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Monday, December 5, 2011

Gothridge Manor: Selling Some Gaming Books

I've got a fat stack of White Wolf's original Vampire, Werewolf, Mage and Changeling.? I'm willing to sell these bad boys cheap.? If your interested just email me elder(underscore)sensa(at)yahoo(dot)com.? All I ask is let me know how much you're willing to pay and since these guys weight a ton (around 15.5lbs) to pay the shipping also.? I'm not sure if there will be many or any offers for these books, but if you're looking for a stash of early Vampire books let me know.? All the books are in pretty good condition.? Here are the books included.

Vampire
The Main Rule Book (hardcover)
The Players Guide
The Players Guide to The Sabbat
The Storytellers Handbook to The Sabbat
Chicago by Night
Children of the Inquisition (over-sized book)

Werewolf
The Main Rulebook
Players Guide?
Book of the Wyrm
Ways of the Wolf

Mage
Main Rulebook

More to come!? I've got to make some room on my shelves.

Source: http://gothridgemanor.blogspot.com/2011/12/selling-some-gaming-books.html

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Haptic shoes could help the blind navigate cane-free (Yahoo! News)

Colette Noble

DES MOINES--Colette Noble's kids used to tell her, "You'll never lose your job--you work too hard."

Noble's voice choked up and her eyes welled with tears as she recounted the exchange.?"I used to say, 'You know what--you never know,' " she said, during an interview last week at a Starbucks here. "There are lots of good people who worked hard that lost their jobs."

Noble was laid off in January as an account manager at CDS Global, an Iowa-based subsidiary of the Hearst Corporation, where she worked for two decades. She was the was the sole breadwinner for her family of four. Her two sons are 15 and 17. Her husband, a lawyer, stopped working several years ago after becoming addicted to Oxycontin, a painkiller that a doctor prescribed him for back pain.

Noble, who is 48, threw herself into the search for a new job. "If there's a resource to be found, I feel like I've found it, " she said. But nearly a year later, she's still looking. She's now unable to pay the mortgage on her house.

Her long and fruitless search is hardly uncommon. The political class thinks of Iowa these days mostly as a staging ground for the long presidential campaign surrounding January's first-in-the-nation caucuses (including?Saturday's Republican presidential debate at Drake University, sponsored by Yahoo! and ABC News). But for many people in Iowa, the most important day-to-day concern is the state's struggle, along with the rest of the country, to throw?off the effects of the Great Recession and the halting recovery that's followed.

Although?low by national standards, Iowa's official unemployment rate has spiked to 6 percent--around 99,000 people--from 3.7 percent in 2007, before the economic downturn began. And jobless spells are lasting longer than ever. Iowa's long-term unemployment rate--the share of the 99,000 unemployed who have been out of work for 6 months or more--is 34 percent, nearly twice what it was before the downturn began.

"We look better, it sounds better, it feels better," said David Swenson, an economist who teaches at Iowa State University. "But in fact we have a lot of the stresses and the consequences of the recession that the rest of the nation has."

Iowa didn't have much of a housing bubble, so it escaped the worst of the crash. And thanks to high food prices, its agricultural sector is booming, helping to keep the rest of the state's economy afloat. But Swenson said Iowa's relatively low jobless rate is deceptive. Many of Iowa's younger workers--those under 45--tend to move to places like Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago, where there's more work.

"So our historically low unemployment rate is a function of that as well," Swenson said. "Our surplus labor that we can't use, it goes someplace else. It's unemployed elsewhere."

Compounding the problem, the recession exacerbated a nationwide trend that was already underway: a shift toward jobs with lower pay and fewer hours. The jobs gained in Iowa since the recession officially ended in 2009 pay more than $5,000 less, on average, than those lost during the downturn, according to a recent report?by the Iowa Policy Project, a union-backed group. Iowa is one of only three states in which wages for low-, median-, and high-wage workers were all lower last year, after adjusting for inflation, than they were a decade earlier. Colette Noble said she'd be "thrilled" to get a job that paid 60 or 70 percent of what she was making before.

GM considers new battery for Volt, offers to buy back hybrids from pyrophobic customers

Still freaked out about that whole Volt catching fire thing? Well, GM wants you to know it's taking your concerns very seriously. The company is considering a redesign of the battery in the hybrid, possibly delaying the release of the Opel-branded version in Europe. What's more, for those not satisfied with being able to pick up a loaner, the company will buy the vehicle back from you. That is if you're too much of a pansy to keep your combustible car.

