Saturday, March 31, 2012

RFO for CSJMM Strategic Planning Services

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP)

Issue Date: March 30, 2012
Proposal Due Date: April 23, 2012 (By close of business day 6:00 p.m.)
Anticipated Award Date: May 4, 2012

All Bidders should prepare a response before April 20, 2012.

I. Introduction
IREX, (International Research & Exchanges Board), under the scope of G-MEDIA program is seeking proposals from qualified organizations to provide Strategic Planning Services for IREX/G-MEDIA sub-grant recipient Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management (CSJMM) at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA).

II. Project Requirements

A. Background

About IREX
IREX (the International Research & Exchanges Board) is the premier US nonprofit organization specializing in higher education, independent media, Internet development, and civil society programs in the United States, Europe, Eurasia, the Near East, and Asia. Since its founding in 1968, IREX has supported over 15,000 students, scholars, policymakers, business leaders, journalists, and other professionals. IREX serves as a major resource for universities, governments, and the corporate sector in understanding international political, social, economic, and business developments.

The IREX Mission
? Foster democracy in transitioning societies
? Strengthen and help internationalize educational, nongovernmental, and media organizations
? Support the highest-quality research in the social sciences and humanities
? Identify and train the next generation of leaders by working together with universities, nongovernmental organizations, foundations, governments, and corporations

About G-MEDIA Program
Funded by USAID, Georgian Media Enhance Democracy, Informed Citizenry and Accountability Program (G-MEDIA) is to improve the public?s access to a range of sources of news and information by developing a more politically balanced, editorially independent, professional and viable media sector that reaches audiences across Georgia through diverse delivery channels. The program seeks to raise the quality and diversity of media content and broaden delivery channels; improve professionalism, including through university journalism education; depoliticize the regulatory environment and strengthen journalists? capacity to address infringements to their rights and breaches of professional ethics; and improve the viability of media outlets.
IREX has designed and implemented independent media projects in more than 20 countries across Europe and Eurasia. IREX also publishes the annual Media Sustainability Index (MSI), a valuable tool that analyzes the status and progress of independent media

About CSJMM

IREX/G-MEDIA grant recipient the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management (CSJMM) is one of three graduate schools at the Zurab Zhvania Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA), a non-profit organization concerned with building capacity for effective government, media and civil society. CSJMM currently offers three master?s degree programs: Journalism and Media Management; Journalism and Communication Management and Public Relations. In addition to its degree granting courses, CSJMM trains students and professionals in non-degree programs and trainings.

B. Task Description

IREX is seeking a vendor to facilitate a strategic planning process for the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management (CSJMM) that will provide guidance to its management for future decision making and continuous development of its programs and services. The purpose of the strategic planning process will be to assist in (1) determining the local needs which should be addressed; (2) developing a comprehensive and effective 10 year strategic plan.

C. Scope of Services

IREX is seeking a vendor who can assist CSJMM in developing Strategic Plan that will ensure achievement of its mission: to support the development of independent media in the Caucasus by means of educational and training programs in journalism, communication and media management. The school?s philosophy is that journalists? well-grounded in skills to report fairly and accurately and communication specialists ? facilitating a free access to information? will raise the level of journalism where they practice, and will serve the public by providing truthful information and upholding the highest ethical standards of the profession.

IREX is seeking the best strategy that will enable CSJMM to accomplish its mission by (1) exploiting the opportunities and strengths while (2) neutralizing its threats and (3) and correcting (or avoiding) its weaknesses.

IREX recognizes that development of a long range plan should be done as a collaborative process. The strategic planning will include planning, facilitating and evaluating a Planning Retreat with the CSJMM management and staff and, IREX/G-MEDIA representatives to:
? Review and revise, as necessary CSJMM vision and mission statements
? Develop short and long-long term goals and objectives
? Develop key strategies
? Develop key indicators and outcomes that can serve as the basis for performance measurement

The location, cost and event planning of the retreat will be coordinated through IREX/G-MEDIA.

D. Deliverables

Contractor will be responsible for submitting the first draft of the Strategic Plan to IREX and CSJMM for review. After making corrections and revisions to the draft, contractor will make official presentation of the final Strategic Plan to CSJMM and IREX representatives. The dates for submitting the first draft and final Strategic Plan will be specified in the agreement between IREX and Contractor.

IREX anticipates that successful development of a strategic plan will lead to a follow-up project in which vendors will be asked to submit proposals for execution of the plan and direct implementation assistance.

III. Proposal Timeline

A. RFP Release ??March 30

B. Deadline to Submit Questions ??April 9
All questions must be submitted in writing, no later than 6:00 p.m. on April 9, 2012 to the address listed at the end of the document. E-mails are accepted. E-mail subject line must be CSJMM-RFP.

C. Answers to written questions (TENTATIVE) ??April 16

D. Deadline for Proposal Submission ??April 23

E. Review/Approval of Proposal (TENTATIVE) ??May 4

F. Announcement of winner (TENTATIVE) ??May 7

G. Contract signed (TENTATIVE) ??May 14

IV. Proposal Submission
A. Proposal must be received no later than the date and time for proposal submission: April 23, 2012 (By 6 p.m.)

B. All correspondence, including the proposals, must be submitted to:
Tamar Gabisonia, Senior Journalism Education Officer
IREX Georgia
6 Marjanishvili Street
Tbilisi 0102, Georgia
Email: gmedia@irex.ge

C. Proposal Format

Proposals must be submitted in BOTH hard copy and electronic copy in English before the deadline and should contain the following:

1. Summary of organization?s background and experience in similar projects. Vendor must have minimum of (5) years of experience in facilitating the strategic planning process for an educational institution or similar type of organizations.

