Another simple but neat Evernote hack that came out of the 24-hour Disrupt NY Hackathon earlier today was Squirrel. Created by coder duo Zainab Ebrahimi and Jabari Bell, the hack turns articles Evernote readers have saved for reading later into a personalised newsletter. So, unlike the average email newsletter, Squirrel is populated with content the user actually wants to read.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, center right, Iraqi acting Defense Minister Sadun al-Dulaymi, center left, government officials, and parliament members, attend the funeral procession of five slain soldiers at the headquarters of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 28, 2012. Gunmen killed 10 people in Iraq, including five soldiers near the main Sunni protest camp west of Baghdad on Saturday, the latest in a wave of violence that has raised fears the country faces a new round of sectarian bloodshed. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, center right, Iraqi acting Defense Minister Sadun al-Dulaymi, center left, government officials, and parliament members, attend the funeral procession of five slain soldiers at the headquarters of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 28, 2012. Gunmen killed 10 people in Iraq, including five soldiers near the main Sunni protest camp west of Baghdad on Saturday, the latest in a wave of violence that has raised fears the country faces a new round of sectarian bloodshed. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, center right, Iraqi acting Defense Minister Sadun al-Dulaymi, center left, government officials, and parliament members, attend the funeral procession of five slain soldiers at the headquarters of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 28, 2012. Gunmen killed 10 people in Iraq, including five soldiers near the main Sunni protest camp west of Baghdad on Saturday, the latest in a wave of violence that has raised fears the country faces a new round of sectarian bloodshed. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Security forces escort the coffins of five slain soldiers at the headquarters of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 28, 2012. Gunmen killed 10 people in Iraq, including five soldiers near the main Sunni protest camp west of Baghdad on Saturday, the latest in a wave of violence that has raised fears the country faces a new round of sectarian bloodshed. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Security forces escort the coffins of five slain soldiers at the headquarters of the Iraqi Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, April 28, 2012. Gunmen killed 10 people in Iraq, including five soldiers near the main Sunni protest camp west of Baghdad on Saturday, the latest in a wave of violence that has raised fears the country faces a new round of sectarian bloodshed. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? Iraqi authorities suspended the operating licenses of pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera and nine Iraqi TV channels on Sunday after accusing them of escalating sectarian tension. The move signaled the Shiite-led government's mounting worries over deteriorating security amid Sunni unrest and clashes that have left more than 180 people dead in less than a week.
The suspensions, which took effect immediately, appeared to target mainly Sunni channels known for criticizing Prime Minister Nouri al-Malik's government. Apart from Al-Jazeera, the decision affected eight Sunni and one Shiite channels.
The government's action comes as Baghdad tries to quell rising unrest in the country that erupted last week after Iraqi security forces launched a deadly crackdown on a Sunni protest site in the central city of Hawija, killing 23 people, including three soldiers.
Since then, more than 180 people have been killed in gunbattles with security forces and other attacks. The recent wave of violence follows more than four months of largely peaceful protests by Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.
Iraqi viewers will still be able to watch the channels, but the suspensions issued by Iraq's Communications and Media Commission state that if the 10 stations try to work on Iraqi territory they will face legal action from security forces. The decree essentially prevents news crews from the stations from reporting on activities in Iraq.
Sunni lawmaker Dahfir al-Ani described the move as part of the government's attempts "to cover up the bloodshed that took place in Hawija and what is going on in other places in the country."
Al-Jazeera, based in the small, energy-rich Gulf nation of Qatar, said it was "astonished" by the move.
"We cover all sides of the stories in Iraq, and have done for many years. The fact that so many channels have been hit all at once, though, suggests this is an indiscriminate decision," it said in an emailed statement. "We urge the authorities to uphold freedom for the media to report the important stories taking place in Iraq."
The channel has aggressively covered the "Arab Spring" uprisings across the region, and has broadcast extensively on the civil war in neighboring Syria. Qatar itself is a harsh critic of the Syrian regime. The nation is a leading backer of the rebels and is accused by many supporters of the Iraqi government of backing protests in Iraq too.
Newspapers and media outlets sprang up across Baghdad after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, yet Iraq remains one of the deadliest countries for reporters with more than 150 killed since 1992, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Iraq and other governments across the Middle East have temporarily shut down Al-Jazeera's offices in the past because they were disgruntled by its coverage.
The other nine channels whose licenses were suspended by the Iraqi media commission are al-Sharqiya and al-Sharqiya News, which frequently criticize the government, and seven smaller local channels ? Salahuddin, Fallujah, Taghyeer, Baghdad, Babiliya, Anwar 2 and al-Gharbiya.
The Baghdad-based Baghdad TV said the decision was politically motivated.
"The Iraqi authorities do not tolerate any opposite opinions and are trying to silence any voices that do not go along with the official line," said Omar Subhi, who directs the news section.
He added that the TV station was concerned about the safety of its staff, fearing that security forces might chase them.
In a statement posted on its website, the government media commission blamed the banned stations for the escalation of sectarian tension that is fueling the violence that followed the deadly clashes in Hawija.
Iraq's media commission accused the stations of misleading and exaggerated reports, airing "clear calls for disorder" and "launching retaliatory criminal attacks against security forces." It also blamed the stations for promoting "banned terrorist organizations who committed crimes against Iraqi people."
Osama Abdul-Rahman, a Sunni government employee from northern Baghdad, said the government is adopting a double-standard policy regarding media outlets by turning a blind eye on several Shiite channels that he claims also incite violence.
"The channels close to main Shiite parties and even the state-run television also broadcast sectarian programs promoting violence all the time, yet, nobody stops them," he added.
Erin Evers, a Mideast researcher for Human Rights Watch, called the government's claim that it moved against the channels because they were inciting sectarianism suspicious given its "consistent history of cracking down on media ? particularly opposition media ? during politically sensitive times."
"The cancellation of these stations' licenses is further evidence that the government seeks to prevent the coverage of news they do not like," she said.
She accused the Iraqi media commission of confusing coverage of a speech with sectarian overtones with the active promotion of sectarian violence. "These are two completely different things and the first is protected under international and Iraqi law," she said.
