A confused game
Imagine a superhero who epitomizes soppy and absolute virtue. His chivalry wins him the woman’s affection. His brutal physical strength is fuelled by a blue H.A.R.T (Hertz advanced resonance transmitter), also what the Iron Man wears. He can stop speeding trains with his bare hands. His maker quotes Mahatma Gandhi and V Shantaram. Above all, he has a heart---ah, the maudlin heart. ...
Millions of BlackBerry users remained without service on Wednesday as a three-day network outage spread to North America, causing massive frustrations for people who rely on these smartphones for business and personal communications.
"BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning," Research in Motion, maker of BlackBerry smartphones, said in a statement. "We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we apologize to our customers for any inconvenience. We will provide a further update as soon as more information is available."
The outage now impacts people on nearly every continent, according to the company's statements.
An "extremely critical issue" on the BlackBerry network caused the outage, Stephen Bates, RIM's managing director in the U.K., told CNN's Richard Quest. He added: "We're putting all of our focus with all of our engineers and all of our network specialists on trying to understand the nature of why this backup system didn't work as it should have ..."
The service outage started on Monday with customers in the Middle East, Europe and Africa, before spreading to South America and Asia on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning it appeared to hit the United States and Canada. The outage appears primarily to affect text messaging and Internet access from the mobile phones, not necessarily their ability to place calls.
No customer e-mails have been completely lost, and they will be delivered eventually, RIM said in a press conference on Wednesday afternoon, according to CNNMoney's Julianne Pepitone.
In a statement released Tuesday, the company said the "messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure. Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested."
The company said it is working "around the clock" to fix the problem.
"A large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible," the Tuesday statement said. "We apologize for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed."
There are about 70 million BlackBerry users worldwide. RIM has not commented on how many users are affected, but reports suggest the number of users without some sort of service has climbed into the millions.
BlackBerry users, many of whom use the devices primarily for business purposes, were angered by the outage.
Overheard on CNN.com: BlackBerry outage not all bad
Many people took to Twitter to both complain about lost productivity and to make light of the situation.
"COME ONNNN. Sort it out #blackberry. This is ridiculous in this day and age," a Twitter user named @Suzy__G wrote.
"OK, this #Blackberry business is now SERIOUSLY pissing me off," CNN's Piers Morgan tweeted.
Later, he said: "One positive of the #Blackberry crisis - my personal trainer can't get hold of me. #OrderingBurgers."
"#DearBlackberry I can't work, I can't study, please, please come back from that coma!" @marianaae wrote.
"What did the one #Blackberry user say to the other?..........nothing....," said another Twitter user, @giselewaymes.
"And iPhone users everywhere smile smugly and search for the 'I Told You So' app," wrote another.
A website called isblackberrystillbroken.com popped up to track developments.
People who visited the site on Wednesday afternoon were greeted with a red screen and a giant word: "Yes."
This is not the first time RIM has faced a major service outage.
"I have been an analyst for 25 years and have watched RIM wrestle with this same outage problem time after time. Every few years we get pinched by yet another major problem," tech analyst Jeff Kagan said in a statement.
This outage, however, comes at a particularly bad time for RIM, since it faces increasing competition in the smarpthone market, Kagan says. Apple's iPhone and phones on the Google Android operating system have been gaining ground, and the new iPhone 4S goes on sale Friday.
The tech blog Electronista wrote:
"RIM's outage is now one of its largest in recent memory and is now edging even closer to the iPhone 4S launch than before, leading to a possible temptation for those already looking to upgrade their phones. Commentary on Twitter has shifted gradually from frustrated patience to open anger and has led some to remark that they're now likely to switch to the iPhone, Android, or another platform."
October is LGBT History Month. It's also the month that we remember the life and tragic death of a young man that brought hate crimes into sharp focus for a nation that, at the time, didn't want to talk about the subject. Thirteen years ago, on Oct. 12, 21-year-old Matthew Shepard died after a brutal attack in Laramie, Wyo. In the words of his parents, who started the Matthew Shepard Foundation in his memory:
The story of Matthew Shepard began on December 1, 1976 when he was born to Judy and Dennis Shepard in Casper, Wyoming. He went to public school in Casper until his junior year of high school when he moved with his family to Saudi Arabia. Matt had to finish his high school education at The American School in Switzerland because there were no American high schools in Saudi Arabia at the time.
