Thursday, March 31, 2011
Origins of the Easter Bunny
The Easter bunny can be traced back to 13th century Germany, predating the Christian holiday with which the Easter bunny has been associated.
When it comes to the secular aspects of the Easter holiday, one icon that children and adults of all ages tend to think of is the Easter bunny. The smiling rabbit, according to tradition, brings candy and treats to children while they are asleep and hides Easter eggs to be found on Easter morning
According to the Christian purpose for the Easter holiday, however, there are no mentions of rabbits, candy, or eggs in any text or tradition relating to Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus after his crucifixion. Since there is no reference to an "Easter bunny" in the religious tradition, those looking for the history of the Easter bunny will have to look elsewhere.
The Pre-Christian "Easter" Bunny
According to a MSNBC report, the tradition of having a holiday in close proximity to the vernal equinox, or the beginning of spring, dates back centuries. One such celebration in Germany dates back to the thirteenth century, when early Germans worshipped a number of different gods and goddesses. Eostra (also known as Ostara or Eostre,) the goddess of spring and fertility, was honored with feasts and celebrations on the day of the vernal equinox. One of Eostra's symbols was the rabbit because of the animal's ability to reproduce quickly and the abundance of rabbits in the spring time.
According to Anglo-Saxon tradition, Ostara had a pet bird that she had changed into a rabbit to amuse a group of children. Her pet, which had been "reborn" into a new creature, also laid colorful eggs for the children to find, says Aristotle Internet.
The First Easter Bunny
The first recorded mentions of the Easter bunny date back to the early 1500s, but it was not until 1680 that the first Easter bunny story was published, says Discovery News. According to the legend, the Easter bunny layed colorful eggs and hid them in a garden for children to find on Easter morning.
The legend came to the United States in the early 1700s, when German immigrants brought the story with them to what is now known as the Pennsylvania Dutch country. According to the History Channel, the tradition of the Easter bunny, known as "Osterhase" or "Oschter Haws," spread throughout the area, with children making nests for the Easter bunny to put its eggs in.
Eventually, the tradition evolved into the Easter bunny leaving candies and small gifts for well-behaved children in woven baskets instead of nests. Just like at Christmas time, children also began to leave a snack of carrots for the Easter bunny before going to bed Saturday evening to help the Easter bunny keep his strength up while it was delivering treats throughout the night.
The Easter Bunny Today
Today, the Easter bunny has become one of the most recognizable mascots of the secular side of the Easter holiday. Shopping malls and community organizations hold meals and photo opportunities with an Easter bunny, and he also makes appearances at other Easter-themed activities, retailers, bakeries, candy stores, and other places that are preparing for the Easter holiday.
The Easter bunny may also show up in Easter parades and has also become a favorite chocolate treat. According to the History Channel, an estimated ninety million chocolate Easter bunnies are made each year for Easter baskets and candy dishes.
The tradition of the Easter bunny dates back to pagan feasts honoring the goddess Eostra, but today has come to symbolize the secular side of the Easter holiday. Whether someone remembers the Easter bunny as long-eared and furry or cast in chocolate, the rabbit associated with the spring holiday has a history spanning several centuries of celebrations.
Sources
- "Easter Symbols" The History Channel, History.com, copyright 1996-2011
- "How's the Easter Bunny connected to Easter?" by Lauren Effron, MSNBC.com, published April 2, 2010
- "Origins of Easter" Aristotle Internet, copyright 2000-2009
- "What Does the Easter Bunny Have to Do with Easter?" Discovery News, Discovery.com, copyright 2011
How Much Did the iPad Crush Everyone Else in 2010
There's not much else to say about this chart. According to Gartner, the world spent $9.6 billion in tablets. According to Apple's official numbers, the iPad got $9.566 billion.
Of course, that's 2010. The real battle will be this year: Gartner says that the market will grow to $29.4 billion in 2011, cannibalizing PCs and getting into the enterprise in full force. But Honeycomb and Playbook fanboys, don't get your hopes too high: Gartner says that Apple will grab 70% of that market in 2011, and pretty much be the only game in town. Whatever. The only game in town I care about is Sword & Sworcery.
One month later, Honeycomb has just 50 native apps
Motorola’s Xoom tablet is the first promising alternative to Apple’s iPad, but the sickly condition of Android’s tablet app ecosystem may end up stalling the platform’s progress.
One month after its launch, the Xoom currently has about 50 native apps available for Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google’s version of Android optimized for tablets.
