Google Maps? Pfff. Nokia HERE? Get outta here. There's an alternative to all those navigation systems you use: it's made from 100 percent sustainable material, it's easy to share, it'll never break, you can fit it in your pocket, and it's completely private.
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/RT-FCF5ZICU/introducing-map-an-unbreakable-private-portable-navi-1445507630Does the name Ada Lovelace ring any bells? No? Seeing as you’re reading this on a computer, tablet or smartphone, it should. The Victorian mother-of-three, born 1815, was the world’s first ever computer programmer.
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Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/sPfXan3pdTU/the-world-s-first-computer-programmer-was-a-victorian-m-1445503663
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka --
Sri Lanka on Thursday criticized Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to boycott a Commonwealth summit next month over the island nation's human rights record.
Government spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said Harper is "in a lone battle" and had failed to persuade other Commonwealth members to boycott the summit, hosted by Sri Lanka.
Harper has accused Sri Lanka of failing to uphold the Commonwealth's core values. He said Monday that Canada is disturbed by ongoing reports of intimidation and incarceration of political leaders and journalists, harassment of minorities, reported disappearances and allegations of extra-judicial killings.
Canada is the largest home of expatriate Tamils, an ethnic minority in Sri Lanka who complain of widespread discrimination in their native country.
Rambukwella rejected Harper's criticisms, saying "he has his own political obligations."
There are 54 members of the Commonwealth, a loose association of former British colonies.
Western nations have been pressing Sri Lanka to account for thousands of civilians who are suspected to have died in the final months of a quarter-century civil war that ended in 2009 when government forces crushed Tamil rebels who were fighting for an ethnic homeland.
While Sri Lanka has enjoyed peace in the past four years, rights groups have accused the government of squelching dissent and suppressing the judiciary.
Australia and Britain have pushed for engagement with Sri Lanka rather than isolating it, and have encouraged countries to participate in the Commonwealth leaders' meeting in Sri Lanka. Several human rights groups have urged a boycott.
Harper said Canada will also examine its financing of the Commonwealth. He said if the Commonwealth is to remain relevant it must stand in defense of basic principles of freedom and respect for human dignity.
Canada contributes about $20 million annually to various Commonwealth initiatives.
In this Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013 photo, insurance broker Jeff Lindstrom, right, meets with Brandi and Darren Litchfield to discuss health insurance plan options, at their home in the Seattle suburb of Bothell, Wash. Darren works for a startup company that doesn't yet offer an employee insurance plan, so they invited Lindstrom to outline the options of different healthcare plans that he offers as a broker. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In this Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013 photo, insurance broker Jeff Lindstrom, right, meets with Brandi and Darren Litchfield to discuss health insurance plan options, at their home in the Seattle suburb of Bothell, Wash. Darren works for a startup company that doesn't yet offer an employee insurance plan, so they invited Lindstrom to outline the options of different healthcare plans that he offers as a broker. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
In this Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013 photo, insurance broker Jeff Lindstrom, right, meets with Brandi and Darren Litchfield to discuss health insurance plan options, at their home in the Seattle suburb of Bothell, Wash. Darren works for a startup company that doesn't yet offer an employee insurance plan, so they invited Lindstrom to outline the options of different healthcare plans that he offers as a broker. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
This month's glitch-filled rollout of the health insurance marketplaces created by federal law is a business opportunity for brokers and agents, but regulators warn that it also opened the door for those who would seek to line their pockets by misleading consumers.
New Hampshire's insurance commissioner sent a cease-and-desist letter last week to an Arizona company he accused of building a website to mislead health care shoppers into thinking it was the official marketplace. The site was taken down Friday.
Regulators in Washington state and Pennsylvania also have told agents to change websites that seemed likely to convince consumers they were connecting to government-run sites. Connecticut's insurance department warned agents and brokers this summer that it will take action against agents who mislead consumers or design sites to replicate the state-run exchange.
An organization run by the top insurance regulators in each state recently issued an alert on the potential for scams related to the marketplaces. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners advised consumers that bogus sites have been spotted and warned people to beware of unsolicited calls by people claiming they need personal information to help them enroll in insurance.
Not all insurance agents are licensed to sell insurance on the exchanges, and buying a policy from one of them could leave consumers without the tax subsidies that make the health insurance affordable. Consumers who seek an insurance professional's help are urged to make sure they know who they're dealing with.
