Sunil Rajaraman is the co-founder and CEO of Scripted.com, a marketplace for businesses to hire freelance writers. Follow him on Twitter @subes01.
When I talk to my friends who are not currently at startups, or the Silicon Valley, the perception is that VCs and individual investors are throwing around investment dollars like drunken sailors. Outsiders think that there is a bubble, and that any company with two engineers and an idea will get funded (though there is some truth to that in certain cases).
The reality is, competition has never been fiercer for startups, especially at the seed stage, to close a round. The pendulum may have swung for Y-Combinator companies, but not everyone else.
I am a non-technical co-founder of Scripted.com – a marketplace for businesses to hire freelance writers. We recently closed a $1M seed round led by an institution (Crosslink Capital) – I wanted to highlight some of the lessons I learned along the way, and pass along a few tidbits for those of you who may be in the same situation.
Get Ready for an Uphill Battle
Both my co-founder and I are non-technical (even worse, we are MBAs). We both hail from highly quantitative backgrounds, and I worked for one startup previously, but nothing of note. If you are in the same boat as us, get ready for a long, uphill battle. We had a VP of Engineering lined up at the start of our raise, but he was not full-time when we were going around and making our pitches. If you aren’t ready for your raise to take a full 6 months, you should find a plan B ASAP.
Looking back at my inbox, it looks like we received a total of around 120 intros to individual angels and institutions – a little over 10 folks invested in our round. Remember that batting average does not matter when it regards to funding, just results.
Lose Your Pride With Regard to Valuation
Everyone talks about the crazy valuations that YC companies are getting these days, the uncapped notes, and other miscellaneous things we have not seen in previous years. I have unfortunate news for you if you aren’t in YC, or another reputed incubator – you are not going to get those kinds of terms, so check your ego at the door.
Referrals Work, but only if the Right People Refer You In
It goes without saying that the best VCs will not take your meetings unless you get a referral from a strong source. We learned early on that entrepreneurs who have successfully raised or exited companies are the best way to get in the door. We were fortunate enough to put together a really strong advisory board before we went out for our raise, and it helped quite a bit.
We tried a more scattershot approach with regard to referrals very early on in the process, and it did not work. Stay away from people who want equity, or compensation in return for intros. We had one guy who had the audacity to ask us for equity in exchange for an audience with an angel group. I recorded my conversation with him and play it back for my own amusement on occasion.
Traction Matters Much More For You
You need to have traction, and paying customers if you want to complete a seed raise. YC entrepreneurs have a great reputation, rightfully, for being product visionaries. The use case for their seed funding is much different than yours – they receive a lot of seed funding to build product – you will need a lot of seed funding to grow a business. By the time we completed our raise, we were already doing tens of thousands in revenue a month, and it was still an uphill battle.
An age-old question, puzzling everyone from watchers of HBO's much-discussed comedy, Girls, to generations of frustrated moms and dads.
One answer, suggests a series of psychology experiments, is that she isn't seeing that bad boy straight, and biology at least part of the time may be supplying the rose-colored glasses that makes a "sexy cad" look like a "good dad."
"Why do women delude themselves about men who are terrible 'boyfriend' material," asks marketing professor Kristina Durante of the University of Texas at San Antonio, lead author of the forthcoming experiment report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. "It's not just that they are attracted to them, but they actually see them as different people."
Why does she say that? In the study, Durante and her University of Minnesota and Singapore Management University colleagues sought to explore psychological observations that women were more attracted to stereotypical masculine faces— symmetrical with strong jaws and sharp cheekbones ("I say Ryan Gosling to students now, because George Clooney is too old for them ," Durante says) — when they were at the most fertile part of the menstrual cycle. Some researchers have suggested hormones such as estrogen peak just then, firing their desire to run off with a good-looking cad.
On a deeper level, some evolutionary psychologists have suggested that the high testorerone levels of swoon-worthy men, responsible for those chiseled good looks and come-hither self-confidence, served as a signal of evolutionary fitness and explained the attraction. But at the same time, Durante says, that high testosterone and enticing faces made these cads less-than-reliable mate material, there to help support the survival of offspring, which is the whole point of evolution. As the study says, "it is unclear why ovulating women would think it wise to pursue relationships with men who might be unfaithful and desert them."
Instead, women should chase after dull dudes who seem likely to do the dishes and change the diapers, Durante says. But you don't have to watch Divorce Court every afternoon to know that doesn't always happen.
How come? In a simple experiment the team first asked 33 college-age women to take part in a study assessing how health affected their taste in men. That was just the cover story for them to take over-the-counter fertility tests revealing where they were on their monthly cycle. At both the high fertility and low fertility points of their cycle, the women were randomly shown a biography and photo of a "sexy man," an award-winning skier and handsome adventurer, or the same for "reliable man," a hard-working average-looking accountant. Then they asked the women how the men would split the work of parenting, (giving baths, cooking, washing bottles etc.) if they had a baby with him.
Good, old Mr. Reliable. The women estimated he would do around 40% of the household work no matter when they were asked. And the ski champ looked similarly helpful to the women when they were asked at low fertility moments. But the women actually estimated Prince Charming would do as much as 53% of the chores when they were ovulating, a statistically significant difference, "and a surprising one," Durante says. The "sexy cad" will be a "good dad" transformed into a caring father through the miracle of ovulation.
Interesting, but the men did look different after all. So the researchers hired "twins." Well actually they hired two male actors to play twins, one a "sexy cad" and the other a "good dad."
Diane McNease, a high school student from the northern Michigan town of Ishpeming, had sweet idea when she saw a friend folding Starburst wrappers. "I was waiting for my event at a swim meet," she tells Shine, "and an exchange student from Ecuador was making them into bracelets." Eighteen thousand candies later, she fashioned the bodice of a homemade dress completely out of the colorful papers and wore it to the prom last Saturday night, May 5. Her date, Luke DeWitt, is one of her best friends from the swim team.
