Friday, November 1, 2013

Major oyster reef rebuilding begins on Texas coast

A large excavator is silhouetted as it scoops up a load of limestone boulders from a barge in the gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013. The huge boulders will be dropped into the water to help rebuild a reef that once filled some 400 acres and now barely exists. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)







A large excavator is silhouetted as it scoops up a load of limestone boulders from a barge in the gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013. The huge boulders will be dropped into the water to help rebuild a reef that once filled some 400 acres and now barely exists. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)







A large excavator is drops a load of limestone boulders from a barge into the gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013. The huge boulders are being put in place to help rebuild a reef that once filled some 400 acres and now barely exists. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)







A large excavator shovel dumps huge limestone boulders into the Gulf of Mexico to help rebuild an oyster reef off the Texas coast on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013. The $5.4 million project will rebuild some 57 acres of reef, helping to revitalize the fragile Gulf marine ecosystem. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)







A conservationist shows a live oyster plucked from an existing reef in the Gulf of Mexico, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013. Huge limestone boulders are being dropped into the water off the Texas coast in one of the largest oyster reef restoration projects in the United States. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)







A bird stands on an oyster shell strip atop an existing reef in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013. Conservationist have undertaken a $5.4 million project to rebuild some 57 acres of oyster reef. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)







(AP) — A deep sea oyster reef restoration being touted as the largest ever in the Gulf of Mexico began in an unlikely place: a quarry in landlocked Missouri.

That is where years of research, planning and precise engineering led Mark Dumesnil, an associate director of restoration for the Nature Conservancy in Texas, as he sought to restore what was once a nearly 500-acre oyster reef and is now no more than hard sand and shell remains, with not one oyster in sight.

And so, about seven years after Dumesnil was first tipped off by wildlife ecosystem experts that restoration of Half Moon Reef might be possible, 36 barges carrying 93,000 tons of Missouri limestone traveled for 12 days down the Mississippi River, arriving in the Gulf earlier this month. Scientists, engineers, researchers and laborers will spend some eight weeks dropping the boulders onto a 54-acre plot 8 feet underwater as part of a $5.4 million, two-phase project designed to revitalize a damaged ecosystem.

The project also will provide a robust natural barrier from hurricanes and teach scientists whether reefs can rebuild in drought conditions, becoming another mechanism for marine habitats to withstand devastating dry spells.

"This project is designed to be innovative and different," said Dumesnil, who has financial backing from a variety of agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Texas General Land Office.

Oysters filter 50 gallons of water daily. Each acre of reef the oysters cling to filters another 24 million gallons of water daily. Together, they are vital to a healthy marine ecosystem and to commercial fisheries because they are home, feeding and breeding grounds for hundreds and even thousands of other fish, shrimp, clams, crabs and other life. In Texas alone, the oyster industry is a nearly $30 million a year industry, according to state statistics.

Oyster reefs, however, have been severely damaged by overfishing and other causes during the last century. Nearly 50 percent of the reefs in the Gulf, and 85 percent of those globally, have disappeared, according to The Nature Conservancy.

In 1907, a survey of Matagorda Bay done by the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries indicated Half Moon Reef covered 494 acres of seabed. Since then, however, a variety of factors led to a slow death, including the release in the 1920s of a major logjam in the Colorado River that allowed large amounts of freshwater to flow into the estuary about 10 years later, upsetting the delicate salinity levels that oysters need to thrive; rerouting in the 1940s of the intracoastal waterway, which released tons of sediments, and may have helped bury and kill oysters; commercial dredging of live and dead oyster shells between 1922 and 1983, often to build roads; and the damage from Hurricane Carla in 1961.

Oyster reef restoration has long been done along shorelines, successfully helping decrease erosion and protect sensitive coastal communities from tropical storms. Similar projects in deeper waters, including off the Virginia coast, have also been done, but generally on smaller scales and with flatter, less contoured materials and not typically limestone.

The idea behind this project, Dumesnil explained, and the reason boulders of varying sizes are being used, is to try to replicate as closely as possible a real reef, and to get the eventual growth of it to be vertical — as it would be if it were naturally occurring.

