Saturday, December 31, 2011

The 10 Best Visual Effects Scenes of 2011

10. The Adjustment Bureau: Door-to-Door


Say what you will about the decision to turn one of Philip K. Dick's bleakest, most nihilistic stories into a metaphysical romance, but The Adjustment Bureau is filled with VFX shots so classy, you never realize that whole streets, crowds and environments were fake. The most dizzying sequence comes at the end, when Matt Damon and Emily Blunt's characters sprint through various magical doors, seamlessly teleporting from one New York location to another. They travel from a courthouse to Yankee stadium to a Manhattan street, and then to Liberty Island. Without the VFX house?s before-and-after highlight reel, the reality-warping illusion is impossible to see through.

9. Immortals: Clashing with Titans


Gods move in mysterious ways in Immortals. Or, rather, their victims do, hanging and twisting in midair after being killed?a way the filmmakers demonstrated the superhuman speed of the gods making war with Titans.

This effect shows up multiple times during the movie, but the brawl that follows the Titans' prison break is most stunning, as the gods' targets and their spattered blood instantly downshift to a new, slower speed, drifting through space while combat proceeds at a regular pace around them. Though copious CGI completed the effect, the VFX wizards smoothly integrated the different movement rates by filming different actors at different speeds. One shot combined motion-capture footage filmed at 48 frames per second (fps), and separate footage at 500 fps.

8. Hugo: Paris Overflight


Scorsese's surprise contribution to 3D and family-friendly cinema, Hugo, begins with an extended overflight of a snowy Paris in 1931. The entirely digital cityscape is convincing, but it's when the camera nosedives into the rail terminal, through the crowds and past the walls to follow the eponymous hero's hidden route among the station's pipework and clockwork gears that we realize what CG can do in the hands of a master director and cinematographer. The interior shots are mix of live and digital elements, but none of it comes across as a polished-up videogame cutscene. It's a fitting beginning to a movie-length tribute to cinema in general, and the father of visual effects, Georges M?li?s, in particular.

For more, read PM?s story, Five Things to Know about Martin Scorcese?s Hugo

7. Battle: Los Angeles: Command Center


This one features its fair share of the decidedly unspectacular kind of VFX that dominates many alien invasion flicks. We?re thinking particularly of the weightless, gummy movement of the extraterrestrial foot soldiers. But give VFX creators Hydraulx credit for the sheer spectacle of Battle: Los Angeles? climax, in which an alien command center rises from the depths of Los Angeles (you can see it at the end of this trailer).

The command center tears through the elevated freeway with a convincing mass and bulk. It sheds rubble and wreckage throughout the ensuing fight, turning what should have been a cut-and-paste, gung-ho showdown into a visually convincing snapshot of what a modern infantry squad might actually look like while repelling a vanguard of metal-encrusted aliens.

6. Super 8: Train Crash


The most effects-heavy shots come late in Super 8, when the mysterious alien's eerie, work-in-progress spaceship continues to draw everything metallic through the air, and into its shifting, roiling hull. That's perfectly cool, but floating particles are par for the course in computer animation. It's the train crash early on, which releases the rampaging alien and sets the plot in motion, that feels the most dangerous and is the most technically complex. Director J.J. Abrams combined early CG-only shots created for a teaser trailer with live-action footage of the child actors charging past on-set explosions. Filmmakers added falling train cars to sync up with the kids' flinching, as well as the real-world pyrotechnics of a moving, bomb-laden sled.

5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2: Trouble with Treasure


The last movie in the series is packed with thunderous spells and swooping aerial sequences, the sort of swashbuckling visuals a franchise is supposed to end with. It's the scene in Gringott's Bank, though, where Harry and company are searching a vault for an item that could help kill off his archnemesis, that stands out. Treasure scattered around the enchanted storage space starts multiplying at an exponential rate, threatening to drown the characters in its gilded undertow. The fact that the propagating treasure is 100 percent CG is hard to believe, given the way to rattles, tumbles, and reflects against the actors.

4. Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Battle on the Bridge

Nearly every scene that features the hyper-intelligent, wildly compelling CG chimpanzee Caesar deserves a debriefing. Those eyes. That fur! Then again, much of what makes Caesar work is the motion-capture performance of Andy Serkis, who became famous (in his way) as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies.

In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it's the battle on the Golden Gate Bridge that had the highest degree of difficulty, as dozens of digital primates charge a roadblock of mounted police. Actors in motion capture suits?most wearing prosthetics to give them longer, more chimp-appropriate arms?would run and leap across the 300-foot-long outdoor replica set, and animators turned their movements into superhuman feats in post-production.

3. Transfomers: Dark of the Moon: Bumblebee Ditches Sam, Reconsiders


By the third Transformers movie, we've seen it all. Even the city-block-length skyscraper-constricting apocalyptic robo-worm seems like more of the same (if slightly bigger). What we haven't seen, it?turns out, is just how terrifying it is to be a Transformer's passenger.

During a high-speed chase Bumblebee is forced to dodge a rolling truck. Instead of going right or left, he goes over, turning into a robot in midair, while his hapless passenger, Shia LeBeouf, is left clawing at empty air. After slapping aside a few chunks of giant shrapnel?debris from that pesky truck?the Autobot lands as a Camaro, transforming around a screaming LeBeouf, who winds up back in the driver's seat. It's a flawless slow-motion shot that uses a real stretch of highway, a real LeBeouf swinging on a wire harness, and a very unreal Bumblebee to create a visual that's pure Michael Bay: utterly pointless but totally thrilling.

2. Real Steel: Atom vs. Zeus


Two fully-CG creations engage in fisticuffs, in a largely CG boxing ring and venue, with an almost entirely CG crowd cheering them on. It should be an unmoored, dislocated mess. But Real Steel's bot-on-bot fight scenes?and the final, championship match in particular?have all the crunching impact of a demolition derby.

Despite the towering size of the robots, the filmmakers emphasized motion-capture wherever possible, by putting performers on stilts and fitting them with hulking shoulderpads. And while many of the less action-oriented scenes used actual, practical robots, the fight between the contender Atom and titleholder Zeus was a motion-capture standoff, choreographed by boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard. The VFX team was able to show the director and cinematographer live, composite footage of the robots in action, overlaid on top of the performers, during filming. They also created a new crowd-replication and management program that turned 85 extras into a crowd of 20,000.