VIDEO: Pier Breaks As Prom Picture Taken
The teen told WLUC-TV it took her a year-and-a-half to collect all the wrappers and five months to create the dress which also features a black satin "ball gown" skirt layered with tulle. "It was kind of a dare," she tells Shine. "Someone said I couldn't do it. That's the last thing you should say to me." She says DeWitt encouraged her through the whole process.
McNease explains to Shine that she did have some help. "My friend Bria Johnson made the fabric part of the dress for me. I couldn't have done it without her." The high school junior also says that dad, David, pitched in. "Every night he would help hand sew the folded strips of wrappers to the dress for a few hours."
For the first month, McNease ate all the candy herself. "But then I got sick of it." Friends at her school, which only has about 300 students, were happy to assist in the eating phase of the project.
detail, Frye's dressMcNease isn't the first young woman to don a candy wrapper dress on her big night. Last year, Tara Frye splashed out in a tutti-frutti colored gown that her mom, Kerrin, had spent six years crafting out of Starburst wrappers. Kerrin Frye explained the process to KARE-TV. Each wrapper had to be folded eight times and squeezed with tweezers to "get it just perfect." Mom initially contacted Wrigley Company to see if she could just buy the wrapping papers but they declined. Instead she purchased bulk bags, 20 pounds at a time, and enlisted her neighbors' sweet tooths.
McNease says she already had her plan and was collecting wrappers when pictures of Frye came out in the news. "But I really admire her dress. Especially the shoes. They are fantastic."
The crafting website fluffyland.com has an easy tutorial for how to make a cute Starburst bracelet with only 30-36 wrappers.
A hydrogen explosion rocked the plant on Monday, sending a huge cloud of smoke over the area while engineers flooded the three reactors in the complex with sea water in a desperate attempt to prevent what was shaping up as the worst nuclear emergency since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago.
Nuclear fuel rods at one of the reactors may have become became fully exposed raising the risk they could melt down and cause a radioactive leak, Japanese news agency Jiji said.
U.S. warships and planes helping the relief efforts have moved away from the coast temporarily because of low-level radiation from the stricken nuclear power plant, the U.S. Navy said on Monday. Singapore said it was checking Japanese food imports for radioactive contamination.
The nuclear crisis was a triple whammy for Japan, coming on top of the earthquake -- the fifth strongest ever recorded -- and one of the most powerful tsunami in history, which caused scenes of unimaginable destruction in northeast Japan.
Japan's Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the country was facing its biggest crisis since the end of the Second World War, which was when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"We're under scrutiny on whether we, the Japanese people, can overcome this crisis," Kan told a Sunday night news conference, his voice rising with emotion.
The quake caused Japan's main island to shift 2.5 meters (8 feet) and moved the earth's axis 10 cm (2.5 inches), geologists say. The question now is whether the catastrophe will spur other seismic changes in Japan, which has yet to emerge from its "lost decades" of stagnant growth, aging population, and loss of international prestige following the collapse of the Japanese asset bubble in the early 1990s.
At the very least, the drama at Fukushima is bound to shake the faith of many Japanese in the safety of their nuclear plants. The catastrophe will also sorely test Kan's deeply unpopular government. And the immense reconstruction effort that is coming may bring changes to rural Japan, where many of its older citizens live.
The first voter survey by pollster Consulta Mitofsky since the debate showed support for Pena Nieto of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, at 38.5 percent, up 0.5 percentage point from a previous poll published on May 1.
That gave him a lead of 17.5 points over Josefina Vazquez Mota of President Felipe Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN. She fell 1 point to 21 percent, her lowest level of support since the presidential campaign began at the end of March.
Two points behind her at 19 percent was leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who narrowly lost the 2006 election.
The survey polled 1,000 eligible Mexican voters from Monday to Wednesday and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
Pena Nieto's debating skills had been discussed as a potential weak spot before the debate, and he came under sustained fire from Vazquez Mota and Lopez Obrador, who accused him of corruption, lies and being a pawn of the media.
However, the 45-year-old PRI candidate, who has led polls to succeed Calderon for more than two years, counter-attacked in the debate, and analysts said he held his own.
By law, Calderon cannot seek a second term in office.
BOOED AND MOCKED
The PRI ruled Mexico for 71 years until it was ousted in 2000 by the PAN, whose support has faded because of its failure to create enough jobs and contain rampant drug-related violence that has killed 50,000 people in the last five years.
However, plenty of Mexican voters still have doubts about the prospect of the PRI's return.
Allegations of corruption and authoritarianism dogged the party during the latter years of its rule, and Pena Nieto was booed and mocked by students at his appearance at the Ibero-American University in Mexico City on Friday.
The same day newspaper Reforma reported that Pena Nieto had paid leading broadcasters to make favorable comments about his administration when he was governor of the State of Mexico, a populous region next to the capital, between 2005 and 2011. Pena Nieto denied the charge on Mexican radio, saying his government had only made legitimate use of advertising space available on the airwaves to promote its work.
Lifestyle factors you can easily change account for more than 90 percent of heart attack risk, a landmark study of about 30,000 people in 52 countries suggests. And making small, positive changes in your everyday habits can have a surprisingly big impact on your heart health—or even save your life.
Here’s a look at six of the worst habits for your heart, and how to turn them around.
Being Glued to the Tube
Spending too much time parked in front of the TV can actually be fatal, according to a 2011 study published in Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The researchers found that people who devoted four or more hours a day to screen-based entertainment—mainly watching the tube--had double the risk of a major cardiac event resulting in hospitalization, death or both, compared to those who spent less than two hours daily on these activities.