The decision to suspend the stations came as al-Maliki made a rare appearance at an official funeral for five soldiers killed on Saturday by gunmen in Sunni-dominated Anbar province. Local police in the province said the soldiers were killed in a gunbattle after their vehicle was stopped near a Sunni protest camp.
Authorities had given protest organizers a 24-deadline to hand over the gunmen behind the killing or face a "firm response." No one has been handed over and the deadline passed.
Wrapped in Iraqi flags, the five caskets were loaded on military trucks next to flower bouquets, as soldiers held pictures of the deceased and grieved families gathered outside the Defense Ministry building in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
In Saturday violence, gunmen using guns fitted with silencers shot dead two Sunni local tribal leaders in two separate drive-by shootings south of Baghdad.
___
Associated Press writers Adam Schreck and Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad contributed.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva says her sons were framed by US authorities in the Boston Marathon bombing. But in recorded conversations, she discusses jihad with her son?Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
By Brad Knickerbocker,?Staff writer / April 28, 2013
The mother of the two Boston bombing suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, speaks at a news conference in Makhachkala, the southern Russian province of Dagestan on Thursday. She says she thinks her sons were framed.
Musa Sadulayev/AP
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At this point in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation, there are many more questions than answers, but they mostly boil down to one in particular:
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Did alleged suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have any outside help, either in the United States or abroad, before setting off two bombs that killed three marathon spectators and wounded more than 260 others.
Officials have said the Tsarnaev brothers were ?self-radicalized,? young Muslims influenced by what they learned growing up as the US waged wars in Islamic Iraq and Afghanistan. Whatever outlook they developed likely was crystallized for them via online wanderings through radical websites, then older brother Tamerlan?s six-month visit to Russian republics.
Tamerlan is dead, and Dzhokhar lies wounded in a small cell with a steel door at a federal medical detention center about 40 miles west of Boston. Before he was read his legal rights and stopped talking, the younger brother reportedly told interrogators that the two acted alone.
That may be literally true, but evidence of outside influence in the direction of radical beliefs mounts ? including from the brothers? mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva.
It was reported Saturday that Russian authorities secretly recorded a telephone conversation in 2011 in which one of the Boston bombing suspects vaguely discussed jihad with his mother.
In a second call, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva spoke with a man in the Caucasus region of Russia who was under FBI investigation, according to the Associated Press. Still, there was no information in the conversation that suggested a plot inside the United States, officials told the AP.
On ?Fox News Sunday,? Rep. Rep. Michael McCaul, (R) of Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he believes the Boston Marathon bombing suspects had some training in carrying out their attack, particularly with the bombs they fashioned.
NEW YORK (AP) - A couple of baserunners stranded at the end. A pair of untimely walks. A fly ball that ticked off the center fielder's glove.
Once again, the Toronto Blue Jays did just enough to lose a close game.
The New York Yankees beat the last-place Blue Jays 5-4 Saturday, winning when Travis Hafner hit a three-run homer and later lumbered around the bases for a go-ahead triple in the seventh inning.
Toronto lost its season-high third in a row, all to the Yankees. At 9-16, with a team batting average of .229 and a club ERA of 4.50, the numbers are hardly adding up to what the revamped Blue Jays expected, even with star shortstop Jose Reyes on the disabled list.
"You know what, right now we're not good enough. It's that simple," manager John Gibbons said.
"It's frustrating. I'm giving you guys the same comments every stinking day and I'm getting a little bit tired of it," he said. "I've got no answers."
Jose Bautista and Brett Lawrie homered for the Blue Jays, who dropped to 1-5 on their seven-game road trip to Baltimore and New York. Each loss has been by one or two runs.
"There comes a time in every game where you've got to make a big pitch or you've got to get a big hit. That's eluded us all year long," Gibbons said.
"Every game we're in - I think that 16 of them have been decided by two or less runs. Part of the time has been defense, but there also comes a time where you've got to make a big pitch or you've got to get a big hit. It's that simple," he said.
Vernon Wells delivered another key hit against his former team. And with Mariano Rivera getting a day off to rest, Joba Chamberlain worked around a pair of one-out singles in the ninth for his first save since 2010.
A day after Toronto pitchers walked a majors-high 10 this season, J.A. Happ's control doomed him. He walked Wells and Kevin Youkilis to open the fourth and Hafner followed with his sixth home run that made it 3-all.
"It's something that can't happen," Happ said. "Maybe I was trying to overanalyze out there, set myself down to bring myself up, but we're well beyond that point. I've just got to figure it out quicker."
"It can't happen and I think that's the bottom line," he said.
Happ left after the sixth with a 4-3 lead. Still, he thought giving up three runs was too many.
"I thought I could do better than that. Every little bit helps. We're obviously struggling in these close games, it would have been nice," he said.
A double by Robinson Cano and an RBI single by Wells evened it in the seventh against Esmil Rogers (1-2). Toronto brought in lefty reliever Brett Cecil to face the lefty-swinging Hafner with two outs and Wells on third.
Hafner hit a high drive that ticked off center fielder Rajai Davis' glove as he approached the padded wall. The 35-year-old Hafner kept running and pulled into the third with a standup triple.
"I don't know if anybody catches it. Do you think anybody catches that ball?" Gibbons said.
Hafner exhaled as he stood on the bag. Captain Derek Jeter, one of several injured Yankees, laughed along with Hafner and his teammates from the dugout.
Hafner has hit three triples in the last six seasons - the other two came last year with Cleveland.
CC Sabathia (4-2) allowed three earned runs and nine hits in eight innings. He walked none, struck out four and improved to 14-4 overall against Toronto.
Bautista hit his seventh home run, a leadoff drive in the fourth. He had been 1 for 20 lifetime against Sabathia with eight strikeouts before connecting.
The Blue Jays scored another run in the fourth. Edwin Encarnacion tagged up at third on Lawrie's fly ball to right fielder Ichiro Suzuki, and was safe at the plate when catcher Chris Stewart dropped the ball while making the tag for an error.
Bautista nearly homered again in the eighth, but center fielder Brett Gardner caught his fly at the top of the wall.
