Movie review: Scares never materialize in 'The Apparition' | The Salt ...

Stefan Erhard | Warner Bros. Pictures Ashley Greene, Sebastian Stan and Tom Felton (from left) star in the supernatural thriller "The Apparition."

Review ? Inept direction leads to false starts and dead ends.

The horror thriller "The Apparition" is short, barely clocking in at 70 minutes before an attenuated credits sequence, but it makes up for its brevity by being one of the most tedious movies ever to advertise itself as something scary.

Writer-director Todd Lincoln, in his first feature, starts by suggesting a "found-footage" thriller with an old-school twist. It begins with grainy film stock of a 1973 incident, called "The Charles Experiment," in which a group of paranormal psychologists try to summon the spirit of a deceased colleague. But before that possibility gets rolling, the scene shifts to modern video of college students somewhere trying to re-create "The Charles Experiment," with (as nearly as we can tell with the dim lighting and shaky camerawork) horrific results.

?

H

?The Apparition?

A young couple is terrorized by something supposedly scary in this lame horror thriller.

Where ? Theaters everywhere.

When ? Opened on Friday, Aug. 22.

Rating ? PG-13 for terror/frightening images and some sensuality.

Running time ? 78 minutes.

Then begins what is, by default, the real story: Young couple Kelly ("Twilight" co-star Ashley Greene) and Ben (Sebastian Stan) are house-sitting in suburban California, when strange stuff starts to happen. First it?s little things, like furniture moving slightly. Then the menace grows bigger, with unexplained mold patches and the sudden death of the neighbors? dog.

Is the house haunted? Are the power lines over the house, which Lincoln obsessively photographs, carrying some unseen menace? Is Kelly a target of some supernatural force?

Any of these would be interesting avenues for a horror movie to explore. Lincoln briefly toys with each of them, and then moves on.

But moves on to what? Eventually we get some exposition about Ben?s involvement in the second attempt at "The Charles Experiment," told to us by his paranoid ex-colleague Patrick ("Harry Potter" alum Tom Felton, without his bleached-blond Draco Malfoy ?do), who intones dire warnings of something that "crossed into our world."

Lincoln never gets around to revealing anything important about that evil something. He throws in a few arresting images, linked by an oppressive synth-heavy soundtrack by the duo tomandandy. But between Lincoln?s ineptitude and the vacant prettiness of Greene and Stan, "The Apparition" becomes just a pile of false starts and dead ends that never build to anything truly frightening.

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Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/lifestyle/54759031-80/apparition-lincoln-thriller-horror.html.csp

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College basketball in pictures

The Cal State Northridge Matadors defeated the Vancouver Island University Mariners 85-45 on Wednesday at the VIU gym in men's exhibition basketball.

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With A Budget Almost Cut In Half And 40 Percent Staff Cuts Can The ...

RIAA?s budget comes from music labels and distributors. In theory it represents the interests of the music industry. Therefore, it depends on their willingness to pay them to represent music in all its forms. That?s not going so well.

TorrentFreak obtained its latest tax filing and the RIAA is facing the same difficulties as the major music labels. Its budget has been cut to $29.1 million for 2010-2011 from $51.35 million two years earlier. Yet, the most important shift comes from the anti-piracy strategy adopted by the RIAA.

Instead of spending tens of millions of dollars in legal fees, the RIAA is supporting the copyright alert system and its six strikes, a policy inspired by the unpopular and ineffective French anti-piracy law called Hadopi.

In other words, the RIAA is still wasting a lot of money that could have been better used to foster novel Internet services or music experiences and to create new sources of revenues for the artists.

With that new-found austerity, the RIAA cut its staff by nearly 40% from 117 to 72 employees. A budget item stays stable over the years, however. Their lobbying activity is still active to the tune of $2.3 million a year.

But legal fees represent the major expense reduction, from $16.5 million to $2.34 million. Over the years, the RIAA has drastically limited the number of lawsuits for illegal music downloading and will probably stay this course.

RIAA is currently undertaking the rollout of the copyright alert system in the U.S. Based on an agreement between ISPs and copyright holders, infringers will receive up to six alerts. If they fail to change their behavior, their connection may be throttled or even suspended for a few days.

After three years in the planning, the copyright alert system is still not implemented.

There have been previous examples of piracy monitoring laws and frameworks with mixed results. In France, the three-strike Hadopi law was introduced in 2009. An important aspect of the law was to foster legal digital services, but it was mostly abandoned ? they only approved legal services with a PUR label in order to identify them.

But the dissuasive part didn?t work either. Instead of downloading movies or music using the BitTorrent protocol, illegal streaming services and direct downloading through file lockers became de rigueur. Given the failure of this plan, the undertaking will probably be stopped in the coming months, when the government finds another way to tackle the issue.

In Sweden, the IPRED law enticed illegal downloaders to massively use a VPN service as a way to anonymize their Internet traffic ? another example, another failure.