That’s pitiful compared with the iPad, which was released last year with approximately 1,000 native apps on launch day. The Xoom debuted with a paltry 15 Honeycomb-native apps available for download in its catalog.
50 apps is a pretty small number, and the actual total may be even smaller. The official Android online market, as well as other online message forums for Android enthusiasts, place the number of Xoom apps somewhere close to 50. But this number hardly seems accurate, as it includes existing Android applications which have been resized to take advantage of the tablet’s larger screen. The number of apps with interfaces made specifically for the tablet is probably diminutive.
Still, it’s unclear why more developers haven’t taken the short cut and resized their apps for Honeycomb. It could be that developers aren’t sold on the idea of resizing their apps to fit more screen real estate, as opposed to “building a true tablet experience that takes advantage of the new platform’s possibilities,” iOS developer Justin Williams told Wired.com in an interview.
And even if developers wanted to create such a “true tablet experience,” they’re hard-pressed to do it without the source code for Honeycomb, which Google is currently keeping a tight reign over. The big device manufacturers working on Honeycomb-powered hardware—like HTC, Motorola and Samsung—all have early access to the code, but only after licensing agreements were made with Google. Smaller developers don’t have this luxury.
“Apple was wise to have the tools out there months in advance of launch,” Williams said, “as compared to Google who made them available only a short time before.”
To be fair, the Xoom is currently the only Android tablet on the market running Android 3.0. Once the glut of Honeycomb-running hardware devices arrives—like the June release of LePad from Chinese electronics manufacturer Lenovo, which was delayed specifically to ensure the tablet will run Honeycomb—we could reasonably expect to see more tablet-optimized applications available. Samsung’s redesigned Galaxy Tab 10.1will also run Honeycomb, and will also launch this summer.
“Google needs more hardware,” says Williams, “and they need to get developers excited about building tablet experiences, not just larger screened phone apps.”
Google Finally Fights Back Against Android Fragmentation
Openness has always been Android's beauty and its curse. Google's mobile operating system is available to any manufacturer that wants a slice, meaning you see it everywhere! It's also historically been a place for hardware specialists and carriers to flex their software muscles, leading to custom alterations—skins—that often leave an elegant smartphone solution ugly, unusable, or both.
Finally, that's about to change. Thank goodness.
According to Bloomberg, Google has spent the last several months tightening the reigns on its Android partners. They're having licensees sign "non-fragmentation clauses" that give Mountain View final say over the platform tweaks that can cripple a perfectly good phone. The OEMs are up in arms, obviously, but they shouldn't be. Because what Google's doing is making sure consumers know exactly what they're getting. They're making "Android" mean something again.
The biggest problem often isn't the skins themselves. Many people find HTC Sense to be a welcome improvement over stock Android, while others—someone out there, I'm sure—may dig Motorola's social-savvy Motoblur. But the more aggressively companies manipulate Android, the longer their customers have to wait for firmware updates that bring crucial services. Some handsets end up never being updated at all. No, really... it's bad out there.
Even worse, handset manufacturers continuously release products with outdated versions of Android, either because of internal foot-dragging or carrier demands. Anyone who bought the Dell Aero last August may have technically been buying an Android phone, but at the time it was a three-generations old version of Android.
So if Google wants to keep its partners in line to guarantee a consistent user experience, so be it. It's their platform, and their right to institute some much-needed quality control. It's the firmware version of the conundrum Microsoft faced with Windows Mobile, when an absence of hardware requirements resulted in an ecosystem so messy they had to scrap the whole thing and start over with WP7.
Yes, there are some concerns that Google could overplay its hand, as with reports that they're pressuring Verizon to drop Bing from some phones. But the core issue—that consumers deserve an Android label that means something—is one that Google's long overdue in addressing. Better late than never. [Bloomberg]
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Women vs. Wal-Mart: Largest Class Action Suit in US History
The corporate culture of American super-chains has always been under intense scrutiny by watchdog groups across the country. Over the last decade the retail giant, Wal-Mart has been accused of paying too little to its employees, has faced allegations of sexism, has been excoriated for the role it plays in cheap imports, and been blamed for the disappearance of mom and pop stores.
And now Wal-Mart is facing the largest class action suit in US. History.
