Letters to the Editor: Lake Apopka aquarium, Presidents Day worth parade, teen drivers

Lake Apopka aquarium?

The Sentinel article "Tourists for Lake Apopka's Future?" on Feb. 8, describing the more than $180 million expenditure by state and local government to resurrect Lake Apopka, has Orange County Commissioner Fred Brummer asking, "How do we make these improvements on Lake Apopka work for us?"

The answer: an aquarium.

In the 1940s, the city of San Diego launched a long-term dredging project to turn a salt-water marsh and refuse dump (an embarrasment to the city) into a splashy aquatic playground. Waterways encircled islands with beaches and marinas for deep-sea excursions.

The project was completed in 1961 and Mission Bay Aquatic Park emerged. Entrepeneur George Millay thought this would be the perfect location for his new aquarium, SeaWorld, and the rest is tourism history.

An aquarium showcasing fish and aquatic animals native to the lakes, rivers and streams of Florida would attract tourists and locals alike, and its educational value would be priceless, since Lake Apopka is a perfect example of how human encroachment can affect Florida's delicate ecosystem.

If the TV show "River Monsters" can generate revenue, just think what an aquarium displaying lunker bass, giant softshell turtles and the formidable gar could do. And all of these lake monsters call Central Florida home.

Greg May Orlando

Presidents Day worth at least a parade

I would like to know why Presidents Day isn't more celebrated.

There were five parades in Central Florida celebrating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and I have no problem with that. He was a great man.

It's bad enough that two of our most famous presidents' holidays have been lumped into one day, as Russell Troutman so ably explained in Monday's My Word column, "Washington, Lincoln deserve own holidays."

But it's sad and despicable that the first president of our fine country, who led troops through two wars and brought our country out of its infancy into a world power, isn't honored more openly.

And neither is Abraham Lincoln, who led America through its own civil war, in which hundreds of thousands died to end slavery. He, like King, died because of his beliefs.

Two presidents, two heroes, who are chiseled into rock and whose faces are put onto our money because they were so great.

No parades, no honorary programs. Just another day off for government workers and some schools and discounts at local retailers.

Why aren't these men honored?

David Tonger Apopka

Shock teen drivers into watching roads

Teens and driving distractions cause a lot of accidents and, many times, death. Not only drivers, but innocent victims get hurt or lose their lives.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/orlandosentinel/news/opinion/~3/PVc-PHUobIA/story01.htm

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Apple: 2013 Retina MacBook Pro

13in MacBook Pro with Retina display 2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)

Apple, apple.com/au

Pros?

Dazzling Retina display; reduced screen glare;?USB 3.0 support HDMI connectivity; drastic price reduction; faster processor over predecessor

Cons?

Users will need to adjust for missing features; memory and storage not user upgradeable; limited to 8GB of memory

$1849

15in MacBook Pro with Retina display 2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)

Apple, apple.com/au

Pros?

Reduced screen glare; top-notch performance; slim and lightweight;?USB 3.0 support;?HDMI connectivity; stunning Retina display

Cons?

Users will need to adjust for missing features;?1920-by-1200 creates small UI elements; memory and storage not user upgradeable

$2499

15in MacBook Pro with Retina display 2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)

Apple, apple.com/au

Pros?

Reduced screen glare; top-notch performance; slim and lightweight;?USB 3.0 support;?HDMI connectivity; stunning Retina display

Cons?

Users will need to adjust for missing features;?1920-by-1200 creates small UI elements; memory and storage not user upgradeable

$3199

Reviews

In the?latest update?to the?Retina MacBook Pro, some models got price cuts, some received slightly faster processors, and some got a healthy bump in the amount of RAM. Anyone who purchased a Retina MacBook Pro prior to this refresh shouldn?t kick themselves for making the leap, but the reduced cost for the 13in models and faster performance for the 15in models make these thin, light, and fast laptops a better deal than ever.

Let?s be specific

From the outside, the 2013 Retina MacBook Pros look identical to the 2012 models. Our previous reviews of the original?13in?and?15in?Retina MacBook Pros contain more details on the look and feel of these laptops. But here?s a short summary of the specifications.

All of the Retina MacBook Pros have two USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt ports, a MagSafe 2 power connector, a headphone jack, and an SDXD card slot. As with last year?s Retina MacBook Pros, RAM is not user-upgradable; but luckily, the standard 8GB of memory is sufficient for all but the most demanding users. If you require more than 8GB of RAM, you will need to move to a 15in Retina MacBook Pro which can be configured with 16GB of RAM.

