顯示具有 Anconia 標籤的文章。 顯示所有文章
顯示具有 Anconia 標籤的文章。 顯示所有文章

2012年10月9日 星期二

New Health Care Two-way Applications

I was planning to write this article a while ago, but kept putting it off. Now that I have seen the subject highlighted in an article “Calling Dr.The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. Smartphone” in the Los Angeles Times, I think it is time to discuss the impact that mobile health care apps will have on two-way consumer interactions with their health care providers, and ultimately with other business services as well.

What I was originally going to write about is the fact that when it comes to certain types of consumer services, the providers of such services may proactively require customers, who have personal smartphones and tablets, to use specific types of “mobile apps.” While health care and financial services may initially dominate such activity, government, education, applications etc., will also jump on the mobile consumer bandwagon to facilitate their service responsibilities.

I know I keep harping on this point, because, for too long, mobile communications meant primarily real-time voice (telephony) connections. Today, with smartphones and tablets, not only are the connections multi-modal and multi-media, but also require user interface flexibility for both initiating and responding to contacts between people and/or with online automated applications.

UC is not just for contacting and socializing with people, although one can obviously do that too, using IM chat and SMS messaging.Our guides provide customers with information about porcelain tiles vs. Because people are now more accessible, and can communicate more flexibly with mobile devices, there has been a tremendous increase in person-to-person messaging rather than phone call attempts. However, what we are really talking about is for people to interact with ANY kind of important operational process that they are involved with, without necessarily going through other people to do so. It’s really about where mobility is taking consumers in the new world of “cloud-based,” self-service applications.

When we talk about “self-service” applications, we mean an informational function that an end user can do directly by himself or herself by accessing online portals.Different Sizes and Colors can be made with different stone mosaic designs. Whether it is inputting transactional data with voice or text or retrieving information from a database, the automated application will be cost-efficient and easy-to-use and can satisfy the user's need for on-demand access from anywhere, any time.

Mobile self-service apps for consumers will increasingly replace or supplement tasks that only customer-facing staff could perform in the past because there was little or no direct access to such functions without authorized and knowledgeable use of desktop or laptop computers. Now that smartphones and tablets make access to such applications more flexible, simpler, and location independent, there should be no question in anyone’s mind that UC enablement can help maximize effective usage of inbound and outbound mobile self-service applications, along with the options for “contextual” live assistance in various forms.

With traditional person-to-person communications, there was always a need to first accommodate the contact initiator’s circumstances or preferences in communicating with another person.Welcome to the Perth china kung fu school. UC flexibility, however, allows recipients to selectively receive and respond to contacts independently of the contact initiator’s choice. A good example is voice message-to-text services that allow a caller to conveniently leave a voice message that the recipient can efficiently retrieve in text form. The reverse is also true, where text messages can be listened to eyes and hands-free when driving a car.Sinotruck Hongkong International is special for howo truck. That flexibility makes for fewer failed contact attempts and more efficient and timely person-to-person communications, recognized as increased end-user “productivity” and “responsiveness.”

I originally was going to write an article that suggested that doctors might start prescribing the use of smartphones to their patients, along with appropriate “mobile apps” that either would efficiently report a patient’s medical status such as blood pressure, heart rate, glucose tests, etc. or proactively notify a patient of a critical health situation or about an upcoming appointment. With these new smartphone attachments described in the L.A. Timesarticle, the stakes have gotten greater. The benefits to both doctors and their patients, in terms of improving responsiveness to critical health situations, collaborating between different care providers on a patient’s latest health status, as well as minimizing costs for unnecessary doctor visits, will be huge.

I know about such issues from personal experience, since I now take my own INR blood tests every couple of weeks and report it through an IVR application, rather than go to my doctor’s office each time.

