Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/04/mtv-cancels-buckwild-producer-rips-network/
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Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Paramore Are Looking Back, 'Moving Forward' With New Album
'I get it by a subway train, at least we made this record,' Hayley Williams says of Paramore's latest.
By James Montgomery
Paramore
Photo: MTV News
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705306/paramore-moving-forward-new-album.jhtml
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Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Mr. Kerry, how do you ask a woman to be the last to die in Afghanistan? (+video)
A familiar question for the US secretary of State following the death of US diplomat Anne?Smedinghoff.
Anne Smedinghoff, 25, was killed Saturday, in southern Afghanistan, the first American diplomat to die on the job since last year's attack on the U.S. diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Libya.
Courtesy of Tom Smedinghoff/AP
EnlargeOnce again, history thrust John Kerry today in front of microphones to speak about American youths who are cut down in the waning days of an unpopular war.
Skip to next paragraph Ben ArnoldyDeputy International Editor
Ben Arnoldy is the Deputy International Editor at The Christian Science Monitor. He has served as the Monitor's bureau chief in India and Northern California.?
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Mr. Kerry, now US secretary of State, urged Americans to ?forge on? against terrorism in the wake of yesterday?s killing of Anne Smedinghoff, a 25-year-old US diplomat serving in Afghanistan. In 1971, a younger Kerry challenged Congress to stop elongating a fruitless war. He asked, ?How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam??
Kerry?s famous question, posed?in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,?came on behalf of fellow soldiers he had recently served with in Vietnam. Today?s remarks also came from a personal place: He had just met Ms. Smedinghoff when she assisted him on his visit to Afghanistan two weeks ago.
An explosion killed the Chicago native while on a mission to deliver textbooks to students in a wartorn part of southeastern Afghanistan. ?Three US soldiers, a civilian Defense Department employee, and an Afghan doctor also died in the attack, which may have been aimed at the governor of the province. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Associated Press. ?
Kerry, speaking in Turkey, described Anne as ?a selfless, idealistic young woman who woke up yesterday morning and set out to bring textbooks to schoolchildren, to bring them knowledge, children she had never met, to help them to be able to build a future.?
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Kerri Walsh Jennings: Why We Chose the Name Scout Margery
"Scout is my favorite character in all of literature ... and Margery is after my mother," the Olympian explains
Source: http://feeds.celebritybabies.com/~r/celebrity-babies/~3/ED4NDU_nGA8/
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Martini Madness
Is Sophie Dahl's dirty martini too dirty?Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Borked Up (3) vs. The Martinez (10)
In his 2005 letter to the Wall Street Journal?a brief manifesto he once impishly called, to the palpable discomfort of a C-SPAN host, "crucial to Western Civilization"?Robert Bork teased cocktail writer Eric Felten for his use of the term "original intent": "What counts in mixology is the 'original understanding' of the martini?s essence by those who first consumed it." The progress of the Borked Up ends here, most fittingly, with its defeat by The Martinez, the original martini whose existence he repeatedly failed to acknowledge. As Dwight Garner once put it on Twitter, "Robert Bork claimed the dry martini for conservatism ... #veto."
Plus, Bork drinking buddy Roger Kimball has, at my instigation, informed the world of the time ?Bob was presented with a drink containing two olives?: ?He sent it back. ?If I had wanted a salad,? he told the waiter, ?I would have ordered one.?? Though it was perfectly acceptable for Bork to send the drink back, I must reprimand him for his rudeness to the server?and caution you not to make too many wisecracks in the direction of people who handle your food.
The Martinez advances to the Elite Eight in the Midwest Regional.
M.F.K. Fisher's Gibson (9) vs. Martinez Redux (13)
The Martinez Redux is sweet, and I hope to see her again, but this Gibson, which I first tried with silky Plymouth and two barspoons of thoroughly ambrosial vermouth-based onion brine, is sweet and savory, achieving smooth succulence and earning high honors.
Plus, I echo one passionate opinion recorded at the intern tasting: ?Can?t stop snacking!?
M.F.K. Fisher?s Gibson advances to the Elite Eight in the West Regional.
The FDR (3) vs. The Martini de Luxe (7)
The de Luxe recipe is in some respects delovely, but it yields results too dry for my taste. This is a common dynamic with Embury: His writing and reasoning are very strong?and so are the cocktails, too much so. (For instance, his Sidecar is 8:2:1?eights parts brandy, 2 parts Cointreau, 1 part lemon juice. Man, am I dying for a Sidecar. Three months on the martini beat have left me psyched to get Sidecars back in rotation.)