"We all need to be on the lookout right now. We don't want consumers to get confused," said Jessica Waltman of the National Association of Health Underwriters, a trade association representing agents and brokers.
Susan Johnson, the Northwest regional director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said while some brokers are passionate about helping, others are seeking to take advantage.
In one such case, a state-licensed broker in suburban Seattle bought the domain name washingtonhealthplanfinder.org and built a website with fewer computer glitches than the state's new health insurance marketplace, wahealthplanfinder.org. The brokerage's site told customers: "Welcome to the Exchange!" in big print until the state insurance commissioner asked for changes to avoid confusion.
"You don't want to go to the wrong portal," Johnson said.
The insurance broker, Jeff Lindstrom, said he thought he was being creative when he bought 40-50 domain names to bring in new customers. He said he is not trying to confuse the public. Lindstrom's toll free phone number was also very close to the official call center number, said Stephanie Marquis, a spokeswoman for Washington's insurance commissioner.
In New Hampshire, newhampshirehealthexchange.com offered free price quotes on insurance, but it wasn't affiliated with the state or the federal government, which is running New Hampshire's official online market. The site was taken down days after the state sent a cease-and-desist letter.
"It put itself forward as offering health insurance through the exchange, and consumers are naturally misled by that into thinking it's the government site," said Deputy Insurance Commissioner Alex Feldvebel.
The insurance department took action after getting a complaint from a small business owner who called a phone number on the misleading site.
"He called and ended up talkng to someone who said, 'Unless you make a choice today, the price is going to go up,'" Feldvebel said.
A man who answered the phone declined to comment at the company identified as running the site, Arizona-based Steffen Financial.
In Pennsylvania, a consumer law group this summer tipped off regulators about a licensed broker's website that featured a logo mimicking the state seal and telling visitors: "Welcome to the Pennsylvania Health Exchange!" The broker took down PAhealthexchange.com a day after the state insurance department's enforcement bureau called.
The top online search result using the terms "texas health insurance exchange online" is for Texas Health Insurance Exchange, which sells unsubsidized insurance policies. The broker who owns the website is Scott Thiltgen, a state-licensed insurance agent in Cedar Park, Texas. He said he's also marketing on his Facebook page, Texas Health Insurance Marketplace.
Thiltgen said he's not out to confuse consumers.
"It's basically there to have someone they can talk to that knows about the exchange," he said.
He said he's earned the federal certification needed to sell subsidized policies on exchanges, and plans to start once the federal marketplace sorts out its glitches.
"Right now I've got a list of people that are ready to sign up for subsidized exchange plans, but can't," Thiltgen said.
While regulators have warned consumers, they don't have any reports of people being cheated. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners and state agencies in Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina report no complaints since the marketplaces launched on Oct. 1.
Those with industry experience warn whenever there's money and confusion, consumers should be alert. Fraudsters saw opportunities when Medicaid Part D prescription drug insurance plans hit the market a decade ago, said Waltman, of the agents and brokers trade association.
"I think that we have to be concerned that this has happened a variety of times in the past," Waltman said.
The first line of defense is checking whether a broker or agent is licensed by the state insurance department where they operate. Usually that can be done online.
The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services doesn't have a similar option to check whether an agent has completed training necessary to work for consumers on a federally run exchange. The federal agency recommends consumers ask agents to provide a copy of the certificate showing they've completed training.
Some states that operate their own exchanges plan to identify marketplace-certified brokers, but that has not yet happened in all states, leaving a temporary gap for consumers. More than 2,600 state-licensed brokers cleared to work on New York's exchange were expected to be listed on its website soon, the state's health department said.
Still, spreading the word that subsidized health insurance is available and explaining how consumers should buy it leaves a legitimate role for brokers, Waltman said. Brokers earn commissions paid by insurance companies and not consumers.
Some brokers are under pressure to add customers because the commissions they earn on each policy are shrinking as the law rolls out.
Boise, Idaho, insurance agent Tom Shores estimates he'll need to pick up 3,000 new customers to offset commissions cut to about $9 per policy each month. Shores estimates a quarter of his brokerage's 4,000 existing health insurance customers also might learn they're eligible for Medicaid, the government insurance for low-income people, once they enter their financial data into the exchange system.
"The only way we're going to make money is to get more people," Shores said late last month.
The two largest companies on South Carolina's exchange are paying commissions of about $28 per policy per month for the first year, dropping to $14 a month after that, said John Adair, a broker in Greer, S.C.
