Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/250131857?client_source=feed&format=rss
new hampshire primary hue jackson coachella 2012 line up lsu crimson tide crimson tide dixville notch
GONZALES ? To the naked eye, life here, in the heart of a historic, innovative energy boom, appears little different from what it might have been even a half-dozen years ago. But in ways small and large, the influx of money and people mostly men is changing life in Gonzales.
This is the face of a central portion of the Eagle Ford shale play, which stretches roughly 50 miles wide and 400 miles long in a sweep across some of South Texas' historically poorest counties. The last drilling boom-and-bust in these parts ended in the 1980s. Now, with the innovation of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the natural gas fields are reopened.
The gas boom could not have been better timed, saving many in these rural counties from the harsh drought that choked much of Texas. The land in Gonzales, long the setting for hard lives tending cattle and poultry, has given rise to stories of ranchers getting rich as quickly as it has given rise to the natural gas flares that illuminate a clear Texas night. There's the tale of the elderly woman who made her way to a bank in nearby Shiner to cash her first royalty check from the company drilling beneath her land.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," the teller told her after inspecting the check. "I can't cash that."
"Well, let me see the bank manager then," she said.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, we can't cash that," the bank president then repeated.
"But surely you have the $15,000 on hand," she said.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but that check's for $1.5 million," he told her.
The central courthouse square, like so many Texas towns, remains sleepy. But a steady stream of landmen pour in and out of the Gonzales County clerk's annex to inspect title records.
Another sign of changed times: The merchandise on sale at Indie's Southern Style, a boutique specializing in women's cosmetics and zebra-striped purses, now includes the $64 fire-retardant Wrangler shirts popular among the roughneck set.
Working for wealth
The first drilling of Eagle Ford wells was in 2008 in La Salle County, and since then, energy companies have poured in resources and manpower to mine the gas, trapped in a layer of shale 250 feet thick and 65 million years old. In fracking, millions of gallons of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, are injected into rock to extract natural gas. The Eagle Ford shale is 4,000 to 12,000 feet below ground.
Like a vortex, the opportunity to make cash has pulled workers from other sectors and other regions.
In DeWitt County, just south of Gonzales County, the county judge reports a dip in jail staffers, and more sheriff's deputies are unwilling to work overtime because of more lucrative employment in the gas fields. A billboard on U.S. 183 South in Luling advertises gas companies seeking drivers with commercial driver's licenses. Starting pay for those jobs has jumped in South Texas from $37,000 a year to $50,000 a year, said Noel Smith, director of the St. Philip's Truck Driving Training School in San Antonio.
RV parks, proliferating like wildflowers on the edges of shale towns, are now home to welders, pipe fitters and drivers from as far away as the Dakotas.
Despite concerns about fracking's potential for groundwater contamination and the pollution of skies above rig operations, hydraulic fracturing in Texas is unlikely to go away even as a booming gas economy could go bust, just as previous booms have rocked this and other parts of the state.
For now, though, the industry and the state are flush with cash. Texas Comptroller Susan Combs reported earlier this month that for fiscal year 2012, which ended Aug. 31, the state collected more than $44 billion in tax revenue, $3.7 billion more than she had projected in December. A big boost came from oil and natural gas production taxes, the result of feverish drilling and fracking activity in West Texas' Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford shale.
Combs' office reported that oil and gas production taxes together came in about $1 billion, or 39 percent, higher than projected, and the industry also contributed heavily to strong sales tax collections, which were up 12.6 percent from the previous year.
In a further signal of the influence of the wealth created by the boom, Texas environmentalists have set only modest goals for the regulation of drilling. In other states, environmentalists have had more success in stymieing natural gas drilling, drawing links between the practice and underground water contamination. New York state has gone so far as to put a drilling moratorium in place.
bill obrien reggie mckenzie epiphany exorcism jersey shore season 5 mark driscoll unemployment rate
When Mark Pincus dropped the bombshell that we all already knew about that Zynga were going to take on real money gambling, the news was met with lots of cynicism.
One of the prominent trains of thought is that Pincus will do just about anything at the moment to see Zynga?s shares take a break from constantly disappointing. Whether this is asking for another shout out from Mark Zuckerberg or going outside of the company?s comfort zone, it doesn?t matter. Pincus will be desperate to show that the social gaming company can make big money.
In order to do this, it looks increasingly like Pincus is turning to real money gambling as a way out of the current mire. If so, that?s a risky bet to place, even more so when you?re not doing it with Facebook credits.
