Better, But Not Best

Since it arrived last year, the Galaxy S III has been the world's best-selling smartphone that wasn't born in Cupertino. An impressive feat, but one that—along with Samsung's Megatron-sized hype-machine—has made for sky-high expectations for the sequel.

Our first impressions of the S4 left us a little cold, but we've now spent a full week getting to know it better. It's definitely one of the best phones you can buy. It's just shame it couldn't stay out of USB flash drives wholesale own way.

Samsung's next great hope of a superphone. It's got a 5-inch 1080p Super AMOLED screen, a superfast quad-core 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 processor, 2GB RAM, LTE, NFC, and a 13MP camera. It also has a beefy 2600mAh battery, and an IR blaster for controlling your home entertainment system. It comes running Android 4.2.2 with Samsung's heavy TouchWiz skin on top of it. It should be available on every major U.S. wireless carrier in the next few weeks.

If you're familiar with the Galaxy S III, the S4 will look strikingly familiar. It retains the same rounded-rectangle look, with metal edges and a slippery, finger-print-trapping plastic back that looks like it belongs on a far more downmarket phone. It's at least functional, though; the back is removable, so you can swap out the battery or expand your storage capabilities with a micro SD card. A lot of people prefer that added utility over the more solid-feeling, and more beautiful unibody design of, say, the HTC One.

One place Samsung does manage to score design points is growing the screen from 4.8 inches on the Galaxy S III to a full 5.0 inches on the S4, while still making the phone thinner, narrower, and easier to grip. The side bezels are shrunk down to nearly nothing, and the screen takes up almost the entire front of the device. Speaking of the screen, it is easily the nicest Samsung has ever made. The colors (especially blues and greens) really pop, and the 441 pixels per inch ensure that text is super-clear. It's also bright enough to be clearly readable on a bright, sunny day, and the Super AMOLED screen makes the blacks like staring into the abyss.

While Nexus phones are moving away from physical buttons for navigation, Samsung has opted to include three of them here. The S4 has capacitive buttons for Menu and Back, and a physical, clickable button for Home. It's wasted space. But worse, the capacitive buttons don't light up until you actually touch them, so if you forget which side is Menu and which is Back you might end up closing out of something unintentionally. Annoying!

As we noted in our original hands-on, the S4 comes packed full of "features." There's Air View, which allows you to hover your finger over the screen to see some information without actually clicking. There's Air Gestures, which allows you to wave your hand over the phone to change between tabs or photos. There's Smart Scroll, with which you tilt your device to scroll, instead of using your finger. There's Smart Pause, which will pause a video when you look away from the screen. And there's Group Play, which lets you play a handful of selected video games with friends on the same Wi-Fi network, or use several S4 phones as Sonos-like speakers.

The most important thing you need to know about these features is that you will never use any of them. Ever. Never ever. The end.

Why not? Oh, lots of reasons. Air View only works with Samsung's customized apps—not Gmail, not Chrome—and even then it doesn't work very well. Air Gestures are less accurate and less convenient than just touching the screen. Smart Scroll is totally unreliable, and Smart Pause is totally useless. The only, only justification for any of these features is that you can wave your hand over the phone to answer a call while driving, or, again, maybe if you're addicted to buffalo wings and have an aversion to moist towelettes.

The good news is that you can turn off and/or totally ignore most of these extraneous "features," and when you do, there's a very good phone underneath. It's generally very fast, and HD games like Temple Run: Oz, Inertia HD, and Naught all ran smoothly. The pre-installed sliding keyboard is better than most manufacturer keyboards (looking at you, HTC), with plenty of space between keys and a dedicated number row, but auto-correct has a lot of issues, and we still prefer the keyboard on stock Jelly Bean or SwiftKey 4. The unit we tested was on T-Mobile's HSPA+ 42 network (no T-Mobile LTE in NYC, yet, though this phone will work with it when it rolls out); data speeds were good, and it connected reliably.

There will be a cadre of S4 accessories available (TV adapters and such) at some point, but the only one available at launch is the S View Flip Cover. It's a good-looking cover that adds almost no thickness to your phone by completely replacing the back. The phone can sense when the cover is closed, and it will only light up one little (plastic) window on the front, which should save you a little battery power (when an AMOLED pixel is black it doesn't use any power). You can swipe to accept or dismiss calls even when the cover is closed.

Battery performance on the S4 is among the best we've seen from smartphones this year, though it's still not anywhere near as everlasting as the RAZR MAXX HD. It's important to note, though, that our testing took place on T-Mobile's HSPA+ network, and not the more power-hungry LTE of Verizon and AT&T. With that advantage, it slightly edged out the HTC One by an hour or so on average (which itself does pretty iPhone headset).

The S4 did, though, make it to the end of the night without additional charging fairly often, thanks to both the larger battery (2600mAh vs. 2300mAh on the One) and the more economical AMOLED screen, though the processor's higher clock speed taxed it somewhat.

Speaking of which: that screen really is leaps and bounds better than the one on last year's S III. It's very sharp, pretty, and easy to read. The camera app is laid out very nicely, and the included OCR (optical character recognition) software, which can translate written words on the fly, are both examples of app actually done right. Overall, the S4 is definitely a sizable upgrade over the S III. But it's still got its issues.