Plus, Embury's sherry variation is dullsville.
The FDR advances to the Elite Eight in the West Regional.
The Contemporary Standard (2) vs. The BFG (6)
The editrix went for drinks at The Standard, which is one of the few acceptable places to enjoy oneself in the designer hellhole that is the Meatpacking District. She made some notes and sent them to me. I contrived two or three inappropriate Michael Fassbender jokes and, stifling these, present those notes to you.
I had never been to the bar at the Standard Hotel before Tuesday night. I had to ask the concierge for directions to the elevator, which I rode to the 18th floor, unprepared for the panoramic views and the superlatively opulent vibe.
The bar matched my imaginings of the Mad Men era, or the dot-com boom. The men wore suits, the women mini-dresses; I?d put the median age gap between those two groups at 17.5 years. At the table next to ours, a group of trim, handsome businessmen spoke in spirited Russian. In a corner on the north side of the bar, a blues singer with bright red lips and a slinky white dress fronted a small band. The musicians played at a perfect volume?exactly not-too-loud.
First I told my server (who was a dead ringer for Mila Kunis) to bring me a gin martini in whatever style the bartender preferred. It was delicious and came with a perfectly coiled lemon twist.
After I'd finished it, I felt fortified, and I approached the bar to interrogate one of the three bartenders about his methods. He was a tallish white man wearing a white jacket with brass buttons; his brown hair was pulled back in a tight, folded-under ponytail. His face was angular, his eyes dark blue, and his manners very polite.
I asked him the formula for his house martini; he told me it was 2? ounces Bombay Original Dry and ? ounce Dolin vermouth. This he pronounced "DOH-lin," rather than the French "doh-LANH." Perhaps that's normal among Americans; I don't know, not being a vermouth expert. I asked him to make me the same, only with a few dashes of citrus-y bitters?i.e., The Contemporary Standard. He obliged, stirring the ingredients together in a frosted glass, and then painstakingly winding a long, thick lemon twist around his slim forefinger. I inquired about his bitters of choice; he said he used a house blend containing Regan's orange bitters.
I gratefully handed him my debit card and tried to pretend I fit in with the stylish aristocrats seated next to me while he was swiping it. My heart leapt as I caught a glimpse of Terry Gross sitting 10 feet away, but upon further discrete inspection, she was only a Terry Gross lookalike.
My heart sank quickly as I inspected the bill. The Contemporary Standard martini cost $24.78; I tipped $4.22, which I later feared was not enough. I liked the Contemporary Standard even better than the martini without bitters?that smoldering hint of orange accomplished quite a bit. Then again, I was somewhat tipsy and vertiginous by the time I started in on it.
I am glad to see that the editrix quit after two, lest she suffer the experience described in a Roald Dahl story titled ?The Last Act?: "Give her a third martini and within seconds her body would become completely weightless and she would go floating around the room like a wisp of hydrogen gas."
Dahl comes to mind because the Contemporary Standard is matched against The BFG, my name for a dirty-martini recipe written by his granddaughter. It is the dirtiest martini in the bracket, and at this point, I think that makes it too dirty for the bracket. Postulating that a martini made with more olive brine than vermouth is no longer a martini, I send the BFG on its saline way.
Plus, frankly, I put The BFG in here to construct a pretense to try to go drinking with Sophie Dahl, who?s a fun interview. But I never even pulled it together to email her rep. And now I see that there has been what Winchell would call a blessed event: She?s probably nursing anyway. Happily, the swank of the night at The Standard?a Terry Gross lookalike!?satisfies my desire to get some glamour in this series.
The Contemporary Standard advances to the Elite Eight in the South Regional.
The Vesper (2) vs. The Hoffman House (11)
Here we encounter a categorical philosophical problem. The Vesper isn't just another martini variation. It's the world's best-respected martini variation. Being a variation on the martini?not a legitimate martini?is central to its identity, and if it were to advance against the crisp and fragrant and venerable Hoffman House, then this martini tournament would lose all its hard-fought credibility.
The Hoffman House advances to the Elite Eight in the East Regional.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=dd36d1938098e000ee4a26995e259b41
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Monday, April 8, 2013
Catching Up with Watsi: The First YC Non-Profit
This is the story of?Watsi?a non-profit that found itself in the care of a startup accelerator called?Y Combinator?(YC). YC normally works with for-profit companies focused on technology innovation, and has generated successful businesses worth?billions of dollars. A startup accelerator backing a non-profit can be compared to the unlikely scenario of a tiger raising a bunny.
