Gingrich says he never lobbied, didn't need money

Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during a town hall rally, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011 in Bluffton, S.C. Gingrich was in town to open the Newt 2012 Beaufort County field office in downtown Bluffton. (AP Photo/Stephen Morton)

Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during a town hall rally, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011 in Bluffton, S.C. Gingrich was in town to open the Newt 2012 Beaufort County field office in downtown Bluffton. (AP Photo/Stephen Morton)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks during town hall setting rally, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011, in Bluffton, S.C. Gingrich was in town to open the Newt 2012 Beaufort County field office in downtown Bluffton. (AP Photo/Stephen Morton)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich greets supporters before a town hall setting rally, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011, in Bluffton, S.C. (AP Photo/Stephen Morton)

Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks with reporters outside the Newt 2012 Beaufort County field office, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011 in Bluffton, S.C. (AP Photo/Stephen Morton)

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gestures as he speaks, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011 in Bluffton, S.C. (AP Photo/Stephen Morton)

(AP) ? Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich says he didn't need to be a lobbyist after his congressional career because he was paid so handsomely merely to give speeches.

The former House speaker has raked in millions of dollars at his network of for-profit consulting firms, think tanks and speaking engagements. During a meeting with South Carolina voters at a shopping center Tuesday, he confronted a suggestion that he sought to turn his tenure as the House's top Republican into a role of for-hire powerbroker.

"I did no lobbying of any kind ? period," Gingrich said. "I'm going to be really direct, OK? I was charging $60,000 a speech. And the number of speeches was going up, not down. Normally, celebrities leave and they gradually sell fewer speeches every year. We were selling more."

The legal definition of lobbying is fairly narrow, encompassing only those who directly contact members of Congress or executive branch officials in an attempt to influence them. Many ex-lawmakers decline to do that kind of work, but instead offer their advice to groups that do lobby, as Gingrich did in the case of Freddie Mac.

Moreover, Gingrich's business network has for years given the Georgia Republican a far-reaching platform to support his causes, such as digital medical records. He contended he never voiced opinions that weren't his own.

"If I didn't like the issue, I didn't deal with it," Gingrich said "If I didn't agree with you, I didn't say it."

However, Gingrich was paid huge sums over the past decade by the mortgage giant Freddie Mac, an institution roundly criticized by Republicans. Gingrich himself criticized Barack Obama in 2008 for accepting contributions from executives of Freddie Mac and its larger sister institution, Fannie Mae, and said the Democrat should give the money back.

Pressed on the matter in Iowa earlier this month, Gingrich said he provided "strategic advice for a long period of time." A person familiar with the Freddie Mac consulting contracts said they paid at least $1.6 million from 1999 to early 2008. The person spoke on condition of anonymity in order address a personnel matter.

Gingrich cracked to supporters Tuesday that he's giving more speeches for free as a candidate now than he ever gave for money.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-11-29-Gingrich-Speeches/id-96cc8a2534064720a3747e04a0a38f74

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Supercomputers take a cue from microwave ovens

[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Linda Vu
lvu@lbl.gov
510-495-2402
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Berkeley researchers say co-design may be the answer to modeling clouds and other big problems

As sophisticated as modern climate models are, one critical component continues to elude their precisionclouds. Simulating these fluffy puffs of water vapor is so computationally complex that even today's most powerful supercomputers, working at quadrillions of calculations per second, cannot accurately model them.

"Clouds modulate the climate. They reflect some sunlight back into space, which cools the Earth; but they can also act as a blanket and trap heat," says Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). "Getting their effect on the climate system correct is critical to increasing confidence in projections of future climate change."

In order to build the break-through supercomputers scientists like Wehner need, researchers are looking to the world of consumer electronics like microwave ovens, cameras and cellphones, where everything from chips to batteries to software is optimized to the device's application. This co-design approach brings scientists and computer engineers into the supercomputer design process, so that systems are purpose-built for a scientific application, such as climate modeling, from the bottom up.

"Co-design allows us to design computers to answer specific questions, rather than limit our questions by available machines," says Wehner.