GM considers new battery for Volt, offers to buy back hybrids from pyrophobic customers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/02/gm-considers-new-battery-for-volt-offers-to-buy-back-hybrids-fr/

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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Quantum Entanglement Links Two Diamonds

News | More Science

Usually a finicky phenomenon limited to tiny, ultracold objects, entanglement has now been achieved for macroscopic diamonds at room temperature

By John Matson ?| December 1, 2011

Diamond wafer used in entanglement experiment NOT SO SMALL: One of the diamond wafers used in the entanglement experiment, with a coin for scale. Image: CQT

Diamonds have long been available in pairs?say, mounted in a nice set of earrings. But physicists have now taken that pairing to a new level, linking two diamonds on the quantum level.

A group of researchers report in the December 2 issue of Science that they managed to entangle the quantum states of two diamonds separated by 15 centimeters. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon by which two or more objects share an unseen link bridging the space between them?a hypothetical pair of entangled dice, for instance, would always land on matching numbers, even if they were rolled in different places simultaneously.

But that link is fragile, and it can be disrupted by any number of outside influences. For that reason entanglement experiments on physical systems usually take place in highly controlled laboratory setups?entangling, say, a pair of isolated atoms cooled to nearly absolute zero.

In the new study, researchers from the University of Oxford, the National Research Council of Canada and the National University of Singapore (NUS) showed that entanglement can also be achieved in macroscopic objects at room temperature. "What we have done is demonstrate that it's possible with more standard, everyday objects?if diamond can be considered an everyday object," says study co-author Ian Walmsley, an experimental physicist at Oxford. "It's possible to put them into these quantum states that you often associate with these engineered objects, if you like?these closely managed objects."

To entangle relatively large objects, Walmsley and his colleagues harnessed a collective property of diamonds: the vibrational state of their crystal lattices. By targeting a diamond with an optical pulse, the researchers can induce a vibration in the diamond, creating an excitation called a phonon?a quantum of vibrational energy. Researchers can tell when a diamond contains a phonon by checking the light of the pulse as it exits. Because the pulse has deposited a tiny bit of its energy in the crystal, one of the outbound photons is of lower energy, and hence longer wavelength, than the photons of the incoming pulse.

Walmsley and his colleagues set up an experiment that would attempt to entangle two different diamonds using phonons. They used two squares of synthetically produced diamond, each three millimeters across. A laser pulse, bisected by a beam splitter, passes through the diamonds; any photons that scatter off of the diamond to generate a phonon are funneled into a photon detector. One such photon reaching the detector signals the presence of a phonon in the diamonds.

But because of the experimental design, there is no way of knowing which diamond is vibrating. "We know that somewhere in that apparatus, there is one phonon," Walmsley says. "But we cannot tell, even in principle, whether that came from the left-hand diamond or the right-hand diamond." In quantum-mechanical terms, in fact, the phonon is not confined to either diamond. Instead the two diamonds enter an entangled state in which they share one phonon between them.

To verify the presence of entanglement, the researchers carried out a test to check that the diamonds were not acting independently. In the absence of entanglement, after all, half the laser pulses could set the left-hand diamond vibrating and the other half could act on the right-hand diamond, with no quantum correlation between the two objects. If that were the case, then the phonon would be fully confined to one diamond.

If, on the other hand, the phonon were indeed shared by the two entangled diamonds, then any detectable effect of the phonon could bear the imprint of both objects. So the researchers fired a second optical pulse into the diamonds, with the intent of de-exciting the vibration and producing a signal photon that indicates that the phonon has been removed from the system. The phonon's vibrational energy gives the optical pulse a boost, producing a photon with higher energy, or shorter wavelength, than the incoming photons and eliminating the phonon in the process.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=2d0d65d86e97e9e7c8827368633fbba8

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Saturday, December 3, 2011

Clinton, Suu Kyi vow to promote Myanmar reforms

Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton embrace while speaking to the press after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)

Myanmar's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, right, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tour the grounds after meetings at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Saul Loeb, Pool)

Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, right, talks with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton following a meeting at Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon, Myanmar Friday, Dec. 2, 2011. (AP Photo/Soe Than Win, Pool)

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) ? U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, two of the world's most recognizable women leaders, pledged on Friday to work together to bring democracy to Suu Kyi's long isolated and repressive nation.