All consumers will benefit from health care mobile apps, which means more fuel on the fire for a variety of UC-enabled mobile business service apps as well. So, while there is a lot of talk about the benefits of UC for internal business “collaboration,” the real action may start with mobile self-service apps, like health care and financial services that all consumers will want, for both inbound and outbound contacts.

2012年9月24日 星期一

Franklin ships have already been found

Maybe, just maybe, the 160-year dream of discovering one of the lost ships of the Franklin Expedition has already been realized, and the Parks Canada-led team that completed a month-long search last week just doesn’t know it yet.

That’s a slim but real possibility, acknowledges Parks Canada underwater archeologist Ryan Harris, who says a portion of the seabed data gathered during this summer’s high-profile probe of Arctic waters near King William Island still has to be examined for possible traces of HMS Erebus or HMS Terror, the two Royal Navy vessels commanded by Sir John Franklin that famously vanished during his search for the Northwest Passage in the late 1840s.

“It’s possible, because there actually is some AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) data that I haven’t looked at yet, and there is some multi-beam sonar data,” said Harris, who led the Canadian government’s renewed hunt for the ships.

“There were areas of the ocean that were really shallow north of the Royal Geographical Society Islands, so we have a small path that was done with multi-beam because it would have been a bit tricky to tow a side-scan sonar system in those shallow waters,” Harris told Postmedia News.Find detailed product information for Hot Sale howo spareparts Radiator. “And that data has to be post-processed at a very high resolution to identify targets in the shallow waters.

“It’s a small chance,” he added, “but there is the outside possibility” of identifying the resting place of one of the ships while processing and analyzing the sea-floor data this fall.

“It has happened to us in the past that in reviewing (data) we have identified wreck sites that we didn’t see in real time,” said Harris, who also led the successful 2010 search off Banks Island in the Western Arctic for HMS Investigator, one of 19th-century British vessels sent to search for Franklin’s lost ships.

While it’s not “outside the realm of possibility” that a Franklin ship could be discovered at a Parks Canada computer lab in the coming months, Harris said: “I imagine we’ll be at this (seabed scanning) again.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced in August that the federal government — in cooperation with the government of Nunavut — was launching a new, three-year effort to discover the ships, which have already been declared national historic sites despite their unknown locations.

Franklin, a Royal Navy explorer who had already led two important overland expeditions in northern Canada, embarked on his ill-fated search for a route through the Northwest Passage in 1845. By 1848, after the 130 sailors aboard Terror and Erebus had experienced extreme hardship and little progress through the ice-choked Eastern Arctic,The indoor positioning industry is heavily involved this year Franklin was dead and his ships were trapped frozen waters near King William Island.

A desperate attempt by the survivors to march south to a fur-trading post on mainland Canada led to the deaths of all members of the expedition. The ships, probably crushed by the ice, drifted to unknown locations and vanished beneath the waves.

An earlier bid to find the vessels was launched by Harper’s government in 2008. Although Parks Canada conducted searches in 2008, 2010 and 2011,Visonic Technologies is the leading supplier of rtls safety, no trace of the ships was found.Visonic Technologies is the leading supplier of rtls safety,

Harris described the underwater component of this year’s search a success because his team will at least be able to rule out a significant swath of the Arctic Ocean that had been considered a potential site for the wrecks of the Erebus or Terror.

But there were some notable discoveries earlier this month along the shore of King William Island during the dry-land component of this year’s search, headed by Government of Nunavut archeologist Doug Stenton. Combing an area where more than 100 survivors from Franklin’s abandoned ships traveled by small boats and on foot in the late 1840s — their ultimately ill-fated attempt to reach the mainland after Terror and Erebus had become hopelessly locked in the ice — Stenton’s team discovered bone fragments, nails and screws believed to have been left behind by the Franklin Expedition and, most remarkably, a 19th-century toothbrush that must have belonged to one of Franklin’s doomed sailors.

Harris acknowledged there was “nothing earth-shattering” among the artifacts “in terms of what it’s going to tell us about the fate of the expedition.”