Co-design Test Case: Clouds

In a paper entitled "Hardware/Software Co-design of Global Cloud System Resolving Models," recently published in Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Shalf, Wehner and coauthors argue that the scientific supercomputing community should take a cue from consumer electronics like smart phones and microwave ovens: Start with an applicationlike a climate modeland use that as a metric for successful hardware and software design.

The paper which uses the climate community's global cloud resolving models (GCRMs) as a case-study argues that an aggressive co-design approach to scientific computing could increase code efficiency and enable chip designers to optimize the trade-offs between energy efficiency, cost and application performance.

According to coauthor David Donofrio, a co-designed system for modeling climate would contain about 20 million cores (today's most powerful scientific cluster, Japan's 'K Computer' contains about 705,000 cores) and be capable of modeling climate 1,000 times faster than what is currently possible.

"Most importantly, the system would remain fully programmable so that scientific codes with similar hardware needs to the GCRMs, like seismic exploration, could also benefit from this machine," says Donofrio, a computer scientist at Berkeley Lab.

"Today when we purchase a general purpose supercomputer, it comes with a lot of operating system functions that science applications don't need. When you are worried about power, these codes can be very costly," says Shalf. "Instead of repurposing a chip designed for another market, the scientific HPC (high performance computing) community should specify what they want on a chipthe intellectual property (IP)and only buy that.'"

According to Shalf, a co-designed system for modeling climate would use about one quarter to one tenth the energy required for a conventional supercomputer with the same capabilities.

Consumers Pave the Way for Next Generation Supercomputers

Although innovative for scientific supercomputing, the idea of application-driven design is not new. Electronics like cell-phones and toaster ovens are built of simpler embedded processor cores optimized for one or a few dedicated functions.

"Because the ultimate goal of the embedded market is to maximize battery life, these technologies have always been driven by maximizing performance-per-watt and minimizing cost. Application-driven design is the key to accomplishing this," says Shalf. "Today we look at the motherboard as a canvas for building a supercomputer, but in the embedded market the canvas is the chip."

He notes that the most expensive part of developing a computer chip is designing and validating all of the IP blocks that are placed on the chip. These IP blocks serve different functions, and in the embedded market vendors profit by licensing them out to various product makers. With an application in mind, manufacturers purchase IP block licenses and then work with a system integrator to assemble the different pieces on a chip.

"You can think of these IP blocks as Legos or components of a home entertainment system," says Donofrio. "Each block has a purpose, you can buy them separately, and connect them to achieve a desired result, like surround sound in your living room."

"The expensive part is designing and verifying the IP blocks, and not the cost of the chip. These IP blocks are commodities because the development costs are amortized across the many different licenses for different applications," says Shalf. "Just as the consumer electronics chip designers choose a set of processor characteristics appropriate to the device at hand, HPC designers should also be able to chose processor characteristics appropriate to a specific application or set of applications, like the climate community's global cloud resolving model."

He notes that the resulting machine, while remaining fully programmable, would achieve maximum performance on the targeted set of applications, which were used as the benchmarks in the co-design process. In this sense, Shalf notes that the co-designed machine is less general purpose than the typical supercomputer of today, but much of what is included in modern supercomputers is of little use to scientific computing anyway and so it just wastes power.

"Before this work, if someone asked me when the climate community would be able to compute kilometer scale climate simulations, I would have answered 'not in my lifetime,'" says Wehner. "Now, with this roadmap I think we could be resolving cloud systems within the next decade."

Although climate was the focus of this paper, Shalf notes that future co-design studies will explore whether this will also be cost-effective for other compute intensive sciences such as combustion research.

###

In addition to Shalf,Wehner and Donofrio other co-authors of the paper include Leonid Oliker, Leroy Drummond, Norman Miller and Woo-Sun Yang, also of Berkeley Lab; Marghoob Mohiyuddin the University of California at Berkeley; Celal Konor, Ross Heikes and David Randall of Colorado State University; and Hiroaki Miura of the University of Tokyo.


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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 30-Nov-2011
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Linda Vu
lvu@lbl.gov
510-495-2402
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Berkeley researchers say co-design may be the answer to modeling clouds and other big problems

As sophisticated as modern climate models are, one critical component continues to elude their precisionclouds. Simulating these fluffy puffs of water vapor is so computationally complex that even today's most powerful supercomputers, working at quadrillions of calculations per second, cannot accurately model them.