1. Tree of Life: In the Beginning


In the run-up to the release of Tree of Life, as well as in head-scratching reviews once the movie hit theaters, much was made of a brief and somewhat inscrutable scene between two dinosaurs. Prehistoric creatures are rare in arthouse flicks, but here's what's rare in any film, of any kind: a 20-minute, near-wordless sequence showing the birth of the universe, the stars, and planet Earth, and finally those two dinos. Nebulae flow though the void, the Milky Way rolls on its mighty axis, the surface of the Sun churns and roars. It's patient and immaculate, and the only thing more astonishing than this cosmic meditation is how it was created.

Some of those shots are animated versions of the static images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Others feature lower-tech photographic effects, such as the use of dry ice and miniatures for celestial bodies, and shooting without a lens to encourage light leaks. Our favorite trick by far: creating an ominous, on-screen nebula by filming the languid billow of half-and-half poured into a tank of water. Light cream has never been so heavy.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/digital/visual-effects/the-10-best-visual-effects-scenes-of-2011?src=rss

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Friday, December 30, 2011

The Mitt Romney restoration: A vision of a past we can believe in (The Ticket)

Romney appearing Tuesday night in Davenport, IA. Jeff Haynes (Reuters)

DAVENPORT, Iowa--I'm told the reason it remains illegal to raise chickens in Iowa City, where I live, is because Iowans moved to our relatively cosmopolitan college town to get away from the country people and, by extension, their chickens. Twentysomethings from bigger cities, where it is fashionable to raise your own chicks and harvest fresh eggs and place them decorously on gingham dish towels, come to Iowa thinking they will live the country life for a little while, only to find their neighbors shutting them down. I mention this by way of explaining my first impression of the 400 people who came to see Mitt Romney in a hotel in Davenport, Iowa, on Tuesday night: These are the people who would call the police on your illegal chickens.

The women have accessorized. They're wearing foundation, bronzer, silk scarves, pearls. There are men in ties, men in Banana Republic sweaters, over-scrubbed little blond boys in blue fleece. It is a crowd in which it is possible to linger on a face that seems remotely recognizable and wonder if you're staring at a news anchor whose name you used to know.

"I am not an evangelical Christian, and you're not an evangelical Christian," one Romney supporter tells another, by way of explaining the endorsement of Rick Santorum by Bob Vander Plaats, Iowa's most politically charged evangelical Christian. We are seated under chandeliers and gilded molding in the nicest room, the "historic Gold Room," of the Hotel Blackhawk, a progressive-era hotel that calls itself Davenport's most luxurious. The evangelical Christians, who chose Huckabee over Romney four years ago, do not tend to meet under chandeliers. Their bases of operation have been, that election cycle and this one, many dozens of common rooms in many dozen franchises of a chain restaurant called Pizza Ranch. Michelle Bachmann, another evangelical favorite, stopped at three of those on Wednesday.

The room is packed to capacity 45 minutes before Romney arrives. Among the hundreds of politely seated voters, one man is vigorously waving a large red foam "Mitt Romney '08" novelty baseball mitt.

"Oh, the mitts," a woman says. "We've got two in the closet. Didn't even think to bring 'em."

"It says '08 but so what," says the mitt-waver.

"Well, my shirt says '07!"

"I've got a 4-by-8 Romney sign up in my yard left over from '08."

"So put it up."

"It is up!"

"Remind me to go through that closet," the woman says to her husband. "I don't even know what else is up there?a fan?"

Romney supporters are packed along the aisles and spilling into the hallway, while hotel staff pass chairs over their heads. "They misunderestimated the number of chairs," someone says, and then, to friends in the aisle, "You should have come earlier, you would have gotten a seat!" Romney is late, which a woman notes George W. Bush would not have been; the former president was, apparently, always 15 minutes early. There are many such comments from serial meet-and-greeters, dropped knowledge about how such events usually proceed.

"I don't know why they don't open this room up," someone says, as the aisles grow so packed they begin to press against the seated guests, "that wall opens."

The mitt-waver begins to chant "We want Mitt," which does not catch on but provokes some indulgent giggles.

When Mitt finally arrives, he gives a polished speech about the difference between "opportunity America" and "entitlement America." He talks about reading from a prepared text, but barely glances at the pages in front of him while delivering perfect paragraphs of talking-point-studded prose: Free enterprise. Constitution. Low taxes. Social issues never come up, which is perhaps why Mitt never looks uncomfortable, never struggles to find a natural cadence, never emphasizes the wrong word in a practiced string of them. The biggest applause goes to his promise to "restore" the country rather than "transform" it. And though, in retrospect, it seems that the former would necessarily imply the latter, the enthusiasm with which this sentiment is received is interesting. This is a promise to avoid change. Romney is here to battle the forces of transformation, which implies not only Barack Obama but also his less dependably boring Republican opponents, who are louder, and better at chanting.

Ron Paul supporters, their average age about half that of the people in this room, are standing outside the hotel in a cold breeze coming off the Mississippi. They'd been shouting Ron Paul's name for a while when the Romney bus showed up, and which point they shouted even louder.

In the historic Gold Room, the talk of Paul is not flattering. "He wants to legalize prostitution!" I hear a scandalized adolescent girl tell her friends.

"He shot himself in the foot with those newsletters, there's no way now," says an older woman, who then loudly bemoans the lack of diversity in the room.

Iowa's unemployment rate is 6 percent. Corn prices are so high that families are selling their farms for prices that would have been unthinkable five years ago. And Davenport, a city that endures in the popular imagination as the gritty shuttered river town it may have been in the '80s, has, with its riverside skywalk and art museum and riverboat casino blasting "Monster Mash" a hundred yards down the Mississippi, lost whatever depressed industrial chic it once had. There is no apocalypse here. The candidate the state wants may not be the one into moon-mining, or the one a little too obsessed with the fact that Iowa has legalized gay marriage, or the one who wants to eliminate five federal departments.

All down the hallway that looks over the hotel lobby, the voters who couldn't stuff into the room are hoping for a glimpse of Romney. There are murmurs that he has arrived, and then all at once everyone is up and applauding. From the middle of the room, Romney is impossible to see. It's all backs, polite applause, and gilded molding. In the '80s, when maintenance of the hotel seemed pointlessly expensive, one of a long succession of owners hid the arches and skylights under a drop-down ceiling. But the ballroom is restored to its 1915 condition now, a symbol, according to the hotel, "of prosperity of the quad cities." The point is no longer to improve it, or reimagine it, but to keep the place from falling back into decay.

Kerry Howley is a visiting writer at the University of Iowa. This story is part a series of primary-state dispatches from people who live outside the campaign bubble.

