Little League raffles AR-15 rifle to raise money

An armory employee shows off the AR-15. (WAND-TV)

A youth baseball league in Illinois is raffling off an AR-15 military-style assault weapon to raise money for its kids.

The Atwood-Hammond little league partnered with the local armory for the raffle, which launched on Tuesday. "It has been going gangbusters," Charidy Butcher, co-owner of the Atwood Armory, told RawStory.com. ?My phone has been ringing nonstop since 4:30 this morning. It?s just been crazy."

Butcher said she's received calls from people as far away as Washington state wanting to enter the June 29 drawing. A ticket costs $20.

"It?s for a good cause, for the kids, and we?re just trying to raise as much money as we can," she said. "Their fundraiser last year only raised $10.?

The winner of the rifle?a Rock River Arms AR-15?will have to go through a standard background check, Butcher added. The rifle is similar to the one used in the Dec. 14 shootings in Newtown, Conn., where 20 children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

According to Atwood-Hammond commissioner Steven McClain, the league is in desperate need of new equipment. "When you don't have enough stuff to even practice with, it's hard to run a team," McClain told WAND-TV.

It's not the first gun fundraiser for the Atwood Armory. Earlier this month, the shop raised more than $7,000 for a cancer charity with a similar raffle.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/little-league-gun-raffle-ar-15-133837381.html

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Determining the Return on Investment for Home Improvements

Have you ever been asked by a client, ?How much will a home improvement or remodeling project add to the value of my home??

Determining the return on such an investment can be challenging, given the many variables that go into its calculation. The cost of labor, expenses for materials, and depreciation over time are just a few of the factors that have to be considered.

Though this is a daunting task for the homeowner, MiRealSource members have access to a terrific, easy-to-use tool that allows you to answer that very question ? in just minutes!

Every MiRealSource member has access to RPR, a Web-based program developed by the National Association of REALTORS^? that provides several tools for REALTORS^? to use to help them accurately determine a home?s value. The Home Improvement Calculator is one of those tools.

Once you open any property in RPR, one of your options will be to open the ?Refined Value? tab.

The screen will refresh and you will see the ?Refined Value? page, which contains four different ways to pinpoint the most accurate price for a given property.

The tool we want you to focus on is the 2nd one on the page,
?Refine the Value Based on Any Home Improvements.?

When you click to open the ?Add a Home Improvement? menu, you have a choice of any of the pre-selected projects, or you have the option to add your own by selecting ?Other? at the bottom of the list. ?(See diagram on next page.)

Within seconds the tool will calculate the value change from the home improvements, which is then added to the estimated valuation of the property.

Source: http://www.mirealsource.com/determining-the-return-on-investment-for-home-improvements/

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altman waiter: Culture, education, language, and thinking ...

How we think about problems depends in part of how we are taught to do so. And that education is seeped in our culture and language. Metaphors, mnemonics, analogies, riddles, word choice for explanations are tightly interwoven into our language. Just like it was probably impossible for Romans to invent calculus given their numeral system, it is difficult to think clearly about some problems in some languages. I?ve learned advanced physics and mathematics in English and find it very difficult to express thoughts in those domains in Russian (my native language). But when I first came to New York, I marveled at how poor my cohorts? geometry proofs were ? their presentations took a lot of space and too many steps to achieve what I was taught to do in minimal configuration. I was taught to jump and bound from concept to concept (in geometry), while the students in America were taught to crawl through ideas. I found that maddening! But it was a different math language, and as such it allowed for a different set of affordances?

It is difficult to easily show the differences in thought process that language makes in this short blog. But here?s a bit on difference in thoughts that culture and background knowledge makes ? these are analogies taken from high school students? writing. Notice the strong anchor of time and place. Enjoy!

• Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
• His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
• He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a
  guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
• She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
• She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
• Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
• He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
• The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife?s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
• The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn?t.
• McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
• From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, unreal quality, like when you?re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
• Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
• The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
• Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
• They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan?s teeth.
• John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
• He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
• Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
• Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
• The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
• The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
• He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
• The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
• It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
• He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
• Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

PS: I?ve been collecting these types of analogies for years. Unfortunately, I no longer have the reference for the one above.