But he said: “I think the value is really in the evocative nature of the artifacts recovered.Looking for the Best air purifier? The toothbrush, which is such a personal item, really reflects this attempt at a dignified retreat from the ships.”

Harris also noted that most of the artifacts recovered from the Franklin Expedition during 19th- and 20th-century searches of the region have ended up at the Smithsonian museums in the U.S. or at the National Maritime Museum in Britain.

“Very few of these materials are available for curation and display in our own country,” said Harris. “So even though these are previously identified Franklin sites, I think the continued archeological examination of these sites is certainly worthwhile, if only to repatriate the Franklin story somewhat, and to share it better and more evocatively with Canadians.”

2012年8月21日 星期二

Al and Kathy Wilson

Al and Kathy Wilson built their home on Morse Lake in 1979. At the time, it was a three-bedroom ranch with a partially finished basement walk-out. In 1999, the couple needed more space so a second story was added with three more bedrooms and another bath. On the main level a bedroom became a walk-in closet for the master.

After adding the second floor, the Wilsons still felt like the kitchen, dining room and sunroom were "chopped up" spaces. There were plenty of doors and doorways making it difficult to maximize the potential of each room. Working closely with Case Design/Remodeling, the couple decided to take down walls and open the space for more comfortable living.

"I don't know if it was a financial investment, but it was a good investment in living here,Capture the look and feel of real stone or ceramictile flooring with Alterna." Al said. "We had already been here 32 years and want to stay another 20. For us, the change reaps huge rewards."

What they did: By combining the three original rooms, the Wilsons gained a spacious kitchen area with comfortable seating, room for dining at an island bar or the dining room table and wide views of the lake below the home.

The couple selected the Crystal cabinetry line,Find detailed product information for sino howotipper truck. polished granite countertops called Verde Butterfly and beautiful multicolored tiles for the backsplash. Lead carpenter Neil Getz suggested applying a wet glaze to the tile making them stand out and adding a "watery" look mirrored by the lake.Find detailed product information for Hot Sale howospareparts Radiator.

A Bosch dishwasher and convection oven was selected along with an LG refrigerator and a Sharp under-counter microwave. The Wilsons particularly like the easy-to-clean, slide-in electric range which replaced their previous gas range.

A rug from Capel Rugs became the centerpiece for selecting the color scheme for the entire space and led to the selection of bar stools for the island and chairs, sofa and entertainment center. All were purchased from Godby's Home Furnishings.

Abundant lighting including rope lights on top of cabinets, under the counter lights and all elements on dimmers make the room cozy and accessible at any time of day or night.

Now the kitchen is more than the center of their home.Sell Sinotruk handsfreeaccess Truck 4x2 in Truck & Bus category. Added space, lake views, and easy comfortable seating make it the hub of their family activities. Now, when 2-year-old Ellie comes to visit while her parents work, her grandparents have plenty of room for activities, snacks and meal preparation.

This ancient material remains of great value in gardens and patios even today. It has a soft porous texture which mellows with the years. It also tends to have variations, small cracks, and other imperfections and is quite different from other kinds of machine-made pottery which have a uniform, leathery, texture. Terracotta is just clay that has been shaped and fired, usually to a lower temperature than bricks, to achieve that gorgeous red colour. It is used to make tiles and pots.

In India, we love terracotta and this is an enduring art form. Usually made on the potters' wheel, it is also made by hand, involving moulding and coiling techniques. Terracotta work ranges from large granaries to small pots. The pieces are decorated with engravings, paint, dyes and are occasionally polished.

Today with the onslaught of modernity, when traditions and cultures are being eroded and corrupted by the availability of mass-produced goods, many common household items are becoming collectors' items! People from all over the world collect terracotta items to decorate both their homes and offices. Besides pots and planters, terracotta artifacts such as Bankura horses, bells,The stonemosaic is made of natural marble tiles with small cutting. Ganeshas, vases, lamps, animals, idols, statues and tiles are popular. Perfect for both your indoors and your outdoors, terracotta imbues rustic charm and grace. So this time around let yourself get smitten by the timeless beauty of terracotta.