Lawrie put Toronto ahead when he homered to begin the sixth. Lawrie started the season on the disabled list and hit his first homer of the season Thursday night at Yankee Stadium.
NOTES: Blue Jays RHP R.A. Dickey (2-3, 4.66 ERA) was set to pitch Sunday vs. RHP Phil Hughes (0-2, 5.14). Dickey won the NL Cy Young Award last year with the Mets, and might draw some crosstown fans for his start at Yankee Stadium. ... Blue Jays DH-1B Adam Lind is expected to come off the paternity list Sunday. ... Bautista has three hits over the last four games, all home runs.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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At their best beyond nine
Extra-innings seem to suit the Diamondbacks just fine, as Arizona improved to 6-0 in extra-inning games this season on Saturday.
Some say that Beijing deliberately exaggerates the terrorist threat in order to justify the iron grip it keeps on the Muslim majority province of Xinjiang in?western China.
By Peter Ford,?Staff Writer / April 24, 2013
A woman looks up as a dust storm hits Kashgar, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, last week. Xinjiang, once a predominantly Muslim province in China's far west, has seen massive settlement by ethnic Han immigrants in recent decades.
Reuters
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Mystery surrounds official Chinese reports Wednesday of a violent clash between ?suspected terrorists? and the authorities in the restive Muslim province of Xinjiang yesterday that left 21 people dead, including 15 officials.
Skip to next paragraph Peter Ford
Beijing Bureau Chief
Peter Ford is The Christian Science Monitor?s Beijing Bureau Chief. He covers news and features throughout China and also makes reporting trips to Japan and the Korean peninsula.
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According to a statement on the provincial government website, a group ?planning to conduct violent terrorist activities? armed with knives seized three local officials who had surprised them in a house near the city of Kashgar (see map).
They then killed the three hostages and 12 of the policemen and local community workers who came to the rescue, setting fire to the house before armed police regained control of the situation, killing six of the suspects and arresting eight of them, the statement said.
The Chinese authorities have given only sketchy details of the incident, and have not accused any particular group of responsibility. Beijing has previously blamed Islamist separatists for earlier violent attacks on officials.
Xinjiang, once a predominantly Muslim province in China?s far west, has seen massive settlement by ethnic Han immigrants in recent decades. Local people complain that their culture and language are being eroded and that Han now outnumber original inhabitants, who are ethnic Uighurs, with linguistic and cultural ties to central Asian peoples.
Violence flares sporadically, despite a stiflingly heavy handed police and army presence. In 2009 almost 200 people were killed ? mostly ethnic Han ? in deadly rioting in the provincial capital of Urumqi. Last month the government announced that courts in Xinjiang had sentenced 20 men to prison terms as long as life for plotting jihadi attacks.
The men ?had their thoughts poisoned by religious extremism,? according to the Xinjiang provincial website, and had ?spread Muslim religious propaganda.?
Determining the truth behind such allegations, and incidents such as Tuesday?s clash,?is difficult. Chinese media are not allowed to carry reports other than those by the state-run news agency Xinhua and foreign reporters have found themselves restricted and harassed when trying to work in Xinjiang.
A leading Uighur activist, Dilxat Raxit, who lives in Germany, questioned the official account, telling the AP that local residents had reported that the police sparked the incident by shooting a Uighur youth during a house search.
It was not clear how the suspects, armed only with knives, had managed to kill 15 policemen and local officials before they were subdued.
China has often accused a shadowy group known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement of being behind violence in Xinjiang, but foreign observers are dubious, with some saying that Beijing deliberately exaggerates the terrorist threat in order to justify the iron grip it keeps on Xinjiang.
The US State Department put the group on its terrorist watch list in 2002, but has since removed it amid doubts about whether the group is a real organization.?
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, have shown in a mouse model that infection with nematodes (also known as roundworms) can not only combat obesity but ameliorate related metabolic disorders. Their research is published ahead of print online in the journal Infection and Immunity.
Gastrointestinal nematodes infect approximately 2 billion people worldwide, and some researchers believe up until the 20th century almost everyone had worms. In developed countries there is a decreasing incidence of nematode infection but a rising prevalence of certain types of autoimmunity, suggesting a relationship between the two. Nematode infection has been purported to have therapeutic effects and currently clinical trials are underway to examine worms as a treatment for diseases associated with the relevant cytokines, including inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and allergies.
In the study researchers tested the effect of nematode infection on mice fed a high-fat diet. Infected mice of normal girth gained 15 percent less weight than those that were not infected. Mice that were already obese when infected lost roughly 13 percent of their body weight within 10 days. Infection also drastically lowered fasting blood glucose, a risk factor for diabetes, and reduced fatty liver disease, decreasing liver fat by ~25 percent, and the weight of the liver by 30 percent.
The levels of insulin and leptin also dropped, "indicating that the mice restored their sensitivities to both hormones," says corresponding author Aiping Zhao of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore. Leptin moderates appetite. As with too much insulin, too high a level of leptin results in insensitivity, thus contributing to obesity and metabolic syndrome, Zhao explains.
The mechanism of the moderation of these hormones "was associated with a parasite-induced reduction in glucose absorption in the intestine, reduced liver triglycerides, and an increase in the population of cells called "alternatively activated macrophages," which regulate glucose metabolism and inflammation," says coauthor Joe Urban of the United States Department of Agriculture. Some of these changes involved "a protein called interleukin-13 and related intracellular signaling mechanisms," he says. "This suggests that there are immune related shifts in metabolism that can alter expression of obesity and related metabolic syndrome."
The incidence of obesity has been climbing dramatically, worldwide. It is a key risk factor for many metabolic diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Recent studies indicate that it is accompanied by chronic low-grade inflammation in adipose tissues, causing the release of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines that contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome.
Parasitic nematode infection induces a marked elevation in host immune Th2-cells and related type 2 cytokines which, besides combating the infection, also have potent anti-inflammatory activity, according to the report.
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Z. Yang, V. Grinchuk, A. Smith, B. qin, J.A. Bohl, R. Sun, L. Notari, Z. Zhang, H. Sesaki, J.F. Urban, Jr., T. Shea-Donohue, A. Zhao, 2013. Parasitic nematode-induced modulation of body weight and associated metabolic dysfunction in mouse models of obesity. Infect. Immun. Published ahead of print 18 March 2013, doi:10.1128/IAI.00053-13.