The Forgotten Genius of Moms Mabley

When people are asked to list the legends of comedy, the same names tend to come up: Bob Hope, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Redd Foxx, Bill Cosby, and so on. Every so often a female comic gets mentioned—Lucille Ball, Joan Rivers, Phyllis Diller. One person who doesn’t get talked about nearly enough by comedy lovers and contemporary comedians alike is Moms Mabley. In her directorial debut, I Got Somethin’ to Tell You, part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Whoopi Goldberg tries to correct this, profiling the beloved comedienne who made a name for herself in an old house dress, floppy hat, and iPhone headset.

First, a short primer on Moms. Born Loretta Mary Aiken, she was a pioneer in her field—a black woman who pushed the boundaries of taste, politics, and race as far back as the 1920s, while performing on the Chitlin’ Circuit. Very little is known about Moms Mabley’s life off the stage—even her birth year is disputed—but it’s widely known that she was a lesbian who also went by the name “Mister Moms.” (In the film, a holiday card is shown with an image of Moms dressed in men’s attire.) She earned respect from her (mostly male) peers and from audiences with her ribald humor about her (apparently fictional) love for younger men, her admittedly frumpy appearance, and smart—but somehow never bitter—takes on racism. Her career extended well into the ’70s, leaving behind a legacy of over 20 albums, and memorable appearances on many of the popular variety and talk shows of the day, including Ed Sullivan and The Smothers Brothers.

Yet since her death, Moms—a woman who, at the peak of her national fame, performed at the White House—has been all but forgotten. At a talkback following a screening of I Got Somethin’ to Tell You, Goldberg expressed her initial disbelief at learning that for decades Moms was the only woman doing what Diller, Rivers, and others would become famous for years later. “How come I didn’t know this?” she wondered at the time, adding last night, “Why is there no Moms Mabley Award for comedy?”

It’s a good question, especially considering all of the comedians, male and female, Moms influenced. (The likely and perhaps unsurprising answer is that comedy is still largely dominated and curated by men and by a very small group of women, most of whom are white.) Kathy Griffin, whom Goldberg interviewed, talks about watching Moms perform on The Ed Sullivan Show when she was a kid, and how her costume reminded her of her own mother. Eddie Murphy notes that the Grandma character in The Nutty Professor (played by Murphy himself) is a direct tribute to Moms. Arsenio Hall recalls sneaking a listen to the comedienne’s risqué albums during his childhood when his parents weren’t home.

Goldberg herself has a very personal connection to Moms: Early on in her career, Goldberg portrayed the comedienne in a one-woman show. Part of the reason she admires the legend, Goldberg explained last night, was because Moms wasn’t afraid to look or talk in a way that women weren’t normally expected to. “It took a long time for people to get used to the way I look,” Goldberg said of her own persona. “But now, lots of people look like me.”

Before seeing this film, I had heard of Moms, but had never actually heard Moms—and there is plenty to be heard in I Got Somethin’ to Tell You. Because there isn’t much to say about her personal life, the film focuses on her material, showcasing footage and fun cartoons for routines that Goldberg could only find the audio of. The material speaks for itself: Moms’ sense of humor and perspective feels as fresh and funny as it must have then. (The audience I saw the film with laughed heartily throughout.) HBO has acquired the documentary, and it will air on the network later this year.

Towards the end of the discussion, Goldberg said she hopes her next project will be a 10-part documentary chronicling black entertainment from the mid-1800s to the present. I Got Somethin’ to Tell You is just the “tip of the iceberg,” she said. It’s an ambitious project, to be sure, but if she’s able to pull it off, she’ll be doing a great service for the history and memory of black contributions to American culture, so many of which have been lost or forgotten.

The PDS-ST420-VP is easily small and light enough to fit in a laptop bag or briefcase, at 1.6 by 10.6 by 2.6 inches (HWD) and just over 1 pound 1 ounce complete with batteries. As is typical for the breed, there's almost nothing to set up. Just insert the four supplied AA batteries and plug in a microSD or microSDHC card. Note that VuPoint Solutions doesn't include a memory card, however, so if you don't have extras around, be sure to order one with the scanner. The microSD card slot supports cards with up to 32GB memory.

You don't have to install the software, but you can if you want to. VuPoint Solutions supplies three programs and a fully automated installation routine that will let you install any or all of them.

The choices are Abbyy FineReader 9.0 Sprint for optical character recognition (OCR), as the only applications program, plus an Evernote connector for sharing files on Evernote, and a Direct Scan utility. The utility lets you scan documents directly to computer files over a USB connection as an alternative to saving them to a memory card and then copying them to your computer later. In my tests, it worked as promised, with no difference in speed compared with scanning to a memory card.

Scanning with the PDS-ST420-VP is also easy, and typical for the category. Straightforward commands on the scanner's front-panel menus let you choose between color and black and white modes; JPG or image PDF format; and 300 pixels per inch (ppi), which is the scanner's optical resolution according to VuPoint Solutions, and 600 or 900 ppi interpolated resolution.

The default when you turn the scanner on is color, JPG, and 300 ppi. To scan, you turn the power on, make any changes you want in the settings, and insert a page into the scanner's front slot. Wait a second or two, and the scanner will sense the page, grab it, and ear cap.

