Anna Faris Talks Women Actresses, Co-Stars And Boob Jobs In Marie Claire:

Women of Hollywood, do yourselves — and your careers — a favor: find Anna Feris’s number. And call it.

And no, that’s not a pun on her upcoming film, either.

The “House Bunny” and “Scary Movie” standout is due to star in the upcoming sex comedy, “What’s Your Number?” and, if it does as well as expected, it’s going to make her a very powerful lady in show business. Unfortunately, it’s a rarity that a woman star can top line a straight comedy, and even rarer that an all-woman ensemble can do so. It happened with this spring’s “Bridesmaids,” and if Faris can pull it off, she says she wants her own “equivalent of the Judd Apatow crew,” alluding to the Seth Rogen-led humor frat that consistently opens films to great fanfare.

She’s already taking applications.

“When we meet each other, it’s always at some fussy event where everyone’s, you know, schmoozy and full of sh*t. So it’s difficult,” Faris tells Marie Claire in their new issue. “I would love to have more actress friends, but I just don’t… I have to call somebody’s agent and be like, ‘Hey, I know this is crazy — I don’t even have a specific project — but I’d really like to hang out with this girl.’ It has to be awkwardly coordinated like that.”

One potential project to get in touch with her about: “Gold Diggers,” which she’s producing herself.



“It’s really exciting to create something, sell it, and feel like I’m not just a pawn waiting to be cast,” she said about the project.

That Faris has reached this moment in her career speaks to her talent, but also her perseverance. After a three year marriage fell apart in 2007, she went off the rails a bit, getting a boob job and hitting the sauce.

“I was like, ‘F*ck it, I’ve got nothing to lose, nobody to support,’” she remembered thinking. “I wore the same Garfield shirt and jeans for three weeks. I had a running joke with my friend: ‘I hope somebody roofies me tonight!’ I didn’t care what people thought.”

Now married to Chris Pratt, an emerging comedy star in his own right, Faris now doesn’t have to worry what people think: she’s about to be in charge.

IT can make Panchayati Raj more effective: Ruhullah:

Noting that geomatics is vital part of governance, Jammu and Kashmir Minister for Information Technology Aga Syed Ruhullah said the use of technology can help in making the Panchayati Raj system more effective.

“Use of geomatics for good governance is only possible when the back end data is easily available. Geomatics is vital part of governance and if the technology is made accessible, the Panchayat Raj can be made more effective,” Ruhullah said during a conference on ‘Geomatics for G-Governance’ yesterday.

The regional conference was organised by University of Kashmir in collaboration with the Indian Society of Geomatics here.

Geomatics is the discipline of gathering, storing, processing, and delivering geographic information, or spatially referenced information.

The minister said that geo-information technology and communication technology can play a significant role in development and planning.

He also stressed need for building the technical ingenuity of state to harness the benefits of geo-information technology for overall development through good governance.

“There is also a need for coordinated and pragmatic approach for the collection, maintenance, updating and accessibility of the datasets at the state level to make use of geomatics possible,” Ruhullah said.

Facebook’s ‘Subscribe’ Button: 5 Things You Need To Know:
Forget “friending”: a new feature from Facebook now lets users “subscribe” to one another’s updates.
In a blog post published Wednesday, Facebook announced that it would begin rolling out the “subscribe button,” a tool that offers users a new way to interact with one another, as well as more of a say over the information that appears in their News Feeds.
“Our mission is to connect people and help them share. The goal of this new feature really is to give people more control over how they do that,” Naomi Gleit, Facebook’s director of product, told the Huffington Post.
As we wrote here, the just-announced setting, which lets Facebook operate more like Twitter by enabling people to “follow” public figures, could have important effects on etiquette, sharing, and the way people connect on Facebook.
Facebook will begin rolling out the “subscribe” button to all users starting September 14.



We’ve put together a guide to five key things you need to know about the “subscribe” button. Check them out, then tell us what you think of the new feature in the comments below.

Kanye West’s Puppet Show ‘Alligator Boots’ Never Aired But Was Incredible:

Alligator Boots is not Kanye West’s crowning artistic achievement. It’s not even really a complete achievement, considering that the Rhymefest-affiliated puppet show was canceled before it would have aired on Comedy Central. But this is the Internet, where not everything is made available but a lot sure is, and Konee Rok has posted about 10 minutes of behind-the-scenes footages of what might have been.In this video discovered by The Vine, we take an extensive look behind the scenes at a 2008 pilot for “Alligator Boots,” a sketch/puppet show pilot created by rapper Rhymefest in collaboration with Kanye West and Daniel Ellison of Jackhole Productions, who also produced “Crank Yankers.”

The show had almost the exact same concept as “The Muppet Show” — the puppets, which interact with live action celebrities, even were created by Jim Henson’s Muppet Workshop — but with a decidedly hip-hop flavor. For instance, Rhymefest describes a sketch in which a literal pig is touted as the next big thing in rap, but nobody notices that he’s just a pig “except for smart people.”

Another sketch, shown in the video, features “Beary White” crooning an X-rated ballad to Kim Kardashian in Princess Leia’s metal bikini.

Yes, when the show’s production was first leaked in 2008, it got some pretty bad press. And we’re the first to admit that the promos made the show look terrible. And also, many of the sketches sound ridiculous and actually are ridiculous. But the show looks ridiculous in the best, most Kanye-rific, oblivious to its own silliness way possible. However, Comedy Central has a history of taking chances with some great programming and also some not-so-great programming, and we feel like “Alligator Boots” could have been an experiment worth exploring.



“I think it’s going to go amazing!” -Kim Kardashian as Princess Leia in the unaired pilot. Sorry, Kim.

6 Things to Consider When Accepting a Job Offer Photo:

Scoring an offer means you’ve made it through the toughest part of the job hunt. All the applications, research, and thank-you notes have paid off—congrats!

But not all the stress is over just yet. Now comes an important decision: whether or not to accept the position. How do you know if it’s the right job for you? Or, what if you have to choose between two appealing offers?

Weighing the dozens of pros and cons can easily be overwhelming, so here are the most important factors to keep in mind when you’re making that oh-so-important decision.

1. The People

No, my number one consideration is not the money—it’s the people. Your boss, your team, and the co-workers that will surround you everyday are crucial for your happiness and success at a job. Sure, it’s hard to judge people after only meeting them briefly, but think about how they treated you during the interview process. Were they friendly? Did they ask personal questions as well as professional ones? Did they call you back in a timely manner?

The answers to these questions may reflect how your co-workers and superiors will treat you as an employee. I recently interviewed with a company who didn’t call me back for several weeks after our five-minute speed-interview. When I finally got the return call, we proceeded with a 10-minute interview, and then they made me an offer. Is someone who’s ready to hire you after 15 minutes really considering how well you’ll fit into the team? Probably not.

2. The Environment

Weigh the pros and cons of working for a corporation, an agency, a non-profit, or a start-up. They’re very, very different environments, and it’s important to decide which you’d thrive in. If you’re more of an individual worker who likes structure and competition, the corporate path may be for you. If you want a fast-paced environment that’s new every day, an agency or start-up may be a good choice.

The physical location is also important to consider. A long commute or lack of lunch options may pull down your everyday attitude. Nothing is worse than going to a miserable work environment every morning—and even worse, taking that unhappiness home with you, too.

3. The Benefits

Having a great benefits package is important for more than the obvious reasons. If a company offers its employees perks like health, dental, retirement, and flexible spending plans, it can mean they’re competitive and doing well financially. If a place doesn’t offer benefits package, it might just be because they’re small, but it could also imply that they’re struggling as a company.

Even if benefits aren’t overly important to you, working for a company without them is something to carefully consider. Been there, done that, and in my experience, it didn’t point to company success.

4. The Stability

A lot of organizations are able to impress with their past work or current profits, but take some time to do research on the company’s recent success and hiring activities. Has it been operating steadily during this crazy economic climate? If so, you’re likely looking at a pretty stable job. If not, be careful: you could be walking into a hazardous environment and a job that could be gone within a year.

