Allan Calhamer, creator of game 'Diplomacy,' dies

CHICAGO (AP) ? As a kid rooting around in the attic of his boyhood home, Allan Calhamer stumbled across an old book of maps and became entranced by faraway places that no longer existed, such as the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires.

That discovery and a brewing fascination with world politics and international affairs were the genesis of "Diplomacy," the board game he would create years later as a history student at Harvard University in the 1950s. After its commercial release in 1959, the game earned a loyal legion of fans in the U.S. and elsewhere that reportedly included President John F. Kennedy, Henry Kissinger and Walter Cronkite, among others.

Calhamer died Monday at a hospital in the western Chicago suburbs where he grew up, his daughter Selenne Calhamer-Boling said. He was 81.

"He was brilliant and iconoclastic and designed this game that's played around the world, and he's adored by nerds throughout the world," his daughter said by phone Saturday. "But at the end of the day he was a great dad. He was at all the T-ball games and all the screechy, horrible orchestra concerts and all the klutzy ballet recitals. I guess that's how I'll remember him."

Calhamer tested early versions of the game out on Harvard classmates before perfecting it. After its commercial release, Avalon Hill bought the rights and helped make it an international hit. The game is still for sale, and was re-released in 1999 with a colorful new map and metal pieces.

Players represent seven European powers at the beginning of the 20th century and vie for dominance by strategically forging and breaking alliances. Unlike "Risk," there are no dice, and a player's success is largely based on his or her negotiating skills.

Inspiration for the game was also supplied by a Harvard professor who taught a class in 19th-century Europe and wrote a book called "Origins of the World War."

Calhamer said in a 2009 interview with Chicago magazine that reading the book recalled for him the atlas in his parents' attic.

"That brought everything together," Calhamer told the magazine. "I thought, 'What a board game that would make.'"

After graduating in 1953, Calhamer followed a fanciful path, living for a time on Walden Pond because he was fan of Henry David Thoreau's famous work and later working as a park ranger at the Statue of Liberty.

In his late 30s, he met his wife, Hilda, in New York. At her insistence they settled in his hometown of La Grange Park, Ill. Calhamer-Boling said her father then shed his "dilettante" ways and picked up a steady job as a postman, which allowed him pursue hobbies and his art. He tried developing other games, as well, but they never caught on, she said.

Since his death, emails have been pouring in to the family from "Diplomacy" fans around the world who wanted to convey how much the game meant to them, Calhamer-Boling said.

The moving messages were not what she expected.

"I always think of it as such an intellectual game because it's so strategic," she said. "But what I'm seeing over and over again in these emails is that the recurring theme is: 'I was a really really nerdy awkward kid who had trouble relating to people, but because 'Diplomacy' required interpersonal skills and required you to get people to do what you wanted them to do that's how I built my social skills.'"

Calhamer is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/allan-calhamer-creator-game-diplomacy-dies-235111850--politics.html

Bob Ross Hurricane Categories Hurricane Sandy new jersey atlantic city ocean city maryland Nexus 7

Parenting Politics?In My House | The Mamafesto

With heavy media focus on?Yahoo!?s Marissa Meyer and Facebook?s Sheryl Sandberg, it?s no wonder that the topic of motherhood is as newsworthy as ever. Yet, this focus seems very narrow, limiting the discussion solely to mothers and work, when in reality we could stand to broaden the conversation to both parents and how they manage the work/life balance. Motherhood doesn?t exist in a bubble, and if we want to discuss the challenges facing working mothers, it would behoove us to look at how entire families manage their balancing acts. I?m not the only one who?d like to see a shift in how we talk about these things.

My friend Annie from PhD In Parenting?-??who has written about Meyer and Sandberg before?-??is eager for the focus on the work/life balance to move beyond a women?s issue to one that is a parenting issue. In hopes of widening the conversation, Annie has put out a call, asking for parents to write about their own households ?and what the parenting split looks like within it. I asked Annie more about her motivation behind this call for stories:

There are two things that prompted me. One is the continued focus on work/life balance as a women?s issue. I?d like to see it be a people?s issue.?Why do women need to worry about whether their workplace has family friendly policies, while men (and men?s bosses) just assume they?ll keep on doing what they did in the same way they did before they had kids? The other reason is that I keep being told that equally shared parenting is impossible if the mom breastfeeds. I know that isn?t true (it wasn?t in our home) and I want to provide some examples for how you can breastfeed and still maintain equality.