In both high schools, he was elected by his peers to be a peer counselor. He was easy to talk to, made friends easily and actively fought for the acceptance of all people. Matt had a great passion for equality. His experiences abroad fueled his love for travel and gave him the chance to make many new friends from around the world. Matt's college career eventually took him back to Wyoming where he studied political science, foreign relations and languages at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.
The horrific events that took place shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998 went against everything that Matt embodied. Two men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, led him to a remote area east of Laramie, Wyoming. He was tied to a split-rail fence where the two men severely assaulted him. He was beaten and left to die in the cold of the night. Almost 18 hours later, he was found by a bicyclist who initially mistook him for a scarecrow. Matt died on October 12 at 12:53 a.m. at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado with his family by his side. His memorial service was attended by friends and family from around the world and garnered immense media attention that brought Matt's story to the forefront of the fight against bigotry and hate. The life and death of Matthew Shepard changed the way we talk about, and deal with, hate in America. Since his death, Matt's legacy has challenged and inspired millions of individuals to erase hate in all its forms. Although Matt's life was short, his story continues to have a great impact on young and old alike. His legacy lives on in thousands of people like you who actively fight to replace hate with understanding, compassion and acceptance.
The violent death of this young man catapulted LGBT-based hate crimes into the national dialogue and international spotlight. For the first time, many in our country and around the world saw the very real danger gay people faced from bias-motivated crimes. The public also got its first good look at odious organizations like Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church, who protested Matthew Shepard's funeral and the trial. The horrific reactions and protestations of people like Phelps put a public and televised face on pure hatred and bigotry, which really changed the dialogue around LGBT people. They saw what pure anti-gay hatred looked like, and it changed the debate about hate crimes and gay rights forever.
But the response against the brutal murder was also history-making. Hours after the death of Matthew Shepard, President Bill Clinton went onto the White House lawn to tell reporters: "In our shock and grief one thing must remain clear: hate and prejudice are not American values."
The senseless murder of a young man, combined with unprecedented media attention and an energized LGBT community, truly changed the course of the equality movement. The nation had a face to put on the nameless numbers and statistics about LGBT-based hate crimes and also had the opposition, and their incendiary rhetoric, thrust into their face on the nightly news and in newspapers around the country. It led to more attention to LGBT issues, including media attention to other hate crimes like the murder of Gwen Araujo for being transgender, or the shooting of 15-year-old Lawrence King for his sexual orientation and gender expression.
The effect of Shepard's life and his family's activism came into sharp focus on Oct. 22, 2009, when the United States Congress passed The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, adding gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability to existing hate crimes laws. On Oct. 28, 2009, President Obama signed the act, the first ever piece of pro-LGBT federal legislation, into law.
On a personal note, the murder of Matthew Shepard was a defining moment for many LGBT people of my generation. As a young gay man, I looked at the pictures of his face and could see my own. His life and death inspired me, as I'm sure it did many others, to become involved in the fight against hate, bigotry and inequality.
It is important that we as a movement and as a society look back at our history, even dark times like the murder of Matthew Shepard. Learning from our past, seeing how keeping a memory alive can effect such dramatic change, and how a life can inspire generations are important moments for reflection.
Slow economy cannot slow down the shopping season's coming, having covered Black Friday extensively for the past three years, the bargain finders at theblackfridaybargain.com are in a better position than anyone else to offer shopping previews for Black Friday 2011...
Note: Read More About Black Friday Deals and Black Friday 2011Shopping online has become successful over these highly crowded . Whether it is an Xbox games console, newly released Amazon Kindle, or Apple iPad, one will discover anything at good prices on Black Friday. Butyou have to be very careful, due to the fact “Everything that glittersisn’t gold”. So, below are great tips and Ideas for Online Black Friday Shopping.
Make a list for those items for which you would like to purchase. Then, just put important items at the top of list.And then, list-up famous online retailers like Amazon and Macy’s where those listeditems are available. As a result your online shopping simpler and less time-consuming.
