Booq Boa Courier

As a lifelong user of backpacks, I'm fully aware that it borders on heresy to admit that I've secretly been coveting messenger bags for a while. Perhaps it's simply a side-effect of growing older, but I've slowly come to appreciate the way that messenger bags can carry a lot of stuff while maintaining a sleek, business-casual look that eludes most backpacks. The Booq Boa Courier ($109.95 list) is one such example, merging function and style in a versatile bag that can accommodate your MacBook (or any laptop up to 15 inches) while looking clean enough to bring to work and cool enough for happy hour.

The Boa Courier is available in 10-, 13-, or 15-inch sizes. Our review unit was the 13-inch model, and its exterior accordingly measures 10.8 by 17.1 by 4.7 inches (HWD) and weighs two pounds like the Ju-Ju-Be Be Hip (Messenger Bag)'s timber model. The Boa Courier's nylon exterior rocks a graphite finish that's decidedly more understated than the Magic Eye-like prints that we saw on the Ju-Ju-Be Micra Be Laptop Bag . In addition to its waterproof coating, the Boa Courier's nylon exterior also features a reflective piping along the flap's outer edges to help increase visibility when making moves during the night.

Since it's a messenger bag, the Boa Courier is designed to be slung over your shoulder. Accordingly, its seatbelt nylon shoulder strap runs across your chest in a manner that allows the bag to hang over your back in a 45-degree angle. A removable shoulder pad can be fastened to this strap to increase its overall comfort. There's also a removable "crossbody strap" that supposedly improves stability by running under your armpit to connect the shoulder strap to an extra buckle on the bag's bottom portion. I found this feature unnecessary, though, and ditched it early on. Although the thought of my bag dangling from a weird angle initially freaked me out, two sturdy plastic buckles kept it securely closed. While I'd choose buckles over Velcro any day, it may not be your cup of tea if you like buttons or zippers.

Despite its compact size, the Boa Courier boasts ample interior storage space by virtue of its many compartments. The main compartment houses a dedicated laptop sleeve that closes over your system with a thick Velcro strap. Between its dense plush padding and snug fit, your laptop feels secure. The rest of the main compartment, meanwhile, is made from a soft herringbone nylon material that protects your gadgets from getting scratched. Here, you'll also find a pen holder and a smartphone compartment. An external zippered pocket beneath the bag's flap serves as a storage pouch for miscellany. On the opposite end of the Boa Courier, a rear external sleeve can hold thin materials like magazines and loose papers. This section also sports a key ring that can conveniently be removed via a sliding buckle mechanism. Nearby, you'll also find a single briefcase handle for carrying the Boa Courier by your side. While two handles would have made more sense, the handle nevertheless feels durable enough to transport a heavy load.

The interior of the Boa Courier also houses a metal-framed Terralinq serial tag, which allows Boa Courier owners to register the unique serial number on the Booq website. In the event of losing the bag, the finder can enter said number on the site, and Booq will in turn contact the original owner and assist in its eventual return. It's a nice idea, in theory at least.

I put the Boa Courier to the test by using it as my primary bag for two full weeks, a period that entailed frenetically zipping between crowded trains and some bicycle riding. In both instances, I stashed my usual necessities inside, like my 13-inch MacBook Pro, a bottle of water, an umbrella, a book, and (in one instance), a six-pack. Throughout, the Boa Courier comfortably rested on my back, and its shoulder strap allowed it hew close enough to my body so it didn't jut out and bump into others on crowded trains. Thanks to its compact size, I was able to deftly swing the Boa Courier in front of me and sit in those rare instances that I got a seat. Moreover, the Boa Courier never lost its shape or sagged, an attribute that became apparent when, at one point, the train's doors closed onto the bag and I had yank it out. Much to my surprise, the Boa Courier took this unscripted stress test in stride.

Even while riding a bike, the Boa Courier never felt burdensome. Thanks to the semi-vertical angle that it rested on my back, it never bumped into my body with my every movement?one of my biggest pet peeves with messenger bags. Moreover, all of my wares consistently remained accessible, making interior navigation and organization feel like second nature. I especially liked the key ring since I was able to grab my keys without having to fiddle with any compartments or zipper every time I needed to enter or leave my apartment.

