How do you throw up in a place where "up" and "down" don't exist?
Puking in the microgravity of the International Space Station can be quite a problem, but that doesn't mean it never happens.
Astronauts get sick even in the weightlessness of the orbiting outpost, and thanks to a new video from Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, everyone on the surface of the Earth can get a glimpse of how it happens.
"When we first get to space, we feel sick," Hadfield said to a group of students back on the planet. "Your body is really confused. You're dizzy. Your lunch is floating around in your belly because you're floating. What you see doesn't match what you feel, and you want to throw up."
The space station commander then opened up a "barf bag" and showed the students the proper method for up-chucking in space.
"Think about what happens on Earth when you throw up," Hadfield said. "You throw up and you have a bag of something horrible and then you throw it away, but if I have this bag, what am I going to do with it? This bag is going to stay with me in space for months, so we want a really good barf bag."
Astronaut barf bags have liners that can be used to clean a spaceflyer's face post-puke, added Hadfield. There is also a very durable zip-lock bag that prevents the waste from floating around the $100 billion orbiting laboratory.
This video is just one of the many life-in-space clips?Hadfield has beamed down from the space station. His short explainers detail everything from how to cook spinach in space to how to clip your nails.
He even has a video explanation for how to wring out a wet washcloth in microgravity ? probably a helpful clip for anyone who has just finished throwing up in space.
Hadfield is the commander of an international team of six astronauts that make up the Expedition 35 team. NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko will fly back to Earth with Hadfield in May after a six month stay on board the space station.
Follow Miriam Kramer on Twitterand Google+. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.
Copyright 2013 SPACE.com, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Charges against Kevin Curtis for mailing ricin-poisoned letters have been dropped, but investigators searching for ricin wreaked havoc at his house, says his lawyer, leaving his home unlivable. The lawsuit seeks damages to cover temporary housing, the destroyed and damaged property, and legal fees.
By Holbrook Mohr,?Associated Press / April 30, 2013
Kevin Curtis, seen here last week talking to reporters as his brother Jack Curtis looks on, is suing for damages to his home. Kevin Curtis's house is uninhabitable after investigators searched it but failed to find evidence of the deadly poison ricin, his lawyer said Monday, arguing that the government should repair the home.
Bert Mohr / AP
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A Mississippi man's house is uninhabitable after investigators searched it but failed to find evidence of the deadly poison ricin, a lawyer said Monday, arguing that the government should repair the home.
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Kevin Curtis was once charged in the mailing of poisoned letters to President Barack Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and a Mississippi judge, but the charges were later dropped. The investigation shifted last week to another man who had a falling out with Curtis, and that suspect appeared in court Monday on a charge of making ricin.
Curtis' lawyer, Christi McCoy, has sent a letter to U.S. Attorney Felicia Adams demanding that Curtis be provided temporary housing and the government repair his Corinth, Miss., home and possessions. She also wants the government to pay his legal bills.
"To be specific, Mr. Curtis' home is uninhabitable. I have seen a lot of post search residences but this one is quite disturbing. The agents removed art from the walls, broke the frames and tore the artwork. Mr. Curtis offered his keys but agents chose to break the lock. Mr. Curtis' garbage was scheduled to be picked up Thursday, the day after he was snatched from his life. A week later, the garbage remains in his home, along with millions of insects it attracted," the letter says.
Late Monday, McCoy said that she and Curtis' other attorney had spoken with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office and they were told his property will be repaired or replaced.
"We feel like the letter was well-received and we'll be working with the FBI to get all his property returned and get his property repaired," she said.
Though attorneys for Curtis say their client was framed, McCoy believes whoever sent the letters had a primary goal of targeting the public officials. Curtis has said that he feuded with the man now charged in the case, James Everett Dutschke.
"I think Kevin was just an afterthought or a scapegoat," McCoy said.
Some of the language in the letters was similar to posts on Curtis' Facebook page and they were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message." Curtis often used a similar online signoff.
Had damaging Curtis been the point of the scheme, McCoy said she believes that whoever set up her client could have done a better job of implicating him, such as planting evidence at his home.
McCoy said in an interview Monday that she still believes the FBI acted on the best information available at the time, but it's time to make her client whole. The letter said Curtis' life was "ruined."
Curtis, a 45-year-old Elvis impersonator, was arrested on April 17. The charges were dropped six days later and Curtis was released from jail.
A message left seeking comment about McCoy's letter at the federal prosecutor's office in Oxford wasn't immediately returned.