American Society for Microbiology: http://www.asm.org
Thanks to American Society for Microbiology for this article.
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Smart phone and tablet products officially winding down, revenues expected to decline appropriately
Texas Instruments is reporting its Q1 2013 earnings today, and the overall numbers are looking quite good. Although revenue for the quarter was down slightly, TI has posted net income and EPS that were near the top of their expected range. Here's a quick breakdown of the high points:
$2.89 billion in revenues, down 8-percent year-over-year
$362 million in net income, up 37-percent y-o-y
$0.32 Earnings Per Share, up 45-percent y-o-y
$3.9 billion in cash and short-term investments on hand
If it wasn't clear last year that TI is shifting away from the business of consumer chipset products, it should be after reading this earnings release. On its segmented earnings, TI has officially pushed its wireless business -- now dubbed "legacy wireless products" -- into the "Other" category of the sheet, which should give you an indication of where it is headed. Looking forward for Q2 2013 and beyond, TI is advising that its revenues will continue to decline in the legacy wireless business.
TI now says that a full 77-percent of its revenues come from "Analog and Embedded Processing", which means products aimed at the consumer space are far from the priority now. Aside from a cheap alternative to the more popular processors out there right now, don't look for OMAP processors to be making their way into too many products in the coming months.
Did someone forget to use a coaster? If you've got a water stain on your wooden table that's causing you grief, a hair dryer can speed up the removal process.
Weblog Homemade Mamas explains the process:
Rebecca found this guy on her coffee table and thought the table was ruined. . . We used a blow dryer on high. We held it fairly close to the stain. Slowly it stared disappearing!
After about 20 minutes the stain was almost completely gone. We put a little olive oil on it to moisturize the wood.
We haven't had a chance to test this one ourselves, but a quick search reveals that a lot of people have used this with success, so it's worth a shot if you're desperate. You could also try mayonnaise (a popular, but slightly grosser alternative), as well as toothpaste or a dry iron. Different tables may react differently to this, though, so try at your own risk!
Everyone already knew the anthem would be perfect. The Boston Bruins have one of the league's great pregame performers in Rene Rancourt, and even on a median night ? say, some mid-January Tuesday-nighter against the Carolina Hurricanes ? his rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is a rousing, operatic affair. On a big night ? like a Stanley Cup finals game ? it's booming and frenzied and sublime. And on a night like Wednesday's ? the first Bruins home game since two bombs were detonated at the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing three and injuring more than 100 ? Rancourt's version of the national anthem practically seemed to take flight.
Rancourt began to sing in his usual way; the only difference was the reaction from the crowd of 17,565. Like any great playmaker, he waited just a tiny bit longer than you might have expected ? and then let go of things so smoothly that you barely perceived the handoff. The Boston crowd seemed to be so distracted by the easily-belted-out "proooooooudly" that they didn't even notice that Rancourt wasn't joining them as they hailed at the twilight's last gleaming.
But once the Boston crowd realized what was really going on ? an earnest, emotional, arena-wide sing-along ? it was like watching a child experience that first mind-blowing bike ride without Mom or Dad gripping the back of his seat: the sudden grasp of freedom, the waver of uncertainty, the surprise at one's might, and then the propulsive release of simply pedaling, pedaling, pedaling full steam ahead. "It's the quite audibly dropped 'r' in 'stars' that really chokes up this Beverly native," Slate editor John Swansburg pointed out on Twitter. For me, it was the rockets' red glare.
"You do get a bit choked up," Chris Kelly later said. "It's something that you try to fight back some tears and when you go to swallow, it feels like you've got something in your throat."
"It was extremely emotional. I was definitely fighting back tears," Brad Marchand said after the game, the first major sporting event in the city since the bombing.
"My hair was standing up on the back of my neck," Shawn Thornton, who sang along with the national anthem just like everyone in the stands, told NHL Network. "It was very emotional."
Thornton and Kelly grew up in Ontario; Marchand is from Nova Scotia. The Bruins have only two Americans on their roster, and both were healthy scratches Wednesday night. But it didn't matter, because by the wonderfully fuzzy transitive properties of sports, they are all Bruins, therefore they are all Bostonians, therefore we are all in this together.
Jim Rogash/Getty Images
A few minutes into the game, the TV crew pointed out that the crowd was chanting "Let's go, Boston!" instead of the customary "Let's go, Bruins!" On Twitter, I saw two different reports: one that everyone was yelling "We love Boston!" and another that it was actually "We are Boston!" I like to think that all three interpretations were equally correct, that they're just three different facets of the same precious gem. It's a bit like translating something from English to a foreign language and then back again: All the nuance disappears, but the raw intentions remain.
"Duly, the shows of solidarity with Boston have been expressed through sports," wrote the New Republic's Marc Tracy, "which has meant dipping into the sappy language of Boston fandom" ? like how the New York Yankees played "Sweet Caroline," or how Tracy has seen signs of support that use the Red Sox logo as shorthand for the town. It's a testament to the link between people and place, between city and sport, between the projected and the personal. And so it seems almost appropriate to admit that the most resonant moment of proud mourning we've seen all week has maybe come during the pregame ceremonies for a freaking hockey game.
The problem with relying on sports, though, is that you can't. The Sabres, down all game, unapologetically tied it with less than 30 seconds remaining. In the shootout, neither Tyler Seguin, Patrice Bergeron, nor Brad Marchand could score on Ryan Miller, and Buffalo came away with the 3-2 win. It was ostensibly a disappointing ending to what had been a genuinely uplifting night ? until it became clear that most of the fans were still at their seats, loudly chearing, and that all the players on both teams still lingered proudly on the ice.
They raised their sticks, all of them, and saluted the fans, and that's when it became so obvious: It didn't matter that the Bruins lost, because this game was never about the Bruins. It was, always, about Boston.
Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Lighting the Lamp: The Week's Sickest Snipes
Look, I know the Minnesota Wild use Joe Satriani's "Crowd Chant" for their goal celebration song, too, but I'd like to start a petition that it belong solely to the New York Islanders forevermore. It was during this Matt Moulson goal the other day that the celebratory suite just really, no pun intended, sang to me. It feels so Nassau Coliseum. It sounds like it belongs in an ?ber-competitive Guitar Hero competition that takes place out in the concourse. It's so much better than the old song. It's so much more Long Island.
Moulson's goal was his 14th in 42 games this season; the 29-year-old forward is averaging a career-high 0.95 points per game, and what's most impressive is that he's doing so despite registering a career-low shooting percentage. (Last season 16.4 percent of his shots went in; this year it's 9.8 percent.) He's part of an Islanders team that has a dangerous young corps, a defiant old goalie, and serious first-round upset potential. If I'm Pittsburgh or Boston ? the two teams that have the best odds of facing the Islanders in the playoffs ? I'm a little antsy right about now.
John Tavares, who has generated Hart Trophy buzz and who has one of the greatest value contracts in the league through 2018, is third in the NHL in goal scoring. And Michael Grabner has provided production, too; his two goals against Florida on Tuesday put his on-the-year total to 15. Sure, it was the Panthers, but it doesn't matter when it looks like this:
Also, the spotlight shining down on the orange-and-blue uniform reminds me of how they do things at Rexall Place. Can you imagine how incredibly awesome an Oilers-Isles Stanley Cup rematch could be in a couple years?
Other runners-up this week: Ryan Kesler is back; Thomas Vanek is not of this world; and the good people of Winnipeg have been tricked into falling in love with an American boy.
Piling on the Pylons: The Week's Worst Performers
Go home, Edmonton Oilers, you're drunk. No, seriously: The goings-on in and around Edmonton's front office lately have been so genuinely loopy that they reminded me of an essay I read years ago on some website called Modern Drunkard Magazine about the virtues of blacking out. (Hey, we all found material for our AIM profiles in our own ways.) I have no doubt that for Oilers president Kevin Lowe, the series of events that culminated in Monday's press conference to announce the firing of GM Steve Tambellini was like an unplanned, streaking-the-quad kind of bender. The kind that winds up like this ?
It happens to even the most moderately accomplished drinkers. In addition to an above-average hangover, you wake up with a vague feeling of unease and the sense that your memories of last night are a lot sparser than they should be.
Kevin Lowe stirs; stretches. Winces at a few tweaks here and there. These old bones, he thinks. He smiles. These old six-time Stanley Cup?winning bones. At that, something catches in his mind ? a distant memory, visible only if he doesn't look directly at it, like a star in the clear Alberta prairie night sky after a night spent celebrating another Stanley Cup win. Six Stanley Cups. A press conference. Reporters. Those goddamn reporters. Six Stanley Cups. Winners. Celebrating in front of the fans. All the fans. There was something about the fans ?
As you begin to piece your identity back together, a sordid tale emerges from the disjointed scraps of evidence around your room. The half-eaten economy-size bag of Chili Cheese Fritos and four melted ice cream bars suggest you stopped by a convenience store on the way home, but the shopping cart in your doorway is from Safeway, and that's a mile and a half down the road.
Kevin Lowe is startled when he goes into the kitchen and finds Gary Bettman smoking a cigarette like he's Betty Draper. "Sit down, Kevin," Bettman says. With one hand he snaps open an attach? case and withdraws a lengthy document.
"You said a lot of things yesterday, Kevin," he begins. "You said, and I quote: 'We have two types of fans. We have paying customers and we have people that watch the game that we still care about. But certainly the people who go to the games and support, we spend a lot of time talking to them, delivering our message.'" He takes a long drag.
A slow tour of the house reveals the lights are all on, the door is wide open, the CD player is looping Air Supply at full volume, your roommate is missing and there's a strange dog on his bed.
"You said some other stuff, too, Kevin," Bettman says. "Again, here I quote: 'I'll say that there's one other guy in hockey today that is still working in the game that has won more Stanley Cups than me. So I think I know a little bit about winning, if there's ever a concern.'" Bettman rubs his temple. "Again with the Stanley Cups thing, Kevin? I mean, Nail Yakupov wasn't even born yet."
Lowe reddens; the thunder rolls. "He would have been eight and a half months old during the last one!"
The last thing that anyone should ever do is feel ashamed of blacking out. You were trying to get drunk last night and, goddamnit, mission accomplished. Sometimes we must close our minds to the horrors of the world, especially if we happen to be the father of those horrors. Do not, under any circumstances, explain yourself or apologize to anyone for your actions.
"Get that computer graphics guy in here," Lowe hollers. "I want to make a YouTube." He fixes his sweater, he speaks. He isn't sure what he says, but he knows it's all good stuff. Winning. Six-time Stanley Cup winning. The fans will get it. His fans. The phone rings.
"Next time you record an apology YouTube video to Oilers fans, Kevin," Bettman says, his voice crisp. "You may want to take the framed New York Rangers photo down off your wall first."
Taking It Coast-to-Coast: A Lap Around the League
? Justin Bourne wrote a list of the NHL's 10 best players through the neutral zone. Considering the importance of good zone entries with respect to generating offense [PDF] this is a pretty solid list to be on. (To it I'd add Erik Karlsson.)
? Here's a nice interview ? worth it just for the photo alone ? of Alexei Yashin, former Senators star and Islanders saga. Yashin is retired from the NHL and is now the GM of the Russian national women's hockey team, which hopes to stand up to the North American powerhouse teams when they host the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi next February. Speaking of stand up, who else wasn't expecting the kind comments about Mike Milbury? Whatta guy.
? The Buffalo Sabres' John Scott is giving the Keslurker a creeparound for his money. Listen to the way the kids giggle here: We've got a new generation of hockey fans, folks! You know John Collins just inked a 12-year merchandising deal with the purveyors of that fine brown fur robe.