It would appear that he is pinning numerous hopes on gambling after it became apparent that former 888 Maytal Olsha had joined the team as chief operating officer of new markets. It doesn?t take a genius to figure out what new markets these are as Zynga are clearly stepping up their real money gambling efforts ? no doubt hurried by Facebook?s relationship with Noel Haydon and Gamesys.
Pincus is certainly looking to milk real money gambling for all that its worth. For example, Olsha had leaked the news of her new role on LinkedIn by adding the new post to her profile but was made to remove it as the news was held until it could have the largest effect on share price. Fortunately it worked as stock rose by 7.4%, which was the biggest increase since Zuckerberg had given his two cents on the company.
Zynga?s financial situation is no secret. Like many companies in the gaming and gambling sector, they?re failing to fulfil promises and meet previous expectations. Part of this is because their income has remained pretty flat after their products began to stagnate slightly.
This issue is worsened by the fact that Facebook?s sources of income have diversified meaning that the social network is now nowhere near as dependant on Zynga as it once was. Facebook?s July SEC filing shows as much with revenue coming from Zynga making up just 14% of total revenue from the first six months of this year. To put this in context, in 2011 this figure was 33%.
Requiring Real Money
Pincus has spoken of Zynga?s advantage in Facebook gaming being that they make sure everything is as social as it can be.
He told the Guardian: ?At every juncture, we?ve doubled down on social ? our fundamental belief is, our games have to be fun, but they really have to be social. The unique sauce in what we do is that we hope out experiences are always the most social versions.?
What Pincus may soon realise is that being social and gambling online will only mix to a certain degree. While real money online gamblers are likely to enjoy a social element of a game, it?s far from the ?unique sauce? that Pincus speaks about. Far from this major flavour, in iGaming a social aspect is perhaps more of a side dish, something that?s cheap so it doesn?t matter if you don?t eat it.
Even if he does realise this then it will mean moving away from the exact thing that he claims has made Zynga?s games so successful. Either way you look at it, it?s a risky move.
All of the regulated markets outside of Facebook are already crowded enough as it is and all of the operators in that group will already have brand loyalty so it?s hard to imagine a way in which Zynga would venture outside the confines of Facebook.
When in Facebook, they obviously have a large loyal following. However, of this following few are likely to be willing to risk their hard earned money. If they had wanted to do so then they surely would have headed to a gambling operator some time ago.
Of course, there?s also the considerable obstacle of Gamesys who have been able to strike an agreement with Facebook. This agreement has come in the form of Bingo Friendzy being the first real money gambling app on Facebook.
Having acted too slowly to be in Gamesys? position, Pincus will be annoyed that he wasn?t the first to come to this form of agreement. One advantage they have is that when they do get real money play, they?re simply asking their customers to make the transition from freeplay to pay to play. Gamesys, on the other hand, will be relying on paid traffic and clicks from their own websites in order to fuel play on their app.
How Will They Go About It?
Zynga are known to launch their games before they?re fully built. Pincus has explained that games have gone live when only 20% built. In a niche such as social gaming that was in its formative years this was something that they could get away with and was even an advantage in some circumstances. However, neither online poker nor any other iGaming vertical is still in a formative stage. Perhaps a gap may have been left by the Black Friday victims but there is no shortage of suitors to fill it.
This means that a real money poker product will have to be launched complete and ready to go because if it?s not up to scratch, players have other options. Of course, they do already have a poker product which they know to be successful and it would certainly be very interesting to see whether they could simply plug in real money in order to create a successful play for real app.
Immediate concerns when doing so would be the fact that players would become more competitive and the lack of anonymity in Zynga Poker could lead to some issues. Perhaps they would be well advised to follow Bodog?s recreational poker model which comes complete with total anonymity.
Venturing outside of poker would mean to create products that they haven?t had quite the same level of success with (i.e Zynga slots). However, that?s a fact unlikely to put them off as entering a new area is something that?s unlikely to deter Pincus at this stage.
Anyone familiar with the launch of Dream Heights will be well aware that Zynga is hardly opposed to launching products that are very similar to what?s already out there (that?s a polite way of saying they copy). However, should they do this in the gaming sphere they should be warned that most software companies have considerably more force than NimbleBit ? creators of Tiny Tower.
To suggest that how Zynga go about their move into real money gambling will have a profound effect on the iGaming industry is probably a bit of an exaggeration. They will, however, surely be looking to make a sizeable dent in the real money Facebook market. While this may be of little significance for the gambling industry, it?s pretty much a make or break situation for the social gaming giant.
If you have any further information related to this story that you would like to share with us privately please click here.
Can't get enough CalvinAyre.com? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook, then you'll never miss out on the latest gaming industry news.
