In Mark Cuban’s Humble Opinion, Facebook Still Kinda Sucks

Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire Mark Cuban has confirmed reports from last week, in a post on his personal blog today, that he has a serious beef with Facebook. But before getting into all the reasons he no longer loves the social network, he clarifies one small point: “First, I’m not recommending to any of my companies that we leave facebook,” he writes. Last week ReadWriteWeb’s Dan Lyons kind of made it seem like Cuban planned to pull out altogether because of the way Facebook’s algorithm has affected the way people see his brands’s posts. The algorithm, Edgerank, controls brand posts so that not all fans are forced to see each one in their news feeds. Because of this, he quoted Cuban saying “We are moving far more aggressively into Twitter and reducing any and all emphasis on Facebook.” And later he had him talking about all the reasons he finds it horrible for businesses. Like, mainly, that it’s too expensive, a point that GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram called naive. “Really? That surprises you? What else did you think Facebook was going to do when it gave you a giant social platform for nothing?” Cuban now explains that he isn’t bailing on Facebook, just de-emphasizing it in favor of other Internet places, like Tumblr and Twitter. But, that does not mean that he does not hate Facebook as much as everyone has been saying he hates Facebook. He does.

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You can read the laundry list of reasons over at his personal blog, but some highlights include:

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• Its a time waster … FB doesn’t seem to want to accept that it’s best purpose in life is as a huge time suck. 


• IMHO, FB really risks screwing up something that is special in our lives as a time waster by thinking they have to make it more engaging and efficient.


• So by default you are not going to use your newsfeed as a primary source of information. It’s more like the township newspaper


• I also think that FB is making a big mistake by trying to play games with their original mission of connecting the world.  FB is a fascinating destination that is an amazing alternative to boredom which excels in its SIMPLICITY.  One of the threats in any business is that you outsmart yourself. FB has to be careful of just that.

Basically Mark Cuban thinks Facebook should stop trying to make money and stop trying to get too smart, which might work in the favor of Cuban who doesn’t want to spend too much money on something silly like social media. But,this doesn’t sound too appealing to Facebook, which as a public company needs to make money. Unless more join his cause, which could maybe happen. At least the Miami blog the 305 agrees with him. Anyone else? 

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Rock band AC/DC releases entire catalog on iTunes

NEW YORK (AP) — AC/DC is finally releasing its music digitally on iTunes.

Columbia Records and Apple announced Monday that the classic rock band’s music will be available at the iTunes Store worldwide. Sixteen studio albums will be released, including “High Voltage” and “Back in Black.”

AC/DC was one of the few acts that would not release music through the digital outlet. The Beatles and Kid Rock were also against selling music on iTunes, but have since jumped onboard. Country star Garth Brooks has yet to release his music on iTunes.

Four of AC/DC’s live albums and three compilation records are also available. The statement said the songs have been mastered for iTunes “with increased audio fidelity.”

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Pre-ski fitness can protect against post-ski problems

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Skiing is a such a skill-based activity that if you don’t start learning until you are 20, it will take 20 years to learn.

But fitness experts say proper conditioning can make the difference between a fun weekend on the slopes and one waylaid by injury.

“Skiing first is technique,” said Robert Forster, a Los Angeles-based physical therapist and founder of Phase IV Scientific Health and Performance Center. “If your quads (muscles) are just burning up on the runs, then you’re not skiing right. That’s a good sign that you might need a lesson.”

To minimize fatigue and risk of injury, Forster, physical therapist to 42 Olympic medalists, suggests getting in ski-shape before hitting the slopes.

“All fitness begins with an aerobic base,” he said. “So six weeks before, start training with an elliptical trainer or stationary bike, or running or walking. Build up to 20 to 30 minutes three times a week.”

Aerobic training also strengthens muscles, Forster said, so any subsequent agility drills, such as running sideways or skipping, will be even more effective if you’ve established an aerobic base.

Stretch before skiing to protect against injury and enhance freedom of motion; stretch afterward to return the muscles to their normal length, said Forster.

He calls stretching the single most important thing people can do for body health maintenance.

“Connective tissue shortens with time,” he explained. “We stretch to maintain good alignment of the bones.”

If your skiing holiday lasts a week, limit your time on the slopes the first day, Forster suggests. And reconsider that dehydrating après-ski cocktail.

“We know that a glass of wine and a hot tub is not a good idea. Heat adds to inflammation. It will only increase swelling the next day,” he said.

Save that soak for the morning, and then not more than five minutes.

Ice down any sore spots or tight areas. “Ice is a great treatment for tightness,” he said.

Jessica Matthews, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise, suggests that even those already in good condition would benefit by integrating sports-specific pre-ski training into their workout.

“Prepare the body to move in short bursts,” said Matthews, who notes that skiing demands carving back and forth, rapid turns and sudden changes of direction.

