HELSINKI (Reuters) – Struggling Finnish cellphone maker Nokia unveiled on Monday two new cellphone models, the Asha 205 and the Asha 206, pricing both models at around $ 62, excluding subsidies and taxes.
Both models will go on sale this quarter.
Nokia unveiled a new Slam feature which allows consumers to share multimedia content like photos and videos with nearby friends almost instantly through Bluetooth connection.
(Reporting By Tarmo Virki)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
LONDON (Reuters) – The Rolling Stones turned back the clock in style on Sunday with their first concert in five years, strutting and swaggering their way through hit after familiar hit to celebrate 50 years in business.
Before a packed crowd of 20,000 at London‘s O2 Arena, they banished doubts that age may have slowed down one of the world’s greatest rock and roll bands, as lead singer Mick Jagger launched into “I Wanna Be Your Man”.
More than two hours of high-octane, blues-infused rock later, and they were still going strong with an impressive encore comprising “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”.
In between there were guest appearances from American R&B singer-songwriter Mary J. Blige, who delivered a rousing duet with Jagger on “Gimme Shelter” and guitarist Jeff Beck who provided the power chords for “I’m Going Down”.
Former Rolling Stones Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor were also back in the fold, performing with the regular quartet of Jagger, Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards on guitar and Charlie Watts on drums for the first time in 20 years.
“It took us 50 years to get from Dartford to Greenwich!” said Jagger, referring to their roots just a few miles from the venue in southeast London. “But you know, we made it. What’s even more amazing is that you’re still coming to see us…we can’t thank you enough.”
The Sunday night gig was the first of two at the O2 Arena before the band crosses the Atlantic to play three dates in the United States.
The mini-tour is the culmination of a busy few months of events, rehearsals and recordings to mark 50 years since the rockers first took to the stage at the Marquee Club on London‘s Oxford Street in July, 1962.
There has been a photo album, two new songs, a music video, a documentary film, a blitz of media appearances and a handful of warm-up gigs in Paris.
“STYLE AND PANACHE”
The reunion nearly did not happen. One factor behind the long break since their record-breaking “A Bigger Bang” tour in 2007 has been Wood’s struggle with alcohol addiction, while Jagger and Richards also fell out over comments the guitarist made about the singer in a 2010 autobiography.
But they eventually buried the hatchet, and Richards joked in a recent interview: “We can’t get divorced – we’re doing it for the kids!”
Critics were fulsome in their praise of the first comeback gig.
“Keith Richards has said that the beauty of rock and roll is that every night a different band might be the world’s greatest. Well, last night at the O2 Arena, it was the turn of the Rolling Stones themselves to lay claim to the title they invented,” wrote Neil McCormick of the Daily Telegraph.
“And they did it with some style and panache.”
The big question on every fan’s lips is whether the five concerts lead to a world tour and even new material. The Stones sang their two new tracks “Doom and Gloom” and “One More Shot”, which appeared on their latest greatest hits album “GRRR!”.
Richards has hinted that the five concerts ending at the Newark Prudential Center in the United States on December 15 would not be the last.
“Once the juggernaut starts rolling, it ain’t gonna stop,” he told Rolling Stone magazine. “So without sort of saying definitely yes – yeah. We ain’t doing all this for four gigs!”
The band has come in for criticism from fans about the high price of tickets to the shows – they ranged from around 95 pounds ($ 150) to up to 950 pounds for a VIP seat.
The flamboyant veterans, whose average age is 68, have defended the costs, saying the shows were expensive to put on, although specialist music publication Billboard reported the band would earn $ 25 million from the four shows initially announced. A fifth was added later.
“Everybody all right there in the cheap seats,” Jagger asked pointedly as he looked high to his left at the arena. “They’re not really cheap though are they? That’s the trouble.”
Among the biggest cheers on the night were for classics including “Wild Horses”, “It’s Only Rock and Roll” and “Start Me Up”.
There was even time for the odd reference to their advancing years.
“Good to see you all,” said Richards with a mischievous grin. “Good to see anybody.”
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Monday designated Elisse Walter as chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but it's unclear if the Democratic commissioner will be the permanent replacement for outgoing Mary Schapiro.
Walter, who has served on the SEC since July 2008, will take over the reins of the agency after Schapiro steps down on Dec. 14. Schapiro announced her resignation Monday.
Obama thanked Schapiro for her "steadfast leadership."