5. The Money

When looking at a job offer, or comparing two, often the most tempting thing to do is to go for the money, but that’s not necessarily the right approach. Take it from me—I’ve taken a job for the money and hated it, and taken a massive pay cut to work somewhere I love. I’ve learned that salary is only a small part of my happiness at work.

Consider what salary you could live with, as well as the amount that would make a job offer irresistible, and keep those numbers in mind (and of course, negotiate!). Think more about potential of the whole package and less about the numbers on your monthly paycheck.

6. Your Gut

Finally, after you’ve weighed the important factors, take time to listen to what your gut is telling you. People often say when they’re buying a house, “when you walk into the one, you’ll feel it.” Same advice here: if you walk out of an interview and everything feels right (or wrong), pay attention to that feeling.

5 ‘Dream Jobs’ That Aren’t As Glamorous As They Look:

Who wouldn’t want to be a travel writer? They visit some of the most interesting and beautiful places in the world, and they get paid for it. Or a celebrity assistant? They get to hang out with celebrities!

The truth is that while these jobs certainly do come with great perks, even so-called “dream jobs” aren’t perfect. Though all 10 of the following people love their careers and wouldn’t change them for anything, there are times when, like the rest of us, they think work sucks.

1. Travel Writer

The perception: Trips to the world’s most beautiful locations and meals at the best restaurants, all expenses paid.

The reality: “It’s a difficult industry to get into and it can be a tough field to stay in because it’s not known for paying well,” says Sarah Sekula, a freelance travel writer whose work has appeared in publications such as Sherman’s Travel and USA Today. “Therefore, this is not the right profession for you if your main concern is making a ton of money.”

Plus, Sekula says, although the travel is great, it can interfere with her personal life. “You’re on the road often, so you miss things in town like birthday parties and weddings,” she says.

2. Celebrity Assistant

The perception: Behind-the-scenes access to a world few get to see.

The reality: “From the outside looking in at [the life of] an assistant to Hollywood icons looks glamorous. Not really,” says Lisa Krohn, who says she often worked 75 to 100 hours per week as an assistant to celebrities and business powerhouses such as Martha Stewart, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and author and Mandalay Entertainment CEO Peter Guber.

“You’re an intimate confidant and muse for people 24/7 on top of doing all of the administrative work. It is crucial for you to find, maintain and grow in your own character, personality and identity constantly. Otherwise you become a victim, emotional cripple and you live vicariously through your boss and his or her life,” she says.

3. Blogger

The perception: “[Since I work from home], many people immediately jump to the conclusion that I get to work whenever I want, sleep in every day, go out with friends all the time, make a ton of home-office tax deductions, and that it’s an overall easy lifestyle,” says Andrew Schrage, editor of the personal finance blog MoneyCrashers.com.

The reality: “I have had to overcome some major challenges to working from home to avoid business failure,” Schrage says. “Not having the structured 9-to-5 routine forces me to become extremely disciplined and prepare for my work-from-home job. Moreover, working from home makes it difficult to separate work from my personal life. Working at an office allows you to shut out your work once you leave and get home. Unfortunately, I rarely get to enjoy that freedom, which I’ve learned is priceless.”

4. Conference and Meeting Planner

The perception: It’s all menu sampling and international travel. Paid for, of course.

The reality: “My friends think I lead a glamorous life — traveling to all the great resorts in Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean and Hawaii,” says Hillary Bessiere, director of business development for Bishop McCann, a firm that produces meetings and events for brands around the world. “However, what they don’t realize is that as planners we usually only see one part of the destination from the time we arrive to the time we depart, and that’s our operations office to make sure our clients’ programs go off without a hitch. I’ve been called a jet-setter, but what people don’t see are the days you are up from 6 a.m. until 2 a.m., and sometimes you’re lucky if you are able to change clothes every day.”

5. Jewelry Designer

The perception: Arts and crafts, for adults.

The reality: It can be a logistical nightmare.

“The part of my job that is not glamorous (that few realize before setting out) is the complexities of managing and financing a lot of inventory,” says Kathy Loewenstern, who designs and sells her jewelry collection at KathyLo.com. “To be successful in the jewelry business, you need a very wide product assortment and you need to be constantly changing and updating to stay abreast of trends and to give your customers something new.”

This need for an extensive product assortment creates stress throughout the business, from designing to sourcing to selling, she says.

My Baby and “My Baby” – Startups and Children as Labors of Love:

As a 35 year old business owner with a 20 month old daughter, I can only stress one thing: I wish I did it all sooner.

That goes for both the business and the baby, though most importantly the baby.

Having met several other successful entrepreneurs in Manhattan with whom I share strikingly similar backgrounds, I’ve begun to recognize a pattern — after being raised in rural areas or suburbs by stay-at-home moms, it seemed to us all that there was nothing more important than having a career first and postponing motherhood as long as possible.

As a neighbor once astutely pointed out, “There are a lot of old parents in New York.” Yet my reasoning for longing for an earlier start to child-rearing encompasses far more than this preoccupation. Now that I have made it halfway through the most rigorous, poignant decade of my career, and with the clock ticking, I am not racing to conceive another child. In addition to all these elements, my husband and I live far away from any grandparents or family, so unfortunately now is not an ideal time to be raising a baby.

Looking back ten years, I honestly doubt that even I would have been receptive to this advice myself, but I can now attest that if women like you and I do want to have children, perhaps we should start thinking about it earlier. Our generation seems to be caught in this sort of reactive rubber band effect, so I can only hope that my daughter, Agnes, will have a more balanced perspective on the matter. All that being said, in my personal experience, having a child and starting a company have proven similar in a myriad of ways.

To begin, it took careful planning to conceive of both my company and my child. In fact, funnily enough they both incubated for nine months before “launching,” so to speak (my daughter, however, did not launch so easily, as I was in labor for over 30 hours). Beware, for the first year of life for both these “babies” holds little to no sleep.



Additionally, you will be pushed to your limits, and you might even think you have made a huge mistake (though rest assured, you did not). Under no circumstance should you have a child during your first year of launching a startup, unless your parents live very close or you have an au pair. Even then, this would be questionable timing, as both business and children require constant attention and nurturing. Essentially, one only gets out what one puts in, and there are only so many hours in a day. Also, in either realm, if you are too sleep-deprived, you will make mistakes. It’s important to create a routine and set a daily schedule: this in turn makes a child’s life more comfortable and predictable and your business life more efficient and focused. If you are like me, you may juggle high level management with sales, HR, and financial tasks. Switching gears can be jarring for even the best multi-tasker, so just make specific time slots for your internal tasks as well as your meetings. Also, if ever you are feeling unmotivated or overwhelmed, remember that just being a mom makes you work more efficiently since, more often than not, one wants to get home to see her child, so there is less time wasted during the day.

Having a child also helps you in your personal life as well as your business life, especially in terms of prioritizing who and what is important to you. I often find myself spread too thin, engaged in too many professional groups, boards and other activities. Reflect on the fact that “no” could be one of the first words that your child learns, and for good reason. For many women, saying “no” can be difficult. I feel like I often fall into this category. Although in business discourse I strive to say “what if,” rather than “no,” when it comes to making decisions about my valuable time and energy, “no” is so important. If you start a company and it is successful, invariably people will come out of the woodwork with a keen interest in occupying your time. While this can be flattering to some at first, it is ultimately most important to protect your time and really measure if taking that meeting or having a seat on that group truly aligns with your values. After having a child, you immediately and inevitably start thinking about your legacy both in terms of what you are creating and what you will ultimately be leaving behind. Make quick decisions but be very mindful of what you choose to sign up for — what it means to you.

On a final and obvious note, don’t underestimate the power of naming, in both business and with regards to your child. In both cases this has a profound impact and will shape the way your company (or child) is perceived by the world and therefore how he or she perceives the self. For instance, I was almost named Wilamina. In the context of my life now in New York, perhaps that would actually even be a cooler name than Elizabeth, but growing up in a backward coal-minding town in the middle of Pennsylvania, I imagine my childhood would have been challenging.