I?m all for adding more stories to the narrative of parenting, and said that I would be happy to share my own?

We need to start by going back in time, about ten years ago. I was teaching high school social studies and was the primary wage earner while MD was in school full time working on his doctorate. That?s the way our unit of two worked for four years. I paid the bills, and MD wracked them up (well, okay, he wracked up student loans, but we?re still paying for them, so?.). Then, just as he finished his program, we got pregnant. Literally, on the day he graduated, I woke up, peed on a stick and bam ? we were having a baby!

We also decided to move out of state that summer. MD had a job waiting for him, and I was finishing up my Masters thesis, which I had began two years earlier (Yes. I simultaneously worked full time while working on my MA). At the time we moved, I was already 6 months pregnant, and couldn?t fathom starting over teaching at a new school only to leave 3 months in for maternity leave, so I opted to focus on my studies. MD, with his new job, was the primary wage earner now. Our roles were reversed but things went on as usual.

If by usual you mean hula hooping in the yard while pregnant. Then, yeah. The usual.

I firmly believe that it was because we had both been the sole wage earner at a point in our relationship that we were able to easily slide into an equitable parenting relationship. We had already done away with the traditional gender roles, so we didn?t fall into that trap either accidentally or willingly.

When the kiddo was born, I was in the editing phase of my thesis, and still focused on my academics. MD was working, but manage to scrap together a month off between paid family leave, paid vacation, and unpaid time off from work. I also firmly believe that MD having an entire month off from work helped solidify are more equitable parenting structure, and I can only imagine the benefits our family would have received had he been eligible for more. (Alas, in this country, we know that ain?t happening).

Here?s a breakdown of parenting in the Norman Nathman household through the years:

-When the kiddo was a wee one, neither of us slept much, but we slept enough. We breastfed, which necessitated me being up with the kiddo at all hours of the night. However, in the beginning, he was also making a lot of wet and dirty diapers. Since I was the one up to feed him, MD was the one to deal with the diapers. I was able to fall asleep much faster/easier and MD is the master of going right back to deep sleep, so he was fine. Breaking up the nighttime parenting like that caused less resentment on either of our parts and assured that we both got some sleep ? which is totally better than no sleep. I?ll be honest and say that co-sleeping was also key for us. I know it doesn?t work for everyone, but being able to roll over, get my son nursing and essentially fall back to sleep was huge in allowing me to feel like I wasn?t running on fumes 24/7.

Our family of 3
(6 years ago!)

-While MD was home in that first month, pretty much everything else was equal ? we shared meal prep, cleaning, baby stuff, etc? After he went to work, only a few things changed. I took on a bit more responsibility when it came to household chores, most notably laundry and grocery shopping, but everything else remained fairly equal.

- Babywearing was our savior. Seriously. I know not every baby enjoys being worn, but EZ was all about it. MD would pop the kiddo into a sling or mei tai and head off on a walk or go do the dishes. I could get things done while wearing him that I doubt I could have accomplished otherwise. Babywearing helped keep us sane well into the toddler years, and prevented many arguments about nap time ? both between parents and parent & child.

A father, his son, and an Ergo.

-Now, with the kiddo being 6 (SIX!) years old, and both of us working, it?s a little bit different but still pretty equal. We both have strange schedules ? since I work primarily out of the home, my time is a bit more flexible, however MD only works 4 days a week, so he has some flexibility as well. We split school drop off/pick up between ourselves depending on who is home or who has appointments, etc? EZ has a few after school activities that also get split evenly depending on who is home (as in, if MD is off work, he?s the one taking the kiddo). Grocery shopping is an even split now as well, same goes for cooking. We each tackle cleaning in our own ways. I prefer to clean as I go, whereas MD enjoys doing one huge deep clean every 2 weeks or so. It balances the housework nicely and we manage to have a decently clean house (save for the hundreds of Lego pieces that still manage to fall under foot).

-When he?s home, MD is the go-to parent when it comes to bedtime, and I only do it when he?s working past 8 (which happens 2x/week). The kiddo is old enough to do bath time by himself and he also pitches in with some chores. I?m more than happy to have him see his father fold laundry, wash dishes, make dinner, as well as seeing me take out the trash, do minor fix-it type jobs around the house, etc?