The 13in models feature LED backlit screens with 2560-by-1600-pixel resolution and a pixel density of 227 pixels per square inch. This extremely high resolution ? four times higher than that of the MacBook Pros with standard screens ? makes the individual pixels in an image virtually undetectable. The 13in Retina MacBook Pro is just 1.9cm thick and weighs 1.62kg. The non-Retina 13in MacBook Pro is 2.41cm thick and weighs 2.06kg.

The 13in base model?s specifications remain unchanged, but its price has dropped to $1649. It has a 2.5GHz dual-core Core i5 processor with Intel?s?Turbo Boost?technology, which allows the processor to reach speeds of up to 3.1GHz for short periods of high demand. The Core i5 processors in the 13in MacBook Pros do not support?Hyper-Threading, an Intel technology that allows applications to access two virtual cores for each physical processor. The base model has 8GB of 1600MHz memory, 128GB of speedy flash storage, and integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000.

At $1849, the new high-end 13in Retina MacBook Pro costs $350 less than its predecessor. Even with the reduced price, the system comes with a slightly faster processor ? a 2.6GHz Core i5, versus the 2.5GHz Core i5 in the previous model. Like the $1649 model, this system comes with 8GB of 1600MHz memory (not upgradable) and Intel?s integrated HD Graphics 4000. The $1849 model includes 256GB of flash storage, twice the capacity of the $1649 13in Retina MacBook Pro.

The new 15in Retina MacBook Pros have 2880-by-1800-pixel resolution, with a slightly lower pixel density ? 220 ppi ? than the 13in Retina model. The 15in Retina MacBook Pro is actually 1mm thinner than the 13in Retina MacBook Pro, and weighs in at 2.02kg, about the same as the non-Retina 13in MacBook Pro.

The new 15in models cost the same as their predecessors ($2499 and $3199), but the base model now has a faster, 2.4GHz Core i7 quad-core processor and supports both Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost. It also features the same 8GB of 1600MHz memory (upgradable to 16GB for $240 more, but only at the point of purchase) and 256GB of flash storage as before, as well as both integrated and discrete graphics in the form of Intel?s HD Graphics 4000 and Nvidia?s GeForce GT 650M with 1GB of GDDR5 memory. The high-end 15in Retina MacBook Pro has a faster 2.7GHz Core i7 quad-core processor, a whopping 16GB of 1600MHz memory, and the same 500GB of flash storage and dual integrated/discrete graphics as the previous high-end standard-configuration Retina MacBook Pro.

All about performance

To see how these new updates affect performance, we ran our?Speedmark 8?overall system performance benchmark suite, which helps us compare the new system?s results to those of previous systems and other Apple portables. The new 13in 2.6GHz Retina MacBook Pro earned a Speedmark 8 score of 190, about 3 percent faster than the 13in base model with its 2.5GHz Core i5 processor. With both systems sharing so many specifications (graphics, flash storage, RAM), its not surprising that most tests results were very close, and some were even identical.

The high-end 13in 2.6GHz Core i5?Retina MacBook Pro?s Speedmark 8 score was 24 percent higher than that of the high-end 13in 2.9GHz Core i7?standard MacBook Pro, due almost entirely to the Retina MacBook Pro?s faster flash storage. The 13in Retina MacBook Pro was faster in seven tests, including a file duplication test that took five times longer to complete on the non-Retina MacBook Pro?s standard 5400-rpm hard drive. The standard MacBook Pro, with its discrete graphics and speedier Core i7 processor, was faster in seven tests, including MathematicaMark 8, Portal 2, and Cinebench?s OpenGL and CPU tests.

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Speedmark 8 Scores

	Speedmark 8 score
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	284
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	270
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	190
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	184
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	275
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	257
13in MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	153
13in MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	166
15in MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	104
15in MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	67

All results are scores. Higher scores are better. Best result in?bold. Reference models in?italics.?Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith, Albert Filice, and Kean Bartelman.

If you?re trying to decide between a MacBook Air and a Retina MacBook Pro, you?ll be interested to know that the Retina MacBook Pro was 14 percent faster overall, with processor-intensive tests showing the biggest differences. The Retina MacBook Pro was 40 percent faster than the MacBook Air in our Handbrake test, 17 percent faster in the Cinebench CPU test, and 7 percent faster in the MathematicaMark 8 test. The extra RAM in the MacBook Pro helped it earn a 34 percent higher productivity score in PCMark running on Windows 7 using VMWare Fusion.

Despite having twice the amount of RAM and slightly faster processor, the new high-end 15in Retina MacBook Pro was just 3 percent faster than the previous high-end 15in model that had the same graphics and flash storage. The new high-end model was 5 percent faster overall than the new base 15in Retina model. When comparing the performance of the new low-end 15in Retina MacBook Pro and the new high-end 13in Retina MacBook Pro, you see a very large difference between the two, with the 15in model being 47 percent faster overall. In both Portal 2 and Cinebench?s OpenGL tests, the discrete graphics in the 15in model displayed more than twice as many frames per second as the 13in model?s integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000.