Other popular Yahoo! News stories:

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/democrats/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20111230/el_yblog_theticket/the-mitt-romney-restoration-a-vision-of-a-past-we-can-believe-in

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Nina Burleigh: Women and Human Rights

Last night I had an interesting exchange with a smart NYC high school senior, who challenged me on the notion: if you think women don't mind walking around with black blankets over their heads in 120 degree heat, then you need to reexamine whether you think women are like you, that is, human.

I said the treatment of women is a human rights issue, not a "cultural" issue.

And this very smart young man called me out on this.

He said, well, do you think a global "monoculture" is a good idea? And should we "police" these cultures?

I had never heard the term "monoculture" before, must be a concept that entered the high school history/sociology classes since I graduated, but I get it: What would the world be like if every culture in the world was the same? Like eradicating fermented yak milk, blowfish sushi, Peruvian flautists, colorful Indonesian textiles, Irish jigs, Ukrainian folk dance... .

What would be the point of bringing cameras on adventure travel, right?

I also never suggested "policing" to bring universal human rights to women. I'm just suggesting that women have them.

Because we all DO agree that if a society practices slavery, or the systematic discrimination against (or murder of) an ethnic group that includes men, then that behavior is best discouraged, if not policed. No one has suggested recently that the eradication of those behaviors has produced a monoculture.

Would global cultures be less vibrant if women had universal human rights?

Are we losing cultural value when societies stop forcing women to cover their flesh for fear of inciting male lust and God's displeasure? Do we risk becoming a monoculture when women are no longer being denied education, the right to drive, the right to choose when and whom to have sex with or marry, the right to divorce, and run for public office?

I am almost getting why our right wing idiots complain about morally relativistic teacher/philosophers. Almost, but... not yet. I believe in tolerance and debate and not making judgments about people who are different than I am.

But I do think that kid was wrong.

Read more on women and religious oppression at Under the Black Blanket.

?

Follow Nina Burleigh on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ninaburleigh

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nina-burleigh/global-womens-rights_b_1173644.html

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Thursday, December 29, 2011

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China premier urges protection of farmers' rights (AP)

BEIJING ? Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has urged officials to share profits from the development of rural land with the millions of farmers who have to give it up.

Wen's speech to officials at a work conference Tuesday comes a week after southern Chinese officials gave in to protesting villagers after a two-week standoff with police over a land dispute.

He says China can no longer sacrifice farmers' land rights for the sake of reducing the cost of urbanization and industrialization.

Last Wednesday, the village of Wukan called off protests that had driven out local officials after a provincial party official agreed to release detainees and return some confiscated land to farmers.

Land disputes cause tens of thousands of protests in China every year.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111227/ap_on_bi_ge/as_china_land_disputes

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Iranian exiles in Iraq agree to move camps


Essential News from The Associated Press

? ?Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-12-28-ML-Iraq-Camp-Ashraf/id-163c20834ff24732b514ec5c52685396

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Union opposes eastern NY transmission route to pipe Montreal power to NYC

Dec 24 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Nancy Madsen Watertown Daily Times, N.Y.

A proposal from a Canadian company to build a transmission line from Quebec to New York City is opposed by union officials who believe it would hurt job prospects in upstate New York and keep transmission system improvements on the back burner.

"We are opposed to importing power from Canada," said Philip G. Wilcox, business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 97, Orchard Park. "We want the commitment to invest in New York sources."

The union represents 14,000 electrical generation facility workers, and other IBEW unions in the state represent those who run and maintain transmission lines.

Mr. Wilcox said the union began voicing opposition to the project in the fall, nearly two years after it became public, because generation facilities where its members work are at risk due to the state grid system's congestion. Facilities such as AES Somerset in Niagara County are losing money because its power can't reach the higher-priced market in New York City.

And the delivery of 1,000 megawatts through two high-voltage, direct-current lines under Lake Champlain and the Hudson River would lower prices in the city, making it harder to finance projects to improve and upgrade other congested lines, he said.

Transmission Developers Inc., Toronto, designed the Champlain Hudson Power Express, a 330-mile link between hydroelectric facilities in Montreal. The $2 billion project is funded entirely by private investors, led by the Blackstone Group, New York City.

London Economics, London, said the project would save ratepayers in New York City $500 million to $800 million.

"It makes the state more efficient and productive," Transmission Developers President and CEO Donald Jessome said. "It has its own spinoff benefits."

The cable's construction would take four years and employ 200 people each year.

But if state investor-owned utilities, the New York Power Authority, the Public Service Commission and the New York Independent System Operator followed through on $4 billion in potential transmission upgrades around the state, that could employ 17,100 jobs directly and up to 52,000 directly and indirectly, said a May 2011 report by the Working Group for Investment in Reliable and Economic Electrical Systems and The Brattle Group.

And those grid improvements would allow existing facilities to ramp back up and new facilities, including new wind power projects, to sell on the wholesale market.

"Moreover, deficiencies in the State's electrical grid played a role in the decision not to site an additional nuclear power facility in Oswego County," wrote state Sen. Patricia A. Ritchie, R-Heuvelton, in a Nov. 21 letter to the governor's office. She wrote that both east-west connections and north-south lines need upgrades. "The New York Power Authority (NYPA) is well positioned to make strategic investments along these lines to relieve current pressures in the marketplace. I have spoken directly with NYPA officials in regards to my support of such investments."

Mrs. Ritchie, who is a member of the Energy and Telecommunications Committee, supports the cost of the upgrades being borne by downstate electricity users, who are paying a premium for electricity because of tight supply anyway.

New York Independent System Operator's State Transmission Assessment and Reliability Study found which improvements would be economically beneficial. They include transmission lines that run from the New York Power Authority's St. Lawrence-Franklin D. Roosevelt Power project south to Marcy. The two 230-kilovolt lines that are more than 50 years old are known as the Moses-Adirondack lines. They run parallel to each other and to a 765-kilovolt line.

"The New York Power Authority is evaluating all options related to the replacement of its Moses-Adirondack lines due to the asset age which is consistent with the findings published in the STARS report," spokeswoman Connie M. Cullen said in an email. "NYPA is continually assessing its statewide transmission system to ensure the continued reliability of its system for decades to come. NYPA recognizes the importance of its transmission system for the delivery of economical electric supplies to businesses and residences, and to also incorporate more electricity from renewable sources into the state's power grid."

A second report through NYISO, the Congestion Assessment and Resource Integration Study, will allow developers to propose specific projects to address congestion.

TDI's CEO said the need for power in the city won't be overcome with just the Champlain Hudson project.

"It allows delivery of 1,000 megawatts in a 40,000 megawatt system," Mr. Jessome said. "There is lots of room for many projects to be built in the New York system and ours is just one of many solutions that are going to be required over a number of years for the existing needs and future needs of New York state."

