Australian rock singer Chrissy Amphlett dies at 53

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Rock singer Chrissy Amphlett, who fronted the Australian group the Divinyls best known for the worldwide hit "I Touch Myself", has died in New York at the age of 53 after battling breast cancer and multiple sclerosis.

Her husband and former Divinyls drummer Charley Drayton said Amphlett died in her sleep, surrounded by close friends and family.

"Chrissy's light burns so very brightly," Drayton said in a statement posted on the Australian Recording Industry Association's (ARIA) website.

"Hers was a life of passion and creativity; she always lived it to the fullest. With her force of character and vocal strength she paved the way for strong, sexy, outspoken women."

Amphlett, who founded the Divinyls in 1980 in Sydney, was best known for her performances as a pouting, brash singer in her signature school uniform with fishnet stockings.

The Divinyls recorded five studio albums between 1982 and 1996 when they split up. The 1991 hit "I Touch Myself" the band's biggest hit, climbing the charts in both Britain and the United States as well as Australia.

Last month Amphlett was named as one of Australia's top 10 singers of all time.

"Chrissy expressed hope that her worldwide hit "I Touch Myself" would be utilized to remind all women to perform annual breast examinations," said Drayton.

Amphlett also acted on stage and in film, and starred alongside Oscar winner Russell Crowe in the Australian production of the musical "Blood Brothers" in 1988, playing the mother of Crowe's character.

In 2007, Amphlett said she had multiple sclerosis (MS) and in 2010 announced she was also fighting breast cancer.

"Unfortunately the last 18 months have been a real challenge for me, having breast cancer and MS and all the new places that will take you," she wrote on Facebook in March 2012.

"My illnesses have really exhausted this little body of mine that I have thrown from one end of a stage to another and performed thousands of shows."

Crowe led the tributes to Amphlett on Twitter.

"Dear Chrissie, the last time I saw you was in the Botanic Gardens, loving life and reciting verse. That's how I'll remember you, your boy, R," wrote Crowe.

(Reporting by James Grubel, editing by Elaine Lies and Belinda Goldsmith)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/australian-rock-singer-chrissy-amphlett-dies-53-084951908.html

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6 films and shows that remind you to love Earth

There is no reason not to love Earth. Despite what scientists speculate about Mars or distant "water worlds" discovered by NASA's Kepler probe, this planet is the only game in town if humans want to keep breathing, drinking water and, you know, existing in the near future. But as our entertainment choices frequently point out, we're not always the best caretakers of this big blue marble in space. In honor of Earth Day on Monday here are a few films and television shows that provide food for thought about why we should celebrate our planet every day of the year.

'Terminator 2: Judgment Day'
The opening minutes of 1991's "T2" deliver a jarring scene: Los Angeles in 2029 is nothing but a leveled wasteland of twisted bits of metal and piles of human skulls scattered about. It?s as dark as midnight, dusty, with not a single ray of natural light, not a blade of green grass, not a drop of water, not a tree branch. Earth is nearly devoid of the living, overrun instead by Skynet?s terrifying cyborgs. Kinda makes you appreciate our blue skies, (somewhat) clean air, mountains, rivers, human-run planet and non-murderous machines, doesn?t it? So take a break and get up from your desk. Go outside, suck in some fresh air, bask in the sunshine and be thankful that your TV isn?t a T-1000 intent on crushing your skull in its poly-alloy hands. --?Anna Chan

'Planet of the Apes'
Look, we?re not saying we humans have treated our dear Mother Earth well. But we?re not ready to hand it over to the monkeys yet. Don?t get us wrong: We loved Cornelius and Zira in the original "Planet of the Apes" film series that started in 1968. But the planet wasn?t any better under Ape Law, what with blowing up New York ("YOU MANIACS!") so that the Statue of Liberty was left chest-deep in the sand, and creating a race of mutants who worship the atom bomb. Damn dirty apes! We may not want them ruling our planet, but we puny humans continue to go bananas for ape movies, with the next one, ?Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,? coming in 2014. -- Gael Fashingbauer Cooper?