Timing for manual-feed scanners isn't very meaningful, since you can spend more time manually feeding the pages than waiting for the actual scan. But it's worth noting that the PDS-ST420-VP is relatively fast. Using color mode and JPG format, I timed it at 8 to 10 seconds for the actual scan of a document page, with the same speed regardless of resolution.

Hope delivers

Si had always had high hopes for the success of his family farm in Pennsylvania. Si was a hard worker, but hard times seemed to always weigh more on the balance scale than work. Farming in the Keystone State was certainly a challenging and difficult task. The growing season is only about three months long, a little less time than the Pirates take to meander through the baseball season.

Pennsylvania farmers mostly grew mushrooms. It was the state’s number one cash crop, and Pennsylvanians produce more than any other state — an annual yield of about 443 million pounds. Si dabbled in mushrooms, but also worked barley, winter wheat and potatoes. The effects of the economy during World War II were taking its toll on the family farm. Si was barely keeping his head above water, and the tide was rising with each year. His hopes — and his love for his wife — kept his spirits going and his work ethic fueled.

Effie Musser had strong hopes for Si as well. She hated to see her husband struggle so. Effie stirred the hope deep within her that afternoon in the kitchen as she continued a family tradition. Her mother had taught her to take the farm’s leftover potatoes and turn them into deep-fried fun for the children. Effie finished sprinkling seasoning on the chips and thought that perhaps she could bag some and sell them for extra cash at the nearby farmer’s market.

“Nearby” was Lancaster and the “farmer’s market” was not a small card table on the side of the road. Central Market in Penn Square in heart of Lancaster is the nation’s oldest, continuously operated farmer’s market. Founded in 1889, the market became known for its unique Amish goods. Effie’s chips were a hit and she sold out every time she delivered the bags to the ear cap.

An entrepreneur in Baltimore loved them so much he contracted Effie to deliver the chips in bulk to him. He repacked the chips into his branded tin can and renamed them Charles’ Chips after Charles Street in downtown Baltimore. While the potato chip business thrived, his other ventures did not. Owing Effie a great deal of money, he sold the brand to her to avoid bankruptcy.

By 194, production had grown from the kitchen in Effie’s home to a large warehouse in Lancaster. Si was only growing potatoes and had to hire workers to handle the farm as he assisted Effie in marketing and sales. Effie was producing private label chips for Fritos and A&P Groceries while developing the concept of the home delivery of the chips. Warehouses and truck delivery units were set up in several states. Effie’s hopes were fulfilled beyond her wildest imagination.

To a 10-year-old boy on the west side of Indianapolis in the mid-60s, every other Thursday brought bright rays of hope and a big can of barbeque potato chips to the door. During the summer, baseball games and bicycle rides had to be over by two o’clock in time to greet the delivery truck that looked just like the can of chips. During the school year, there was the assurance of hope that the large can of chips would be on the counter when the 30-minute bus ride was over.

Hope fuels our lives - whether to keep us going at work when things get difficult, to be the glue to hold the marriage together, or for a small boy longing for his favorite snack. Hope buoys our spirits to dream dreams and chase them, to envision greater things than are currently available, and to find meaning and purpose for life. Hope becomes the anchor when we hear bad news from the doctor, when we are shaken by a terrorist’s bombs, or when we stare death in the face.

here’s nothing quite like the excitement of Cowboys Week in Philadelphia. These two teams have a history of bad blood, and the Eagles will get their first crack at their rivals in Week 7 when those Cowboys come to town.

It’s been an unusual offseason in Dallas. The cash-strapped Cowboys were forced to cut several of their players to create cap space, but did find the funds to extend quarterback Tony Romo, who has thrown nine touchdowns and three interceptions against the Eagles over the past three years.

With new defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin in tow, the Cowboys will be switching from a 3-4 defense to a Tampa-2 look. It’s a matchup head coach Chip Kelly knows well – Kiffin spent the last three seasons as the defensive coordinator at USC, and in those three years, Kelly’s Oregon squads averaged an eye-popping 601 yards of total offense against Kiffin’s defenses. Last season, Oregon’s high-powered offense put up 62 points and 730 yards of total offense.

Last season’s meeting in Philadelphia is perhaps best remembered as the game in which quarterback Nick Foles saw his first NFL action. Foles threw his first touchdown in that game, a 44-yard strike to Jeremy Maclin in the end zone. Unfortunately, the Eagles weren’t able to come away with a win in that game, but the team knows just how important it is to shut the Cowboys down when they visit Lincoln Financial Field. Look for the home team to come out with energy against their hated division rival.

The Eagles-Cowboys rivalry might be among the most glamorous in the NFC East, but when the Eagles and Giants meet, the only certainty is a gritty, hard-fought game. Over the past several years, the Eagles and Giants have met late in the season in games that often mean the difference between winning the division and staying home in January.

But in an unusual twist, these teams will wrap up their season series in Week 8 in Philadelphia. This Week 8 contest will be the second consecutive division game for the Eagles, who will have welcomed in the Cowboys the previous USB flash drives wholesale.