The underwater route was chosen to avoid as much environmental and aesthetic harm as possible. Other similar projects include the Cross Sound Cable from Long Island to Connecticut and the Neptune Cable from New Jersey to Long Island. The project has support letters, filed in the state Public Service Commission process, from those in New York City, the League of Conservation Voters and 20 members of Congress.

A few environmental groups have raised objections to the project. Those groups, including the Adirondack Council, are involved in private negotiations on an undisclosed issue with the developer, PSC and other state and local agencies. The issue may be resolved by Jan. 10 and if private stakes are successful, the project will avoid a longer review.

In a letter Thursday, IBEW raised its objections to the PSC.

"The CHP project will be deleterious of New York State energy jobs, as well as the ability to finance investment into our transmission system, negatively impacting system reliability, energy independence, renewable energy development, and further threatening already struggling NYS-based power generators, especially in upstate New York," Local 97 President, Business Manager and Financial Secretary Theodore J. Skerpon wrote.

But Mr. Jessome said the project is an environmentally friendly approach to connecting to a market that is one of the most highly congested in North America and a difficult interconnection.

"That has been the real emphasis of the project -- to ensure the benefits are there for the state of New York," he said.

? All Grid Operations News

Source: http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?r5666106755

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China official says Wukan protest shows rights demands on rise (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? The senior Chinese official who helped defuse a standoff with protesting villagers has told officials to get used to citizens who are increasingly assertive about their rights and likened erring local governments to red apples with rotten cores.

Zhu Mingguo, a deputy Communist Party secretary of southern Guangdong province, last week helped broker a compromise between the government and residents of Wukan village. Ten days of protests over confiscated farmland and the death of a protest organizer drew widespread attention as a rebuff to the stability-before-all government.

Speaking to officials about Wukan and other protests, Zhu said these were not isolated flare-ups, the Guangzhou Daily, the official paper of the provincial capital, reported on Tuesday.

"In terms of society, the public's awareness of democracy, equality and rights is constantly strengthening, and their corresponding demands are growing," Zhu told a meeting on Monday about preserving social stability, the paper said.

"Public consciousness of rights defense is growing, and the means used to defend rights are increasingly intense," said Zhu. "Their channels for voicing grievances are diverse, and there is a tendency for conflicts to become more intense."

Zhu also cited protests by migrant factory workers who complained about ill-treatment. These areas where unrest erupted had won praise as "advanced units" - showcases of growth and harmony, noted Zhu.

Not so, he said.

"In these areas there were many problems that were not swiftly identified, and when they erupted, the consequences were even more serious," said Zhu, referring to the response by local officials.

"Like apples, their hearts were rotten even if their skins were red, and when the skins broke, there was a real mess."

FENDING OFF RISKS OF UNREST

Red is the color of the ruling Communist Party, and Zhu's comments reflected debate within it about warding off risks of unrest from an increasingly unequal and diverse society.

In recent days, Chinese courts have jailed two dissidents for nine and 10 years respectively, underscoring the government's determination to silence critics whom it fears will channel discontent into organized opposition to one-party rule.

That concern is magnified by preparations for a party congress in late 2012, when the central leadership will retire and make way for a new generation.

Zhu put much of the blame for the recent unrest on local administrators. In Wukan, he said, officials had sold off more than two thirds of the village land, without providing for residents' welfare.

"Now, where are the state cadres who remember that farmers don't have land for their food?" Zhu told the meeting. "When do they think of the hardships of ordinary people."

"If these complaints had been dealt with sooner, would they have ever caused such a big ruckus?"

The protests in Wukan ended after officials made concessions over the seized farmland and the death of a village leader, Xue Jinbo, whose family suspects he was beaten in custody.

Villagers denounced local officials as corrupt and heartless throughout their months-long dispute, which erupted in rioting in September. But they ended up welcoming province officials led by Zhu as brokers who finally stepped in to forge compromise.

The officials agreed to release three men held over the land protest in September, when a government office was trashed, and to re-examine the cause of Xue's death, protest organizers said.

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Ron Popeski)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111227/wl_nm/us_china_unrest

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XBMC Eden finally makes it to beta, promises HTPC superpowers

Remember that big XBMC update teased back in October? Well, v11.0's multifarious additions are finally ready for a spot of beta testing. These include all-round speed increases, a "vastly improved" default skin, the ability to rollback unpleasant add-on updates, and better hardware support for iOS devices, plus a host of other new features that can only be listed in full at the source link.

XBMC Eden finally makes it to beta, promises HTPC superpowers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Dec 2011 03:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/28/xbmc-eden-finally-makes-it-to-beta-promises-htpc-superpowers/

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Christmas gift to America 20 years ago ? a Russia to be thankful for

When the Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago on Christmas, doomsayers had a field day. But seen strictly from the perspective of what matters most to Americans, the good news is that the nightmares that experts realistically expected about Russia have not happened.

In a Christmas gift on Dec. 25, 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. The ?evil empire,? as Ronald Reagan rightly called it, was erased from the map. On its territory, Russia and 14 newly independent states emerged.?

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In the rush of the past two decades, ?things have changed so fast we have not yet taken time to be astonished,? the late Czech President Vaclav Havel once observed. The tendency of bad news to drive out the good is well known. How often does a story about positive developments lead television coverage or make the front page? Vladimir Putin?s recent announcement that he will run again for the presidency (and undoubtedly win) casts a cloud that accentuates the negative.?

Nonetheless, as Americans pause during this holiday season to give thanks and reflect, it is appropriate to review what has happened in the new Russia?s first 20 years.?Assessed strictly from the perspective of what matters most to Americans, the good news is that the nightmares that experts realistically expected at the time have not happened.?

Who imagined the Evil Empire disappearing ? without war?

Who imagined US victory over its cold war rival ? with a whimper rather than a bang?

Who imagined a revolution that buried communism ? without blood?

Who imagined that 20 years on, not one single nuclear bomb from the entire Soviet arsenal would have been found loose outside Russia? (Recall that in December 1991, on ?Meet the Press,? then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney forecast: ?If the Soviets do an excellent job at retaining control over their stockpile of nuclear weapons ? and they are 99 percent successful, that would mean you could still have as many as 250 [warheads] they were not able to control.?)

Who imagined that the nation that would do more than any other over these two decades to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional states would be Russia? (Russia took the lead, with a significant American assist, in preventing Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus from inheriting major strategic nuclear arsenals.)

