Feb. 27, 2013 ? NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope orbits our planet every 95 minutes, building up increasingly deeper views of the universe with every circuit. Its wide-eyed Large Area Telescope (LAT) sweeps across the entire sky every three hours, capturing the highest-energy form of light -- gamma rays -- from sources across the universe. These range from supermassive black holes billions of light-years away to intriguing objects in our own galaxy, such as X-ray binaries, supernova remnants and pulsars.
Now a Fermi scientist has transformed LAT data of a famous pulsar into a mesmerizing movie that visually encapsulates the spacecraft's complex motion.
Pulsars are neutron stars, the crushed cores of massive suns that destroyed themselves when they ran out of fuel, collapsed and exploded. The blast simultaneously shattered the star and compressed its core into a body as small as a city yet more massive than the sun. The result is an object of incredible density, where a spoonful of matter weighs as much as a mountain on Earth. Equally incredible is a pulsar's rapid spin, with typical rotation periods ranging from once every few seconds up to hundreds of times a second. Fermi sees gamma rays from more than a hundred pulsars scattered across the sky.
One pulsar shines especially bright for Fermi. Called Vela, it spins 11 times a second and is the brightest persistent source of gamma rays the LAT sees. Although gamma-ray bursts and flares from distant black holes occasionally outshine the pulsar, they don't have Vela's staying power. Because pulsars emit beams of energy, scientists often compare them to lighthouses, a connection that in a broader sense works especially well for Vela, which is both a brilliant beacon and a familiar landmark in the gamma-ray sky.
Most telescopes focus on a very small region of the sky, but the LAT is a wide-field instrument that can detect gamma rays across a large portion of the sky at once. The LAT is, however, much more sensitive to gamma rays near the center of its field of view than at the edges. Scientists can use observations of a bright source like Vela to track how this sensitivity varies across the instrument's field of view.
With this in mind, LAT team member Eric Charles, a physicist at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University in California, used the famous pulsar to produce a novel movie. He tracked both Vela's position relative to the center of the LAT's field of view and the instrument's exposure of the pulsar during the first 51 months of Fermi's mission, from Aug. 4, 2008, to Nov. 15, 2012.
The movie renders Vela's position in a fisheye perspective, where the middle of the pattern corresponds to the central and most sensitive portion of the LAT's field of view. The edge of the pattern is 90 degrees away from the center and well beyond what scientists regard as the effective limit of the LAT's vision.
The pulsar traces out a loopy, hypnotic pattern reminiscent of art produced by the colored pens and spinning gears of a Spirograph, a children's toy that produces geometric patterns.
The pattern created in the Vela movie reflects numerous motions of the spacecraft. The first is Fermi's 95-minute orbit around Earth, but there's another, subtler motion related to it. The orbit itself also rotates, a phenomenon called precession. Similar to the wobble of an unsteady top, Fermi's orbital plane makes a slow circuit around Earth every 54 days.
In order to capture the entire sky every two orbits, scientists deliberately nod the LAT in a repeating pattern from one orbit to the next. It first looks north on one orbit, south on the next, and then north again. Every few weeks, the LAT deviates from this pattern to concentrate on particularly interesting targets, such as eruptions on the sun, brief but brilliant gamma-ray bursts associated with the birth of stellar-mass black holes, and outbursts from supermassive black holes in distant galaxies.
The Vela movie captures one other Fermi motion. The spacecraft rolls to keep the sun from shining on and warming up the LAT's radiators, which regulate its temperature by bleeding excess heat into space.
The braided loops and convoluted curves drawn by Vela hint at the complexity of removing these effects from the torrent of data Fermi returns, but that's a challenge LAT scientists long ago proved they could meet. Still going strong after more than four years on the job, Fermi continues its mission to map the high-energy sky, which is now something everyone can envision as a celestial Spriograph traced by a pulsar pen.