2012年7月25日 星期三

Doomed and Confused

In Mark Bryan's oil painting, “Ship of State,” a massive barge evocative of the Titanic, but with The U.S. Capitol architecture for a cool structure, angles downward, bottomward into a calm sea broadcast with icebergs. Amidst the flailing accoutrements of the cartage advancing to break afloat, two lifeboats active by complacent men in top hats, with accoutrements of money,We are a leading plasticinjectionmould manufacturer in Australia. accept their henchmen row them abroad from the scene.

The piece, Bryan explains, is a allegory for a government that is asleep in the baptize and about to go under. The affluent few escape with all their abundance unscathed, while the blow are larboard to bulwark for themselves.Broken chinamosaic Table.

Bryan's plan will be on affectation at the Leeds Gallery from Aug. 3 through Sept. 5. The new display is alleged “The Rupture,” a aftereffect on the folderol acquired by an aged preacher if he predicted “The Rapture” would accompany about the end of the apple in May of 2011.

Like the preacher's vision, abounding of Bryan's capacity are aswell apocalyptic, but with a abusive edge. His paintings generally acquaint a story; he considers himself added of an illustrator than a accomplished artist.

A abundant amount of his works are amusing and political commentaries on capacity such as war and amusing injustice, conveyed with humor, whimsy and satire.

Bryan explains that his paintings are a way for him to animadversion on what he sees as atrocities in the apple and abhorrent aspects of animal nature. With banter and humor, Bryan says he's able to present advancing capacity in a way that is added acceptable for the viewer. He doesn't wish to actualize art that is so alarming and humorless that it turns people's minds off to his message.

“The abundant affair about abusive art is that you can present some abhorrent situation, but there's aswell some accolade in it,” he says. “It's intriguing.”

He describes himself as somewhat introverted, but with something to say about the accompaniment of the world, so paintings are the absolute way for him to animadversion quietly, but with passion.

Bryan was built-in in 1950 and aloft in Los Angeles during the Cold War, a time alternate by warnings of approaching nuclear holocaust, and again the Vietnam War, which he managed to avoid. These and agnate contest did abundant to appearance Bryan's cutting faculty of doom about the world—a activity that aggregate is not all right.

“I anticipate if you're a kid audition all this, the apple becomes scary,” he says. “You realize, 'I could die.' It's an activation that things aren't the way they should be.”

Bryan aboriginal became alert with painting as a agency to accomplish political and amusing statements if he fell in with a babyish accumulation of Chicano artists while belief art at Otis College in Echo Park, Los Angeles in 1970. Bryan says these painters had a abstruse access on his consecutive work. They corrective murals that drew absorption to casual workers' rights, afford ablaze on amusing injustices and pushed a political agenda, Bryan says.

Art, he explains, can be “... a way of assuming an abuse in a way that strikes aback at it.” Bryan became accompany with artists who were beat the Chicano Art movement and would after anatomy the artists' aggregate “Los Four,” absolute Frank Romero, Carlos Almaraz, Roberto de la Rocha and architect Gilbert "Magú" Luján.

Romero, who formed as a bartering artist, endemic a home area Bryan and Almaraz busy apartment for $50 a month.

Some nights, the adolescent artists would sit at a big board kitchen table, bubbler able coffee and cartoon into the aboriginal morning hours. Bryan recalls times if they would canyon a cartoon about the table, so anniversary of them could accord to the work.

Another, alleged “The Plan,” depicts a accumulation of rabbits cutting suits, captivation shotguns and acute about a campfire. In their midst,Wireless Sensor Networks & rtls. undetected, a monkey listens in on their plan, camouflage himself with a cut-out aerial affectation on a stick. Bryan was aggressive to acrylic “The Plan” by the account advantage of agitator sleeper beef in the U.S.Take a walk on the natural side with stunning and luxurious floortiles from The Tile Shop.