Another compelling reason to limit TV time: Those who spent the most time on leisure-time screen-based entertainment had a 48 percent higher risk of dying prematurely, even if they also exercised. Recent research also shows that too much sitting can be just as bad for your heart as smoking.
The Warning Signs of Heart Attack
Having a Negative Attitude
While stress and depression have long been linked to higher heart disease risk, a new Harvard review of more than 200 earlier studies, published this month in Psychological Bulletin, highlights the benefits of turning that frown upside-down: An optimistic outlook may cut heart disease and stroke danger by 50 percent.
And while you may think that happy people are just healthier, the researchers found that the association between an upbeat attitude and reduced cardiovascular risk held true even when they took the person’s age, weight, smoking status, and other risk factors into account.
Research also shows that laughter literally does the heart good, by expanding the linings of blood vessels and boosting blood flow. A fun way to add more joy to your life—and defuse stress--is laughter yoga, an exercise program that combines self-triggered mirth with deep yogic breathing to draw oxygen deeper into the body.
Top 10 Simple Ways to Leave Stress Behind
Ignoring Snoring
Frequent loud snoring can trumpet obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), a dangerous disorder that magnifies heart attack and stroke risk, if untreated. OSA (bouts of interrupted breathing during sleep) frequently goes undiagnosed because people don’t recognize the symptoms, which include waking at night for no apparent reason and unexplained daytime drowsiness.
If you fit this profile, ask your doctor to order a sleep study. Because OSA, which affects 18 million Americans, is most common in people who are heavy, treatment typically involves weight loss and in some cases, continuously positive airway pressure (CPAP), a device that blows moist, heated air in your nose and mouth as you sleep.
Aamir Khan brought up the issue of child sex abuse in the second episode of "Satyamev Jayate" Sunday. Yesteryears screen diva Sridevi made a special appearance on the show, her first appearance with Bollywood's Mr. Perfectionist.
The 48-year-old came to meet Harish Aiyer, one of the victims of child abuse who told Aamir that he was abused by a man for 11 years. He also said that when he tried to tell his mother, she didn't take him seriously.
At that time his only support was his dog and Bollywood movies, especially the ones starring Sridevi. And that is why the actress was invited on the show.
Harish was excited when he received a gift from his favourite star.
On the show, Aamir spoke to several other victims who narrated their horrific experiences of being molested, sodomised and threatened by their tormentors.
Cinderella Prakash, another victim, said how she was abused by a 55-year-old man when she was just 12.
According to a survey, 53 percent children who went through child sexual abuse were boys.
Aamir concluded the show with Good Touch, Bad Touch workshop for children to teach them about the importance of understanding sexual abuse and recognising predators.
The actor also appealed to people to press the government to pass the Protection of Children From Sexual Offences Bill in parliament.
A few minutes later, the truth was as undeniable as that 7-foot Spaniard. Although the Nuggets drove them to the brink of playoff collapse, the Los Angeles Lakers still have the tenacity to win on the biggest nights of the postseason.
Even when Kobe Bryant doesn't lead them.
Gasol had 23 points, 17 rebounds, six assists and four blocked shots, Metta World Peace scored 15 points in his return from a seven-game suspension, and the Lakers outlasted Denver for a thrilling 96-87 victory Saturday night to win their first-round series.
Steve Blake scored a playoff career-high 19 points and Bryant had a quiet 17 points and eight assists against regular double-teams for the Lakers, who blew a 16-point lead in the second half before surviving a finale with wild momentum swings and furious physical play.
With Gasol leading the Lakers' emotional effort — exemplified by those five offensive rebounds on a single, unbelievable tip play with 7:10 left — the Lakers narrowly avoided becoming the ninth team in NBA history to blow a 3-1 series lead.
''We were aggressive,'' Gasol said. ''We attacked the paint better. We pounded the boards as hard as we could, every single time. ... Our backs against the wall also had something to do with it.''
Andrew Bynum had 16 points, a career playoff-high 18 rebounds and six blocked shots for Los Angeles, which must open the second round Monday night in Oklahoma City against the second-seeded Thunder.
Ty Lawson and Al Harrington scored 24 points apiece for the sixth-seeded Nuggets, who committed 19 turnovers and managed just 7-of-27 shooting in the fourth quarter. Arron Afflalo scored 15 points in just the third Game 7 in franchise history for the Nuggets, who have lost in the first round in eight of the last nine postseasons — but never with this much excitement.
She's the female star of the highest grossing movie of all time (James Cameron's "Avatar"), and the female lead in J.J. Abrams' popular "Star Trek" franchise. She's also a Calvin Klein underwear model and she's been romantically linked to the Sexiest Man Alive (actor Bradley Cooper).
With that kind of resume, you would think actress Zoe Saldana could grace the cover of any magazine in the world. But the 33-year-old actress tells The Huffington Post exclusively that's not the case. "I can't yet pose for any magazine. I wish I could," the soft-spoken actress told us on the red carpet at the Cosmopolitan for Latinas launch party Wednesday night in New York City.
"There are a lot of magazines that are still sort of...that only cater to a certain demographic and only put certain people on their covers," she added. "And that's fine - I never lose hope that one day certain big magazines can broaden their exposure of what is an American face," added the half-Dominican, half-Puerto Rican actress.
Zaldana says magazines have tremendous power to bring about change. "I never like to get political, but when you have the ability, through your media, to influence a large mass of people, I would want to be a part of the evolving cycle of progress vs. keeping things the way that they are. I think that I speak for a lot of us, Americans, that I would want to see a little more diversity," she said.
"For the love of God, we have a Black president," Saldana added. "That should've set the tone on a lot of things that should've been a little quicker, and it's not enough."
Saldana says she feels it's important to address these kinds of issues. "I feel like I need to contribute my two cents in terms of something that should be happening more," she said. "But that said, I'm always a person that's half-full, and magazines like Cosmopolitan for Latinas are doing what others should be doing more of."