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/lJiuPuaNZZE/Christmas-gift-to-America-20-years-ago-a-Russia-to-be-thankful-for

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Bees Appear to Experience Moods

Grumpy? Giddy? According to some measures, bees appear to experience moods. Image: Charles Krebs/Corbis

If you have never watched bees carefully, you are missing out. Look closely as they gently curl and uncoil their mouthparts around food, and you will sense that they are not just eating but enjoying their meal. Watch a bit more, and the hesitant flicks and sags of their antennae seem to convey some kind of emotion. Do those twitches signal annoyance? Or something like enthusiasm?

Whether bees really experience any of these emotions is an open scientific question. It is also an important one, with implications for how we should treat not just bees but the great majority of animals. Recently studies by Melissa Bateson and her colleagues at Newcastle University in England have rekindled the debate over these issues by showing that honeybees may experience something akin to moods.

Using simple behavioral tests, Bate?son?s team showed that honeybees under stress tend to be pessimistic. Other tests have demonstrated that monkeys, dogs and starlings all tend to react similarly under duress and likewise see the proverbial glass as half empty. Although this finding does not?and cannot?prove that bees experience humanlike emotions, it does give pause. We should take seriously the possibility that insects, too, have emotions.

Beeline to the Brain
First, a little bit about bees. They are members of the diverse group of animals lacking backbones?indeed, more than 95 percent of all animal species are invertebrates. Despite the varied and often nuanced behaviors they can exhibit, invertebrates are sometimes regarded as life?s second string, a mindless and unfeeling band of alien critters. If that seems somewhat melodramatic, just consider our willingness to boil some of them alive.

Those judgments tend to arise from arguments about invertebrates? failure to demonstrate the behaviors we usually associate with a pain response. Whereas the yelps and grimaces of other mammals are familiar to us as announcements of hurt, invertebrates can appear to take their injuries in stride. Insects are commonly observed using their crushed limbs with undiminished force when walking, for example, and a locust will reportedly carry on with a meal while it is being eaten by a mantis.

Other attempts to draw a dividing line between creatures that feel and those that do not are rooted in comparative brain anatomy. Invertebrates lack a cortex, an amygdala and many of the other major brain structures routinely implicated in human emotion. Their nervous systems are quite minimalist compared with ours: we have roughly 100,000 bee brains? worth of neurons in our head. Some invertebrates, however, including insects, do possess a rudimentary version of our stress response system. So the question remains: Do they experience emotion in a way that we would recognize, or do they simply react to the world with an elaborate set of reflexes?

To gain some traction on this fascinating question, Bateson?s team followed the lead of recent investigations on ?pessimistic biases? in animals. In humans, the pessimistic bias refers to our well-known tendency to perceive threats or anticipate negative outcomes more frequently when we are feeling anxious or depressed. For example, in tests where people are shown ambiguous statements such as ?the doctor examined little Emily?s growth,? anxious individuals are less likely than others to conclude that Emily is fine and only her height was being checked.

Although the link between bad moods and negative judgments may not be terribly surprising, this correlation is still useful. We rely on it in our daily lives to make informed guesses about how people are feeling by observing their actions and choices. Scientifically, we can use it to study the emotions of creatures unable to tell us directly how they feel. The key here is to set up a controlled situation where animals encounter an ambiguous stimulus?think of it as a nonverbal version of the Emily statement.


Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=a6f6b37e1b8b7408c7853aeb27b41cd8

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Monday, December 26, 2011

Best Holiday Tech Gift: We Have a Winner! [CONTEST] (Mashable)

Last week, we asked our readers to share the story behind their favorite tech-related holiday gift. The best story wins an Xbox Kinect Bundle (pictured below) courtesy of Target, and a pack of games from Activision, featuring DJ Hero, DJ Hero 2 Party Bundle (2 turntables + microphone), Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock (with 2 Xbox 360 wireless Guitars), Cabela?s Big Game Hunter (with Top Shot Elite), and Rapala for Kinect.

[More from Mashable: The Procrastinator?s Guide to Gift Giving: We?ll Get to That Later]

We received over 70 heart-warming and nostalgia-inducing stories, so choosing only one winner was very tough. Ryan Thompson, with a great story about a brand-new N64 to replace his broken Nintendo Entertainment System, has won our prize. Congrats, Ryan! Here's his full story:

[More from Mashable: Best Buy Stores Offer BoGo Deal on 32GB iPhone 4]

Thank you to all our readers who submitted stories. We loved all of them. Happy Holidays!

Read Also: Open Thread: Show Us Your Favorite Tech Gifts!

Image courtesy of Flickr, www.metaphoricalplatypus.com

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/mashable/20111225/tc_mashable/best_holiday_tech_gift_we_have_a_winner_contest

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Happy Holidays: Six symbols of Christmas Google-style

Google has Happy Holidays doodle. This doodle celebrates the season with a two-dimensional holiday light display.

Every December Google spreads holiday cheer with a special doodle on their homepage. This year is no different.

Skip to next paragraph

Creating a holiday light display, the search engine elves transformed each letter into a symbol of the season, leaving a line trace of the letters in the two-dimensional background.

For two hours in the US on Friday afternoon Google's holiday lights danced on the screen while playing the tune "Jingle bells." Check out the video below. The search engine turned it off and the doodle remained still, until later Friday evening.

To start the jingle click on the buttons below each letter of the Google logo.

Fade to black.

The letter "G" in the word Google is transformed into a lit up snowflake.

SEE ALSO:?How much do you know about Christmas? A quiz

The "O" is sort of a South Park Santa Claus. Or perhaps it's Saint Nicholas, or Father Christmas, or Kris Kringle, depending on where you live in the world.

The second "O" is a bell - spreading good cheer. Or if you're a fan of the 1946 Frank Capra film, "It's a Wonderful Life," it may remind you of the lline: "Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings."

The lower "G" is a Snowman. A little reminder to get out the shovel and your snow sculptingl skills .?

The candle as the "L" ?dances in the dark with the flicker of light.?

Finally, click on the? "E" and it becomes a Christmas present. And Google's Doodle mavens reward you with a quick rendition of "Jingle bells."

Trivia buffs will note that this James Lord Pierpont tune was actually written to commenorate sleigh races around Thanksgiving in Medford, Mass,, before it became co-opted by Christmas carolers.

Wait, there's more.

Enter 'Santa Claus,' 'Christmas bells,' 'Christmas candles,' and 'Christmas present' in the search engine you'll see colorful holiday lights strung from the left side of the screen to the right. Google has a way of hiding "Easter eggs" throughout the internet. Earlier this week they even made it snow.

Happy Holidays to all!