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For small businesses, buying and managing health insurance is a ?pain in the buns,? to quote my new favorite ad. Not only are its complicated terms, lack of transparency, slow quoting and on-boarding process and paper trail a pain in your buns, but health insurance can be a massive pain in your wallet, to boot. Hidden costs are everywhere.
Y Combinator-backed SimplyInsured is launching today with a solution. Founders Vivek Shah and George Huo, who were also both early employees at YC startup Cardpool (which sold to Blackhawk Network in late 2011), have built a simple, online health insurance manager and quote engine for small businesses, which aims to explain in plain English what is or isn?t working about your current plan and help you identify hidden costs and cost-savings.
SimplyInsured analyzes thousands of insurance policies in an attempt to find small business owners the best coverage, price and value for their unique needs, in turn, handling all the forms and paperwork automatically and paperlessly that help you get a new plan up and running quickly. Of course, if the concept behind SimplyInsured sounds at all familiar, that?s because the startup shares a similar mission with another recently-launched Y Combinator company, Zenefits, which we covered last week.
Sure, that makes for a potentially awkward situation for Y Combinator and for both startups, and, honestly, it?s surprising that this doesn?t happen more often. YC founder Paul Graham says of the situation:
We?ve had this happen before, though not to this degree in the same batch. Companies evolve, so unless you dictate their ideas to them there is always some chance that two companies you fund will compete. E.g. Google and Apple have become competitors, and few would have expected that. But while this is an awkward situation, we have procedures for dealing with it, and we know from office hours that they ended up in the same spot by evolution and not because one copied the other.
While there is most definitely overlap, both startups have taken it in stride thus far, welcome the competition and the opportunity to learn from the success (or slip-ups) of the other, as they set out to build differentiated health insurance managers. When asked to describe how SimplyInsured is looking to set itself apart from its fellow Y Combinator startup, Huo and Shah say that they?ve opted to approach health insurance from the consumer?s perspective ? in other words, the driving questions they want to help small businesses answer are, for example, what medical issues are you worried about and how much will they cost?
Rather than offering a one-stop shop for managing a wide range of employee benefits (as Zenefits has sought out to do), the startup?s software estimates the cost of having a baby or going to the emergency room, the particular procedures and scenarios, which the founders believe are ignored by the majority of health insurance brokers. By providing deep comparisons ? not just premiums and maximums ? SimplyInsured wants to eliminate the fear (and FUD) around the hidden costs inherent to health insurance purchasing, while actively guiding companies to the best, personalized coverage and plan(s).
Of course, Zenefits and SimplyInsured are not the only startups tackling this long-standing problem, nor are they the only ones looking to bring the process online. Both Cake Health and Simplee share similar mission statements (to a degree), but the SimplyInsured co-founders are of the mindset that Cake Health and Simplee are targeting the latter half of the problem. That is to say: The startups help individuals and small businesses save money once they?re already struggling with bloated, cost-heavy plans.
While downstream cost-savings is a valuable service in and of itself ? and one that SimplyInsured offers at launch ? the company is also looking to help its customers save money during the purchasing process, Shah tells us, which he believes will lead to a larger net savings (and lower bills) down the line.
Differentiation aside, how does SimplyInsured work, you ask? Essentially, the startup?s service works in three steps. First, SimplyInsured helps small businesses find and identify the plan that best fits their particular needs. Traditionally, this process requires business owners or founders to set up in-person meetings or calls with insurance brokers and, while this provides the security blanket of being able to talk to intermediaries face-to-face, it?s inefficient and takes time.
Instead, SimplyInsured has opted to bring this online and automate the process, developing algorithms that surface relevant information based on a company?s needs, while offering a greater degree of price transparency ? or at least that?s the idea. Essentially, it?s similar to the difference one experiences in booking flights by calling a travel agent versus using Hipmunk or Kayak.