Views and opinions expressed are those of the Author and do not necessarily reflect those of CalvinAyre.com
Source: http://calvinayre.com/2012/09/21/poker/mark-pincus-zynga-real-money-social-gaming/
NBA draft 2012 alicia sacramone Don Grady ann curry nhl obamacare Nexus 7
BOSTON?? For anyone who's ever been tired of listening to someone drone on and on and on, two Japanese researchers have the answer.
The SpeechJammer, a device that disrupts a person's speech by repeating his or her own voice at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds, was named Thursday as a 2012 winner of the Ig Nobel prize ? an award sponsored by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine for weird and humorous scientific discoveries.
The echo effect of the device is just annoying enough to get someone to sputter and stop.
Science news from NBCNews.com
From where does a tabby cat get its stripes? The same place cheetahs get their spots.
Actually, the device created by Kazutaka Kurihara and Koji Tsukada is meant to help public speakers by alerting them if they are speaking too quickly or have taken up more than their allotted time.
"This technology ... could also be useful to ensure speakers in a meeting take turns appropriately, when a particular participant continues to speak, depriving others of the opportunity to make their fair contribution," said Kurihara, of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan.
Still, winning an Ig Nobel in acoustics for the device's other more dubious purpose is cool too.
"Winning an Ig Nobel has been my dream as a mad scientist," he said.
As usual, the ersatz Nobels were handed out by real Nobel laureates, including 2007 economics winner Eric Maskin, who was also the prize in the "Win a Date with a Nobel Laureate" contest.
A plenitude of prizes
Other winners feted Thursday at Harvard University's opulent Sanders Theatre included Dutch researchers who won the psychology prize for studying why leaning to the left makes the Eiffel Tower look smaller; four Americans who took the neuroscience prize for demonstrating that sophisticated equipment can detect brain activity in dead fish; a British-American team that won the physics prize for explaining how and why ponytails bounce; and the U.S. General Accountability Office, which won the literature prize for a report about reports.
Igor Petrov of Russia's SKN Co. won the peace prize for developing a method to convert old Russian ammunition into new diamonds. Tiny, tiny diamonds.
"Ladies, if you want diamonds, come see me after the show," Petrov told the crowd at Harvard. "But have your own ammunition, please."
Rouslan Krechetnikov, an engineering professor at the University of California Santa Barbara, and graduate student Hans Meyer took home the fluid dynamics prize for research into the sloshing that goes on in coffee cup as it's carried.
Like many projects that have won Ig Nobels in the past, it started in a casual conversation based on everyday observations. Krechetnikov and Meyer were taking a coffee break at a conference last year when they watched as others milled around trying to prevent staining their clothes.
Why coffee spills
The science of sloshing liquids has been studied before ? in rocketry, for example, shifting weight can destabilize a missile or rocket ? but no one's ever really studied coffee as it splashes around, Krechetnikov said.
"It is one of those cases where we were interested in explaining the phenomena, but not changing it," he said.
The reason coffee spills? A person's walking speed, their mental focus and, surprisingly enough, noise.
Are there practical applications? You could design a better coffee cup by using what Krechetnikov calls "a series of annular ring baffles arranged around the inner wall of the container to achieve sloshing suppression," although those solutions are impractical.
"We just wanted to satisfy our curiosity and, given the results, to share what we learned with the scientific community through peer-reviewed literature," he said.
The 22nd annual Ig Nobels ceremony, with the theme "The Universe," featured the usual doses of zaniness, including the traditional launching of hundreds of paper airplanes and the world premiere of an opera entitled "The Intelligent Designer and the Universe," about an insane wealthy man who bequeaths his fortune to have someone design a beautiful dress for the universe.
"Personally, this goes along with my view of science," Krechetnikov said. "There should be a fun side to it."
The 2012 Ig Nobel references:
This report was supplemented by NBC News.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49112538/ns/technology_and_science-science/
modeselektor gran torino gloria steinem war of the worlds rock and roll hall of fame severe weather wichita
Before purchasing a certain product, consumers nowadays consult the Internet for reviews, recommendations, price, and product specifications. In particular, people looking to purchase new laptops or all in one computers often compare different models online, before going to a store to test out the ones they are most interested in. Seeing the actual products in use often makes a big difference ? especially for newer technologies like all in one computers. Yet, even after choosing their favorite model in store, many people return home and make their tech purchases online. This situation is where having a business website and a good web hosting service is essential.