-As I type this, on a Saturday morning, MD and EZ are downstairs playing Wii after having read books together. I?ve worked on our taxes and typed up this post. Our weekends are usually split between things we want to do and things we have to do ? each of us gets some alone time if we want/need it.

I don?t think of our family as remarkable in any sense, but I do think we?re outside the norm when it comes to our parenting split. I don?t think of my husband as my son?s babysitter and he doesn?t see himself in that role either. Sure there are days when I take on the brunt of household chores or parenting responsibilities, but the pendulum swings both ways. Next weekend I?ll be gone for a couple of days, but I have no worries over what will happen while I?m away. MD doesn?t live up to or default to the ?big oaf? daddy trap ? it?s insulting to both of us. He?s a parent just as much as I am. Our parenting methods might differ, but our goals are the same.

I will say though, that we do get some pushback from those outside our family. MD?s place of work sometimes doesn?t understand why he tries to rearrange his schedule to be able to attend school or sports events. When he wanted to take a month off after the birth if EZ, he was met with a bit of resistance and a lot of bewilderment from his boss who couldn?t comprehend why MD would want to be home with his family. Also, because I work from home, there?s a lot of expectation from others that I take on all?of?the housework since ?it?s just so convenient!? There is still definitely an overall attitude that women ? by default ? take on the majority of household chores, regardless of their work status. If a woman chooses to be a homemaker, then I can understand that thought, but otherwise? We all live here, we all pitch in, it?s as simple as that. We?re raising our son so that he understands the value of equality, both inside the home as well as outside of it.

However, I would be remiss if I didn?t mention our village that helps us out, made up of both biological family and chosen family. Our intentional community of friends and relatives help us out from carpooling, playmates, shared meals, in times of need, etc? That helps lighten the load for all of us. We are also fortunate to have work that, despite some unique challenges, affords us with a good degree of flexibility.

All that said ? it?s far from perfect here. There are days where the house is littered with rumpled baskets of clean clothes because nobody feels like folding them. We probably eat take out more than we?d prefer simply because we get too lazy/busy to cook. I?m fairly certain my kitchen floors haven?t been washed in months (they look clean, so?) and there?s usually a dirty pot or dish in the sink. But, for the most part we?re happy, healthy, and usually have clean underwear, so I?d say we?re managing pretty well.

Yeah, it can get messy, but we have fun.

What about you? What?s the situation like in your house? Are their two working parents? One parent working the other at home? Just one parent? What does the work/life balance look like in your home?

Like this:

Like Loading...

Source: http://themamafesto.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/parenting-politics-in-my-house/

dst friends with kids pacific standard time northern mariana islands summer time coolio ricky rubio

In telecommuting debate, Aetna sticks by big at-home workforce

(Reuters) - For more than six years, Tammy Saunders has woken at 5:30 a.m., showered, dressed and walked upstairs - to her office.

A nurse practitioner, Saunders works as a case manager for Hartford, Connecticut-based health insurer Aetna Inc, helping college students recovering from accidents or surgery get the follow-up services they need.

The bonuses? No ironing, no commute and no need for after-school care for the kids. Also, less chatting with other employees - so fewer distractions.

"There are days when I sit at my desk, and I don't move all day," said Saunders, a proud member of the 47 percent of Aetna employees who work at home. She lives 20 minutes away from headquarters by car.

Of course, that also means no coffee breaks, lunches or group chats about, say, the Oscars. "I miss them, but not enough to go back into the office."

Ever since Yahoo!'s new chief executive, Marissa Mayer, called at-home workers back to the office last Friday, American workplaces are buzzing with debate over the benefits of telecommuting. Mayer said employees needed to be back together to innovate better at the technology firm.

Silicon Valley may swear by its brainstorming-together-in-the-office culture, but many private companies and even the federal government have put their weight behind telecommuting.

In 2012, 63 percent of companies allowed employees to work some hours from home compared with 34 percent in 2005, according to the National Study of Employers, which was produced by the Society for Human Resource Management and the Families and Work Institute.

A 2010 survey by SHRM, the human resources industry's largest trade group, said that providing flexible work arrangements such as telecommuting, part-time work and phased-in retirement was the best way to attract and retain the best workers. And 20 percent of companies allow workers to work full-time from home.