The major music labels are right to cut the budget of the RIAA because they cannot win the fight against piracy by suing a few downloaders. Nevertheless, backing a multiple-strike IP-collecting strategy is not the answer.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry. Its mission is to foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes our members? creative and financial vitality. Its members are the record companies that comprise the most vibrant national music industry in the world. RIAA members create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States. In support of this mission, the...

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Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/23/bad-news-for-the-riaa-budget-almost-cut-in-half-40-percent-staff-cuts-and-still-irrelevant/

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Reaching 4 Excellence: Future Nurse is Good as Gold | fox4kc.com ...

CAMERON, Mo. ? A Northland teenager came away with a gold medal from the summer games ? the summer games of career and technical education.

Shelbie Kirkendoll of Kearney is the only high school student from the Greater Kansas City region to win a top prize at the big National SkillsUSA Championships. And our Fox 4 Young Achiever of the Week is also a champion of volunteerism and philanthropy with a heart of gold.

Warmth. Concern. Empathy. Caring. Her supervisors at the Missouri Veterans Home in Cameron say it?s all deeply genuine in Shelbie Kirkendoll as she interacts with the residents. Fresh off her senior year at Kearney High School in nearby Kearney, Mo., Shelbie?s a recreational therapy aide here, working with veterans with Alzheimer?s, dementia and other special needs conditions, the center?s most challenging population.

?I absolutely love it,? says Shelbie about working with the residents. ?It?s just so fulfilling being around these veterans. They fulfill my life.? Her boss here says Shelbie has uncommon skill and maturity for one still so young.

?She?s just so compassionate and caring,? says Administrator Bradley Haggard. ?And you can just see that when she touches a vet?s hand or shoulder. And she just has that maturity level that she knows, ?This is what I want to do, I want to care for people.?? Shelbie?s going into nursing and says she?d like nothing better than to be a hospice nurse one day soon.

?My grandpa was in hospice before he passed away,? says Shelbie about what sparked her interest in hospice. ?And I want to be able to help people at the lowest time of their life. And the family. It?s a really, really crucial time of their life. And I really want to make a difference at that time.?

Shelbie has an impressive start on her life goal. She?s already a Certified Nursing Assistant and a Licensed Pharmacy Technician. And she soared through health care courses at Excelsior Springs Area Career Center where she was Student of the Year.

?Right away I knew she was a leader,? says Brian Smarker, an instructor at Excelsior Springs Area Career Center who got to know Shelbie as she became president of the school?s Skills USA chapter. ?And she expresses it joyfully. She?s very exuberant. Very outgoing. Very professional in everything she does.?

Shelbie struck gold this summer at the National SkillsUSA Championships competition for the country?s top career and technical students. She won in the Health Occupations Professional Portfolio competition, crafting a superb compilation of her career preparation and personal activities and accomplishments and then dazzling the judges with a terrific oral presentation.

?It?s about selling yourself,? says Shelbie of the importance of putting together a great portfolio. ?As an employee, prospectively, you are selling yourself to an employer.?

All of her stellar accomplishments and honors mean a lot to Shelbie but there?s something else that?s very big in her life that means just as much. She has been a dedicated, seemingly tireless volunteer and philanthropist for years, much of it for health care organizations.

She started volunteering nearly six years ago for charity projects sponsored by a the Target store in Liberty, Mo. where her mom is a manager. She volunteers at Liberty Hospital in the cancer center and at Continua Hospice.

A talented softball player herself, Shelbie almost single-handedly put on a benefit softball game that raised $1,500 for the American Cancer Society. The project made her a Missouri State Finalist for the Prudential Spirit of Community Award, one of the world?s top honors for community service and philanthropy by young people.

?I really just want to make people happy,? says Shelbie. And she?s?succeeding at it gloriously.

Shelbie is starting nursing classes at Missouri Western State University next week with enough college credit hours she racked up in high school and at the career center to be a sophomore.

FOX 4 News is Working for You to spotlight outstanding young people and their positive accomplishments. In our weekly report called Reaching 4 Excellence we meet young achievers in subjects like academics, the arts, leadership, community service, volunteerism, career exploration, overcoming obstacles and heroism. Watch for Reaching 4 Excellence every Monday on?FOX 4 News at 8 a.m., every Wednesday on?FOX 4 News at 9 p.m. and every Thursday on?FOX 4 News at 5 p.m.

Source: http://fox4kc.com/2012/08/23/reaching-4-excellence-future-nurse-is-good-as-gold/

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Spike in Afghan Forces Attacking Colleagues, NATO Troops

The escalation in ?green-on-blue? attacks, that is, the attacks by Afghan security forces on NATO occupation forces, has become something of a major story in recent weeks, particularly after nine such attacks were launched in a 11 day span earlier this month.