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/HL-ynFeSEN0/Happy-Holidays-Six-symbols-of-Christmas-Google-style

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

DDotOmenBlog: VIDEO: Lil Wayne?s Sports Corner (Chris Paul Reacts To Signing With L.A. Clippers): @LilTunechi has introduced y... http://t.co/ceU9vxxU

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China Just Cut Railway Construction Plans Again As Debt Continues To Pile Up

china trainBEIJING (AP) ? China's government announced another cut in railway construction spending Friday amid concern about the debts of the world's biggest rail network and the safety of its showcase bullet trains.

Beijing will spend about 400 billion yuan ($65 billion) next year on railway construction, Railways Minister Sheng Guangzu said at an industry conference, the state Xinhua News Agency reported. That is down from what Xinhua said is expected spending of 469 billion yuan ($75 billion) this year and a sharp drop from 2010's 700 billion yuan ($112 billion).

Beijing is rapidly expanding China's 56,000-mile (91,000-kilometer) rail network, which is overloaded with passengers and cargo. But it has scaled back plans amid concern about whether Sheng's ministry can repay its mounting debts.

Critics complain authorities have spent too much on high-speed lines, a prestige project for the ruling Communist Party, while failing to invest enough in expanding cheaper, slower routes to serve China's poor majority.

A failure to expand rail capacity could choke economic growth because exporters away from China's coast rely on rail to get goods to ports.

The Xinhua report Friday gave no details of spending plans or where the government intends to expand service.

The rail ministry's mounting debts have prompted concern about whether it will have to be bailed out by Chinese taxpayers. Private sector analysts say revenues from ticket sales and freight charges probably are insufficient to pay its publicly reported 2 trillion yuan ($300 billion) in debt.

Beijing reined in the rapid expansion of its bullet train network after a July 23 crash that killed 40 people triggered a public outcry about a system that critics say is dangerous and too costly for a poor country. The speed of the fastest lines also was reduced.

Xinhua described Friday's announcement as the first time the communist government has announced a "clear goal for future railway development." It said construction "has been almost halted" since the bullet train crash.

Sheng, the railway minister, announced a moratorium in August on new rail projects while the government carried out a nationwide safety inspection.

Government plans announced earlier call for expanding the rail network to 75,000 miles (120,000 kilometers) by 2020.

In a report this week, the World Bank called China's system "by far the most densely trafficked railway network in the world." It recommended that Beijing overhaul its system of state-set prices and allow rail managers more flexibility in setting ticket and cargo prices to make trains more efficient and affordable.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/Ej2eHYyHefM/china-plans-further-cut-to-railway-spending-2011-12

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Saturday, December 24, 2011

iluvblackwomen: @THEBODYSCIENCE ok wanted to promote your own pages if you had link stories about coconut oil

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Shell oil spill off Nigeria likely worst in decade (AP)

LAGOS, Nigeria ? An oil spill near the coast of Nigeria is likely the worst to hit those waters in a decade, a government official said Thursday, as slicks from the Royal Dutch Shell PLC spill approached the southern shoreline.

The slick from Shell's Bonga field has affected 115 miles of ocean near Nigeria's coast, Peter Idabor, who leads the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, told The Associated Press. Idabor said officials expect the slick to reach beaches in Rivers state by Thursday afternoon.

Shell, the major oil producer in Nigeria, said Wednesday the spill likely occurred as workers tried to offload oil onto a waiting tanker. The company published photographs of the spill, showing a telltale rainbow sheen in the ocean, but said it believes that about 50 percent of the leaked oil has already evaporated.

The source of the leak has been plugged, Idabor said, but the spill still threatens the shoreline and wildlife. Idabor said experts from Britain were coming to help with the cleanup.

Shell announced Wednesday that the Bonga spill likely was less than 40,000 barrels, or 1.68 million gallons. About the same amount of oil spilled offshore in 1998 at a Mobil field.

"Since the Mobil spill, this is just about the most major one," Idabor said.

Bonga sits about 75 miles (120 kilometers) off Nigeria's coast. It can produce about 200,000 barrels of oil and 150 million cubic feet of gas a day, according to Shell's Nigerian subsidiary. Production at the field has been halted since the discovery of the spill.

Environmentalists blame Shell for polluting the country's oil-rich Niger Delta. Some environmentalists say as much as 550 million gallons of oil poured into the delta during Shell's roughly 50 years of production in Nigeria ? a rate roughly comparable to one Exxon Valdez disaster per year. An estimated 11 million gallons was released during the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

Shell in recent years has said most of the spills in the delta are caused by thieves tapping into pipelines to steal crude oil, which ends up sold into the black market or cooked into a crude diesel or kerosene.

Slicks from the Bonga spill likely will reach beaches near Forcados on Thursday, affecting wildlife there, Idabor said.

Nigeria, an OPEC member nation producing about 2.4 million barrels of crude oil a day, is a top supplier to the U.S.

Online:

Royal Dutch Shell PLC: http://www.shell.com

___

Jon Gambrell can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/environment/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111222/ap_on_re_af/af_nigeria_oil_spill

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Four out of five bottles of extra-virgin "Italian" olive oil are actually blended with foreign oil, La Repubblica claims

Four out of five bottles of extra-virgin "Italian" olive oil are actually blended with foreign oil, La Repubblica claims

This file photo shows olive oil coming out of a tab of an oil mill in Tuscany. Four out of five bottles of extra-virgin "Italian" olive oil are actually blended with foreign oil in a five-billion euro ($6.5-billion) a year business, La Repubblica daily claims.

Source: AFP - Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

Source: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=iafpCNG.5a4494c9ae3cb8f9537232f9bb2ef60e.681p0&show_article=1

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Friday, December 23, 2011

Introducing the gdgt databox!

Have you ever been reading a post about, say, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and caught yourself thinking "What were those dimensions again?" Or, maybe it's something about the iPad 2 and you can't recall the thing's release date, or exactly how many different variations Apple has on offer? How about which of those two devices is heavier? You could go digging back for their respective reviews and find out, but now we have a better solution: the gdgt databox! It's a comprehensive, clickable, interactive database containing all the specs for all the devices we cover on here. Its contents are pulled from the massive library of hardware and software maintained over at gdgt, tirelessly updated and maintained around the clock. With a few clicks you'll have all the info you need and, should you desire more, you can quickly ask a question to someone who actually owns one. Check out a few example devices in the box below -- or just keep on reading. You'll be seeing a lot of it around these parts.

Introducing the gdgt databox! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 12:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Review: Spielberg can't pull off mo-cap in "Tintin" (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) ? Netflix Instant can't wash your car. An IMAX sound system can't pilot an aircraft carrier. And motion-capture animation can't make non-creepy-looking human characters. All that may change one day, but the technology hasn't yet caught up.