She said it’s easy to set up fitness drills using plastic cones, which can be had at any sporting goods store.

“There’s great stuff you can do with cones,” she said. “Those newer to fitness can begin with stepovers, laterally, side to side. Those more seasoned can make them hops, or invent more intricate drills.”

For those who prefer to train in groups, the fitness company Equinox recently launched a class at its clubs called Core Values, which uses low parallel bars, called parallettes, and medicine balls to enhance mobility and stability skills.

“It’s geared to help sports people get in condition for their sport,” said Lisa Wheeler, who created the class to train across all ranges of motion.

“Even downhill, skiing is about rotation,” said Wheeler, an experienced skier. “Most people scoop right and left as they are going downhill.”

Falls account for 75 to 85 percent of all skiing injuries, according to the American College of Sports Medicine. Most common is damage to the knee.

Forster said even though more runners than skiers are injured every year, ski injuries tend to be more serious.

“Skiing has much more traumatic injuries that can have long-lasting effects,” he explained.

The National Areas Association, the trade association for ski area owners and operators, said U.S. ski areas tallied an estimated 51 million skier and snowboarder visits during the 2011-2012 season.

Forster advises skiers to assess themselves and the slopes before diving down the mountain.

“Is there fresh snow? Heavy, wet snow?” he said. “Be aware of conditions. Fatigue is a big factor. If I had a dollar for every client who got hurt on the last run …”

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and John Wallace)

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Palestinian death toll in Gaza reaches 100: Health Ministry

GAZA (Reuters) - The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel's on-going offensive reached 100 on Monday, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said.

On his Facebook page, ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qidra listed Mohammed Tbail, killed in an air strike in Nusseirat refugee camp, as the 100th Palestinian fatality.

Qidra said the Palestinian dead included 24 children and 10 women. Ministry figures for the number of men killed in the conflict with Israel make no distinction between civilians and militants.

According to the ministry, 850 people have been wounded in Gaza since the hostilities began on Wednesday. They included 260 children and 140 women.

Israel puts its death toll since Wednesday at three civilians - two men and a woman killed by a rocket fired from Gaza. Police said more than 60 people have been wounded.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Writing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem, Editing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan)

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Summary: A look at the 4 new Kindle Fire models

Amazon.com Inc. started shipping a large-screen version of its Kindle Fire tablet computer on Thursday, ahead of schedule. Here is a look at the new Fires announced in September:

— Kindle Fire, with 7-inch screen, 1024 by 600 pixels. $ 159, with 8 gigabytes of storage. Weighs 14.1 ounces. Battery life of 8.5 hours. Started shipping Sept. 14.

— Kindle Fire HD, with 7-inch screen, 1280 by 800 pixels. $ 199 with 16 GB of storage or $ 249 with 32 GB of storage. Weighs 13.9 ounces. Battery life of 11 hours. Started shipping Sept. 14.

— Kindle Fire HD 8.9″, with 8.9-inch screen, 1920 by 1200 pixels. $ 299 with 16 GB of storage or $ 369 with 32 GB of storage. Weighs 20 ounces. Battery life of 10 hours. Started shipping Thursday.

— Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ 4G LTE Wireless, with 8.9-inch screen, 1920 by 1200 pixels. $ 499 with 32 GB of storage or $ 599 with 64 GB of storage. Can connect to AT&T Inc.‘s 4G LTE wireless network. Weighs 20 ounces. Battery life of 10 hours. Will start shipping Tuesday.

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Questions of Blame Linger 34 Years After Jonestown

From the age of 13, Leslie Wagner Wilson had been indoctrinated in the California-based Peoples Temple, led by the charismatic Jim Jones, whose mission was to foster racial harmony and help the poor.

But on Nov. 18, 1978, she and a handful of church members fought their way through thick jungle in the South American country of Guyana, escaping a utopian society gone wrong where followers were starved, beaten and held prisoner in the Jonestown compound.

She walked 30 miles to safety with her 3-year-old son, Jakari, strapped to her back and a smaller group of defectors. But just hours later, the mother, sister and brother and husband she left behind were dead.

“I was so scared,” said Wagner, now 55. “We exchanged phone numbers in case we died. I was prepared to die. I never thought I would see my 21st birthday.”

Today, on the 34th anniversary, Wilson said it’s important to remember the California-based Peoples Temple Jonestown massacre, especially the survivors who have wrestled with their consciences for decades.

PHOTOS: Jonestown Massacre Anniversary

Nine members of her family were among the 918 Americans who died that day, 909 of them ordered by Jones to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in the largest ritual suicide in history.

Her husband, Joe Wilson, was one of Jones’ top lieutenants who helped assassinate congressman Leo Ryan and his press crew when they tried to free church members who were being held against their will.

