and the difficulties of joining history and geography in Ottoman historical study.?

Singer, a professor at Tel Aviv University in Israel, is using GIS systems in her research of the empire-wide phenomenon of ?imaret,? or Ottoman public kitchens in the empire?s one-time capital of Edirne in northwest Turkey. Her studies of imaret evolved from her research into the relationship between Ottoman officials and Palestinian peasants, during which she learned of ?waaf,? a large endowment to fund public kitchens established in Jerusalem in the mid-16th century.

Singer is the author of the award-winning book ?Charity in Islamic Societies? (Cambridge University Press, 2008), as well as other historical works.

?Professor Singer has an incredible knack for combining two levels of history,? said Nicolas Tr?panier, UM assistant professor of history. ?She?s very aware that she?s talking about real human beings and she understands that these people were not thinking about history like historians ? they had daily life concerns.

?At the same time, she?s able to see the much larger picture and link that with much broader philosophical questions. It?s really rare that you have someone who is able to combine those two levels so naturally, and I think it will be visible in the way that she talks, also.?

The combination of GIS adds a visual aspect to Singer?s historical studies that is not common elsewhere, Tr?panier said.

?She?s really doing something new in our field,? he said. ?It?s a concrete example of what you can do when you look outside of your discipline and take tools from elsewhere. It?s indicative of practices that are going to become more common in the way that historians work.?

The lecture is presented by the UM departments of History, Computer and Information Science, and Sociology and Anthropology, the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, Croft Institute for International Studies, University Lecture Series, Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies and the Office of the Provost.

For more information or for assistance related to a disability, contact the Department of History at 662-915-7148 or history@olemiss.edu.

Source: http://viewfromventress.org/history/history-technology-combine-in-ottoman-empire-lecture-nov-28/

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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

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Source: http://forums.ferra.ru/index.php?showtopic=53039

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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Indiana, Louisville still 1-2 in AP poll

Indiana is still a runaway No. 1 in The Associated Press college basketball poll and Louisville is again a solid second. Then come the changes, with Kentucky dropping five spots to eighth.

The Hoosiers (3-0) receive 46 first-place votes Monday from the 65-member national media panel. The Cardinals (5-0) get the other 19 No. 1 votes.

Ohio State and Michigan both move up one place to third and fourth, while Duke, which beat Kentucky, jumps from ninth to fifth. Syracuse, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina and Arizona round out the Top Ten.

Oklahoma State, at No. 20, and Colorado, at 23, are the week's newcomers, replacing Notre Dame and Wisconsin. The Cowboys (4-0) were last ranked during the 2006-07 season. Colorado (4-0) was last in the Top 25 when the Buffaloes were ranked for the final eight polls of 1996-97.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2012-11-19-BKC-T25-College-Bkb-Poll/id-47fd3a32824f40ea857b17f889deeb31

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Monday, November 19, 2012

AP PHOTOS: Myanmar ready for historic Obama visit

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? President Barack Obama's historic visit to Myanmar on Monday is meant to show America's support for the country's transition to democracy.

The White House has cautioned that Obama's trip to the former pariah state should not be viewed as a "victory celebration" but as an opportunity to press for urgent action still needed in Myanmar. Notably, freeing political prisoners and ending ethnic tension in remote areas.

Myanmar was under military rule for a half-century until last year when a nominally civilian government took office and stunned the world with a rapid rush toward reforms.

One of its early moves was to release famed Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, and allow her to campaign for parliament. She now leads a small minority in a chamber filled with former military men.

Suu Kyi's enormous popularity stems in part from her father, independence hero Gen. Aung San, who was assassinated in 1948.

Obama's roughly six-hour visit will be confined to Yangon, the main city where the military brutally crushed pro-democracy uprisings in the past, including a 2007 rally led by Buddhist monks and protests in 1988 led by student activists.

During his trip, Obama will meet separately with reformist President Thein Sein and Suu Kyi.

Here, in images, are scenes from Myanmar:

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-photos-myanmar-ready-historic-obama-visit-080838963.html

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Sunday, November 18, 2012

95% The Sessions

All Critics (141) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (134) | Rotten (7)

A funny, tender and mostly unsentimentalized movie about physical and emotional triumph.

Forced to do all his acting with his face, Hawkes displays the kind of camera-arresting capability that has earned others Oscar nominations.

This is a crowd-pleaser of the finest sort.