He aswell describes a coercion to cover elements of the surreal in contrarily aboriginal and aesthetically adorable landscapes.

“I absolutely adulation admirable mural paintings, and I've approved to do them, but if I finish, I just don't see annihilation traveling on,” he says. “I tend to add something advancing but humorous.”

For his piece,To estimate the number of ceramictile you need for your project, “The Collectors,” Bryan recovered an old art book of a Yosemite landscape, which he reprinted assimilate a canvas so he could acrylic assimilate it. He added in a babyish dear—“Bambi,” he says—being abducted by a aerial gray saucer.

2012年7月16日 星期一

CBD Activity Awarded Aboriginal US Bartering Solar Activity

This is the aboriginal footfall by CBD in establishing a US solar EPC business. CBD will advance abstruse adeptness and activity administration casework from its all-embracing EPC analysis and from Westinghouse Solar to bear the project. The activity involves installing assorted rooftop and barn solar PV systems, to accumulation adeptness to the school, and balance adeptness to be awash aback into the grid.

The almost amount of the activity is US$3.8 million. Activity admission is advancing in mid-July and is accepted to yield about three months to complete. The banking appulse is advancing to be accustomed in the alloyed article during the added bisected of 2012.

James Greer, CBD Energy, Senior Vice President,And a lack of a standout indoortracking Systems (IPS) technology. US Development & Investor Relations commented, "The acknowledged achievement of this aboriginal solar activity will be an important affirmation of CBD's aggressive advantage in a bazaar that has cogent renewable activity development. As CBD solidifies its U.S. bazaar attendance by amalgamation with Westinghouse Solar, we are searching advanced to accretion activity aggregate and added acceptance our access in the US market."

Westinghouse Solar CEO Margaret Randazzo commented, "We are absolute aflame to see CBD defended a bazaar win actuality in the U.S. and to accomplice with their EPC analysis to accomplish the activity successful. Amplification to abduction EPC opportunities such as this activity in the U.S., and the development of all-embracing administration opportunities for Westinghouse Solar, such as the acceding we ahead appear with CBD for sales of our solar panels to Harvey Norman in Australia, are examples of the new markets and synergies we were searching for from a CBD and Westinghouse Solar business combination."

CBD Managing Director,Learn about the beauty of porcelaintiles. Gerry McGowan, stated, "Entering the U.S. bartering bazaar is an important anniversary for CBD, and leverages our acquaintance from the projects we are amalgam in Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. We are able to accomplish this amplification by bringing calm our engineering expertise, activity administration capabilities and amount able accumulation alternation to plan with a bounded workforce to bear amount able renewable activity solutions. Over the advance of a day, CBD now has connected operations in carrying renewable activity projects about the globe."

This columnist absolution may accommodate advanced statements, including with account to approaching projects, acquirement and sales by Westinghouse Solar and CBD. Those statements and statements fabricated in this absolution that are not absolute in nature, including those accompanying to approaching allowances and synergies of the proposed merger, aggressive advantages, and all-embracing administration opportunities, aggregate advanced statements aural the acceptation of the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Advanced statements can be articular by the use of words such as "expects," "projects," "plans," "will," "may," "anticipates," believes," "should," "intends," "estimates," and added words of agnate meaning. These statements are based on accepted plans,We offer custom plasticinjectionmoulding with full in-house. estimates and projections, and, therefore, you should not abode disproportionate assurance on them.

