Hundreds of mourners are gathering at Newark Symphony Hall for the viewing of Nia Haqq, the young woman slain alongside her fiance Michael Muchioki near their Randolph Avenue home in Jersey City early Sunday after their engagement party.
"We want some good to come out of this," said Sandra Muchioki, Michael's mother. "So many people in the community who didn't know them are heartbroken."
Sandra Muchioki said they want to start a scholarship in the couple's name so others can escape the danger of the streets.
She added that the Haqq family will be at Michael Muchioki's funeral tomorrow to help them. @ http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2010/04/hundreds_gather_for_the_viewin.html
4/9/10
Hundreds gather for the viewing of Nia Haqq, the young woman slain in Jersey City with fiance
RIP Michael Muchioki & NiaHaqq
4/8/10
Today's Deal: For the Ladies - $35 for Your Choice of Waxing Package at Ava Salon & Spa (Up to $70 Value)
AVA is a beautifully arranged salon and spa, with a gorgeous interior that features hardwood floors, homey décor, and wide windows that provide delicate natural light. With today's deal, AVA's smooth-inducing proprietors have designed three packages for customers with depilatory desires: package one tackles the upper half of the human body, with a brow ($25), lip ($17), and underarms ($25) waxing extravaganza. Package two is a simple but sought-after Brazilian ($65), ideal for this season's fashionably risqué pantaloons. The third package was designed with men in mind, and offers a back and shoulder waxing ($70), ensuring hairless splendor that even bottlenose dolphins will come to envy. @ http://www.groupon.com/deals/ava-salon-and-spa
4/7/10
Damn now Tiki Barber is pulling a Tiger?
A source tells the Huffington Post that Traci Lynn Johnson accompanied Barber to the Olympics in Vancouver where he introduced her as his "assistant."
According to our source, Johnson was "very quiet, very meek, and walked around with a backpack that made her look like she was 17!"
Is a 23-year-old former NBC intern behind Tiki Barber's split from his wife Ginny?
The young and beautiful Traci Lynn Johnson was spotted sitting next to the former New York Giants running back at a screening of a documentary on Senegal that he hosted for the Travel Channel recently. According to the New York Post, Johnson traveled to the African country with Barber last year while Ginny was three months pregnant. Before this sordid affair, Barber had consistently been known to be a family-first father, and was said to have given up his football career for their sake. @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/07/traci-lynn-johnson-tiki-b_n_528222.html
Rock & Republic files for bankruptcy
Rock & Republic files for bankruptcy protection
The Culver City designer of pricey denim and other apparel says reorganization will 'alleviate balance sheet burdens.'
April 02, 2010|By Andrea Chang
Rock & Republic, the fashion brand known for its pricey designer denim and other apparel, said Thursday that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
The Culver City company, whose products are sold in upscale department stores such as Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom as well as specialty retailers and its own free-standing stores, said the filing would ease pressure on its balance sheet. Day-to-day operations are expected to continue.
"The Chapter 11 filing is a strategic action that will alleviate balance sheet burdens and enable us to adopt the financial and operational initiatives needed to support the brand's growth needs," said Geoffrey D. Lurie, the privately held company's newly named chief restructuring officer. "We are confident that this is the right move for Rock & Republic."
Lurie added that the company was exploring "financial relationships" and would sharpen its focus to emphasize its core apparel and footwear businesses.
Rock & Republic was founded in 2002 by Chief Executive Michael Ball and has become known for its edgy and sexy clothing, including premium jeans priced at $200 or more.
The bankruptcy petition was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. The company said it had obtained a commitment for a line of credit from CIT Group/Commercial Services Inc. @ http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/02/business/la-fi-rock-republic2-2010apr02
357 Mad Dog Hot Sauce - Hottest Hot Sauce #1, beats out Da' Bomb
357 Mad Dog Hot Sauce - Hottest Hot Sauce #1.This killer sauce is packing 357,000 scoville units of heat. One hit will blow you away! We blend Chile extract, fresh Habanero peppers, 160,000 scoville super Cayenne peppers, garlic and onion to makes a sauce that can truly take your breath away. Mad Dog 357 is the hottest hot sauce ever made......any hotter and it can't be called a sauce! 5 oz.