Both teams know each other extremely well, and that familiarity factor will be kicked up another notch this season. The Giants signed defensive tackles Mike Patterson and Cullen Jenkins, both of whom spent time with the Eagles, in the offseason. However, the Eagles signed former Giants’ first-rounder Kenny Phillips, who will battle for a starting safety job this summer.

Though the Giants failed to make the playoffs last season, they were by no means a team to cast aside. Quarterback Eli Manning and company posted 26.8 points per game, which ranked sixth in the NFL last season. And for the first time since 2008, Manning failed to throw for 4,000 yards in a season, but still tossed a respectable 26 touchdowns and 15 interceptions.

Massively's Darkfall launch week diary

See, I'm one of those sandbox carebears who could not care less about PvP. I'll attempt to defend myself if attacked, and I'll add another body to the zerg if I'm in a clan or whatever, but I don't seek out conflict with other players. I mention this because that attitude obviously informs everything I write about Darkfall, which, at its core, is a great custom keychain fantasy murder simulator.

Yes, the game has crafting, harvesting, player housing, and better PvE than it's given credit for, but on some level all of this stuff exists to power the FFA PvP meatgrinder that in turn attempts to satiate the bloodlust of Aventurine's target demographic.

I'm going to attempt to use the rest of this week's Darkfall Unholy Wars launch diary series to explain why a player like yours truly loves a game like this. I don't know if I'll manage it because on paper it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Anyway, let me backtrack on something I said yesterday. Aventurine hasn't completely blown up Darkfall after all. My first hour or two with the title was full of WTF-is-this moments, mostly due to the UI and the skill/prowess system. And the racial avatar regression remains a bit off-putting. Once I got acclimated and got out into the world, however, I realized that in a lot of the respects that matter, this is the same old Darkfall.

Let's talk first about the presentation. Darkfall Unholy Wars won't be winning any visual awards, and yet I find myself deeply satisfied to be back in Agon and filling up my screenshot folder with reckless abandon. Objectively, the new game is a marginal improvement over the old game in terms of aesthetics. The water effects seem spiffier, for example, and there's a bit more detail on the avatars.

Subjectively the world feels very much the same, which is fantastic. Agon still reminds me of a graphically updated Morrowind mod: It's got that 2002 vibe about it, and the animations are flat-out terrible. That said, there is a lot of hand-crafted detail, and for lack of a better word, atmosphere. Atmosphere and its cousin immersion are hard things to define, but I know them when I see them, and I see them in DFUW just as I saw them in classic Darkfall.

Agon is vast and largely seamless, and the game's limited quick travel and realistic movement speeds accentuate the sense of an actual world as opposed to a series of quest hubs. The terrain and topography varies greatly as you travel around the continent, and the day/night cycle is something all MMOs should have by default. Night in Darkfall is actually dark, and given that it's a challenge to spot players and some mobs in the daytime if they don't wish to be seen, Agon after dark is a thrillseeker's dream.

The only real negative in terms of presentation comes courtesy of the new GUI. While Darkfall's interface is much improved over its predecessor's, my enthusiasm is dampened by a chat box implementation that is, at best, inept. It functions, but it also lacks most of the niceties that made their way into MMO chat systems around the turn of the century.

In terms of my itinerary for day two, I logged around four hours, during which I completed a bunch of newbie feats. These feats are basically quest/achievement hybrids, and the first few you encounter do a passable if somewhat uneven job of introducing you to the game's major systems. I also did a bunch of harvesting, crafted some items, and farmed many a mob spawn for gold and items. These were all well off the beaten path, of course, as my objective was to both avoid random PvP and scratch my exploration itch.

In terms of mechanics, DFUW's PvP -- and really combat in general -- feels very similar to the original game mechanics even with the presence of the new skill and ability wheels I mentioned yesterday. Once you've wrapped your brain and your muscle memory around the ALT-RMB or ALT-LMB actuators, your survivability will increase enormously. It never feels easy, though, and that's by design. Darkfall's combat has always been a challenging mixture of RPG stats and action dexterity that rewards mechanical knowledge, situational awareness, and smart tactics moreso than most other MMORPGs.

If you're a curious carebear like me, or you're a hunter-killer salivating at the prospect of my kind running around your playground, it's worth taking note of the game's new safe zone mechanics. They seem to be tied to major cities, and your presence in them is denoted by a green shield below and to the right of your minimap. Exiting the safe area gives you a warning that you'll be attackable in short order, and the icon changes to a white sword on a red background two seconds after you cross the invisible line. Re-entering the protected area isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card either, as you'll have a 20-second cooldown period after re-entering during which you're still fair game.

Anyhow, apart from my harvesting and wholesale goblin slaughter, I spent most of day two wandering the wild. Agon is an explorer's paradise, and to be honest I'm already toying with the idea of staying on after this week's launch coverage is done because I never get tired of living a fantasy nomad's life. There's something relaxing and almost therapeutic about stockpiling resources and occasionally venturing back into town to craft, salvage, or deposit my stuff and sell some of the bounty.

And Darkfall's FFA stylings occasionally make pedestrian MMO tasks like going to the bank or calling to a bind point into a white-knuckle process. While my gameplay tendencies likely bore the bejesus out of most of the people reading this article, the fact that Darkfall supports them along with the more common FFA PvP lifestyle is a feather in Aventurine's ear cap.

