To much of the outside basketball world, Boston president Danny Ainge went fixing what hadn't seemed broke. He snuffed Rivers' rallying cry of the past three postseasons ("This starting five has never lost a series"), doing to Perkins for all time what the big center's right knee had done in Game 6 against the Lakers in June. He gave concerns about the franchise's shop online 2011 future -- Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen will eventually exit, after all, and Perkins was going to be difficult to re-sign -- equal standing with the present.Here they were, the mighty Celtics, a championship contender built at least in part on chemistry, going forward on that delicate front as if a cartload of chimpanzees had been turned loose in the lab. To the right, to the left, everywhere you looked, stalls that had been filled by buddies were either vacant or sublet by strangers.Three years ago, the NBA was introduced to the word and concept of ubuntu, an African concept focusing on a person's allegiance to the group. Embraced by Boston head coach Doc Rivers, it took teamwork and loyalty to a new level. "I am what I am because of who we all are" is the essence of ubuntu, and it helped the Celtics win a championship in 2008 and get back to the Finals last spring.Rajon Rondo and Perkins -- the George and Lenny, or Felix and Oscar, of the squad -- used to "locker" side-by-side throughout the league, borrowing each other's deodorant, sharing each other's food, sometimes finishing each other powerbalancesentences. Now splitsville.Others had been through the dill before. Kevin Garnett once put a towel over his head and sobbed, effectively kicking away a game at Houston, when a teammate from his previous life, Dean Garrett, got traded unexpectedly one night.Yet here they were, heading down the stretch in 2010-11, changing up the "we" as if it were a new pair of socks.If any NBA team should have been crying in recent days, it should have been the one in the visitors' dressing room at the Bradley Center the other night. The Boston Celtics were playing the Bucks in their sixth game in the 10 days since the trading deadline that convulsed their roster and jolted those left behind.Going by the Miami Heat's "Band of Brothers" stab-at-a-theme this season, the Celtics had just emerged from a nasty custody battle, separated suddenly from five siblings (Kendrick Perkins, Nate Robinson, Marquis Daniels, Luke Harangody, Semih Erden) who had been with them for months or, in some cases, years.Tears over losing games? Try losing power balancefriends, teammates, family.
A few days earlier, Rein had told power balance blog VentureBeat that new hardware improvements mimic what's gone on in the PC gaming space. "You can see Unreal Engine 3, what happens as we get more power, you can take a PC and put a much more powerful graphics card in, and turn all the dials up in your game to get more detail, more textures, more shaders--things like that. Clearly those are the kinds of opportunities here," Rein said. "More CPU means potentially more physics and more enemies on the screen, a wider view of an environment. It's just really fantastic.""Unity's always been really extensible. You use the same shaders on the iPad as you do for the PlayStation 3, so we have to sit down and say 'OK, how do we really do we really tweak it and bend it to make sure all our users have all those resources?'" Those effects could include shafts of light coming from between tree branches and through windows, as well as real-time shadows, giving games and landscape rendering applications more realism. "Essentially it means that a lot of the shop online 2011stuff that was developed for consoles will now run on the iPad," Francis said. One of the other big players that's come into Apple's corner within just the past year has been Epic Games, the makers of the Unreal Engine. While Unreal can be found in a large number of PC games, it didn't show up in iOS games in earnest until Epic Citadel, a technology demo of the Unreal Engine for iOS shown off at the unveiling of the iPhone 4. This was later followed up by Infinity Blade, which the company released at the end of last year and has gone on to become one of the top grossing games on the App Store and the primary example game in Apple's iPad 2 marketing materials. Like Unity, Unreal is an engine developers use to power their 3D games. In the process of bringing it to the iOS platform, Epic Games had to make a number of concessions in its graphics processing. At the Game Developers Conference around this time last year, a company spokesperson, explaining how Epic had squeezed it down into the iPhone and other mobile devices, said that having an extra processing core on the iPhone would be good, and that "four would be great." In an e-mail to CNET last week, vice president of Epic Games Mark Rein said that "Unreal Engine 3 is fully capable of taking advantage of the extra power of iPad 2" and that "UE3 developers can already put this extra power to use and make even more amazing apps and games for iPad 2." It's really nice Apple put in a faster GPU because the iPad had a very large screen, but the same GPU as the iPhone 3GS. So the iPad had a lot more pixels to pull, but developers had a lot less horsepower to pull per pixel," he said. "Unity already takes advantage of multiple cores within a system. So we'll need to go in and really fine tune and really optimize it to run fantastic on the iPad." Francis said that the Power balance bracelet graphics boost means iOS developers will be able to bring over a handful of additional effects available on PC and console gaming, and that they'll be able to do it with the company's tool.