Next, once the right plan is identified, the service automates the on-boarding process (like Zenefits) to help streamline how companies sign up and activate each of their employees. Usually, this involves a lot of paperwork, faxing and brokers driving to your offices with a stack of forms to sign. Again, like Zenefits, the startup is making this process completely paper-free, allowing businesses to complete the process online in 10 minutes, rather than two weeks.
Lastly, SimplyInsured attempts to simplify the ongoing administration of the plan through a one-click on-boarding process and by making it easy for companies or employees to switch plans at any point in the future.
Once Obamacare (or the PPACA) goes fully into effect in 2014, there is an expectation that the new state health insurance exchanges will create increased competition among insurers for the average small business customer. The Act requires insurers to offer an online product and also reduces the overall commission brokers can claim from small business clients. Under previous legislature, these commissions were already reduced to seven percent, and while this means increased competition for fewer dollars, the co-founders expect that many traditional, offline brokers will struggle to make the transition and may not survive.
In the post-Obamacare world, Shah says, only the low-cost providers will be able to survive, which means there could be a big reduction in the number of agents in the U.S., which now number around 400K. Built in the new era of the 7-percent-commissions mandate and with a process that is online from the get-go, SimplyInsured (and Zenefits as well) believe they?ll be well-positioned to weather the changes, even if commissions are reduced further. For an online business like SimplyInsured, the margins work in their favor.
The founders tell us that early users of the platform (they currently have several dozen clients) have found they?ve been able to make savings in the range of $500-$1,000 per person on their health insurance, which, if they?re able to maintain an average on the higher end of that spectrum, will put them in a good place. And it will be a boon for small businesses in particular, who tend to be the ones hit hardest by health insurance costs.
Going forward, SimplyInsured plans to integrate with payroll services (something Zenefits already offers) to be able to further automate the process of employee deductions for insurance. The founders also believe that, in focusing on individuals, they can help business owners root out the specific issues they have with their plans (or will need coverage for), and can help them find increased savings.
In building their algorithms, the team found that there are tons of hidden costs in the terms of each specific injury, and, because hospitals don?t share the prices for treatment, this requires them to essentially go through the whole plan step by step. The startup has written its algorithms to automate this process, reading insurance plans one-by-one and step-by-step to tell users what they will be paying if, say they break their leg, under the terms of each plan, allowing them to easily compare the candidates. (You can see the results/examples of that comparative analysis in the images embedded above.)
This is really the key and the biggest value-add that SimplyInsured provides over its competitors; the ability to drill down into each part of a potential plan and compare them to others adds a whole new level of transparency to the process.
And, in the end, because there really isn?t a primary, go-to online insurance platform today that?s well known and widely used, both Zenefits and SimplyInsured stand to benefit handsomely from this dearth of transparency if they play their cards right. Plus, this is a big enough problem that affects enough businesses, that there is plenty of room for both to build sustainable businesses. Of course, that?s easier said than done.
For more on SimplyInsured, find them at home here.
SimplyInsured allows you to estimate your real Out-of-Pocket costs when purchasing health insurance. We turn the 100+ costs/benefits in health insurance into one, simple, easy-to-compare price.
Third radiation belt discovered with UNH-led instrument suitePublic release date: 28-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Sims david.sims@unh.edu 603-862-5369 University of New Hampshire
DURHAM, N.H. Although scientists involved in NASA's Van Allen Probes mission were confident they would eventually be able to rewrite the textbook on Earth's twin radiation belts, getting material for the new edition just two days after launch was surprising, momentous, and gratifying.
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission, subsequently renamed in honor of the belts' discoverer, astrophysicist James Van Allen, was launched in the pre-dawn hours of August 30, 2012. Shortly thereafter, and well ahead of schedule in normal operational protocol, mission scientists turned on the Relativistic Electron-Proton Telescope (REPT) to gather data in parallel with another, aging satellite that was poised to fall from orbit and reenter Earth's atmosphere. It was a fortuitous decision.