Phillip’s original plan was to vote off either Reynold — a strong threat in every physical challenge — or Malcolm. Reynold foiled that plan by winning a demanding immunity challenge.

This one called for speed and endurance, with players diving off platforms, racing along an underwater rope and climbing back up on platforms to transfer hoops from one post to another. Phillip, to Probst’s astonishment, pulled himself out of the challenge. He had been spooked by a water incident as a child, he claimed, although the way he had dogged it at some earlier challenges one had to wonder if he just felt untouchable.

With their necks on the line, Reynold and Malcolm gave it their all and finished one-two in the competition.

Malcolm, however, still had one big card left to play in this game — his immunity idol. With some panic setting in before tribal council, a scramble was on to see if there was another one hidden around somewhere in some rock. There was, and who lucks into it but Malcolm — right in front of Andrea and Dawn.

SRU now knows Malcolm has an idol, but Phillip councils the others to stick to the new plan — four votes Malcolm, three to Eddie — to chip away at the dudes.

The castaways head to tribal council. Reynold is safe, he has immunity. Malcolm is safe, he has immunity. Then Malcolm reveals he has a second idol and gives it to Eddie. Checkmate!

Heads explode. Audibles are called. The remaining Favourites scramble to huddle up.

Then Malcolm flat out announces: the Three Amigos are taking out Phillip. “It’s just not fun anymore,” Malcolm says of Phillip’s annoying Stealth banter. “Phillip is the fun sponge — he sucks it all out of the group.”

Scott Piercy has rocketed up the World Ranking and finally

It’s the final round of the 2008 Ford Wayne Gretzky Classic. Piercy, a 29-year-old Nationwide tour rookie, spent the first three rounds letting clubs and curses fly. “I was acting like an idiot, so angry at myself for not playing to my custom keychain,” he says. After shooting himself out of the tournament with a Saturday 74, he decides to turn Sunday into an anger-management experiment. “I refused to hit a single shot while mad. I even drew a smiley face on my ball, as a smart-aleck reminder.”

Eventually, it works. The anger subsides on number 7, and Piercy swings. He proceeds to birdie nine of the final 12 holes, shooting a 64.

Within two months he had won two Nationwide events and secured his PGA Tour card for 2009. “I realized the biggest thing holding me back was my attitude,” Piercy says. “It was a huge stepping stone. And yeah, I still draw happy faces on my ball.”

The sun is setting over Doral Resort on the eve of the 2013 WGC Cadillac Championship. Piercy sits in a clubhouse lounge, which has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Blue Monster. He sports laceless Converse sneakers and moussed hair. He looks older than 34. It’s the eyes. Their surrounding creases convey a “man, I’ve seen some s---” weariness that you don’t see on the Rickie Fowlers of the world -- wrinkles acquired over the course of six years battling debt and doubt on golf’s mini-tours.

Nearby, Luke Donald is chatting with a reporter. One week earlier at the Accenture Match Play, Piercy throttled Donald, 7 and 6. Says Piercy, “I don’t want this to sound like ‘poor me,’ but every person who won that week got interviewed right then and there on the green. And I beat the No. 3 golfer in the world handily, and there’s nobody there to talk to me.” He waits a beat. “Then again, they probably weren’t ready for it to end on the 12th hole.”

A wallet that a group of textiles, apparel and merchandising students created received runner-up honors in a contest by Natril Gear, a company that produces backpack-like bags for bicycles known as Luggers. The students in a class taught by Edie Wittenmyer created a design for a wallet that utilizes Natril Gear's leftover material from designing Luggers.

"As a class, we were proud of what we came up with," said Rassan Ridley, a sophomore textiles, apparel and merchandising major from Fort Wayne. "It was a good design, and a good representation of what we as students do here. It was a good team effort."

Wittenmyer approached the students about entering the contest, which was on top of their coursework for the semester. The sewing class students agreed to enter, and students each created separate designs for a wallet before coming together and creating a singular contest submission.

"It was fun. Everybody made an agreement together. There was no bickering or anything," said Jayna Eckerson, a freshman textiles, apparel and merchandising major from Indianapolis. "We just thought about what was good and how it satisfies the customer."

Natril Gear officials wanted to be able to utilize the scrap materials left from creating the company's trademark Luggers, which are "saddlebags for a bicycle" that attach to a bike rack.

"Part of the reason we wanted to have the contest was to find creative wallet designs, and the other reason was to spark interest in responsible consumption of resources in other peoples' lives," said April Reinhard, co-owner of Natril Gear. "The students in ISU's Clothing I class did a great job on both fronts!"

The group dynamic helped make the project unique, said Brooke Reed, a freshman family and consumer sciences major from Walkerton, Ind. Different aspects of multiple designs created by students were incorporated into the final design.

"Normally with some contests, you're just by yourself, and this one, it was actually a group thing and we all could get involved," Reed said, "and it was actually really nice to get other ideas and have more ideas flowing."

The students created a draft of their prototype, and then created their final version in material similar to Natril Gear's fabric in Luggers. They submitted the creation, along with the design specifications.