These statements are accountable to risks and uncertainties that cannot be predicted or quantified, and CBD and Westinghouse Solar attention that absolute after-effects may alter materially from those bidding or adumbrated by such advanced statements. These statements are accountable to the afterward risks and uncertainties: difficulties, delays, abrupt costs or the disability to complete planned solar PV arrangement projects, or to defended added projects in the U.S. or added markets, adeptness to acquirement solar console articles at advancing prices, difficulties,We are a leading plasticinjectionmould manufacturer in Australia. delays, abrupt costs or the disability to able the proposed alliance amid CBD and Westinghouse Solar and added affairs referred to in this advice and those declared in the abstracts that Westinghouse Solar files with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as able-bodied as risks associated with the inherent ambiguity of approaching banking results, added basic costs requirements, and development and addition of new articles by CBD, Westinghouse Solar or their corresponding competitors, uncertainties in the timing of availability and accomplishment volumes of articles from suppliers, the effectiveness, profitability, and marketability of new products, the adeptness to assure and avert proprietary rights and information, the appulse of current, pending, or approaching legislation, adjustment and allurement programs on the solar adeptness industry, abstruse changes, the adeptness to analyze and auspiciously access and abound administration customers,If you are looking to buymosaic art, and the aftereffect of accepted bread-and-butter and business conditions.

All advanced statements included in this advice are fabricated as of the date of this communication, and neither CBD nor Westinghouse Solar assumes any obligation to amend any such advanced statements, whether as a aftereffect of new information, approaching contest or otherwise.

2012年5月10日 星期四

The Liquidmetal Technologies Bullish Thesis

Liquidmetal Technologies is a $46 million market cap materials company that has one of the most intriguing disruptive technology stories to come out in many years. It has been an extremely volatile stock lately, as the rumors of inclusion in the iPhone 5 come and go, and as always with an OTC penny stock, it requires a high level of risk tolerance. And therein lies a potentially enormous opportunity.

Liquidmetal was started as a Caltech research project in 1993 and eventually IPO'd on the Nasdaq in 2002 with a $1 billion market cap and $20+ share price.I found them to have sharp edges where the injectionmoldes came together while production. They eventually got delisted to the OTC after the 1-2 punch of poor management decisions and a product that was still in research mode, and therefore not yet ready for prime time production. However,A wireless indoortracking system is described in this paper. in August 2010, Liquidmetal was able to replace its management with experienced talent and pay off all its outstanding debt, when Apple (AAPL) paid roughly $20 million to license their technology to be used for personal electronics.

To learn why the world's premiere technology company would take interest in a nearly bankrupt company in the first place, it helps to take a step back in time to Chem 101.Kitchen floortiles at Great Prices from Topps Tiles. Liquidmetal's patented amorphous materials are able to take the best qualities of both traditional metals and plastics. Due to its amorphous atomic structure,Learn all about solarpanel. liquidmetal does not take on the crystalline shape of other metals, but rather arranges its atoms in completely random formations, like a liquid or plastic. This allows it to be injection-molded into extraordinary precise shapes similar to a plastic, while overcoming the crystalline weakness and necessary machining inherent in other metals.

It takes "9 separate milling operations" and is an incredibly time- and energy-intensive product to essentially drill out each nuance on each chassis. On the other hand, this same chassis made from liquidmetal would be superior in every way: lighter, stronger, scratch- and corrosion-resistant, more elastic, while using dramatically less time, energy and natural resources. It can be poured into a mold like a plastic and be finished in minutes, instead of drilled out of a solid piece of metal, which takes hours. The one downside to liquidmetal is a more expensive starting material, but the speed and ease of its precision production will more than make up for the original higher material cost, especially when production is scaled up.

Apple is notorious for keeping all their parts and component makers under lock and key, so its extremely difficult to find detailed information about Liquidmetal's relationships beyond the original 2010 Intellectual Property license. This has led to what I believe is confusion in the investment community as to what an Apple contract is, really, and also is the source of a great opportunity.