The telescope, which is part of the Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma (ECT) instrument suite led by the Space Science Center at the University of New Hampshire, immediately sent back data that at first confounded scientists but then provided a eureka moment: seen for the first time was a transient third radiation belt of high-energy particles formed in the wake of a powerful solar event that happened shortly after REPT began taking data.
"We watched in amazement as the outer radiation belt disappeared rapidly, but not completely; a small sliver of very energetic electrons remained at its inner edge, which we dubbed the 'storage ring,'" notes UNH astrophysicist Harlan Spence, principal investigator for the ECT suite and a co-author of a paper detailing the discovery published online today in the journal Science. "When the main outer electron belt reformed over subsequent days, it did so at a greater distance than where the storage ring was located, thus creating the transient, three-belt structure. The textbook was being rewritten right before our eyes."
Spence, director of the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, adds, "After decades of studying the radiation belts, this was a completely new phenomenon. With the Van Allen Probes' instruments we now have the 'eyes' capable of seeing such remarkable phenomena. We look forward eagerly to the rest of the mission in order to establish how often such extreme radiation belt structures and dynamics may occur."
The Van Allen belts are two donut-shaped regions of high-energy particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field. At the time of their discovery in 1958, they were thought to be relatively stable structures, but subsequent observations have shown they are dynamic and mysterious. However, this type of dynamic three-belt structure was never seen, or even considered, theoretically.
The identical twin satellites chase each other in a common orbit to achieve simultaneous spatial and temporal measurements of the radiation belt environment. The measurement of charged particles is key to the mission, with the ECT suite at the very heart of energetic electron measurements. The instrument suite has the capability to differentiate and precisely measure radiation belt particles on the flyan extremely complex technical achievement, and necessary to push the science forward.
The suite's science goals address the top-level mission objective to provide understandingideally to the point of predictabilityof how populations of electrons moving at nearly the speed of light and penetrating ions in space form or change in response to variable inputs of energy from the sun.
Says Spence, "These events we've recorded are extraordinary and are already allowing us to refine and confirm our theories of belt dynamics in a way that will lead to predictability of their behavior, which is important for understanding space weather and ultimately for the safety of astronauts and spacecraft that operate within such a hazardous region of geospace."
Notes Nicky Fox, Van Allen Probes deputy project scientist at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., "Even 55 years after their discovery, the Earth's radiation belts are still capable of surprising us, and still have mysteries to discover and explain. What the Van Allen Probes have shown is that the advances in technology and detection made by NASA have already had an almost immediate impact on basic science."
###
The Van Allen Probes project is the second mission in NASA's Living With a Star program to explore aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. APL built the probes and manages the mission. The program is managed by NASA Goddard. For more about the Van Allen Probes, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/vanallenprobes and http://vanallenprobes.jhuapl.edu/
For more on the Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma instrument suite visit: http://rbsp-ect.sr.unh.edu/team.shtml.
The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.
Photograph to download: http://www.eos.unh.edu/newsimage/304Whip_lg.jpg
Caption: On Aug. 31, 2012, a giant prominence on the sun erupted, sending out particles and a shock wave that traveled near Earth. This event may have been one of the causes of a third radiation belt that appeared around Earth a few days later, a phenomenon that was observed for the very first time by the newly-launched Van Allen Probes. This image of the prominence before it erupted was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/Goddard Space Flight Center.
UNH principal investigator Harlan Spence can be reached at 781-439-7262 and Harlan.spence@unh.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Third radiation belt discovered with UNH-led instrument suitePublic release date: 28-Feb-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Sims david.sims@unh.edu 603-862-5369 University of New Hampshire
DURHAM, N.H. Although scientists involved in NASA's Van Allen Probes mission were confident they would eventually be able to rewrite the textbook on Earth's twin radiation belts, getting material for the new edition just two days after launch was surprising, momentous, and gratifying.