"If we were here 100 years ago ... we would see reef, oysters breaking the surface of the water. So you would see waves breaking on the oyster reef, it was that high, 6 to 7 feet high," said David Buzan, project manager for Atkins North America, a global engineering, design and project management consultancy firm. "Now, we're building a reef that's 3 feet high with the hopes that oysters will grow on it, colonize it and eventually return that oyster reef back to the height that it originally was 100 years ago."

The limestone from Missouri was specifically chosen because it was the precise material, Dumesnil said, needed to guarantee it wouldn't sink into the seabed allowing the oysters to build vertically. Project designers also decided to build 32 rows of 650-foot reefs, deliberately leaving space between them. The hope is that as the spat — or oyster babies — stick to the boulders they will eventually fill in the gaps while growing the reef vertically.

"What we were wanting to do is build in as much diversity in the design of the project," Dumesnil said. "The more diverse a habitat is the more diverse and types and kinds and numbers of species will use that."

Coincidentally, the project is being launched as Texas struggles through years of drought, which has increased the salinity of Matagorda Bay and other estuaries as less freshwater from rivers flows into the Gulf. This is allowing scientists to study the effects this has on oyster reefs and learn whether they can grow in drought conditions, an issue of increasing concern for scientists who expect more frequent dry spells due to global warming, said Laura Huffman, the director of the Nature Conservancy in Texas.

"We want to test the conditions at their more extreme," Huffman said.

___

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0ca3a594644ee9e50a8ec4ce2d6de/Article_2013-11-01-Oyster%20Reef%20Restoration/id-000446c0d7494aaabf5fa69775c0a0b1
Category: daylight savings   EBT   Eiza González  

Children rescued after bus topples into Kan. creek


DOUGLASS, Kan. (AP) — Ten Kansas children and a school bus driver were pulled to safety from a fast-moving creek Thursday after the bus toppled into the water and landed half-submerged on its side.

The children, ages 13 and younger, clambered through a roof hatch to await rescue as the 60-year-old driver called 911 to report the accident in rural Butler County, Sheriff Kelly Herzet said.

Investigators were looking into how the accident happened, but County 911 director Chris Davis said the bus apparently went off a bridge that Douglass School District officials described as a low-water crossing.

Emergency personnel decided against using boats because of the swift current, instead reaching the bus on lines and putting the children and the driver in life jackets before pulling them to dry ground.

The accident happened around 4 p.m. outside Douglass, a town of about 1,700 residents southeast of Wichita.

The driver was taken to a hospital to be checked for hypothermia and one child was seen being placed in an ambulance, but the sheriff said all of the children were eventually turned over to their parents.

Logan Parker, a 12-year-old sixth-grader, said the bus "hit a couple of bumps and then we fell into the water."

"The driver was shaking and a lot of people were screaming and crying," said Logan, who was still wet more than two hours after the accident.

Some sections of roads in the area were still covered by water from recent heavy rain, and Herzet said the bus had driven into a submerged stretch of the road.

"The lesson here is not to drive through water," he said.

Herzet credited the older children with helping get the younger ones out of the bus to await rescue.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/children-rescued-bus-topples-kan-creek-010330857.html
Tags: Kwame Kilpatrick   Washington Navy Yard   djokovic   auburn football   tesla model s  

A Better, Staggered Muffin Pan That Packs In More Baked Goodness

A Better, Staggered Muffin Pan That Packs In More Baked Goodness

The creators of the revolutionary all-edges brownie pan have returned with another innovation for the world of baked goods. This time they want to improve how we make muffins with their Better Muffin Pan which features a staggered design—among other improvements—that maximizes the amount of baked treats you can squeeze in your oven, and minimizes the areas where you can spill batter.

Read more...


    






Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/4GlKZhoXOQQ/a-better-staggered-muffin-pan-that-packs-in-more-baked-1456009492
Similar Articles: lunar eclipse   tom brady   james spader  

US jobless claims fall for 3rd straight week


Washington (AFP) - US jobless claims fell for the third week in a row, as the impact of the government shutdown earlier in the month appeared to ease, Labor Department data showed Thursday.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell to 340,000 in the week ending October 26, a decrease of 10,000 from the prior week.

The figure was higher than expected as the labor market works through the disruption of the October 1-16 partial government shutdown that furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal workers, as well as technical problems that skewed the weekly data from some states.