Tags: affordances, education, Language, problem solving

This entry was posted on March 10, 2013 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Background Knowledge, Background Knowledge Errors, Cognitive Blindness, Conceptual Design, Cultural Differences, Ethnographic & User Data, Users. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Source: http://www.interfaces.com/blog/2013/03/culture-education-language-and-thinking/

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Source: http://altman-waiter.blogspot.com/2013/03/culture-education-language-and-thinking.html

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Six months later, where are the Benghazi survivors? (cbsnews)

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Home Sales Sag As Foreclosures Fall, But Prices Jump ? CBS Detroit

FARMINGTON HILLS ? The number of home sales in southeast Michigan sagged in February ? due to far fewer foreclosure sales ? but home prices surged, according to figures released Monday by the Farmington Hills real estate research firm Realcomp II Ltd.

Total home and condominium sales in February in the 10-county region were 4,442, down 7.3 percent from 4,793 a year earlier. But the median sale price jumped 34.5 percnet to $80,000 from $59,500 a year earlier.

The price increases were led by Oakland County, up 47 percent, and Wayne County, up 40.6 percent.

The number of homes for sale in the region fell 23.4 percent to 20,421 homes, from 26,670 homes a year earlier. And the median amount of time a home was on the market before its sale continued to fall, from 91 days a year ago to 84 days now.

The number of foreclosure sales across the region tumbled 28.2 percent from 2,297 a year ago to 1,650 this year. The number of non-foreclosure sales rose 11.9 percent from 2,496 a year ago to 2,792 this year.

By county and city submarkets, sales results were as follows:

City of Detroit: 279 foreclosure sales, down 18.7 percent from 343 a year earlier. 122 non-foreclosure sales, up 24.5 percent from 98 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $9,000, up 13.2 percent from $7,951 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $15,000, up 23.3 percent from $12,175 a year earlier.

Dearborn/Dearborn Heights: 39 foreclosure sales, down 50.6 percent from 79 a year earlier. 122 non-foreclosure sales, up 24.5 percent from 98 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $45,833, up 27.7 percent from $35,900 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $62,750, up 8.2 percent from $58,000 a year earlier.

Genesee County: 162 foreclosure sales, 32.2 percnet from 239 a year earlier. 188 non-foreclosure sales, up 3.3 percent from 182 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $20,750, down 13.5 percnet from $24,001 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $74,750, up 6 percent from $70,500 a year earlier.

Grosse Pointes: 17 foreclosure sales, up 54.5 percent from 11 a year earlier. 27 non-foreclosure sales, down 3.6 percent from 28 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $103,050, up 20.5 percent from $85,500 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $214,000, up 10.9 percent from $193,000 a year earlier.

Huron County: No foreclosure sales, down 100 percent from one a year earlier. 10 non-foreclosure sales, up 42.9 percent from seven a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $86,500, up 16.6 percnet from $74,200 a year earlier.

Lapeer County: 28 foreclosure sales, down 28.2 percent from 39 a year earlier. 32 non-foreclosure sales, down 3 percent from 33 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $81,105, up 41.1 percent from $57,500 a year earlier. Median sales price on non-foreclosure sales, $110,000, down 15.5 percnet from $130,158 a year earlier.

Livingston County: 58 foreclosure sales, down 7.9 percent from 63 a year earlier. 127 non-foreclosure sales, up 27 percent from 100 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $130,100, up 50.4 percent from $86,500 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $174,900, up 4.3 percnet from $167,750 a year earlier.

Macomb County:?271 foreclosure sales, down 27.3 percent from 373 a year earlier. 515 non-foreclosure sales, up 14.4 percetn from 450 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $58,000, up 41.5 percent from $48,000 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $97,000, up 11.8 percent from $86,750 a year earlier.

Oakland County: 303 foreclosure sales, down 38.2 percent from 490 a year earlier. 807 non-foreclosure sales, up 12.6 percent from 717 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $75,500, up 21.8 percent from $62,000 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $165,000, up 35.2 percent from $122,000 a year earlier.

Sanilac County: Three foreclosure sales, down 76.9 percent from 13 a year earlier. Two non-foreclosure sales, down 66.7 percent from six a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $85,146, up 209.6 percent from $27,500 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $106,200, down 0.7 percent from $107,000 a year earlier.