The court's nine justices are now in the process of deciding whether or not lawyers representing potentially more than a million women employed by Wal-Mart, can bring a class-action sex-discrimination lawsuit against it. At issue is if the plaintiffs have satisfied federal class-action rules. If this is determined to be the case, that means that around 1.5 million women, or 1 percent of all American females, could join in the suit.
Wal-Mart argues that the company is too large and spread out for its female employees to have enough in common to be considered a class.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs cite statistics showing that women make up 80 percent of Wal-Mart's hourly workers, but only a third of its managers. Women make an average of $1,000 a year less than men, and more than 100 said in affidavits that they were told men were paid more because they had families to support.
Women also claimed they were called “Janey Qs,” and a worker complained that her male manager told her to “doll up.”
The origins of the case began in 2001, when Betty Dukes, a Wal-Mart greeter at a store in Pittsburg, California, and five female employees filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Francisco, accusing the retailer of discriminating against its female employees by paying them less than men and giving them fewer promotions.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule by the end of June.
Photo by Douglas C. Pizac
Adobe Flash Gets Passed Over in Favor of HTML with Mobile Firefox
TechCrunch is reporting that Mozilla’s new Mobile Firefox “fairly rocks” as an Android web browser. While that not be saying much given the fairly lame default browser on most Android devices, the Firefox entry is far more capable, syncing bookmarks, browsing history, passwords and open tabs with your desktop version. But one thing Mobile Firefox appears to be missing is support for Adobe Flash.
That’s right -- despite Google and Adobe sitting in a tree together over the Flash technology for Android mobile devices, it’s conspicuously absent from Mobile Firefox. In its place is HTML5 and CSS, which produces amazing “3D effects, animations, video and other in-browser graphics,” according to TechCrunch.
But don’t go thinking that Mozilla has turned their back on Adobe Flash where Mobile Firefox is concerned -- apparently the diminutive Android browser will indeed support Flash at some point, but everyone seems to agree that the mobile version of Flash isn’t quite ready for primetime.
Needless to say, Mobile Firefox probably won’t be making its way to iOS anytime soon. In the meantime, Mozilla offers the free Firefox Home app, which at least lets you view your desktop history, bookmarks and open tabs right on your iPhone or iPod touch. So… that’s something.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
Rumor: BlackBerry Messenger to land in the App Store on April 26
Rumblings of an iPhone version of BlackBerry Messenger surfaced earlier this month from an unidentified source that provided a tip to BGR. Another unconfirmed source has stepped forward with additional information on the MacRumors forums that points to an April 26 debut of the BlackBerry Messenger app in the App Store.
This latest information purportedly comes from an attendee of a social media conference hosted by RIM in Toronto. During the presentation, RIM's Co-CE Jim Balsillie supposedly told those in attendance that BBM would make its way to the iOS App Store on April 26. The source also claims the app would be updated this summer with a new notification system. This last piece may be an indirect reference to iOS 5, which may overhaul Apple's current notification system.
Douse this rumor with some pickling salt, kosher salt and table salt as we cannot verify this April 26 date, nor the existence of a BBM app. Based on earlier leaked information and RIM's move to incorporate Android application emulation in its PlayBook tablet, a move to iOS in the upcoming month is not that far-fetched. Anyone a believer?
The image above was provided to TUAW several weeks ago and should not be considered evidence one way or the other of a BBM app.
Thanks to Matt for the tip.
How To Use Tilt-Shift in Instagram
Instagram is our favorite photo sharing and editing app -- not just because it's free, but because it's packed with fun features. The app's newest update brings us something we've long been doing with various other apps: tilt-shift editing.
Tilt-shift photography, normally done with an actual tilt-shift lens, alters the depth of field of what you're capturing, allowing you to emphasize certain objects in the photo. This effect can easily be imitated using Photoshop, or more easily with an app like Instagram. It isn't true tilt-shifting (some call it tilt-shift faking), but it's very similar to it. The resulting effect blurs the setting around your chosen subject, making the subject look small and toy-like. Pretty simple, right? Simple, but you don't want to tilt-shift just any photo. So, we're going to show you how to produce beautiful tilt-shift images!
1. Choose a Photo
Instagram now has tilt-shift as an option! Use it to transform a boring photo like this.
Tilt-shift works best on images taken from a high vantage point. For example, a mountain landscape with a train running through it, or a busy intersection of a city shot from the top of a buiding. Since we're in the city, we're working with the latter. You can also use the effect on actual toys, or small objects, just as long as you're not too close to your subject.