The Radiation Belt Storm Probes mission, subsequently renamed in honor of the belts' discoverer, astrophysicist James Van Allen, was launched in the pre-dawn hours of August 30, 2012. Shortly thereafter, and well ahead of schedule in normal operational protocol, mission scientists turned on the Relativistic Electron-Proton Telescope (REPT) to gather data in parallel with another, aging satellite that was poised to fall from orbit and reenter Earth's atmosphere. It was a fortuitous decision.
The telescope, which is part of the Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma (ECT) instrument suite led by the Space Science Center at the University of New Hampshire, immediately sent back data that at first confounded scientists but then provided a eureka moment: seen for the first time was a transient third radiation belt of high-energy particles formed in the wake of a powerful solar event that happened shortly after REPT began taking data.
"We watched in amazement as the outer radiation belt disappeared rapidly, but not completely; a small sliver of very energetic electrons remained at its inner edge, which we dubbed the 'storage ring,'" notes UNH astrophysicist Harlan Spence, principal investigator for the ECT suite and a co-author of a paper detailing the discovery published online today in the journal Science. "When the main outer electron belt reformed over subsequent days, it did so at a greater distance than where the storage ring was located, thus creating the transient, three-belt structure. The textbook was being rewritten right before our eyes."
Spence, director of the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, adds, "After decades of studying the radiation belts, this was a completely new phenomenon. With the Van Allen Probes' instruments we now have the 'eyes' capable of seeing such remarkable phenomena. We look forward eagerly to the rest of the mission in order to establish how often such extreme radiation belt structures and dynamics may occur."
The Van Allen belts are two donut-shaped regions of high-energy particles trapped by Earth's magnetic field. At the time of their discovery in 1958, they were thought to be relatively stable structures, but subsequent observations have shown they are dynamic and mysterious. However, this type of dynamic three-belt structure was never seen, or even considered, theoretically.
The identical twin satellites chase each other in a common orbit to achieve simultaneous spatial and temporal measurements of the radiation belt environment. The measurement of charged particles is key to the mission, with the ECT suite at the very heart of energetic electron measurements. The instrument suite has the capability to differentiate and precisely measure radiation belt particles on the flyan extremely complex technical achievement, and necessary to push the science forward.
The suite's science goals address the top-level mission objective to provide understandingideally to the point of predictabilityof how populations of electrons moving at nearly the speed of light and penetrating ions in space form or change in response to variable inputs of energy from the sun.
Says Spence, "These events we've recorded are extraordinary and are already allowing us to refine and confirm our theories of belt dynamics in a way that will lead to predictability of their behavior, which is important for understanding space weather and ultimately for the safety of astronauts and spacecraft that operate within such a hazardous region of geospace."
Notes Nicky Fox, Van Allen Probes deputy project scientist at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md., "Even 55 years after their discovery, the Earth's radiation belts are still capable of surprising us, and still have mysteries to discover and explain. What the Van Allen Probes have shown is that the advances in technology and detection made by NASA have already had an almost immediate impact on basic science."
###
The Van Allen Probes project is the second mission in NASA's Living With a Star program to explore aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. APL built the probes and manages the mission. The program is managed by NASA Goddard. For more about the Van Allen Probes, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/vanallenprobes and http://vanallenprobes.jhuapl.edu/
For more on the Energetic Particle, Composition, and Thermal Plasma instrument suite visit: http://rbsp-ect.sr.unh.edu/team.shtml.
The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.
Photograph to download: http://www.eos.unh.edu/newsimage/304Whip_lg.jpg
Caption: On Aug. 31, 2012, a giant prominence on the sun erupted, sending out particles and a shock wave that traveled near Earth. This event may have been one of the causes of a third radiation belt that appeared around Earth a few days later, a phenomenon that was observed for the very first time by the newly-launched Van Allen Probes. This image of the prominence before it erupted was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Credit: NASA/SDO/AIA/Goddard Space Flight Center.