Analysts on average had forecast new claims, a sign of the pace of layoffs, would fall to 335,000 last week.

"Claims are settling back down now that the federal government shutdown has passed and a bottleneck caused by a computer system upgrade in California delayed the processing of thousands of claims several weeks ago," said Marisa Di Natale of Moody's Analytics.

The four-week moving average, which helps to smooth week-over-week volatility, rose by 8,000 to 356,250. The average has moved higher for four weeks in a row.

According to data for the week ending October 19, claims from federal employees fell by 29,700 from the previous week.

"Though the federal government is open, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has delayed its planned release of the October jobs numbers by one week, until November 8. It is difficult to judge what that number might be from claims since they were distorted during October," Di Natale said.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-jobless-claims-fall-3rd-straight-week-133459637.html
Related Topics: pumpkin   The Crazy Ones   twerking   Arsenal   Whodunnit  

Gaga, Macklemore, Kendrick Lamar to hit AMA stage

FILE - In a Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013 file photo, Lady Gaga arrives for a presentation of her upcoming new album "Artpop" at a fan event at the Berghain club in Berlin. Dick Clark productions announced Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013 that Lady Gaga, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Kendrick Lamar and Luke Bryan will perform at the American Music Awards on Nov. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)







FILE - In a Thursday, Oct. 24, 2013 file photo, Lady Gaga arrives for a presentation of her upcoming new album "Artpop" at a fan event at the Berghain club in Berlin. Dick Clark productions announced Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013 that Lady Gaga, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Kendrick Lamar and Luke Bryan will perform at the American Music Awards on Nov. 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)







NEW YORK (AP) — Hold your applause: Lady Gaga will perform at the American Music Awards next month.

Dick clark productions announced Thursday that Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Kendrick Lamar and Luke Bryan will also hit the stage for the Nov. 24 awards show in Los Angeles.

Previously announced performers include Miley Cyrus, One Direction, Imagine Dragons and Florida Georgia Line.

Macklemore & Ryan Lewis lead with six nominations, including artist, new artist and single of the year for "Thrift Shop." Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake have five nominations each, while Robin Thicke, Rihanna and Florida Georgia Line have four each. Bruno Mars and Imagine Dragons are both up for three awards.

The AMAs will air on ABC from the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live.

___

Online:

http://abc.go.com/shows/american-music-awards

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-10-31-Music-American%20Music%20Awards/id-31b4d9351cae4e00853b92cb48ba9a1d
Tags: tlc   Jim Leyland   Dusty Baker   Julie Harris   Riley Cooper  

Google debuts new wireless charging pad with support for Nexus 5 and 7

Last year, Google unveiled a new wireless charging pad alongside the Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, and the company has taken advantage of 2013 to come up with another one. This new charging pad has been announced in tandem with the Nexus 5, and will include support for it and the Nexus 7. It's supposed to ...


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/yWXFgcH4uXc/
Related Topics: Daylight Savings Time 2013   49ers   silk road   chicago fire   nfl schedule  

Feds post food allergy guidelines for schools

In this Oct. 10, 2013 photo, an epinephrine auto-injector is shown that Tyler Edwards, 12, of Hendersonville, Tenn., carries with him because of his allergies. Only 27 states require or allow epinephrine, a drug used to treat anaphylactic shock, to be available in schools. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski)







In this Oct. 10, 2013 photo, an epinephrine auto-injector is shown that Tyler Edwards, 12, of Hendersonville, Tenn., carries with him because of his allergies. Only 27 states require or allow epinephrine, a drug used to treat anaphylactic shock, to be available in schools. (AP Photo/Mark Zaleski)







(AP) — The federal government is issuing its first guidelines to schools on how to protect children with food allergies.

The voluntary guidelines call on schools to take such steps as restricting nuts, shellfish or other foods that can cause allergic reactions, and make sure emergency allergy medicine — like EpiPens — are available.

About 15 states — and numerous individual schools or school districts — already have policies of their own. "The need is here" for a more comprehensive, standardized way for schools to deal with this issue, said Dr. Wayne Giles, who oversaw development of the advice for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Food allergies are a growing concern. A recent CDC survey estimated that about 1 in 20 U.S. children have food allergies — a 50 percent increase from the late 1990s. Experts aren't sure why cases are rising.