What you want is a busy background that can be blurred out, so don't pick a subject that's mostly surrounded by the sky. You also want to emphasize your subject, so don't choose a portrait-style photo since all you have in your frame is a single subject. Again, busy works best, but do experiment. Photography is all about breaking the rules!
2. Apply Tilt-Shift
Make sure to angle that box just right.
Instagram's tilt-shift capabilities are pretty simple. The app will display a rectangular box to frame your subject with, and you can adjust the amount of blur around it. You can pinch and pull on the screen to make the rectangle as small or as large as you want, and you can rotate it to change the angle. When you tilt-shift, frame your subject as closely as possible for the most extreme effect.
Because Instagram does not give you a circle or a precise rectangle, it's best if the area surrounding your subject is not too complex. For a more subtle effect, use less blur. To tilt-shift to the max, use full blur.
3. Share
Hefe makes a nice tilt-shift photo filter. Lomo-fi does not.
What's the point of tilt-shift if you can't show off your image? Instagram understands the urge to share, so the final step is to share your creations with the world. Choose one of Instagram's fun filters and hit that share button.
One final recommendation: don't use a filter that blows out your picture too much and blurs the lines in your subject. A good tilt-shift photo shows a crisp subject in a blurry world. So go au natural, or use something subtle. But, most of all, have fun with it.
And, if you're interested in checking out more tilt-shift photography, there's no better place to go then Flickr. Visit the Tilt-shift Miniature Fakes group for more tilt-shift inspiration.
Voila, the final product.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
KV Pharmaceutical Increases Prematurity Drug Costs by 100 Times
A compounded form of a natural female hormone, progesterone, has been used for decades to help prevent premature birth. In February, the FDA approved a branded synthetic version of the drug, called Makena, with exclusive rights going to the manufacturer, KV Pharmaceuticals.
On the surface, this sounds like a good thing. The company claims that its version is better than the compound because it is "manufactured in an FDA-regulated and FDA-compliant sterile facility to ensure quality and consistency from dose to dose." The problem comes with their pricing policy.
Typically, progesterone injections are given weekly to high risk patients for up to 20 weeks. The compounded version costs on average between $10 and $20 a dose. A single dose of Makena will cost $1500.
Though the company has introduced plans for a patient financial assistance program, many in the medical field are outraged and believe patient assistance will not be enough to outweigh the negative impact of such an increase. In an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, Joanne Armstrong, MD, MPH argues: "no program providing short-term financial assistance to some patients will mitigate the harm that this new cost will cause to publicly funded programs, including Medicaid, and the women who rely on them. Nor will it mitigate the cost to employers and individuals who purchase insurance coverage and therefore directly bear all increases in health care costs."
The cost of prematurity is exorbitant — about $26 billion a year, according to the March of Dimes (MOD), which makes it even more surprising that the MOD medical director, Dr. Alan Fleischman, was quoted by TIME Healthland as supporting the new drug: "An FDA-approved product is a good thing. The drug is expensive but it's a very important drug for a very important purpose."
Several reports have stated that KV Pharmaceutical is using the high cost of prematurity to justify the expense of its newly approved exclusive drug. As a mother of premature twins, I know first hand just how expensive premature babies are, and I find that claim outrageous. In a time ofsoaring healthcare costs and record pharmaceutical profits, eliminating access to an inexpensive, generic version of a successful drug and then claiming exclusive health benefits and costs savings while raising the price 100 fold smacks of nothing less than emotional blackmail and greed.
And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Senators Sherrod Brown (D. Ohio) and Amy Klobuchar (D. Minnesota) are calling for an Federal Trade Commission probe into the price hike. "KV created an overnight monopoly for this lifesaving drug, and then proposed raising the price by 14,900 percent," said Brown in a statement.
Monday, March 28, 2011
How To Get Conservatives to Thin Their Own Ranks
The answer was so obvious! It was right under our noses. But it took the ludicrous hypocrisy of the adulterous scrotum Newt Gingrich to cause this idea to coalesce in my mind.
Remember Newt's little tap dance over the Libya intervention?
March 7 — What are we waiting for? Launch a No-Fly Zone!
Obama does just what Newt asked for.
March 23 — Newt: "I would not have intervened."
THAT'S JUST ONE EXAMPLE!!!
Compact fluorescent light bulbs. The right wing hates them like POOP! Why? What's WRONG with CFLs?