2. Name, phone number and address of at least three references from similar contracts.

3. A brief synopsis explaining how the vendor sees CSJMM?s needs and how Vendor plans to meet these needs.

4. A detailed description of the proposed plan to achieve the Scope of Services, Section II, as understood by the vendor and the proposed timeline.

5. Cost. Budget proposal excluding VAT which itemizes all costs required to accomplish the work by task. To itemize salaries, indicate each project team member?s name and title, estimated number of hours to work by each, the hourly wage for each, and each employee?s total salary for the work. Hourly wages submitted shall remain in effect until project completion. If the estimated number of hours worked is exceeded, IREX bears no responsibility to compensate for those hours.

6. Resumes of key staff that will be assigned to the project;

7. Certificate of company registration;

8. Proof that company does not have debts to the tax authorities;

9. Any other pertinent information needed to evaluate proposal.

E. Proposal Condition

A. Contingencies

This request does not commit IREX to award a contract. IREX reserves the right to accept or reject any or all proposals or any part(s) of any or all proposals if IREX determines it is in the best interest of the IREX and CSJMM to do so.

B. Evaluation Process

All proposals will be subject to a standard review process developed by IREX. This includes technical review and evaluation, as well as cost evaluation. The primary consideration shall be the effectiveness of the organization in the delivery of comparable or related services based on demonstrated performance. Performance factors to be evaluated include past experience, delivery date of Strategy Document, cost effectiveness, quality of service, ability to provide complete and through documentation as required by IREX.

Responsive proposals will be evaluated and scored on the following criteria:
? Cost Effectiveness (25%)
? Qualifications of key personnel (25%)
? Quality and appropriateness of the overall methodology and planned activities (30%)
? Organizational capacity ? ability to provide complete and through documentation as required (10%)
? Past references (10%)

C. Incurred Costs

This request does not commit IREX to pay any costs incurred in the preparation of a proposal in response to this request and Proposer agrees that all costs incurred in developing this proposal are the Proposer?s responsibility.

D. Contract Award

Contract will be awarded based on a competitive selection of proposals received.

E. Contract Negotiations

IREX may require the potential contractors selected to participate in negotiations and to submit revisions to pricing, technical information, and/or other items of their proposals as may result from negotiations. The contents of the proposal of the successful Proposer will become contractual obligations, subject to negotiation, and failure to accept these obligations in a contractual agreement may result in cancellation of the award.

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Nepal's whitewater rapids threatened by hydropower

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The Evolving Perception of Video Games - BrokenMyth Studios

A journey through the world of video games, which 183 million Americans play ? 25 percent over age 50. What's behind the fascination?

A conventiongoer and the 'Dark Void' character at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles. This is the cover story in the March 19 weekly edition of The Christian Science Monitor.

By Robert A. Lehrman,?Correspondent
posted March 18, 2012 at 1:29 pm EDT

Washington

We see it.

Gliding through the sky, long neck undulating, great, ridged wings beating, the dragon looks ... beautiful. Until it lands.

Thumbs working the controller, Matt Fries, a freshman at American University in Washington, D.C., throws fireballs at it with both hands. The dragon lifts off, and lands again. It belches out a stream of yellow and orange flame.

"He's done a lot of damage," Mr. Fries mutters. But it's early in the game.

As in video game. Sitting in his tiny Washington apartment, Fries is doing what millions ? actually, 10 million ? have done over the last few months: fighting dragons in the celebrated new game Skyrim.

Since its November release, Skyrim has won award after award and led reviewers to call it the "greatest role-playing video game ever made." In its first month, it made $650 million, almost double the entire year's gross in the United States for "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," the bestselling movie of 2011.

Gamers know this. Why don't you?

C'mon. You don't. One surprising thing about the video game industry is that while adults play ? in fact, 25 percent of players are over age 50 ? most are unaware of how prevalent it has become in American culture.

For many parents, video games are what our kids love ? and we fear. One antigame blogger describes an avid user this way: a kid who "rarely goes outside, showers, or interacts with the opposite sex." The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry warns that children playing violent games "can imitate the violence they see."

We have esthetic complaints, too. A few years ago film critic Roger Ebert infuriated gamers by arguing that video games "can never be art."

Skyrim is a useful starting point to examine that view precisely because it has won so much praise.

"We design worlds," says industry legend and Skyrim director Todd Howard.

Mr. Howard means that instead of giving players the simple, gobble-up-the-bad-guys goal of the 32-year-old video game icon Pac-Man, games like Skyrim allow players to explore richly textured worlds, full of choice.

Well, the video game industry is itself a world worth exploring. Just how big is it? How many play? What makes games so popular? Can they do harm? Are they useful? Or ? as a Wall Street Journal headline put it ? "Are Violent Videogames a Threat to Society? Or Works of Art?"

* * *

First, the big picture. In 2011, the American video game industry says it:

?Recorded $25 billion in sales.

?Accounted for about 120,000 American jobs directly or indirectly.

?Paid workers an average of $90,000 a year, mostly in five states: California, Texas, Washington, New York, and Massachusetts.

Since 2005, the industry has grown eight times faster than the US economy. This is enough to have earned it the ultimate status symbol in Washington: a bipartisan congressional caucus to support games.