Many food allergies are mild and something children grow out of. But severe cases may cause anaphylactic shock or even death from eating, say, a peanut.

The guidelines released Wednesday were required by a 2011 federal law.

Peanuts, tree nuts, milk and shellfish are among the food that most often most trigger reactions. But experts say more than 170 foods are known to cause reactions.

The new advice call for schools to do such things as:

—Identify children with food allergies.

—Have a plan to prevent exposures and manage any reactions.

—Train teachers or others how to use medicines like epinephrine injectors, or have medical staff to do the job.

—Plan parties or field trips free of foods that might cause a reaction; and designate someone to carry epinephrine.

—Make sure classroom activities are inclusive.

For example, don't use Peanut M&M's in a counting lesson, said John Lehr, chief executive of an advocacy group that worked on the guidelines, Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE).

Carolyn Duff, president of the National Association of School Nurses, which worked on the guidelines, said many schools may not have policies on food allergies. "And if they do, maybe the policies aren't really comprehensive," she said.

U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat who worked on the law that led to the guidelines, said in a statement that they are a big step toward giving parents "the confidence that their children will stay safe and healthy at school."

___

Online:

CDC guidelines: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/foodallergies/

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-10-30-Food%20Allergies-Schools/id-33b7262cc9064170a81e124296422e61
Tags: homeland   emily blunt   Sunny Ozell   Liam Payne   Jared Remy  

Discover Musical Instruments Everywhere With This Tiny Synthesizer

Discover Musical Instruments Everywhere With This Tiny Synthesizer

London-based duo Dentaku have made digital instruments out of beer bottles, text messages, and color-sensing robots. But, for their latest trick, Yuri Suzuki and Mark McKeague want to let you make music. Meet Ototo, a tiny synthesizer that lets you make almost anything—from oranges to origami—into an instrument.

Read more...


    






Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/E03yr6IZLUg/discover-musical-instruments-everywhere-with-this-tiny-1455236971
Similar Articles: calvin johnson   Benedict Cumberbatch   fiona apple   sports illustrated   Tami Erin  

Halloween's Creepiest Bad Guys: Where Are They Now?


From Jason to Freddy, here's how several horror icons have been spending their time since their famous roles.


By Alex Zalben








Source:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1716619/halloween-creepy-villains.jhtml

Category: NBA   Kwame Kilpatrick   Panda Express   TSLA   Hannah Anderson  

From Abington to Yorkleigh: What to Name Your Subdivision in 1949

From Abington to Yorkleigh: What to Name Your Subdivision in 1949

Did you grow up in a place called Colonial Terrace? Lawndale? Hawthorne Grove? Then you might want to thank Stanley L. McMichael. In his 1949 book Real Estate Subdivisions, the real estate guru took all the guesswork out of naming new suburban streets, providing a supersafe and hypersanitized vanilla list of options for future subdivision names.

Read more...


    






Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/SsC8Cn-TIUE/what-to-name-your-subdivision-in-1949-1456353878
Tags: National Cat Day   The Blacklist   Insidious 2   Victoria Duval   Julie Harris  

Surgery lifts veil of darkness for Myanmar's blind

In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, Saw Min lies still on a bed with weights on her eye after receiving local anesthesia ahead of a cataract operation at a government hospital in Bago, Myanmar. Saw Min waited with hundreds of Myanmar's poorest villagers to be prepped for the simple, free surgery she hopes will restore her sight. My heart is racing," said the 38-year-old mother of five, who lost all vision in her left eye one year ago and, in the months that followed, all but 20 percent in her right. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)







In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, Saw Min lies still on a bed with weights on her eye after receiving local anesthesia ahead of a cataract operation at a government hospital in Bago, Myanmar. Saw Min waited with hundreds of Myanmar's poorest villagers to be prepped for the simple, free surgery she hopes will restore her sight. My heart is racing," said the 38-year-old mother of five, who lost all vision in her left eye one year ago and, in the months that followed, all but 20 percent in her right. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)







In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, a patient with an eye patch rests inside a makeshift mosquito-net at a Buddhist monastery following a simple operation to remove a cataract in Bago, Myanmar. Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with one of the highest rates of blindness in the region. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks to an “assembly line” surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)