Wrapping up a historic three-day visit to Myanmar, Clinton held hands with Suu Kyi on the porch of the Nobel peace laureate's lakeside home where she spent much of the past two decades under house arrest and thanked her for a her "steadfast and very clear leadership." The meeting was the second in as many days for the pair who appeared to have bonded almost as sisters after a private, one-on-one dinner in Yangon on Thursday.

"You have been an inspiration but I know that you feel you are standing for all the people of your country who deserve the same rights and freedoms as people everywhere," Clinton told Suu Kyi. "The people have been courageous and strong in the face of great difficulty over too many years. We want to see this country take its rightful place in the world."

Suu Kyi has welcomed Clinton's visit and tentatively embraced reforms enacted by Myanmar's new civilian government. She thanked the secretary and U.S. President Barack Obama for their "careful and calibrated" engagement that has seen the U.S. take some modest steps to improve ties.

"We are happy with the way in which the United States is engaging with us," she said. "It is through engagement that we hope to promote the process of democratization. Because of this engagement, I think our way ahead will be clearer and we will be able to trust that the process of democratization will go forward."

As she did in the capital of Naypyidaw on Thursday, Clinton said more significant incentives will be offered but only if the government releases all political prisoners, ends brutal campaigns against ethnic minorities, respects the rule of law and improves human rights conditions.

Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won 1990 elections that were ignored by the then-military junta but now plans to run in upcoming parliamentary elections, endorsed that approach and called for the immediate release of all political prisoners and cease-fires to end the ethnic conflicts..

"If we move forward together I am confident there will be no turning back on the road to democracy," Suu Kyi said, referring to her party, the government, the United States and other countries, including Myanmar's giant neighbor China. "We are not on that road yet, but we hope to get there as soon as possible with the help and understanding of our friends."

Suu Kyi, a heroine for pro-democracy advocates around the world, said Clinton's visit, the first by a secretary of state to Myanmar in more than half a century, represented "a historical moment for both our countries."

With U.S. assistance and pressure on the government, which is still backed by the military, she said she believed change was on the horizon for Myanmar

"There have been times that Naypyidaw has weakened but I don't think it has ever really broken," she said.

Clinton's meetings with Suu Kyi were the highlight of the U.S. secretary of state's visit to the long-isolated country known as Burma and forcefully underscored a U.S. challenge to Myanmar's leaders: The new civilian government must expand recent reforms, including the release of political prisoners, to improve relations as it emerges from more than a half-century of repressive military rule.

"We believe that any political prisoner anywhere should be released," the Clinton told reporters on Thursday. "One political prisoner is one too many in our view."

U.S. officials warned that even the modest incentives Clinton offered to Myanmar's new, military-backed leaders this week would come off the table if the country fails the political-prisoners and other tests of reform.

In meetings with top Myanmar officials in the capital of Naypyidaw and then with Suu Kyi in the commercial hub of Yangon, Clinton said the country's leaders must end violent campaigns against ethnic minorities and break military ties with North Korea

Clinton offered a small package of rewards for steps President Thein Sein and other leaders have already taken but said the U.S. was not ready to lift tough sanctions on the country. Removing some of those sanctions would require approval by Congress, where many lawmakers have criticized the Obama administration for rewarding Myanmar too quickly without enough evidence of change.

The modest first steps Clinton announced include Washington no longer blocking enhanced cooperation between Myanmar and the International Monetary Fund that could lead to the approval of much-needed loans and support for the poorest nation in the region. Also, the U.S. would support intensified U.N. health and microfinance programs and resume bilateral counternarcotics efforts.

Those steps could be followed by an upgrade in diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Myanmar, Clinton said, although U.S. officials stressed that concrete action on American concerns must be completed first. The U.S. has not had an ambassador in Myanmar since the early 1990s and is represented now by a charge d'affaires.