Undergirding these numbers is a zealous and global fan base. According to game designer and writer Jane McGonigal, a half-billion people on earth play video games an "hour a day," of whom 183 million are American. In fact, 97 percent of American young people ages 12 to 17 play video games. Five million Americans play at least 40 hours a week.

What they play runs the gamut: games for arcades ? what you see at truck stops, in storefronts, at amusement centers ? as well as for consoles like the Xbox 360, or for PCs, smart phones, and iPads. And they play things we forget are video games.

"The most popular video game?" asks David Johnson, a professor at American University. "Solitaire."

Of course! The pastime mesmerizing millions of Americans, including one woman I interviewed who could only stop playing at work if she turned her computer to face the hall, where her boss could see her screen. And there's Angry Birds, which has millions discovering the joy of shooting birds at pigs with a slingshot.

These are the "casual games." They don't take much skill. You can play them for five minutes on your phone.

Professor Johnson, armed with degrees in both divinity and anthropology, finds this segment of American culture fascinating. He teaches American University's only course on video games, which includes some history.

"You guys get to make a game today," he says one morning, rushing into class.

Fries is in the class. He's excited. Johnson doesn't mean any game. He means the result of that seminal moment in 1972, when Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell asked an engineer named Allan Alcorn to create a simple game people might play in bars for quarters. [Editor's note: The year was incorrect in the original.]

Mr. Alcorn did, and set it up in a local tavern. Soon, though, it broke down.

What went wrong? When Alcorn looked, the answer was clear. Nothing. Players couldn't stop. They had poured in quarters until the machine jammed.

Alcorn had invented ...

Pong.

* * *

It's a game Bruce Nesmith remembers well. Now 52, with three daughters, Mr. Nesmith was about 11 when his dad brought Pong home. "I thought, 'Hey! Games aren't just played with little pieces of cardboard.' "

Nesmith, lead designer on Howard's Skyrim team, sits in the headquarters of Bethesda Game Studios, the Maryland company that produced Skyrim, with two teammates. They also got hooked early.

Matt Carofano, Skyrim's lead artist, 34, got turned on at age 5 by the Atari he and his brother got for Christmas.

"I was a latchkey kid," remembers production director Ashley Cheng, 38. "When my grandmother came home, she'd feel the TV. If it was warm, that meant I was playing games ? instead of practicing piano."

The three of them typify one part of the video game world: its creators. For 10 years, they have worked together under Howard on a series of role-playing games called The Elder Scrolls. In RPGs, players create characters, assign them a role, and direct them on quests. The Elder Scrolls have been very popular.

With Skyrim, the fifth in the series, the team wanted to go beyond what they had ever done.

Which means ... what? They definitely wanted to include dragons. "It's like the holy grail," says Mr. Cheng. But the team didn't want ordinary ones.

"We want to produce suspension of disbelief," Nesmith says. He looks at me to make sure I know what he means.

Like any good English major, I do. He's quoting Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writing in 1817 of what he wanted to achieve in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner": the "semblance of truth" that might make readers forget he'd made it up.

And so, in the quest for realism, the Skyrim team invented a language for dragons. They studied film of bats to give dragons the qualities that would make them look familiar. Mr. Carofano remembers with pleasure how, as he previewed Skyrim for reviewers, they applauded when the first dragon appeared.

I want to understand what absorbs game designers. I ask Nesmith to describe something he'd obsess about with Skyrim.

"I wanted our magic system to get a face-lift," he says. In other games, when a character threw a magic fireball at the enemy, it was just a little red ball. "We wanted it to have a tail. Scatter flames! Leave a footprint!"

To watch Skyrim confirms Howard's vision. The obsessions Nesmith describes, the technical advances spurred by the industry, the years Bethesda was willing to allot to it ? all combine to produce a beguilingly varied world.

Now the Skyrim team is sending out "patches" ? ways to fix the inevitable bugs players have reported. So far, not only have 10 million played, but those who have done so on a PC, which the company can track, average a total of 75 hours each.

What's so compelling?

* * *

Fries sits in his parents' living room in Virginia, wearing a faded green Peace&Love T-shirt, controller in hand. He's got Skyrim up on the big screen. His father and a friend, Tom Harvey, watch.

No dragons this time. His character has a more limited quest: making his way across frozen tundra toward a town. As he travels, Fries makes choices for him.

Fight or retreat? Enter a cavern or choose another way? Walk slowly or run ahead? It's what Fries has done playing video games for more than a decade.

"The average young person racks up 10,000 hours of gaming by the age of 21," says Ms. McGonigal. Ten thousand hours. It's a number made famous recently by Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers." In it, he offers the 10,000-hour-rule, based on research by a Swedish psychologist who argues that it might take that much time to become really good at something.

Pianists do it. Why not gamers? Forty-hour-a-week gamers might seem scary. Fries and Harvey are more typical. They met when Harvey managed one of the 6,500 stores in the GameStop chain, now the largest American retail outlet for video games. When Fries turned 16, Harvey hired him as his assistant.

Games don't totally dominate their lives. Fries keeps up with schoolwork. Harvey now manages a clothing store. They are articulate, funny, and take showers. But they've both put in their 10,000 hours ? including entire days on weekends.

And Harvey illustrates something else. The average American gamer is about 37 and has played for 12 years. Harvey is 29. He's played for 13 years. This isn't something kids outgrow.