Of health insurer Aetna's 35,000 employees, 14,500 do not have a desk at Aetna, a move that the company's top executives, CEO Mark Bertolini and national business chief Joseph Zubretsky, have said helps cut costs in real estate.

Another almost 2,000 people work from home a few days a week, putting teleworkers at 47 percent of its total.

That number has grown steadily since 2005, when about 9 percent of its employees were logging on outside of an office. Another 1,800 people spend half their time in an Aetna office. In part, that migration was hastened when the company closed down its Middletown, Connecticut campus in 2010, home to some 4,000 employees.

Through telecommuting, the company has cut 2.7 million square feet of office space at $29 a square foot, for about $78 million in cost savings a year including utilities, housekeeping, mail service and document shredding.

Teleworkers, who in addition to nurses and physicians include customer service representatives, claims processors, network managers, communications and human resources professionals, lawyers, underwriters, actuaries and others, have high productivity, Aetna says. Many are likely to be women as about three-quarters of the company's workforce is female.

SO HAPPY NOT TOGETHER

The company has built a culture around it. When CEO Bertolini, an admitted technophile, does his quarterly company-wide address, Aetna's employees don't dial into a conference call, they watch a video conference.

Another benefit of teleworking is retention, with annual voluntary turnover for those Aetna employees who work at home in the 2 to 3 percent range, Bertolini said this week at the Detroit Economic Club where he spoke to local business and health care leaders. That compares with company-wide turnover that is about 8 percent.

Shelly Ferensic is head of claims at Aetna, which processes 1 million claims a day. Her department has 2,000 employees around the country, about half of whom work from home.

These processors are responsible for handling more than 100 medical or dental claims a day, a largely electronic job. They receive the claims online, work out issues such as which provider needs to be reimbursed and then push them out.

Aetna provides a secure laptop or desktop computer, a separate modem and router, a separate phone line, a paper shredder and a locking file cabinet. Before workers can start, the company inspects the home office.

Ferensic, who works out of an office in Jacksonville, Florida, says that the claims teleworkers are 10 to 20 percent more productive than their in-office counterparts and produce comparable quality.

"They work a 40-hour work week, but it's flexible as long as they put in the hours and meet their productivity objective," she said. They are measured on producing a certain number of average claims per hour.

Workers have webcams on their computers for monthly one-on-one meetings, attend videoconferences and work with a local office for support.

The main downsides are that employees who work at home aren't there to meet with customers and some issues have to be handled in person, Ferensic said, who has also worked from home.

And there is a limit to how much the company can handle in terms of at-home workforce and still ensure an Aetna culture.

"I think it's reached a point where it's a comfortable number at about half. I don't envision growing it much from that," Ferensic said, referring to her division.

(Reporting by Caroline Humer in New York; Editing by Jilian Mincer, Mary Milliken and Tim Dobbyn)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/telecommuting-debate-aetna-sticks-big-home-workforce-051356649--sector.html

Stacy Dash Amber Tamblyn Lilit Avagyan Nashville TV Show VP debate drew brees drew brees

How the Sequester Will Affect Science and Technology

At midnight tonight, the federal government's budget sequester kicks in. That means—if congressional leaders and President Obama can't sort out their disagreements over the country's finances—$85 billion will be cut from the 2013 budgets for government programs. Space exploration, medical research, and technology investment are just a few of the items on the block. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Uogm5YmrJPA/how-the-sequester-will-affect-science-and-technology

10 year old gives birth c. difficile carmelo anthony nurse jackie nurse jackie peeps nhl playoffs

US economy expanded, barely, at end of 2012

Reuters ? ? ? 31 min.

The U.S. economy barely grew in the fourth quarter although a slightly better performance in exports and fewer imports led the government to scratch an earlier estimate that showed an economic contraction.

Gross domestic product expanded at a 0.1 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, missing the 0.5 percent gain forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.

The growth rate was the slowest since the first quarter of 2011 and far from what is needed to fuel a faster drop in the unemployment rate.

However, much of the weakness came from a slowdown in inventory accumulation and a sharp drop in military spending. These factors are expected to reverse in the first quarter.

Consumer spending was more robust by comparison, although it only expanded at a 2.1 percent annual rate.

Because household spending powers about 70 percent of national output, this still-lackluster pace of growth suggests underlying momentum in the economy was quite modest as it entered the first quarter, when significant fiscal tightening began.