But it turns out ?green-on-green? attacks are soaring as well, with 35 separate attacks so far this year by Afghan security forces on other Afghan security forces, resulting in at least 53 people killed and 22 wounded.

Though NATO has sought to downplay its significance, many of these attacks appear to be the result of Taliban infiltration of security forces, with low-ranking Taliban joining to acquire weapons and launched attacks on the way out, before disappearing back into the insurgency.

Officials have repeatedly claimed improved ?screening? for security forces, but with the enormous size of the Afghan military and the extremely low pay, it is almost inevitable for recruiters to take anybody who?s willing.

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Gibbons are soprano singers of the animal world

If you want to hear the clear, piercing voice of a soprano, don't bother with the opera. Just listen to a gibbon. Giving gibbons helium to breathe and studying its effect on their calls provides evidence that the apes call to each other using similar mechanisms to trained human sopranos.

Gibbons are known for their high-pitched "songs", which are unusually melodious for animal calls (listen to a recording).

Wondering how they produce the songs, Takeshi Nishimura of Kyoto University in Aichi, Japan, and colleagues recorded the calls of a captive white-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar) ? first in normal air, and then in air that contained 20 per cent oxygen, 30 per cent nitrogen and 50 per cent helium.

It sounds like a prank, but making an animal inhale helium and measuring how it affects their calls offers clues to how their vocal system works.

It's unclear how most animals produce their calls, but it's thought that in many cases it is the fixed shape of their vocal tract that determines the exact frequency of the sound waves, which make up the call. Because sound waves have a higher frequency in helium than in air, the gas affects the fundamental frequency of these calls.

Unchanged frequency

However, humans can control the frequency of the sound source, and change the shape of their vocal tract to modify it further. One result of this is that the fundamental frequency is not affected when humans breathe helium ? although the resulting sound is altered because the helium changes how the air behaves in the vocal tract, boosting the higher harmonics.

Nishimura's experiment showed that gibbon calls are affected by helium in a similar way to human calls. When the gibbon was breathing helium, the fundamental frequency of her calls was unchanged, suggesting it was produced independently of her vocal tract (listen to a recording).

Gibbons' high-pitched calls are quite simple compared to normal human speech, which uses combinations of different frequencies to produce consonants and vowels. Gibbon calls don't bother with such complexity, but neither do soprano singers. Both sacrifice detail for sheer volume and a purity of tone that allows the call to resonate ? which explains why it's difficult to make out the words when listening to opera.

While other animals such as howler monkeys can produce loud calls that carry for many kilometres, soprano calls are probably unique to gibbons, says Nishimura.

Journal reference: American Journal of Physical Anthropology, DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22124

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A Message To Garcia ? 6400 Personal Finance

Time to be honest people.

Think back to the last time your boss gave you a task to accomplish, what was the first thing out of your mouth?

Did you ask for clarification?

Did you ask for someone else to assist you?

Do you ask for an extended deadline?

Or did you simply respond ?Yes,boss/sir/ma?am? or ?No problem? and set about completing the task?

Back in 1899 a guy by the name of Elbert Hubbard wrote a short essay on this theme that was titled simply ?A Message To Garcia.? ?The short version (of a short essay) is that prior to the Spanish-American War breaking out President McKinley decided he wanted to make contact with the leader of the Cuban insurgents, a general by the name of Garcia. ?He asked around as to who he should send to make contact with the general and was told that Captain Andrew Summers Rowan, United States Army, was his man. ?I?ll let Hubbard?s words tell the rest of the story:

The point that I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter and did not ask, ?Where is he at??

Here is how the Army would describe what transpired in that sentence: the President gave the officer a mission that contained a clear intent and desired endstate: go to Cuba, deliver this letter to Garcia, and establish a positive relationship with the insurgents. ?In short he told the officer the ?what? and the ?why? and left it up to his subordinate to figure out the ?how.? ?That is the type of leadership that breeds creativity and allows star performers to excel. ?That said Hubbard was a much more talented writer than I was so I?ll let his own words make the point:

It is not book-learning young man need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing??Carry a message to Garcia.?

If you?ve read more than a handful of the posts that I have been putting up here over the last few months you have probably noticed that I am a strong proponent of discipline in all things, whether it be a matter of health, attitude, behavior, or personal finance. ?It is easy for me to speak of discipline because I have been trained to live it, for others it is a more foreign concept. ?For them, and for you if you are one of them, I strongly recommend that you get a copy of ?A Message To Garcia.? ?At the beginning of the 20th century it was distributed and translated worldwide to the tune of more than 40 million copies and was issued to every soldier in multiple armies of major nations (including Russia and Japan when they went to war with each other). ?It can be had today on Amazon for $0.99.

Or you could just take that $0.99 and buy a burger from a fast food joint. ?It is a free country after all.

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Source: http://6400personalfinance.com/2012/08/22/a-message-to-garcia/

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