Bottom line

The new Retina MacBook Pros represent a subtle refresh to the line of beautiful, ultra-high-resolution portables introduced last year. The price reductions for the 13in models make them a better bargain than before, while the 16GB of RAM in the high-end 15in MacBook Pro might help take the sting out of the $3199 price tag.

?

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Individual application scores

	Duplicate 2GB Folder	Compress 6GB Folder	Uncompress 6GB Folder
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	37.4	274.2	34.9
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	36.8	304.1	38.8
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	39.5	319.1	42.6
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	40.7	329.1	43.7
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	37.7	286.8	41.2
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	38.2	312.1	41.9
13in MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	189.9	312.6	187.2
13in MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	41.8	361.8	48.9
15in MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	258.6	451.8	225.8
15in MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	435.5	525.9	438.5

Results are in seconds. Lower results are better. Best result in?bold. Reference models in?italics.

?

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Individual application scores

	Import iMovie Archive	iMovie Share to iTunes	HandBrake Encode
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	42.7	55.4	79.7
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	47.2	57.6	80
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	81.7	66.6	107
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	85.1	70.3	108.7
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	45.1	59.3	81.3
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	48.8	66.9	84.3
13in MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	98.6	67.8	107.3
13in MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	95.1	74.9	177.7
15in MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	88.1	104.3	117.7
15in MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	210.9	160.7	161.3

Results are in seconds. Lower results are better. Best result in?bold. Reference models in?italics.

?

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Individual application scores

	iPhoto Import	Aperture Import	Photoshop CS5 Action
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	43.3	50.3	88.7
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	47	49.2	91.3
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	77	62.7	106.7
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	82.3	64.5	108.0
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	46.1	51.4	89.3
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	51.4	54.9	90.7
13in MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	121.9	85.3	104.3
13in MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	82	72.5	120.7
15in MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	155.6	118.1	176.7
15in MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	268.3	198.5	374

Results are in seconds. Lower results are better. Best result in?bold. Reference models in?italics.

?

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Individual application scores

	iTunes AAC to MP3 Encode	Cinebench CPU	VMware PCMark	Mathe- maticaMark 8
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	88	64	4061	2.01
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	93	67.3	3828.3	1.93
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	103.3	141	3286	1.07
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	108.7	147.0	3061.7	1.07
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	90.7	64.7	4184	2.0
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	96.3	73.7	3714.3	1.9
13in MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	105.7	121.7	3495	1.2
13in MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	115.7	170.3	2450	1.0
15in MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	134	203	911.3	0.7
15in MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	156.3	294	660	0.6

iTunes and Cinebench CPU results are in seconds (lower results are better). VMware PCMark and MathematicaMark 8 are scores (higher results are better). Best result in?bold. Reference models in?italics.

?

Early 2013 Retina MacBook Pros: Graphics tests

	Cinebench OpenGL	Portal 2
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.7GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	39.3	129.9
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.4GHz Core i7 (Early 2013)	36.7	122.4
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i5 (Early 2013)	17.7	49.6
13in Retina MacBook Pro/2.5GHz Core i5 (Late 2012)	17.7	49.3
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	39.2	128.6
15in Retina MacBook Pro/2.3GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	36.1	120.8
13in MacBook Pro/2.9GHz Core i7 (Mid 2012)	21.8	61
13in MacBook Air/1.8GHz Core i5 (Mid 2012)	17.8	52.3
15in MacBook Pro/2.53GHz Core i5 (Mid 2010)	12.4	49.8
15in MacBook Pro/2.6GHz Core 2 Duo BTO (Early 2008)	9.8	28

Results are in frames per second. HIgher results are better. Best result in?bold. Reference models in?italics.

Source: http://www.macworld.com.au/reviews/apple-2013-retina-macbook-pro-87570/

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Ex-Spice Girl Brown named new 'Talent' judge

NEW YORK (AP) ? NBC says former Spice Girl Melanie Brown is joining the judges' panel of "America's Got Talent."

Brown, also known as Scary Spice during her time with the 1990s pop group, will take her seat alongside Howie Mandel and Howard Stern when the variety competition show returns for its eighth season this summer on NBC.

Brown was previously a contestant on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." In 2010, she starred with her family in a reality series for The Style Network.

She recently completed a two-season run as judge on the Australian edition of "The X Factor" and for one season was co-host of the Australian "Dancing With the Stars."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ex-spice-girl-brown-named-talent-judge-184342048.html

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Miner NWR posts biggest quarterly loss since listing

PRAGUE (Reuters) - Czech miner New World Resources reported its biggest quarterly loss since its 2008 stock market debut on Thursday, as the weak global economy reduced steelmakers' demand for its coal.