? The Globe and Mail's James Mirtle wrote as clear-eyed and dispassionate a piece as one possibly could on this year's meteoric rise of young Maple Leafs sensation Nazem Kadri. The 22-year-old center has scored 41 points in 43 games this season and could play a key part, in the eyes of many a Toronto fan, in the glorious revolution of the franchise. But will he be able to repeat his success? Spoiler: If he does, it will be without precedent. Mirtle displays two great charts that put Kadri's season in the context of the NHL and show what has happened to past players who have had similarly puck-lucky seasons. (Random takeaways from chart no. 1? Taylor Hall is a beast, and poor Brian Boyle.)
? I got a kick out of this tweet from The Score's Rob Pizzo: "Word emphasis now in playoff talk is key. 'NOT mathematically eliminated' = Still hope. 'Not MATHEMATICALLY eliminated' = Plan tee times." In that vein, here are some teams who are NOT mathematically eliminated: the Winnipeg Jets, the Detroit Red Wings, and the Dallas Stars. And, sorry to say, some that are not MATHEMATICALLY eliminated: the Buffalo Sabres, the Phoenix Coyotes, and the rest of you know who you are.
? With that in mind, here are a few big games to watch over the next few days. On the Eastern Conference bubble, the Winnipeg Jets and Islanders will play a game with major playoff implications Saturday, while the New York Rangers are scheduled to take on every trap game on the planet. (Safer in the standings but not free from trouble are the Montreal Canadiens, who have lost three straight and may well take out all their frustrations tonight against poor Tampa Bay.) Out West, the only way a team like Dallas could even conceivably make a playoff push would be to win a game like the one they have at St. Louis on Friday. And the Detroit Red Wings, meanwhile, can reverse their recent skid ? and save their 21-year playoff streak ? with a Saturday win over Vancouver. And tonight ? oh my god, would you two please stop flirting and just make out already?!
? I hope Alex Ovechkin does end up getting a championship ring for his old Dynamo Moscow team winning the KHL's Gagarin Cup ? "Im gonna get the champion ring )))haha," he wrote on Twitter ? and I hope when he does, the jewelry is fashioned in the exact fashion of that unbelievable chalice. It makes the Stanley Cup look like a Monopoly piece.
? Here's the latest NHL commercial, which I think is pretending to showcase the weird and wacky world of players while secretly serving as some sort of strobe-lit Rorschach test in which the league is extracting your personal information through your looks of confusion. (What, you thought this was unsettling?) I wonder if they could flash those player photos over a nightclubbishly hypnotic remix of Jason Spezza's laughter any faster? I feel weak; I feel drugged. I've entered a hallucinatory state in which Steve Ott slowly licked Jeff Halpern's visor and Geno Malkin's alabaster skin was rumored to be seared to an unplayable crisp.
And a Beauty! The Week's Nicest in Net
Halfway through the first period of the Columbus Blue Jackets' game against the Wild on Saturday, goalie Sergei Bobrovsky stopped an attempt by Zach Parise on the Minnesota power play that frustrated the Minnesota left wing and kept the score at 0-0. Parise smacked his stick into the boards in frustration. The Blue Jackets, despite being outshot 41-22, won the game 3-2 in a shootout in which Bobrovsky would stop Parise again.
In Columbus's next game, a Monday tilt in Colorado, the Blue Jackets fought their way into overtime with an R.J. Umberger goal in the final minutes. Less than a minute into OT, though, Avalanche winger Gabriel Landeskog cut in alone on a shorthanded breakaway, and it looked as though all the Blue Jackets would get would be one point. But Bobrovsky denied the young captain, and later ? with just 29 seconds to play in the extra session ? Nick Foligno's goal would give the Blue Jackets the win.
It's all been part of a five-game winning streak for #LUMBUS, who haven't lost since a 3-0 stinker at home against the Wild on April 7 and now find themselves, at least briefly, in the last Western Conference playoff spot. The Blue Jackets' run goes back even further than that, too: Of their last 25 games, dating back to February 26 against Dallas, they've lost only four in regulation. And so increasingly, the question has become: Should Bobrovsky be a contender for the Hart Trophy, given to the league's MVP?
In goal this season, the beanpolish 24-year-old has put up even-strength numbers that are nearly identical to those of a Henrik Lundqvist or a Tuukka Rask: 51 goals allowed on 777 shots, or an even-strength save percentage of .938. No goalie who has played at least 20 games this season has amassed better numbers than "Bob." (What's more, he's enchanted a Blue Jackets fan base once unfairly stereotyped as being hostile to Russian players.)
Bobrovsky's Hart case, according to his staunchest advocates, boils down to this: The "player most valuable to his team" should be the one that you simply can't take out of the lineup, or else. Bobrovsky would ostensibly fit that bill ? particularly if you remember some of Steve Mason's more recent seasons ? as would a player like John Tavares. Hart contenders like Sidney Crosby or Jonathan Toews, these people point out, are on teams so good that removing them isn't going to make things appreciably worse. (The flip side to this argument is that the best player in the league is by definition the most valuable player a team can have.)
Whether or not Bobrovsky actually earns Hart support ? and I'd say that if the Blue Jackets remain in the playoffs, he'll deserve to be in exactly these sorts of conversations ? remains to be seen, but perhaps we're already seeing the guy's impact on the ice. Fine, fine: I know David Steckel didn't deploy this wacky "time release" goal intentionally Wednesday night, but it's fun to think that maybe it was done on purpose, because he couldn't figure out how to score on Bobrovsky any other way.
Other notable stops: Brian Elliott continues to improve after a disastrous early season (with three straight shutouts in April, he's allowed seven goals in his last seven games); Antti Niemi stuffs Mike Richards; and Justin Peters takes that Niemi save and basically Dikembe Mutombos it.
Chirping Like a Champ: The Best Mouthing Off
Sometimes a week begins to go by without too much controversial NHL chaos of note and I start wondering how I'm going to finesse this part of the column, and then, reliably, there comes along a headline like this: "David Backes Mocks Zack Kassian's Hairline: 'Are You Going Bald?'"
Love it. The thing about Backes is, despite his occasional on-ice mischief, he's always fundamentally branded as a Nice Guy ? I mean, he pilots planes to rescue puppies ? that you wonder if what we're seeing here may actually be some of his darkest material. I'm doing it, I'm going for the bald stuff. (As Sean Gentille points out, it's doubly meaningful because he's projecting.) Meanwhile, Kassian appears completely unaffected by the sick burn, which should surprise no one. The guy is an agitator who is pretty much operating with one working tooth. He's probably been hearing hair-loss material since Mites.
