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Sunday, January 6, 2013

Can BCS title game challenge TV ratings record?

NEW YORK (AP) ? Two undefeated teams, three Heisman Trophy finalists, five lead changes and 19 seconds left when the winning touchdown was scored.

No other BCS title game has come close to matching that perfect formula for broad appeal. The 2006 tilt between Texas and Southern California was on in nearly 22 percent of American homes with televisions; the second-best number is under 18 percent.

Now, seven years later, a matchup may finally challenge that Rose Bowl's TV ratings record.

No. 1 Notre Dame, so popular it can stay independent and negotiate its own television contract, is competing for its first championship since the 1988 season. Notre Dame's opponent, No. 2 Alabama, is a big name in its own right, made bigger by two titles in the last three years and the Southeastern Conference's run of six straight crowns.

"It sets up really remarkable possibilities," said Burke Magnus, ESPN's senior vice president for college sports programming.

Just as fans and media break down position-by-position battles for the Fighting Irish and Crimson Tide, a look at how this year's matchup stacks up against the record-holders from 2006:

? NAME RECOGNITION. Texas and USC are hardly slouches in the tradition and popularity departments, but Notre Dame is in its own category. Plus there's the added intrigue of the Irish's title drought.

"It definitely raises the bar of the hype and the buzz of this national championship compared to any of the other games I've had the good fortune to call," ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit said.

Even if much of the interest sprouts from fans rooting against one of the teams.

"Notre Dame is the Yankees, is the Celtics, the Lakers and so on, the Dallas Cowboys. They're polarizing, which helps," Magnus said. "Actually, both of them are right now because of the SEC factor, and Alabama has been the standard bearer for that."

Herbstreit chuckled at the thought of some fans vowing not to watch because they detest both teams.

"Anybody who takes the time to make a comment like that clearly will be watching the game," he said. "They'll in fact watch the four hours of pregame we have before the game and be blogging and tweeting about how wrong everybody is on those shows."

? STAR POWER. Texas-USC sparkled far brighter here. The three Heisman finalists that season were from those two teams: Trojans quarterback Matt Leinart (who won the previous year) and running back Reggie Bush (who won this time, before later returning the trophy because of NCAA violations) and Longhorns quarterback Vince Young. All were skill position players believed at the time to have promising NFL futures.

Notre Dame's Heisman finalist is a defensive guy, linebacker Manti Te'o. Alabama's four first-team All-Americans are offensive linemen or defenders.

? ANTICIPATION. Texas and USC were the undisputed top teams in college football ? the only undefeated squads in the country who led the rankings all season. Alabama has one loss, and while there has been almost no controversy as to whether the Tide deserves to play in the title game, the late-season rankings scramble that led to this game doesn't carry quite the same buzz.

? MARKET SIZE. In the NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball, postseason viewership often varies significantly based on whether the teams involved hail from cities big or small. In college football, that's less of a factor, though it didn't hurt the 2006 title game that a school from Los Angeles, the country's second-largest market, was involved.

The program from South Bend, Ind., of course is a classic example of national appeal.

"(Alabama is) the franchise right now and another mega brand," Magnus said. "It doesn't matter that it's Tuscaloosa ? the TV markets don't matter when it comes to teams like that."

? ON-FIELD THEATER. One of the biggest factors in the final rating won't be known until the game kicks off. If the score stays close, more viewers will stick around to the end ? and more will join in. Magnus believes the rise of social media will increase the audience of tight games even more than in the past, as casual fans learn through Twitter or Facebook that they can catch a tense finish if they tune in.

The Longhorns' 41-38 win featured 10 touchdowns, and the teams combined to score five times in the fourth quarter. Neither school ever led by more than 12 points.

Notre Dame has had a penchant for close games all season and Alabama also has lately. But the other half of the entertainment equation ? high scoring ? may be less likely with these two programs. Each allows fewer than 11 points a game.

? RAW NUMBERS. The Texas-USC title game set the record with a 21.7 rating ? 22 percent higher than the next best BCS championship. No. 2 all-time was the 2001 Oklahoma-Florida State final with a 17.8. The best ratings since 2006 were a 17.4 for both the 2007 Florida-Ohio State and 2008 LSU-Ohio State matchups.

The 2006 championship was on ABC, but the BCS games have since moved to cable. ESPN is in about 14 percent fewer homes than the traditional broadcast networks, though executives note that college football fans are more likely than the general population to have cable. Ratings since the switch have seemingly been more affected by the matchups and competitiveness of games than by their availability.