UNH principal investigator Harlan Spence can be reached at 781-439-7262 and Harlan.spence@unh.edu.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
If Samuel L. Jackson was flying on a recent San Diego-bound Frontier Airlines flight, he no doubt would have screamed, "I've had it with these @#$!% shakes on this @#$!% plane!"
Jackson wasn't on board, but the "Harlem Shake" video shot midair might not be as harmless as originally thought.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the recording that shows members of a Colorado college Ultimate Frisbee team doing the dance. Recorded on February 15, the video has been viewed more than 430,000 times on YouTube and is one of the countless versions of the viral video meme that exploded earlier this month.
In them, groups of people dance in a silly fashion to a song, appropriately called "Harlem Shake."
The FAA is involved "to make sure no federal regulations were violated," agency spokesperson Allen Kenitzer said. The investigation will include interviewing flight crew and passengers.
Frontier wouldn't comment specifically on the FAA probe, but, regarding the dance, spokesperson Kate O'Malley said: "All safety measures were followed and the seat belt sign was off."
There's little wonder why the crew was OK with the in-flight video: Employees killing time on a layover recorded their own version days earlier.
Though various culture critics have called for its demise, the Harlem Shake meme clearly still has wings.
MADRID, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Lionel Messi has rarely been accused of failing to deliver in big games, having scored in two European Cup finals, but after subdued performances against AC Milan and Real Madrid, questions are being asked. The four-times World Player of the Year and leading scorer in one of the greatest club teams of all time, was a shadow of his usual self at the San Siro in a Champions League last-16 first leg last week, when Barcelona slumped to a 2-0 defeat. ...
April is a month of literary celebrations, including William Shakespeare?s birthday, National Library Week, National Poetry Month, and Children?s Day/Book Day. In April, Hennepin County Library invites area residents to visit their local libraries, discover books by new and favorite authors, and enjoy free author and other events.
Headlining April author events are Romanian-born poet and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu, ?West Bank Boogie? author Cyn Collins, award-winning teen fantasy fiction writer Tamora Pierce, St. Paul Poet Laureate Carol Connelly, and poet and fiction writer Cass Dalglish.? Other headliners are Plymouth Reads author Diane Wilson, bestselling writer Theresa Weir (aka Anne Frasier), printer/illustrator?Gaylord Schanilec, Star Tribune reporter Curt Brown, organic cook and cookbook author Brenda Langton, and Minnesota Poet Laureate Joyce Sutphen.
For the complete program calendar and information about library locations, books and other resources available, and access to the catalog, go to?www.hclib.org. Library cards are free.
Thursday, April 4, 7?8:30?p.m.
Talk of the Stacks With Andrei Codrescu Minneapolis Central Library Pohlad Hall Romanian-born poet, novelist, screenwriter and National Public Radio commentator, Codrescu is internationally known for his satiric wit and biting political perspective. He will discuss ?life as a writer and 41 years of wrestling the muse? and read from his newest poetry collection, ?So Recently Rent a World,? which includes 90 poems and dozens of classics.?Books will be available for purchase and signing. Seating is first-come, first-served. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. A program of the Friends of the Hennepin County Library. Presenting sponsor: The Private Client Reserve of U.S. Bank. Additional support: Dorsey and Whitney LLP, MinnPost, Magers and Quinn Booksellers and the Marquette Hotel.
Saturday, April 6, 1?2?p.m.
Author Talk: Cyn Collins Northeast Library Local author Collins will read from her book, ?West Bank Boogie: Forty Years of Music, Mayhem and Memories.? You?ll hear about a vital part of the local music scene, and maybe share some memories of your own!?Books will be available for purchase and signing. Sponsored by Friends of the Northeast Library.
Saturday, April 6, 1?3:30?p.m.