Cosmpolitan for Latinas, a new magazine aimed at acculturated Latinas in the U.S., launched earlier this month. Zaldana is the magazine's first ever cover girl - an honor that she takes very seriously. "For me to have been invited to be the first on their cover, I feel so honored and grateful," Saldana said. "To be seen and to be respected for my work and acknowledged as a true American Latina...means a lot to me."
Feliz día de las madres from HuffPost Latino Voices!
Latina moms are some of the hardest working people in America. They sacrifice and work tirelessly in (and outside of) the home to provide for their families, and most importantly, they love their kids unconditionally.
Latina moms in Hollywood are no different, and with Mother's Day 'fever' in the air, we decided to pay tribute to some of our favorite famous mamis, including half-Spanish actress Elsa Pataky ("Fast Five"), who just gave birth to her first child with actor Chris Hemsworth ("The Avengers") on Friday, a baby girl named India Rose!
The FICO credit score equation might be a black box, but there have been thousands of articles written about what you should and shouldn't do when it comes to your credit score. Most of them are pretty obvious--pay your credit card bills on time, don't apply for a lot of credit, and keep your nose clean. There are, however, a lot of weird ways you can hurt your score without you even realizing it.
Closing Credit Cards. This has become less "strange" in recent years, but closing your credit cards can hurt your score. What seems like simple financial housecleaning actually affects a variety of factors that go into your credit score. When you close a card, your credit limit drops, which increases your credit utilization (bad). If that card is older than most of the other cards you have, the average age of existing accounts will also fall (bad). These are not as bad as an account in collections, but they could mean the difference between a good credit score and a bad one.
Not Filling Out A Moving Form. When you move, it's often important to report your change of address to the United States Postal Service or you risk missing important mailings like credit card and utility bills. The last thing you want to do is be behind on payments because that will be reported to the credit bureaus. Some credit card companies will report you as soon as you are 30 days late. While you're at it, be sure to hold your mail when you go away. You don't want someone stealing your mail and your identity.
Asking Banker to Check Score. If you have friends who work at banks, especially if they are in lending, you might be tempted to ask them to check your credit score for free. Rather than jump through the hoops of free credit score companies or paying for it yourself, it might seem harmless to ask a friend to look it up. Besides probably being misuse of company resources, this will hurt your credit score because that small favor will result in a hard inquiry on your report. When you look up your own score, the credit bureaus treat it as a soft inquiry because you are asking about yourself. When you ask your bank, all the bureau see is a bank requesting your score, as if you had applied for a loan.
Metta World Peace has no interest in making a bury-the-hatchet peace gesture with Oklahoma City's James Harden at the onset of the Los Angeles Lakers' Western Conference semifinals series against the Thunder.
Eastern Conference Playoffs
"I don't shake substitutes' hands," World Peace said after contributing 15 points, five rebounds and four steals in the Lakers' 96-87 Game 7 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Saturday in his first appearance since serving a seven-game suspension for his elbow to Harden's head last month.
Harden is not just any substitute of course, he's the Sixth Man of the Year who suffered a concussion in the second quarter of the Lakers' 114-106 double-overtime win over the Thunder on April 22 after World Peace's elbow following a dunk dropped him to the floor.
World Peace issued a statement of apology following the incident and told reporters in his first public comments about the suspension nearly two weeks ago that he reached out to check on Harden's health through a third party.
However, World Peace has yet to contact Harden directly and said that he has no plans to even acknowledge the Thunder's versatile wing player on the court before Game 1 on Monday.
"My concern is executing the coaches' game plan and that's what my concern is," World Peace said when asked if he had any thoughts about facing Harden for the first time since the suspension.
The mercurial Lakers forward went on to say that the entire Thunder team has a habit of ignoring the common NBA ritual of showing mutual respect before tipoff with a handshake or fist pound.
SportsNation: Lakers vs. Thunder!
SportsNation Two of the heavy hitters in the NBA Western Conference will square off in a great matchup. Who will win?
• Cast your votes!
"I shake everybody's hand before the game, but Oklahoma City, they don't shake hands," World Peace said. "Only some of them, but I don't think they really shake hands before the game. Kendrick Perkins and now (Russell) Westbrook don't shake hands either. (Russell) used to shake hands, but now he don't shake hands anymore."
World Peace said that his failed handshake attempts with Perkins date back to the 2010 Finals when Perkins was a member of the Boston Celtics.
"I used to go and shake hands," World Peace said. "I've been playing against Kendrick forever. Kendrick, he'll never shake your hand so I'd have to go and find Kendrick and shake his hand. In Boston, every game I'd have to go to him and say, 'Hey,' and then tap him on the butt. He don't touch my hand. But, I'm getting tired of making that walk."
For drivers who don't want to commit to a new car purchase, leasing has become a popular option. But for a police department in a city with a struggling economy, running up a $65,000 bill for what amounts to renting an nine-year-old car seems like a bit of an oversight. That's just what the Detroit Police Department has been doing since 2003 when it leased a 2004 model Dodge Intrepid at the lofty price of $608 per month. The problem? They've been paying that price ever since.
The original terms of the lease stated that the car would be returned in 2005, at which point the department could choose to buy it outright to take delivery of a newer model. That trade-in never happened, and so far the city has handed out a total of over $56,000 in monthly payments. But that's not all: Because the department has gone well over the original mileage agreement, they owe nearly $10,000 in additional fees, bringing their total bill to well over $65,000. That's $65,000 for a car that could be bought new in 2003 for less than $25,000.
But that's just one vehicle, and the city is currently paying for over a hundred leased cars currently in use, and all of them are operating on expired leases. The seemingly careless spending could total several millions of dollars in the end, and the city apparently has no plans to reverse the practice.