Hockey Haiku
You like outdoor games? We'll smother you in whimsy. Your last words: CHA-CHING.
BEIJING (AP) ? After China reported quarterly economic growth of 7.7 percent this week ? far above anemic U.S. and European performance ? global markets reacted by falling, wiping billions of dollars off stock prices.
The reason? Growth came in under the 8 percent expected by private sector forecasters who relied on Chinese trade and other data.
The market plunge highlighted complaints about the possible inaccuracy of Beijing's official data and the intense, possibly excessive importance traders attach to a handful of Chinese economic indicators.
What matters more than a difference of a few tenths of a percentage point in growth from quarter to quarter is whether Chinese leaders are allowing the private sector to flourish by reducing the role of state industry in the economy, said Ben Simpfendorfer, managing director of Silk Road Associates, a consulting firm in Hong Kong.
"There is an obsession with these GDP numbers, and what really matters at this point is reform," said Simpfendorfer, a former Royal Bank of Scotland economist.
China is watched especially closely because it is a major market for foreign goods from iron ore to smartphones and is relatively healthy, fueling hopes Chinese demand can help offset weakness in the U.S., Europe and Japan.
Confusion about how fast China is growing can hamper foreign and private companies in industries from construction to chemicals to consumer goods as they make plans for business and investment.
Beijing's problems in keeping track of its economy stem in part from the fact that while it is surpassed only by the United States in size, China is growing and changing much faster than any rich country.
An understaffed bureaucracy inherited from the era of central planning is struggling to keep up with changes in trade, finance, manufacturing and city growth. Chinese companies have an incentive to avoid taxes or boost export rebates by misreporting sales and profits. Secrecy surrounding the collection and processing of official statistics leaves open the possibility they might be altered for political reasons.
Foreign and private companies look at government data with skepticism. Many rely on watching their own industries and markets more closely. The government still is the only source for most nationwide data, but a growing number of banks and research firms are developing their own based on surveys of companies and consumers.
"I think everyone doing business in China is skeptical of the data," said analyst Alistair Thornton of IHS Global Insight.
Thornton said three of China's most closely watched yardsticks are rife with potential problems ? exports, real estate sales and credit.
Export data have gotten the most attention lately after some analysts suggested companies might be inflating values on customs declarations. That might be intended to let them evade currency controls and move money into China. Reporting rising prices while exporting the same amount of goods might give a false impression of higher production.
The customs agency defended itself this month, saying its reports were based on goods that really were exported. However, that would not prevent exporters from submitting inflated values for them.
March exports were "substantially lower than reported numbers," which might have helped lead to the discrepancy between GDP forecasts and the government report, said RBS economists Louis Kuijs and Tiffany Qiu in a report.
Monday's unexpected decline in reported growth from 7.9 percent in the final quarter of 2012 was severe enough that economists responded by cutting their growth outlook for China this year.
JP Morgan economist Hongbin Qu scaled back his forecast from 8.2 percent to a still-healthy 7.8 percent, while Kuijs and Qiu at RBS reduced theirs from 8.4 percent to 7.8 percent.
Data showing rising bank loans and other credit, another key indicator, also might be inflated, according to Thornton. He said official figures might mistakenly count the same money two, three or more times as credit is extended from one company to another and then to a third.
Government figures on home sales also might give a false picture of the strength of the housing market because they rely on seller-reported prices without independent measurement.
Chinese economic growth figures are, like those of other countries, estimates that are often revised later.
Unlike other countries, though, China's revisions can be huge. In 2009, Beijing raised its official 2007 growth rate from an already eye-popping 11.9 percent to 13 percent. That suggested its earlier estimate failed to take account of tens of billions of dollars in economic activity.
Economists also note that even where Chinese data are reliable, they can be pumped up by investment or government spending that might do little for long-term prosperity.
Chinese leaders are trying to nurture more self-sustaining growth based on domestic consumption rather than exports and investment. That will drag down the overall growth rate in the short run.
The World Bank and other advisers have warned that to keep growth strong, Beijing needs to curb the dominance of state industry and encourage free-market competition ? a factor that isn't reflected in the headline numbers.
On Monday, China's surprise growth hiccup triggered selling in Western and Asian stock markets. The Dow ended at 14,648, a drop of 1.4 percent and the Standard & Poor's 500 slumped 1.9 percent to 1,559.
Thornton noted that last week, global stocks rose after China's report of stronger March trade, even though analysts said the data probably were inaccurate and exports weaker than they appeared.
"We all know markets are not particularly rational and overshoot or undershoot and wipe billions of dollars off market cap off indices over what we think is a misreading of various data points," he said.
Dubbed Check the Box, the movie ratings campaign is designed to give parents more and faster information about how a film got its rating. The White House had requested action along these lines.
By Gloria Goodale,?Staff writer / April 17, 2013
With concerns over real-life violence at a high pitch, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) says it wants to help, at least when it comes to the moviegoing experience.
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On Tuesday, the MPAA unveiled a new ratings initiative: Dubbed Check the Box, the campaign is designed to give parents more and faster information about how a film got its rating of PG or higher. All the various specifics about violence, language, or sexual content will now be prominently displayed alongside the letter rating in large type.
The newest changes to the letter system, which has been in place since 1990, were presented by the MPAA head, former Sen. Christopher Dodd. The changes are for parents, "so they can make the best choices about what movies are right for their children to watch," he said at CinemaCon, an annual trade gathering of some 5,000 theater owners in Las Vegas.
The updates to the ratings display come on the heels of specific request from the White House for stricter appraisals of movie and TV violence, as well as for help as parents try to monitor the violence children consume.
But the announcement is getting mixed reviews, at best.
?I am not sure that more specific MPAA ratings about violence will actually do anything, but I think it is a good idea,? writes Paul Schneider, chairman of the film and television department at Boston University, in an e-mail.
?The ratings have always concentrated on sexuality and language and have been very, very soft on violence,? he adds.