New World Resources (NWR), which supplies the central European units of steelmakers ArcelorMittal and Evraz , said on Thursday trading was likely to stay tough in the first half of this year, but could improve thereafter.

"We are going to have a difficult first half, there is no doubt about that," Executive Chairman Gareth Penny told Reuters.

"Have we reached the bottom and are we on the way up? I believe so. It will take some time for that to feed through into the financials," he added.

NWR shares dropped as much as 7.3 percent on the results.

The $500-billion-a-year steel industry, a gauge of the global economy, slowed sharply last year as a moderation in China's economic growth compounded weak demand from austerity-ravaged Europe.

Global crude steel production rose just 1.2 percent in 2012, compared with 6.8 percent in 2011, although there are signs a pick up in growth from Asia could help deliver a better 2013.

NWR swung to a fourth-quarter net loss of 48.6 million euros ($65 million), hit by falling coal prices and a one-off loss of 15 million euros from an inventory revaluation.

That was worse than analysts' average estimate of a 35.6- million-euros loss in a Reuters poll, and compared with an 8.8-million-euro profit in the corresponding period in 2011.

NO DIVIDEND, BRIGHTER COKING COAL OUTLOOK

NWR, which owns hard coal mines in the north-east of the Czech Republic, said it would not pay a dividend for the second half of 2012.

Coal sales reached 9.7 million tonnes in 2012, down 9 percent on 2011, with an almost equal split between thermal coal and higher-margin coking coal.

NWR expects coking coal prices to improve in 2013 after a slight rise in the first quarter, but the thermal coal market will remain difficult, resulting in only a gradual sale of inventories during 2013, it said.

It ended 2012 with coal inventories of 1.3 million tonnes.

NWR reiterated guidance on coal production of 10 million to 11 million tonnes in 2013 after 11.2 million tonnes in 2012.

It said it was targeting sales of 9.5 million to 10.5 million tonnes, split equally between coking and thermal coal.

The company expects capital investments to range between 120 million and 130 million euros this year, including 10 million on a project to open its Polish mine Debiensko, after a technical revision of the site. However, the unfavourable market conditions warrant a cautious approach to the project, NWR said.

"In light of the current market conditions, we will limit our progress on site in 2013 to the purchase of surface properties and project value engineering," NWR said.

At 1045 GMT, NWR shares were down 3.6 percent at 84 crowns, compared with a 1.2 percent decline in Prague's PX <.px> index.

($1 = 0.7479 euros)

(Writing by Jana Mlcochova and Jason Hovet; Editing by David Goodman and Mark Potter)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/miner-nwr-posts-biggest-quarterly-loss-since-listing-111449693--finance.html

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The Engadget Podcast is live tonight at 5PM!

Remember all that talk last week about the slow down between CES and MWC? Not this week, man. No way. PlayStations, HTCs and a whole lot more dropped in the past seven days. Join us after the break at 5PM. We've got lots to talk about.

February 21, 2013 5:00 PM EST

Filed under: Podcasts

Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/21/engadget-podcast/

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Audible updates their interface, improves cellular downloads, adds iPad support

Audible has released a major update to its iOS app, finally adding iPad support. Previously limited to the iPhone and iPod touch, Audible is now a universal app. In addition to iPad support, version 2.0 also boasts a updated interface for the iPhone, adding larger playback buttons, along with improved navigation and a new library filter that allows you to hide titles that you have finished.

Finally, Audible now allows you to download up to three hours of audio over cellular, either 3G or LTE. The ability to download the portion of your next book without having to find Wi-Fi will be a boon to the many users who listen to audiobooks while on the go.

Unfortunately, there is still no way to purchase audiobooks directly from the app. You can download any book that?s already in your collection, but you must by the book on the Audible website first in order to do so. Given Apple?s rules on in-app purchases -- namely that Apple gets 30% of all purchases -- it makes sense that Amazon, which owns Audible, wouldn?t want to give up all their own profits just to sell content through the app. They do the same thing with the Kindle app.

Ultimately, users don?t care why they can?t get content, they just care that they can?t get it. So let's everyone figure that out.

If you?re an Audible user, this update is a must-have. Grab it, and make sure to head on over to our iMore books forum and let us know what you're currently reading.

• Free - Download Now

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/OoWBXAiFM8k/story01.htm

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This Is What The World's Biggest Prime Number Looks Like

When Phillip Bump heard about the recently discovered 17-million-digit prime number—the world's biggest!—he decided to celebrate. So he took it and, six digits at a time, converted it into RGB. The result is strangely compelling. [Phillip Bump via Boing Boing] More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/0jgY1MKbquE/this-is-what-the-worlds-biggest-prime-number-looks-like

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