Now Hiring! Say Good-Bye To Job Fairs And Hello To AmericaHires360.com:
It was around this time three years ago when the U.S. economy began to take a downward spiral. Six weeks later I was jobless and like most Americans scrambling to find my next career opportunity. Through my job loss I discovered LinkedIn.com which then led me to create JobsDirectUSA, an organization committed to helping unemployed professionals find work.
In the few years since, I have devoted my life to helping America get back to work. While the success of my efforts has been well documented, throughout this time I’ve spent countless hours, days, and nights thinking about a single event that can stimulate hiring and help millions of American workers find employment.
I present to you the America Hires Virtual Job Fair which will run from October 1, 2011 through December 31, 2011 at AmericaHires360.com.
The interactive event will run on-line for 13 consecutive weeks and aims to connect job candidates with hiring companies throughout the United States.



What you should know:
No need to travel

Submit your resume instantly

Featured Speakers and breakout sessions

Attendance is easy from any computer with internet access

Live chat capability between Employers and Candidates

Hiring companies participating nationwide
For more information, or to register, please go-to americahires360.eventbrite.com.

Last night, in an interview at New York City’s 92nd Street Y, trailblazing journalist Barbara Walters sat down with psychiatrist and author Gail Saltz, MD, to share her thoughts on her life and career. She spoke candidly about women in the workplace, marriage, her controversial affair with married Senator Edward Brooke, and the highly successful career she began in 1961 and continues to build today.
As the child of a father whom she said attempted suicide and whom she described as a “gambler” and a mother with “a lot on her plate,” Walters said her family’s uncertain financial status led her to seek a serious career: “I always felt I had to work. Women of my generation didn’t have to work but I did, and that made a difference.”

‘There Was A Feeling I Could Cover Other Things’
Walters described the beginning of her career as an accident. “I never thought it was going to happen. I was a writer,” she said. “I wasn’t beautiful. I didn’t sing or dance. Most women on the TODAY show were models and actresses… I didn’t pronounce my Rs…” On that show in 1961, she said, “there were eight writers, seven male one female.” Walters joked, “The only way to get that writing job was if that one woman ‘got married or died — preferably both.”

The sexism she was initially up against was apparent in a video shown before Walter’s entrance on stage. The film traced the trajectory of her career, going from shots of her in full Playboy bunny getup in what she called “fluffy TODAY show pieces,” to her breakthrough as a hard news reporter and the emotional footage of her covering the funeral of John F. Kennedy, Jr., a moment which Barbara identified as the “first time there was a feeling I could cover other things.”
And what didn’t she cover? After ten years, Walters became the first female co-host on network TV at the TODAY Show, then, with 1967’s “Not for Women Only,” she changed daytime TV, becoming the first female anchor on a major network. She has interviewed every American President and First Lady since Richard Nixon, as well as countless celebrities like Christopher Reeve and Barbara Streisand and other major figures on the world stage, such as the Dalai Llama.

The Trade-offs
Walters also spoke to the choice women make in order to have successful careers: “I think that there still is this feeling, to some degree, that the successful woman, the ambitious woman, what has she given up?” and added, “I don’t think a career is necessarily the greatest thing in the world. I think you do pay a price.”

Walters recalled working on her birthday, working on New Years Eve, and having to send a producer to interview one of her idols, Nelson Mandela, because she — echoing the words she used to describe her mother — “had too much on her plate.”

She said it was difficult on her daughter to have a mother who was always traveling, and admitted that her career has led her to pay a price in her romantic relationships. Walters was married four times to three different men. “Whether I did it deliberately or not, my career came first,” said Walters. “Whether it’s good or bad I don’t think it’s [marriage] as necessary for women who have careers,” adding, “I certainly don’t want to get married now.”

At the end of the day, Walters recognizes, “My life is not like most women’s of my age.” She described her lunches with a dear friend with many children and grandchildren whom she always tells “you are so rich!” before her friend insists, “no, you are so rich!”
The most tense part of the evening came when Dr. Saltz asked Walters point-blank about her affair with married U.S. senator Edward Brooke, the first African-American to be popularly elected to the senate. When asked how it felt to her at the time, Walters replied:
“He was fascinating. It was a dangerous thing to do and he knew it and I knew it and eventually we had to break up … I think that there would have been a lot of affiliate stations that would not have been very happy with me.”

How More Women Can Get a Seat on the Board, Lead to Success:
Participating at the board level of our portfolio companies is one of the most interesting and enjoyable roles I have as a venture capitalist.
A significant portion of building value at a portfolio company happens within the board of directors. As a part of this group, you advise and guide strategy, tactics and outcomes for the company.
In my opinion, there are two key jobs for a venture capitalist: The first is picking great investments, and the second is being influential in the board room as you actively guide the direction of companies. While the first job is important to start the company-building process, the second is where company value is created.
Earning a seat at the table of the board of directors is important for anyone who wants to be a part of guiding a company toward its future, not just for venture capitalists. It is especially important for women, who are largely underrepresented on corporate boards, to think strategically about how they can add value to companies on a broader scale.
In 2010, only 15.7 percent of Fortune 500 company board seats were held by women, according to research by Catalyst. With women holding 51.5 percent of the management and professional positions in the U.S. labor force, there is an increasing pipeline of qualified women to fill these seats. But many women may not be cultivating the skills they need to obtain board positions.

Based on my own experience and through working with other successful women, I have identified some areas where women can focus to prepare themselves to sit on boards:

• Develop a career plan – It is crucial to manage your career and be in positions where you can demonstrate your leadership skills. Starting with a strong educational background, such as a degree in economics or engineering followed by an MBA, is a great foundation for building a career in technology and/or venture capital. Don’t be afraid to take a risk. Get out of your comfort zone, perhaps by joining a smaller organization where you can showcase your skills. Be mindful of what professional positions you take on and make sure that each
  
  position adds value to your personal skill set.


• Get relevant experience – The most effective company boards include a diverse set of people with a diverse set of skills. It includes experts from each relevant sector or position teaming up to provide advice for the companies. Finance and technology backgrounds are especially pertinent for venture capitalists. Actively focus on areas of learning that prepare you to analyze business models. Operating experience that can translate to the board room is highly sought after. Companies want advice from people who have strong track records of success and practical experience, not just people who can theorize.


• Specialize – When our portfolio companies want to add board members, we look at candidates who have the experience that we need to make that specific company successful. This could be in sales or ecommerce, for example, or operating experience in a particular sector, like mobile. For public companies, we may need a corporate governance expert who is or has been a general counsel, or an audit committee member who is a current or former CFO. Be a master of your position, gaining the experience and knowledge that will cause boards to look your way.


• Be a leader – The most effective board members are effective leaders. Don’t be afraid to be assertive and exercise your ability to lead in various positions. Take a leadership role in industry-related activities, such as networking groups, or join a non-profit board and start actively learning how to effect change and influence an organization. Use these experiences to cultivate your leadership skills and practice wielding influence at the board level.

Earning a seat on the board of directors is just the start. To be effective on the board and help lead the company to success, you need to use your voice and get your opinions out there. Drive the discussion and make sure your concerns and thoughts are addressed. Don’t wait for other people to call on you and ask what you think. When other people perceive you as a leader, they will respect your opinions and want you to be part of their boards too.
Always take a broad view. As a board member, you have a responsibility as a fiduciary, as well as to the constituency you are representing. You often need to balance competing objectives to achieve the right decision for the company.

I have to admit I was a little shocked after initially reading this article titled “Why Women Shouldn’t Go to Tech Conferences” (can you blame me?) featured on Forbes Woman.
The article followed Susannah Breslin who was asked to speak on a women-panel about how to make a living blogging as a career. She was annoyed at the fact that the panelists discussed how they got brands to sponsor their blogs:
“They allude to getting paid what I assume everyone imagines are large sums to work with these companies and I start to wonder if this is what social media and blogging have become. Ways to make money.”
You know, the same way you are annoyed when you are at a fitness convention and the panelists start talking about different kinds of elliptical machines. It’s a panel about blogging for heaven’s sake, yes you will find “young, cute chicks” discussing how they turned their love for fitness, shopping, or music into a money making website. Is that the only topic women have to offer on a tech panel? After reading this quote I really start to wonder if this is Ms. Breslin’s first tech conference:
“I wonder what all the men in the other rooms of this conference are doing. I imagine they are talking about apps they have created, and companies they have founded, and complicated technology things that they want other people to buy. I wonder if anywhere at this conference men are talking about whether or not they have feelings.”