Initially, the government had estimated the economy shrank at a 0.1 percent annual rate in the last three months of 2012. That had shocked economists.

Thursday's report showed the reasons for the decline were mostly as initially estimated. Inventories subtracted 1.55 percentage points from the GDP growth rate during the period, a little more of a drag than initially estimated. Defense spending plunged 22 percent, shaving 1.28 points off growth as in the previous estimate.

There were some relatively bright spots, however. Imports fell 4.5 percent during the period, which added to the overall growth rate because it was a larger drop than in the third quarter. Buying goods from foreigners bleeds money from the economy, subtracting from economic growth.

Also helping reverse the initial view of an economic contraction, exports did not fall as much during the period as the government had thought when it released its advance GDP estimate in January. Exports have been hampered by a recession in Europe, a cooling Chinese economy and storm-related port disruptions.

Excluding the volatile inventories component, GDP rose at a revised 1.7 percent rate, in line with expectations. These final sales of goods and services had been previously estimated to have increased at a 1.1 percent pace.

Business spending was revised to show more growth during the period than initially thought, adding about a percentage point to the growth rate.

Growth in home building was revised slightly higher to show a 17.5 percent annual rate. Residential construction is one of the brighter spots in the economy and is benefiting from the Federal Reserve's ultra easy monetary policy stance, which has driven mortgage rates to record lows. (Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/us-economy-expanded-barely-end-2012-1C8611202

brad pitt and angelina jolie brad and angelina herniated disc luke scott tom benson royals nicole richie

Evernote updated, adds new PDF viewer, Snippets, and more

Evernote has been updated to version 5.2, adding a slew of new features, including an improved PDF viewer, Snippets, new formatting options, and new features for Evernote Business. The new PDF viewer includes a multipage preview screen for PDFs, a rotation lock, and the ability to view two pages at once by changing your iPad?s orientation.

The iPad version can now display your notes as Snippets. First, change the note view from a grid to a list by pulling the note list down and tapping the icon in the upper right corner. Then select your desired note to open it in a panel that slides over.

The new formatting options are Simplify Formatting and Plain Text. Simplify Formatting is used to clean up formatting issues that you may encounter in a note, especially a web clip. Plain text formatting discards all rich text and images, leaving only text.

Evernote Business users will are now able to designate their business notebooks as offline, allowing their notes to load instantly without the need for an internet connection. Business users may now also view their company?s Business Library on the iPad.

The iPad version also gains the ability to view the Evernote Trunk, a curated list of apps, services and devices that connect to Evernote. Along with all of these enhancements, Evernote 5.2 contains a number of bug fixes and smaller improvements.

The update is free on the App Store.

• Free - Download Now

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/QbXD5M4S4FA/story01.htm

torrey smith oakland raiders Jessica Lange NFL scores week 3 kat dennings Steve Sabol Yom Kippur 2012

NYC hot dog carts, small business with big impact - CNN Radio News

By Steve Kastenbaum, CNN

Follow on Twitter: @SKastenbaumCNN

Editor's Note:?Listen to the full story in our player above, and join the conversation in our comments section below.

(CNN) ? Hot dog carts, with their blue and yellow awnings, are practically on every street corner in New York City.

No one pays much attention to the vendors other than during the 15-20 seconds it takes to buy a hot dog and a drink. But if you stopped to talk to one you might be surprised to learn how mighty the small sidewalk business is.

[4:16] ?It provides my rent money, provides my kids? tution, pays for Greek school, pays for my daughter?s ballet school, her tutor lessons. So it?s all from me for here.? said Gus Argy.

He?s the third generation of his family to man the hot dog cart across the street from New York?s City Hall.

The hot dog cart has even paid for retirement homes in Greece.

[1:21] ?My uncle? He lived in Queens, he raised two kids, he had a wife, he bought a couple of houses? he made a house in Greece. He lived comfortably. He worked seven days a week, though.?

Today, a grilled hot dog will run you $2. For $1.75 you can get one that has been sitting in boiled water all day earning it the street nickname ?dirty water dog.?

Source: http://cnnradio.cnn.com/2013/02/28/nyc-hot-dog-carts-small-business-with-big-impact/

Skyfall Chicago Marathon 2012 texas rangers steve jobs meningitis bobby valentine bobby valentine