Using only his tilted head, his eyes, nose, and mouth and that quizzical voice, Hawkes brings O'Brien to life.

It's funny and well-meaning, with great performances, but the story plays out more like an Afterschool Special with full-frontal nudity.

A remarkable actor, John Hawkes, gives a remarkable performance as a remarkable character.

Surprisingly funny and touching.

Presents the sensitive O'Brien as a brave, funny, unselfish and unlikely romantic-fantasy dream hero for disappointed, weary or jaded older female moviegoers.

The uplifting struggle for living a life of dignity for paralyzed from the neck down polio victim Mark O'Brien.

The sex scenes are frank and explicit, but never cheap and exploitative. (Yes, they get naked. Grow up.) The nudity isn't airbrushed pin-up perfection, but raw and real - and all the more lovely and moving because of it.

Taking the good with the bad, this isn't a terrible movie, though it is being rather overhyped. I found myself laughing a lot and enjoying the transformations the actors go through, but an unengaging story only serves to drag it down.

A film, inspired by the life of the late poet-journalist Mark O'Brien, that celebrates the relationship between physical and emotional intimacy.

Not just another weepy drama of overcoming odds, a My Left Foot with a different appendage. The Sessions is often brazenly funny, not from shocking dialogue but characters reacting the way people do, especially with such a flustering subject as sex.

an unusually frank and frequently humorous meditation on the transformative power of connection

Take away the nudity and the frank sex talk and you'd pretty much be left with a high-minded TV movie -- with unusually good actors.

Hunt's tangible disregard for false modesty does justice to the misunderstood surrogacy profession, while Hawkes' committed yet matter-of-fact portrayal of O'Brien masterfully avoids theatricality or sappy heartstring tugging.

Lewin has never had talent like Hawkes, Hunt, and Macy as his instruments before, and he makes the best of them.

Popular sex therapist Dr. Ruth once said that sexual surrogates are "illegal." The Sessions makes them mainstream.

An adult film that approaches the serious subject of sex with refreshingly explicit honesty.

The honest performances and assured direction makes The Sessions an extremely accomplished film that celebrates sexuality.

John Hawkes and Helen Hunt generate an endearing chemistry, here, turning in a couple of virtuoso performances deserving of serious consideration come Oscar season.

Writer-director Ben Lewin has made the decision to position the film somewhere between the comedic and dramatic genres.... and it works.

Australian veteran writer/director Ben Lewin (The Dunera Boys) delivers a heartfelt gem that is as moving as it is unassuming. It easily chimes in as one of the films of the year.

John Hawkes delivers what is perhaps the performance of his career and Helen Hunt is fearless and charming. The Sessions is a heartfelt journey that will leave your emotional spectrum overwhelmed to your heart's content.

The Sessions is entertaining but also the sort of feature that can wait for a DVD rental. Sex scenes aside, it feels puny on the big screen.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_sessions/

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Taylor Swift and Conor Kennedy: Still Together After Fake Breakup?

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2012/11/taylor-swift-and-conor-kennedy-still-together-after-fake-breakup/

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Friday, November 16, 2012

DJ Equipment Has Come a Long Way

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventures-in-tech/dj-equipment-has-come-a-long-way-14741685?src=rss

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Explosive: Major League Gaming grows its online ... - The Next Web

Major League Gaming (MLG) is a firm that TNW has had its eyes fixed on for some time now, as the gaming and tournament powerhouse has made continued bets on professional video gaming that most years past would have dismissed.

However, instead of building a niche business with a few passionate fans, MLG has been a leader in turning gaming, and its?requisite?competition, into a mass-market business that provides advertisers with access to a key demographic: young,?affluent?males.

As television advertising comes under fire from various new media forms of entertainment, companies such as MLG are forging ahead in ways that are unignorable by those brands that must reach certain citizen segments.

Now, to the figures: in its 2010 year, MLG had a total of 1.8 million unique viewers of its gaming content. In 2011, that figure jumped to 3.5 million. In 2012, driven by Starcraft 2 and League of Legends, some 11.7 million unique individuals tuned in.

That?s 334% year over year, and some?636% in two years. MLG has been around for 10 years; it has finally reached its stride. What has driven this explosive change? The proliferation of livestreaming-over-the-Internet technology that has grown the category of esports ? live gaming via Internet video ? to new heights. This has exploded the total viewership for the content that MLG has been laying the groundwork for in the past decade.

MLG has not had the simplest of paths to growth. However, in its past 24 months, the company?s long bets have hit their marks.