357hott1
$8.99 @ http://www.hotsauceworld.com/357maddoghot1.html
Da' Bomb The Final Answer - Hottest hot sauce??
Da' Bomb The Final Answer - The hottest of all of the Da' Bomb line. Rated at 1,500,000 Scoville Units. Not for direct consumption, use as a food additive only. This sauce ranks at #A3 on our top 20 list of hot additives. Warning: Do NOT eat straight out of the jar! 2001 5th Annual Texas Shoot Out, won 1st Place Super Hottest Category. No Fat, No Cholesterol, No Salt Ingredients: Habañero peppers, pepper extract, apricot nectar, mustard flour, garlic, allspice and spices. From Kansas.
$41.00
@ http://www.the-best-hot-sauce.com/site/1512336/product/D14
Pro Tools 7.4 M-powered for Windows 7
If anyone running Windows 7 (32bit) was able to get Pro Tools 7.4 M-powered up and running without a flaw, please share your steps and wisdom.
Making 'armoured' T-shirts
Boron carbide - the third hardest material on earth - has been built into the fabric of cotton T-shirts, dramatically increasing its toughness. The process is a novel way to make nanocomposites that are both strong and flexible, and is a step towards creating effective new materials for body armour.
Modern military forces use plates of boron carbide (B4C) as ceramic inserts for bulletproof clothing but these can restrict mobility, so the design of a nanocomposite - where B4C is used to reinforce another material - could provide the perfect balance of strength and flexibility.
Now, a breakthrough has been made by a collaboration of researchers from China, Switzerland and the US, who found that the durable and porous nature of woven cotton fibres were ideal for the task.
'We were able to make large quantities of high-strength B4C nanowires using cotton T-shirts as both the template and carbon source,' says Xiaodong Li, who led the group from the University of South Carolina, US. By using cotton as a template, the team overcame a previous problem of the nanowires clumping together.
In the research, squares were cut from 100 per cent cotton T-shirts and soaked in a solution of boron powder and a nickel-based catalyst, before being heated to around 1100ºC for four hours under a flow of argon (to stop the material burning). 'Cotton fibres have lots of small pores which can be used to trap the powder,' Li explains. 'During the process the cotton fibres change to carbon fibres - which react with the boron powder, producing B4C.'
After the reaction, the T-shirts change from white to black, but remain lightweight and pliable. But despite the dramatic change in their properties, this type of 'armoured cotton' is not yet ready to replace conventional bulletproof materials, such as Kevlar.
'Although it is unlikely that these threads will replace others that are comparable in strength to Kevlar, this is an interesting development in the technology of advanced textiles modified with nanoscale materials,' says Nicholas Kotov, an expert in composite materials at the University of Michigan, US.
Boris Yakobson, a materials scientist at Rice University, US, agrees. 'It is clever to use cotton as a natural template to both prevent aggregation of emerging boron-rich nanowires and act as a carbon source. Although the performance of the final composite is not very high, the approach looks very promising.' @ http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2010/March/16031001.asp
Chinese hackers have stolen almost a year's worth of the Dalai Lama's personal emails, as well as movements of Nato staff in Afghanistan and details of Indian missile systems, according to a new report.
For eight months, researchers based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto worked with independent computer analysts in the United States to monitor the activities of a gang of Chinese hackers based in the central city of Chengdu.
The Munk Centre was responsible for the discovery of GhostNet last year, an enormous Chinese hacking network that had penetrated 103 countries and almost 1,300 computers. One-third of the targets were highly sensitive, including foreign ministries, embassies and even a computer at Nato headquarters.
The new report builds on the previous research, and reveals for the first time the sort of information that Chinese hackers are searching for. "After the [GhostNet] report was published, several of the command and control servers listed went offline. However, targeted cyber attacks against Tibetan interests and various governments did not suddenly cease," the researchers revealed.