After Curtis was released, the focus turned to Dutschke. In court Monday, a judge ordered that Dutschke be held without bond until a preliminary and detention hearing on Thursday. More details are likely to emerge at that hearing, when prosecutors have to show they have enough evidence to hold him.
Dutschke made a brief appearance wearing an orange jumpsuit with his hands shackled. The 41-year-old suspect said little during his hearing other than answering affirmatively to the judge's questions about whether he understood the charges against him.
Engaging online crowds in the classroom could be important tool for teaching innovationPublic release date: 29-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Byron Spice bspice@cs.cmu.edu 412-268-9068 Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern Educators report on pilot study
PITTSBURGHOnline crowds can be an important tool for teaching the ins and outs of innovation, educators at Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University say, even when the quality of the feedback provided by online sources doesn't always match the quantity.
In a pilot study that invited the crowd into their classrooms, Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern instructors found that input from social media and other crowdsourcing sites helped the students identify human needs for products or services, generate large quantities of ideas, and ease some aspects of testing those ideas.
Finding ways to incorporate online crowds into coursework is critical for teaching the process of innovation, said Steven Dow, assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. He and his co-investigator, Elizabeth Gerber, the Breed Junior Professor of Design at Northwestern University, will present their findings April 29 at CHI 2013, the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in Paris.
"Educating students about innovation practices can be difficult in the classroom, where students typically lack authentic interaction with the real world," Dow explained. "Social networks and other online crowds can provide input that students can't get otherwise. Even in project courses, feedback is limited to a handful of individuals, at most."
At the same time, tapping the power of online communities has itself become part of the innovation process, Gerber said, with many entrepreneurs turning to sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo to get initial support.
"The Internet affords access to online communities to which we might not ever have access," she said. "Future innovators need to know how to find and respectively engage with these communities to get the resources they need."
Dow and Gerber have received a National Science Foundation grant to study the use of crowd technologies in the classroom. They have created a website, http://crowddriveninnovation.com/, to share ideas and resources regarding the use of crowd-based resources in innovation education.
In the pilot study, they explored the use of crowds with 50 students enrolled in three innovation classes offered by Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern. Students worked in groups of 3-4 on projects.
Students found online forums, such as Reddit, were very helpful in discovering unmet needs. A group working on public transit, for instance, found lots of people talk about transit on social media, Dow said. "It also helps them figure out what questions to ask users in more traditional interviews," he added.
An attempt to generate ideas through Amazon Mechanical Turk, which pays workers small fees for performing micro-tasks, produced little of use.
"Understanding context is critical for ideation and this is difficult to do in a micro-task work environment," Gerber said. What did work effectively, she said, was asking people from the user research site Mindswarms to reflect on students' storyboard concepts.
In the final class assignment, to help students learn how to pitch ideas, the teams created a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. But that made many students uncomfortable.
"The main problem with the crowdfunding piece of the class was that few students, as far as I could tell, actually wanted to raise the money," one student explained. "Most students in the class have other plans and weren't planning to continue working on their idea."
"In a strange way, this discomfort validated our hypothesis that engaging external crowds would bring the reality of innovation practices into the classroom," Dow said. "It was almost too real."
One solution, Dow and Gerber said, may be to have students prepare a crowdfunding campaign, but not launch it.
###
About Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 12,000 students in the university's seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon's main campus in the United States is in Pittsburgh, Pa. It has campuses in California's Silicon Valley and Qatar, and programs in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico. The university is in the midst of "Inspire Innovation: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University," which aims to build its endowment, support faculty, students and innovative research, and enhance the physical campus with equipment and facility improvements
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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.
Engaging online crowds in the classroom could be important tool for teaching innovationPublic release date: 29-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Byron Spice bspice@cs.cmu.edu 412-268-9068 Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern Educators report on pilot study
PITTSBURGHOnline crowds can be an important tool for teaching the ins and outs of innovation, educators at Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University say, even when the quality of the feedback provided by online sources doesn't always match the quantity.
In a pilot study that invited the crowd into their classrooms, Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern instructors found that input from social media and other crowdsourcing sites helped the students identify human needs for products or services, generate large quantities of ideas, and ease some aspects of testing those ideas.
Finding ways to incorporate online crowds into coursework is critical for teaching the process of innovation, said Steven Dow, assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. He and his co-investigator, Elizabeth Gerber, the Breed Junior Professor of Design at Northwestern University, will present their findings April 29 at CHI 2013, the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in Paris.