Top Image Credit: Blizzard

Source: http://thenextweb.com/media/2012/11/14/explosive-major-league-gaming-grows-its-online-viewership-by-334-in-2012-to-11-7-million/

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Bowdoin College Tops Most Connected Colleges Rankings

Technology has exploded in higher education, as new computers, smartphones, and tablets are released that can provide faculty and students better opportunities to teach content and learn new material.

While technology can potentially improve connections between students and educators, there may still be challenges on the school's end with providing Internet access and support for all.

U.S. News & World Report is highlighting colleges and universities that excel in these areas with its first-ever ranking of the Most Connected Colleges. Questions about online services were included in U.S. News's survey of schools for the 2013 Best Colleges rankings, published in September 2012. Of the 1,471 schools that supplied U.S. News with connectivity data, 278 scored high enough to be numerically ranked.

[Explore the Most Connected Colleges rankings.]

Maine's Bowdoin College, a National Liberal Arts College, took the No. 1 spot in the inaugural ranking. The school provides its 1,778 students with discounts for laptops, 24-hour computer labs, wireless access from anywhere on campus, Ethernet access in all dorm rooms, and private cloud storage, among other technology offerings. Earlier this year, the college replaced every wireless access point across campus, encompassing 95 buildings, with Cisco's 3600 series wireless access points--considered the world's fastest wireless technology.

Bowdoin scored 79.9 out of 100 on a "Connectivity Index" that takes into account the school's Internet speed and access for students and faculty, technology resources available on campus, as well as an institution's mobile applications and cloud storage services.

[Learn how the Most Connected Colleges were ranked.]

With a smaller student body and leaner financial endowment than other larger colleges and universities, Bowdoin may not be the first school many would think of as the most connected institution in the country. But among the top 25 schools on the Most Connected list, 12 institutions support an undergraduate enrollment of fewer than 5,000 students, and 19 have fewer than 10,000 students.

While Internet access appears to be a standard resource on college campuses, it's not always available to students everywhere at some schools. Among the top 25 schools on the Most Connected list, only three universities do not provide Wi-Fi to 100 percent of all on-campus housing facilities. Northeastern University in Boston, the seventh-ranked university on the list, offers Wi-Fi to just 15 percent of its dormitories and campus housing.

Although it may be easier for a smaller school to provide Internet access for its academic population, some institutions also stand out by equipping students with technology for academic use. Seton Hall University in New Jersey, the fifth-ranked school on the Most Connected list, for example, provides incoming freshmen with laptops and smartphones--a program that Seton Hall started this year.

[Read more about technology in the classroom.]

Geographically, schools in the Northeast did particularly well in the Most Connected rankings. Among the top 25 schools, 13 colleges and universities reside in the Northeast region, including four schools in Pennsylvania and three schools in New York. Six schools reside in the Southeast region, four are located in the West, and one school apiece resides in the Midwest and Southwest regions.

Colleges and universities on the Most Connected list are ranked based on four composite measures, each worth one fourth of the overall Connectivity Index: Internet speed, Internet access, applications, and resources. Schools that scored a 50 or higher in the Index have been ranked.

Searching for a college? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bowdoin-college-tops-most-connected-colleges-rankings-145127595.html

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Thursday, November 15, 2012

The other reason grads are drowning in debt - Personal Finance

Many students end up taking out expensive private loans even though there are cheaper options available to them.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) ? The first in her family to go to college, Alicia Aiello wanted more than anything to study at Syracuse University. But tuition was expensive, her parents couldn?t help much with the then-$46,000-plus in tuition and expenses, and she didn?t get enough financial aid to bridge the gap.

So during her first semester, Aiello found herself taking out an $18,000 bank loan, on which she?d owe $6,000 worth of interest before she paid back even a penny of it.

?[W]hen I found out someone would give me $18,000 without a co-signer, I was really excited ? until later down the line, when I found out how much I was going to owe,? Aiello says. ?That was probably the biggest mistake I ever made.?

Many students are making mistakes like this. America?s student debt crisis is not only being fueled by skyrocketing tuition and a weak job market, but also by students? ignorance about financial matters in a system that makes it surprisingly easy for them to attain a loan. In many cases, students barely understand the obligations they?re assuming.

?A lot of us don?t have parents who went to college or who understand anything about this process,? Aiello says. ?I have a lot of friends who just signed those loans without any idea what was going on.?