After arriving back in the United States, Wilson said she “went through hell” — three failed marriages, drug use and suicidal thoughts she describes in her 2009 book, “Slavery of Faith.”

“I was like Humpty Dumpty, but you couldn’t put me back together again,” she said.

Survivors, many of them African-American like Wilson, say they felt guilt and shame and faced the most agonizing question surrounding the nation’s single largest loss of life until 9/11: Was it suicide or murder?

Full Coverage: Jonestown Massacre

In the now-famous “death tape,” supporters clapped and babies cried as Jones instructed families to kill the elderly first, then the youngest in protest against capitalism and racism. Mothers poisoned 246 children before taking their own lives.

“We really can’t understand the Peoples Temple without looking at the historical time period when it arose,” said Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University.

“With the liberation movements of the ’60s and ’70s, the collapse of the black-power movement, the Peoples Temple was the main institution in the San Francisco Bay area that promoted a message of integration and racial equality.”

Moore lost her two sisters and her nephew, the son of Jim Jones. “They were hardcore believers,” she said of her siblings.

Jim Jones, who was white, came from a “wrong side of the tracks,” poor background in Indiana where in the 1950s he became known as a charismatic preacher with an affinity for African-Americans.

“A number of survivors, including those who defected, believe to this day he had paranormal abilities,” said Moore, who met him years later. “He could heal them and read their minds.”

In the 1960s, Jones moved to San Francisco, where at the height of the Peoples Temple there were about 5,000 members.

WATCH: A Look Back at Jonestown Massacre

“They wanted my parents to join,” she said. “Like most outsiders, we didn’t have any idea what was happening outside closed doors.”

Jones ingratiated himself with celebrities and politicians, mobilizing voters to help elect Mayor George Moscone in 1975 and becoming chairman of the city’s housing authority.

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Canadian October home sales dip, latest sign of cooling

TORONTO (Reuters) – Sales of existing homes in Canada fell in October from September and year-over-year sales were down as well, the Canadian Real Estate Association said on Thursday in the latest signal that the housing market is slowing.

The industry group for Canadian real estate agents said sales were down 0.1 percent in October from September. Actual sales for October, not seasonally adjusted, were down 0.8 percent from a year earlier.

The housing market, which roared higher in 2011 and the first half of 2012, started to slow after the government tightened rules on mortgage lending in July in a bid to cool the market and prevent home buyers from taking on too much debt.

“Housing market trends in Canada for 2012 can be characterized as before and after regulatory changes,” TD Economics senior economist Sonya Gulati said in a research note.

“In the first half of the year, sales and price gains were modest, but positive. More stringent mortgage rules and tighter mortgage underwriting rules have ‘purposely’ knocked the wind out of the housing market sails,” she said.

The home sales data showed diverging paths in Canadian housing depending on location. In Toronto and Vancouver, where sales and price gains were red hot in 2011 and early in 2012, the market has been cooling. But markets in the resource-rich western provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have been gaining strength.

“Opinions differ about how sharply sales have slowed depending on the local housing market,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a statement.

Led by Calgary, sales in October were up from a year earlier in almost two-thirds of local markets. Sales remained blow year-earlier levels in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, CREA said.

“These results suggest that the Canadian housing market overall has returned to a more sustainable pace,” Klump said.

CREA’s Home Price Index rose 3.6 percent in October from a year earlier, the sixth consecutive month in which gains in prices slowed, and the slowest rate of increase since May 2011.

While tighter mortgage rules have worked to slow the market, TD’s Gulati said the big question is what will happen when that temporary cooling effect wears off in early 2013.

“What happens thereafter is less certain. The low interest rate environment could pull homeowners back onto the market, causing home prices to once again trek upwards. Alternatively, an absence of pent-up demand may leave the market in a bit of a lull until interest rate hikes resume in late 2013,” she wrote.

“Under either scenario, it is safe to say that there is a low probability of out-sized home price gains over the near-term.”

A total of 402,322 homes traded hands via Canadian MLS systems over the first 10 months of 2012, up 0.8 percent from the same period last year and 0.4 percent below the 10-year average for the period, the data showed.

The number of newly listed homes fell 3.8 percent in October following a jump in September. Monthly declines were reported in almost two-thirds of local markets, with Toronto and Vancouver exerting a large influence on the national trend.

Nationally, there were 6.5 months of inventory at the end of October, little changed from the reading of 6.4 months at the end of September.

(Editing by Peter Galloway)

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Honey Boo Boo Gets Trashy and Some Really Cute Dumb Ways to Die

We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:

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So, we’re not quite sure what kind of spirit moved artist Jason Mecier to create a Honey Boo Boo portrait from 25 pounds of trash. But it did. And we’re thankful (sort of?): 

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And thank god for YouTube. Besides going to America’s shopping malls, how else would we find terrible parents and gullible children? And how else would we know that we were entertained by these fascinating creatures? 