Watsi is a crowd-funding health care platform, a non-profit that has been hailed as the missing link between charity and the online social generation. TNW covered?YC?s?announcement?to fund Watsi earlier.?Watsi allows donors to pay for medical treatment needed by a person in a developing country. The website has a limited number of patient profiles. Each profile has a photo and a compelling, concise story describing the medical treatment that the person needs.
It is hard not to donate to a patient on Watsi. A picture of a real person, with a genuine and often life-threatening medical need, is presented to you. The person is looking into your eyes and asking you to save their life. That one-to-one connection is overwhelming. Try it yourself?here.?Although Watsi is a crowd-funded health care platform, this is very much about the individual.
Adam walks into the caf?, after a busy morning of meetings. Earlier this week he presented at Y Cominator?s 16th Demo Day. YC is perhaps the most prestigious startup accelerator in the world. He is excited about the earlier meetings. Whilst other YC companies are closing rounds of funding from investors, Adam?s is closing donations for Watsi. ?He says he will tell me the outcomes soon with a cheeky smile.
YC has played a large role in the life of Watsi. Adam credits?Hacker News?(the Reddit-like forum run by YC) in having a large role in bringing Watsi to life.
?My co-founder, Jesse (Jesse Cooke) and I launched Watsi in August last year to our Facebook friends. We got about ten donations,? ?said Adam laughing. Although happy about those donations, Adam wanted to publicize Watsi to more potential donors and posted information on Hacker News (HN).
According to Adam, he didn?t tell Jesse when he posted to HN asking readers for feedback since ?it?s risky posting on HN, you could be received well or badly. Luckily for us it was the former. We hit the top spot and, due to the large number of people visiting the site, it went down within 20 minutes.? Throughout the day, Cooke worked hard to keep up with the increased loads and by the end of that day enough donations were raised to fund the treatments needed by all the patients listed on Watsi.
Adam told me that, to this day, he uses the comments from that?HN thread?as the ?roadmap for the future of Watsi. When I get confused about Watsi I go back to that post on HN and remind myself that this is what people care about.?
Following the overwhelming positive response from the readers on HN, Adam decided to solicit some donations for funding the business side of Watsi. When people donate to fund a treatment for a patient on Watsi, Watsi doesn?t take a cut. All donations for patients go towards the treatments. Watsi accepts separate donations as funds to cover business expenses.
Adam quickly found that although investors were excited about the idea, that excitement did not transfer into donating towards Watsi?s overhead and administrative funds. ?When I asked him why he didn?t choose to apply for government grants and pursue other traditional sources of non-profit funding he explained that
?we are trying to pioneer a lean non-profit model which is in itself unique. ?The normal route is to raise money first and get a grant. I didn?t want to ask money from people until I had proven that Watsi worked. I wanted to get proof of concept and with the awesome response in HN I thought we had proved that. I went out after that to get money and there was no money. It was very difficult. Everyone thought the model was very cool but no one was writing checks. We stumbled for a few months. I quit my job we had no money, we were broke.?
In a bid to raise funds for Watsi, Adam and Cooke entered a competition which had a prize of ten thousand dollars. The competition was judged on public votes and Adam went back to the one place he knew would give him the winning votes, HN. Not only did this second popular post on HN help them to win the competition, but it also got the attention of?Paul Graham, the founder of YC.
Adam?s leans in towards me, begins to speak then stops and waves his hands in the air. He is trying to decide if he should tell me. I finally put my finger on what it is about his personality that is so endearing. It is his innocence. Adam tells me that he hasn?t told anyone yet, and is grinning ear to ear. I lean in to hear his story. ?I was flying home to Palm Springs and as I got off the airplane I did what everyone else does. I checked my email on my phone. All my new messages started to load up in my inbox. I then noticed that I had one email from Paul Graham.?
It was one of Paul Graham?s famous one-liners, which read: ?are you in the Bay Area??
?I was so excited I left my carry-on baggage on the plane. Can you believe it? I left without my luggage, I was so happy, I just walked out the gate. Yeah, it took about three hours to find my bags afterwards?
I?ve heard founders describe the feeling of getting into YC as being better than winning the lottery, so I tell him I can believe it.
Soon thereafter, the founders met Paul Graham (PG).
?We met PG right after the interviews for the current batch had happened. We had a great talk. The best advice we have received for Watsi came out of that meeting. He then invited Jesse and myself for dinner. PG made a personal contribution and he said, ?beyond this I would love to support you guys. I would like to do that by inviting ?you to do YC.??