Teens Know Best: Tamora Pierce
Southdale Library For teens. Meet teen fiction legend Pierce and talk to other fantasy fans. Hear about Pierce?s famous fantasy series: ?The Tortall Universe? and ?The Circle Universe.? This project is funded with money from Minnesota?s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Sponsored by MELSA (Metropolitan Library Service Agency)?
Tuesday, April 9, 7?8:30?p.m.
Edina Reads: Carol Connolly Edina Library Location: Fireside Room, Edina Senior Center, lower level of the library.
St. Paul Poet Laureate and Kay Sexton Award-winner Carol Connolly will read with Cass Dalglish, a poet, fiction writer and professor of English at Augsburg College and director of Augsburg?s creative writing program.?Their reading is in honor of National Poetry Month. Sponsored by Friends of the Edina Library, the Edina Community Foundation, Edina Senior Center, Friends of the Hennepin County Library, Edina High School, Edina Community Education and Edina Resource Center.
Sunday, April 14, 6:30?p.m.
Plymouth Reads: Meet Author Diane Wilson Plymouth Library Location: Plymouth Creek Center, 14800 34th Ave. N., Plymouth? Wilson will speak about her book, ?Spirit Car: Journey to a Dakota Past,? the 2013 Plymouth Reads selection. Discover, as she did, ?just how deeply our identities are influenced by the forces of history.??For details, visit?Plymouth Arts Council?s website?or call?763-509-5200. Sponsored by the Friends of the Plymouth Library, Plymouth Arts Council and City of Plymouth Parks & Recreation.
Thursday, April 18, 7?p.m.
Author Talk: Theresa Weir Ridgedale Library Best-selling author of 23 books and numerous short stories, Weir (aka Anne Frasier) will speak about her new memoir, ?The Man Who Left,? and her previous work, ?The Orchard.??Books will be available for purchase and signing. Sponsored by Friends of the Ridgedale Library.
Saturday, April 20, 2?4?p.m.
Gaylord Schanilec?s Lac Des Pleurs
Minneapolis Central Library Room Location: Doty Board Room Schanilec is a Midwestern fine printer who works out of his studio in Stockholm, Wisc. as well as part-time on his boat, where he sketched fish and birds for his forthcoming book, ?Lac Des Pleurs.? He will share images from and the background and process in creating the book. Family members of Beverly Hogan, former Minneapolis Central staff, will donate a copy to Special Collections in her memory. Sponsored by Friends of the Minneapolis Central Library.?
Monday, April 22, 6:30?p.m.
Author Talk: Curt Brown St. Anthony Library Star Tribune reporter Brown spent months researching materials and visiting sites where the U.S.-Dakota War and related events occurred for his August 2012 six-part series ?In the Footsteps of Little Crow.? Brown will talk about what he learned about this darkest period of Minnesota history. Sponsored by Friends of the St. Anthony Library.?
Wednesday, April 24, 7?8:30?p.m.
Club Book With Brenda Langton Southdale Library For nearly 40 years, Langton has been one of the most recognizable guiding lights of Twin Cities organic dining. She will share her newest book, ?The Spoonriver Cookbook,? a tribute to her acclaimed Spoonriver restaurant and the Mill City Farmers Market, as well as her vision and philosophy.?Books will be available for purchase and signing. Seating is first-come, first-served. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. A program of MELSA (Metropolitan Library Service Agency) and coordinated by the Friends of the Hennepin County Library, is funded in part with money from Minnesota?s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. Creative partner: A/B Geist. Media support: Minnesota Public Radio. Author escort: Around Town Agency.?
Monday, April 29, 6:30?p.m.
Author Talk: Joyce Sutphen Maple Grove Library Join Sutphen, poet laureate of Minnesota, for an evening of live poetry. She also will discuss how poetry enriches lives, and share stories about her role as poet laureate. Sponsored by Friends of the Maple Grove Library.
For more information, visit or call your?local library?or contact the?Ask Us?service.