"When Mary agreed to serve nearly four years ago, she was fully aware of the difficulties facing the SEC and our economy as a whole," Obama said in a written statement.
"But she accepted the challenge, and today, the SEC is stronger and our financial system is safer and better able to serve the American people – thanks in large part to Mary's hard work," he said.
Obama can designate a current commissioner as chairman. But he must nominate a permanent replacement, who then has to be confirmed by the Senate.
After Schapiro departs next month, the SEC will have two Democrats and two Republicans, making it difficult to pass any controversial measures.
The White House did not indicate if Walter was among those being considered for the nomination.
Walter served as chairwoman for a short period in January 2009 after the departure of former Chairman Christopher Cox, before Schapiro was sworn in.
Walter, a former executive at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the National Assn. of Securities Dealers, has been mentioned as a permanent replacement for Schapiro.
Obama said he was "confident that Elisse's years of experience will serve her well in her new position."
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SEC chief Mary Schapiro to step down
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The Chicago Bears were coming off a short practice week and trying to have a short memory when they hosted the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday at Soldier Field.
After Monday night’s demoralizing 32-7 loss at San Francisco, the Bears were counting on the return from a concussion of quarterback Jay Cutler to re-energize the team on both sides of the ball.
The Bears looked energized early, taking an 18-3 lead on a 1-yard touchdown run by Michael Bush, his second of the day. On the extra point, holder Adam Podlesh took the snap from center and ran in for the two-point conversion with 4:01 left until halftime.
The Bears had gone up 10-3 on a 47-yard field goal by Robbie Gould with 32 seconds left in the first quarter. The drive covered 25 yards in 10 plays. The drive featured a taunting penalty against a feisty Cutler for flipping the ball at the Vikings' A.J. Jefferson.
The Vikings' Walsh had a 30-yard field goal attempt blocked by Julius Peppers with 12 minutes left until halftime.
Devin Hester was ruled out for the game in the second quarter after suffering a concussion, the Bears said.
The Bears' defense got back to its turnover-producing ways early when Adrian Peterson fumbled and Charles Tillman recovered at the Vikings' 34. Nick Roach forced the fumble. The Bears converted the opportunity into a 1-yard touchdown by Bush with 7:17 left in the first quarter to take a 7-3 lead. The drive included a 15-yard pass from Cutler to tight end Kellen Davis to the Minnesota 1.
The Bears lost the ball on their opening series when Matt Forte fumbled with 13:07 left in the first period. The fumble was recovered by Chad Greenway at the Bears' 28. The drive resulted in a 40-yard field goal by Blair Walsh.
After dropping two straight, the Bears needed to fend off the Vikings, who entered one game back at 6-4. And the Bears were trying to at least keep pace with the Packers as leaders of the NFC North. The Bears and Vikings will meet twice in three weeks. On Dec. 9, the Bears travel to the Metrodome.
Vikings running back Adrian Peterson reportedly missed the team bus to Soldier Field, but hailed a taxi cab in front of the team hotel and made it to the stadium at 10:23 a.m. for the noon start, according to the NFL Network. The Vikings' protocol calls for players to arrive no less than two hours before kickoff.
One of the many serious flaws in the Bears' loss at San Francisco was an offensive line that allowed backup quarterback Jason Campbell to be sacked six times. The Bears since have demoted right tackle Gabe Carimi and replaced him in the starting lineup with Jonathan Scott.
“We could talk about chip help and giving this guy some help,” Bears offensive coordinator Mike Tice said. “There are a couple of things that I know are right and here’s a couple of them: In a season when you run three-step drops, you should have no sacks at the end of the season, and to give up three in one game is totally unacceptable. Secondly, it’s hard to chip bull rushes because a guy is down the middle of a guy, and at a certain point a player needs to grit his teeth, buck up and win a fight. So those are a couple things from the protection issues from the game.”
The Bears entered Sunday’s game having scored one touchdown the previous two weeks.
“The concerns offensively -- the lack of rhythm, the lack of the fast starts, the lack of success on first down -- are still haunting us,” Tice said. “We felt like we had a decent plan, going in, playing some smash-mouth, getting to that third-and-medium, giving ourselves a chance to convert to stay out of those long situations and giving those nickel pass rushers a chance to tee off. That didn’t happen in that football game. So where do we go from here?”
Questions about the competency of the Bears' offensive line linger.
“We’re evaluating our guys to see what’s going to give us the best chance to succeed and do some of the things we’re trying to accomplish offensively,” Tice said.
