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Divorce Cake Business Is Flourishing

They say marriage is for life or, as we hear so often in movies and books, “‘till death do [us] part.” Still, divorce is also part of our life, being the logical choice when things no longer work out, to put it in the simplest terms possible. As rates for divorce are soaring in most countries, a new trend is beginning to catch on with the speed of light: that of divorce parties, as the Daily Mail can confirm. While a wedding is the manifestation of the joy felt at the thought of two people uniting their destinies for life, a divorce party is, of course, the exact opposite. Newfound freedom is generally the theme of such a party, which makes it so that divorce is no longer seen as reason to pine and mope around, but rather as a fresh start in life. This is also the motto of most divorce cakes. Again, like with the nuptials, divorce cakes are the reverse of wedding cakes – and they’re selling like crazy as more and more people want to make of their divorce a celebration of a new start. Most of them feature either the bride or the groom (depending on which spouse is filing the papers) pushing the partner off the cake, or stabbing them in the back or otherwise inflicting some serious bodily harm. There are also predominant themes like blood, broken hearts and scattered luggage, admittedly ...

Weekend Reading: On the Biggest Entertainment Launch Ever

Activision was right. Bringing in 550 million dollars in revenue in the first five days on sales, Modern Warfare 2, the sequel created by Infinity Ward, has become the biggest entertainment release in history, beating out videogames like Grand Theft Auto IV and movies like The Dark Knight and the various Harry Potter releases. The talk about the Citizen Kane of videogames should subside for a while as analysts discus about how videogaming is set to displace movies as the big medium for entertainment releases.The question is whether videogaming really wants to take the place of movies in the entertainment area. The budgets are similar, especially for the biggest releases, and the development times are in the same general range. The gains are similarly impressive and the media attention is getting similar levels for the most important launches, like GTA IV, Modern Warfare 2 or New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Wii. And both the world of movies and that of videogames are now dominated by huge franchises, big explosions, macho main characters and the 18 to 45 male demographic.One huge area where the two industries are still radically different is availability of product. Most indie movie releases, until they make it really big like Slumdog Millionaire or Juno, are only offered in a few theaters...

Adam Lambert ‘For Your Entertainment’ Album Review

It’s extremely hard and close to unfathomable to speak of a music album as of an “instant classic” when it’s not even out in stores, yet this is precisely what’s happening with Adam Lambert’s debut material “For Your Entertainment.” Due out on November 23, Lambert’s first studio album is a wonderful collection of intoxicating tracks oscillating from insane electropop / disco / rock to powerful, emotion-laden ballads hailing the arrival of the next glam rock idol. Very high hopes were pinned on Lambert and this was even before he finished off last season of American Idol – and surprisingly came out in second place – which also means that a lot of pressure was put on him to deliver a debut album that would break the mold. In this respect, he more than delivers, with this piece that is mainstream pop yet not, by being so uniquely overboard and beautifully eccentric. Critics agree Lambert has literally taken a page out of music history with “FYE,” a very versatile album that swerves from one sound to another with ease from track to track, taking the listener into that glitzy world where Glambert, the unleashed diva, reigns supreme. For starters, suffice to say that all comparisons between Adam Lambert and Freddie Mercury are not w...

Aptina Wants Micron's Fab as a CIS Production Site

Currently unable to quickly respond to short lead-time orders from customers, Aptina imaging seems to be interested in transforming Micron's Japanese semiconductor manufacturing plant into a producer of CMOS image sensors. Aptina CEO David Orton stressed the fact that the cause for this current inability was in no way due to insufficient capacity on Aptina's side, instead saying that its clients were the ones placing too many short lead-time orders. Just like the Italy-based fab owned by the same company, the Japan-based semiconductor manufacturer is capable of producing 40,000 wafers per month. While trying to preserve and, perhaps even improve, yields, the plans are intended to cross from the current 8-inch process manufacturing to putting together 90nm process, according to Orton.As the president and managing director of Aptina, Greg Helton, reveals, there is another reason why the Japanese fab is the intended setup. Thus, it would be in the company's best interest to build closer relationships with the many Japan-based DSC (digital still camera) makers, namely Canon, Nikon, Sony and Panasonic. Aptina imaging is an independent CMOS imaging leader, which serves all of the major mobile handset OEMs and module integrators. It is has design wins with virtually every PC camera manufacturer a...