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Now that the Dark Knight trilogy is over, aren’t you in the mood for something lighter? Another prequel? How about a fan-made video (which we’re guessing took hours and hours and footage from the 90s and beyond) which imagines all Dark Knight‘s characters in high school?

OMGosh Melbourne Metro this is like the cutest video on earth! You guys are adorable, like we’re talking totes adorable squeeeee—Oh wait. We take that back. We take all of it back. 

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At Washington’s James Bond exhibit, villains are forever

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fans of fictional super spy James Bond rely on the durable film franchise for must-have elements, such as jaw-dropping stunts, great clothes, sultry women – and villains who are drop-dead evil.

An exhibition that opened on Friday makes clear that the nasty types that 007 has battled for five decades have changed but one constant remains. The only true match for the world’s greatest secret agent are characters that moviegoers love to hate.

“Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains” at the International Spy Museum in downtown Washington, is dedicated to the most memorable bad guys and gals in the 23-film series.

From the eponymous “Dr. No” in 1962 to the just-released “Skyfall,” the exhibit shows links between fact and fiction and how villains have kept pace with an evolving world.

“Bond seems the same, but the villains have all changed. They have changed to reflect the changing times,” Anna Slafer, the museum’s director of exhibitions, told a news conference.

In “Dr. No,” the villain schemes against the U.S. space program. Probing the nuclear fears of the 1970s, tycoon Karl Stromberg plots genocide in “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977).

The information age turns up with Max Zorin, who lusts to corner the microchip market in “A View to a Kill” (1985). In “Skyfall” cyberterrorist Silva tries to hack British intelligence computers.

THINK BIG

But some things have remained the same for the Bond villain, said Alexis Albion, a guest curator and intelligence historian.

They are highly successful, often charming, live in isolated places, generate fanatical loyalty, and think big, she said. “They are on a level that we have to send someone like James Bond after them.”

They also “are off physically,” Albion said. Le Chiffre in “Casino Royale” (2006) weeps blood, Dr. No has a magnetic claw in place of a hand, and the hitman Jaws in “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker” (1979) is a giant with steel teeth.

A galaxy of well-known actors – and a few actresses – from around the world have faced off against the six men who have played Bond, from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig.

Yaphet Kotto, Max von Sydow, Sean Bean, Javier Bardem, Donald Pleasence, Christopher Lee, Michael Lonsdale, Lotte Lenya, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeroen Krabbe, Christopher Walken and Telly Savalas all have gone mano-a-mano with 007, and lost.

The International Spy Museum‘s show was timed to the release of “Skyfall” and done in cooperation with EON Productions, which makes the Bond movies.

The exhibit, which includes more than 110 movie and historical artifacts, including Jaws’ teeth, interactive stations, and videos, runs through 2014. General admission to the museum is $ 19.95.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care

Weil spoke as part of the Tulsa Town Hall series of speakers.

The United States has an expensive health-care system that doesn’t produce good results, he said.

“Something is very wrong with this picture,” he said. “We’re spending more and more and we have less and less to show for it.”

Changes in diet can be an effective treatment for many conditions, but American physicians are functionally illiterate in nutrition, he said.

“The whole subject of nutrition is omitted in medical education,” he said.

There are many ways of managing diseases other than drugs, he said. Integrative medicine, which can include dietary supplements and practices like meditation, is the future of health care, he said.

The health system is resistant to change because of entrenched vested interests. That includes pharmaceutical companies that do direct-to-consumer advertising, which should be stopped, he said.

“As dysfunctional as our health-care system is at the moment – and it is very dysfunctional – it is generating rivers of money,” he said. “That money is going into very few pockets.”

Weil has developed an anti-inflammatory diet based on the Mediterranean diet but with Asian influences.

Inflammation is associated with some heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers, he said. And as a result, people should be eating real, unprocessed foods and whole grains. They should stay away from sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice, he said.

“The new research that’s being done on sugar is not very comforting,” he said.

The aging process can’t be avoided, but age-related diseases can be avoided by proper care, he said.

“The goal should be to live long and well with a big drop off at the end,” he said.

Weil is the director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine.

Tickets to the Tulsa Town Hall series are sold as a $ 75 subscription and cover five lectures. Tickets for individual lectures are not available.

To subscribe, visit tulsaworld.com/tulsatownhall, call 918-749-5965 or write to: Tulsa Town Hall, Box 52266, Tulsa, OK 74152.

Future speakers include journalist Ann Compton on Feb. 8; author James B. Stewart on April 5; historian and cinematographer Rex Ziak on May 10.

Original Print Headline: Speaker highlights nutrition

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Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378
shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com
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