"Educating students about innovation practices can be difficult in the classroom, where students typically lack authentic interaction with the real world," Dow explained. "Social networks and other online crowds can provide input that students can't get otherwise. Even in project courses, feedback is limited to a handful of individuals, at most."
At the same time, tapping the power of online communities has itself become part of the innovation process, Gerber said, with many entrepreneurs turning to sites such as Kickstarter and IndieGoGo to get initial support.
"The Internet affords access to online communities to which we might not ever have access," she said. "Future innovators need to know how to find and respectively engage with these communities to get the resources they need."
Dow and Gerber have received a National Science Foundation grant to study the use of crowd technologies in the classroom. They have created a website, http://crowddriveninnovation.com/, to share ideas and resources regarding the use of crowd-based resources in innovation education.
In the pilot study, they explored the use of crowds with 50 students enrolled in three innovation classes offered by Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern. Students worked in groups of 3-4 on projects.
Students found online forums, such as Reddit, were very helpful in discovering unmet needs. A group working on public transit, for instance, found lots of people talk about transit on social media, Dow said. "It also helps them figure out what questions to ask users in more traditional interviews," he added.
An attempt to generate ideas through Amazon Mechanical Turk, which pays workers small fees for performing micro-tasks, produced little of use.
"Understanding context is critical for ideation and this is difficult to do in a micro-task work environment," Gerber said. What did work effectively, she said, was asking people from the user research site Mindswarms to reflect on students' storyboard concepts.
In the final class assignment, to help students learn how to pitch ideas, the teams created a crowdfunding campaign through Kickstarter or IndieGoGo. But that made many students uncomfortable.
"The main problem with the crowdfunding piece of the class was that few students, as far as I could tell, actually wanted to raise the money," one student explained. "Most students in the class have other plans and weren't planning to continue working on their idea."
"In a strange way, this discomfort validated our hypothesis that engaging external crowds would bring the reality of innovation practices into the classroom," Dow said. "It was almost too real."
One solution, Dow and Gerber said, may be to have students prepare a crowdfunding campaign, but not launch it.
###
About Carnegie Mellon University: Carnegie Mellon is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 12,000 students in the university's seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation. A global university, Carnegie Mellon's main campus in the United States is in Pittsburgh, Pa. It has campuses in California's Silicon Valley and Qatar, and programs in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and Mexico. The university is in the midst of "Inspire Innovation: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University," which aims to build its endowment, support faculty, students and innovative research, and enhance the physical campus with equipment and facility improvements
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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.
"Filly Brown" is a clear case of a character (and a performance) that?s more interesting and moving than the movie she?s in.
The title is the rap handle of Majo Tonorio (played by Gina Rodriguez), a would-be rap star growing up in L.A.?s Latino community. With lyrics borrowed by her imprisoned mother (singer Jenni Rivera, who made her acting debut before her death last December in a plane crash), Majo makes an impression with record producers ? but must decide whether to sell out for quick cash or be true to her music and to her DJ, Santa (Emilio Rivera).
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?Filly Brown?
Opens Friday, April 26, at the Megaplex 15 at Valley Fair (West Jordan) and Cinemark 24 (Jordan Landing); rated R for language, some drug use and violence; 80 minutes.
There?s also home drama, with Majo?s hard-working father (Lou Diamond Phillips) clashing with the lawyer (Edward James Olmos) Majo has hired to represent her mother.
The story occasionally devolves into rags-to-riches clich?s, but directors Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos are at their best when spotlighting Rodriguez?s powerful performance behind the mic.
movies@sltrib.com; www.sltrib.com/entertainment
Copyright 2013 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Starring: Robert Redford, Shia Labeouf, Susan Sarandon, Julie Christie, Stanley Tucci, Terrence Howard and Anna Kendrick
Directed by: Robert Redford
Running time: 121 minutes
Parental Guidance: coarse language, violence
No matter how much slack you cut it, The Company You Keep never quite lives up to expectation.
It?s a faintly tragic realization given how much talent was floating above the line in this new movie from smarty-pants Robert Redford, but then again its central flaw as a film echoes the core disappointment lying at the heart of the content.
Based on the novel by Neil Gordon, The Company You Keep deals with the lasting legacy of boomer idealism as it tells the fictionalized story of the real life Weather Underground, a radical group born from the anti-war movement in the 1960s.
Desperate to change the agenda and ?bring the war home,? the ?Weathermen? set off bombs, accidentally blew themselves up, and were indirectly connected to a bank robbery that left several dead.