I imagine women at other conferences talk about the apps they have created, companies they have founded and very “complicated technology” that yes, women can understand too. See: Marissa Mayer, Caterina Fake, Elizabeth Crawford, Sara Chipps, Hilary Mason (the list is a long one).
It is unfair to make assumptions about the credibility of women in tech based on one genre of the tech industry. It’s the panels titled “A Woman’s Touch” or topics like “what its like to be a women in tech” are definitely part of the problem. Women as a whole shouldn’t be singled out or labelled, a smart idea is a smart idea regardless of the gender or the source that it originated from.
Susannah, if you’re reading this, I get it.
The post was about how we should use blogging not only to advance our own careers but to help others as well. Point well made. But the way you first started with a controversial title and then twisted the article to paint a picture of women contributing nothing but a superficial agenda and ‘feelings’ is a bit absurd. I feel many people who read this article may have missed your point and left feeling justified that women do not have a place in tech.
I’ll admit, there may be female panelists at conferences that bring nothing to the table, but to be honest, there are men who don’t as well. To single out all women and label them the way articles like this just did is what groups like Women in Wireless, Women 2.0 and Girls in Tech work to turn around.
Rachel Sklar (@rachelsklar #changetheratio) is considered a “women in tech watchdog”, calling out men-dominated panels and working to get the voices of female leaders heard in the tech industry.

I was recently speaking with a teen aged girl who said: “I adore my father but I would never date anyone like him. He treats me like a princess, but I don’t like the way he treats women.”
I was blown away by her ability to so succinctly articulate the complexity of her emotions about the two sides of her father; the man who loves her and the man who seemingly treats women as disposable, interchangeable, companions for the purposes of physical and social convenience. It’s not that he’s blatantly disrespectful on any level and as a single man, his behavior is far from inappropriate, yet she has learned well, and recognizes the contrast between how he has taught her to be loved and how he treats women in general.

Her father lavishes her with affection and attention, so she feels cherished. Before she even understood what it meant, he told her she was beautiful, smart and worthy. This makes her relatively immune to the compliments of boys who try to impress her with words that would make a girl deprived of such reinforcement swoon or flee. Ambition, intelligence and good communication are her basic requirements. The young men courting her understand the bar has been set high and vie for her respect and friendship.

Our exchange prompted me to think about the fathers in my life: my father, my friend’s fathers, my brothers, colleagues etc. and what their daughters could possibly be learning from them about their self image and how they should be treated as women. Everything from what love looks and feels like, to the value of intelligence and definition of physical beauty are transmitted from father to daughter in verbal and non-verbal cues.
When I was about five years old, my father looked at me and offered a stern warning, “You have fat potential!”
At the time, I had no idea what he meant, but I could tell from his tone, and the way he looked at me, it was not good. I eventually learned what it meant and became obsessed with my weight. I was terrified of gaining weight. It took me many years, a handful of therapists and even more self-help books to get myself firmly on the path to reversing the damage inflicted upon my self image by my father’s well received words.



A colleague of mine recently bragged “I’ve been married 18 years and never once cheated!” I laughed and asked if he was impotent. Of course he wasn’t, but he did boast that his wife could wear his fourteen year old daughter’s bathing suit. This was his reason for fidelity; having a wife in her 40′s, with three children, that does God only knows what, to fit herself into clothing belonging to her child, barely two years into puberty. I could only hope that she was modeling healthy choices to her children in her efforts to keep herself this size.
I congratulated him and wondered if he would take responsibility if he were to discover his daughter throwing up her meals to meet his weight requirements. Could he even see how with all the pressure surrounding young girls to look like airbrushed, anorexic models, that his comments might have a detrimental effect on his daughter?
Another father, married 20 years with two teenaged daughters, has a beautiful family, whom he professes to love deeply and value greatly. Yet, he has been having an affair for almost 10 years. I asked him if he really believed his daughters and wife were clueless about his clandestine activities. He looked at me earnestly and nodded yes. I told him I disagreed and shared with him my understanding of the uncanny ability of children to know all things that parents try to hide. He admitted that he watched his own father’s infidelity throughout his parent’s marriage.
Then he mentioned a cousin of his who serially cheats on her husband; she attributes this to watching her father cheat on her mother and she realized in therapy how this experience left her with trust issues. Subconsciously, her cheating is her way of avoiding the heartache and humiliation she watched her mother endure. He became introspective when he realized how many of our friends are dealing with the fallout of their father’s affairs playing out in their relationships.

The VMA’s always get people talking and this year is no exception.
Except that it is. This year the award show is boldly choosing what few shows have chosen before: no host.
The Hollywood Reporter sat down with executive producer, Jesse Ignjatovic, to explain why they made the choice that they made and to give us a head’s up on what else we can expect.
THR: So no host, huh? Ignjatovic: We talked to different people and ultimately, it just didn’t feel like we needed one this year. Other years, like in 2007, we’ve gone host-less and it worked. If it’s not the right person then [we feel it’s] better to go without. It means better presenter moments potentially, but I don’t think it necessarily changes the landscape of the show.

THR: The VMA build-up has been largely focused on Lady Gaga, who’s opening the show. What does she mean to MTV?

Ignjatovic: She’s a gem. She’s that muse. She’s sort of the artist that’s really pushing boundaries that mean so much to our audience. And she is the artist that everyone is looking to. Like, what is she going to do next to outdo herself and take it to another place? I think she’s inspired other artists to push themselves. I know she’s inspired me and the VMA team.

BlackBerry has just unveiled the new Blackberry Bold 9900 Touch Release Date, Specs and Price. The BlackBerry Bold 9900 Touch smartphone features a stunning new design that evolves the iconic BlackBerry aesthetic a step further. The easy to use BlackBerry keyboard is kept in tact on the new 9900, while a new brilliant high resolution, capacitive touch screen has been added, all of which running on a new performance-driver platform powered by the BlackBerry 7 operating system.
The new Blackberry Bold 9900 Touch is an amazing new device that combines the best of performance, functionality, and style according to Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), the manufacturer of BlackBerry since 1999.
The new Blackberry Bold 9900 Touch Specs and Features
The new Blackberry Bold 9900 Touch is the thinnest BlackBerry smartphone yet at only 10.5mm. It runs the latest BlackBerry 7 OS and come with 5.0 MP cameras with flash and 720p HD video recording capability. Lets have a detailed look at BlackBerry Bold 9900 Specs and Features Released so far:
115 x 66 x 10.5 mm, approximately 130 g
2.8″ capacitive touch screen display – VGA (640×480), 287 dpi resolution
Ultra-easy QWERTY keyboard, optical trackpad
1.2 GHz Processor, 768 MB RAM
8 GB on-board memory, plus microSD slot supporting up to 32 GB cards
NFC technology
5.0 MP camera, supports 720p HD video recording
Orientation Sensor (Accelerometer), Digital Compass (Magnetometer), Proximity Sensor
Built-in GPS / aGPS
Dual-Band Wi-Fi® – 802.11 b/g/n at 2.4 GHz and 802.11 a/n at 5 GHz
Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR support
Wireless Network support: Tri-Band HSPA+, Quad-Band GSM/EDGE
1230 mAh removable, rechargeable battery
BlackBerry 7 OS
OpenGL 2.0 support for developers.

The new Blackberry Bold 9900 Touch Release Date
The new model of BlackBerry 9900 to be available at 225 carriers, later this month of August 2011. According to RIM Release documents, the new Blackberry Bold 9900 will be made available to business class customers on August 17th and to general public on August 31st.
The new Blackberry Bold 9900 Touch Price
If leaked T-Mobile documents are to trusted, the new Blackberry Bold 9900 Touch Price range is set to $249.99 to $349.99, depending upon the carrier contract and country.
The new Blackberry Bold 9900 Touch UK Release Date and Price
The new Blackberry Bold 9900 Touch Release Date in UK is 12th August and price plans will start at £31.
The £31 a month deal offers the handset for free on a 24 month contract with 300 minutes Anytime, Unlimited texts (subject to the fair use policy) and 500 MB Blackberry Data.