Since Natril Gear's Luggers are intended for cyclists, the Indiana State students approached the contest with the intention of creating a wallet that cyclists would use. Their submission included a variety of different elements, including a coin holder that separates from the wallet and a cell phone pocket.

The Undertaker-CM Punk match stole the show as many people expected it might, with the Deadman being his usual incredible self and Punk (along with Paul Heyman) doing an outstanding job reacting to what was happening. Triple H and Brock Lesnar waged an appropriately hard-hitting affair, while The Rock and John Cena gave their all to restore the energy level of the crowd after it hit some lulls.

No, what held back WrestleMania 29 from going down as one of the best shows ever was that the whole thing felt a little safe. There were no real surprises in terms of the finishes or how they came about. Some of the matches hinged on the most predictable possible actions, like Big Show turning on Randy Orton and Sheamus. It was all very straightforward and by the iPhone headset.

But as a symbol of the WWE's strengths, namely creating a spectacle, merchandising and promoting its brand, this was an event worthy of the hype around it.

The most obvious signs of that were the visual ones. Seeing over 80,000 fans packed into MetLife was amazing by itself, and the set design people outdid themselves. First revealed a few days before the show by Vince McMahon himself on Twitter, the replicas of the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the 67-foot Statue of Liberty perched high above the ring were breathtaking in person.

Consumers Energy to begin installing 'smart' meters

The installation of digital “smart” meters affecting approximately 43,800 homes and small businesses in Allegan and Ottawa counties is scheduled to begin later this month, a Consumers Energy spokesperson told The Sentinel on custom keychain.

The “smart” devices  are supposed to be more efficient, help consumers optimize their electrical usage, expedite service teams to specific areas after power outages resulting from storms and eliminate the need for manual meter reading.

“This is smart-phone technology,” said Dennis McKee, Consumers Energy communications director for Smart Energy. “We live in the information age, and this is attractive to most of our customers. A lot of folks like new technology, but what they’re concerned about it is privacy. Our meters do not store any personal data.”

Opponents of smart meters suggest privacy, security and health issues aren’t being fully explored and utilities are passing on the hidden costs of these devices  to the public.

“I tell them, ‘You’re not losing control of your energy use,’ ” McKee said of skeptics of the new technology. “We’re not part of some conspiracy to control people’s use of energy through government agencies. That’s ridiculous. It’s just not the case. As these become more commonplace, I’m sure those fears are going to be allayed.”

“It isn’t going to reduce costs for the individual. These ‘smart’ meters are costing millions and millions of dollars and Consumers is passing along these costs to users in the form of rate increases,” said Chiodo, 68, a Park Township Trustee and president of Ottawa County Patriots that advocates on behalf of Tea Party issues.

He said just 1.27 percent of customers surveyed have objected to the installation of smart meters, which began in Muskegon County last summer. Almost 60,000 homes have been equipped with “smart" meters and Consumers Energy plans to install 1.8 million devices around the state through the end of 2019.

It’ll be installing meters in Ottawa County south of the Grand River and the northern portion of Allegan County before the end of April or early May. Some meters already have been installed in parts of Ottawa County north of the Grand River.

The installation process will interrupt service for about 3 minutes, but Consumers Energy notifies residents and small-business owners 30 days in advance of the procedure and sends a reminder notice 14 days prior to showing up, he said.

He has met with 138 different groups, including 90 last year alone, to help dispel myths about public health concerns and privacy issues resulting from the new devices.

He also pointed out Consumers Energy took no stimulus money from governmental agencies to implement its program. It is installing encoded and encrypted meters that are more “passive” than other utilities since they transmit usage data once each day to cellular towers and keep no credit card or personal information.

“We are convinced these are perfectly safe devices,” McKee said. “This is the device that is going to help us save money. We believe these ‘smart’ meters are going to help keep our rates from rising as fast as they would without installing them.”

DTE Energy has been criticized for accepting subsidies to install its “smart” meters in the Detroit area, Chiodo said. Twenty-four municipalities or groups in Michigan have passed resolutions or moratoriums on ‘smart’ meters until they’re investigated ear cap, he added.

With a population of 24 million, the Republic of Ghana is experiencing rapid expansion of cross-border travel. Recognizing the need to improve the security and efficiency of its existing procedures, the country’s immigration service has turned to Gemalto to deliver the benefits of a country-wide electronic border management system based on biometric authentication.

Gemalto acts as prime contractor and will take responsibility for integrating the advanced visa and border management solution, including change management, transitional training and maintenance services. The company will deploy border management systems at Ghana’s main ports of arrival and will implement a fully computerized system for visa and permit applications processing and issuing, with the collaboration of Avalon Biometrics. The project also covers the set up of an online portal service for visa application, and the implementation of electronic gates at Accra’s Kotoka International Airport, for rapid, convenient and automated border control of arrivals and departures.

This mission-critical solution will streamline processes, reinforce national security and provide the GIS with enhanced border information and intelligence. Aided by biometric data, the authorities will be able to account accurately for everyone entering and leaving the country. The system will also improve the traveling experience, delivering faster and significantly more convenient border control procedures for visitors.