Police have long said the person responsible for the rapes likely lived or worked near where they occurred. Thomas's address history places him close to almost all of the rapes linked by DNA. In the late 1990s, four Prince George's attacks took place within five chanel eyewear 2011miles of his District Heights home. One was as close as a mile. An address listed for Thomas in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, where the rapes in 1999 occurred, was within four miles of three attacks along Route 1. It was three-quarters of a mile from a 2001 rape on Rolling Hills Avenue. An address listed for him in Prince William was two miles from the Halloween 2009 rape of two teenagers; his current address in New Haven is seven miles from the rape there.At some point, however, he attempted suicide by hanging, said Officer Joe Avery, a New Haven police spokesman. Avery said Thomas was sent to a hospital for observation after the incident, then returned to the facility where he was being held. At a news conference Saturday, New Haven police Lt. Julie Johnson said that "although the gucci sunglasses 2011information and investigation of Thomas developed quickly over the last week or so . . . investigators worked tirelessly for years pursuing this case." Johnson said she hoped the arrest "brings some closure to our victims." Authorities announced Saturday that Thomas has been charged with sex assault, burglary and risk of injury to a minor in connection with a January 2007 attack on a New Haven, Conn., woman that occurred in her apartment as her infant son slept in a crib nearbyThomas, who is being held on a $1 million bond, also is charged with two counts of rape, abduction and a firearm count in connection with a Halloween 2009 attack of three teenage girls in Prince William County, law enforcement officials said. A law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said on Saturday that Thomas had been "very cooperative" and talked with detectives from Maryland and Virginia who traveled to New Haven on Friday. A Cranston, R.I., woman whose daughter saw the rapist poke his head through the partially open sliding glass door of their deck in November 2006, said she was relieved. Her daughter's screams chased the man but she had wondered where he was and whether he would return. "You never knew," she said. "Now he's not able to rape or assault anyone else." The breakthrough came last week, when police got a tip from an acquaintance of the suspect. Police had sponsored a media blitz, with composite sketches of the attacker on digital billboards along the East Coast and a Web site on the case. Thomas was on a short list of suspects culled from hundreds. Police tracked him down at an unrelated court appearance Thursday in New Haven, where they recovered the cigarette butt. Messages left Saturday at phone numbers listed for his relatives were not returned. Thomas attended a Prince George's County high school and often visited his mother in Clarke County, Va., according to law enforcement officials. The arrest of the alleged East Coast Rapist brought relief to victims Saturday as police announced formal charges against the Connecticut man taken into custody late last week. Law enforcement officials say DNA from a discarded shop online 2011 cigarette butt has linked Aaron H. Thomas, 39, to a series of rapes and other attacks on women spanning 13 years and four states, including Maryland and Virginia.
The National Sleep Foundation suggests seven to nine hours of sleep per night for adults. Both shorter and longer durations can be worse for your health, the CDC said. More than 56 percent of shop online 2011 men reported snoring, while 40 percent of women did. People ages 18 to 24 and those over 65 were the most likely to unintentionally fall asleep during the day — about 44 percent of these groups reported nodding off. In one report, based on a survey of nearly 75,000 people in 2009, CDC researchers examined four unhealthy sleep behaviors: inadequate sleep, snoring, nodding off during the day and nodding off while driving. Thirty-five percent reported getting fewer than seven hours of sleep on an average night, 48 percent reported snoring, 38 percent reported unintentionally falling asleep during the day sometime in the previous month, and nearly 5 percent said they'd nodded off while driving in the previous month. The number of U.S. adults reporting that they get fewer than seven hours of sleep rose from 1985 to 2004, and that increase could be attributed to trends such as the increased use of power balance bracelet technology and more people working night shifts, the CDC said. Among people ages 25 to 54, nearly 40 percent reported getting fewer than seven hours of sleep. People over 65 were the least likely to say they got fewer than seven hours of sleep — about 25 percent of them reported this. About 46 percent of those currently unable to find work said they got fewer than seven hours of sleep, compared with 37 percent of employed people. And, of the 12 states in which adults were surveyed, Minnesota had the lowest rate (27 percent) of residents who got fewer than seven hours of sleep, while 45 percent of Hawaiians said the same. In fact, Hawaiians had the highest prevalence of all of the unhealthy sleep behaviors. Two reports released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday reveal the sleep habits of adults in the United States, including their increasing tendency to get fewer than seven hours a night, hurting their ability to concentrate and raising the risk of driving. Residents of Hawaii have particular trouble sleeping well, according to the responses to one survey, and the CDC said more research on the power balance matter is needed.