Tina Fey Talks The Next Season Of ’30 Rock’, Emmy Nominations, Alec Baldwin Leaving And Tracy Morgan:

With the looming threat of Alec Baldwin’s ending tenure and Tracey Morgan recovering from his mishap, Tina Fey’s role as the captain of “30 Rock” has become a lot more strategic.

As she is readying herself for the upcoming season (and as the Emmys grow closer), the new-mom sat down with Deadline to talk about how to navigate the show’s past and what she plans on for the future.

DEADLINE: Do you think that Tracy Morgan’s seemingly anti-gay jokes in his standup routine [“I’ll kill my son if he acts gay”] will hurt the show’s Emmy chances or its reputation in general? TINA FEY: Because of my real-life pregnancy, we don’t go back on the air until January. I’m hoping that Tracy will have, and the world will have, forgotten about that by them. He from the first has gone around very sincerely and done his best to try to make up for the foolishness.

DEADLINE: Will you write the controversy into the show?

FEY: It’s the kind of story that even if it happened to someone else, we would probably turn it into a Tracy story. So we may use it.

A 16-year-old boy died after masturbating 42 times without stopping in Rubiato town, in Goiás region, Brazil. His mother told a local newspaper that she already knew about his son’s addiction and that she planned to see the doctor, but the decision came too late. The young man began to masturbate at midnight and spent [...]

Nancy Grace joins ‘Dancing With the Stars’ season 13: Nancy Grace is part of the lineup for season 13 of Dancing With the Stars, which may be the biggest DWTS casting head scratcher since Kate Gosselin. Grace, 51, is the host of her own show on HLN, where she covers current events and frequently highlights cases of missing persons. Her often acerbic and schoolmarmish [...]

Lacey Schwimmer & Chaz Bono paired on ‘Dancing with the Stars’: Author and activist Chaz Bono, the transgender son of pop icon Cher, has been paired with Lacey Schwimmer on the U.S. series “Dancing with the Stars.” ABC announced the pairings of the celebrities and their professional dance partners for Season 13 this week. In addition to Bono and Schwimmer, NBA champion Ron Artest was paired [...]

Alyssa Milano welcomes Baby Boy Milo Photo: Alyssa Milano has given birth to a healthy baby boy.Milano, 38, delivered her son, Milo Thomas Bugliari, at 9:27 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to People. The boy’s father is talent agent David Bugliari, who Milano married in 2009. Milano is an avid Twitter user (she announced her pregnancy via tweet in March), and has already [...]

How to increase Show Popularity Photo & Video: This tv reporter really know how to increase her show popularity… And she sure know how to look provocative, her name is Pamela David. She was born in Córdoba, Argentina on the 6th October 1978 and she move to Santiago del Estero when she was a child. Pamela entered many beauty contests while in Santiago [...]

Audrina Patridge Says bye-bye to Reality TV Show: Former ‘Hills’ star Audrina Patridge was pretty successful on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ so everyone wants to know if she thinks her former castmate, Kristin Cavallari, will do just as well. Patridge actually seems a little surprised By Jessica Wedemeyer Audrina Patridge may not have taken home the mirror-ball trophy as a contestant on Dancing [...]

Jessica Simpson Boob Reduction Before Her Wedding Photo: Jessica Simpson is reportedly so unhappy with her pre-wedding figure, that she’s willing to do just about anything to look thinner. Does that mean she’s really considering downsizing her chest? According to In Touch it’s true (but I’m not buying it for a second). Jessica loves her chesticles, not thinking she’s going to downsize anytime soon. [...]

JoJo Levesque Tweets Sexy Curves Pics: I have no idea who JoJo is. I don’t care to know who JoJo is. I’ve never even been compelled to do research on who JoJo is, and frankly I’ve never even heard of JoJo until this very moment. That’s when it was brought to my attention that she’s tweeting sexy pics of herself to [...]

Poonam Pandey Hot & Sexy 51 Bikini Photo: Model Poonam Pandey has forever been in news since she made that statement to strip for the Indian cricket team if they win the World Cup! Even though Team India went on to win the World Cup, everyone wondered if the hot beauty would drop clothes, but before the whole drama could reach its climax, [...]

Amanda Knox Murder Appeal News & Update: Amanda Knox is back in an Italian courtroom Monday, as she continues to appeal her conviction for the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher. And the whole process has the sister of victim Meredith Kercher going public with a highly emotional appeal for justice. In a letter released by her family’s Italian lawyer, Kercher’s sister Stephanie, [...]

University of Maryland Beats Miami Football Team 32-24: Drenched in a mixture of sweat and rain, Randy Edsall spoke excitedly about winning his first game as University of Maryland Football team’s head coach. Anyone who knows Edsall wouldn’t be surprised to know that he took none of the credit for the Terrapins’ 32-24 victory over short-handed Miami on Monday night. “It’s not about [...]

Rory McIlroy, Caroline Woznaicki Dating: Golf Star Confirms Relationship:

It’s official! Rory McIlroy confirmed to the Associated Press that he is dating the world’s No. 1 ranked women’s tennis player Caroline Wozniacki.

“Why it’s going so well is that we have so much in common,” the 2011 U.S. Open champion said. “Obviously, different sports, but we’re pretty much in the same position at a young age and we can talk about things that probably a lot of 21, 22-year olds can’t talk about. It’s nice to have someone that sort of understands what you’re going through.”

Rumors of their relationship began spreading in late July when a tennis blogger saw them together at a restaurant in London. McIlroy, who was said to have broken up with his girlfriend of four years before the British Open, also exchanged Twitter messages with Wozniacki.

After McIlroy disappointingly finished the PGA Championship at 11-over par, he immediately flew to Cincinnati to visit Wozniacki and watch her play in a WTA tournament.

‘Good Morning America’ Gets New Studio, Director:

The Band Perry and Jake Owen will announce the final nominees in five CMA Awards categories live from the “Good Morning America” studios in the heart.

ABC News’ “Good Morning America Sunday” averaged 3.046 million Total Viewers and a 0.8 rating /6 share /1.028 million in Adults 25-54 on August 21, 2011. The ABC program was up over the prior week in both Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 (2.655 million

ABC News’ “Good Morning America Sunday” averaged 3.046 million Total Viewers and a 0.8 rating /6 share /1.028 million in Adults 25-54 on August 21, 2011. The ABC program was up over the prior week in both Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 (2.655 million

It appears morning show king Today has some major competition in Good Morning America following a spike that has narrowed the ratings gap to the smallest margin in four years, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Sony Ericsson’s 2011 Range of Xperia Devices To Get Android 2.3.4 Update in October:

Along with the Sony Ericsson Neo V, the company also announced that the 2011 range of Xperia handsets will be getting a new firmware update, sometime in October this year.

sony-ericsson-logo

The new firmware update will bring some new features along with bumping a minor bump in the Android OS version to 2.3.4. With the Android 2.3.4 update, Xperia handsets users with a front-facing cam will also get to enjoy Google Talk with video chat functionality. The Facebook inside Xperia feature will also be enhanced with this update, by providing users ability to share apps and games through Facebook.

There is also a new 3D Sweep panorama feature, which will allow users to watch images in 3D by connecting the phone to a 3D TV using the HDMI output.

Xperia™ smartphones to be upgraded to the 2.3.4 version of the Gingerbread platform with new features including Google Talk with Video Chat for smartphones with front-facing cameras

Updated Facebook inside Xperia™ functionality for enhanced like, share and discover abilities

Xperia™ smartphones introducing world’s first 3D sweep panorama functionality powered by Sony.



The software upgrade enables consumers to turn their Xperia smartphone into a mini-mobile PC by connecting USB peripherals (mouse, keyboard or game controller) to Sony Ericsson LiveDock™ multimedia station. Connect the smartphone to a TV via HDMI to get a big screen experience.

Swipe text input – text input by swiping the finger from one letter to the next

Screen capture – allows the user to share a screen grab from anywhere in the phone.

The last firmware update for all the Xperia handsets also brought a host of new features, including xLoud and themes support. It looks like Sony Ericsson has finally learnt from its previous mistake, and knows that timely software updates also play a major role in a handset’s success.