So the question remains: After two weeks of using the Booq Boa Courier, am I a messenger bag convert? The answer is a resounding "yes." The Boa Courier proved itself to be a highly functional and comfortable way to carry my gear around without compromising my style. For students, commuters, and wavering backpackers looking for a cool way to tote their gear around, it's definitely worth checking out.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/8yHvrL5XrDE/0,2817,2417194,00.asp

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GOP moves to catch up with Democrats on technology

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Republicans are moving aggressively to repair their technological shortcomings from the 2012 election, opening a new tech race to counter a glaring weakness against President Barack Obama.

With the blessing of party leaders, a new crop of Republican-backed outside groups is developing tools to improve communication with voters, predict their behavior and track Democratic opponents. After watching Obama win re-election with the aid of an unprecedented technological machine, GOP officials concede an urgent need for major changes in the way they reach voters. They are turning to a younger generation of tech experts expected to play a bigger role in the 2014 midterm elections and beyond.

"I think everybody realized that the party is really far behind at the moment and they're doing everything within their realistic sphere of influence to catch up," said Bret Jacobson, a partner with Red Edge, a Virginia-based digital advocacy firm that represents the Republican Governors Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Heritage Foundation.

Alex Skatell, former digital director for the GOP's gubernatorial and Senate campaign operations, leads a new group that has been quietly testing a system that would allow Republicans to share details about millions of voters ? their personal interests, group affiliations and even where they went to school. Democrats began using related technology years ago, giving Obama a significant advantage last fall in personalizing communication with prospective supporters.

With no primary opponent last year, Obama's re-election team used the extra time to build a large campaign operation melding a grass-roots army of 2.2 million volunteers with groundbreaking technology to target voters. They tapped about 17 million email subscribers to raise nearly $700 million online.

Data-driven analytics enabled the campaign to run daily simulations to handicap battleground states, analyze demographic trends and test alternatives for reaching voters online.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, in contrast, had only a few months after a lengthy primary fight to try to match Obama's tech advantage. He couldn't make up the difference. Romney's technology operation was overwhelmed by the intense flow of data and temporarily crashed on Election Day.

A 100-page report on how to rebound from the 2012 election, released last week by Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus, includes several technology recommendations.

"The president's campaign significantly changed the makeup of the national electorate and identified, persuaded and turned out low-propensity voters by unleashing a barrage of human and technological resources previously unseen in a presidential contest," the report said. "Marrying grass-roots politics with technology and analytics, they successfully contacted, persuaded and turned out their margin of victory. There are many lessons to be learned from their efforts, particularly with respect to voter contact."

Skatell, 26, is leading one new effort by Republican allies to fill the void. His team of designers, software developers and veteran Republican strategists is now testing what he calls an "almost an eHarmony for matching volunteers with persuadable voters" that would let campaigns across the country share details in real time on voter preferences, harnessing social media like Facebook and Twitter.

Other groups are working to improve the GOP's data and digital performance.

The major Republican ally, American Crossroads, which spent a combined $175 million on the last election with its sister organization, hosted private meetings last month focused on data and technology. Drawing from technology experts in Silicon Valley, the organization helped craft a series of recommendations expected to be rolled out later this year.

"A good action plan that fixes our deficiencies and identifies new opportunities can help us regain our advantage within a cycle or two," said Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio.

A prominent group of Republican aides has also formed America Rising, a company that will have a companion "super" political action committee that can raise unlimited contributions without having to disclose its donors. Its purpose is to counter Democratic opposition research groups, which generated negative coverage of Romney and GOP candidates last year.

America Rising will provide video tracking, opposition research and rapid response for campaign committees, super PACs and individual candidates' campaigns but does not plan to get involved in GOP primaries. It will be led by Matt Rhoades, who served as Romney's campaign manager, and Joe Pounder, the research director for the Republican National Committee. Running its super PAC will be Tim Miller, a former RNC aide and spokesman for former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman.

Romney and several Republican candidates were monitored closely by camera-toting Democratic aides during the campaign, a gap that Miller said American Rising hopes to fill on behalf of Republicans.

Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said his party has "a several years' lead on data and analytics infrastructure and we're not standing still."

Of the GOP effort, Woodhouse said, "We don't see them closing the gap anytime soon."

___

Peoples reported from Boston.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gop-moves-catch-democrats-technology-065816379--election.html

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Khloe Kardashian Pregnant, Tabloid Claims/Asks: Who is the Father?!?

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Vote numbers were changed, Kenyan court told

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) ? Vote totals for Kenya's president-elect mysteriously increased between the time the ballot numbers were announced at some remote polling centers and when they reached the national tallying center in the capital, a lawyer for a civil society group told the country's Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Kenya's six-justice Supreme Court heard arguments from a civil society group and from the legal team of Prime Minister Raila Odinga asserting that the court should invalidate the election commission's declaration that Uhuru Kenyatta won the country's March 4 presidential election with 50.07 percent of the vote.

Kethi D. Kilonzo, an attorney for the African Center For Governance, played a video for the Supreme Court that she said showed Kenyatta's vote totals increased between when some local polling stations publicly announced their counts and when those numbers reached the national tallying center.

One center, in Nyeri Country, said publicly that Kenyatta had won 53,252 votes, Kilonzo said. By the time the national election commission read the result, Kenyatta's total had increased to 55,726, she said. In addition to Kenyatta gaining votes, other candidates, including Odinga, lost votes, she said.

"This is an election offense, altering the result of an election," she said.

Kenyatta cleared the crucial 50 percent mark by only 8,400 votes out of more than 12 million ballots cast, making each vote of his highly valuable. Had he gotten below the 50 percent threshold, Kenyatta and Odinga would have faced one another in a run-off.

Kilonzo told the court it should invalidate all returns from Nyeri, an action that would drop Kenyatta below the 50 percent mark.

Kenya's March 4 election was marred by myriad technical failures, including the failure of an early returns system. Kilonzo said that if the early returns system had worked properly, there would have been no way for someone to alter the ballot returns without it being noticed.

"The electronic transmission of results was not for the benefit of the (election commission), it was for the benefit of the Kenyan people," said Kilonzo, who said the commission seemed to shrug off the failure of the system as a minor technical glitch.

Kenyans across the country have been glued to TV sets this week as broadcasting networks carried the Supreme Court case.

The last time Kenyans voted for president, in late 2007, allegations of rigging to benefit President Mwai Kibaki sent thousands of Odinga supporters into the streets. Violent ethnic clashes lasting two months killed more than 1,000 people. Odinga was eventually named prime minister in a coalition government.

Since then, Kenya has passed a new constitution and upgraded its judicial system, winning praise from international partners and much of the Kenyan public.

The Supreme Court is to decide by Saturday on the petitions by civil society groups and Odinga's legal team. No major violence has been reported surrounding this year's election, but the Supreme Court decision is another potential flashpoint that could spark violence, depending largely on whether Odinga accepts the court's decision, if it rules against him.

The court on Tuesday refused to accept an 800-page affidavit submitted by Odinga's lawyers and denied Odinga access to computer logs of the election commission. Similarly, Kilonzo's side has been denied access to the election commission's voter registrar.

Mugambi Kiai, a Harvard-educated lawyer who runs Kenya's Open Society Initiative, said he thinks the Supreme Court is displaying a mindset of an "old constitutional order" that may base a decision on procedure instead of evidence. He suspects its decisions will keep Kenyatta as president.

"If by their ruling they're seen or perceived to be siding with one party or seen to be favoring one side of the argument, the next 'loser' will not go to the Supreme Court," Kiai said. "This Supreme Court has to be very, very careful. This case, it's not about Railda Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta. It's not. It's about whether in this kind of dispute the next time the 'losing party' will have faith and trust in the Supreme Court."

Kilonzo's group is trying to demonstrate not that Kenyatta didn't win but that constitutional and legal safeguards were so breached that the legitimacy of the election outcome is open to question.

George Oraro, Odinga's lawyer, told the court that variances in the number of registered voters by the electoral commission made it almost impossible to determine how many people voted.

Oraro said the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission announced that it had completed a list of persons registered to vote on February 18 as required by the law. However, the electoral commission continued to change the number of registered voters illegally after the deadline, he said.