YouTube to Add Support for IPv6

The underlying technology powering the Internet is going through a major overhaul as IPv6 is slowly replacing the aging IPv4, the most widely used networking protocol. The adoption rate has been slow but more and more companies are implementing the new protocol. Google is already one of the biggest adopters and is now working on introducing support to its hugely popular video site YouTube. Implementing the new protocol isn't a big technical hurdle, Google says, but YouTube is one of the biggest and most heavily trafficked websites, so the company isn't setting any hard deadlines for the moment. "YouTube is the IPv6 team's number one priority right now," Erik Kline, IPv6 software engineer at Google, told NetworkWorld. "We haven't said anything about the timeframe for that yet." Google's IPv6 team has already implemented the protocol for many of the company's online proprieties like its search engine, Alerts, Docs, Finance, Gmail, Health, iGoogle, News, Reader, Picasa, Maps and Wave. However, it's still pretty much a provisionary measure for now as few people access the sites through IPv6 at the moment largely due to the fact that the feature has been implemented by only a small number of ISPs. "It's somewhere on the order of the 0.2% range of Google users have IPv6 access," Lorenzo Colitti, network engineer a...

Learn the Specifics of Your System

Nero InfoTool is another instrument in Nero 9 Reloaded toolbox. It is tailored to offer the user the most important information on installed drives, inserted discs or detailed data on drive properties (buffer size, firmware, serial number, production date or DVD region code). Moreover, the application extends its talents to briefing the user on hardware configuration and burning software currently ready on the system.If you are familiar with this instrument in the new Nero suite, you'll notice that very little has changed in terms of looks. Leaving some design brush up aside, all the components of the last version are the same.Just like in the previous edition of the application, a total of eight tabs are ready to offer you relevant information about the burning software, system configuration, drive and disc properties. There is also the HD readiness area, which gives you a heads up about the system's capabilities to render high definition videos.Before accessing all the data, a brief assessing session needs to take place. The duration of the scan depends on the type of disc inserted in the optical unit and its quality. In some cases, when smart USBs are detected, Nero InfoTool will try to test the speeds of the virtual optical unit, which may come as a downfall as it should skip that test. However, you can manually by...

Facebook Sued for Scamming Users via Game Ads

Recently, yet another suit hit Facebook, and this time it is caused by various game advertisements that scammed numerous users. The second defendant in this federal class-action lawsuit is Zynga, and the two companies are requested to pay more than $5 million to the social network users who had been scammed through the displayed game ads.This action was predicted by several voices over the web, since the representatives of a law firm from Sacramento, Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, announced that they were searching for people who had been scammed by the same ads while playing Mafia Wars or Farmville. They were trying to gather enough data to file a class-action suit, and when they found the appropriate information, they went to the federal district court.In all fairness, it is worth mentioning that neither of the two defendants is the real originator of the advertisements in question. The situation appeared because third-party companies place ads within the Zynga games listed on Facebook, thus generating great revenue for the two companies. The scams are conducted by encouraging users to sign up for unauthorized cell phone charges, as well as highly priced mail order products (such as CDs), which are presented as “free,” “free trials,” or parts of “online quizzes.”

Living Your Life by a Book

I don't think it's a secret that I have something against organized religion. I've never tried to keep that a secret, and I've struggled to explain why throughout my articles. In my quest to discover people with similar points of view to my own, I came across some fairly interesting speakers, as well as upon some conspiracy theorists that believe everyone is out to get them. This duality in people who shun religious beliefs resembles the duality of religious people as well. More accurately, the duality of various religious groups. We shall call them the moderates and the fundamentalists, or fanatics. The former group is the mass. We will stick to talking about groups in the United States, because here the divide is the most visible, and almost asks to be analyzed. In the US, at this point, it is considered OK to talk about all possible subjects, including politics, sports, climate change and leisure time, but this freedom of expression stops when it comes to speaking about religion. This is considered a taboo, something pertaining to each individual, and which cannot, and should not be changed. I will cover why this is limiting, and detrimental to society later on.The second group is smaller, but also more dedicated and subversive. The fanatics are all the more dangerous because they actually believe that they are right. The...