Why not? Yale professor Paul Bloom, author of "How Pleasure Works," points out that Americans find many products of the imagination ? games, movies, TV ? more interesting than real life.

"Why would individuals ... watch the television show 'Friends,' " he quotes one psychologist as saying, "rather than spending time with actual friends?"

Among other things, Dr. Bloom says, the adventures of fictional characters are usually "much more interesting" than ours.

Fries sees the relevance to games. "You can't walk around on giant tundra with a sword," he says about real life. "You can't swim next to a submarine. I could go skydiving, but I'm horribly afraid of heights. If I hit the ground in a game, I won't die."

Bloom offers another reason, quoting television and literary critic Clive James. "Fiction is life with the dull bits left out."

Nesmith confirms that. In real life, he says, "we often say nothing of consequence. You don't want that in a game."

When you ask what's unique to games, though, designers or players all mention one thing. "You get to interact," says Carofano. "There's something rewarding about that."

Clearly, interaction ? choice ? separates video games from other forms of storytelling. You don't just read about someone killing a dragon. You do it.

Howard offers yet another attraction. Wearing jeans and sneakers, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a remote, he is the keynote speaker at a conference in Las Vegas, which has named Skyrim "game of the year."

"What can games give you that nothing else can?" he asks.

Against a black screen behind him, the answer appears. PRIDE.

"Pride in something you did," he says.

"Definitely true," Fries says. "Sure, you get a feeling of pride reading a book. With games you're participating. You work towards beating the game."

Finally, critics of games point to another allure: their violence. Clearly there's something to the charge: When companies release violent and less violent versions of the same games ? one famous example is Mortal Kombat ? the violent ones sell better. But does that make players more violent in real life?

This possibility alarms people ? and politicians. In 2005, despite an industry rating code, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), star of some of the most violent movies of all time, tried to ban the sale of violent video games to minors. The move launched a lawsuit.

It wound up in the US Supreme Court.

* * *

"California asks this court to [permit] states to restrict minors' ability to purchase deviant, violent video games ... harmful to the upbringing ... "

Justice Antonin Scalia doesn't let California's lawyer finish. "What's a deviant? As opposed to what? A normal violent video game?"

It's June 2, 2010. The Supreme Court is hearing California's argument.

"Yes, Your Honor. Deviant would be departing from established norms."

"I mean, some of the Grimm's fairy tales are quite grim, to tell the truth," continues Mr. Scalia. "Are you going to ban them, too?"

California's lawyer remains deferential. "The interactive nature ... is especially harmful to minors," he says a little later, citing studies.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor: "One of the studies says the effect is the same for a Bugs Bunny episode."

Is she right?

Two leading researchers, Iowa State professors Douglas Gentile and Craig Anderson, believe otherwise. Citing 130 studies, they found "consistent evidence" that violent games promote aggressive "thoughts, feelings ... and behaviors."

The question is, how much? That's something researchers hotly debate. Most agree on at least one point: When a mass shooting occurs at a school, and the kid who did it turns out to have played video games, the reason for the outburst was probably not the time spent in front of a computer. All kids play. There's some evidence that shooters play video games even less than average.

Harvard University researcher Lawrence Kutner spent two years studying the effects of violent games. He acknowledges that kids who play them more than 15 hours a week seem more likely to get into trouble. But that, he quickly adds, doesn't mean the games caused it. His advice for worried parents: "Relax."

In the end, mostly because of free speech issues, the high court ruled 7 to 2 against California. It found that studies trying to connect violent games and actual violence "were not persuasive." That's not the same as finding there's no connection. Still, it might reassure worried parents that both Ms. Sotomayor and Scalia, who agree on practically nothing, agreed on that.

* * *

Aside from what the court ruled about violence, the California case illustrates something else about video games: the degree to which the industry finds itself inextricably bound up with government. One issue in particular absorbs Rep. Jim McGovern (D), the 10-term congressman from Worcester, Mass., who is a member of the video game caucus that was formed last year.

"My question," says Mr. McGovern, "is what will we make five, 10 years from now." Then he asks two more. "How can we have a well-trained workforce? How can we be an incubator?"

The video game industry interests him because two schools in his district, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Becker College, both appear on the Princeton Review list of colleges with the 10 best game-design programs in the country. In the national debate about whether government can create jobs, McGovern's stance is clear. He believes it can. He's gotten Massachusetts game companies a grant to bolster them.

"I don't want [video game] jobs [to go] overseas," he says. "I want them here."

But then McGovern talks about an issue that isn't just economic. In January, Congress bitterly debated the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), intended to protect intellectual property rights. It drew protests from online giants like Wikipedia and Craigslist, which temporarily shut down their sites.

The issue split the video game industry: Its trade association supported the measure, while many small companies, dependent on untrammeled Internet access, opposed it. McGovern opposed it.

Shouldn't we stop online piracy?

"You have to be careful of unintended consequences," McGovern says. He worries about the effect on dissidents in countries who need the Internet to communicate. "You can't just design a bill and drop it in," he says about piracy. "We'll have to deliberate ? something we're not good at."

McGovern isn't just a member of Congress, of course. He's a parent. Does he worry about the effects of games on his kids?

"I've made trips to GameStop with my son," McGovern says. "I'd be lying if I said I watch every one of his games."

Then he kind of gauges things, pulls out his cellphone, and calls home. "Patrick, what games do you play? Just tell me the acceptable ones."

Pause.

"A reporter," McGovern says.

His son knows the score.