In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, patients receive assistance after undergoing cataract surgeries at a government hospital in Bago, Myanmar. Accurate statistics concerning public health are difficult to come by in Myanmar, which only opened up to the outside world two years ago. The World Health Organization puts blindness prevalence rates at under 1 percent, high for the region in Myanmar, but one outside survey showed it peaking at 8.1 percent in some rural areas. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)







In this Oct. 23, 2013 photo, Buddhist monks with eye patches exit a room in a Buddhist shrine following simple operations to remove cataracts in Bago, Myanmar. Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with one of the highest rates of blindness in the region. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks to an “assembly line” surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)







In this Oct. 22, 2013 photo, a woman suffering from blindness has tears dripping from her eye as she waits to enter an operation room to follow a simple surgical procedure to remove cataracts at a government hospital in Bago, Myanmar. Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with one of the highest rates of blindness in the region. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks to an "assembly line" surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions, a technique pioneered by Nepalese master surgeon Sandut Ruit. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)







(AP) — Five decades of isolation, military rule and woeful health care have left Myanmar with a particularly high rate of blindness. Now the veil of darkness is starting to lift, thanks in part to an "assembly line" surgical procedure that allows cataracts to be removed safely, without stitches, through two small incisions.

Nepalese surgeon Sandut Ruit, who helped pioneer the technique, oversaw nearly 1,300 operations at two massive eye camps in 10 days in October, with dozens of local ophthalmologists looking on and helping.

Despite improvements over the last two decades, the vast majority still use a microincision surgical technique that requires two sutures. Doctors were confident the no-stitch procedure — cheap, easy to learn and taking as little as five minutes — would catch on quickly.

"This is a turning point in our cataract history," said Dr. Tin Win, the chief of Yangon Eye Hospital. He said his goal is to have all 60 eye centers in the nation of 60 million using the procedure by the end of next year. He says he will pass on the information to all doctors, together with training manuals and videos, at a nationwide eye conference in early November.

"If we succeed, we can double our cataract surgical rate," he said. "We can start getting rid of our cataract backlog."

Several organizations focused on preventing blindness have focused on Myanmar as a country in particular need of help. A 2005 survey conducted by the South Australian Institute of Ophthalmology in the rural Meiktila district of central Myanmar found that 8.1 percent of the population there was blind.

Ruit, who travels throughout the developing world holding free mass eye camps, was working in Myanmar for the first time.

He and his team were initially scheduled to perform 1,000 surgeries, but added nearly 300 patients due to the overwhelming response by potential candidates.

After the operation, some patients expressed hope they would be able to work again. Others were eager to see the faces of their children and grandchildren.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-10-31-AS-Myanmar-Gift-of-Sight-Photo-Essay/id-c1915ef26c1147e9b5bc5e0a387c4b2a
Related Topics: ohio state football   Phillip Lim Target   remembering 9/11   pharrell   megyn kelly  

Circle Raises $9M Series A From Accel And General Catalyst To Make Bitcoins Mainstream


Circle Internet Financial has launched with $9M of Series A funding to increase mainstream adoption of digital currencies like Bitcoin by providing a payment platform for consumers and merchants. Investors include Jim Breyer, Accel Partners and General Catalyst Partners.


All three invested in Circle founder Jeremy Allaire’s previous startup Brightcove, an online video platform that went public in 2012.


Circle is a payment platform that wants to make it easy for businesses and consumers to use Bitcoin and other digital currencies. Despite its association with Deep Web black market Silk Road, as well as concerns over its stability, more consumers and companies are beginning to show interest in Bitcoins because they can facilitate online payments at lower costs and with greater security and privacy than existing electronic payment methods. One potential draw for merchants is avoiding the fees and risks of fraud and chargebacks associated with credit cards.


For consumers, Circle says it is building a secure platform that will protect consumer privacy. For businesses and charities, it will provide tools and services that enable them to accept digital currency payments with no transaction fees.


Circle Internet Financial
Circle’s Series A is one of the largest–if not the largest–amounts of funding secured so far by a digital currency startup. Other Bitcoin-based companies that have recently landed significant investment include Coinbase, which raised a $5 million Series A led by Union Square Ventures, and BitPay, which has received about $2.5 million to date from Founders Fund and various angel investors.