With the help of the Tibetan government in exile, the researchers were able to start monitoring the hackers and managed to retrieve some of the stolen documents. "The recovered documents include 1,500 letters sent from the Dalai Lama's office between January and November 2009," said the new report, entitled Shadows in the Cloud.
In addition, "dozens of high-level government networks, embassies, international organisations and others have been penetrated and confidential, sensitive, and private documents stolen."
The hackers allegedly stole classified reports about the security in several Indian states, and about several Indian missile systems, including the new Shakti artillery system and the Iron Dome mobile missile defence system. The hackers also stole documents about the movements of Nato workers in Afghanistan.
The report said the aim of the attacks appeared to be increasingly political, but stopped short of accusing the Chinese government of orchestrating the cybercrime. It added that the evolution of social networking had opened up new ways for hackers to exploit loopholes and spread viruses.
Concerns about Chinese cyber-attacks have deepened in the past year, after Google partly blamed a series of hacker attacks for its withdrawal from the Chinese mainland. Two attacks on foreign journalists in China have occurred in the last two weeks, with several Yahoo! accounts being breached and a malicious virus sent to reporters in Shanghai masquerading as an official government email. The website of the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Beijing was also shut after persistent attacks.
The researchers said the hackers appeared to be based in Chengdu and that one member of the gang could be affiliated with the city's prestigious University of Electronic Science and Technology. A spokesman for the university, who would only give his name as Mr Xu, said he was unaware of the report and declined to comment if the university had disciplined any hackers in the past.
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign ministry said the country condemned hacking, but that there was no official government response.
He added: "My personal view is that this is an attempt by the foreign media to spin the issue of hacking for political purposes, especially since this report is related to Tibet. The report appears groundless and comes from an institute that is not credible." @ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/7559103/Chinese-hackers-steal-Dalai-Lamas-emails.html
Remove Scratches from a CD/DVD with Vaseline (Petroleum Jelly)
step 1Materials
Before you start removing scratches from your CDs and DVDs, you should grab your materials. To perform the directions in this Instructable, you will need the following materials: - Soft Cloth or Disc Cleaner/Repair - Petroleum Jelly (Vaseline, Store Brand, etc.) - Minor to severely scratched discs
step 2Cleaning Time!
Now it's time to apply the petroleum jelly. I will demonstrate both ways to do this (the tissue and the disc cleaner).
step 3Remove the Scratches
Once that is done, you will need to get rid of the excess grease. If you did it with a tissue, take a cotton ball and some rubbing alcohol and start scrubbing. If you did it with that disc cleaner on the other hand, just hit the start button, wait for it to finish, and repeat the directions above.
step 4Finished!
All clean! As you can see, there are no more visible scratches. If this didn't work for you, try peanut butter. Rumor has it that it works. If there are any improvements that need to be made, please do not hesitate to comment. @ http://www.instructables.com/id/Remove-Scratches-from-a-CDDVD-with-Vaseline-Petr/
Write to Lil Wayne in Jail
Eric M. Taylor Center (EMTC)
Dwayne Carter NYSID# 02616544L
10-10 Hazen Street
East Elmhurst, NY 11370
Dr. Dre Proclaims Long-Delayed "Detox" Is Arriving in 2010
After a long series of delays, Dr. Dre’s comeback album Detox is “definitely” arriving in 2010, the producer told CNBC during another round of promotion for his Beats By Dre headphones. As Rolling Stone reported yesterday, Dr. Dre and Interscope exec Jimmy Iovine revealed that Dre’s new single “Under Pressure” with Jay-Z will be coming soon. “Hopefully, we’ll be releasing ['Under Pressure'] in the next two weeks or so, and I’m definitely gonna be putting the album out this year, finally. I think everyone is gonna be happy with it,” Dre told CNBC (via Nah Right). “I’m just trying to finish this record, finally get it done, get it out and start promoting it.”