The ridiculous waste of taxpayer money was discovered by local news station WXYZ, after they obtained the sales records through a Freedom of Information Act request. The station spoke with the president of the Detroit Police Officers Association, Joseph Duncan, who seemed just as outraged at the mismanagement as the taxpayers will be, stating "This is malfeasance. It makes no sense to me."
There was one thing that was for certain when it came to the regular season awards—Lamar Odom did not have a chance in hell in repeating as the 6th Man of the Year. Maybe Brian Wilson had so much trouble before he got hurt because people were busy fearing another beard.
James Harden of the Oklahoma City ThunderThe guy that did win it many fans did not hear much about till Metta World Peace went all Ron Artest on him a week or so ago. Folks that really follow the league though had no doubt who the 6th Man award should go to this year because they’ve followed his work all season.
For the folks that cast votes there was little doubt that the award should go to Oklahoma City Thunder’s James Harden.
Of the 118 ballots, Harden was first on 115 of them easily running away with the award. The top five vote getters were as follows: Harden (584 points); Louis Williams, Philadelphia 76ers (231 points); Jason Terry, Dallas Mavericks (81 points); Al Harrington, Denver Nuggets (42); Manu Ginobili, San Antonio Spurs (28).
In just over 31 minutes a game Harden contributed 16.8 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 3.4 assists.
Article by Travis Pulver
Pakistan blocked the head of an airline whose jet crashed near the capital from leaving the country as it began an investigation Saturday into the country's second major air disaster in less then two years. The Bhoja Air passenger jet crashed Friday as it tried to land in a thunderstorm at Islamabad's main airport, killing all 127 people on board. The small domestic airline, which resumed operations in March after an 11-year pause, has said the weather was the cause. Speaking at the scene of the crash, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Saturday that Farooq Bhoja, head of Bhoja Air, had been put on the "exit control list," meaning he can't leave Pakistan. Such a ban is often put on someone suspected or implicated in a criminal case. Malik said, "It is being said that the aircraft was pretty old, so it has been ordered to investigate thoroughly the air worthiness of the Bhoja Air aircraft." "The causes will be investigated, whether it was any fault in the aircraft, it was lightning, the bad weather or any other factor that caused the loss of precious lives," he said. The plane's flight data recording systems, key to any investigation, have been recovered. Given the violent storm lashing Islamabad during the accident, some experts have speculated that "wind shear," sudden changes in wind that can lift or smash an aircraft into the ground during landing, may have been a factor. It may even have been a dangerous localized form of the phenomena, called a microburst. That can cause planes to lose airspeed suddenly or lift abruptly if a headwind suddenly changes to a tail wind during takeoff or landing. Soldiers and emergency workers at first light began the grim task of looking for bodies and body parts among the debris from the Boeing 737-200, which was spread out over a one-kilometer (mile) stretch of wheat farms around five kilometers (three miles) from the Benazir Bhutto International Airport. The plane was on a flight from the southern city of Karachi to Islamabad when it crashed at dusk. One soldier had a plastic bag over his hand and was picking up small bits of flesh. Another was using a stick to get at remains in a tree. The smell of decomposing bodies was beginning to fill the air. "We are collecting these so that the souls are not desecrated," one of them said. The officers were also picking up personal effects of the passengers, making piles of documents, bank cards, gold and bangles. The last major plane crash in the country — and Pakistan's worst — occurred in July 2010 when an Airbus A321 aircraft operated by domestic carrier Airblue crashed into the hills overlooking Islamabad, killing all 152 people aboard. A government investigation blamed the pilot for veering off course amid stormy weather. Bhoja Air started domestic operations in Pakistan in 1993 and eventually expanded to international flights to the United Arab Emirates in 1998. The company suspended operations in 2001 due to financial difficulties but resumed them in 2012. Nasim Ahmed, a respected former crash investigator, said it appeared at this stage that the age and air worthiness of the plane were unlikely causes. He said that a combination of factors during the most crucial stage of the flight, the landing, was probably to blame, possibly the weather or some form of unexpected incident that caused the pilot to lose vital awareness of the plane's location. According to the Web site www.airfleets.net, the Bhoja jet was 32 years old and first saw service with British Airways in South Africa. Thirty-two years is not especially old for an aircraft, and age by itself is rarely an important factor in crashes. Ahmed said the accident highlighted weaknesses in Pakistan's aviation industry, which he said couldn't be separated from management problems in the Civil Aviation Authority, poor government oversight and corruption and nepotism in the state-owned Pakistan International Airlines
I've been a sex educator since -- well, for a long time. And I am still crazed by the quantity of misinformation available to all of us at any given time. These myths are difficult to debunk; they have a long history and thousands of urban legends to back them up. But it doesn't mean they are correct. Far from it. So while there are plenty of myths about sex and sexuality, far more than the ones I have expanded on here, these are the ones I've chosen to tackle at this moment. If you caught me on another day, maybe I'd present an entirely new list.
Most women have orgasms from sexual (vaginal) intercourse.
Wouldn't we all love for this one to be true? Many experts and studies have found that about 70% of women do not have orgasms from (heterosexual vaginal) intercourse alone (without external clitoral stimulation). This clearly contradicts all the sex scenes we watch on television or in movies where it appears that everyone can climax on demand. (Which is really a shame because that would be nice.) So if you have been wondering what's wrong with you... well, absolutely nothing at all. We are not built the same as men, but the lens through which we talk about sex (or see it) is often male. Many of us wind up feeling badly if our experiences don't match our expectations -- or we start to question the prowess of our partner (but that's another blog post altogether). And don't get me started on pornography -- it can certainly be entertaining, but hardly represents reality. That aside, yes, there are some women who suffer from medical conditions that make orgasm (and even intercourse) difficult or impossible. However, the majority of women are not experiencing sexual dysfunction; we just haven't been given great sex education.