"Clouds modulate the climate. They reflect some sunlight back into space, which cools the Earth; but they can also act as a blanket and trap heat," says Michael Wehner, a climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). "Getting their effect on the climate system correct is critical to increasing confidence in projections of future climate change."

In order to build the break-through supercomputers scientists like Wehner need, researchers are looking to the world of consumer electronics like microwave ovens, cameras and cellphones, where everything from chips to batteries to software is optimized to the device's application. This co-design approach brings scientists and computer engineers into the supercomputer design process, so that systems are purpose-built for a scientific application, such as climate modeling, from the bottom up.

"Co-design allows us to design computers to answer specific questions, rather than limit our questions by available machines," says Wehner.

Co-design Test Case: Clouds

In a paper entitled "Hardware/Software Co-design of Global Cloud System Resolving Models," recently published in Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Shalf, Wehner and coauthors argue that the scientific supercomputing community should take a cue from consumer electronics like smart phones and microwave ovens: Start with an applicationlike a climate modeland use that as a metric for successful hardware and software design.

The paper which uses the climate community's global cloud resolving models (GCRMs) as a case-study argues that an aggressive co-design approach to scientific computing could increase code efficiency and enable chip designers to optimize the trade-offs between energy efficiency, cost and application performance.

According to coauthor David Donofrio, a co-designed system for modeling climate would contain about 20 million cores (today's most powerful scientific cluster, Japan's 'K Computer' contains about 705,000 cores) and be capable of modeling climate 1,000 times faster than what is currently possible.

"Most importantly, the system would remain fully programmable so that scientific codes with similar hardware needs to the GCRMs, like seismic exploration, could also benefit from this machine," says Donofrio, a computer scientist at Berkeley Lab.

"Today when we purchase a general purpose supercomputer, it comes with a lot of operating system functions that science applications don't need. When you are worried about power, these codes can be very costly," says Shalf. "Instead of repurposing a chip designed for another market, the scientific HPC (high performance computing) community should specify what they want on a chipthe intellectual property (IP)and only buy that.'"

According to Shalf, a co-designed system for modeling climate would use about one quarter to one tenth the energy required for a conventional supercomputer with the same capabilities.

Consumers Pave the Way for Next Generation Supercomputers

Although innovative for scientific supercomputing, the idea of application-driven design is not new. Electronics like cell-phones and toaster ovens are built of simpler embedded processor cores optimized for one or a few dedicated functions.

"Because the ultimate goal of the embedded market is to maximize battery life, these technologies have always been driven by maximizing performance-per-watt and minimizing cost. Application-driven design is the key to accomplishing this," says Shalf. "Today we look at the motherboard as a canvas for building a supercomputer, but in the embedded market the canvas is the chip."

He notes that the most expensive part of developing a computer chip is designing and validating all of the IP blocks that are placed on the chip. These IP blocks serve different functions, and in the embedded market vendors profit by licensing them out to various product makers. With an application in mind, manufacturers purchase IP block licenses and then work with a system integrator to assemble the different pieces on a chip.

"You can think of these IP blocks as Legos or components of a home entertainment system," says Donofrio. "Each block has a purpose, you can buy them separately, and connect them to achieve a desired result, like surround sound in your living room."

"The expensive part is designing and verifying the IP blocks, and not the cost of the chip. These IP blocks are commodities because the development costs are amortized across the many different licenses for different applications," says Shalf. "Just as the consumer electronics chip designers choose a set of processor characteristics appropriate to the device at hand, HPC designers should also be able to chose processor characteristics appropriate to a specific application or set of applications, like the climate community's global cloud resolving model."

He notes that the resulting machine, while remaining fully programmable, would achieve maximum performance on the targeted set of applications, which were used as the benchmarks in the co-design process. In this sense, Shalf notes that the co-designed machine is less general purpose than the typical supercomputer of today, but much of what is included in modern supercomputers is of little use to scientific computing anyway and so it just wastes power.

"Before this work, if someone asked me when the climate community would be able to compute kilometer scale climate simulations, I would have answered 'not in my lifetime,'" says Wehner. "Now, with this roadmap I think we could be resolving cloud systems within the next decade."