Some were convicted of crimes. Yet many members of the group simply fell off the grid and disappeared, which is where The Company You Keep begins: Longtime fugitive Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon) decides she?s done enough hiding and turns herself in to the authorities more than three decades after the fact.
Shortly afterwards we?re introduced to Jim Grant (Robert Redford), a single dad and lawyer with a significant secret.
The connection between the two is sketchy, which is where the ever-convenient reporter character (Shia LaBeouf) steps in to explain the facts in the form of a frustrated tirade to the predictably fed up, forever threatening editor (Stanley Tucci).
The dialogue surrounding violent protest got a lot narrower in the past month, which means a lot of the talking points in Redford?s movie feel moot.
Thanks to these genteel nods to the nostalgia of His Girl Friday, within 15 minutes of the head credits, we know the basic outlines of the story: Jim Grant is actually Nick Sloan, another member of the WU who eluded prosecution.
Nick goes on the lam to protect his young daughter, but he?s really trying to reach Mimi Lurie (Julie Christie), another fugitive from justice who could vindicate him on all charges, should she choose to co-operate.
Unlike other members of the group, Mimi is still a fierce believer in her ideals. She still wants to blow the whistle, and she still wants to blow stuff up.
Now, given the precise moment in time this movie is being released to a mass audience, there isn?t going to be a whole lot of empathy for these homegrown ?terrorists? ? even if they?re being played by generational icons such as Sarandon, Redford, Christie and the ever-hunky Sam Elliott.
The dialogue surrounding violent protest got a lot narrower in the past month, which means a lot of the talking points in Redford?s movie feel moot.
Redford no doubt wanted his audience to question issues of moral obligation and social responsibility. He wanted us to feel the friction point between what is and what could be, and he wanted to do it in a way that felt direct, emotional and poignant.
As a result, one never gets a sense of undeclared judgment. Every character is given a wide berth of emotion and motivation, and everyone remains somewhat sympathetic over the course of the chatty denouement that never quite locks into thriller gear.
This is good for the Socratic side of the movie, but it sucks away at the entertainment value because without judgment and a sense of moral traction, the underlying dramatic engine keeps spinning its wheels without going anywhere.
In the rare moments where the movie finds its teeth, it does extremely well, such as the climactic exchange between Christie and Redford ? the only two actors in the whole piece who find any palpable dynamic.
In the rare moments where the movie finds its teeth, it does extremely well.
Christie?s character looks at her old friend and sees only the chalk mark of his former self. She thinks he?s grown soft, and sacrificed his ideals for a comfortable life. He counters her self-righteous speech by saying simply: ?I grew up.?
This one scene encapsulates the whole diorama of theme: Is radical idealism a quaint memory of a bygone era, or is it possible to be an effective tool of social change while still obeying the codes of the status quo?
They are good questions, but the movie cannot answer them with any conviction because it?s so liberal in its tone, it takes everyone?s side.
The only character who proves easy to judge is the young journalist played by LaBeouf because he doesn?t even feel compelled to exercise morality. He only cares about advancing his own career, regardless of the harm he could inflict on others.
He?s a total tool, but the portrayal is a little too accurate to dismiss.
Redford could have done a lot more with the conflict between the aging idealist and the young, self-serving pragmatist because it reflects the chasm between generations, and as such, it?s an excellent point of entry into the whole piece.
But for all the potential, all the talent and all the good intentions bubbling beneath this Vancouver-spun production, The Company You Keep suffers a similar fate as the boomers it depicts and leaves a lingering sense of unfulfilled promise.
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas on Thursday is scheduled to execute a man convicted of murder after he and an accomplice robbed an East Texas convenience store in 2002, kidnapping a male customer who was later shot to death and two women who worked there.
Richard Cobb, 29, is due to be put to death by lethal injection after 6 p.m. CDT (2300 GMT) at a state prison in Huntsville. He would be the fourth person executed in Texas this year and the ninth in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Cobb and his accomplice, Beunka Adams, who was executed in 2012 for the crime, entered BDJ's convenience store in Rusk, Texas, armed with a shotgun and wearing masks and demanded money, according to an account of the case from the state attorney general's office.
Cobb and Adams took store clerks Candace Driver and Nikki Ansley Dement hostage along with customer Kenneth Vandever and forced them into Driver's Cadillac, then Adams drove to an open pasture, the account said.
Adams forced Driver and Vandever into the trunk while Cobb held the gun. Then, Adams took Dement to a wooded area and raped her.