St. Clair County: 44 foreclosure sales, down 18.5 percent from 54 a year earlier. 39 non-foreclosure sales, down 15.2 percent from 46 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $43,805, down 8.6 percent from $47,925 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $100,000, up 0.1 percent from $99,950 a year earlier.

Tuscola County: 10 foreclosure sales, up 400 percent from two a year earlier. 10 non-foreclosure sales, up 11.1 percent from nine a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $22,130, down 42.5 percent from $38,500 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $68,498, up 82.7 percnet from $37,500 a year earlier.

Wayne County, except Detroit: 383 foreclosure sales, down 32.3 percent from 566 a year earlier. 680 non-foreclosure sales, up 16 percent from 586 a year earlier. Median sale price on foreclosure sales, $24,000, up 14.3 percent from $21,000 a year earlier. Median sale price on non-foreclosure sales, $83,000, up 18.6 percent from $70,000 a year earlier.

Source: http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/03/11/home-sales-sag-as-foreclosures-fall-but-prices-jump/

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Final "Twilight Saga" movie gets mauling from Razzies

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Popular vampire movie "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2" was savaged at the Razzie Awards on Saturday, earning seven "wins" in the annual contest for the worst movies and performances of the year.

"Twilight" star Kristen Stewart, co-star Taylor Lautner and director Bill Condon were awarded Golden Raspberry statuettes for their parts in the final installment of the blockbuster film franchise. That film alone has taken an impressive $829 million at the global box office.

Robert Pattinson narrowly escaped a personal mauling, but the entire "Twilight Saga" cast earned a Razzie for "worst screen ensemble."

The Razzies, created in 1980 as an antidote to the backslapping of Hollywood's glitzy awards season, also singled out R&B star Rihanna for scorn.

The singer was deemed worst supporting actress for her debut movie role as a sailor in 2012 sci-fi action movie "Battleship."

American comic actor Adam Sandler, a frequent Razzie target, was awarded not-so-coveted golden raspberry statuettes for worst actor and worst screenplay for his comedy "That's My Boy" about a father reuniting with his long-abandoned son.

Last year, Sandler swept all 10 Razzie categories for his comedy "Jack and Jill," in which he played both the male and female leads.

The winners rarely turn up to the Razzie ceremony, which was held on Saturday night in a Hollywood hotel near the Dolby Theatre, where the 85th annual Academy Awards will be handed out on Sunday.

The nominees and winners of the Razzies were chosen by more than 650 members of the Golden Raspberry Foundations and 70,000 votes cast on movie review website Rotten Tomatoes.

(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/final-twilight-saga-movie-gets-mauling-razzies-030828385.html

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Samsung Video Discovery hands-on

Samsung's really playing up its media chops here at Mobile World Congress. In addition to demoing the new HomeSync Android box, the Korean company is showing off its recently announced service for finding and watching TV content. The product was originally called TV Discovery, but just five days later it's resurfaced under the moniker Video Discovery. This new name is more accurate, as the service does deliver content recommendations for both live programming and movies and TV shows on demand.

We saw Video Discovery demoed with a Galaxy Note 8.0 and a Samsung Smart TV. You'll need a device with an IR blaster to adjust the TV channel or volume, with the app serving as a touchscreen remote. There are several modes for browsing content, including a timeline view that looks almost identical to the standard TV guide menu. You can also browse by genre or view current programming across all channels. When we skimmed through live TV listings, we simply had to tap the large "Watch Now" button next to a listing for the show to turn up on screen a few seconds later.

Perhaps the most useful feature, at least for those of you who know what you want: type in a search, and you'll see results from several content providers, including Blockbuster and Netflix (in the US) in addition to cable channels. Samsung reps said Discovery will also deliver personalized recommendations based on viewing preference and history, but the trade show employees on hand didn't seem entirely confident on some of the features, so we'll have to play with the service a bit more after it launches in April to confirm final functionality. But why not take a look for yourself now? Hit up the hands-on video after the break.

Gallery: Samsung TV Discovery hands-on

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, Samsung

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