'Revolution'
The main conceit of "Revolution," for those who haven?t seen the NBC series that first started airing in 2012, is that the power goes out. Not for a night, not for a week, but for always. There?s just no more electricity. In fact, anything that has to remotely be powered up ? cars, planes and the like ? is unable to do so. The net result goes beyond not having a refrigerator, air conditioning and creature comforts. It also means all those digital photos you took of your family are gone forever. Your ability to move from point A to point B? Better hope points A and B are close together. Otherwise your feet will be getting pretty tired. And when everyone?s blaming each other for the sorry state of affairs, leaders are ousted and tempers flare, who can you trust? The show isn?t about saving Earth or being "green." Rather, it illustrates just how thoroughly everything is intertwined on this planet of ours. Take care of it, and be nice to people. -- Courtney Hazlett

'March of the Penguins'
While "March of the Penguins" definitely brought the cute factor, the 2005 documentary also explored some heavy environmental issues. In addition to giving viewers an awe-inspiring glimpse of the natural habitat of the emperor penguins of Antarctica, the Academy Award winning film also showcased the effects that global warming has had on the adorable, noble creatures. Not only is the footage visually stunning, taking viewers under water and across the icy Antarctic terrain, but it taught that animals are much like humans in how they love, interact and live. Plus, who doesn?t like to watch baby penguins run around for 80 minutes? --?Ashley Majeski

'WALL-E'
The title robot in Pixar's animated "WALL-E" is so adorable. With his fixation on movie musicals, it's almost easy to forget that on at least one level, the film is an ecological horror story: WALL-E exists solely to help a garbage-covered (thanks, Buy-n-Large Corp.), human-depopulated Earth clean again so that humans can (in theory) eventually return to live there. The idea that humans can survive the trashing of their own planet is only vaguely comforting. The notion that they've been living in space for hundreds of years and are literally fat lazybones is not precisely a positive comment on human nature. If any movie will inspire you to pick up that piece of trash you absentmindedly tossed aside, it's this one. -- Randee Dawn

'Fringe'
Oxygen is awesome! That is a legit takeaway from the sci-fi thriller, which wrapped up its run early in 2013 and featured antagonists called Observers ?-- created, futuristic humans who pumped carbon dioxide into the atmosphere because current-day Earth's air was too oxygenated for their super-evolved DNA. (They also paved over Central Park -- heresy!) These visitors from the future came from a world saturated with pollution, so be warned: If you want new generations to be able to blow dandelion seeds in the park (instead of struggling for breath in an apocalyptic urban landscape), do what you can to protect our environment. Also, don't create humans without emotions in the first place. -- Dru Moorhouse

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Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/04/20/17838859-six-films-and-tv-shows-that-will-make-you-appreciate-earth?lite

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CSN: Phillies rally late to top Cardinals

BOX SCORE

Ben Revere had an audience of reporters in stitches as he recounted his personal low point in Sunday night?s game.

Revere had come to the plate with one out, the bases loaded and the game tied in the bottom of the sixth inning. It was his chance to do some damage, to give the Phillies a lead. He grounded into a deflating inning-ending double play.

?I was really ticked,? Revere said. ?I thought that sucker was up the middle but it just stuck there and the shortstop grabbed it.?

Revere was still upset when he came back to the dugout after the next half inning so he retreated to the clubhouse and remembered some advice his mother had given him: When things aren?t going well, find a quiet place, ?your happy place,? Revere said, and re-focus.

?I gave myself a time out,? he said. ?I came to my happy place and it helped me.?

Two innings after grounding into that double play, Revere lined a pitch up the middle to break a tie and help propel the Phillies to a 7-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals (see Instant Replay).

The Phillies, still spinning their wheels 19 games into the season, are 8-11.

Clutch hits haven?t been easy to come by for this Phillies team, but they were plentiful in the late innings of this game.

The Phils fell behind, 3-2, in the top of the seventh when a two-base error by Chase Utley led to an unearned run.

Number-eight hitter Erik Kratz started a string of big hits late in the game when he opened the bottom of the seventh with a single off Cardinals starter Jake Westbrook. Pinch-hitter Laynce Nix then had a terrific, 10-pitch at-bat against reliever Fernando Salas that culminated with Nix driving a game-tying double to left-center. Kratz, not the fleetest runner on the roster, scored in a mad first-to-home dash.

The hits kept coming in the eighth ?- six of them to be exact.