“To maintain Ghana’s economic development, we need an immigration system that can meet the challenges of rapid growth in international travel,” said Commissioner of Police Dr. Peter A. Wiredu, Director of Ghana Immigration Service. “Gemalto contributed to over 80 successful government programs worldwide and has all the required project management skills, reputation and expertise to deliver the country’s new IT infrastructure”.

“This advanced electronic identity management system is fundamental to the whole eGhana project,” said Ari Bouzbib, Senior Vice President for Government Programs at Gemalto. “It will put the country’s border control processes on par with the latest, cutting-edge practices worldwide. In addition to helping to transform Ghana, it can serve as a template for modernization across many other countries in Africa.”

Santa Monica Housing Discrimination Complaints Surge

The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office reports there has been a surge of housing discrimination complaints by tenants or housing applicants seeking reasonable accommodations for their disabilities.

The City of Santa Monica's CPU will host a new housing seminar April 29 in recognition of national Fair Housing Month that will focus on reasonable accommodation issues.

The CPU accepts complaints for housing discrimination based on race, religion, national origin, gender, disability, family status, sexual orientation, and age. However, disability-based fair housing complaints and inquiries usually exceed all other types.

Despite a range of difficult issues, the CPU manages to help the parties resolve most of these disputes without litigation--disputes such as the one that arose when Santa Monica tenant Zelda Alvarado was diagnosed with a serious respiratory disability.

"First, I talked with several staff members at G & K, which is a fairly large management company," said Varady, who is retiring in April after 34 years at City Hall. "They admitted the denial of Zelda’s request, and they pointed to their wait-list system, saying that Zelda could not cut in line ahead of other tenants and applicants.”

Varady discussed the case with Deputy City Attorney Gary Rhoades, and they considered the facts of Zelda’s case in light of the fair housing laws requiring landlords and managers to make reasonable accommodations in their rules and policies so that tenants with disabilities have equal enjoyment of their units.  Did Zelda’s request for a smoke-free apartment qualify as a reasonable accommodation to G & K’s wait-list rules?

First, the accommodation must be needed in response to the nature of the tenant's disability. The doctor's statement had confirmed that Zelda needed this accommodation. Second, the accommodation request must be reasonable. This means it does not cause an undue burden, either administrative or financial; small or modest burdens or costs for the owner are considered reasonable. As long as the accommodation first requested by the tenant is reasonable, the tenant may reject alternatives, such as the small air filter that G & K proposed.

Varady and Rhoades didn't see any evidence of an undue burden on G & K in allowing Zelda, a current tenant, to move into a vacant apartment.

Making exceptions to wait lists is a classic example of an accommodation needed to help disabled tenants get the apartments and amenities they need, whether it's a smoke-free unit, a unit with a ramp, or a parking spot that's accessible or near the unit.

So Varady requested a meeting at the property with G & K.

"The meeting Gary and I had with staff at the property was very productive,” said Varady. “It came with a tour of the building and a brief meeting with the tenant.  We discussed the fair housing law, Zelda’s dire situation, and G & K's wait list rules.”

“At that meeting,” Rhoades added, “the staff began to see how broad and protective reasonable accommodations are supposed to be.”

Two days later, Zelda called Varady to say that her request for the new vacant apartment  had been approved and that she was moving that weekend.

"Zelda got her reasonable accommodation without having to resort to litigation," said Rhoades, “That’s our goal every time.”

Lockbox installation: A 91-year-old disabled tenant had twice fallen in her rented condominium unit, requiring break-ins by emergency responders.  The tenant and Santa Monica Fire Department's request to install a lockbox with a unit key next to her front door was rejected by the homeowner's association.  After a letter from and phone conversations with the CPU, the HOA voted again, this time to allow the lockbox.

Service animal for child: The disabled child of a tenant required a service animal. The management company and owner had already rejected the tenant’s request for a waiver of the building’s no-pet policy and pet deposit requirement.  The CPU wrote a letter and emails and persuaded the owner to allow the pet and to return the deposit.

Emotional support animal: A tenant’s request for an emotional support animal had been rejected based on the fact that the doctor’s note supporting the request was not specific enough.  The CPU persuaded the owner and owner’s attorney that such medical requests did not have to name the disability or get into the specifics of how the animal would help.

The burden of relocation to another unit:  Numerous severely disabled persons using Section 8 vouchers were in deed-restricted units that were now suddenly  subject to unaffordable rent increases and had been pressured by the owner to move  to other buildings with units restricted to lower rents.  The CPU and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) persuaded the housing provider to grant over twenty reasonable accommodation requests to delay the changes until the tenants left the units of their own accord.

Caregivers for tenants: A tenant with severe disabilities needed a caregiver. She submitted a caregiver candidate to her landlord, but the landlord refused to respond and then threatened eviction if the caregiver moved in. The CPU stepped in and along with LAFLA and persuaded the owner and his attorney that if he failed to respond to a caregiver request within a reasonable timeframe, he would waive his right to object to the caregiver.

Number of emotional support animals: A landlord with a no-pets building called the CPU. An applicant for one of her vacancies had two animals that he claimed were emotional support animals. The landlord was inclined to reject both under the mistaken belief that she only had to grant accommodations to in-place tenants. However, she soon agreed to consider the applicant with the animals and the applicant agreed to get separate medical letters for each animal.