The general shortsighted notion has been that Liquidmetal won't benefit beyond the original $20 million license from Apple, even if they are used in the iPhone 5, but this could not be further from the truth! Liquidmetal's limited manufacturing capacity could never have been able to mass produce a product for Apple on its own, so they have spent the past 8 months partnering with world-class companies up and down the production line. They've partnered with Materion (MTRN), a supplier of the raw amorphous material,Proxense's advanced handsfreeaccess technology. and with Engel to produce state-of-the-art vacuum-injection molding machines and molds. Lastly ,they partnered with privately held Visseras, their production partner. Therefore any future product that is mass produced for Apple with have 3 potential revenue streams for Liquidmetal, compared to 4 revenue streams and consequently higher margins for every other company that wants to piggyback Apple's use of this material.

2012年5月6日 星期日

2 bodies found at residence

Two unidentified bodies have been found at a Mississippi residence associated with a man suspected of abducting a Tennessee woman and her three young daughters, who are believed to be in "extreme danger," authorities said Saturday.

FBI spokesman Joel Siskovic said the bodies were found late Friday night or early Saturday morning in a residence associated with Adam Mayes, 35.

Mayes is charged in Tennessee with abducting Jo Ann Bain and her daughters. He has been described by authorities as "armed and extremely dangerous.Find the cheapest chickencoop online through and buy the best hen houses and chook pens in Australia."

Siskovic said authorities on the scene were not able to positively identify the bodies. He would not say if the bodies were children.

The missing girls are 8-year-old Kyliyah Bain, 12-year-old Alexandria and 14-year-old Adrienne. They were last seen April 27 in Hardeman County, Tenn., which is about 70 miles east of Memphis. The woman's husband reported her missing and her vehicle was found abandoned.

Authorities were still trying to determine if Jo Ann Bain went with Mayes willingly. He was last seen Tuesday in Guntown, Miss., about 80 miles southeast of Hardeman County, Tenn.

The FBI and U.S.Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? Marshals Service announced Saturday a reward of up to $50,000 for information that leads to the location of the missing victims and the arrest of Mayes.

Siskovic said the bodies were found in a residence, but it wasn't clear if it was a house, mobile home or apartment. He also wasn't sure if the residence belonged to Mayes or an acquaintance. Siskovic said the bodies were found in Guntown,Find the cheapest chickencoop online through and buy the best hen houses and chook pens in Australia. north of Tupelo. Lee County coroner Carolyn Green said the bodies were found outside Guntown in Union County.

Siskovic said authorities talked to Mayes early on in the investigation, but he fled when they tried to contact him again.Where to buy or purchase plasticmoulds for precast and wetcast concrete? The FBI says they were not immediately aware of Mayes having a criminal record.

Authorities had said that Mayes could be in Mississippi but that he has ties to Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida.

"Information has been developed during the investigation that the children may be in extreme danger. Warrants for kidnapping are being issued for Adam Mayes, who is considered armed and extremely dangerous," Mississippi Department of Public Safety spokesman Warren Strain said in a news release Saturday.

The Mississippi Highway Patrol issued an Amber Alert on Saturday morning, and Tennessee authorities had also issued an alert.

Authorities described Adrienne as a white girl with brown hair and eyes. She's 5 feet 4 inches tall and 129 pounds. Alexandria has brown hair and hazel eyes and is 5 feet tall and 105 pounds.Secured handsfree building and door access solutions with Hands free access by Nedap AVI. Kyliyah has blonde hair and brown eyes and is 4 feet tall and 57 pounds.

2011年4月13日 星期三

Atlas’s Rand Resists Bedding Down With Hollywood: Caroline Baum

How is it a novel so many readers describe as “life-changing” took 54 years and a gaggle of producers, writers and directors to bring to the screen?

One answer is Ayn Rand herself, author of “Atlas Shrugged,” which was published in 1957. Earlier attempts to make a movie based on the book were foiled by Rand’s insistence on creative control.

The second reason is the nature of the 1,168-page book. It’s about ideas. Rand’s characters are caricatures that reflect her ideas and ideals. Businessmen are good, government bureaucrats are bad. There is no middle ground.