It all started with Michael Young?s infield hit off reliever Mitchell Boggs? glove. The hit improved Young?s hitting streak to 12 games. The next batter, Domonic Brown, singled, and Revere followed with his tie-breaking hit. One pitch later, Kratz pounded a fastball deep into the night for a three-run homer as the Phillies won going away.

The bottom of the order really keyed the Phillies? comeback. Young, hitting fifth, had an important infield hit. Brown, hitting sixth, had a couple of walks and an important hit in the eighth. Revere, hitting seventh, had the tie-breaking hit. Kratz, hitting eighth, had two huge hits in the seventh and eighth. And pinch-hitters Nix and Kevin Frandsen came through in the nine-hole.

?It was a good team win,? Revere said.

Manager Charlie Manuel hoped a win like this, where the Phils overcame an error and turned it on late, would get his team moving in the right direction.

?We have to put all phases of our game together and let it run like a machine,? he said. ?We?re not there yet. Hopefully tonight will get us started.?

Starting pitcher Kyle Kendrick struggled to keep his pitch count down, but he still managed to give his club six innings on a night when he didn?t have his best stuff. Kendrick stranded runners at second and third in the second and did some nifty escape work in the fourth and sixth innings. He got big outs with runners in scoring position in both innings.

?He hung in there and did a really good job,? Manuel said.

?On nights you don?t have your good stuff you have to battle and keep your team in the game,? Kendrick said. ?I was able to keep the damage at a minimum. It was a nice win for us.?

The eighth-inning rally sent the crowd of 35,115 home happy. Earlier in the game, the fans were a little upset. Maybe it was an early base-running blunder by Utley or a ball falling in front of Brown in left field. Some fans thought Brown should have made the play and they let him hear about it. When Brown did make a catch later that inning, he earned some mockapplause.

By the end of the night, the applause was real. The Phillies got some clutch hits and everyone left happy.

Source: http://www.csnphilly.com/phillies/clutch-hits-propel-phillies-late-win-over-cardinals

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Poncho, For Those Who Can't Be Bothered To Open A Weather App

Long before the era of iPads and Snapchats and holographic Tupacs, some of the greatest minds in tech and science spent their life trying to understand weather patterns. Since, we’ve evolved to have an almost overwhelming amount of data on what today’s weather will be like, and it’s entirely possible that we’ve gone overboard with the notion of being ready for a little rain. That’s exactly the premise that Poncho, a new startup launching out of betaworks, operates under. Sure, you could download apps or log in to weather sites and get all kinds of hourly forecasts for the whole country, Doppler radar readouts, weather news (which is usually the most boring type of news), and a host of other types of information. Or you could see a daily breakdown of the weather in a way that’s meaningful to you, and only to you. Poncho works by first learning about your daily routine. When you sign up to the service, you’re asked a series of easy questions about the flow of your day: when do you wake up? Do you have any pets you need to walk? When do you head into work? What time do you take lunch? When do you leave work? How do you commute? After you’ve answered, you can choose to receive your daily weather updates by SMS or email. “The core objective is to have Poncho become a default part of your routine,” said co-founder Kuan Huang. “We want to take you away from the noise of other apps and clients and give you the weather in a simple way.” Updates from Poncho are clean and easy to understand. You get a general outline of the day, along with specific temperatures for the times Poncho knows you’ll be out and about in the world. Huang is part of the hacker in residence program at betaworks, which is led by Paul Murphy and aims to pull talented engineers into the betaworks family in order to co-found and develop great ideas into full-fledged service. Unlike traditional accelerators, there is no application process and there really aren’t any strict curricula either. In fact, betaworks isn’t really an accelerator at all. Rather, betaworks seeks out the most talented and creative entrepreneurs to supply them with everything they need to turn an idea into a business, at no up-front cost to the engineer (or Hacker in residence, as betaworks calls

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/wZMuZVSsSQk/

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Republican Senator Paul fuels ideas of presidential bid in '16

By Sam Youngman

WASHINGTON - (Reuters) - Republican Senator Rand Paul, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, fueled speculation on Wednesday that he will follow in his father's footsteps and run for president in 2016.

Paul, a freshman senator from Kentucky, told reporters he will visit early voting states this year and indicated he will make a final decision next year.