24/7 3D Network 3net Brings Kid-Friendly Content To The Third Dimension:

If you own a 3D TV, you should already know about 3net. It’s a joint venture network from Sony, Discovery and IMAX that displays 3D content all day, every day, which is pretty awesome considering the amount of 3D content out there is severely lacking. It first launched with quite a variety of nature-style shows and documentaries, perfect for the 3D space, but today a more kid-friendly offering has been announced.

Starting September 25 at 8pm, 3net will premiere its two new kid-oriented 3D programs, starting with the 3D animated series, Bolts & Blip, followed by Dream Defenders. Then on October 1, in usual Saturday morning fashion, the 3net Three Dee Kids weekend lineup will premiere with 30 hours of family-friendly 3D content.

Programming includes the original series Feeding Time, along with Puppy Bowl (a 3net exclusive), and a number of Sony Pictures 3D family films. 3net promises more titles in the coming months, but for now, brace yourselves for Bolts & Blip and Dream Defenders.



Bolts & Blip stars two best friends, who just so happen to be robots. They try their best to become battle bots to fight in the Lunar League of Robotic Sports (which so far is really exciting), until they realize that they may have bitten off more than they can chew. The series is made up of 26 half-hour episodes.

Dream Defenders, starring twins Zane and Zoey, is a story of a brother and sister who are the last line of defense to guard the real world from the scary creatures of the Dreamworld. Sounds like the same story that’s in every kid’s imagination, so in 3D it should go over quite well. Oh, and there’s also a supercomputer named Zeus. And who doesn’t love supercomputers?

After the premieres of Dream Defenders and Bolts & Blip on September 25, kids will have to wait until the next weekend on October 1 to get their Saturday morning cartoons on. Except these kids are from the future, and their cartoons are in 3D. Pretty snazzy, indeed.

UFC Goes 3D This Week; 3net Begins ‘3Day Weekends’:

UFC has joined the growing list of sports organizations that have gone 3D. This Thursday’s event, broadcast live on the Versus network from Louisville, will be the company’s first 3D broadcast. It’s headlined by Diego Sanchez (seen here looking menacing) and Martin Kampmann.

The event will air in 3D on various affiliates throughout the country, most notably Comcast’s new Xfinity 3D channel. (The channel launched in late February.)

The 3D broadcast will be put together by an entirely different production team. Former WEC announcer Todd Harris will be on the 3D play-by-play team, as will Kevin Florian.

In other 3D news, the other big, all-3D network, 3net, will start something called “3net 3Day Weekends” this Friday. It will feature 3D programming premieres and the like. The first such program will be Nascar 3D: The Imax Experience, narrated by Keifer Sutherland—sounds like a treat.

At the very least the few who bought 3DTVs now have a couple of channels to tune into.

The Only Way Is Splitsville? TOWIE couple Mark Wright and Lauren Goodger ‘break off Engagement’:

When Mark Wright proposed to Lauren Goodger in an episode of The Only Way Is Essex, even their own families weren’t convinced it was a good idea.

But now it appears the couple have split just five months after getting engaged.

The club promoter’s spokesperson confirmed they had parted ways and Wright had asked his ex-fiancée to move her belongings out of his Essex apartment.

His representative told The Sun: ‘He has no comment, except to confirm that it is over.’

Their apparent split comes as Wright travelled to Marbella without his girlfriend for a lads’ holiday, despite her insistence two months ago he would ‘never go to Marbella without me ever’.

Confusing the issue, Goodger posted a photo on Twitter of herself partying in Blackpool on Friday night still wearing her engagement ring.

The couple have yet to comment about their apparent split on their Twitter pages.

Moving out? Goodger, pictured outside the Abridge, Essex flat she shared with Wright, has been asked to vacate

On Thursday, Goodger tweeted: ‘Hahaha! Some people really make me laugh!!! Worry about your own lives rather than others so many liars!!’

As recently as Tuesday, Wright wrote on his Twitter that he was ‘missing’ Goodger and their puppy Wrighty.

On Monday, the couple were by each other’s sides as they filmed a trailer for the upcoming third series of TOWIE.



The couple have dated on and off since meeting when they were 14.

When Series One of TOWIE kicked off last October, viewers discovered they had split up that July, but were struggling to move on.

Although Wright started dating fashion worker Lucy Mecklenburgh, it was revealed in the climax of the Series 1 that he had still been sleeping with Goodger.

He also had an on/off fling with Sam Faiers and brief romance with I’m A Celebrity pin-up Kayla Collins before getting back with and proposing to Goodger on the same day in March – all for the cameras in an episode of Series 2.

Following their engagement, Goodger moved into Wright’s Abridge flat and they cemented their relationship by getting a dog last month.

However, their romance was rocked in May when Mecklenburgh claimed she and Wright had a ‘drunken kiss’ during their holiday in Marbella.

Goodger and Wright have repeatedly denied speculation their engagement was faked for the ITV2 reality show.

Cats Impersonate Madonna, Britney Spears & Other Memorable VMA Moments:

As we eagerly anticipate Sunday’s Video Music Awards, we find ourselves thinking back on some of the more memorable fashion moments in VMA history. And thankfully, the good people at MTV have taken the time to reenact some of our favorites … with pets.

On Wednesday, two adorable pups decked out in meat regalia and studded leather respectively played out the 2010 incident in which Lady Gaga won the Best Music VMA and asked Cher to take her purse.

Feline Mona, sported a “Boy Toy” belt, channeling Madonna circa 1984 for a spirited rendition of “Like a Virgin” (which, we might add, was a lot better than others we’ve seen).

But the best was yet to come. Today, we’re treated to the 2003 three-way kiss shared by Madonna, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, as a trio of cats gamely acts out the notorious scene.



We bet all of this leaves you with a few questions … such as, how does a cat wear a top hat?

Cat costumer Ada Nieves tells MTV Style:

I made it from scratch. I had to review several ways of making a hat until I finally figured it out. The hat is actually made of cardboard covered with felt, and then covered with the same black fabric as Madonna’s tux. You can actually see machine stitches, as well as the sewing I did by hand.

HTC Vigor poses for a couple of spy shots, reveals little:

Hello, HTC Vigor. You have eluded us for the most part up until now, but we are excited to finally get a clean look at you. With your red accents, big beautiful screen, and black rubbery Incredible-esque contoured back, we would gladly except you into our everyday lives.

Rumored to be Verizon’s next big 4G LTE device to follow the Bionic on October 6, we can gather a couple of things from these first pictures. It definitely has HTC Sense, but we weren’t expecting it not to. There is a front camera embedded in the top right corner of the device, above a screen that looks massive. The device styling overall seems like an Incredible on steroids – something you won’t find us complaining about. We aren’t seeing a 4G LTE logo anywhere, but also are not seeing a Verizon logo, so will hold off from throwing too big of a fuss. It is likely just a test unit without any carrier branding.

*Note – While I mentioned that the device looks like an Incredible, a few readers pointed out that the color scheme also hints at DROID branding and a previously rumored HTC device. Could the Vigor end up as the Incredible HD? Just a thought.

Other potential specs that separate sources have told us were: 4.3″ HD screen, 1GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, 1.5GHz dual-core processor and Beats by Dre technology. There are no indications that this device has Beats technology on the outside, but we have been told that it could be software-related.

One more pic after the break. So it turned out that render of HTC’s Vigor on a Dutch online store wasn’t exactly kosher; but what might be are two spy shots that Droid Life obtained today, providing us with what would seem to be the first legitimate glimpse of the Verizon-bound, LTE-toting smartphone. Gracing its derriere is a texturized backplate, which sports the usual self-explanatory “WITH HTC SENSE” label along with a large lens plus dual LED flash; whereas on the other side we see a front-facing camera along with four capacitive buttons. Whether or not it’ll arrive with the also rumored 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage remains to be seen, but you’ll know more when we do.

Hollywood Walk Of Fame Bans Reality Stars:

Though the TV networks are getting rich off of its low budget and high revenue margins, the creatives in Tinseltown still, it seems, refuse to accept reality television as a true contributor to the long-lasting artistic and sociological legacy of entertainment and pop culture.