Later, according to the account, Cobb fatally shot Vandever and either Cobb or Adams shot the two women, who survived.
"Mr. Cobb has never disputed his involvement in the crimes, but explained that he acted out of fear of Adams, who orchestrated the crimes," says a statement of the case that is included in a court filing by Cobb's lawyer.
Cobb, who was 18 at the time of the kidnapping murder, has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that his death sentence was based on false testimony by a state witness.
(Reporting by Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by David Bailey and Alden Bentley)
Hello everyone. Thanks for coming by. I thought I would be showing you pics of my beautiful new carpet today but sadly I can not. You see, last?Thursday?night we started emptying out the house and preparing for carpet to be installed last Saturday.?Unfortunately,?after all the old carpet and pad was removed, we discovered we had a few other issues to deal with before we could install the new. So after a very?frustrating?weekend (yes it was Easter weekend too) and the lost of electricity in 2/3 of the house (which still isn't fixed), we decided to wait until today to have the carpet installation finished up.
Palo Verdes are starting to bloom here; not the greatest pics but they are beautiful!
I would have kids to care for and my husband was dealing with some issues at work that kept him there 12 or so hours a day so having workers in and out of the house during the week seemed to be the straw that would break the camels back. Some how I managed the week here taking care of the kids and juggling other work?responsibilities?with furniture piled up in my craft room/office, and in the kitchen and dining room. I have extension cords running all over the place! Let me tell you, it was a week destined to prove exactly what I am made of - and I am not all that proud of how I handled a few things.? I did learn two new things though; I am NOT as super of a Super Granny as I had thought. I have my limitations and sometimes Gramma needs a time out and a nap! I also learned that we have 250 square feet of floor space more than I thought and we had to get more carpet. With carpet in only a couple of rooms and all the walls empty I had time to look around and think about my decor and lay out of my furniture. Don't?worry! I am in love with my new carpet color and still LOVE my wall color (even more now that it is not fighting with dark blue carpet!) but I have had a chance to see that I can make some?improvements?with furniture arrangement and yet another de-cluttering! The poor man of the house has been walking on eggs shells fearful of any new ideas I might have and what that may mean in terms of more DIY projects for him! Ha! Only a couple of things my dear! Only a couple!? All is well that ends well! I will give you an update next week hopefully with pics ;) I did spend a couple of hours last Saturday with my kids and grand kids and it was a nice break.?I do hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend and I would love to hear about it! Want to leave a comment and tell us about it??
I am so glad you stopped by!?
This is a link up for older bloggers; but you don't need to be a grandparent to link up.?Link up to three post, not to your home page, and link that back to Family Home and Life. While you are here I hope you will visit the other linkers and come back to see who links up later. We all love comments! No Etsy shops or giveaways please. This link closes on Monday night.?
Be sure to visit Lisa at?Grandma's Briefs?to join her linky, GRAND Social, on Mondays. Thank you for linking up with me!
If you are reading this post anywhere else but at www.FamilyHomeandLife.com then it was used without permission! Please report it! Copyright ? Family Home and Life 2010-2013 All Rights Reserved
Because we had to shoot so quickly in filming ?Midget Zombie Takeover? (just four days on set with some cast members only around for one or two days of the shoot), we didn?t always get the best footage. Sometimes we only had one take of a scene, sometimes we didn?t have the microphones in the best locations for picking up dialogue, sometimes we moved quickly from one shot to the next and didn?t take the time we should have to readjust the lights, etc., so when editor Erik Lassi of Cold Spring Productions got the footage after we wrapped, he was worried.
When Erik showed me some of the footage (we don?t have time to view dailies on our rapid shooting schedule), I became a bit scared that we didn?t have a film, that so much of the footage was unusable that we?d end up with an incoherent 35-minute film. That?s when Erik went to work.
Employing hard work and ingenuity (and probably a whole lot of witchcraft!), Erik gradually began to use that footage to tell the story of ?Midget Zombie Takeover.? Scenes where the dialogue was almost incomprehensible suddenly became audible. Scenes that were so dark that it was nearly impossible to tell what was going on were suddenly clear. Scenes that were seemingly going to be awkward or awful because of the lack of takes were suddenly flowing nicely. I was amazed!
After many months the film began to take form, thanks to Erik. While there are still some of the earmarks of a small-budget film in the final edit (dialogue that is a little low in a couple spots, minor lighting snafus, etc.), the film has proven to be very watchable and very enjoyable for the audiences who have seen it.