Whether you own a computer retailer or are simply running a family-inherited bakeshop, developing an online presence these days is a must. As a matter of fact, most businesses can?t afford downtime, when consumers can?t view their site. Choosing the right web hosting service is one of the most important decisions that you will make for your business. The host manages your servers on which your business site will run, and therefore has total control of your organization?s connection to its customers. Be an informed consumer; don?t be drawn in by cheap packages, or other freebies. Check out these tips to help you choose the most reliable web hosting company for you.
Customer support
Make sure your web hosting company offers adequate support. When your website goes down or encounters an email issue, you need to have someone who can help you fix the glitch. It is best to go for hosting providers that provide 24/7 phone support, with representatives that can speak and understand your language..
Backup
Find a company that offers adequate backup. The next time you accidentally delete a blog directory for your business, you don?t have to panic. All you need to do is call your host to retrieve a backup copy, and reload your content back online. It is also wise to ask about your hosting company?s disaster contingency plan, to ensure that they are also backing up these files.
Parking service
Determine if you can park your organization?s other domain names with their servers. A lot of firms purchase .net, .com, .org, and even hyphenated versions of their domain name, service names, misspellings, and many more. It is more convenient and efficient for brand management to have all these names in a single control panel without losing traffic.
Guaranteed uptime
You don?t want your clients to experience a blank screen when they go to their URL. Look for a web hosting service with a proven reputation for uptime and redundancy. Choose a company with a 99 percent uptime guarantee or more. Make sure your company has multiple locations or mirrored servers, so that when server goes down, they will have another one ready to go.
Blog-ability
Having a company blog is a staple aspect in your online marketing campaign. But even if you don?t want to start a blog yet, make sure your hosting company meets the requirements for WordPress, the world?s biggest blogging platform.
Accessibility
Find a host that gives you access to the server, so that you can make email accounts, modify server settings, and more. You will need access to your email online, not just through Outlook. Choose a company that lets you login to your company email, even when you are away from your desktop, just in case Outlook crashes.
Add on Features
Before being mesmerized by the quotes that you get from these web hosting firms, make sure you know what you are paying for. There are companies out there who will offer you a low start up rate, but ?a basic package without additional features. Do you want an email address? That?ll mean extra purchase. Thinking about a getting a blog? That?s another expense. You get the idea.
Scalability
For now, you might be thinking that your business is only a small business, but when choosing a web hosting service, work with a company that can scale as your business grows. As your retailing business takes off, you need a hosting plan that can be upgraded, too.
Shared hosting or dedicated hosting
A good way to save money is have your website under a shared hosting plan. This means that your business site is hosted together with other people?s sites for as low as $6 monthly. But shared hosting services often suffer hitches and glitches ? a problem on one site can undermine and slow the others. Bear in mind too that a quick website response time is important for impatient web users and web crawlers. Think then about getting a virtual private server that gives you faster performance and better quality service overall.
VN:F [1.9.20_1166]
Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)
VN:F [1.9.20_1166]
9 Things to Look for in a Web Hosting Service, 10.0 out of 10 based on 1 ratingSource: http://www.avinash.ws/blogging/9-things-to-look-for-in-a-web-hosting-service.html
kashi neil diamond orange crush harden nor easter nor easter ted nugent
Premise:
Star Ocean released a VR-MMO. However, players mysterious begin to vanish from our world, their souls trapped inside their player characters within the game. Faced with the very real possibility of death within the world they love, what will they do?
The RP takes place in a Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game and players start on the planet Elicoor II and the MMO follows after an alternate version of the Events of Star Ocean Till the End of Time.
Players can play as:
1. A player trapped within their character in the world.
2. A member of a group of players dedicating their time to illegally playing the game normally (but are not trapped themselves), in order to try to free the players.
3. Players playing the game illegally for any number of their own reasons.
Q/A:
How many characters can be in this RP?
Two characters per-person are permitted for Star Ocean Online
Why did you create Star Ocean Online?
I created Star Ocean Online because I saw the anime Sword Art Online and instantly fell in love with the premise of people being trapped within the video game world they love. I'd been considering making a roleplay involving Star Ocean III as it is my favorite JRPG of all time and decided that I would merge the ideas together to create one roleplay. So I did.
What Planets are in Star Ocean Online, which ones are playable and will there ever be more?
I'm going to listen to player feedback on if there will ever be more, but for the time being I don't want to overwhelm players with too many worlds at once, especially with how huge some of them can be. With that said, players will start out on Elicoor II, but as their character "levels up", which will be determined by the staff of the Roleplay, players will gradually get strong enough to reach what I call "Medium Level" and can go to Klaus III. Eventually after, when they reach High Levels they can go to the planet of the main antagonists which is called Diablo. I will also have some item shops and weapons shops on "Earth" so I guess technically that makes 4 planets, but really people will start out with just Elicoor II to fight on.