“I know light bulbs may not seem sexy,’’ Mr. Obama said during a brief appearance at the White House. “But this simple action holds enormous promise, because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and our businesses.’’
So, you get idiots like Rep. Michele Bachmann proposing "Lightbulb Freedom of Choice" resolutions in Congress. You SHOULD be able to waste energy if you want to!
Upon hearing of Obama's support for CFLs, Rush Limbaugh went NUTS!
He couples this with a warning to his audience concerning the evils of mercury contained in the CFL bulbs, invoking the debunked needs-a-hazmat-crew-to-clean-it-up-if-it-breaks argument.
“We warned you. We warned you at the outset of the mercury in these things, of the hazmat disposal risks when you have (sic) change one or when one breaks, how you dispose of them, you don’t just throw them away. We warned you….It doesn’t matter how much or how little there is, if one of them breaks you gotta call somebody, you gotta go to great pains to clean up the mess, and keep your dog or cat out of this mess. You know how little animals run to things that fall out on the floor.”
- Rush Limbaugh, March 30, 2009
Then, of course, every conservative talk show host with a microphone and a copy of the GOP talking points went on a rant against CFL bulbs.
Know what ELSE they hate?
GOOD NUTRITION FOR OUR KIDS?
Why?
MICHELLE OBAMA IS IN FAVOR OF IT!!!
I refer you to two of my previous rants in this space... "Limbaugh Calls Michelle Obama Fat" and "Boob Congresswoman Blasts Breast Feeding" wherein Michele Bachmann lambastes the concept of breast feeding when the First Lady said it was a good idea.
The wingnuttery also came out against having our kids exercise when FLOTUS suggested it was good for the little bastards to get their fat asses off the couch, away from the Play Station, and outside into the fresh air. They claimed that it was leading to a spike in pedestrian traffic fatalities.
So, what have we learned?
Republicans hate CFLs and energy conservation — because Obama likes the idea.
Republicans hate good nutrition — because Obama likes it.
Republicans hate exercise — because Obama likes it!
AND THERE'S OUR ANSWER!!!
We get the GOP to thin out its own numbers without lifting a finger! We get Obama to hold a press conference in which he would say the following words...
"After extensive study by the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Service, my administration fully supports their conclusion that driving a railroad spike into your forehead with a ball peen hammer, right here (he demonstrates a spot just above the middle of his eyes) is a harmful practice and should not be considered as appropriate. I will work with the Department of Education to ensure that this becomes a featured part of the health curriculum. I've directed the Department of Transportation to work with the Federal Railroad Administration to determine ways to make sure that railroad spikes stay where they are supposed to stay — on the tracks and not in your child's forehead. I've directed the Commerce Department to regulate the sale of ball peen hammers, to institute a seven-day waiting period on the sale of these hammers to ensure that these hammers will not be used by unstable people to drive railroad spikes into their own foreheads, and we will mandate that the Department of Homeland Security uses their good offices to ensure that terrorists are not illegally smuggling railroad spikes and ball peen hammers across our borders and into the hands of those who would use them to drive railroad spikes into their brains. Ladies and gentlemen, let me be clear. Driving a railroad spike into your own forehead may seem like a good idea, especially during these difficult economic times. But it is a harmful, perhaps fatal practice that my administration will give top priority to banishing, along with DADT which currently prohibits gay homos from being in foxholes with your sons during combat. I will appoint the Secretary of Commerce to find a good person in the private sector to head up this effort. And I look forward to the day when using a ball peen hammer to drive a railroad spike into your own forehead is outlawed forever. Thank you, and God Bless America."
OK, Obama gives this speech. And the next day, the morning idiots on Fox News start the ball rolling by saying the Socialist, Marxist Kenyan in the White House wants to regulate the use of ball peen hammers and railroad spikes.
They bring in an expert to demonstrate how easy it is to drive a railroad spike into a conservative's head while missing the brain entirely.
Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and others demonstrate their disdain for Obama's proposed "Forehead Czar" by instructing an intern, live, on the air, to drive a spike into his own head. They will, of course, refrain from doing so themselves.
Across America, teabaggers will march and hold signs saying, "Obama, Keep Your Marxist, Kenyan, Socialist Hands Offa My Forehead." There will be large rallies where teabaggers gather to drive railroad spikes into their heads with ball peen hammers.
This will go on for a few weeks.
Then, we bring in the bulldozers to clean up the corpses.
Problem solved.
Simple American Ingenuity!
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