Related: Average student loan debt nears $27,000

American university and college students graduated with an average of $26,600 of combined government-subsidized and private loan debt in 2011, according to figures released this month by the nonprofit Institute for College Access and Success? Project on Student Debt. More than 9% of new graduates default within two years, and 13.4% within three, the U.S. Department of Education reported last month.

Feeding this rising sea of red ink are loans from private lenders like banks, which typically charge more than federally-guaranteed loans administered by financial aid offices.

While federal loans have fixed interest rates and flexible repayment terms, private student loans carry variable interest rates that are usually higher, and while they sometimes are given without any co-signer, they often require parents or others to become responsible if the loan is not repaid.

A report this month by the government?s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that private loans now account for $150 billion of total student debt, and at least $8 billion worth of these are in default. The agency said students who have borrowed from private lenders complain not only about confusing terms, rates, marketing, and sales tactics, but also about difficulties negotiating repayment plans or refinancing.

Related: Colleges take aim at student loan debt

A lot of this could be avoided. More than one in every five dollars of student loans comes from private lenders. Yet, like Alicia Aiello, at least half of undergraduates who take out private loans have yet to max out their eligibility for ? and could still easily get ? cheaper federal loans, according to the Institute for College Access and Success.

Financial aid officers say the best deterrent to this mounting debt is information. But students appear to be getting very little of that, especially since budget cuts are thinning the ranks of already overworked financial aid employees.

?There are many financial aid officers who agree that there should be one-on-one counseling to explain to students how much they?ll owe, but most of them simply don?t have the staffs,? says Thomas Brock, director of post-secondary education at MDRC, a nonprofit research center created by the Ford Foundation.

Jason Deitz, assistant director of student financial planning at Alvernia University said his office only has five people serving nearly 4,000 students.

A study by the Project on Student Debt found that some college and university financial aid departments don?t publicize their office hours or contact information, use technical language students don?t understand, provide English-only materials while serving a growing number of non-native English speakers, are open only during the days when increasing numbers of students take night classes, and put their least experienced employees on the front lines to try to answer student questions.

Related: Colleges with the highest paid grads

?You hear people talking about this issue, but what are they doing about it? How are we educating our students to know how to borrow smart, and doing what we can to reduce the loan debt?? asks Deitz.

Some colleges and universities are starting to address the problem by requiring students to undergo financial literacy training. Last month, the State University of New York system announced the first statewide plan to curb student loan defaults, opening loan servicing centers on every campus to help students better understand the debt they?re getting into, and by reaching out to students considered at high risk for default. (Read more about efforts by colleges and universities to tackle student loan debt).

And while technology has helped ease the burden on financial aid departments, it has done more harm than good for students. Students apply for loans on the same form they apply for grants, which can downplay the high stakes of borrowing.

There are also only minimal federal requirements that students receive live, in-person financial counseling. They can simply read the terms of the loan online, which is where they also sign the master promissory note.

Related: 7 college grads: ?How I?m surviving the jobs crisis?

Overall, the process takes about 20 minutes, says Cynthia Grunden, associate vice chancellor of student financial services at City Colleges of Chicago.

?Students will go through the [online] entrance counseling and they?ll fly through it and try to get it done as quickly as possible,? says Deitz. ?They?re not reading the fine print. And then they?ll end up saying, ?I owe what? I have to pay how much???

Aiello learned the answer to that question the hard way. She has graduated now, and is working as an assistant video editor at a marketing company in Philadelphia. Good thing, too; her college loan repayments come to more than $400 a month, including $195 for just that one private loan she took out as a freshman.

?I really want get started hacking away at that,? she says. ?It?s riding on my back.?

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University. The other reason grads are drowning in debt

First Published: October 22, 2012: 5:52 AM ET

Source: http://personal-finance.wark.biz/the-other-reason-grads-are-drowning-in-debt/

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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Microsoft?s Windows President, Steven Sinofsky, Leaves Company Following Launch Of Windows 8

p1010441-croppedMicrosoft has just dropped a major bombshell:?Steven Sinofsky, President, Windows Division, is leaving the company, effective immediately. The news is being characterized as a mutual decision, but industry observers know that these things never are. According to the release, Julie Larson-Green will be promoted to lead all of Windows software and hardware engineering, while Tami Reller will expand her current role to assume responsibility for the business of Windows.?Reller also will retain her role as CFO and CMO, Microsoft says.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/6Oq-Ehov_kM/

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