"Madden 12. OK," McGovern relays, talking about the successful John Madden football video game that includes violence Americans don't mind.

Another pause. Patrick is mentioning another one.

"That doesn't sound acceptable," McGovern says.

He looks around to make sure I know he's kidding. He trusts Patrick. He's relaxed. Mr. Kutner would approve.

* * *

"Ten years ahead? Impossible," Brian Moriarty says. I'm sitting in a conference room with him and Dean O'Donnell, both teachers at one of the schools in McGovern's district: the 147-year-old WPI. I've made the mistake of repeating McGovern's question. "Five years ago we didn't have the iPad," Mr. Moriarty reminds me.

He and Mr. O'Donnell will be happy if students get jobs after graduation ? and five years out, have the training to adapt to what's new.

If it was ever appropriate to call colleges ivory towers, those days are gone. Colleges fight to develop marketing niches. Game design is one. Invisible on campuses a decade ago, it now appears as a major in more than 300 college course catalogs.

And the future of the industry holds more than games like Skyrim, Moriarty and O'Donnell point out. They mention a buzzword: gamification. Inspired by the magnetic pull of games, developers are trying to incorporate video game elements into everything: simulators to teach pilots, instructional DVDs for people who've bought a washing machine, or games allowing people to explore moral dilemmas like fighting a nuclear war. These are what are called "serious games."

"Hate that term!" O'Donnell says.

You can see why. Can't a richly imaginative game be "serious?" Yet O'Donnell values so-called serious games, too. Making them might be where his students wind up. And isn't there something thrilling about the idea that a game might help a pilot fly, a kid learn algebra, or a wounded veteran, back from Iraq, deal with injuries? This is a big and expanding part of the video game world.

I've looked forward to meeting Moriarty, a 25-year industry veteran. Five years after Mr. Ebert's games-can't-be-art article created a storm of criticism, the controversy began again. At last year's biggest video game convention, the Game Developers Conference, Moriarty gave a speech in Ebert's defense. That also sent the video game world into a tizzy. He was one of them!

Ebert had two main arguments. First, that games aren't art because they are interactive. Great art, he said, is contemplative. Tolstoy and Mozart didn't want listeners or players making choices.

The counterargument? It's not true. Yes, Skyrim players have choices, but only along lines carefully thought out by its designers. Besides, who says those engaging with works of art have no choice? When pianists play a Mozart sonata, they choose tempo, dynamics, and pedaling. When jazz musician Dave Brubeck improvises on "Take the 'A' Train," he makes thousands of choices. In 2009, the White House gave Mr. Brubeck a medal for excellence in "performance arts."

Moriarty does defend Ebert's first point. He devotes more time, though, to a second one. Why, Ebert had asked, couldn't anyone cite a game worthy of comparison with the works of great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists, and composers?

"Nobody could answer that," Moriarty says, explaining why he gave his speech.

Moriarty argues that a great book offers things games don't. "When I feel the need for reflection, for insight, wisdom, or consolation, I turn my computers off," he said in his speech. There are many things competing for his time. If he finds a great book, he says now, he would rather read it than play games.

Otherwise he'd suffer "gamer guilt" ? the moment when "you wake up and say, I've just wasted 40 hours of my life."

O'Donnell can hardly sit still. "The idea that all game time is wasted time!"

"I never said that!" Moriarty replies. "I said I'd rather read Proust."

"Just because [a game's] not sublime doesn't mean it's not art. It's a beautiful thing!" O'Donnell says. "Michael Jordan was an artist!"

"He was an athlete!"

Back and forth they go. To me, Moriarty isn't arguing about whether games can be art but a more limited question: Can they contain the complex characters and moral dilemmas of novels or films? Later, when they've calmed down, Moriarty admits the "Are games art?" question isn't over. "I'm an optimist," he says. "Maybe we just have to wait for our Mozart."

* * *

Soon, we're talking to four students in the WPI program, one of whom might turn out to be the next Mozart. These are students with dreams tempered by realism. Wisconsin native Beth Kunkel knows that most of her classmates may not even wind up in the industry. Virginian Jeff Thomas thinks he might "get a job in computer science to make sure I have a house."

But Connecticut junior Nick Konstantino still seems focused on games. Later, he'll show me the "mocap" project he's working on ? a high-tech way to capture motion from live actors that designers use to develop animation. But he's been building games since middle school. The MMO ? massive multiplayer online game ? he created in high school had 40,000 subscribers.

I mention Curt Schilling, the former Red Sox pitcher who has put $20 million of his own money into a video game company and just released a big game. "What if someone gave you that much money? What would you do?"

"The perfect MMO," says Mr. Konstantino. "I love multiplayer."

MMOs are enormously popular. Last November, more than 12 million people around the world were playing just one of them: World of Warcraft. Single-player games are hardly the only option for gamers. In fact, when I ask about Skyrim, this group sounds restrained. They admire it more than they love it.

But then Konstantino mentions something interesting. After Bethesda released Skyrim, Howard gave his team one week to create whatever addition they wished the game had. Howard called the result "Game Jam" and put it online.

Konstantino loved what he saw. "Amazing things!" he says.

I don't expect to like it. I can't help myself. To a remix of Martin Solveig's "Hello," Game Jam cuts from one tableau to the next: foliage that changes with the seasons, warriors mounting dragons to ride off across the countryside, footprints appearing behind them while characters walk across the snow. It's imaginative and fun to watch ? and not just for kids.