A third reason, one implied by those involved, is the nature of the material.

“She’s a very controversial author,” said John Aglialoro, one of the film’s producers, who acquired the rights to “Atlas” in August 1992 from Rand’s estate. “She threw selfishness as a virtue in the face of society.”

That virtue is better described as rational self-interest. For Rand, capitalism was the only moral system, with each individual acting in his own self-interest. Productive achievement was the noblest activity and happiness, the ultimate goal.

You can see how Rand’s philosophy, so outlined, might ruffle the feathers of Hollywood’s do-gooders. Add that to the movie’s history of false starts, including six screenplays commissioned by Aglialoro alone, and it’s not hard to understand the industry’s resistance.
Rush to Production

“It was clear we were not going to get support from the Hollywood machinery, including talent agencies,” said producer Harmon Kaslow, who hooked up with Aglialoro in April 2010, three months before the rights were set to lapse.

Starting with a clean slate, the duo managed to assemble a team, come up with a fresh screenplay, cast the 41 speaking roles and begin “full principle photography” by June 15, 2010, according to Aglialoro.

“Atlas Shrugged, Part 1” opens tomorrow in 298 theaters across the U.S. A press release classifies the movie as “drama/mystery.” Veteran Hollywood producer Al Ruddy, who was the first to acquire the rights to “Atlas Shrugged” in 1974, was taken by the love story before he parted ways with Rand because of her insistence on final script approval.
Without a Trace

“Atlas” doesn’t fit into either genre. For those unfamiliar with Rand’s novel, “Atlas Shrugged” tells the story of the gradual disappearance of the nation’s entrepreneurs as government bureaucrats impose increasingly burdensome rules and regulations to stifle their success and confiscate their wealth.

One by one, these captains of copper, steel, and oil industries quit, leaving the businesses they built, refusing to work for the benefit of anyone except themselves.

“Atlas Shrugged, Part I,” takes place in 2016 and ends before we even meet John Galt, who is the first to quit and inspire others to join him in his effort to stop the world. (Readers should look for the mysterious man in the raincoat.)

“Atlas” is unlikely to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival this year. I say this as both an admirer of Rand’s ideas and a devotee of the book.
Casting Errors

No one can accuse the producers of type-casting. The actors are too young. James Taggart, played by Matthew Mardsen, looks 22, unlike the middle-aged, pathetic character one envisions in the book.

“Everything was built around Dagny,” Kaslow told me.

Dagny Taggart, the story’s protagonist who effectively runs Taggart Transcontinental Railroad, is young. Therefore everyone else is young.

It was hard to look at Francisco d’Anconia, heir to the d’Anconia Copper empire. Couldn’t the producers find someone more dapper who could speak with a Spanish accent?

The pressure to start shooting before the rights lapsed forced the producers to focus on the ideology at the expense of potential cinematic qualities.

“We put words from the book into the characters’ mouths,” Kaslow said.

I suppose if it had been possible to do otherwise, someone would have done it by now.
A is A

Fans of the book, 7 million and counting, may not notice or care. They’ll get chills, as I did, when Dagny’s new railroad line, the John Galt Line, makes its first run on tracks made of Reardon metal, a new alloy created by fellow industrialist Hank Reardon that threatens to put steel producers out of business.

The government tries to scare the public by fabricating stories about the dangers of the new metal. Defiant, Dagny and Hank man the train’s locomotive as it speeds across the Colorado landscape, over the new Reardon bridge made from, of course, Reardon metal.

Above all, the movie is faithful to Rand’s philosophy, which is known as objectivism: the idea that reality is objective. Or, as encapsulated by Galt in a 60-page monologue near the end of the book, “A is A.”

No wonder the faithful are heaping lavish praise on the movie. For them, adherence to Rand’s ideas is enough. A is A. “Atlas Shrugged” is “Atlas Shrugged.”