Regular-season viewership, while still strong, was down for college football this year. On ESPN's networks, the average audience decreased more than 10 percent on ABC, almost 4 percent on ESPN, and nearly 13 percent on ESPN2 from 2011. SEC games on CBS also dropped 10 percent.

For the four BCS games so far, preliminary ratings are up 1 percent on ESPN from last season.

But Notre Dame and Alabama have already shown their ability to lure big audiences. The rating for the Tide's SEC title game against Georgia ? essentially a national semifinal ? was up 34 percent from the previous year's LSU-Georgia matchup. With an average of 16.2 million viewers, it was the season's most-watched college football game before the bowls.

No. 2 was Notre Dame's win over USC to clinch a berth in the BCS title game with 16.1 million viewers. That was the highest-rated Saturday night regular-season game on ABC since at least 1991.

Herbstreit is one of those sports fans who watch golf only when Tiger Woods is in contention on a Sunday. He considers Notre Dame-Alabama to be the college football equivalent of that.

"Without a doubt," he said, "if you're a college football fan, or even if you're a fringe college football fan, you're going to watch."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bcs-title-game-challenge-tv-ratings-record-183833190--spt.html

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Saturday, January 5, 2013

"Django Unchained" on pace to be Tarantino's biggest box office film ever

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - After nine days in theaters, "Django Unchained" is on pace to be Quentin Tarantino's highest grossing movie ever.

That's right, if the trend holds, the blood-soaked slave-revenge fable will rack up more at the box office than "Pulp Fiction" ($213.9 million worldwide), "Kill Bill Vol. 1" ($180.9 million worldwide), "Kill Bill Vol. 2" ($152.1 million worldwide) and previous record holder, "Inglourious Basterds" ($321.4 million worldwide).

Even though "Django Unchained" has only debuted stateside, with $82.4 million through January 2, it is outstripping all of the previous Tarantino movie mash-ups. At a similar point in its rollout, "Inglourious Basterds" had netted $67.6 million domestically, according to Box Office Mojo.

"It's the Quentin Tarantino brand," Phil Contrino, vice president and chief analyst with Boxoffice.com, told TheWrap. "People appreciate what he's doing. He makes these purely cinematic movies that allow even casual moviegoers to feel like they get to be a film snob and the great cast helps."

With a Cinemascore rating of A- (something of an imperfect arbiter of quality given that "Parental Guidance" has the same score) and a RottenTomatoes ranking of 89 percent "fresh," the film has been embraced by both audiences and critics, which bodes well for the proverbial "word of mouth" business.

"The exit polls are fantastic, the results have been outstanding and we're looking forward to a long run," Erik Lomis, head of theatrical distribution at The Weinstein Company, told TheWrap.

Not that "Django Unchained" has been immune to criticism. A fierce debate has erupted over Tarantino's proclivity for using a certain racial epithet that begins with "N," with directors like Spike Lee boycotting the film and decrying it for making light of slavery.

However, the red-hot controversy does not appear to have singed ticket sales.

And Fandango Chief Correspondent Dave Karger argues that the controversy may be helping the film. He notes that the plethora of opinion pieces on the subject as well as a viral video of star Samuel L. Jackson trying and failing to get an interviewer to use the racist term have kept "Django Unchained" in the public eye.

"This is the kind of movie that, as the best movies do, really inspires conversation and debate afterward and that only helps it," Karger said. "There are going to be people turned off by the use of the word, but they're going to just avoid the movie, and clearly it hasn't been a huge deterrent."

Indeed, as of 7 a.m. PT, "Django" was the number-one ticket seller on Fandango, ahead of other holiday hits like "Les Mis?rables" and "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey." It currently accounts for 21 percent of the ticketer's sales and, based on studio tracking, it should add another $18.5 million to its haul over the weekend.

That will likely push it over the $100 million mark after two weeks in theaters.

In contrast, it took "Inglourious Basterds" 23 days to hit a similar figure domestically. Moreover, by that point in its release schedule, "Inglourious Basterds" was never showing in less than 3,165 theaters whereas "Django Unchained" has never unspooled across more than 3,010 since it debuted, giving the Nazi drama a major per-screen advantage.

Starting on January 16, "Django Unchained" will find out if its film grindhouse humor translates abroad when it opens in France and Belgium and then rolls out across Russia, most of Europe and much of Latin America later that week. Sony will handle the international launch, while The Weinstein Company is overseeing the movie's domestic release.