* * *

Nesmith sits and reflects on the changes the industry has seen since his dad brought Pong home four decades ago. The Skyrim designer is aware of how unusual he is: a grown-up who knows more about games than kids do.

He doesn't make a big deal of it. A few years ago his daughter mentioned what he did in class. One of her classmates jerked around and started shaking her desk. "YOUR DAD MADE FALLOUT! OH. MY. GOD!" Since then, Nesmith's family doesn't make a big deal of it either.

After 40 years, he still loves games. He's impatient with people who think of it as "just" entertainment. "The importance of play cannot be overstated," he says.

Fun, satirist Tom Lehrer once lamented, was "unfortunately not something guaranteed by the Constitution." Nesmith reminds us of something useful: Even in a country founded by Puritans, there's nothing wrong with having a good time.

You'll get no argument from Fries. By now, he has allowed his Skyrim character to imbibe a magic healing potion. He's ready to fight again. The dragon belches another jet of flame. Fries heaves fireball after fireball at it. The fireball tails stream behind just like Nesmith wanted. The dragon heaves itself up off the ground, then collapses.

Dead.

Fries feels ... pride.

What will his kids play when the advances of Skyrim seem as primitive as Pac-Man does now? Will the games be a source of reflection, insight, wisdom? Controversy and conflict?

And there's one other question that, like Skyrim, also involves choice: What's the opportunity cost of games ? what else might we do if we weren't spending 10,000 hours in front a computer screen?

Hard to predict. Because in 2012, the world of video games turns out to be as complicated and uncertain as the real world. It is dazzling, imperfect ? and unfinished. Like Skyrim, the industry needs patches. It needs its Mozart.

Relax. For most of us, it offers little to fear. There's much to like. And it's early in the game.

? Robert A. Lehrman, who owes much of the insight in this story to tutoring by his son, Michael, is a novelist and former White House speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore. Author of 'The Political Speechwriter's Companion,' he teaches at American University and co-runs a blog, PunditWire.

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Expedia adds to Google's EU antitrust woes, decision expected after Easter

Google's position as the dominant search engine doesn't come without a price. Smaller search sites have already tapped on the EU Commission's door to register their complaints about how they are ranked, and Microsoft has also let its feelings on the matter be known. Now, we can add the Redmond spin-off, Expedia, to that list of sore losers disgruntled firms. The travel search site claims it has specific details outlining how the search giant has violated European anti-competitive laws. A Google spokesperson issued a statement saying "We haven't seen the complaint yet, but we've been working to explain how our business works, cooperating with the European Commission since this investigation began." The EU Competition Commissioner says a decision will be made after Easter, at which point Mountain View will either be charged, or the investigation will be dropped. If only that were the end of its EU troubles.

Expedia adds to Google's EU antitrust woes, decision expected after Easter originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 31 Mar 2012 13:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Albuquerque's Uptown Neighborhood | Albuquerque Real Estate Blog

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This week we talked about one of my favorite areas to go home shopping in, Albuquerque?s Uptown Neighborhood. (View Uptown Homes for Sale)

When you say Albuquerque Uptown many people think of the Albuquerque Uptown shopping mall, which is a newer outdoor mall with several good restaurants including Elephant Bar, Bravo Italiana, Marcello?s Steakhouse, California Pizza Kitchen and the Melting pot. There?s plenty of shopping there too including Pottery Barn, Williams and Sonoma, Coldwater Creek and Joseph A. Banks to name a few.?The uptown mall area has drawn additional restaurants to the area like Paradise Bakery and Chipotle.

Not only does the mall keep drawing new businesses including Dave and Busters, but it draws Albuquerque home shoppers too who are looking for affordable, well built houses available in the area. Being close to shopping and dining is very appealing for a large number of home buyers.

The average home sales price in Uptown last month was $168,000. Home prices ranged from?$110,000 to $275,000. Read more Albuquerque Uptown Real Estate Stats here.

If you missed the show you can listen on demand here:


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This entry was posted in Radio Show by Rich Cederberg. Bookmark the permalink. Rich Cederberg sells Albuquerque real estate and Rio Rancho real estate for Venture Realty Group. Call him at (505) 803-5012

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Lawyer: Afghan suspect had depression after Iraq

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lawyer-afghan-suspect-had-depression-iraq-222831115.html

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Samsung ships five million Galaxy Notes in just five months

Five is an important number for Samsung's Galaxy Note. It has a 5.3-inch screen and now, just five months since it debuted Samsung has announced it's shipped five million units (the one million mark was crossed right around the end of December). That's certainly long enough for you to decide if you're in love with its super-sized frame or the accompanying S-Pen stylus, but unfortunately it has not been quite enough time for the highly-anticipated Ice Cream Sandwich software update to be released. While the world waits for the Premium Suite of apps and Android 4.0, let's think back to all the good times we had, including its initial unveiling, our original review and finally its arrival in the US on AT&T. So, are you convinced yet that there's a place in the world for a device like this, or five million phablets later are you still thinking this is just a fad?