Paul's father, former Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, was a presidential candidate three times, running once as a Libertarian and twice as a Republican. He won Libertarian and Tea Party movement voters during the last Republican primaries, but failed to win broad support.

The younger Paul, at a media breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor, said he wants a voice in rebuilding the Republican Party after its losses to Democratic President Barack Obama.

"I want to be part of the national debate, so whether I run or not, being considered is something that allows me to have a larger microphone," Paul said.

Paul said he plans to visit Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the first three states to vote in the Republican nomination battle, this year.

Paul expanded his national profile when he led a 13-hour filibuster on March 7 to highlight the risk of the potential use of drones on American soil. The move sparked the slogan "Stand with Rand."

Earlier in the spring, Paul spoke along with other Republican up-and-comers, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio, at a Washington gathering of conservatives known as the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC).

At that conference, a number of young Republicans wore t-shirts proclaiming "Stand with Rand."

Paul also told reporters on Wednesday he will do what he can to help fellow Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, get re-elected next year.

Relations between the two had a rough start as Paul, seen as the insurgent candidate, defeated McConnell's choice, Trey Grayson, in the Republican primary on his way to victory in 2010.

Paul said of McConnell: "I've endorsed him. I've raised money for him. And I will try to see him re-elected. I think he's good for Kentucky."

(Reporting by Sam Youngman; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Vicki Allen)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republican-senator-paul-fuels-ideas-presidential-bid-16-160018323.html

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Weighing mayoral bid, Weiner faces skeptical voters

By Edith Honan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democrat Anthony Weiner, who resigned from Congress in disgrace two years ago, is weighing a bid for New York mayor, but a poll released on Tuesday suggests his political comeback would be an uphill battle.

Only 40 percent of city voters say they would consider voting for him, while 52 percent said they would not, according to the NBC New York-Marist poll.

Among Democrats, his chances were slightly higher, with 46 percent saying they were open to a Weiner candidacy and 50 percent opposed to the idea.

Weiner's standing with the public has improved in the two years since he admitted to sending lewd messages to women and resigned from his seat in the House representing parts of Queens and Brooklyn.

He had been considered a front-runner to be the city's next mayor but when he resigned just a quarter of voters polled thought he should run for mayor.

The new poll found City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who would be the city's first female and lesbian mayor, leads the field with the support of a quarter of registered Democrats.

Weiner would place second with 15 percent, it found, followed by City Comptroller John Liu with 12 percent, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio with 11 percent and former city comptroller Bill Thompson, also with 11 percent.

"Right now, a Weiner candidacy attracts double-digit support in the Democratic primary," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. "He makes it even more difficult for any of the Democratic contenders to reach the needed 40 percent to avoid a runoff."

Weiner has kept a low profile since leaving office but burst back onto the political scene in recent days when The New York Times Magazine published a lengthy article about Weiner and his wife Huma Abedin, an aide to former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Over the weekend, Weiner published a booklet of policy ideas, including the creation of a single-payer healthcare system for uninsured and under-insured New Yorkers, using GPS technology to track sex offenders and expanding ferry service.

He also has promised more media access in coming days.

The poll of 1,127 New York City adults was conducted by telephone from April 11 through April 15. The margin of error among registered voters was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points, and the margin of error among Democrats was plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Phil Berlowitz)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/weiner-weighing-york-mayoral-bid-faces-skeptical-voters-033727673.html

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Coding Boot Camps Promise to Launch Tech Careers - Higher ...

by Terence Chea, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO ? Looking for a career change, Ken Shimizu decided he wanted to be a software developer, but he didn?t want to go back to college to study computer science.

Instead, he quit his job and spent his savings to enroll at Dev Bootcamp, a new San Francisco school that teaches students how to write software in nine weeks. The $11,000 gamble paid off: A week after he finished the program last summer, he landed an engineering job that paid more than twice his previous salary.

?It?s the best decision I?ve made in my life,? said Shimizu, 24, who worked in marketing and public relations after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010. ?I was really worried about getting a job, and it just happened like that.?

Dev Bootcamp, which calls itself an ?apprenticeship on steroids,? is one of a new breed of computer-programming schools that?s proliferating in San Francisco and other U.S. tech hubs. These ?hacker boot camps? promise to teach students how to write code in two or three months and help them get hired as web developers, with starting salaries between $80,000 and $100,000, often within days or weeks of graduation.