And if there were any doubt that mo-cap hasn't leapt the chasm past the "uncanny valley" that makes human forms look weird and off-putting, "The Adventures of Tintin" would seem to indicate that neither Steven Spielberg nor Peter Jackson has figured it out. And if these guys still aren't all able to pull it off, we should all just agree that it can't be done, period.

Motion-capture has had its triumphs, from the stunning Na'vi of "Avatar" to Andy Serkis's moving, award-worthy performance as Caesar in "Rise of the Planet of the Apes." And while the faces of Tintin and his friends represent a quantum leap past earlier efforts like "The Polar Express" and "Mars Needs Moms," they're still spooky and not quite expressive enough.

It certainly doesn't help that boy adventurer Tintin has existed until now as a two-dimensional figure on the printed page and on TV: Belgian artist Herge's crisp line drawings are legendary, and director Spielberg and producer Jackson certainly could have made a stunning 2-D animated film based on the original character designs.

Instead, sadly, they've mucked about with an it-ain't-broke original, compounding their folly by entrusting the characters to this still-imperfect technology. In the final wash, only Snowy the Dog comes off with any kind of visual appeal.

Something of an origin story, "The Adventures of Tintin" follows the titular teen journalist (Jamie Bell) as he gets caught up in a globe-spanning adventure involving ships in bottles, secret passageways, and hidden scrolls. He is helped along the way by the hard-drinking Captain Haddock (Serkis) -- he and Tintin meet for the first time here -- and bumbling detectives Thompson (Simon Pegg) and Thomson (Nick Frost).

Spielberg takes advantage of the freedoms of animation, sending his camera on cannonball trajectories and zooming up the masts of pirate ships, but the action sequences blur together while lacking any sense of rhythm or pacing. If you were expecting a bracing, thrilling "Raiders of the Lost Ark," what we get here is more like a muddled, busy "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." By the time two characters attack each other with giant dockside cranes, it feels like the entire film has descended into a series of loud metallic clangs.

For all the millions of dollars that were no doubt shoveled into this A-list effort, there was a funnier and more exciting action film made this year at just a fraction of the cost: "Attack the Block," from "Tintin" co-writers Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright.

Good on them for getting a high-paying gig on a Spielberg project, but this is one of those cases where the up-and-coming employees could apparently teach the big boss a thing or two.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111221/media_nm/us_tintin_review

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Monday, December 19, 2011

Soyuz launches with 6 satellites in French Guiana (AP)

KOUROU, French Guiana ? A Soyuz rocket carrying six satellites launched Friday from French Guiana in the Russian-built rocket model's second mission this year.

It was to first release a French Earth observation satellite, Pleiades 1. Next to come would be four French micro-satellites and a Chilean Earth observation satellite was to be released last.

Pleiades is designed to provide images to military and civilian customers, while the four smaller satellites will be used to gather electronic intelligence for the military, according to Arianespace.

The Chilean satellite will take images for mapping, agricultural monitoring and the management of natural resources, said Arianespace, the commercial arm of the 13-country European Space Agency.

The satellites weighed a total of more than 4,400 pounds (2,000 kilograms).

The mission was the final one this year for Arianespace.

A Soyuz rocket first launched from Arianespace's complex in French Guiana in late October, carrying the first two satellites of the European Union's Galileo navigation system. It was the maiden voyage of the Russian rocket outside the former Soviet Union.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111217/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_french_guiana_rocket_launch

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Jodie Foster?s Father Sentenced To Prison

Jodie Foster’s father has been delivered a five year jail sentence. Get the full details behind Lucius Foster’s crimes below. Actress Jodie Foster?s estranged father, Lucius Foster, has been sentenced to five years in prison after swindling $130,000 from the elderly and the less fortunate. The sentence was handed down on December 2nd by Judge Dokey in a court house located close to Van Nuys. Foster’s father was found guilty on 21 counts of grand theft, and nine counts for working without a license, according to AceShowbiz. He was said to have told clients that he would be building affordable homes that are made from cargo containers. The actress? eighty-nine year old father was reportedly taking money as a down payment to build the homes that never actually existed. One of Lucius?s victim?s, a woman by the name of Karen Unsell spoke out about being swindled out of the money. ?He’s either the liar of the century, or he’s delusional. Either way he’s dangerous, it does not matter that he’s 89 years old. We all know what he’s capable of.? Don Cocek, who is the deputy city attorney, also revealed that Lucius Foster used his daughter’s celebrity status to establish [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RightCelebrity/~3/1wFV14UwGEw/

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Friday Miscellany (Prospect)

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Saturday, December 17, 2011

How to Complain About Your Noisy Neighbors Without Being That Guy [Social Gps]

How to Complain About Your Noisy Neighbors Without Being That GuyWhen you live in an apartment building with other people, you're bound to encounter at least one tenant who is a bit noisier than the rest. Whether it's excessively loud music, lovemaking, or whatever, here's how to approach the situation without being an equally obnoxious neighbor.

I've been on both sides of this equation, and the two times I have been the noisy neighbor I wasn't aware of it. It's hard to tell what level of noise makes it through the walls and what stays put, so you do have to rely on your neighbors to some extent to really know if there's a problem. That means summoning the courage to confront them about the noise issue directly. We're going to look at how to do that effectively, and your additional options should approaching the situation as a rational human being prove futile.

Option #1: Communicate Through the Walls

How to Complain About Your Noisy Neighbors Without Being That GuyWhen noise is a problem that's keeping you awake at night, chances are you don't want to make yourself presentable and head over to your neighbor's apartment to complain. You want to be sleeping, not having an unpleasant conversation. While that conversation may be inevitable, sometimes you can solve the problem without going too far. Just knock on the wall where the noise is coming from to demonstrate that loud sound does travel and sometimes that will be enough to get people to keep the noise level down.

Option #2: Suggest a Plan

How to Complain About Your Noisy Neighbors Without Being That GuyI posed this question to Twitter and Facebook to get a general idea of how people think this situation should be handled and how they'd prefer to be told if they were offending others. The overwhelming response, neglecting jokes like "just be a adult about it...throw a cup of piss at them" (that was my favorite), was to have a brief and honest conversation about the problem. I agree, but would like to add that I think it helps to suggest a reasonable plan.