[Thanks, ph00ny]

Samsung ships five million Galaxy Notes in just five months originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Mar 2012 23:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSamsung Tomorrow  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/27/samsung-ships-five-million-galaxy-notes-in-just-five-months/

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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Major networking opportunity

Major networking opportunity [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 28-Mar-2012
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Contact: Mary Todd Bergman
contactpress@ebi.ac.uk
44-122-349-4665
European Molecular Biology Laboratory - European Bioinformatics Institute

The IMEx Consortium brings interactomes to light

Like people bustling around busy cities, the thousands of molecules inside our cells are constantly interacting with each other: turning each other on or off, working together, splitting up and networking. Understanding the countless ways in which they do so is a major challenge in biology, but it is fundamental to understanding life. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and colleagues in the International Molecular Exchange (IMEx) consortium are rising to the challenge by offering researchers a freely available set of experimental interaction data that can be queried from a single interface. Reporting in Nature Methods, IMEx partners describe the advantages of their service and invite others to join the effort.

To make it easier to create a picture of an organism's 'interactome' the interactions between all of its molecules IMEx partners have been working since 2004 to create a one-stop-shop for interaction data. A single standard for curating protein interaction data now makes it much simpler for scientists to identify which protein interactions are supported by the strongest evidence.

"There are over 100 interaction databases available, but none of them holds enough information to describe the interactome of any organism," explains Sandra Orchard of the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in the UK. "In addition to the problem of repeated data entries in these databases, only around 1% of the 151 million binary pairs available are reliable data from published experimental work." The remaining data are theoretical, or the product of text mining; as such, they are far less dependable.

"We've now made it easier to find information about proteins that interact with a given molecule, and to compare new experimental results with publicly available, curated experimental data," says Gianni Cesareni of the University of Rome 'Tor Vergata' in Italy.

"IMEx web services now display curated, experimental data from several reputable resources so that a clearer picture of interactions between proteins can begin to emerge," says Henning Hermjakob, head of Proteomics Services at EMBL-EBI. "We are in effect optimising the return on public investment in interaction databases by co-ordinating global annotation efforts. We are certainly looking forward to having more curated data resources join the consortium."

###

IMEx partners currently include DIP (the Database of Interacting Proteins at UCLA in the US), I2D (at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Canada), InnateDB (Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia in Canada and the Teagasc Bioscience Department in Ireland), IntAct (at EMBL-EBI); MatrixDB (at CNRS / Lyon1 University in France), MINT; Molecular Connections (in Bangalore, India); MPIDB (at the J. Craig Venter Institute in the US); observer BioGRID (the Biological General Repository for Interaction Datasets) and the most recent member, the Swiss-Prot group from the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, representing the UniProt consortium. IMEx is an outcome of PSIMEx, which is funded under the Health Theme of the European Commissions Seventh Framework Programme.

Explore IMEx at www.imexconsortium.org



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Major networking opportunity [ Back to EurekAlert! ] Public release date: 28-Mar-2012
[ | E-mail | Share Share ]

Contact: Mary Todd Bergman
contactpress@ebi.ac.uk
44-122-349-4665
European Molecular Biology Laboratory - European Bioinformatics Institute

The IMEx Consortium brings interactomes to light

Like people bustling around busy cities, the thousands of molecules inside our cells are constantly interacting with each other: turning each other on or off, working together, splitting up and networking. Understanding the countless ways in which they do so is a major challenge in biology, but it is fundamental to understanding life. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) and colleagues in the International Molecular Exchange (IMEx) consortium are rising to the challenge by offering researchers a freely available set of experimental interaction data that can be queried from a single interface. Reporting in Nature Methods, IMEx partners describe the advantages of their service and invite others to join the effort.

To make it easier to create a picture of an organism's 'interactome' the interactions between all of its molecules IMEx partners have been working since 2004 to create a one-stop-shop for interaction data. A single standard for curating protein interaction data now makes it much simpler for scientists to identify which protein interactions are supported by the strongest evidence.

"There are over 100 interaction databases available, but none of them holds enough information to describe the interactome of any organism," explains Sandra Orchard of the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in the UK. "In addition to the problem of repeated data entries in these databases, only around 1% of the 151 million binary pairs available are reliable data from published experimental work." The remaining data are theoretical, or the product of text mining; as such, they are far less dependable.

"We've now made it easier to find information about proteins that interact with a given molecule, and to compare new experimental results with publicly available, curated experimental data," says Gianni Cesareni of the University of Rome 'Tor Vergata' in Italy.

"IMEx web services now display curated, experimental data from several reputable resources so that a clearer picture of interactions between proteins can begin to emerge," says Henning Hermjakob, head of Proteomics Services at EMBL-EBI. "We are in effect optimising the return on public investment in interaction databases by co-ordinating global annotation efforts. We are certainly looking forward to having more curated data resources join the consortium."

###

IMEx partners currently include DIP (the Database of Interacting Proteins at UCLA in the US), I2D (at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Canada), InnateDB (Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia in Canada and the Teagasc Bioscience Department in Ireland), IntAct (at EMBL-EBI); MatrixDB (at CNRS / Lyon1 University in France), MINT; Molecular Connections (in Bangalore, India); MPIDB (at the J. Craig Venter Institute in the US); observer BioGRID (the Biological General Repository for Interaction Datasets) and the most recent member, the Swiss-Prot group from the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, representing the UniProt consortium. IMEx is an outcome of PSIMEx, which is funded under the Health Theme of the European Commissions Seventh Framework Programme.

Explore IMEx at www.imexconsortium.org



[ Back to EurekAlert! ] [ | E-mail | Share Share ]

?


AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.


Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-03/embl-mno032812.php

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Take This Advice To Become Productive At The Home Based ...