Although climate was the focus of this paper, Shalf notes that future co-design studies will explore whether this will also be cost-effective for other compute intensive sciences such as combustion research.

###

In addition to Shalf,Wehner and Donofrio other co-authors of the paper include Leonid Oliker, Leroy Drummond, Norman Miller and Woo-Sun Yang, also of Berkeley Lab; Marghoob Mohiyuddin the University of California at Berkeley; Celal Konor, Ross Heikes and David Randall of Colorado State University; and Hiroaki Miura of the University of Tokyo.


[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-11/dbnl-sta113011.php

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Victoria's Secret Android app now available

Victoria's Secret for Android

Attention women, husbands, boyfriends and anyone who just needs to feel pretty from time to time: The Victoria's Secret app has slinked into the Android Market. The app itself isn't all that well done -- it's more of a mobile portal than something that feels like a true native app, and it requires too many taps before you get to the merchandise -- but it does give you a way to shop from your phone. You also get video previews for such things as the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show (that's on TV tonight, by the way), a look at some of the VS supermodels, a store locater and barcode scanner.

We've got screenshots (you're welcome) and download links after the break.

read more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/DfbMXH-YJg8/story01.htm

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Brian Williams delivers some alarming news (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? "NBC Nightly News With Brian Williams" was totally on fire Tuesday night. Sort of.

Anchor Brian Williams' focus was put to the test on Tuesday's newscast when a fire alarm went off as he introduced a story about American Airlines' bankruptcy filing.

But rather than run around the newsroom flapping his arms at his sides like Glenn Beck probably would have, Williams maintained his composure, with only a slight giggling fit breaking his stone-faced delivery.

Luckily it was a false alarm, as NBC News indicated via Twitter shortly thereafter.

"Fire alarm here at 30 Rock goes off at the exact same time we go on air," they tweeted. "All is fine in the building & the show goes on."

Maybe it was an American Airlines exec trying to distract viewers from the company's financial woes?

You can check out the video here: http://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/brian-williams-delivers-some-alarming-news-video-33167

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/celebrity/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111130/people_nm/us_brianwilliams

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Looking to build, Gingrich eyes South Carolina (AP)

WASHINGTON ? Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich looked to turn an endorsement from New Hampshire's largest newspaper into momentum elsewhere, heading to South Carolina for a three-day campaign swing with tea party members.

His leading rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, did not schedule campaign appearances on Monday, but his advisers were working to downplay The New Hampshire Union Leader's backing of Gingrich in Romney's back yard. The newspaper's rejection of Romney, who enjoys solid polling leads in that state and has worked to line up activists, stood to potentially reshape the entire campaign.

"We don't back candidates based on popularity polls or big-shot backers. We look for conservatives of courage and conviction who are independent-minded, grounded in their core beliefs about this nation and its people, and best equipped for the job," the newspaper said in its Sunday front-page editorial.

The Union Leader's editorial is a sign that conservative concerns about Romney's shifts on crucial issues of abortion and gay rights were unlikely to fade. Those worries have led Romney to keep Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses ? where conservatives hold great sway ? at arm's length.

At the same time, the endorsement boosts Gingrich's conservative credentials. He spent the week defending his immigration policies against accusations they represent a form of amnesty. On Monday, Gingrich was to begin a campaign swing through South Carolina, the South's first primary state. There, he will have a town hall meeting with Rep. Tim Scott and tea party activists in Charleston.

Romney, taking a few days' break for the Thanksgiving holiday, has kept focused on a long-term strategy that doesn't lurch from one development to another. Last week, he picked up the backing of Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota conservative, to add to his roster of supporters.

Romney planned to return to the campaign on Tuesday in Florida.

The Union Leader's rejection of Romney wasn't surprising despite his efforts to woo state leaders. The newspaper rejected Romney four years ago in favor of Arizona Sen. John McCain, using front-page columns and editorials to promote McCain and criticize Romney.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has a vacation home in the state and has been called a "nearly native son of New Hampshire," absorbed the blow heading into the Jan. 10 vote that's vital to his campaign strategy.