Verizon Deploys New Cell Site in Woodland Hills, CA

Mobile phone carrier Verizon Wireless recently announced that it deployed a new cell site in Woodland Hills, CA, meant to offer improved 3G connectivity to residents, businesses and visitors in Los Angeles County. According to the company, the new roll-out should improve the coverage from Santa Rita Street South to Rosita Street, and from Corbin Avenue East to Vanalden Avenue. The new cell site deployed by Verizon will enable it to offer both increase network coverage and enhanced capacity in the area, which will result in “more calls, emails, text and picture messages for locals, plus expanded wireless access to the web.” The wireless carrier noted that it invested a great amount of money in improvements brought to its 3G network in California, so as to be able to offer better Mobile Broadband and email services to its customers. In addition, Verizon also said that small businesses could benefit from a series of attractive features when choosing its Mobile Broadband service, including:- An online forum to share experiences and connect with other business owners- Access to Small Business Specialists in each Verizon Wireless store- Discounts and promotions to help businesses stretch their budgets- Summaries of mobile solutions like email, wireless Internet and Push t...

Blu-ray Demand Set to Grow over the Next Three Years

In tune with making the top 10 CEA Christmas wish list, where they got eighth place, Blu-ray players, along with Blu-ray disks, are expected to see a surge in popularity over the next three years, after the volume sales of BD movie disks rose during this year's first three quarters by 183%, 200% and 180%, respectively, compared to the same periods in 2008. This phenomenon is directly tied to the popularity surge of High-Definition media and home theater PCs. Taiwanese Blu-ray player manufacturers recently held a forum in Taipei regarding the sales of such products. After they recognized the significant sales surge, the participating companies reached the conclusion that, in tune with the growing demand, prices would drop accordingly until a 25GB Blu-ray ROM disk cost a mere $1.50 per piece, compared to the current price of $5 in the US market. Similar price drops are expected to occur on the European and Japanese markets. HD media files can only be stored in their true quality on Blu-ray disks, and such drives are also the only ones capable of HD media playback (unless the files are copied on a high-end system). HD quality is also the only one suitable for viewing on home theater personal computers, since normal-quality video will suffer a significant drop in detail when played on large displays. By...

Proyecto reforma salud pasa primera prueba Senado EEUU -

Reuters - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Una extensa reforma al sistema de salud de Estados Unidos superó el sábado su primer obstáculo en el Senado en una reñida votación, en la que 60 demócratas se alinearon con el partido para permitir el inicio del debate sobre los mayores cambios al sistema en décadas.

Casi 8.900 muertos en 20 años por violencias israelo-palestinas (ONG)

AFP - JERUSALÉN (AFP) - Las violencias israelo-palestinas han dejado cerca de 8.90O muertos en dos décadas, la gran mayoría palestinos, según un balance publicado este domingo por la organización israelí de de defensa de derechos humanos B'Tselem, coincidiendo con los 20 años de su creación.

China: por lo menos 42 muertos en accidente minero en China

AFP - PEKÍN (AFP) - Una explosión de grisú el sábado en una mina de carbón del nordeste de China causó al menos 42 muertos, un balance que podría aumentar mientras varias decenas de personas siguen prisioneras en la mina, a varios cientos de metros de profundidad, según los medios oficiales chinos.

Activistas piden el cierre de la Escuela militar de las Américas en EE.UU.

Agencia EFE -

Washington, 21 nov (EFE).- Cientos de activistas se concentraron hoy a las puertas de la base militar de Fort Benning (EE.UU.) para pedir el cierre de la Escuela de las Américas, a la que acusan de haber entrenado a oficiales que participaron en el golpe de Estado en Honduras.

La discográfica Motown celebra su 50 aniversario

Agencia EFE -

Washington, 21 nov (EFE).- Aretha Franklin, The Temptations y Stevie Wonder participarán en la gala con la que esta noche la mítica discográfica estadounidense Motown, que contribuyó a catapultar a la fama a artistas como Michael Jackson y Diana Ross, celebrará su 50 aniversario.