"The law is complicated and making any sort of insurance purchase can be complicated — which plan to choose, deductibles, co-insurance, co-pays, network of providers," said Adair, who built a website and licensed his business in states nationwide to capture new customers. "With what we're seeing with the federal exchange, and some of the glitches, the agents themselves are very much in high demand."
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Emery Dalesio can be reached at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio
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Contributing to this story were Associated Press writers Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire; Donna Gordon Blankinship in Seattle; and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Conn.; John Miller in Boise, Idaho; and Michael Virtanen in Albany, N.Y.,
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/bbd825583c8542898e6fa7d440b9febc/Article_2013-10-14-Health%20Overhaul-Insurance%20Brokers/id-202aa498a1534a6ca009c651e7013f0fBy Barbara Lewis
LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - European Union environment ministers on Monday agreed to German demands to scrap an agreement to cap EU car emissions that Berlin argued would cost jobs and damage its premium auto makers.
After months of forceful lobbying from Germany, the ministers from the 28 EU member states agreed to reopen a deal sealed in June, but said they would work to secure it in weeks, not months.
German carmakers Daimler and BMW produce heavier and less fuel-efficient vehicles than those from firms such as Italy's Fiat, meaning they would find it challenging to meet a proposed EU cap on carbon emissions of 95 grams per kilometer for all new cars from 2020, analysts say.
"It's not a fight over principles but how we bind the necessary clarity in climate protection with the required flexibility and competitiveness to protect the car industry in Europe," Germany's Environment Minister Peter Altmaier said.
"I am convinced we can find such a solution. We can find it in the next weeks," he said.
EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard told reporters she was disappointed that agreement on implementing a target first laid out five years ago had been blocked.
"It is not a terrific thing that we could not conclude on cars," she said.
She also said flexibility was limited and a German proposal to delay full implementation of the 95 gram target for four years to 2024 was not acceptable.
Environment campaigners say Germany is abusing the EU's democratic process, throwing away the chance to make European cars more energy efficient and to reduce the bloc's dependency on oil imports.
British-based consultancy Cambridge Econometrics researched how much Europe would save on oil imports if the 95 g/km target was implemented across the EU fleet. It found the EU as a whole would save around 70 billion euros ($94.94 billion) per year, while Germany would save 9 billion euros in fuel bills.
"It's an unacceptable price, which will be paid by every European driver in higher fuel bills, by the planet that will warm quicker and potentially by Europe's auto sector that will be less competitive," Greg Archer, a program manager at campaign group Transport & Environment, said.
"The deal struck in June was a reasonable political compromise. Now we go back to the drawing board."
UNEASE
Although Germany managed to get the support of other EU ministers on Monday, many member states have voiced unease at the manner in which Berlin blocked the deal.
Sweden's Environment Minister Lena Ek said the risk was that further delays could hold back adoption of the rules until 2015 because of impending European Parliament elections next year and the appointment of new commissioners.
Germany would bear "a very heavy responsibility", she told reporters.
As well as seeking to protect its carmakers, Germany also wants to avoid the car emissions law complicating its decision on forming a new governing coalition.
The German Greens are strongly in favor of cutting CO2 to 95 grams per kilometer, but Chancellor Angela Merkel and her conservatives support the German carmakers.
(Additional reporting by Tom Koerkemeier, Claire Davenport in Brussels and Markus Wacket in Berlin; Editing by Pravin Char and David Evans)
It goes without saying that John Tavares is the most important member of the New York Islanders. He's the face of the franchise. That in mind, you can understand why there was a little concern when a puck struck the face of the franchise's face Friday versus the Blackhawks.
Fortunately, Tavares was fine. Well, not fine. The puck bloodied his mouth up a little and even jarred loose a tooth. But never the matter: he just PULLED IT OUT HIMSELF ON THE BENCH.
And if you love watching horrible things on a perpetual loop, here's a gif of that cringeworthy moment:
More proof Tavares does it all for the Islanders: he's even the team dentist, apparently.
Tavares didn't miss a shift, which is crazy. I can safely say that if a piece of vulcanized rubber hit me in the mouth during my job, I'd be out of commission for awhile. And my job is sitting here writing about this.
Hockey players are different, though. Not only do they lose teeth fairly regularly, but they're not above plucking them out of their own mouths, should the situation call for it. Here's Eric Belanger doing the same thing in 2010:
And yet it's also the sport with the most hugging. Hockey, you crazy.
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