Yet with six weeks until the primary, The Union Leader's move could again shuffle the race, further boosting Gingrich and driving a steady stream of criticism against his rivals. In recent weeks, the former House speaker has seen a surge in some polls as Republicans focus more closely on deciding who they consider best positioned to take on President Barack Obama.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/politics/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111128/ap_on_el_pr/us_campaign2012

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The First Ice Cream Sandwich Android Tablet Surfaces In China

ics tabRight now the only way to officially taste Ice Cream Sandwich on a device is on the Galaxy Nexus. Google stated that it would eventually hit tablets. Well, the wait is over. Somewhere in the bowels of China the first ICS tablet has appeared. It's a Xoom clone powered by slightly-dated hardware but it's running 4.0.1. That's all that counts. The story goes that the tab shown here (and in the video after the jump) is the first 4.0.1 tablet. As Shanzhaiben?and GizChina notes, the 10.1-inch tablet is a bit of a Xoom knockoff but sports respectable internal components. 1GB of RAM and a Tegra 2 chip powers the device. There's 16GB of storage, dual cams, GPS, HDMI, a 7000mAh battery, and a 3G SIM card slot.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/3vtDxyhZejQ/

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Ivory Coast's Gbagbo taken into custody at ICC (AP)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands ? Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo was taken into custody by the International Criminal Court Wednesday to face charges of murder, rape and other crimes allegedly committed by his supporters as he clung to power after last year's elections.

Gbagbo, 66, is the first former head of state arrested by the court since it was established in 2002. Prosecutors also have charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with genocide, but he has refused to surrender to the court. Libya's former leader, the late Moammar Gadhafi, was killed before he could be put on trial in The Hague on crimes against humanity charges.

"Mr. Gbagbo is brought to account for his individual responsibility in the attacks against civilians committed by forces acting on his behalf," Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said in a statement.

Prosecutors say about 3,000 people died in violence by both sides after Gbagbo refused to concede defeat following the Nov. 28 presidential election. President Alassane Ouattara only took power in April with the help of French and U.N. forces.

Gbagbo was expected to spend Wednesday settling in his new cell in the court's seaside detention unit. He is scheduled to appear before judges at a hearing Monday afternoon to confirm his identity and that he understands his rights as a suspect and the charges against him.

His arrest and transfer to the court in The Hague on an overnight flight sparked elation and anger in Ivory Coast's largest city of Abidjan, which is still divided into neighborhoods supporting Gbagbo or Ouattara.

In the pro-Ouattara neighborhood Doakoure, Sarah Dosso said she sang and danced when she heard the news of Gbagbo's transfer.

"It's overwhelming. I'm really happy," the 25-year-old said outside her home, which faces a mass grave where her father and brother are buried.

Adama Diomande, a local leader of Ouattara's political party, says there are 42 bodies in the mass grave and a total of 91 people were killed in the neighborhood in post-election fighting. He has most of the victims' names, with photocopies of their ID cards, in a thick file labeled "deceased."

Moreno-Ocampo stressed that both sides of the political divide in Ivory Coast committed crimes in the post-election chaos and that his investigation was continuing.

That statement appeared aimed at countering fears that Gbagbo's arrest could further stoke tension in Ivory Coast, also known by its French name Cote d'Ivoire, because it gives the appearance of victor's justice. Grave abuses also were committed by forces loyal to Ouattara, who enlisted the help of a former rebel group to force Gbagbo from office, human rights groups say.

In a clear indication of the lingering resentment dividing the West African nation, taxi driver Ble Hypolite called Gbagbo's transfer "illegal."

"It's not fair. Both parties were responsible. Since 2002 civilians have been killed, especially in the west," he said. "This is bad for reconciliation."

Reed Brody, of Human Rights Watch, said Gbagbo's indictment was only half the story as victims of crimes by forces loyal to Ouattara have so far gone unpunished.

"This created the perception of victor's justice," he said in Brussels. "And if the cycle of violence in Cote d'Ivoire is to stop there has to be justice that is even handed and justice for the victims on both sides."

Gbagbo is the sixth suspect taken into custody by the court, which has launched seven investigations, all of them in Africa. A further 11 suspects remain at large and the court has no police force to arrest them.

According to court papers, Gbagbo is charged as an "indirect perpetrator" in a carefully orchestrated campaign of violence against civilians perceived as supporters of Ouattara.