?Any information that is accurate is good for parents,? says Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council (PTC), a national advocacy group pushing for what he calls ?transparency, consistency, and accountability? from the entertainment industry.
However, he dubs the changes ?a distinction without a difference.? Mr. Winter suggests that the MPAA move is a public-relations effort to deflect scrutiny while ?continuing to pour toxic levels of violence into PG-13 films.?
Apr 15 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013 PGATour on Monday (U.S. unless stated): 1. Tiger Woods $4,139,600 2. Brandt Snedeker $3,137,920 3. Matt Kuchar $2,442,389 4. Adam Scott (Australia) $2,100,469 5. Steve Stricker $1,935,340 6. Phil Mickelson $1,764,680 7. Dustin Johnson $1,748,907 8. Jason Day $1,659,565 9. Hunter Mahan $1,553,965 10. Keegan Bradley $1,430,347 11. Charles Howell III $1,393,806 12. John Merrick $1,375,757 13. Russell Henley $1,331,434 14. Michael Thompson $1,310,709 15. Kevin Streelman $1,310,343 16. Bill Haas $1,271,553 17. Billy Horschel $1,254,224 18. ...
Apr. 17, 2013 ? While studying rats' ability to navigate familiar territory, Johns Hopkins scientists found that one particular brain structure uses remembered spatial information to imagine routes the rats then follow. Their discovery has implications for understanding why damage to that structure, called the hippocampus, disrupts specific types of memory and learning in people with Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline. And because these mental trajectories guide the rats' behavior, the research model the scientists developed may be useful in future studies on higher-level tasks, such as decision-making.
The details of their work are scheduled for publication online in the journal Nature on April 17.
"For the first time, we believe we have evidence that before a rat returns to an important place, it actually plans out its path," says David Foster, Ph.D., assistant professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "The rat finds that location in its mind's eye and knows how to get there."
Foster and his team found that, at least for the purposes of navigation, the "mind's eye" is located in the hippocampus, which is composed of two banana-shaped segments under the cerebral cortex on both sides of the brain. It is best known for creating memories. In people with Alzheimer's, it is one of the first parts of the brain to sustain damage.
The Foster lab experiments focused on a group of neurons in the hippocampus called place cells because they are known to fire when animals are at a given location within a given environment. What was not known, Foster says, was how and when the brain uses that information.
By miniaturizing an existing technology, Foster and a postdoc in his lab, Brad Pfeiffer, Ph.D., were able to implant 20 microwires into each side of the hippocampus of four rats. The tiny wires let them record electrical activity from as many as 250 individual place cells at the same time, more than ever achieved before.
Over a two-week training period, the rats became familiar with the testing area which was surrounded by a variety of objects, so that the rats could tell where they were in relation to the objects outside. The space was 2 meters square with 36 tiny "dishes" placed at regular intervals in a grid. A single dish at a time would be filled with the rats' reward: liquid chocolate.
The rats' navigation tests involved as many as 40 sets of alternating "odd" and "even" trials per day. The odd trials required the rats to "forage" through the arena to find a chocolate-filled dish in a random location; the even trials required the rats to return each time to a "home" dish to receive their reward. While the rats fulfilled their tasks, the researchers recorded the firing of their place cells.
They found that as a rat travels randomly through the box without knowing where it needs to go, different combinations of place cells fire at each location along its path. The same set of cells fires every time the rat travels the same spot. These unique combinations of firings "mark" each spot in the rat's brain and can be reconstructed into what seems like a virtual map, when needed.
When a rat is about to go to a specific location, e.g., "home," place cells in its hippocampus fire in a sequence that creates a predictive path, which the rat then follows, somewhat like Hansel and Gretel following an imagined bread crumb trail.
Foster says that "unlike a Hansel and Gretel bread crumb trail, which only allows you to leave by the same route by which you entered, the rats' memories of their surroundings are flexible and can be reconstructed in a way that allows them to 'picture' how to quickly get from point A to point B." In order to do this, he says, the rats must already be familiar with the "terrain" between point A and point B, but, like a GPS, they don't have to have previously started at point A with the goal of reaching point B.
Foster says the elderly can get lost easily, and research on aged mice shows that their place cells can fail to distinguish between different environments. His team's research suggests that defective place cells would also affect a person's ability to "look ahead" in their imaginations to predict a way home. Similarly, he says, higher-order brain functions, like problem solving, also require people to "look ahead" and imagine themselves in a different scenario.
"The hippocampus seems to be directing the movement of the rats, making decisions for them in real time," says Foster. "Our model allows us to see this happening in a way that's not been possible before. Our next question is, what will these place cells do when we put obstacles in the rats' paths?"
This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH085823), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD Young Investigator Grant).
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine.
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Journal Reference:
Brad E. Pfeiffer, David J. Foster. Hippocampal place-cell sequences depict future paths to remembered goals. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature12112
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
JOHANNESBURG (AP) ? An elephant overturned a vehicle carrying two tourists, injuring both, on Monday, said South African officials.
The tourists are of "Chinese origin," according to a statement from Kruger National Park. One of the tourists said he was from Hong Kong, according to a hospital official.
An elephant in the park attacked the vehicle on a road at 6:30 a.m. Monday, and a medical team in a helicopter rushed to help the injured male driver, said the statement. He was taken to Clinix Phalaborwa Private Hospital, near the park.
An official at the hospital said the man was in critical condition with multiple rib fractures, and that his female companion was also being treated there for a pelvis fracture. He said officials planned to transfer the pair to a hospital in the Pretoria area.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
It is unclear why the elephant became aggressive, said the park spokesman William Mabasa. He is appealing to the public to be alert in Kruger park and try not to get too close if they see an elephant approaching on the road.
The vast Kruger park lies in South Africa's northeast, next to Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Another simple but neat Evernote hack that came out of the 24-hour Disrupt NY Hackathon earlier today was Squirrel. Created by coder duo Zainab Ebrahimi and Jabari Bell, the hack turns articles Evernote readers have saved for reading later into a personalised newsletter. So, unlike the average email newsletter, Squirrel is populated with content the user actually wants to read.