I like to sing and play the piano in my apartment, and for whatever reason I tend to get the urge to do this during later hours of the night. When I was younger, I used to play almost ritualistically around midnight or 1:00 AM in the morning. In an older apartment with unusually thick walls (but a very thin door) I used to get visitors who'd want to come in and listen or play along. When I moved to a much smaller building with thinner walls where I wasn't among other restless kids, most people just wanted to sleep. My downstairs neighbor came up one night and knocked on my door to ask me to keep it quiet, but in addition to that he suggested a plan for the future. He said (and this isn't an exact quote because I don't remember fully), "We can hear you singing through the floor when we're trying to sleep. It's cool if you want to do that, but could you do it before midnight?" I agreed and that was that. No more noise problems from me.

What makes this effective is that the complaint isn't telling the noisy neighbor to "shut up and stop having fun so I can get my beauty sleep," but rather saying "I'm cool with what you're doing, just not right now. Let's figure out a better time." This worked for me, and I think will work for most people who are reasonable and/or just don't know they're being too loud.

How to Complain About Your Noisy Neighbors Without Being That GuyBut what about loud?uh?sex?

Most people are uncomfortable with having a conversation regarding any kind of noise, so telling someone to quiet down when they're engaged in sexual activity is a more complex issue. You run the risk of embarrassing your neighbors, sometimes so much that they'll be in denial. It's also relevant that they do have a right to make noise so long as it's not causing a significant disturbance, and your discomfort with the type of noise doesn't really play into it. As with any noise complaint, the same tactics apply: ask politely for your neighbors to keep it down when it's late, or shift their activities to an earlier time. If you feel uncomfortable broaching the subject in person, you can always write a short and polite note. If the problem continues, however, you may need to handle the issue face-to-face.

Option #3: Contact the Management (or the Police)

How to Complain About Your Noisy Neighbors Without Being That GuyWhen you can't manage the situation yourself, that's what your building's management is for. My dad used to be a residential landlord, so I called him up to ask him how these complaints are generally handled. He told me that most people don't bother dealing with the issue themselves, because they're afraid, and enlist the help of their landlord. The landlord then sends out a letter to the tenant notifying them of an anonymous complaint and to keep noise levels to a reasonable minimum. He said that most leases contain a clause referring to proper conduct in the apartment in regards to noise, and the letter will make reference to that. This means that if you're having trouble dealing with the situation on your own, talking to your landlord can be especially effective because the landlord can write a letter stating that the noisy tenant is in violation of the terms of their lease. That's usually enough to scare stubborn noisemakers into submission.

But you need to remember a few things. People are allowed to make noise during the day, and even during the evening. Some people draw the line at midnight and others a bit earlier. It will depends on where you live, who you live with, and who's managing the property. When you move into an apartment it's good to ask about the noise policies and when quiet hours are expected.

When I moved into my most recent apartment, on the third day someone called the police to issue an anonymous noise complaint around 10:00 PM. I'd been playing a mellow song on a loop while I cleaned the apartment, and I thought it was at a reasonable volume. When the police knocked on my door they apologized for coming by because when they heard the volume of the music they thought it was at a reasonable volume. I offered to turn it off but they said it was fine and left. This situation was essentially left unresolved because 1) the person who filed the complaint was asking for what the police deemed an unreasonably low noise level, and 2) I would've been happy to work out a compromise with the complainant if they'd simply bothered to come talk to me. The takeaway is this: if you're having issues with a potentially noisy neighbor, be sure to consider what's reasonable and try talking to them first. If your first reaction is to resort to more drastic measures, they might just backfire.

Option #4: Creatively Utilize Technology

How to Complain About Your Noisy Neighbors Without Being That GuyIf you can't get your point across with a note, simple conversation, or with help from the authorities, sometimes a little technology can make the difference. One of our favorite tips of all time is communicating with your Wi-FI network's SSID. That means giving your Wi-Fi network a name like "BeQuietApartment1121" or "TurnDownYourMusic" so that neighbors will see your message when they're looking to get online. Although this method is very clever, its success rate is limited severely by the fact that your neighbors have to actually view their Wi-Fi options prior to connecting. If they have their own Wi-Fi and aren't stealing someone else's, their computer is connecting them automatically. Chances are they won't see a thing if they've got a router of their own.

In the even the problem is really bad and the result of excessively loud music, you can hijack your neighbor's speakers to force them to be quiet. With a few cheap tools you can transmit your voice into their speakers to ask them to quiet down, play some really annoying music to get your revenge, or probably even blow out their speakers if you're feeling particularly evil (although chances are that will end in some unfortunate repercussions for you, so don't do it). This isn't a tactic you should employ unless you're truly out of options, but it doesn't hurt to have it available when you are.

A Few More Suggestions

How to Complain About Your Noisy Neighbors Without Being That GuyHopefully this post has provided some useful advice for dealing with the unfortunately too common problem of dealing with noisy neighbors. Before we call it a day, however, I just wanted to highlight a few suggestions from Twitter and Facebook to provide a few other opinions on the matter.

Anne Earney:

I'd hope our neighbors would come by and let us know if we were bothering them. However, we did have a problem with some renters in a four-family behind our house where we ended up calling the police. The renters often their dog out on the second floor balcony, where it barked all night. At 3am, I'm just not going to politely knock on someone's door and ask them to let their dog in.

Jesse Miller-Riley:

A note or a polite conversation is wise...being petulant or obnoxiously retaliatory will only make the situation worse. And if they don't listen to reason, then get the management involved. Fighting fire with fire is for school-aged children.

An Anonymous Friend:

Write an anonymous note and put it up in the building. It's amazing how powerful shame can be.

Shawn Wayne:

Tell them you would like to take matters into your own hands to deal with this like adults, and tell them to keep it down, and if the situation doesn't improve, tell them you will contact apartment management if it keeps happening. If that doesn't help, get all your neighbors together to file complaints against them.

Jos?:

Just say that you have a friend over with a baby that is sleeping.

Chandra Batra:

It sucks because I live in a really crappy apartment with paper thin walls. I would try to tolerate it because if you can hear them chances are they can hear you!

And since our own Whitson Gordon is a noisy neighbor, let's give him the last word:

I am a noisy ass neighbor. If my neighbors don't like my loud music, I really, really would like them to knock on my door and politely say something?that's all they need to do.

The problem is it's very difficult to know how loud you're being from someone else's house/apartment. I try not to go crazy, but I don't know what level of volume my neighbors can hear or not hear?if they just said "hey dude, you were pretty loud today, but yesterday I didn't hear anything", then I have a much better idea of the cap I need to stay below.

Good luck! We hope this helps you find a quiet night's rest.

This post was illustrated by Dana Zemack. Check out more of her stick figure comics and follow her on Twitter.

Title image remixed from an original by Tomasz Trojanowski (Shutterstock).

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/49zd8IM22Xs/how-to-complain-about-your-noisy-neighbors-without-being-that-guy

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