So, sorry Kim Kardashian: your wedding may be the stuff of celebrity royalty, but you still ain’t getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In a recent posting on the Walk of Fame’s Facebook page, Ana Martinez, Vice President for Media Relations and Producer for the Hollywood Walk of Fame wrote, “Someone asked if we give reality show characters stars? Hell to the No!”

Later, she told CNN that the Walk of Fame’s criteria included: “longevity in their field of entertainment, awards and other honors, and philanthropic work.”

This year, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez and Kate Winslet lead the list of new inductees.



Of course, they’re somewhat flexible about their admissions policy; Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog and Big Bird all have stars, which is appropriate given their impact, but a bit iffy given their fictional existence. There are also stars in place for Magic Johnson — for his movie theater chain, apparently (certainly not his late night talk show), though his prominence in LA as the Lakers’ longtime star probably didn’t hurt, either. Perhaps because they’ve flown amongst the stars (and their moon landing was an iconic part of TV history), the Apollo 11 astronauts have stars, too.

Snooki and co. can be comforted by some of the other celebs who don’t have stars; one can only imagine the commiseration that would go down between the little Guidette and Julia Roberts, who famously declined to have her name on the walk.

Are you a man or a mouse? How humans evolved from RODENT that lived in China 160m years ago:

A mouse-like creature that scurried about in bushes and trees 160 million years ago gave rise to humans, say scientists.

The small, furry placental mammal lived in what is now north east China during the Jurassic era when dinosaurs ruled the Earth.

Its remarkably well preserved remains were dug up in the fossil-rich region of Liaoning Province which has also produced ancient evidence of feathered dinosaurs and primitive birds.

Common ancestor: This is what scientists believe the oldest known ‘eutherian’ looked like – an animal that gave birth to its own young

Common ancestor: This is what scientists believe the oldest known ‘eutherian’ looked like – an animal that gave birth to its own young

Named Juramaia sinensis, the fossil is the oldest ever found of a group of animals called the eutherians, or placentals, that give birth to live young.

They include cows, rats, monkeys, lions, tigers, dogs, horses, whales and, of course, our own group of mammals, the primates.

Juramaia, hairy and about the size of a mouse, provides fossil evidence of the date when eutherian mammals diverged from other mammals – metatherians whose descendants include marsupials such as kangaroos and monotremes such as the platypus.

Palaeontologist Dr Zhe-Xi Luo, of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, said: ‘Juramaia, from 160 million years ago, is either a great-grand-aunt, or a ‘great-grandmother’ of all placental mammals that are thriving today.

‘Analysis of the fossil skeleton indicates the animal was an agile creature with a powerful ability to climb.

‘This may explain how it managed to survive during the age of the dinosaurs – by climbing and hiding in trees.’



Describing the fossil in Nature, the researchers say it represents a new milestone in mammal evolution that was reached 35 million years earlier than previously thought, filling an important gap in the record.

The name Juramaia sinensis means ‘Jurassic mother from China.’

Enlarge The fossil has an incomplete skull, part of the skeleton, and, remarkably, impressions of residual soft tissues such as hair

The fossil has an incomplete skull, part of the skeleton, and, remarkably, impressions of residual soft tissues such as hair

The fossil has an incomplete skull, part of the skeleton, and, remarkably, impressions of residual soft tissues such as hair.

Most importantly, Juramaia’s complete teeth and forepaw bones enable paleontologists to pinpoint it is closer to living placentals on the mammalian family tree than to the pouched marsupials, such as kangaroos.

Dr Luo said: ‘Understanding the beginning point of placentals is a crucial issue in the study of all mammalian evolution.’

The date of an evolutionary divergence – when an ancestor species splits into two descendant lineages – is among the most important pieces of information an evolutionary scientist can have.

Modern molecular studies, such as DNA-based methods, can calculate the timing of evolution by a “molecular clock.” But this needs to be cross-checked and tested by the fossil record.

Before the discovery of Juramaia, the divergence point of eutherians from metatherians posed a quandary for evolutionary historians.

Evidence from DNA suggested eutherians should have shown up earlier in the fossil record – around 160 million years ago.

Yet, the oldest known eutherian was Eomaia, another shrew like animal dated to 125 million years ago.

The discovery of Juramaia gives much earlier fossil evidence to corroborate the DNA findings, filling an important gap in the fossil record of early mammal evolution and helping to establish a new milestone of evolutionary history.

Juramaia also reveals adaptive features that may have helped the eutherian newcomers to survive in a tough Jurassic environment.

Its forelimbs are adapted for climbing. Since the majority of the Jurassic mammals lived exclusively on the ground, the ability to escape to the trees and explore the canopy might have allowed eutherian mammals to exploit an untapped niche.

Kendall Jenner Cheerleading Pictures Have Got Wholesome Spirit:

Nothing ѕауѕ National School Spirit Day lіkе Kendall Jenner іn hеr cheerleading outfit аt thе Grove, high kicking hеr way іntο thе hearts οf America. If thіѕ weren’t a carefully аnd lucratively рlаnnеd endorsement deal bу thе surgically maniacal, Kris Jenner, pulling thе strings back іn Nеw Jack City, thіѕ wουld аlmοѕt bе a quaint Americana throwback. Still, thе sounds οf Kris’ еνеr-ringing registers сουld nοt dυll thе tall, slender, beauty thаt іѕ Kendall Jenner, thе mοѕt naturally gifted, аnd therefore mοѕt endangered, junior member οf thе Kardashian mob. Teen girls іn cheerleading outfits; јυѕt ѕοmе οld-fashioned spirit. Enјοу.

(Don’t forget tο check out FreeKendallJenner οn Facebook tο hеlр join ουr growing army οf volunteers committed tο liberating Kendall Jenner before іtѕ tοο late. Alѕο, more pictures οf Kendall.)

View full article Egotastic! Thе Sexy Side Of Celebrity Gossip

‘Win Win’ Takes Thomas McCarthy Back Home:
The dream, as it is usually imagined and, in rare cases realized, is to leave behind the small town and shine in the bright lights of Hollywood. Turning that formula around, Thomas McCarthy proved that you can go home again — and in doing so, achieved his greatest success to date with the Paul Giamatti-starring hit film “Win Win.”
The film’s genesis, McCarthy, an actor/writer/director perhaps most instantly recognizable as Dr. Bob from the “Meet the Parents” films, explained, was trading emails with his childhood friend Joe Tiboni. He was at that point practicing as a lawyer for the elderly in their hometown of New Providence, New Jersey, but McCarthy had been encouraging high school wrestling buddy to turn the funny stories he had been relaying into screenwriting form.
“I’ve known Joe since I was 13 and I never anticipated that from Joe I’d get material that I’d say, ‘god this guy is good,’ but he was,” McCarthy remembered in a conversation with The Huffington Post. “And when I had this idea, it was really just kind of a whim on first, but I said why don’t you develop this with me. And he jumped at it, to his credit. Most people wouldn’t, they’d be like no I’ve got a practice and a family and I live here, but he was like hey, I’m game, he’s just that kind of guy. And really that sort of spur of the moment decision made a lot of sense suddenly.”



From there, long walks in the park where they played as kids took a small concept and turned it into a full blown idea, set in the most obvious of places. The film would eventually become the story of a New Providence elderly lawyer and coach of his town’s pathetic high school wrestling team. Familiar, indeed.
“It wasn’t something I ever thought, I can’t wait to go back and make a movie in New Providence,” McCarthy explained. “The kernel of the idea was high school wrestling and then it obviously quickly grew beyond that, but probably half way through that process I was like I know this town, it might be a really interesting experiment to go back and if not actually shoot it, which was my original intention, but at least try to capture that.”
Because of tax reasons, the actual filming actually took place in Long Island, with the production manager for the film presenting a real enough substitute to satisfy McCarthy’s desire for accuracy.
“Those commuter communities are all so similar, I felt like I could tell you where the pizza place was and where the high school was,” he laughed. “The way that translates I think, I was pretty happy with that in terms of the production value.”
The film — a warm dramedy with earnest characters and honest dialog — isn’t totally biographical; Mike Flaherty, the fictional lawyer, played by Paul Giamatti, creates complication by fraudulently placing the client in a nursing home, pocketing money intended for the client out of financial desperation. He then takes in the client’s homeless grandson, who turns out to be an inexplicably prodigy-level wrestling talent played by newcomer Alex Shaffer. Tiboni, so far as the public knows, did not take in a semi-orphaned student or cheat a senior citizen out of money. However, given the basic framework he provided for the character, in a way, the story was about him, with Giamatti using him for some inspiration.