Religious accommodation: A Jewish family was interested in a new vacancy at a local  apartment building. However, the open house for viewing apartments and getting applications was limited to certain evenings where the family’s religion prohibited such trips. After the family’s request for a religious accommodation was rejected, the CPU sent an email that persuaded the housing provider to extend new open-house times.

Children playing in the common area: The owner and management of a large apartment building had banned children (and adults) from playing in the building’s small courtyard. After the families filed a complaint with the CPU, the office persuaded the owner that this policy had a discriminatory impact on children and that it had in fact been implemented to keep children out of the courtyard. The policy was changed to reflect that most activities in the courtyard could resume.

The Consumer Protection Unit’s seminar on fair housing and reasonable accommodations is set for April 29, 2013 from noon to 1:30 pm at the Santa Monica Main Library in its multi-purpose room on the second floor.  Participants are invited to bring a brownbag lunch. 

Citygate certification simple for developers

Fully understanding the principles of the Green Star tool and applying them carefully at the pre-planning stage of the development has meant that the team have achieved a highly productive outcome in a record time, says NZGBC Chief Executive Alex Cutler.

“The building is a best practice result that will deliver an efficient, healthy and productive work environment – something that tenants are increasingly focussed on,” says Ms Cutler.

“Third party confirmation with the Green Star rating allows tenants to place trust in the building, aligning their procurement decisions with organisational values.”

McConnell Property’s Aidan Donnelly says everything about the 5300sq metre Grade A building has been constructed with a mind to providing an efficient, light-infused workspace for up to 400 workers – “a beautiful, functional building that explicitly addresses the corner location and one that is future-proofed so we can respond to our customers’ changing needs,” he says.

The six level building will have four levels of office space and ground floor retail, opening out into 738m squared of landscaped open space, with art displays and cafe seating on the paved courtyard planned for the new public area.

The building, due for completion in early July 2013, features extensive use of low E double glazed glass with high U-value and shading co-efficients, thermo mass insulated panels and a fresh air VRV heat recovery system that enables smart temperature control and allows energy to be transferred within the building. Some of its other green features include a Building Management System, energy efficient lighting systems, recycling facilities, and bicycle parking.

It is expected the design of the building will lead to a reduction of energy usage of about 5-10% annually – a cost saving to tenants that is expected to be significant over time.

Mr Donnelly says despite extensive pre-planning, he was still pleasantly surprised that the building achieved its four-star rating with a minimum of fuss, and believes that the rating will become an increasingly important tool as the property and construction industry moves to keep up with new codes and regulations around building green.

“We wanted certification because it provides certainty to the occupiers at Citygate and they can take comfort that McConnell Property has delivered on what we said we would in terms of the building’s design and sensitivity to the location. As a result I think Citygate will prove to be more flexible and adaptable to change and more productive for these businesses.

In a hydrology class last fall, University of Delaware students saw firsthand the lasting impact of storm runoff: deep gullies carved into the ground by rainfall over several decades. These gullies start at drainpipes that open into the woods near Laird Campus, and during storms they collect water and flush sediment into White Clay Creek.

Luc Claessens, assistant professor of geography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment who studies human effects on watersheds, used the field trip to connect classroom material with real-world experiences. Now he is working with UD staff and students to develop a comprehensive plan that would improve stormwater drainage at the site, supported by a UD Sustainability Fund grant.

“What we’ll do is come up with a design for green infrastructure for this part of campus,” Claessens said. “It is a unique setting for all participants to learn about the challenges and opportunities of reducing environmental impacts.”

Nature’s stormwater management system is to absorb rain into the ground, but roads, parking lots and other hard surfaces cover up this environmental sponge. Construction is currently regulated by the state to reduce flow and pollutants, although prior to 1990, common practice was to direct runoff into wooded areas — which is what largely caused the gullies near Laird Campus.

During rainstorms, the sediment-laden runoff sweeps right under the scenic Pomeroy Trail and creates mocha-colored plumes of sediment into the White Clay Creek, which is a National Wild and Scenic River. Claessens collected water samples during Hurricane Sandy that showed high levels of sediment, which can pose problems for aquatic life and make drinking water taken from the creek more expensive to clean.

Claessens is collaborating with Gerald Kauffman, director of UD’s Water Resources Agency, to create hydrologic and hydraulic engineering designs for the project. Other UD resources include Environmental Health and Safety and Facilities for assistance with outreach and landscape aspects.

Several students are also involved. Last fall Claessens advised a UD student team entry for the EPA Campus RainWorks Challenge to design a preliminary green infrastructure plan for the Christiana Towers area. The interdisciplinary team included graduate students in geography (Asia Dowtin), water science and policy (Matt Bachman and Kate Miller) and energy and environmental policy (Craig Dsouza).

This spring Claessens and Kauffman are advising an interdisciplinary team of five UD-WATER undergraduate interns on this project, including majors in environmental science (Megan Mauger), environmental studies (Devika Banerjee), environmental engineering (Kate Aulenbach and Virginia Thornton) and biological sciences (Megan Shaffer). The interns are funded by the Delaware Water Resources Center, which is directed by Tom Sims in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. A recent addition to the team is Alex Soroka, an incoming graduate student in water science and policy who works with Claessens.