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Article Promotion ? Different Careers in Construction Business

by Trevor Kenealy

Becoming a Construction Industry Professional

There is an expansive list of professions in the realm of construction. There are engineers, architects, designers, accounting personnel, etc. Many professionals are seeking job positions in this sector. These jobs appeal particularly to most of today?s fresh graduates.

The number of people seeking employment in this sector is spread across various locations. You must have the ability to multi-task if you are hoping to make your career in this industry. Nowadays, job openings in the construction industry, just like any other industries, are posted online and you might be able to an opportunity in there. There might also be opportunities in similar fields outside of your area that you are willing to take on.

The job positions in this industry are not limited to construction only. In other words, it does not mean that a construction manager has to merely supervise or oversee actual construction work. His work include not only managing the workers at the construction area but some other outdoor and indoor assignments. He may be delegated with duties and responsibilities that are crucial for the business, for instance, to keep track of project schedules, their allocated budget, and other tasks which are in line with the company?s objectives of earning profits. In other words, a construction manager is delegated with plenty of major responsibilities.

Being a construction manager is only one of the various job description probabilities. There is a range of options from entry level construction jobs, to There is a diversity of job opportunities ranging from clerical or administrative to the construction managerial levels. Given the diverse selection of professions within the construction industry, getting an employment in a position that is best suitable to your qualifications is still not very easy. On the other hand, there are some useful tools that can assist you in finding the most suitable job, which could be verbally, through the Internet, the periodicals, and others. Actually, there are some websites that are entirely dedicated to the construction industry where you can quickly and easily search for construction employment opportunities.

They have been providing professionals who are interested in the construction industry with the best job possibilities. There are a few sites that provide a career data bank where you can submit your job profile qualifications. You will also be able to find assistance when it comes to other information within the construction business in these sites.

When we talk about the construction industry, it actually encompasses a diversified range of professionals working in this particular field. Construction work is usually carried out in alliance with other people as well as companies in the completion of various projects. Although we generally associate people who work in the construction business as ?construction workers?, many of them are beyond that classification in terms of intellectual capacity and expertise. Even if there is a diversity of profession in the construction environment, getting employment in this sector that is equivalent to your eligibility and aptitude is not going to be that simple.

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Source: http://articlepromotion.org/blog/?p=87585

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Plasma flows may shed light on predicting sunspot cycles

ScienceDaily (Mar. 23, 2012) ? Geophysics researcher Cherish Bauer-Reich wants to look inside the sun. More accurately, she wants to simulate the sun to study plasma flows associated with sunspot cycles. The cycles play a role in solar storms, which can affect satellites and disrupt a host of modern communication technologies, from cell phones to power grids.

Scientists recently warned about a series of solar storms in early March, concerned that it could affect global positioning systems, power grids, satellites and airplane travel. With the sun's normal cycle, these very active solar storms are expected to continue.

Bauer-Reich, a research engineer at North Dakota State University's Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering, is pursuing her doctorate degree in geophysics, using supercomputing power to create a model of the sun. The Center for Computationally Assisted Science and Technology (CCAST) at North Dakota State University provides the power for Bauer-Reich's research. She found that CCAST in Fargo provided an easily accessible route to the supercomputing needed. NDSU's supercomputing center (CCAST) is available to students, faculty and staff researchers, and available for researchers and industry that are partnering with NDSU.

While people have heard of sunspots, most aren't aware of what actually causes them. "It's a large tube of magnetic flux basically," says Bauer-Reich. "Sunspots reduce the amount of heat and the amount of light coming out of the sun, which is why they look dark. It's because they're at different temperatures than the rest of the area around them."

Sunspots tend to work in cycles, starting at high latitudes and then migrating toward the equator. "Helioseismologists study vibrations in the sun and they image what's underneath the outer layer. What they've found is that when these sunspots are popping up, there's also a flow right next to them, so that the plasma is flowing at a different speed than on either side of them. What I'm studying is how strong that flow has to be," says Bauer-Reich. "The only way to do it is to come up with these models that try to predict behavior."

Bauer-Reich expects running all the computer models on CCAST will take approximately a year, followed by the data analysis. According to Dr. Martin Ossowski, CCAST director, major research areas at the facility include: materials science, renewable energy, multiprocessor electronic circuitry, simulation of atmospheric plasma, monitoring the health of bridges and vehicles, computational biology, tissue engineering, and agroinformatics.

"We assist researchers who are pursuing discovery in energy, materials, environment, health, security, and in other areas of national research priority," said Ossowski. He notes today's supercomputing environment emphasizes not only speed, but the ability to help researchers tailor software to conduct their research, and meet researchers' data lifecycle needs.

Supercomputing is as important to business as it is to scientific researchers. In a white paper titled "Global Leadership Through Modeling and Simulation," the U.S. Council on Competitiveness said "to out-compete is to out-compute." For example, Boeing used a national supercomputing center to accelerate design of the 787 and 747-8 airliners and Navistar Corp. designed technologies for better fuel efficiency in trucks.

The need for supercomputing facilities and those with specialized skills is expected to grow. According to Ossowski, the line between computer programmers and scientists is increasingly blurry. He notes that there will be an increasing need for interdisciplinary research teams, as well as for scientists who are algorithm and code developers, and for programmers who are scientists. "It represents a critical shift in how research problems are approached."

CCAST at NDSU provides high performance computing infrastructure for the university, its Research and Technology Park and their industrial partners, and engages in its own original research.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by North Dakota State University, via Newswise.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.


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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120323093651.htm

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Saturday, March 24, 2012

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