Oral (or anal) sex doesn't count as sex.
I always find it interesting that we seem to have a hierarchy of sex behaviors. Consider the rationalization: I can have oral or anal sex but it's not really sex so I don't have to count it as having a sex partner. Or I can do this and still be considered a virgin. Or... you get the point. And to complicate matters, depending on who you ask, that hierarchy may change. So here are a few thoughts: All forms of sex are sex. They are all intimate personal behaviors with the capacity for great pleasure and if practiced without protection, the potential for certain negative outcomes, too. Did I convince you? If not, try this: Sex is not just for straight people, which is basically what we're saying when we suggest that vaginal intercourse is the only true form of sex.
You would know if your partner has a sexually transmitted infection.
In my eleventh grade health class, our teacher showed us photos of penises and vulvas (notice I did not say vagina?) ravaged by sexually transmitted infections. My health class probably wasn't unique. Lots of us were shown these photos as a means of curbing our sexual behavior. Did it work? Nope. It actually backfired. I remember my fellow students squirming in their seats. "That's disgusting!" they screamed as they looked at images of cauliflower-like warts and oozing blisters. While on the surface it may sound like a great way to scare us out of any or all sexual activity, it didn't (shocking, I know). What it actually did was incorrectly teach us that sexually transmitted infections have visible (and quite grotesque) symptoms. (They don't, most of the time.) The fact is, you cannot tell if a partner has a sexually transmitted infection just by looking at their genitals. The only way to know for certain is for you and your partners to get tested.
Apparently someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
In a detailed letter to his mother, one son plots the epic demise of his mom's "damnable" alarm clock.
The somewhat poetic author notes that if the "hellish cries of such a horrible instrument" continue to wake him up, he "will have no hesitation in wrapping it soundly in a plastic bag before dashing it into numerous pieces upon the driveway."
The rant continues for several paragraphs, before the author closes in a softer tone, reminding his mother that her banana bread is fantastic.
Nevertheless, plenty of commenters on Reddit felt the son needed a lesson in good manners. And while mom's response remains unknown, it remains to be seen whether she'll be as frustrated as Tommy Jordan, the dad who shot his daughter's laptop after she posted a Facebook message complaining about her parents.
What do you think of this son's letter? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
Music critics were not kind to teenager Rebecca Black last year when the music video for her song "Friday" garnered millions of hits on YouTube: Rolling Stone ridiculed the video's "sub-par production values, grating hooks and extraordinarily stupid lyrics," while a host of others questioned whether the tune was possibly "the worst pop song of all time."
But possibly the harshest criticism Black has received to date may be this week's comparisons to Double Take, a teen pop duo whose music video "Hot Problems" has been viewed more than one million time on YouTube.
In the video, the teens ride around town in the back of a limo while lamenting the trials and tribulations of being too attractive for their own good.
"Hot girls we have problems too," the plaintive duo sings in monotone. "We're just like you. Except we're hot."
So far, the video has received nearly 35,000 "dislikes" on YouTube.
The production company that made the video, Old Baily Productions, was quick to note in the description that they were not responsible for the song, saying "We produced the video as a favor for a younger sibling of one of our friends."
But perhaps the duo should be commended for drawing attention to the devastating condition of hotness, which was highlighted earlier this year in a widely criticized column from the Daily Mail. In the editorial "Why Women Hate Me For Being Beautiful," columnist Samantha Brick explained that her enviable appearance put her at a disadvantage in society because women felt threatened by her, while men viewed her as a sex object.
"While I’m no Elle Macpherson, I’m tall, slim, blonde and, so I’m often told, a good-looking woman," Brick wrote. "I know how lucky I am. But there are downsides to being pretty — the main one being that other women hate me for no other reason than my lovely looks."
While Brick's comments drew criticism from all corners of the Internet, at least one study lends some validity to Brick's claims.
At the end of April, Universal Studios celebrates its 100th anniversary. To mark the milestone, the studio has a heavy presence at the eleventh annual Tribeca Film Festival. Its upcoming comedy, "The Five-Year Engagement," opened Tribeca on Wednesday night, and on Thursday, the fest hosted Judd Apatow and Robert De Niro for an hour-long discussion about their contributions to the studio.
De Niro has made twelve films for Universal throughout his lauded career, including "Meet the Parents," "Cape Fear," "The Deer Hunter," "Casino" and "Midnight Run." All four of Apatow's directorial efforts ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Knocked Up," "Funny People" and the upcoming "This is 40") were released by Universal, as was the Apatow-produced comedy "Bridesmaids." (He also produced "Five-Year.") As Universal president and CEO Ron Meyer said at the beginning of the presentation, the two men are "an integral part of [the] organization."
Despite a shaky start -- mostly owing to the fact that moderator Mike Fleming asked a torrent of questions about De Niro's work in "The Deer Hunter," his first Universal feature, that the actor didn't seem all that interested in answering -- Apatow and De Niro had a good rapport during the panel, discussing everything from personal failures to the future of digital filmmaking. (Meryl Streep, who made "Out of Africa" and "Mamma Mia" for Universal was scheduled to attend, but had to bow out due to an illness in her family.)
ABC’s reality dating game show series, which includes “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” is expected to face a class-action lawsuit this week for racial discrimination due to its failure of featuring minority contestants on the show.
According to TMZ, attorneys for Nathaniel Claybrooks and Christopher Johnson will file the complaint in federal court on Wednesday morning against ABC production companies Warner Horizon Television, Next Entertainment, NZK Productions and “Bachelor” executive producer Mike Fleiss.
Sources tell the site that both plaintiffs attended a Nashville audition at a local hotel claiming that a producer questioned their attendance before leaving the two out of the normal audition process. Both believe their race led to the producer’s decision to not contact them following the audition.