"This is a great day for Laurent Gbagbo's victims, for the people of Cote d'Ivoire, for international justice," said Brody. "Just a few months ago president Gbagbo's forces were holding the country hostage, killing, raping, and today he is facing justice. This is a very important message to all the leaders in the world that if they use the atrocities and crime to stay in power that they too could face justice."

The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented how forces loyal to Ouattara torched villages that voted for Gbagbo, and executed those that could not run away. The elderly and the disabled were killed by rolling them inside mattresses and then setting them on fire.

Gbagbo will share a cell block with former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is waiting for a verdict in his trial at an ad hoc tribunal on charges of orchestrating atrocities in Sierra Leone.

Gbagbo, a history professor, came to power in a flawed election in 2000. He failed to hold elections when his first five-year term expired in 2005, and rescheduled the vote a half-dozen times before it finally went ahead in November 2010.

Killings began as soon as the United Nations declared Ouattara the winner, and for the next four months morgues overflowed as the military under Gbagbo's control executed opponents, gunned down protesters and shelled neighborhoods.

The United Nations helped by French forces eventually launched air strikes that cleared a path for Ouattara's soldiers to enter the capital, where they seized Gbagbo inside his bunker on April 11.

He was held under house arrest in the country's north until he was flown out of the country Tuesday night ? likely the first of several suspects.

"Ivorian victims will see justice for massive crimes," Moreno-Ocampo said. "Mr. Gbagbo is the first to be brought to account, there is more to come."

___

Laura Burke reported from Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111130/ap_on_re_eu/eu_international_criminal_court_gbagbo

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Foursquare Launches Redesigned Developer Website

screen1Everyone's favorite check-in service Foursquare is rolling out a major redesign of its developer site today, with a focus on making it easier for new developers to find their way around. The website now offers better organized links to guides and resources, a revamped Getting Started Guide and a new "Showcase" section which promotes some of Foursquare's own favorite apps.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/dn9Tc7UC8iU/

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Babies embrace punishment earlier than previously thought, study suggests

ScienceDaily (Nov. 28, 2011) ? Babies as young as eight months old prefer it when people who commit or condone antisocial acts are mistreated, a new study led by a University of British Columbia psychologist finds.

While previous research shows that babies uniformly prefer kind acts, the new study published Nov. 28 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that eight month-old infants support negative behavior if it is directed at those who act antisocially -- and dislike those who are nice to bad guys.

"We find that, by eight months, babies have developed nuanced views of reciprocity and can conduct these complex social evaluations much earlier than previously thought," says lead author Prof. Kiley Hamlin, UBC Dept of Psychology, who co-authored the study with colleagues from Yale University and Temple University.

"This study helps to answer questions that have puzzled evolutionary psychologists for decades," says Hamlin. "Namely, how have we survived as intensely social creatures if our sociability makes us vulnerable to being cheated and exploited? These findings suggest that, from as early as eight months, we are watching for people who might put us in danger and prefer to see antisocial behavior regulated."

For the study, researchers presented four scenarios to 100 babies using animal hand puppets. After watching puppets act negatively or positively towards other characters, the babies were shown puppets either giving or taking toys from these "good" or "bad" puppets. When prompted to choose their favorite characters, babies preferred puppets that mistreated the bad characters from the original scene, compared to those that treated them nicely.

The researchers also examined how older infants would themselves treat good and bad puppets. They tested 64 babies aged 21 months, who were asked to give a treat to, or take a treat away from one of two puppets -- one who had previously helped another puppet, and another who had harmed the other puppet. These older babies physically took treats away from the "bad" puppets, and gave treats to the "good" ones.

Hamlin, who conducted the research with Karen Wynn and Paul Bloom of Yale University's Dept. of Psychology, and Neha Mahajan of Temple University, says the findings provide new insights into the protective mechanisms humans use to choose social alliances, which she says are rooted in self-preservation.

Hamlin says the infant responses may be early forms of the complex behaviors and emotions that get expressed later in life, such as when school children tattle on kids who break the rules, the rush people feel when movie villains get their due, and the phenomenon of people cheering at public executions.

Hamlin says while such tendencies surely have many learned components, the fact that they are present so early in life suggests that they may be based in part on an innate foundation of liking those who give others their "just desserts."

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Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111128152416.htm

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