Dr. Dre has been tinkering with Detox for the better part of the last decade, earning the album a reputation as hip-hop’s Chinese Democracy. In June 2008, Dre’s protégé Snoop Dogg revealed Dre had finished work on Detox, and the album was slated for a winter 2008 release. Still, Detox never came, nor did it arrive during Aftermath’s promised one-two punch of Detox and Eminem’s Relapse (Slim Shady delivered on his part of the deal, however). Early 2009 brought a pair of leaked songs reportedly destined for Detox. If the rumors are true, seemingly every single major rapper — Snoop, Eminem, T.I., Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Ice Cube, Nas, even newcomer Drake — will appear on Dre’s comeback album.
Dre’s proclamation that “Under Pressure” will be released in the “next two weeks or so” is sparking rumors that Jay-Z may debut the track live during his headlining set at the Coachella festival in Indio, California on April 16th. The fest is a short drive from Dre’s native Los Angeles, so it’s plausible the Doctor will head out to the desert for a surprise appearance. We’ll find out a week from this Friday when Rolling Stone heads to Coachella for a full report. @ http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2010/04/06/dr-dre-proclaims-long-delayed-detox-is-arriving-in-2010/
Drake's new album pushed to June 15th
Drakes new song, ‘Over’, has been topping the charts and his loyal fans begging for the release of the music video for the track, Drake has decided to add even more anticipation to the already suspense. His debut album, ‘Thank Me Later’, has been pushed from May 25th to June 15th. Drake embarked on the Away From Home Tour last evening at Slippery Rock University and is expected to perform songs from the album at some of the shows including a track entitled ‘Fireworks’. Drake why are you doing your fans like that? Don’t postpone your album any more! @ http://globalgrind.com/channel/culture/content/1503763/Drakes-Debut-Album-Gets-Pushed-Back/
Lil Wayne Be Headed To HBO?
Lil Wayne's videographer, DJ Scoob Doo, the guy responsible for the pre-jail Wayne footage and Lil Wayne DVDs, is seeking to get his Weezy footage on television. He spoke with XXL about what he's trying to do.
"A media network like HBO could have the best impact because they won't try to censor it," he said in an interview. "They push the envelope of what they show. You could just imagine what I could have just being with the team, and being with Wayne on his countdown to jail -- and even when he didn't know he was going to jail. Ever since [the mixtape,] No Ceilings came out, and even before that, it's a lot of sh*t that I'm trying to catch people up with behind the scenes in what's goin' on." @ http://globalgrind.com/channel/culture/content/1502414/Will-Lil-Wayne-Be-Headed-To-HBO/
6 Brooklyn Stores Busted in NYPD Drug Takedown
People who live along a ten-block stretch of Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn describe it as an around-the-clock "open drug bazaar."
This morning NYPD narcotics officers raided six businesses in the neighborhood where, they say -- along with CDs, jerk chicken and T-shirts -- marijuana and cocaine were being sold.
The raids come after a two month investigation during which undercover officers reportedly made more than 50 buys.
Police targeted Nostrand Avenue between Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights after neighbors complained to the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.
Police say the businesses serviced some 400 drug customers a week, with a pound of marijuana selling for $1,100 .
Officers arrested eight people, seized one pistol and two pounds of marijuana.
Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes said today's raids should send the message, "We will not tolerate whole neighborhoods being held hostage by drug sellers." @ http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Brooklyn-Storefronts-Selling-Drugs-NYPD-90023857.html
4/6/10
Recorded and mixed in a modest home studio, 'Day 'n Nite' has made stars of singer/rapper Kid Cudi and producer Dot Da Genius.
Produced by Dot Da Genius
According to Da Genius, Kid Cudi came up with the lyrics and basic hook for ‘Day ’n Nite’ some time in 2007. “He has these ideas in his head, and often the lyrics written out, and a melody that he’s singing. During our time together his style has shifted from being a rapper to becoming more of a singer, and ‘Day ’n Nite’ is an example. When he sang the idea to me, I immediately said, ‘OK, let’s do it.’ The chemistry between us was already really good by that stage, and I pretty much played and programmed the beats for the song there and then on the MV8000. The MV8000 was sync’ed to Pro Tools LE via MIDI, with Pro Tools as the master and the 8000 the slave. I played the different drum patterns in ‘Day ’n Nite’ individually, looping however many bars I wanted to loop, and then adding other things in. I had the MV8000 loaded with sounds from my own library, which I had been building up over the years by getting sounds from other producers, web sites, and so on.