The open-source operating system has long been the exclusive
domain of programmers and other DIY computer nerds, but big players like Valve
have recently begun making real progress in supporting Linux for heavy-duty
gaming. Here's why you should cheer for those efforts rather than laughing them
off or feeling like they threaten your existing PC gaming domain.
You can't throw a virtual rock on the Internet without
hitting a game developer commenting on how dealing with platform holders takes
time, effort, and money away from making better games. The additional coding
required to conform to standards that affect a tiny portion of their audience
in order to pass Microsoft certification comes at a cost. The thirty percent or
so (an extremely vague figure, as it varies from game to game and platform to
platform) of revenues that platform holders take off the top make it harder for
developers to profit from their work. The requirements and restrictions of a
platform's exclusive marketplace can make some ideas impossible to bring to
life - witness the lack of MMOs on Xbox despite a strong network
infrastructure. Finally, onerous burdens like having to pay a platform holder
to patch your game make games like Minecraft and Team Fortress 2 lag far behind
their PC versions.
With an open-source platform like Linux, there is no
platform holder to deal with. Nobody can stop you from making and distributing
whatever Linux software you like, charge you a fee for it, or tell you what you
can and can't do with a Linux game. That has been the advantage of PC gaming
since its inception, and it's done wonderful things for creativity,
flexibility, and pricing over the years. With Microsoft pushing Windows in the
direction of being a closed platform with Windows 8 (ARM-based tablets running
Windows 8 can only run Microsoft-approved programs, and only software sold
through Microsoft's digital storefront can access the full suite of Metro UI
features), this massive advantage that PC gaming holds could be lost. Linux's
open-source nature prevents it from ever being pushed down a similar road.
Valve's Steam service (which recently launched in a Linux
incarnation) shares many of the downsides of closed platforms like consoles,
iOS, or the Windows Marketplace. However, Valve doesn't control your hardware
and cannot prevent any games or content from working on your machine whether it
runs Windows, Linux, or Mac. Lacking that stick, Valve and competing companies
(including GameStop, which owns Game Informer) must resort to carrots like
seamless patching, community features, sales, and other ways to add value in
order to attract games and players to their services. Many developers are happy
to give Valve and other retailers their cut of a game's sale price in exchange
for the visibility and marketing they receive in return, and others prefer
using the pre-fab solutions for anti-piracy measures, community/online
integration, and other developer-focused added value that Steam in particular
offers.
Though Steam and similar services share some downsides with
closed platforms like consoles, the key ingredient is choice. If a company
doesn't like the way Valve does business, or doesn't think that Steam's
positives outweigh its negatives, they're free to ignore it and release their
game through other channels. NCsoft and ArenaNet probably didn't need any
additional exposure for Guild Wars 2, and obviously decided to avoid losing the
revenue that using a reseller like Valve takes off the top. Nonetheless, Guild
Wars 2 is available to all PC gamers who own the requisite hardware. Blizzard
sticks with its own Battle.net service. EA and Ubisoft insist on annoying
players with their own proprietary Origin and Uplay systems. Hundreds of indie
developers sell games through their own websites. The PC gaming ecosystem is
wider and more diverse than closed platforms by orders of magnitude, and it's
all due to its open nature. Game development on Linux will remain open to all
business models, types of content, and services, forever.
Finally, a Linux gaming machine will by definition cost
around $100 less than the same machine running Windows. Not having to pay
Microsoft for its operating system is a huge boon, particularly at the lower
end of gaming-capable PC building like Valve's "SteamBox" initiative. A
high-end $1,900 machine going up to $2,000 isn't that big of a deal, but
bringing a $600 box down to $500 is huge.
As glorious as a Linux-centric PC gaming future would be,
there are a number of hurdles that must be cleared for any serious Linux
development to take root. Come back Friday for a look at those, and leave your
thoughts in the comments section below in the meantime.
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Public release date: 28-Feb-2013
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