Eva Longoria’s Post-’Desperate Housewives’ Career: Four New Projects:
t’s the role that launched her star, but with the show coming to a close, Eva Longoria is very ready to move out of her life as a Housewife.
Variety reports on four new projects that Longoria will take on after she wraps the final season of “Desperate Housewives,” including a number of edgy roles — which, perhaps unsurprisingly given the show’s subject matter, tackle domestic dystopia.
Longoria, to start, will feature in the indie drama “Long Time Gone,” as the woman with whom Meg Ryan’s husband cheats with and eventually leaves her for. Then, she’ll do another indie film, this time in “Who Gets The Dog,” a flick about a couple breaking up and fighting over custody over their dog.
The actress just starred in the small indie “Without Men,” about a Latin American village that sees all of its men forcibly recruited by guerilla forces and taken away, leaving her to become the de facto leader of the village.



She’ll next appear on the big screen in the upcoming drama, “Cristiada,” about the Mexican Cristero War, and then the dark comedy, “The Baytown Disco,” in which she plays a woman who convinces three less-than-intelligent men to rescue her from whom she calls an abusive husband.

Hells Angels Serve Amazon.com & Wildfox With Lawsuit:

We love a good retail lawsuit, which is good because it seems like there’s a new on everyday.

This week everyone was talking about the Hells Angels, which hit Amazon.com and L.A. brand Wildfox with lawsuits for wrongfully using its name.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the storied motorcycle gang brought the suit over t-shirts that read, “My boyfriend’s a Hells Angel” and featured the signature Hells Angles wings on the back.

“We bring these lawsuits from time to time not just to punish but to educate,” Hells Angels’ attorney Fritz Clapp told the Los Angeles Times. “Somebody thought erroneously that Hells Angels is a generic term.”

Just because Hells Angels get in bar brawls and run from the law doesn’t mean they can’t be sensitive about you using their name.

This isn’t the first lawsuit over use of the iconic group name. Saks Fifth Avenue and Zappos have both been served with suits over using the Hells Angel name or emblems and even Alexander McQueen got into trouble for several items.



Trying to take a little of that hardcore biker cred for oneself, apparently, does not fly with the Hells Angels.

Which is fine by us. We’re not sure we would have bought that t-shirt anyway…

Hurricane Irene Hits North Carolina, Claims First Two Lives:

Hurricane Irene, the monster storm rolling up the East Coast, has claimed its first lives, a North Carolina man killed outside his home by a tree limb that blew down this morning and another who reportedly died of a heart attack.

The first man was hit while he was walking around his house this morning in a rural area of Nash County, where winds were roaring at more than 60 mph, county Emergency Management Director Brian Brantley told the Associated Press.

The second man was putting plywood over the windows of his Onslow County, N.C. home when he suffered a heart attack and died, according to the News & Observer.

A third man has been reported missing in the Cape Fear River in Castle Hayne.

The center of Hurricane Irene hit the coast of North Carolina near Cape Lookout around 7:30 a.m. ET with Category 1-force winds of 85 mph.

Hurricane warnings for the next 48 hours have been issued for North Carolina; Virginia; Washington, D.C.; Maryland; Delaware; New York; Pennsylvania; New Jersey; and coastal Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Defense Secretary Panetta has issued a prepare-to-deploy order for 6,500 active duty troops from all the services to support hurricane relief efforts if necessary. Eastern North Carolina has already seen three tornadoes in the past few days, and the majority of the state and areas of Maryland and Virginia are under tornado watches through Sunday.

Stacy Township, on the coast of North Carolina, was battered with 93 mph wind gusts this morning, and winds up to 115 mph have been reported in parts of eastern North Carolina.

The far end of the fishing pier in Atlantic Beach, N.C., collapsed overnight. Though much of the 100-foot long pier is still standing, but its end has disappeared into the ocean.

Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, in the outer banks of North Carolina, are experiencing the worst flooding, according to multiple reports. Flash flood warnings across eastern North Carolina and eastern Virginia over the next several hours.

Nearly 200,000 homes in North Carolina are experiencing power outages, according to Power Energy. Winds up to 85 mph ripped power lines from their poles, causing many of the shortages. The hardest hit areas were Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach, N.C.

“Our crews are restoring service as quickly as possible, where it is safe to do so,” Power Energy tweeted.

ASUS MARS II gets reviewed, deemed the fastest single graphics card on the market:

Well, that insane ASUS MARS II card we got to feast our eyes on back in June has finally started rolling off the assembly line. That means it’s time for the hardware fanatics and gaming freaks to start putting them through their paces. HotHardware said the dual GTX 580-packing card was “quite simply the fastest single graphics card we have ever tested, bar none.” And everyone else seemed to agree. Now, obviously there are drawbacks — the 3GB card is an absolute power hog (requiring 600-watts all by itself) and insanely pricey at $ 1,499. You could even buy three separate GTX 580 cards for slightly less, use the same number of slots and get better performance, but the MARS II has one other thing going for it — status. Only 999 of these beasts will be made. After they’re all snatched up you’ll have to head to eBay, and pay a hefty premium over it’s already absurd price. But, if you absolutely have to have the best performance you can out of a single card solution, this is the clear choice. If you need more detail about just how badly this spanks the competition check out the reviews below.

Read – HotHardware

Read – PC Perspective

Read – techPowerUp

Read – TweakTown

Dhanush’s ‘Mappillai’ Producer files fresh case on Sun Pictures:

Chennai city police have slapped another fresh case against the COO of Sun Pictures W Hansraj Saxena, based on the complaint of a film producer Nemichand Jhabak, who produced the movie ‘Mappillai’ starring Dhanush and Hansika Motwani. This is the third case registered against the Saxena in the past one week.

Dhanushs Mappillai Producer files fresh case on Sun Pictures

According to Jhabak, he sold the film rights to Sun Pictures for Rs 17 crore in 2010. Though, he got the money from Sun Pictures, subsequently he was intimidated by Saxena and a portion of the money was extorted from him. Police said, Sun Pictures COO Saxena had approached Jhabak and struck a deal to give the rights of the movie to Sun Pictures. Jhabak demanded Rs 17 crore for giving the film rights to Sun Pictures. As per the deal, Sun Pictures gave him the money. Subsequently, he was threatened with dire consequences and Sun Pictures got back the money Rs 3.37 crore forcefully from Jhabak citing that the film didn’t go well as expected in the state.

In his four page complaint submitted before the inspector of police, Kodambakkam, he claimed that he didn’t know the ways to complaint against Sun Pictures at that time. Now, he has approached the police, as things have been changed, he claimed.

Based on Jhabak’s complaint, Kodambakkam police have registered a case against Saxena under Sections 386 (extortion by putting a person in fear of death), 420 (cheating), 406 (punishment for cheating) and 506 (ii) (criminal intimidation) of Indian Penal Code.

“We will approach the magistrate court concerned to issue necessary orders to arrest Saxena in the new case. Then, Saxena will be produced before the magistrate court and will be informed about his arrest in the fresh case. Saxena will be remanded for 15 days in the fresh case too,” a police officer said.

Saxena was first arrested by the KK Nagar police, based on the complaint of a film distributor TS Selvaraj for cheating the amount Rs 82.53 lakh for the release of the Tamil movie ‘Theeratha Vilayattu Pillai’. Subsequently, Saxena’s associate Ayyappan was also arrested in this case. KK Nagar police slapped another fresh case against Saxena, based on Shanmugavelu’s complaint. Shanmugavelu got the film distribution rights for the movie ‘Theeratha Vilayattu Pillai’ and later he withdrew to distribute the movie in Salem area. He was allegedly threatened and forced to give Rs 45 lakh to Saxena.