Of course, highest grossing doesn't mean most successful. Adjusted for inflation, "Pulp Fiction," which amassed its $200 million-plus nearly 20 years ago, would be the top earner among the Tarantino oeuvre. Moreover, it still ranks as the director's most successful film having been produced for a meager $8 million.

Operating under the principle you have to spend money to make it, the Weinstein Company shelled out $87 million to produce "Django Unchained." Still if foreign audiences embrace the picture and the film picks up Oscar nominations, the studio will ride out of the holiday season with an awful lot of green-backs in its saddlebags.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/django-unchained-pace-tarantinos-biggest-box-office-film-033102344.html

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Palazzo Speaks (talking-points-memo)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/274900879?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Friday, January 4, 2013

CES 2013 Preview: Less Electronics, More Cars | MIT Technology ...

The annual Consumer Electronics Show, known as CES, begins in Las Vegas next week. As usual, it promises to be an orgy of crowded conference centers and frenzied PR activity combined with some interesting new technology announcements. MIT Technology Review will be posting news from Vegas next week, but we can also make some predictions now about we?re likely to see.

My guess is that next week will yield many new TVs and laptops but none of the biggest new tech releases of 2013. This is largely because some of the largest players in computing and mobile have largely?withdrawn from the show.

Microsoft walked away from the headline keynote of CES in 2012, after 15 years of anchoring the show (see ?Three Gems Hidden in Microsoft?s Boring Keynote?). Apple hasn?t had a presence on the show floor for years, and Amazon and Google have never had much of one. Part of the reason is that these influential companies want more control. Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Google are all large enough to stage their own events. At the same time, gadget and computer releases have crept up the news bulletins to become mainstream headlines. (It?s worth noting, however, that senior figures from all those companies still attend CES, to take the opportunity to meet face to face with others from the industry.)

One company bucking this trend is Samsung, the world?s largest mobile-phone manufacturer, which will have a major presence at CES. Last year, the company used the show to launch its Galaxy Note ?phablet? (see ?Review: Galaxy Note?).

Although some have predicted that CES could soon disappear altogether, plenty of technology companies still need the show, and it?s not just the small companies pushing curiosities such as window-cleaning robots or a computer mouse in the shape of a car (see ?The Other Side of CES?).

Car companies have been increasing their presence at CES for several years as they seek to integrate more computing into their vehicles to better tempt a new generation of consumers (see ?At Gadget Show, Mercedes Announces Plans to Pursue Generation Y?). This year, Lexus has taken one of the few slots on the press preview day, promising updates on Toyota?s research on autonomous cars. Ford and Audi, meanwhile, are also holding press events, and I wouldn?t be surprised for an automaker to be giving next year?s headline keynote.

There should also be some interesting hints of the future in Las Vegas next week.?One of the most interesting things about attending CES is taking a chance to roam the exhibition floor to get an impression of what novel ideas are being made possible by smaller companies that typically sell or license their technology to larger ones. Last year I found a crop of practical-looking wearable displays (see ?A Preview of Tomorrow?s Wearable Computers?)?technology that is likely to be adopted by companies trying to compete with Google Glass in coming years (see ?You Will Want Google Goggles?). I?m expecting more wearable computing technology this year, as well as other ideas that hint at what?s coming next.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/view/509496/ces-2013-preview-less-electronics-more-cars/

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ULI bringing balance to extreme weather debate - Real Estate Weekly

As the New York area recovers from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, one of the lingering questions has been the issue of how to protect buildings and infrastructure vulnerable to flooding and what to do about future development.

Some have proposed legislation restricting land use going forward, forever banning building in areas destroyed by the hurricane.
Other groups, like the non-governmental Urban Land Institute, say they have a more balanced approach and can help communities in the midst of debate.

Richard Kessler

?There are a number groups now thinking some very basic things,? said Richard Kessler, chairman of ULI New York.

?For instance, why are all the building services underground? Why is our electric switch gear in the basement? Should we re-do zoning codes to give mechanical bonuses to developers? These are some of the questions we have going forward.? Formed after hurricane Katrina, ULI created hurricane task forces called Technical Assistance Panels, which are made up of land use and development experts who do outreach to hard hit communities, offering advice on how to best address possible future natural disasters as they start to rebuild.

Kessler said that ULI New York is in discussions to bring their TEP?s to one particularly hard hit municipality on Long Island. Nationally, ULI is working with communities in New Jersey and in the Philadelphia area.
One distinction Kessler wanted to make was that even though there is a small group of ULI members who are under 35 that volunteer on weekends to provide support, the Urban Land Institute is not an emergency response group like the Red Cross. It is a strategic planning and thinking group that is more future focused.