?We?re focused on extreme employability,? said Shereef Bishay, who co-founded Dev Bootcamp 15 months ago. ?Every single skill you learn here, you?ll apply on your first day on the job.?

These intensive training programs are not cheap, charging $10,000 to $15,000 for programs running nine to 12 weeks, and they?re highly selective, typically only admitting 10 to 20 percent of applicants. And they?re called boot camps for a reason. Students can expect to work 80 to 100 hours a week, mostly writing code in teams under the guidance of experienced software developers.

?It?s quite grueling. They push you very hard,? said Eno Compton, 31, who finished Dev Bootcamp in late March. Compton is finishing his doctorate in Japanese literature at Princeton University, but decided he wants to be a software engineer instead of a professor.

?For people who are looking to get involved in software in a big way and don?t want to set aside four years for a computer-science degree, this nine-week program is a terrific alternative,? Compton said.

One San Francisco school, called App Academy, doesn?t charge tuition. Instead, it asks for a 15 percent cut of the student?s first-year salary. Graduates who can?t find jobs don?t have to pay, but so far nearly all of them have.

?When I started it, people thought we were crazy. Why would you do something like that? But in practice it?s worked out well so far,? said Ned Ruggeri, who co-founded App Academy last summer.

Over the past year, more than two dozen computer-coding schools have opened or started recruiting students in cities such as New York, Chicago, Toronto, Washington and Cambridge, Mass. The programs are attracting students from a wide range of backgrounds, from college dropouts to middle-aged career changers. Most students haven?t formally studied computer science, but have tried to learn to code on their own.

Alyssa Ravasio, who graduated from UCLA with a liberal arts degree in 2010, worked at tech startups but was frustrated because she didn?t know how to write software, so she signed up for Dev Bootcamp.

?What we?ve learned in the last nine weeks would have taken at least a year, if not years, on my own,? Ravasio said. ?I knew I wanted to learn how to code, and I tried to on my own before, and it was really hard and really frustrating.?

But as more boot camps open, backers worry low-quality programs could hurt the reputation of the pioneer schools and drive away potential students and recruiters.

?I worry about the explosion of Dev Bootcamp copycats,? said Michael Staton, a venture capitalist at Learn Capital. ?If they mess up, they kind of ruin it for everybody. Then students have to worry about whether these schools can actually deliver on their promise.?

The coding academies are helping meet the seemingly insatiable demand for computer programmers in the U.S. tech industry, which has been lobbying Congress to issue more visas for engineers and other skilled immigrants.

The boot camps are launching at a time when many recent college graduates are struggling to find jobs that pay enough to chip away at their hefty student loan debts.

The new schools say they are teaching students the real-world skills that employers want but colleges have failed to provide. ?Our school is a lot shorter, cheaper and more applicable to the work they?d like to do than universities,? said Shawn Drost, who co-founded Hack Reactor in San Francisco six months ago.

This intensive-learning model can also be used to train workers for other professions for less time and money than what traditional colleges require, Staton said. ?We think this is the beginning of a really large movement that will happen across industries,? he said.

Bishay, an Egyptian-born engineer who sold his first software company to Microsoft in 2001, started Dev Bootcamp as an experiment. He wanted to see how quickly he could teach his friend and other non-techies how to write code.

?I used about 10 percent of what I learned in college in my first job, and I figured I could teach that 10 percent in two-and-a-half months,? Bishay said.

Dev Bootcamp has trained about 130 students, and 95 percent of them have been hired as software developers, with an average salary of about $80,000, within a few months of graduation, Bishay said. It?s now opening a campus in Chicago.

The school doesn?t just teach technical skills. It teaches students how to work in teams, communicate better and interview for jobs. On graduation day, it invites tech recruiters to meet students at a ?speed-dating? job fair.

?Finding engineering talent is a big challenge right now, and Dev Bootcamp is addressing a really important problem,? said Felicia Curcuru, who was recruiting engineers for FundersClub, a San Francisco company that connects investors with tech startups. ?There are not enough people studying computer science.?

Shereef Bishay is a co-founder of Dev Bootcamp, where computer programming students can expect to work 80 to 100 hours a week.

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Source: http://diverseeducation.com/article/52654/

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