See Erik?s magic at the Denver screening of Midget Zombie Takeover May 2nd, at the Oriental Theater.
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Editors note: Writer Glenn Berggeotz is very modest about Erik?s results with Midget Zombie Takeover: Daniel Schein of Creep Show Radio Reviews said this about the premiere in Virginia: ?It was great screening, the crowd was really enthusiastic? Daniel also gives a strong recommendation of Midget Zombie Takeover. Listen to Daniel Schein?s review on Creep Show Radio Reviews (skip to 39:45) spoiler alerts. Also ZMDB gives Midget Zombie Takeover 8 out of 10 and declares it ?Hilarious?
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Glenn Berggeotz is the producer of Midget Zombie Takeover. He also wrote a new book for filmmakers called: The Independent Filmmaker?s Guide: Make Your Feature Film for $2,000.
On The Daily Show?last night, Jon Stewart went after Jeff Zucker's newfangled approach at CNN, taking aim at hologram goats, vegetarians who eat bacon, and horrifying murder recreations. Stewart screamed in horror after showing the network's segment on how the Jodi Arias murder happened. "This is the middle of the day," Stewart said. "That piece could have been seen by any child?traveling through an airport."?
One of the keys to promotion is building an email list of fans who like your books. This is a non-negotiable in terms of book marketing, but building that list often takes a long time!
Blogging, social media, speaking events and networking are brilliant but they are all long-term marketing activities that don?t result in sales and ranking spikes.
One way to move the needle quickly in terms of sales and ranking is by using paid promotion sites that have lists of avid readers who might be interested in your book.
This is a short-term tactic, not a long-term strategy so should be used in conjunction with other marketing.
Note: This is NOT the same as ?buying email lists? which is a scam ? don?t do that!
Who should consider paid promotion?
It?s worth using paid promotion if:
You have a book with a great cover and great reviews. The social proof of reviews is critical for people to trust the buy process.
You can reduce the price easily and quickly for a short period ? which means you need access to the ?back end? of the publishing process, which generally means it?s open to indie authors only
You have more than one book, and it?s definitely worth putting the first of the series on special
You have a budget for promotion, as you may not make back what you spend ? results vary.
What is BookBub and how does it work?
BookBub is a free service for readers to get a daily email with curated books on special ? either free or reduced. As a reader, you can enter your email and then choose the categories you?re interested in. It?s quick and easy to sign up.
On the other end of the process, they also offer a paid promotion service to authors where you can advertise to this list.
I like the fact that the listing is curated, so not all books are accepted, only the ones with good reviews. You can?t automatically pay, they have to check your book out first. This is a great idea because it means their list stays happy and keeps buying. An email list becomes unresponsive if you send out stuff they don?t want.
Yes, their prices are high and change monthly BUT you have to weigh up the up-front price over potential book sales and the impact on your rankings and the algorithm. Exact outcome is hard to show over the long-term, but my results are below.
Anecdotal evidence: My experience
OK, first up ? any results will vary depending on an incredible number of factors, so don?t assume my results will be yours if you try this route. My husband is a statistician and he has also reminded me that this is anecdotal evidence only, and not statistically significant, so don?t apply my results to your possible situation.
Also, we all know that the algorithms at Amazon and other sites change regularly and what worked this week might well not work next week!
Plus, these sites change a lot, prices change monthly and new players emerge. So take this as one example in a snapshot of time!
Pentecost is an action-adventure thriller, the first in my ARKANE series. You can read more here. It has 92 reviews with 4 star average on Amazon.com, 31 reviews with 4 star average on Amazon.co.uk and 215 reviews on Goodreads fed to Kobo with 4 star average. So it was in a good position before the promotion and there are 2 other books now available, Prophecy and Exodus. Pentecost is also available in print.
Service used:
* BookBub 1 day promotion for Pentecost, An ARKANE Thriller (Book 1). Cost ~$200.
* I went for the Religious & Inspirational list instead of the Thriller list because this series often ranks well in that category anyway. Even though the books are not religious, they are based on Biblical and supernatural themes. It?s a smaller list than the Thriller one and therefore is much cheaper, but doesn?t go to as many people.
* Reduced price from $2.99 to 99c on Amazon and Kobo (as those are the sites it?s easiest for me to change prices quickly on). I decided to use a price instead of going free because I wanted to actually make some money and the algorithms prefer paid books these days.