?Groups of ULI members go out into community and try and help deal with a land use or planning issue,? said Kessler. ?ULI seeks to work in an advisory capacity. We help to bring best practices as learned by our members to the table to provide objective information to decision makers to help them.?

Anything that ULI does via a Technical Assistance Panel is pro bono to a community Kessler said. For communities and municipalities near water, a different kind of planning will be important aspect as they begin to plan the future of land use.
Public opinion has shifted somewhat in the aftermath of Sandy. In November 68% of American voters felt that global warming was a serious problem.

Just two days before Christmas, a report released by the journal Nature Geoscience showed that temperatures at Antarctica?s Byrd Research Station are rising twice as fast than previously anticipated.

?There is clear evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is contributing to sea-level rise,? said authors David H. Bromwich & Julien P. Nicolas in the report. ?We confirm previous reports of West Antarctic warming, in annual average and in austral spring and winter, but find substantially larger temperature increases.?

Reports like this have caused development companies like New York?s Lightstone Group to alter plans for future developments built near water, especially as governmental organizations like FEMA make changes to advisory standards in anticipation of further sea rise.

?Since Hurricane Sandy, Lightstone has indicated it will likely further elevate the project,? said Ethan Geto, of Geto & de Milly, Lightstone?s public relations firm in an e-mail.

?There will be absolutely no flooding of the buildings in a future Sandy-like storm. There also will be no basement ? all mechanical equipment will be similarly elevated well beyond the reach of any possible floodwaters,? he said.

Lightstone?s Gowanas project now calls for all vital building service equipment to be placed close to 20 feet above ground level.
However, not all developers will be as willing to give away rentable space to protect electrical systems and boilers, Kessler said.
That is where he feels ULI?s membership of real estate professionals working in an advisory role will be key at balancing developers concerns with those of the community at large.

?ULI has an array of members that will look at the hurricane on a big picture basis for the future,? he said.

?I think we are going to look at building codes. Maybe the boilers and the electrical switch gear need to be on third floor. No developer would want to give away useable rentable area in order to do that, so maybe we give someone credit for the space that would normally be below grade but is now out of harms way.?

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Thursday, January 3, 2013

Activist Post: Judge: Legal Justification for Killing Americans with ...

Activist Post

A federal court today dismissed most of the American Civil Liberties Union?s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records about the government?s targeted killing of three American citizens in Yemen in 2011: Anwar Al-Awlaki and Samir Khan in September, and Al-Awlaki?s 16-year-old son Abdulrahman in October.

The ACLU plans to appeal the decision.

?This ruling denies the public access to crucial information about the government?s extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizens and also effectively green-lights its practice of making selective and self-serving disclosures,? said Jameel Jaffer, ACLU deputy legal director. ?As the judge acknowledges, the targeted killing program raises profound questions about the appropriate limits on government power in our constitutional democracy. The public has a right to know more about the circumstances in which the government believes it can lawfully kill people, including U.S. citizens, who are far from any battlefield and have never been charged with a crime.?

The ACLU?s FOIA request seeks disclosure of the legal memorandum written by the Department of Justice?s Office of Legal Counsel, which provided justifications for the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, as well as records describing the legal and factual basis for the killings. The New York Times submitted a similar but narrower FOIA request, and the two resulting lawsuits filed in the Southern District of New York were combined. The government argued that the requested documents cannot be released, despite the fact that government officials have talked publicly on numerous occasions about al-Awlaki?s killing and the targeted killing program in general.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is currently considering another ACLU FOIA lawsuit seeking other information on the targeted killing program, including its legal basis, scope, and number of civilian casualties caused by drone strikes. The court heard oral argument in September.

The ACLU, together with the Center for Constitutional Rights, has also filed a lawsuit directly challenging the constitutionality of these targeted killings. The government has argued that case should also be dismissed.

Today?s opinion is at: www.aclu.org/files/assets/al-awlaki_foia_ruling.pdf
More information on this case is at: www.aclu.org/national-security/anwar-al-awlaki-foia-request
Information on other ACLU litigation on targeted killing is at: www.aclu.org/national-security/targeted-killings
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Source: ACLU

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Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2013/01/judge-legal-justification-for-killing.html

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Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Emotional Freedom Technique E Book, Self Help | jigandardatta

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Source: http://jigandardatta.blogspot.com/2012/12/emotional-freedom-technique-e-book-self.html

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