The decision to participate in YC was an easy one. Adam can?t stop commenting on what a positive experience YC and the Valley has been for him. ?The access to advice was amazing. The high quality advice from advisors was really appreciated. We were really excited to be part of that network.?
It appears that YC alumni have really rallied support for Watsi. Adam tells me that?Stripe?(payments service) will soon be processing all donations at cost, removing those hefty Paypal fees.?Teespring?( personalized?shirts seller) sold t-shirts on behalf of Watsi and donated the profits to them. These are just a few examples he can think of from the top of his head. YC companies make deals with each other continuously and states Watsi is doing the same.
Having attended all the YC lectures and talks, Adam found that new non-profit faced many of the same problems as statup for-profit companies. ?We faced identical challenges. Like how to get users and understand the best way to re-engage them. Our build up to?Demo Day?(pitching to investors) was just as intense as the other companies.?
Adam tells me about the challenges involved in closing funding. His story sounds familiar to those I?ve heard from non-YC companies that often struggle for funding in the open market. ?Fundraising is tough? he says as he drags his fingers through his hair. I imagine it must appear tougher when comparing it to the ease of others in his YC class.
Like most founders he is eager to grow his team and build his product. The slow speed at which major donations, needed to fund the company?s operation, are coming in frustrates him. ?The investors do not have the same sense of urgency when it comes to us.? Watsi has a lot of momentum and Adam doesn?t want to be slowed down. He sees his company as an equal to the others for-profits in his YC Class.
Although venture capitalists (VCs) are not allowed to donate money from their funds, Adam says many from Demo Day have offered to donate money personally. He thinks that all VC funds should allocate a set-aside for donating to charities. ?Perhaps in five years accerlator-supported non-profits will be in the same position as current YC companies when it comes to the relative ease and speed of fundraising.
?Our current retention rate of donors (individuals that have donated more than once) is thirty-percent, which is great for a new non-profit. This is only going to grow because right now we have zero re-engagement features other than email.?
Adam has a list of other new features he wants to add to Watsi, including the creation of a Global Fund (donating without choosing a patient) and gifted donations (donating on behalf of someone). They recently launched Tips, where donors can tip Watsi to support building the product. They are currently working on automatic repeat donations.
Adam is however particularly excited about another additional feature: ?We?re going to have integrated one click payments/donations. One-click donations like Amazon, I?ve never seen a non-profit to do this, but I?m so excited about this.?
Adam long-term visions for Watsi are as revolutionary as his current work.
?Watsi is the first opportunity to provide healthcare for everyone. Every single person on this planet. I think the model is going to evolve a lot. Our goal is to become the largest crowdfunding medical treatment platform. This is way down the line, but we could move into providing social medical insurance. As soon as we have large enough dollars coming through the platform, we could even treat patients in the USA.?
I asked him if he would recommend that other non-profits apply to YC, and without missing a beat he replied, ?yes. For three months we were able to focus on our mission and our products alone. We didn?t have to worry about fundraising or entering competitions or getting grants. We focused on our product and solving a problem. We grew like crazy in the last three months. We went from getting $2,000 of donations a week to $12,000. That?s a crazy growth?.Every non-profit should have this opportunity for focus.?
As our chat draws to an end Adam leans in towards me again. He says perhaps it?s too early to share this, he looks around and smiles, then says, ?our [medical] partners have said to us that patients who are part of Watsi receive better care.?
He explains that ?Watsi has introduced accountability to the hospitals? to which they are affiliated because of their extreme transparency. ?The outcome of the treatments are public,? Adam explains. ?It is not uncommon in the developing world for patients to just disappear after receiving care. Now, because Watsi requires an update of the outcome of the treatment, hospitals are more regularly doing post-op check-ups.?
?Better hospital care is a huge unintended benefit of the Watsi model.? I tell him that this unintended benefit makes the Watsi?movement?more powerful.
Paul Graham?has?proclaimed that Watsi is ?one of the more revolutionary things? being done online. With such strong recommendations, I am sure that it?s only a matter of time before Adam raises all the donations Watsi needs to grow and help more people.
Adam?s ideas are indeed visionary. The non-profit space is constrained by an inherent slow moving nature, filled with red-tape and forms. Perhaps the application of startup thinking to the charities will help disrupt the non-profit sector. We are a generation where instant and real-time is the way we live our life. Adam would like to empower us to save a person?s life in real-time, instantly with one click.
This bunny?defiantly?belongs in the tiger family.
You can help Watsi in three ways:?donate,?volunteer, and share.
Source: http://thenextweb.com/2013/04/06/catching-up-with-watsi-y-combinators-first-non-profit-graduate/
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