The Bears have another NFC home game next Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks.
fmitchell@tribune.com
Twitter@kicker34
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – South Korean rap star Psy‘s music video “Gangnam Style” on Saturday became the most watched item ever posted to YouTube with more than 800 million views, edging past Canadian teen star Justin Bieber‘s 2-year-old video for his song “Baby.”
The milestone was the latest pop culture victory for Psy, 34, a portly rap singer known for his slicked-back hair and comic dance style who has become one of the most unlikely global stars of 2012.
Psy succeeded with a video that generated countless parodies and became a media sensation. He gained more fame outside his native country than the more polished singers in South Korea‘s so-called K-Pop style who have sought to win international audiences.
YouTube, in a post on its Trends blog, said “Gangnam Style” on Saturday surpassed the site’s previous record holder, Bieber’s 2010 music video “Baby,” and by mid-day “Gangnam Style” had reached 805 million views, compared to 803 million for “Baby.” Within a few hours, “Gangnam Style” had gone up to more than 809 million views.
“Gangnam Style” was first posted to YouTube in July, and by the following month it began to show huge popularity on YouTube with audiences outside of South Korea.
“It’s been a massive hit at a global level unlike anything we’ve ever seen before,” said the YouTube blog.
The blog also said the “velocity” of the video’s popularity has been unprecedented for YouTube.
In his “Gangnam Style” video the outlandishly dressed, sunglass-wearing Psy raps in Korean and dances in the style of an upper-crust person riding an invisible horse.
The song is named after the affluent Gangnam District of Seoul and it mocks the rampant consumerism of that suburb. Psy, whose real name is Park Jai-sang, is no stranger to wealth as his father is chairman of a South Korean semiconductor company.
His parents sent him to business school in the United States but he confesses that he bought musical instruments with his tuition money. He later graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston and won fame in South Korea with his 2001 debut album.
The viral success of “Gangnam Style” on YouTube also has translated into strong record sales. In late September, the song jumped to the top of the British pop charts and it also has sold well in other countries.
Popular parodies of the “Gangnam Style” video included one featuring the University of Oregon’s duck mascot, and another done in the “Star Trek” language Klingon.
The official YouTube view count for Gangnam Style represents only the figure for the original video posted to the site, but copycat versions, parodies and videos by people commenting on the song have been posted to the site and elsewhere on the Web.
Counting all those different versions, “Gangnam Style” and its related videos have more than 2.2 billion views across the Internet, said Matt Fiorentino, spokesman for the online video tracking firm Visible Measures.
“Without the dance, I don’t think it would have been as big as it is,” Fiorentino said. “And the other thing is, Psy has a unique sense of humor which comes through in the video. He doesn’t take himself too seriously.”
(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Bill Trott)
Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News
There's a lesson the empire builders at Big Ten Conference headquarters in Park Ridge would do well to heed if they can be convinced to stop peering out to the distant horizon:
Growth through acquisition is fraught with peril.
"In the business world you acquire new companies and you have to deal with different corporate cultures, different priorities and so forth," Robert Arnott, chairman of Research Affiliates LLC, an investment firm, said in an interview. "Merging them is often very messy and often fails. Here you're merging two teams into an existing conference and it creates risks. … Even college football teams have different cultures, different ways of thinking about how to win and different standards."
There undoubtedly was a logic behind each acquisition as the old Sears sought to expand and diversify its corporate profile. By the time the Chicago-area company's portfolio grew to include Allstate insurance, Coldwell Banker real estate and Dean Witter Reynolds stock brokerage, it was clear the increase in size was in no way matched by an increase in strength.
Rather than an all-powerful Colossus astride many sectors at once, it was reduced to an unfocused blob, bereft of identity, covering plenty of ground but hardly standing tall. Years after shedding its far-flung holdings, Sears has yet to regain its muscle, mojo or market share.
"It's hard to find a better example of a company that lost its mission and focus in the quest for growth," Arnott said.
"(Growth) may be partly a defensive move. It may be ego driven. In the corporate arena, you certainly see that in spades," he said. "When growth is through acquisition, you have to figure out what the real motivation is. Is it synergy, the most overused word in the finance community, or is it ego?"
Adding the University of Maryland and New Jersey's Rutgers University in 2014 will push the Big Ten to 14 schools and far beyond the Midwestern territory for which it's known. But doing so may not achieve what its backers envision.