___

Associated Press writer Aye Aye Win in Yangon contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-02-Clinton-Myanmar/id-34a1377ffaf24d0c90061f33f3769301

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2012 Grammy Award Nominations: Recapping The Concert (PHOTOS & VIDEO)

The 2012 Grammy Award nominations are in! We heard some of the nominations via the Grammy’s concert, and here’s what went down during the hour filled with performances! We kick the night off with LL Cool J welcoming everyone to the show. Lady Gaga performs ‘Marry the Night’ wearing a black bikini under a black jacket, face paint and all. Her usual amazing self. Nicki Minaj announces the Record of the Year nominees: Adele, Rolling In The Deep Holocene, Bon Iver Bruno Mars, Grenade The Cave, Mumford & Sons Katy Perry, Firework We go to the O2 arena in London, England where Rihanna performs ‘We Found Love’. What an amazing performer she is. Never disappoints. The Band Perry performs ‘Independence’ and moves into their cover of Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’. Nice job, kids! Taraji P. Henson announces Song of the Year nominees: All Of The Lights, Kanye West The Cave, Mumford and Sons Bruno Mars, Grenade Bon Iver, Holocene Adele, Rolling In The Deep Jason Aldean performs ‘Dirt Road Anthem’ and does his own little rap before Ludacris comes out to join him. Who knew that would be such an awesome collaboration? LL Cool J gabbing with Bruno Mars, who’s [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/6O6XE3oZwu4/

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Friday, December 2, 2011

Afghan woman, jailed for being raped, wins pardon (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) ? Afghanistan has pardoned a woman who was raped by a family member but then jailed for adultery, a statement from the presidential palace has said, in a case that highlights deep concerns about women's rights in the country.

It remained unclear whether the 21-year-old-woman, known as Gulnaz, would still have to marry the man who attacked her, her cousin's husband, after an earlier release offer which stipulated they must marry.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's palace issued the statement pardoning Gulnaz late on Thursday, a rare pardon in such a case in staunchly conservative Muslim Afghanistan.

Her case attracted international attention after she took part in a documentary film commissioned by the European Union but later withheld.

Gulnaz had eventually agreed to the condition she marry her attacker under the earlier release offer but her lawyer said the release granted this week did not depend on her going through with the marriage.

It was not clear whether she still intended to marry the man, her lawyer, Kimberley Motley, said. Her attacker is serving a 7-year prison term for the crime.

Motley said she hoped her client would be released shortly, and that there was a place for her in a women's shelter.

The palace statement said Justice Minister Habibullah Ghalib asked a panel of top legal officials to order her release. Gulnaz sought a pardon from Karzai earlier this week.

"After assessing Gulnaz's case, (they) decided that her remaining sentence in jail should be pardoned under the current rules and regulations of the country and she should be released," the palace statement said.

Gulnaz was initially sentenced to two years in jail for "adultery by force," which was later increased to 12 years on appeal. She was given the choice of marriage or serving a jail sentence.

Her sentence was then cut to three years after a third appeal, and the requirement for her to marry was dropped.

Gulnaz became pregnant as a result of the attack and gave birth to a daughter in the Badam Bagh women's prison in Kabul almost a year ago.

Motley also welcomed what she said was a decision to review the cases of other women in the same jail.

"The judiciary has effectively supported the Elimination of Violence Against Women Act by allowing for her to be released, for allowing for her to be pardoned," Motley said.

"Precedent definitely has been set. As I understand it, the judiciary today was also reviewing the files of other women in Badam Bagh," she said.

The presidential palace declined to comment on whether other cases were under review.

FILM BLOCKED

The film in which Gulnaz featured, a documentary on women in prison, was blocked from release by the EU mission in Afghanistan over fears it might compromise the safety of the women involved because it showed their identity.

The film-makers have been pushing for the film to be released, and say Gulnaz wanted her story to be told.

"I made a promise to these women that I would get their stories out. I am glad that I've been able to honor that promise to Gulnaz," said the film's director Clementine Malpas.

"I still hope that our film can be released, so people can hear the stories of the other women, and perhaps increase their chance of getting justice as well."

EU spokeswoman Lynne O'Donnell welcomed news Gulnaz would be freed but declined to comment on whether the film would be released.

Gulnaz's case had been condemned widely by human rights groups. An online petition started by Motley has been signed by more than 6,000 people.

Motley said she is still trying to ascertain whether the attacker will also be released if they agree to marry.

(Reporting by Jan Harvey and Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Paul Tait)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111202/wl_nm/us_afghanistan_women_prison

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