Stats prior to the promotion:
Amazon.com: #41,304 in Kindle Store
Amazon.co.uk: #6023 Paid in Kindle store, #26 in Religious Fiction
Kobo: #908 in Religious Fiction & Literature
Day of the Promotion
Books sold in day of promotion + 2 days afterwards:
* Amazon.com & Amazon.co.uk: 717 at 99c and 30% royalty = $215.10 (Pentecost only)
* Sales of Prophecy and Exodus were also up ? ~50% more, so ~45 copies at $4.99 = $157.18 (70% royalty)
* Kobo: 10 @ 99c = $3 (hmm ? )
Approximate income: $375.28
Highest ranking reached:
Amazon.com: #236 in Kindle Store, #3 in Kindle ? Religious Fiction, #3 in Genre Fiction -> Religious & Inspirational, #2 in Christian/Literature & Fiction/ Mystery. #14 in Movers & Shakers.
Amazon.co.uk: #2658 in Kindle Store, #11 in Religious Fiction,
Kobo: #431 in Religious Fiction
Stats a week after the promotion:
Amazon.com: #7532 in Kindle Store, #26 in Christian/Literature & Fiction/Mystery
Amazon.co.uk: #12,637 Paid in Kindle store, #44 in Religious Fiction
Kobo: #260 in Religious Fiction & Literature
The books are slowly dropping, but the rankings have definitely been impacted over the last week.
Was it worth it?
Yes, it was definitely worth it, and I will certainly use the service again but I would probably go for the Thriller listing instead in order to reach more people and attempt a higher place on the charts. The Religious & Inspirational list was possibly not the best as many people would be looking for the more Christian end of the reading scale.
In terms of ranking and visibility, it was definitely great for moving Pentecost back up the charts. I made my money back, which was great, but the spike in the data was more important in the longer term.
I have had similar results from a paid promotion before when I used Pixel of Ink who are no longer doing this service.? New sites also spring up all the time, so keep an eye out for opportunities.
Have you used paid promotion for your book? Would you consider it? I?d love to know your thoughts so please leave a comment below.
Trish Stratus is one of the newest WWE Hall of Famers, but this fall, the first-ever Diva of the Decade will add yet another honor to her list of accolades: motherhood.
?I just wanted to let you all know that in September, I?ll be delivering a little Stratusfaction,? an ecstatic Trish announced to the WWE Universe, which responded with overwhelming approval for the mother-to-be.
?It was awesome,? Trish told WWE.com moments after her bombshell announcement. ?As a public personality, you wonder what?s the right time to tell everybody. Of course, when I got the news I would be inducted this year, I definitely found out I was pregnant, and so I thought, ?Oh my gosh, I?ll be four months, I should tell them!? ?
It was a conversation with a longtime friend who made up Trish?s mind to break the news on her big night.
?Me and Stephanie actually talked about it and thought it would be a great chance to announce it,? Trish said. ?It?s my family out there. They?ve been part of my life for so long, the WWE Universe, and to actually share the news with them was wonderful. And the reaction was nice. They like the Stratus baby!?
So, is an in-ring future in the cards for said Stratus baby?
?Whatever he or she would like to do, I will support just as I was supported by my family,? Trish said of a possible heir to her Hall of Fame legacy.
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) ? Odds are you won't get a cab in New Hampshire's largest city after police sidelined all 18 licensed taxis for inspection failures or failing to show up for inspection.
Seventeen cabs in Manchester were cited for mechanical violations. The 18th was sidelined for failing to show up.
Police Lt. Maureen Tessier said Tuesday six of the 18 cabs had such severe defects including conditions that could compromise their brakes inspectors pulled their registrations and they had to be towed.
Queen City Taxi has surrendered its operating permits to the city clerk's office. The taxi that wasn't inspected belongs to Manchester Taxi Dispatch. The companies haven't commented.
Tessier says officials appreciate the inconvenience to those among the city's 110,000 residents who rely on taxis and will work with the companies to get the taxis back on the road.
WiFi used to be the only somewhat reliable way for a carrier to plug up holes in its network coverage. It's a tactic AT&T'sused to great effect in many metropolitan areas where it offers wireless service. But short of acquiring more spectrum -- a costly and time-consuming process littered with legal roadblocks -- the operator's been exploring an alternative solution: small cells. Testing for these stopgap signal boosters (pictured above) has already been underway since late 2012, with a trial case study in Crystal Lake Park, MO that proved outdoor reception could improve by almost 100-percent. And that test site is just the start of a greater small cell rollout that should place over 40,000 of these units throughout AT&T's nationwide footprint by 2015. So if you're tethered to the operator's network and sick of spotty coverage, help is most definitely on the way.