Rather than spread the conference's brand, it may merely dilute it. The fit may be corrosive, not cohesive.
There is a school of thought that this is but the latest evidence that the Big Ten is not about athletics, academics or even the Midwest. Instead, it is just a television network, the schools content providers and student-athletes talent.
As it is, the overall TV payout is said to give each of the 12 current Big Ten schools about $21 million per year. They point to the Big Ten's lucrative deals with ESPN and its own eponymous cable network, a partnership with News Corp. They note that public schools Rutgers and Maryland are near enough to New York, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., to drive a better bargain with cable carriers.
To Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany, a New Jersey native, the addition is more the result of a paradigm shift that has redrawn the college sports map over the past decade. Some conferences splinter. Others seize new turf. The result: Idaho's Boise State football team is poised to join the Big East Conference next year.
"Institutions that get together for academics or athletics have got to be cognizant that they are competing for students, they are competing for student athletes, they are competing for research dollars," Delany told reporters.
"When you see a Southern conference in the Midwest or you see a Southern conference in the Plains states or whether you see other conferences in the Midwest or Northeast, it impacts your recruitment. ... It impacts everything you do," he said. "At a certain point you get to a tipping point. The paradigm has shifted, and you decide on a strategy to basically position yourself for the next decade or half-century."
Big has always meant more than 10 in the Big Ten, an intercollegiate entity formed by seven Midwestern universities that now boasts 12 with the bookends of Penn State and Nebraska added in 1990 and last year, respectively. Last week's announcement of adding schools 13 and 14 was just a reminder that the conference has only had 10 member schools for 70 of its 116 years and won't again for the foreseeable future.
Rutgers President Robert Barchi said his school looked "forward as much to the collaboration and interaction we're going to have as institutions as we do to what I know will be really outstanding competition on our field of play."
But make no mistake, the Big Ten was born out of sports, specifically football. A seven-school 1896 meeting at Chicago's Palmer House had Northwestern among those still stinging from a scathing Harper's Weekly critique of college sports abuses, the Tribune reported at the time.
A prohibition on allowing scholarship and fellowship students to compete was shot down. But "a move towards the coordination of Faculty committees" in terms of standards and enforcement passed and the precursor to the Big Ten was born.
Along the way, the conference has added member schools and come to recognize that the Big Ten's image has much to say about how those institutions are perceived. Scandals already are no stranger to the Big Ten. But whether you play in a stadium or on Wall Street, the bigger one gets, the bigger target one becomes.
"Whoever's biggest draws scrutiny," said Arnott, co-author of a research paper, "The Winners Curse: Too Big to Succeed." "That means politicians, regulators, the general public generally don't root for the biggest. They look to take them down a notch, so it's harder to succeed as the largest. It's also harder to move the dial and move from success to success as you get really big."
Everyone talks about becoming too big to fail, but there's also too big to scale, companies that are unable to capitalize on the efficiencies of their increased size ostensibly because they are so big that they cannot be managed adequately.
"People talk about economies of scale. There are also vast diseconomies of scale, mostly in bureaucracies," Arnott said. "The more people you have involved, the more people you have who feel they have to have their views reflected in whatever's done. So you wind up with innovation by committee."
That's deadly. That's why companies break up, citing the need to get smaller so they can grow.
"If you break up companies into operating entities that are more nimble," Arnott said, "the opportunities to grow are no longer hamstrung by centralized bureaucracies that have to pursue synergies that don't exist."
Size matters in all fields of play. Sometimes smaller is better.
philrosenthal@tribune.com
Twitter @phil_rosenthal
|
A Florida woman suspected of armed robbery and attempted murder was arrested Friday night at Chicago's Greyhound bus station downtown.
Nicole Marie Thomas, 30, of the 14000 block of Choctaw Village Drive in Tampa, was arrested about 9:55 p.m. in the 600 block of West Harrison Street. She was ordered held with no bail in bond court this morning.
Someone who knew she was wanted contacted police in Florida with a detailed physical description and told police when and where she'd be arriving in Chicago, according to authorities.
Officers met her at the bus station and arrested her.
She's wanted out of Hillsborough County on the warrant, which lists an offense date of Nov. 11.
A spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office wasn’t available.
pnickeas@tribune.com
Twitter: @peternickeas
Hate your job? Want to leave without giving two weeks notice? Thanks to Twitter, it’s never been easier to get fired, says Rob Lammie at Mental Floss
Step 1: Drunk tweet
As any Spring Break partier knows, drinking impairs your judgment. It seems to have also impaired the judgment of Major League pitcher-turned-sports-radio-host Mike Bacsik, who put on quite a show during a San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks NBA game in April 2010. While watching the game, Bacsik bragged that he was “About 12 deep and some shots.” He proceeded to unleash a string of insults aimed at NBA commissioner David Stern, accused the refs of fixing the game, and even threatened to blow up the NBA’s offices. But the one that really got people riled up came after the Mavericks lost the game, when Bacsik tweeted:
SEE MORE: Why popular kids make more money as adults
@MikeBacsik: “Congrats to all the dirty mexicans in San Antonio.”
After sobering up, Bacsik deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology. But it was too little, too late. Numerous people complained to his radio station, which first suspended Bacsik and later fired him. After his dismissal, he told ESPN Dallas, “When you tweet like that, it’s not a playful, harmless thing… I’m very sorry and will try my best for my actions to speak louder than my tweets.”
Step 2: Break the law (or just anger your governor)
Twitter has become a great tool for politicians to connect to the voting public. Former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, for one, has really embraced the technology as a way to share his opinions and views. For example, in December 2009, he sent out a tweet saying:
@HaleyBarbour: “Glad the Legislature recognizes our dire fiscal situation. Look forward to hearing their ideas on how to trim expenses.”
Jennifer Carter, one of his Twitter followers who worked for the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMC), read this message and offered up a suggestion on how Governor Barbour could personally save the taxpayers money:
“Schedule regular medical exams like everyone else instead of paying UMC employees overtime to do it when clinics are usually closed.”
This “Oh, snap!” moment referred to an incident that had occurred three years earlier, when the governor requested the medical center open on a Saturday, when they were normally closed, and bring in a staff of 15-20 people who were paid overtime to administer his annual check-up. This happened before Carter worked for UMC and she was simply repeating what she had been told by other employees.
SEE MORE: Does a shaved head give you an advantage in corporate America?
The governor’s office tracked down Carter and made a formal complaint to UMC, saying Carter had violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a privacy law that states no employee of a medical facility can reveal any information about a person’s “protected health information.” Some argued that Carter didn’t violate HIPAA, since she didn’t actually give out any information about the health of the governor. However, others believe that simply saying the governor had even visited a doctor is a violation.
Semantics aside, UMC administrators said it was a violation, so they suspended Carter for three days without pay and strongly suggested she resign to avoid further disciplinary action, which she did.
SEE MORE: Facebook’s new jobs board: Is LinkedIn toast?
Step 3: Have an NSFW lifestyle
St. Louis-based blogger “The Beautiful Kind” had been writing online about her polyamorous sex life for years. Knowing that not everyone would agree with her chosen lifestyle, she was always very careful about maintaining her anonymity, especially when it came to the workplace. So when she signed up for Twitter, she wanted to be anonymous there as well. She thought that, thanks to the similarities between the two, it was like signing up for an online message board — you supplied your real name to the website privately, but could choose to be known publicly by your username only. But when she logged in for the first time and saw that, not only did it show her username (@TBK365), but also her real name on her profile, she immediately went back and removed it.
Thinking she was now safely anonymous, she used Twitter to promote her blog and to discuss sexually explicit topics with her followers. However, when her boss at the non-profit group where she worked was told by upper management to do a Google search of all employees, TBK’s Twitter account information — with her real name still associated — came up on the Twitter tracking site topsy.com.
The next day, TBK was called into her boss’ office and fired on the spot. Afterwards, her former boss sent her a letter saying, “While I know you are a good worker and an intelligent person, I hope you try to understand that our employees are held to a different standard. When it comes to private matters, such as one’s sexual explorations and preferences, our employees must keep their affairs private.” Because Missouri is an at-will employment state, meaning employers can fire someone for just about any reason, TBK was SOL.
Step 4: Question company policy
When California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) traded in their standard white shirts for black ones, employee Tim Chantarangsu wasn’t happy with the change. So he tweeted @calpizzakitchen his opinion:
@traphik: “black button ups are the lamest s**t ever!!!”
He didn’t expect anyone to notice or care, but the next day he received a direct message from corporate asking what restaurant he worked for. He knew better than to respond, but they tracked him down anyway and he was fired. They not only referenced his tweet about the shirts, but also an earlier one where he had said he was getting ready to work at “Calipornia Skeetza Kitchen.”
Little did they know that Chantarangsu is kind of a big deal on another social website, YouTube. Under the name TimothyDeLaGhetto2, Chantarangsu has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, accounting for over 10,500,000 views of his videos at the time. Of course he made a YouTube video telling his Twitter story and it has been viewed well more than 100,000 times. Shortly after the incident, he asked his followers to bombard CPK’s Twitter account with RTs (re-tweets) of his offending message, which they were more than happy to oblige.
Step 5: Make a celebrity look bad
During his five years on the job, Jon Barrett-Ingels had served a lot of celebrities as a waiter at Barney Greengrass, an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills. One day, Jane Adams, star of the HBO series Hung, came in and had lunch to the tune of $ 13.44. Unfortunately, when the bill came, Adams realized she had left her wallet in the car. Ingels knew who she was, so he told her she could run out and grab it and come back. The actress left, but didn’t return. Instead, someone from her agency called the next day and paid the bill. However, they didn’t leave a tip. Ingels had recently signed up for Twitter and so, his sixth tweet to his 40 followers said:
@PapaBarrett: Jane Adams, star of HBO series “Hung” skipped out on a $ 13.44 check. Her agent called and payed the following day. NO TIP!!!”
Over the next few weeks, Ingels started using Twitter to send out a few harmless observations about celebrities that came in to eat — mainly what they ordered or what they looked like that day. Then, out of the blue, Jane Adams came back to the restaurant. According to Ingels’ blog, she was clearly upset and begrudgingly slapped $ 3 on the bar for Ingels as a tip. Surprised, Ingels told the actress she really didn’t have to do that, but her gesture was appreciated. She allegedly replied with, “My friend read about it on Twitter!” before storming off. Adams complained about the tweet to management, so someone from Barney’s corporate started following Ingels on Twitter to see what he was up to. After reading his celebrity tweets, it didn’t take long before they gave him the boot.
Step 6: Don’t get hired in the first place
If you’ve followed steps 1 – 5 and you still have a job, here’s the ultimate way to make sure Twitter will keep you from gainful employment.
When recent college grad Skye Riley heard back from Cisco, the computer networking giant, about her job application, one of her first instincts was to tweet about it. Unfortunately, this is what she tweeted:
@theconnor: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.
The unfortunate part? An employee of Cisco, Tim Levad, came across her post while doing a Twitter search for Cisco. He replied to her by saying:
@timmylevad: Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.
Riley’s story was the tweet heard round the world. It became a hot topic on tech blogs for weeks afterwards, with writers calling it the “Cisco Fatty” incident. She later claimed that the tweet was taken out of context — that part of her message was referring to a well-paid internship she had turned down — but it appears the damage had already been done. While only she and Cisco know what really happened, according to her online resume, she has never worked for the company.
— Rob Lammie
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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Gay cowboy drama “Brokeback Mountain” may have been considered a risky film to make, but director Ang Lee said his new movie, “Life of Pi,” a 3D exploration of faith about a boy stranded on a boat with a Bengal tiger, is his riskiest yet.
The film, which was released in U.S. theaters this week, is adapted from Yann Martel‘s best-selling novel of the same name and was once considered impossible to make.
Oscar-winning Taiwanese director Lee, 58, took on the laborious task of using computer-generated imagery to bring the sensational plot to the big screen, taking a year and a half just to edit the film together.
The director talked to Reuters about the film’s themes, technical barriers and casting an unknown actor in the lead.
Q. Why was “Life of Pi” considered unfilmable?
A. “Because you cannot make the tiger do everything you want to do, you have to use digital. A digital animal, up until two years ago, was not totally realistic yet, let alone in 3D, and then water is pretty difficult.”
Q. Was this your most difficult filming experience yet?
A. “Oh yes. And it was also the longest…there was the technical difficulty and then it is a big movie. And it was across continents, I finally decided to shoot most of it in Taiwan, but we also had to go to India to shoot for two to three weeks. Because you can’t fake Pondicherry, and Munnar. And then we have scenes in Canada.”
Q. But Brokeback Mountain was a risky film too?
A. “No, that wasn’t for me. At least when I made it, I thought it was strictly arthouse and few people would see it. And it’s a lot cheaper (to make). So I didn’t care…And then I got nervous, ‘Oh they are going to lynch me, making a gay cowboy movie, that will go into a shopping mall.’”
Q. It was only after you made it you realized that?
A. “Yes, I was afraid. I was looking around when I walked, when I would go home, to see if anybody was following me. Once it hit the shopping mall I was nervous, actually. My brother is a distributor in Taiwan and I told him not to buy it. He hates me to this day, he is still babbling about it.”
Q. Why choose unknown Suraj Sharma to play Pi?
A. “I wanted someone authentic, and no bad habits, that means you have to train them from the start. “
Q. Why did you replace Tobey Maguire and reshoot his scenes with the little-known Rafe Spall?
A. “It was a small part, and he is a big movie star. He is a good old friend of mine and he would do this for nothing, for me. But he is not doing anything (in the role), he is just sitting there listening most of the time. It becomes a little distracting I think.”
Q. How does the film explore spirituality?
A. “To me, faith can be elusive, but .. As a Taoist would say, ‘That’s the apple’s truth.’ The source of all the material comes from nothingness, illusion is working more on things you can prove. That’s the principle, the essence of life, it is actually an illusion, not immaterial. That’s worth pursuing. So illusion is not nothing. In a way, that is the truth.”
“Sometimes I feel (illusions) are more of life’s essence, I can trust them more than real life that is full of deceit and covering up.”
Q. Did exploring faith encourage you to make this?
“The book is fascinating, it talks about faith. But it didn’t make me believe in God or anything…I didn’t go to church or a temple after that. When I started making the movie, you do feel faith embody you and carry you through. But when I picked the subject, and chose to do the book, it was actually more storytelling in my mind. The value of storytelling. How people share a story. Because a story has structure, it has a beginning, middle and end. It seems to have meaning, where life has not.”
Q. Do you practice any religion?
A. “No, my mother is a baptized Christian, so she made me go to church every Sunday, and I prayed four times a day until I was 14. And at lunchtime kids at school would giggle at my praying…I stopped praying. And two weeks later, nothing happened to me, so I didn’t pick it up again.”
“I am not particularly religious. But I think we do face the question of where God is, why we are created and where does life go, why we exist. That sort of thing. And it is very hard to talk about it these days, because it cannot be proven. It is hard to discuss it rationally.”
Q. Do you consider yourself spiritual?
A. “I hate to think life is just facts and laws. And I am a filmmaker, I am a sensitive person, I like to think it is spiritual, so I like people to be more in that way. I think life without spirit is in the dark, it is absurd. Call it illusion or call it faith, whatever you call it, we have emotional attachment to the unknown. We yearn to find out. That is human nature. It can be, in a way, unrequited love, we don’t know. I don’t have a particular God I pray to, except sometimes a movie god.” (laughs)
(Reporting by Christine Kearney, editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Andrew Hay)
Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News
But there was little evidence that the chanting disrupted holiday shoppers.
Steven Restivo, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores, said the chain had done its "best Black Friday event ever" despite protests organized by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in Chicago and other cities.
At a Walmart in Chicago's Chatham neighborhood on the south side, only one of the store's 500 employees took part in the demonstration, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer said. "Almost all the folks you'll see protesting today are not Walmart associates," Restivo said. "I guess you can't believe everything you read in a union press release."
According to the union, protests took place in Miami and Washington, D.C., with additional events planned at Midwestern and Southern stores.
Walmart has so far avoided a union presence, which has become cumbersome for competitors like Jewel-Osco and Dominick's Finer Foods. Those chains have been closing stores as Walmart has expanded locally.
Separately Friday, dozens of members of the Workers Organizing Committee of Chicago and its supporters marched from the Loop to the Magnificent Mile to demand a $15 minimum wage and union contracts for downtown workers. Organized on November 15, the union has about 150 members and has received financial support from Service Employees International Union, Action Now and Stand Up Chicago.
Deborah Sims, marching Friday, said she worked at Macy's for 12 years, eventually making $13 an hour, before losing her job during the recession. She was rehired last holiday season, but at $8.50 an hour, with no benefits.
Sims said she expects retailers to turn to younger, less-experienced workers because "$8.25 an hour is going to look good to them."
Macy's did not respond to a request for comment.
Peter Gill, a spokesman for the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, called the demand for a $15 minimum wage dangerous "because people are out looking for jobs and it's tough in this economy."
He explained that if retailers were forced to nearly double the starting hourly wage, "you're going to have to cut the number of employees."
Reuters contributed to this story.
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