“Once I had the beat programmed, I quantised it. I quantise a lot, because I like a strict feel. The drum track on ‘Day ’n Nite’ is very simple: there are only three tracks, kick, clap/snare and hi-hat, and once I was sure about the tempo, I immediately recorded the drums as audio, so it was locked in and I could start building the other elements of the song on it. I rarely stay in MIDI for long, I just use it to be able to keep time and avoid latency problems. After doing the drums, I added keyboards, using the Triton, Motif and Novation. The Motif was the main keyboard I used on the session because it was the most recent sound module I owned. The bass was a Moog sound from the Novation. Once I had all the instrumental tracks recorded in MIDI, and quantised the drums, I recorded everything as audio. At the time I still thought that I needed more keyboards if I wanted more sounds, but since then I’ve found out about soft synths and I am now using more VST Instruments than hardware.
“You can see all the beats and instrumental tracks in the Pro Tools LE beat window. It also includes four ‘chant’ tracks, which came from the extended outro in the original version: ‘yeah yeah’ [chanted] like a crowd. That outro came out of a mistake: I accidentally pressed shift and spacebar, which plays the song at half speed in Pro Tools, and we thought, ‘This is crazy, we have to implement this!’ So I time-stretched the beats to slow things down, and added some more synths from the Triton on top, which is ‘Synth 4’. It was good, but it was long, and by the time the single was ready to be pressed for vinyl, I was told that it was too long, so I had to cut it short. I did some drops [edits], and moved some of these ‘yeah yeah’ chants forwards.
“The instrumental tracks add up to 10 stereo tracks, and with the four ‘chant’ tracks I had reached Pro Tools LE’s maximum at the time, which was 24 tracks. So I mixed this session to a stereo pair, pasted them into a new Session, and recorded Cudi’s vocals into that. The finishing touch was the ‘Wha’ vocal, which was sung by my friend Lex, who I have since made my manager. Leaving the ‘chant’ tracks aside, there are 10 vocal tracks. Today I mix everything in one Session, of course, and I usually wait till I have every part of the track before I really start mixing. I throw effects on vocals during the recording, and focus on tweaking and adding the other effects after I have all parts of the song.”
Drums: Digirack Compressor, EQ & Expander/Gate
Da Genius: “Cudi likes very hard-sounding drums, so I usually compress them, and also add a gate just to help with the sound quality of the samples, ie. to get rid of some background noises. Almost all plug-ins I used on this session are the Digidesign ones that came with Pro Tools LE. At the time we were working on this Session I couldn’t afford to buy many other plug-ins, so I mostly just used what I had. In this case the Digidesign compressor beefs up the sound of the kick drum. Many people think that compressing is only for flattening your sound, but it can also make the sound larger. I also added some EQ with the Digidesign seven-band EQ to increase the low end of the kick, again to make it sound larger. I added just 2.4dB at 100Hz. I put a one-band EQ on the hi-hat to make sure it’s heard a bit better among the other sounds. Sometimes the hi-hat can drown among the other sounds, and when that happens it needs some help. In this case it was particularly important to make sure that the hi-hat cuts through, because the drums are so minimalist. The gate on the hi-hat also helped clean up the sound. Again, because the drums are so sparse, I wanted to make sure that they were really clean-sounding and present.”
Keyboards: Digirack Compressor & EQ
“The Novation Moog bass has some Digidesign compression on it, just like with the kick, to beef up the sound. I also added seven-band EQ, mainly boosting around 100-200Hz and dropping some highs, around 2500Hz. I added compression to the ‘Wind’ and ‘Keys’ tracks to help them sit better in the track. Some sounds do get a bit louder in a mix, and so you want them to sit right at a certain level, in which case I’ll compress them for that reason, in addition to using it to beef up the sound. The VCV plug-in on ‘Synth 2’ is called Vocal Chorus Spinner and is one of the few non-Digidesign plug-ins in the session. It adds a vocal chorus effect to the synth sound, panning it to both sides, so it makes it sound really full and wide. I experimented with it, but am not sure I used it in the mix.”