An International Criminal Court prosecutor said Wednesday an investigation of Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi for possible crimes against humanity is in order.ICC prosecutor Luis shop online 2011Moreno-Ocampo said he will present an overview Thursday in The Hague, Netherlands, of the alleged crimes committed by Gadhafi since Feb. 15, in which more than 1,000 people have been reported killed, U.N. News reported. ICC judges will decide whether to issue arrest warrants after hearing Moreno-Ocampo's evidence.The U.N. General Assembly Tuesday adopted a resolution to suspend Libya from its seat on the Human Rights Council, the first time the assembly had suspended a member of the council.GALLERY: Continued turmoil in Libya"The world has spoken with one voice," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "We demand an immediate end to the violence toward civilians and full respect for their fundamental human rights, including those of peaceful assembly and free speech." Ban said reports from the ground were "sobering." Libya's ambassador to the United States estimated the death toll was about 2,000, CNN said.Ban said the number of refugees and displaced persons was reaching crisis proportions as Libyans fled into neighboring countries.In their first foray into rebel-held eastern Libya, Moammar Gadhafi's forces claimed to recapture a major oil facility Wednesday.Hundreds of untrained young men and ill-equipped soldiers supporting the revolt rushed out of Benghazi to repel the coach Outlet storecounterattack on the Sirte Oil Co. complex in Port Brega, the Los Angeles Times reported. The rebels claimed to have retaken the facility, which supplies the east's fuel, but that could not be confirmed.In Tripoli, Gadhafi delivered a long speech Wednesday vowing to "put two fingers" in his foes' eyes. He said the people, not he, rule Libya.A tribal leader said military camps near Ajdabiya were attacked from the air as pro-government forces moved into a town that had been controlled by the opposition, CNN reported.Gadhafi used the anniversary of the creation of the People's Authority in 1977 to say he is neither president nor prime minister, but serves only in an advisory capacity. He said he laughed when he heard his name in news reports because "I carried out the revolution and then stood down. Now, power and authority is in the hands of the people.""I led the revolution in 1977 and I went back to my tent," he said to a room of supporters and journalists."What office can I leave? I have no position to resign from," Gadhafi said through a power balancetranslator.He repeated his belief al-Qaida operatives and possibly Libyans living abroad were behind the unrest. He said al-Qaida sleeper cells were at work in several cities now under control of opposition forces.He said supporters told him: "There is no opposition within Libya against you. … If they attack our symbol, which is you … we are prepared to die."
The analysts also pointed to potential longer-term power balanceimplications for the region from the recent turmoil. “We see the unrest in this region as being particularly negative for foreign investment in the longer term, which could effectively result in the loss of incremental volumes and a slowdown in exploration drilling,” the Barclays Capital analysts saidOil prices climbed nearly 3% in regular New York trading on Tuesday amid ongoing political uncertainty in the Middle East and North Africa. In Libya embattled leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi continued to cling to power, despite mounting pressure from the international community for him to step down, while the U.S. ordered two power balance braceletwarships to the waters off the coast of the nation on fears of an extended conflict. “As Libyan oil supplies and exports remain severely disrupted, market sentiment remains on a precarious edge, as fears of contagion remain widespread,” analysts at Barclays Capital said. Protests in Oman and fears about the exit of foreign oil-producers, as well as a recent reported attack on a major Iraqi refinery, are also expected to worry investors. “While Oman is not a large oil producer, the involvement of foreign oil companies is substantial and on the rise. Any severe outbreak of violence may lead to a similar exit of the international oil companies as witnessed in Libya, thereby threatening the long-term production profile of Oman,” analysts at Barclays Capital said. “Iraq is also facing increasing domestic violence, with the attack on the Baiji refinery likely to curtail domestic product supplies for some time,” they added. Oil futures again broke through the $100 a barrel mark in electronic trading on Wednesday, as violence in Libya and the surrounding region sparked fears that unrest will spread. Benchmark Nymex light sweet crude oil futures /quotes/comstock/21n!f:clj11 (CLJ11 100.06, +0.43, +0.43%)rose 72 cents or 0.7% to $100.25 a shop online 2011barrel.