Other startups that have recently launched to take advantage of the increasing interest in Bitcoin include London-based Bitcoin exchange Coinfloor; music jukebox hack Beatcoin; micropayment platform BitWall; and whitelabel exchange Buttercoin.


In order for companies like Circle to be successful, however, they will have to allay concerns about regulatory issues. As Shakil Khan, founder of Bitcoin news Web site CoinDesk, pointed out last week during a Disrupt Berlin panel, average customers want to see some kind of regulation before they adopt Bitcoin. On the other hand, there are potential opportunities for digital currency companies around the world. For example, China’s government is beginning to show interest in Bitcoins (and a division of Chinese Internet giant Baidu recently started accepting Bitcoin payments).


Circle is based in Boston, with international operations headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. The company is regulated by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the U.S. Department of Treasury, as a money transmitter and is seeking state licenses. John Beccia, the former chief regulatory counsel for the Financial Services Roundtable in Washington, D.C., will also serve as Circle’s general counsel and chief compliance officer.


Allaire also co-founded of Allaire Corporation, creators of Web development language ColdFusion. Allaire Corp. was acquired by Macromedia in 2001, where Allaire became CTO and helped oversee the creation of a Flash-based application platform.


“Bitcoin and digital currency represent a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape the future of the Internet and global commerce,” said Alliare in a statement. “There’s a tremendous opportunity to make payments easier, more secure and less costly for consumers and businesses. Digital currency can dramatically reduce the friction and costs currently experienced in the world by merchants and consumers.”


Jim Breyer, Partner at Accel Partners, will join Circle’s board of directors, as well as David Orfao of General Catalyst Partners.


“The dramatic global growth in mobile, social and online commerce is creating the need and potential for a real global digital currency. With Jeremy’s vision for Circle and track record as an Internet pioneer, the opportunity here is to potentially build a significant global company,” said Breyer.



Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/bSoV9Nb5ET0/
Similar Articles: Michelle Rodriguez   lesean mccoy   Navy Yard shooting   never forget   george strait  

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Inside The Dungeon of Doom: Kevin Sullivan on wrestling's wackiest group










In summer 1995, one year before the emergence of The nWo, WCW was stuck in a seemingly inescapable limbo. The era of Ric Flair’s thrilling rivalries against Vader, Sting and Ricky Steamboat was in the rearview mirror. Hulk Hogan had arrived one year prior, but he wasn’t being accepted by Atlanta crowds with the same maniacal frenzy that had stirred up WWE fans in the ’80s.

The lead producer of WCW at the time, Kevin Sullivan – a Boston-bred veteran brawler – needed to come up with something. He needed to do it fast. And what he came up with might be the single most absurd narrative that has ever unfolded in one of the major sports-entertainment organizations — The Dungeon of Doom.

View photos of The Dungeon of Doom's members | Watch the absurd videos inside The Dungeon's lair

A cadre of cartoonish villains that assembled in a haunted fortress, The Dungeon grew and grew to amass no fewer than 20 individual members, each more ridiculous than the next. Watching the group’s television segments today is a surreal experience and plays like a B-movie out of the mind of Troma’s Lloyd Kauffman. There were bizarre sci-fi elements like teleportation, Hogan’s turn to “the dark side” long before going Hollywood and even the first on-screen appearance of Big Show.

With the rise of YouTube, the group's run has developed a cult following thanks to its cheap production values and endlessly quotable lines like, “It’s not hot!” Fascinated by the the macabre world of The Dungeon of Doom, and the notion that its existence overlapped with the intense realism of The nWo, WWEClassics.com set out to discover the inside story. We sat down with Kevin Sullivan, the Dungeon's Taskmaster, to find out what made the group tick and why it even happened at all.












Source: http://www.wwe.com/classics/kevin-sullivan-on-the-dungeon-of-doom
Related Topics: Andre Rison   Agents of SHIELD   rose byrne   Sydney Leathers   anthony weiner  

Nikon hurt by falling DSLR prices, but still faring better than Canon

Nikon's finance department has been forced to revise its quarterly revenue forecast in a southerly direction due to the fact that entry-level DSLRs are selling for lower prices than it originally expected. One of the culprits is likely to be the D3200 shown above, which is currently going on Amazon ...


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/6oc06qAml6o/
Category: NFL Network   Ryne Sandberg