Oraro said that the changes in the voter registrar could have affected the outcome of the elections taking into consideration Kenyatta surpassed 50 percent by only 8,400 votes.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vote-numbers-were-changed-kenyan-court-told-150718630.html

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Obama, moms to mark 100 days since Newton shooting with White House event (Washington Bureau)

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Gut-Microbe Swap Helps with Weight Loss

A bacterial transplant in mice has been shown to provide some of the benefits of gastric bypass surgery without putting the animals under the knife

By Nicola Jones and Nature magazine

Here the taxonomy of gut bacteria in mice that have received gastric bypass (red) is compared to that of mice kept at the same weight (blue) and of others that were not kept on a diet (green). Image: Science Translational Medicine/AAAS

Obese people considering gastric bypass surgery to help trim their fat might one day have another option: swallowing a new supply of gut bacteria. A study in mice suggests that weight loss after bypass surgery is caused not by the operation itself, but at least in part by a change in the amounts of various species of microbes in the gut.

A bypass operation separates off a small part of the stomach and connects that directly to the intestines. Recipients tend to feel less hungry, fill up more quickly and burn more calories at rest, and they often lose up to 75% of their excess fat. Counter-intuitively, this is thought to be caused by a change in metabolism, rather than by the reduced size of the stomach.

Gut microbes are thought to be part of this picture. People who have had bypasses are known to experience changes in the selection of microbes in their guts. Fat people have been shown to host a different selection of gut bacteria from people who are obese, and transferring the gut bacteria of fat mice into thin ones can cause the thin mice to pack on extra weight. But no one knew whether the microbes in bypass patients changed because they got thin, or if the patients got thin because the microbes changed.

Chop and change
To investigate, Lee Kaplan, director of the Obesity, Metabolism and Nutrition Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and his colleagues gave about a dozen obese mice bypass surgery. As expected, the mice lost about 29% of their body weight, and kept it off despite a high-fat diet. New conditions in their bodies ? such as a change in bile acids ? allowed a different set of gut bacteria to thrive.

The researchers then took faecal samples from the mice that had been operated on, and put bacteria from them into the guts of mice specially bred without any gut flora. These mice, which were not obese, lost 5% of their weight without any changes to their diet. The results are reported in Science Translational Medicine.

The effect is impressively large, says Randy Seeley, an obesity researcher at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, particularly given that sterile mice almost always gain weight when given any kind of gut flora. The fact that the mice getting the second-hand bacteria did not lose as much weight as those that had surgery suggests that other factors are also at work; these could include hormonal changes.

The results are promising for obesity treatments, but there are still hurdles to overcome. ?You can?t just take a pill of the right bacteria and have them stick around,? says Seeley. If the gut?s environmental conditions don?t change, then the original microbes come back, he says. Kaplan says that the next steps are to isolate the four bacteria types that the study found to be at play and introduce them into obese mice or people. Antibiotic treatments might help the new bacteria to stick. ?I believe it?s possible,? says Kaplan.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on March 27, 2013.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=b5aeffc26bd0cbb192e4e92698c948d7

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Man Shoots Deer In Walmart Parking Lot, Pennsylvania Police Charge (VIDEO)

BLAIRSVILLE, Pa. -- They say you can get almost anything at Wal-Mart. But the Pennsylvania Game Commission says one deer hunter took it too far.

Forty-year-old Arcangelo Bianco Jr. is charged with reckless endangerment and hunting law violations for allegedly shooting across a highway to kill a 10-point buck he spotted in a Wal-Mart parking lot in November.

Defense attorney Jason Huska declined comment Wednesday on the specific allegations but says his client denies wrongdoing. Bianco faces a preliminary hearing May 1 on charges reported by the Indiana Gazette (http://bit.ly/YEmOVY).

Wildlife Conservation Officer Jack Lucas says Bianco fired several shots in the parking lot then retrieved the deer from the side of the highway opposite the store, about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Lucas says the buck is one of the nicest taken in the county in recent years.

___

Information from: The Indiana Gazette, http://www.indianagazette.com

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/27/man-shoots-deer-walmart_n_2967768.html

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