What makes Star Ocean Online so special?
The idea that you aren't just role-playing in a world not your own, you are actually playing as someone who is trapped within the beautiful fantasy world they love so much
What do we want from potential roleplayers?
There will be no word minimum, as I think its quality that should matter, not quanitity. These are really two different things and people often don't realize this. That said, story book format only, meaning write you RP posts as if they were a novel or novella, etc.
Please do not do such things as:
*runs up to you* hi! *hugs*
Yeah don't do that.
Who am I?
Well, I'm new here but I've roleplaying for more than roughly 8 years. I've been roleplaying on various websites. I started RPing on Gaiaonline back when it was still a new website, and I've roleplayed on (as well as been a moderator for) Saiyanisland.com and Animefans.com. I'm quite experienced at roleplaying and have been writing all sorts of novels (mostly unfinished) most of my life. I guess if you need to know more, ask. I'm a pretty open person really.
Either way I really hope to see more people for this RP, as I think the idea is both awesome and brilliant! I'm really excited for it and I hope to see us have our own sort of community, perhaps someday with Guilds and everything! I think this'll be a blast and I can't wait to see more people arrive!
Cya there ;)
Sephi
Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/RolePlayGateway
virginia tech emancipation proclamation april 16 tornadoes mitch hedberg secret service scandal shea weber
HTC has introduced a pair of new Windows Phone 8 handsets: The 8X and the 8S. Both devices are expected to launch in November.?
By Matthew Shaer / September 19, 2012
Microsoft CEO Ballmer displays the new HTC Windows Phone 8X and the HTC Windows Phone 8S at a launch event in New York.
Reuters
EnlargeIf you're a tech news junkie, it's probably hard to hear or see anything but the words iPhone 5?right now, but believe it or not, other smartphones do exist, and a few are even being demoed and released in the run-up to the iPhone 5 launch. Cases in point are Windows Phone 8X and Windows Phone 8S, a pair of handsets manufactured by HTC and powered by Microsoft's Windows Phone 8.?
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of
The Christian Science Monitor
Weekly Digital Edition
Both the 8X and 8S were unveiled today by Microsoft and HTC brass. Expect a November launch date, and a wide range of carrier options, including Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Of the two phones, the 8X is the higher-end of the pair, with a 4.3-inch HD display and a 1.5-GHz, dual-core Snapdragon chip.?
The 8S, on the other hand, is a little smaller in shape and display ? it gets a 4-inch display instead of a 4.3-inch display ? and a?1-GHz, dual-core Qualcomm S4 chip. So how do the devices handle? Well, over at PC Mag, Alex Colon and Sascha Segan took the 8X and 8S for a quick spin, and they like what they saw ? especially the sharp and vibrant looks of the phones.?
"The HTC Windows Phone 8X is made of polycarbonate and comes in blue, red, or yellow," they write. "If you dig the more traditional smartphone look it comes in black too, but these bright colors are really where it's at." The 8S, they continue, cuts a few corners to save cost,?but turns in a "solid" performance ? "just as responsive as the 8X" in early tests.
Where all this leaves Nokia is a little unclear. After all, Nokia and Microsoft partnered to much fanfare last year ? but now HTC seems to be stealing a little bit of Nokia's thunder. As Brian Bennett of CNET notes, the 8S and 8X look very, very much like the Nokia Lumia line.?
"When HTC representatives first uncovered its new products, literally removing a cloth that covered them for dramatic effect, I briefly thought I was in the wrong meeting," Bennett writes. "That's because the HTC Windows Phone 8X could easily be a doppelganger for Nokia's Lumia handsets, either the?Lumia 900?or upcoming?Lumia 920. Honestly, if I squinted my eyes I could almost make out Nokia's logo above the device's 4.3-inch screen instead of HTC's."
All of which has made Nokia a little cantankerous. In a statement to the Verge, Nokia marketing chief?Chris Weber attempted to frame the Lumia line as the true Windows Phone 8 device.?
"While others may choose to tactically re-brand their products, Nokia is driving an industry-leading smartphone franchise ? that we call Lumia -- exclusively around Windows Phone," Weber wrote. "With Lumia, we are creating truly differentiated experiences like PureView imaging, location and navigation, wireless charging and Nokia Music. And we?re just getting started!"
Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/zE8s0t3RhIU/With-8X-and-8S-HTC-steals-Nokia-s-thunder
rashard lewis curacao curacao home run derby kourtney kardashian kourtney kardashian DNS Changer