Compare costs of items with the help of various price comparison sites like Bizrate and PriceGrabber. This can be one of the better advantages of shopping online – one has not to rush in the crowd or on stores to evaluate prices of a item.
Continue to keep a watch at weekly advertising or online catalogs. Many online stores provide good discounts on some hand-picked products displayedinside their catalogs.
Online codes act as a cherry on cake on Black Friday. During christmas season manyonline retailers provide discount rates in order to attract as many customers as is possible. Using these special discount codes and promotional coupons,it’s possible to save more money on already discounted deals. Online codes have always been an awesome method for saving big during any season and event of the season.
Customer service may be the utmost importantsection of internet shopping just because it solves your concerns in a moment. Don’t be afraid to call at customer servicewhen you have any queries about the product or payment policies. It is usually a much better choice tomake your queries answered beforeputting in an order, rather than leaving all at God.
UseBank Cards:
Some stores provide unique cost savings while doing paymentsusing a particular visa or mastercard like American Express or Master Card.Wish to use one credit card while doing online shopping, so that you may know which credit card was used for doing payments for the online stores.
Some other notable findings about Black Friday deal-seeking include:
Read More >> Black Friday Deals, Black Friday 2011
David Dhawan was the pioneer of the farcical films genre with the kind of comedies he made through the 90s. However mindless his films might have been, it still had an inherent sense of humour and assured a few good laughs. Sadly, in the subsequent decade, all he served in the name of stress-free slapsticks is noise and commotion. While we aren't demanding that the filmmaker upgrade with times, all we expect is that the one-time king of comedy merely maintain his original brand of humour. Is that asking for too much?
Rascals is what one can call a 'vacation' filmmaking stint where everyone works on the film as if they were on a 'holiday' and the audience is expected to 'leave' their senses behind. The actors make least efforts to add conviction to their performances and the patchy writing just allows them to play as they please. Invariably the director tries to camouflage the shallowness in the story by adding depth only in the decibel levels of the dialogue delivery.
So you have conmen Chetan (Sanjay Dutt) and Bhagat (Ajay Devgn) in one-upmanship game to win the girl (Kangana Ranaut) loaded with assets (both financial and physical). It's never clear what they love more - her body or her bank-balance. And their lecherous rivalry only seems to be about who would get to hug the cleavage-popping girl more number of times.
One-upmanship has been a popular plot for several comedies since the times of Amitabh Bachchan - Shashi Kapoor's Do Aur Do Paanch (1980). Even David Dhawan had smartly handled the concept in his earlier comedies like Govinda-Anil Kapoor's Deewana Mastana (1997) and Akshay-Salman's Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (2004). Unfortunately it doesn't quite work this time, primarily because Kangana Ranaut doesn't share any chemistry with either men and so their persistent pursuit to get the girl falls flat.
Also thanks to the dull camaraderie, the viewer never really bothers which hero would actually win the heroine in the end. Thereby the small surprise in the climax (no, there isn't a cameo by a third hero) also doesn't register much. The storytelling in the animated title credits is more appealing than the conventional narrative structure.
While one has already left logic behind, the problem is that Yunus Sejawal's screenplay is inconsistent, convenient and uneventful. It lacks the imagination or wit for some real exciting clash between the male leads. One can easily see through most of the worn-out gags. Sanjay Chhel's synchronized rhyming dialogues are occasionally funny but seem forced otherwise. You laugh more on the corniness of the scenes than the comedy per se.
The tone of humour is consistently loud and commotional. Expectedly Ajay Devgn keeps screaming most of the time and hams outrageously. Sanjay Dutt is better in comparison, which isn't saying much. He gets the funnier lines, gags and scenes. Kangana Ranaut is ill at ease in comedy. She struggles to hold her own and emerges as a bimbo in her act. Lisa Haydon is merely employed to look hot and she does a fair job at it. Hiten Paintel is used as an add-on and his presence in the film is immaterial. Satish Kaushik attempts to induce few laughs with his gibberish brand comedy. Bharti Achrekar gets no scope. Chunky Pandey overacts. Arjun Rampal has pretty much nothing to do.