Antares’ Auto-Tune was used in its intended manner rather than as an effect, while the so-called ‘Wha’ vocal was dirtied up with the same company’s Tube plug-in.
Vocals: Digirack Compressor, EQ, De-esser, Delay & D-Verb, Antares Auto-Tune & Tube
“The four ‘Chant’ tracks on the beat window all have a compressor and one-band EQ. In fact, I put a high-pass filter on all that I recorded at Head Banga, because the booth we were recording in wasn’t treated, and the mic picked up a lot of low vibrations from the room next door. So the one-band EQ, cutting 6dB at 57.2Hz, is there to get rid of that. Cudi’s main vocals, ‘K-M’, have a Digidesign de-esser and a compressor on them. Again, I don’t compress heavily, I use it to really just shave off a couple of dB, to get the vocals to sit level with everything else.
“I also used Auto-Tune, just to keep Cudi on pitch. Cudi sings a lot on the tracks we do, and he’s a great singer, certainly a lot better than many other rappers that try to sing. I used Auto-Tune in moderation. It’s not necessary to have T-Pain-like vocals for someone who can actually sing, like Cudi. You can see on the screenshot that it is an older version of Auto-Tune, and I’ve blanked out ‘B’ and ‘C#’, because he doesn’t sing these notes. Even if you use it very subtly, Auto-Tune still has a sound, with that slight robotic vocoder-like effect, and I wanted Cudi’s vocals without any Auto-Tune effect in a couple of places, so I copied the ‘K-M’ track in these places to a track called ‘K-M.dup1’. There’s no Auto-Tune on that track, but all the other plug-ins are the same.
“The EQ on the four chorus vocal tracks, ‘C1’-‘C4’, is the same as on ‘K-M’. The compressor on these tracks is a little different. I compressed a bit more on the chorus vocals. Auto-Tune is again there to keep Cudi’s vocals in check. ‘Day ’n Nite’ is a very singalong record, and the vocals needed to sound very effortless and right. On the ‘Wha’ track I have the Antares Tube plug-in, which an engineer I was working with at the time recommended to me. To be honest, I’d never used it until I did ‘Day ’n Nite’. I wanted a very ‘hot’ effect, and it worked well. When my manager did that vocal, it sounded way too clean. So the vocal is heavily treated by the Tube plug-in, giving it the effect as if it’s a signal coming from a radio, or a very bad speaker. One of the delays at the bottom of the Edit window was created specifically for the ‘Wha’ track, with the Extra Long Delay plug-in, and the other delay was for the chorus vocal, with slightly less delay. The reverb on the ‘Reverb’ Aux track is very subtle. I didn’t want the track to sound too saturated with reverb.”
Master: Digirack Compressor
“‘Master 1’ was the mixdown track. I mixed back to Pro Tools, because it was all I had. I used a compressor on the final mix, to make the mix sound a little bit more beefy. That was all I felt was necessary. The session began as 16-bit, 44.1kHz, because I was not running a very fast PC and didn’t have a lot of memory, so I had to be space- and speed-conservative. But by the time I balanced it, which was a bit later, it was 24-bit. What happened was that we initially were going to turn over the Pro Tools Session to a professional mixer, because I was not that experienced in mixing at the time. But I was asked to do it, and I took my time, and I trusted my ears, and everyone seems to like the result so far.” @ http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct09/articles/it_1009.htm
4/5/10
Dr. Dre Takes Batting Practice At Fenway Park
Dr. Dre fans may be more likely to picture him in a White Sox hat than in any Boston gear, but the legendary producer visited Fenway Park on Sunday night to watch the Yankees and Red Sox kick off the 2010 MLB season. Dre even took batting practice before the game, all while wearing a Red Sox jersey with his name on the back. After BP ended, Boston staged a comeback win over the Yankees. @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/dr-dre-takes-batting-prac_n_524928.html
4/4/10
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