The show’s lack of diversity over the course of 23 seasons has raised a few questions in recent years as to why there has never been a non-white bachelor. Last year show creator, Fleiss told Entertainment Weekly that he and his production team are always looking to cast for ethnic diversity, “it’s just that for whatever reason, they don’t come forward. I wish they would.”
Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor known as much for his folksy wisdom as his investing prowess, announced Tuesday that he has been diagnosed with cancer.
In a letter to shareholders, Buffett, 81, said that he had been diagnosed with stage I prostate cancer.
“The good news is that I've been told by my doctors that my condition is not remotely life-threatening or even debilitating in any meaningful way,” Buffett said in the letter.
Buffett said that he will begin a two-month treatment of daily radiation in mid-July. He said his travel will be restricted during that time but it will not otherwise change his daily routine.
Advertise | AdChoices
In his typical conversational style, Buffett said that he feels great.
“I will let shareholders know immediately should my health situation change. Eventually, of course, it will; but I believe that day is a long way off,” he said.
Prostate cancer is common among older men, but usually isn’t life-threatening. In 2011, 240,890 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, and 33,720 men died of it.
Speculation has long swirled around who would take over for Buffett should he no longer be able to run Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett said in February that he had chosen someone to succeed him as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, but he did not name that person.
Buffett told CNBC Tuesday his succession plan had not changed with the diagnosis.
Buffett has been in the news lately because of his call for the rich to pay more taxes. The so-called Buffett rule, which was rejected by the Senate Monday, came after he wrote an editorial in the New York Times asking lawmakers to stop coddling the rich.
India's central bank cut its key interest rate by a bigger-than-expected half percentage point Tuesday, the first cut in three years, and warned that stalled reforms are diminishing the growth potential of Asia's third-biggest economy.
The Reserve Bank of India cut its short term lending rate -- the repo rate -- to 8.0 percent from 8.5 percent. Many economists had expected a quarter point cut.
The bank said it decided to cut the rate because economic growth has slowed to below what it believes is its long-term trend rate, which in turn is contributing to a moderation in core inflation.
The last interest rate cut was in April 2009. Between March 2010 and October 2011, the bank waged a lonely battle against inflation, raising interest rates by 3.75 points in 13 consecutive rate hikes.
The central bank cautioned that the scope for further rate cuts is limited, because inflation risks remain and growth has not slowed dramatically below what may be a new and lower normal for India, which once aspired to double-digit economic growth.
The bank said India's "trend" rate of growth, or the amount the economy can expand without stoking inflation, had declined from its pre-financial crisis peak of around 8.5 percent to about 7.5 percent. The bank blamed supply bottlenecks, especially in infrastructure, energy, minerals and labor, for the economy's diminished potential, and said unblocking such constraints was "an imperative."
The RBI expects India's economic growth to pick up to 7.3 percent in the current fiscal year from 7.0 percent for the fiscal year ended March 2012. It predicted that inflation, which was 6.9 percent in March, would moderate to 6.5 percent by next March.
The RBI's policy document can be read as a tissue of complaint against New Delhi, shot through with reminders about the limitations of monetary policy to bring about economic change.
"Monetary easing by the RBI is a necessary condition but may not be a sufficient condition for investment sentiment to revive," RBI governor Divvuri Subbarao said.
The bank alternated between admonishing and pleading with New Delhi, offering India's government a long wish list. Stop borrowing so much and crowding out private players from debt markets. Cut subsidy spending. Control the budget deficit. Do more to fix demand imbalances in India's food supply, particularly for protein-rich foods such as pulses, meat, eggs and milk, which have seen double digit price rises.
Democrat strategist Bob Beckel dropped the F-bomb live on the “Hannity” program on Fox News Monday night.
“You say that Head Start is a failure, you don’t know what the f— you’re talking about,” Beckel barked as the show returned from a commercial break.
Beckel had apparently been arguing off-air with guests including tea-party activist Jennifer Stefano of Americans for Prosperity and radio host Neal Boortz on the show’s Great American Panel segment when the program suddenly came back to catch the obscenity live on the air.
“Whoa! Bleep!” exclaimed host Sean Hannity when the F-word was launched. “What are you doing?”
“Failure,” said Stefano.
“I just can’t stand right-wingers. They’ve just got their mouths running all the time,” Beckel explained.
When Hannity requested that Beckel apologize, Beckel responded, “I don’t apologize.”
“Yes you do. You just cursed on the air,” said Hannity.
“I’m not gonna apologize,” an adamant Beckel affirmed.
“All right, I apologize for you,” said Hannity, who finally was able to make Beckel understand the obscene comment had been broadcast live.
“I try to put signs up and help you,” Hannity told Beckel.
Beckel finally said, “I’m sorry about using that foul word, yes. But the intent about it is still there.”
“And you should run your show a little better,” he continued, “instead of having me get caught like that.”
I am a first-year associate at a large law firm in New York. By all accounts I am Going Places and will Be Something someday, but for now it's a lot of "skill building" like managing nitty-gritty tasks and doing document review ... I can manage my eating pretty well during the day, but at night I return home unsatisfied, and a binge results. I... see the direct connection between this emptiness and my eating habits. And I do just need to stare my frustration with my job and my career in the face instead of distracting myself from it with food. I just don't know how.
-Letter quoted in "Women, Food and God" by Geneen Roth
When I interviewed Geneen Roth a few weeks ago, I planned to quote her in a quick news item on a new study out of Finland showing that women experiencing burnout at work are more prone to compulsive eating and less likely to overcome it. Simple enough. Yet I put off writing it up. I knew the reason: research all the way from Scandanavia hit too close to home.
Published in the April 2012 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the study looked at the relationship between work burnout and emotional eating -- eating when you feel bad -- or "uncontrolled eating," eating where a person feels unable to stop. The researchers defined burnout as a combination of exhaustion, cynicism, the feeling that your work is meaningless, "lost occupational self-respect caused by chronic work stress," according to the study.