BEIRUT (AP) ? Lebanon's official news agency says a Syrian jet has fired a missile that slammed into a house on the outskirts of a Lebanese border town.
The National News Agency says the attack hit the edge of the town of Arsal on the Lebanese side of the frontier on Wednesday. The report said there were no casualties, although the strike did cause material damage.
Lebanon has been on edge since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad began more than two years ago.
Lebanese gunmen supporting opposing sides of the Syrian conflict have frequently clashed in Lebanon, raising concerns that fighting could spread and reignite Lebanon's explosive sectarian mix.
Arsal is a Sunni Muslim town that has backed opposition fighters in Syria. Arms smuggling into Syria is widespread in the area.
PHOENIX (AP) ? Louis Taylor was just a teenager when he was convicted of starting a Tucson hotel fire that killed 29 people. He has since spent more than four decades in prison, consistently maintaining his innocence.
On Tuesday, Taylor is expected to be released as part of a deal with prosecutors that forces him to plead no contest in the case, but sets him free about a month after his 59th birthday.
Taylor was sentenced to 28 consecutive life sentences in the December 1970 fire at the Pioneer Hotel where employees of an aircraft company were celebrating at a Christmas party.
Many guests were trapped in their rooms as the blaze engulfed the building, and fire truck ladders were too short to reach the upper floors. Some people jumped to their deaths while others burned in their rooms. Most victims died from carbon-monoxide poisoning.
Taylor, who is black, contends he was wrongly convicted by an all-white jury after he says police failed to investigate other suspects. Reports at the time indicate Taylor was helping people escape the blaze before being arrested later that night. He was never charged in the death months later of a 29th victim from injuries sustained in the fire.
His appeals were exhausted after the U.S. Supreme Court denied him a new trial in 1983.
Reports in 2002 by CBS' "60 Minutes" raised questions about whether the fire was, in fact, arson.
Police at the time then began reviewing evidence, and a volunteer legal group, the Arizona Justice Project, examined case files to determine whether he received a fair trial. However, the lead fire investigator on the case told The Associated Press he stands by his determination that it was arson.
"Yes, definitely, there's no question about it," Cy Holmes, now 83, said Monday.
The Arizona Justice Project, which works on behalf of inmates believed to be wrongly convicted, asked a court in October to dismiss the case or hold an evidentiary hearing, noting several experts using modern forensic science could testify that it was indeterminable whether the fire was arson. The lawyers also contend prosecutorial misconduct at Taylor's trial when his defense was not provided with reports indicating no accelerants were found.
Attorney Michael Piccarreta said this weekend that Taylor still maintains his innocence but will plead no contest Tuesday to get out of prison quickly.
Piccarreta said Taylor's lawyers believe he would have eventually prevailed at a new trial, but the process could have taken more than a year, during which Taylor would remain in prison.
It wasn't immediately clear why prosecutors agreed to a deal that would set Taylor free, and messages left by the AP on Monday at the Pima County Attorney's Office were not returned.
Holmes, who runs Cy Holmes Fire Investigations in Elk Grove, Calif., said the techniques he used to determine the fire was arson are the same procedures used currently.
"Basically, what I did 42 years ago and the manner in which I did it is still valid today," he said.
Holmes said the new findings by Taylor's defense experts are based on incomplete information, noting much of the evidence was destroyed in the 1990s or disappeared after civil attorneys took possession when they sued the hotel.
He also added, "They didn't spend two full days digging through that place."
Holmes acknowledged he didn't find any accelerants, but said it was clear the fire was started in two places. His findings of arson were based, in part, on bats that were found in the hotel hallways, and the patterns in which they were burned.
Holmes defended his comments at the time profiling a potential suspect, some of which are now being used to accuse authorities of racism in the case.
He said he told the City Council after the fire, "He's probably a negro, and he's probably 18," basing his theory on years of experience investigating arson cases, Holmes told the AP.
"But that statement had nothing to do with Louis' prosecution," Holmes said. "I wasn't part of Mr. Taylor's guilt. I was just involved in determining whether or not the fire was arson."
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Public release date: 29-Apr-2013
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Blogging, social media, speaking events and networking are brilliant but they are all long-term marketing activities that don?t result in sales and ranking spikes.
BookBub is a free service for readers to get a daily email with 
Anecdotal evidence: My experience
n:
Books sold in day of promotion + 2 days afterwards:
