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Friday, June 21, 2013

'Sopranos' co-star: Gandolfini was a great actor

Celebs

Randee Dawn TODAY contributor

21 hours ago

James Gandolfini will long be remembered by fans, friends, co-stars and critics for his indelible portrayal of Tony Soprano on HBO's "The Sopranos." On Wednesday, New York Times TV writer Bill Carter and "Sopranos" co-star Federico Castelluccio joined TODAY's Matt Lauer to share some of their memories and to assess the late actor's lasting impact.

"He was a soft-spoken guy, but a warm guy," said Carter. "When he hugged you, it was genuine."

Lauer quoted from a statement given by "Sopranos" creator David Chase that noted that "a great deal of genius resided in those sad eyes," a statement Castelluccio, who played Furio on the series and was a friend of Gandolfini's, agreed with. "I couldn't have said it better myself," he said. "James Gandolfini was one of the greatest actors of our time.... He was a really well-nuanced actor."

Still, both agreed that Gandolfini battled demons, and once ended up in rehab for drug addiction. "He did have some problems dealing with his fame," said Carter. "He believed himself to be just a guy who emerged with a career he didn't expect."

Remembered Castelluccio, it wasn't unusual for Gandolfini to disappear for days at a time while making the show. One particular scene in which Furio wants to kill Tony prompted such a vanishing. "No one knew where he was for a few days," he said. "He wrote me a wonderful letter after that saying, 'You were there for me and I wasn't there for you and I apologize, but it's something I needed to do."

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/sopranos-costar-gandolfini-was-one-greatest-actors-our-time-6C10390722

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Tornado warning extended near Tucumcari

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for parts of Colfax and Union counties along the Colorado border until 7 p.m.

At 6:23 p.m. radar indicated a severe storm about 17 miles northwest of Des Moines was capable of producing a tornado.

The storm was moving east at about 20 mph.

The storm is moving through lightly populated ranching country along the Dry Cimarron River.

Earlier coverage today:

The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for parts of Quay and San Miguel counties in eastern New Mexico and extended it to 5 p.m..

The warning at 3:28 p.m. places a severe storm capable of producing a tornado nine miles northwest of Tucumcari and moving east at 20 mph.? The warning covers central Quay County and far southeastern San Miguel County.

Locations in the path of the storm include Ute Lake State Park and Logan on U.S. Highway 54.? Anyone in the path of the storm should be seeking shelter in an interior room or basement away from windows and not in a vehicle or mobile home, according to the weather service.

As of yet there are no reports of a tornado on the ground although radar signatures suggested there might be one.

The warning was set to expire at 4:15 p.m.? By then the weather service had received a report of baseball-size hail about five miles north of Tucumcari with the storm progressing toward the Texas state line.

The weather service let the warning expire about 4:45 p.m. after radar indicated the tornadic motion within the storm subsided.

An ongoing watch for severe storms in eastern New Mexico continues until 8 p.m.

Source: http://www.kasa.com/dpps/news/krqe_news/region_3/tornado-warning-issued-near-tucumcari_6284606

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Lenovo refreshes its IdeaPad laptops with Haswell and touch, designs unchanged

No, there's no new Yoga. You'll have to keep waiting on that. For now, Lenovo is undertaking a much more modest project: refreshing its existing notebooks with Haswell. First off, the current IdeaPad U310 Touch and U410 Touch are now the U330 and U430 Touch. Other than the difference in screen size (13 inches vs. 14), both will be configurable with up to Core i7 fourth-generation Core processors, along with optional SSDs and a max of 8GB of RAM. While the U330 will be offered with either 1,366 x 768 or 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, the U430 comes with a 1,600 x 900 screen (you can upgrade to 1080p there, too). Oh, and the 14-incher can be had with a 2GB NVIDIA GeForce 730M GPU. Both will be available in the third quarter, with the U330 priced at $799 and up and the U430 going for $899. Moving on, the Y410p is the new, 14-inch companion to the Y510, with up to a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of storage and dual 2GB NVIDIA GeForce 750M GPUs arranged in an SLI configuration. Screen resolution is limited to either 1,366 x 768 or 1,600 x 900, however. That's available now on Lenovo.com starting at $799.

Finishing up with the entry-level S series, we've got the 11.6-inch S210 Touch, the 14-inch S400 Touch and the 15.6-inch S500 Touch. One thing to keep in mind is that both of these have Ivy Bridge processors instead of Haswell, as it was an easy way for Lenovo to keep the cost down. Other than that, you're looking at Core i3 or i5 processors, up to 8GB of RAM, touchscreens with 1,366 x 768 resolution and hopefully some decent battery life (the batteries are so big here they create a hump around the hinge area). Additionally, the S400 and S500 will have optional discrete graphics, with AMD in the S400 and NVIDIA in the S500. Look for those in Q3, with pricing as follows: $429 for the S220, $449 for the S400 and $579 for the S500. Anyhow, since the designs here haven't changed, we didn't give these laptops the full hands-on treatment, but we did include some spec summaries in the gallery below, if you're partial to bulleted lists.

Comments

Source: Lenovo (IdeaPad Y410p product page)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/20/lenovo-u330-touch-u440-touch-y410p-s200-touch-s400-touch/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Thursday, May 23, 2013

Phthalates -- chemicals widely found in plastics and processed food -- linked to elevated blood pressure in children and teens

May 22, 2013 ? Plastic additives known as phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) are odorless, colorless and just about everywhere: They turn up in flooring, plastic cups, beach balls, plastic wrap, intravenous tubing and -- according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- the bodies of most Americans. Once perceived as harmless, phthalates have come under increasing scrutiny. A growing collection of evidence suggests dietary exposure to phthalates (which can leech from packaging and mix with food) may cause significant metabolic and hormonal abnormalities, especially during early development.

Now, new research published this Wednesday in The Journal of Pediatrics suggests that certain types of phthalates could pose another risk to children: compromised heart health. Drawing on data from a nationally representative survey of nearly 3,000 children and teens, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Washington and Penn State University School of Medicine, have documented for the first time a connection between dietary exposure to DEHP (di-2-ethyhexylphthalate), a common class of phthalate widely used in industrial food production, and elevated systolic blood pressure, a measure of pressure in the arteries when the heart contracts.

"Phthalates can inhibit the function of cardiac cells and cause oxidative stress that compromises the health of arteries. But no one has explored the relationship between phthalate exposure and heart health in children" says lead author Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, associate professor of pediatrics, environmental medicine and population health at NYU Langone Medical Center. "We wanted to examine the link between phthalates and childhood blood pressure in particular given the increase in elevated blood pressure in children and the increasing evidence implicating exposure to environmental exposures in early development of disease."

Hypertension is clinically defined as a systolic blood-pressure reading above 140 mm Hg. It's most common in people over 50 years old, although the condition is becoming increasingly prevalent among children owing to the global obesity epidemic. Recent national surveys indicate that 14 percent of American adolescents now have pre-hypertension or hypertension. "Obesity is driving the trend but our findings suggest that environmental factors may also be a part of the problem," says Dr. Trasande. "This is important because phthalate exposure can be controlled through regulatory and behavioral interventions."

Researchers from NYU School of Medicine, the University of Washington and Penn State University School of Medicine examined six years of data from a nationally representative survey of the U.S. population administered by the National Centers for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Phthalates were measured in urine samples using standard analysis techniques. Controlling for a number of potential confounders, including race, socioeconomic status, body mass index, caloric intake and activity levels, the researchers found that every three-fold increase in the level of breakdown products of DEHP in urine correlated with a roughly one-millimeter mercury increase in a child's blood pressure. "That increment may seem very modest at an individual level, but on a population level such shifts in blood pressure can increase the number of children with elevated blood pressure substantially," says Dr. Trasande. "Our study underscores the need for policy initiatives that limit exposure to disruptive environmental chemicals, in combination with dietary and behavioral interventions geared toward protecting cardiovascular health."

This research was made possible through the generous support of KiDs of NYU Langone, an organization of parents, physicians, and friends that supports children's health services at New York University Langone Medical Center through philanthropy, community service, and advocacy.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/53oy8fCzob8/130522085015.htm

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

96% War Witch

All Critics (48) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (46) | Rotten (2)

Canadian writer-director Kim Nguyen spent nearly a decade researching this docudrama about child soldiers in Africa, and the film feels as authoritative as a first-hand account.

A haunting take on unspeakably grim subject matter, shot on location in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A powerful and upsetting portrait of a young girl compelled into unimaginably horrific circumstances.

Nguyen, astonishingly, manages to wring something vaguely like a happy ending from this tragic story.

War Witch is most effective not when we are looking in on Komona but when we are inside her head.

The powerful things we expect from "War Witch" are as advertised, but what we don't expect is even better.

... driven by a remarkably natural, unaffected performance by Mwanza. And Nguyen, despite relying a little too heavily on the initial voice-over for exposition, is a confident and sensitive intelligence behind the camera.

You're likely to ponder its images, its insights into a very foreign (for most of us) location and the tragic situation of Komona (and others like her) for a long time to come.

Is it accurate depiction of Africa's child soldiers? I don't know, thank God. But it feels authentic to its very core, and that makes it as hard to forget as it is to ignore.

Brutal without turning exploitative, the result is harrowing and heartbreaking.

Nguyen creates a mesmerizing tone through his camerawork, editing, sound and the infusion of African folk imagery and ritual, but it's Mwanza's performance as Komona that makes "War Witch" feel so miraculous.

Nguyen reportedly worked on "War Witch" for a decade, and it shows in both the immediacy and authenticity of his tale, and the meticulous craft with which it's told.

Made with extremely clear-eyed restraint from harangues, sentiment, message-mongering, or anything else that would cheapen its central character's suffering and fight.

War Witch features a standout performance by Rachel Mwanza, but the supernatural visions don't really suit the film's tone and mood.

Nguyen's compassion and commitment to the issue is admirable, and at its best, War Witch is devastating.

War Witch is remarkable for the fact that it never strays into sentimentality or sensationalism.

...a love story between youngsters who are forced to become adults all too early in their lives.

This is a straight ahead essay on warfare at its worst and the survival of the human spirit at its best.

An astonishing drama set in Africa that vividly depicts the courage and resiliency of a 12-year-old girl whose spiritual gifts enable her to survive.

It is astonishing that film that contains such violence can have such a serene tone. The source of the serenity is the measured, calm narration by Komona (voice of Diane Umawahoro) that is the telling of her story to her unborn child

An exquisitely made film in direct contrast to the ugliness of its subject matter

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/war_witch/

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Xbox One has non-replaceable hard drive, external storage is supported

We had the opportunity to chat with Albert Penello, senior director of product planning at Microsoft this afternoon, who was kind enough to clarify a few topics for us regarding the recently-unveiled Xbox One. One thing we were quick to ask about was the integrated storage. 500GB sounds like a lot today -- but so did the 20GB unit in the original Xbox 360. The HDD there was, at least, replaceable. Can you do the same with its successor? Sadly, no. Hard drives in the Xbox One are non-user-serviceable, but Penello confirmed that the USB 3.0 port is there for external storage, which can be used for everything the internal storage can be used for. That includes game installs and downloads. So, don't fret: adding storage will be just as easy as ever.

Filed under: Gaming, Microsoft