Of the 230 women who participated, those with burnout were more likely to be struggling with emotional and uncontrolled eating, Reuters reported. The women who weren't burned out were able to reduce their uncontrolled eating over time. The women who were burned out weren't.
The findings immediately reminded me of the passage above from Geneen Roth's "Women, Food and God" and the reaction I had when I encountered it for the first time.
I know Roth's work because it's been so useful to me in my own struggles to do something very simple: eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm full. I used to berate myself for not being able to follow those simple instructions until I realized that while not every woman can relate to my bout with anorexia, the near constant thinking about food and weight is the norm for many.
In the quest to resolve my own standoff with food, news reports on the latest research around food and eating usually aren't that helpful. They are often clinical, reporting the science, with perhaps some obvious advice tacked on the end - if I read one more time that smaller, more frequent meals is the answer to years of struggling with food, I'm not sure what I'll do - and sometimes they are even shaming. (This one on a study of women's "sneaky" secret eating habits -- conducted by that lauded research institution, the American Pistachio Growers, no less -- is a beaut.)
Roth's work, on the other hand, has helped (and, incidentally, made me quit dogging self-help as a genre). She literally wrote the book on emotional eating -- nine actually. She has unlocked why and how women turn to food to cope with their emotions, specifically their romantic relationships ("When Food Is Love"), their spiritual lives ("Women, Food and God"), and their financial lives ("Lost and Found"). She hasn't, however, written about work.
A newly released photo from the North Atlantic site of the shipwrecked RMS Titanic shows evidence of human remains, federal officials are saying.
In observance of the 100th anniversary of the ship's sinking, a 2004 image was reissued to the public in an uncropped version, which shows a coat and boots buried in the mud at the site two-and-a-half miles below the ocean's surface, where the legendary passenger liner now lies.
Word of the new photo caused Yahoo! searches to surge on "titanic remains," "real titanic pictures underwater," and "titanic may hold passengers."
Dr. James P. Delgado, the director of the Maritime Heritage Museum at the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration told Yahoo News over the phone that the way the boots are placed together makes a "compelling case" that they belonged to a body.
The scientist, who was responsible for mapping the shipwreck during a 2010 expedition for NOAA, says that the image was rereleased in its full form (it was originally published to show only one boot) to serve as a reminder that the ship is an "underwater resting place" and needs to be better protected and respected.
The newly published image was first reported by the New York Times—which also noted that not all Titanic experts agree there are bodies at the site of the wreckage, first discovered in 1985. James Cameron, who directed the movie "Titanic," and has explored the site multiple times, said he's never seen human remains: "We've seen shoes. We've seen pairs of shoes, which would strongly suggest there was a body there at one point. But we've never seen any human remains."
Delgado said that the issue is more one of "semantics." The researcher said of Cameron, "He's seen the pairs of shoes and clothing that's down there, and so when he sees that, perhaps he's not seeing what we see as archeologists." He added, "When I see shoes together I see someone who came to rest." Delgado added that when Titanic finder Robert Ballard first showed the photo in 2004, "the room went silent." He said the explorers who looked at it could tell it had once been a lost soul from the ship.
A bill introduced by Sen. John Kerry would amend the Titanic Maritime Memorial Act of 1986 to protect the wreck from salvage and intrusive research. But since the ocean liner sank in international waters after hitting an iceberg on April 14, 1912, there are limits to what the U.S. can d
Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin is a terrible free throw shooter, and an unrefined post player. The All-Star is also an explosive scorer and leaper that can still manage to throw in a two-handed dunk even with your burliest big man hugging his hips, on his way to over 20 points per game. The combination of these factors creates a whole hunk of hard fouls, as Griffin flings himself at the rim. And, because defenders are told to do everything they can to prevent Blake from earning endless and-one whistles, the man gets hit. Hard. And he's having a hard time dealing with it.
On the heels of Derrick Rose complaining about the same treatment on Monday, Griffin honestly answered a question about the hard licks to the Orange County Register, via SLAM:
"I'm definitely sick of taking hard hits," Griffin said after the Clippers' shootaround Monday. "…There's a point, I can't remember what game it was, in my mind where I thought this is kind of ridiculous. I'm sick of it, but it's going to keep on happening. It's affected me this year a lot, especially with the referees," he said. "I'm just getting frustrated and getting myself in trouble with officials."
As the OCR's Dan Woike points out, Griffin has been called for 11 technical fouls this season (one was later rescinded), and he's in danger of being suspended for a game if he earns three more. And while we can't imagine what it's like to take the pounding that Griffin does, nearly nightly, you've likely seen him play quite a bit this year on national TV. He's earned those technicals. He's probably earned far more.
This is, unfortunately, a function of Griffin's game at this point. While there have been a few cheap shots here and there (most notably Jason Smith's take down of BG from earlier this month), his still-developing (it is developing … right?) post game forces him into the sorts of finishes that lend themselves to hard wrap-ups. It isn't fair to write that Griffin tries to dunk everything, because he still tosses up plenty of outside jumpers and attempts to work spin moves in the post, but he does dash to the rim a whole lot.
And when you're shooting 52 percent from the free throw line, and opponents have six fouls a piece to pass around? You're going to get fouled. And when you're beastly-strong, and able to score despite typical fouling contact? You're going to get fouled hard.
Mind you, Griffin is just fine for being honest about being "sick" about these fouls. And because of the style of play we detailed above, it is "kind of ridiculous" for Blake to be taking more of these type of hits this year than just about any player (Dwight Howard, who has sort of taken it easy on both ends in 2011-12, slid down the list this season), even if he does appear to whine and moan about non calls more than just about any player we've seen this season.
