Today, Echobit, LLC (http://www.echobit.com) announces the release of its next generation social network and toolset for gamers, called Evolve (http://www.evolvehq.com). After an exciting 8 months in closed beta (and adding 8,000 members along the way), the three-person startup has quietly built a platform that maximizes the reach and influence of gamers? and the games they play within the rapidly expanding, increasingly disconnected video game universe.

FRAGMENTATION = FAIL

The video game industry is multiplatformed and wildly incongruent. PCs and consoles have been joined by mobile devices, social networks and tablets to amass a global audience of over 1.2 billion gamers?up from 250 million just a few years ago?an audience with extremely limited ability to consolidate their various exploits into one discrete gaming context. ?Today?s gamers want to remain whole and in control of their gaming lives across any game, publisher or platform,? states Adam Sellke, Co-founder and CEO of Echobit. ?Publishers and hardware manufacturers like Activision/Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, Valve, Zynga, Apple, Microsoft, Sony and others are all protecting their respective turfs on Battle.net, Call of Duty Elite, Origin, uPlay, Steam, GameCenter, Xbox Live, Play Station Network and the like. That?s nuts. These silos and walled gardens unnecessarily constrain gamers? freedom, so we created Evolve.?

L?EGGO YOUR EGO

Evolve provides gamers an elegant view of their gaming world from a single profile. From it, players are treated to stats, rankings and charts of the games they and their friends are enjoying. Evolve not only gives players a place to roost, but also plenty of ways to crow. ?A big part of gaming is bragging,? contends Sellke. ?Evolve lets you really show ?em who?s boss.? The platform supports the ability to import and aggregate various gaming achievements onto a profile. Also, Evolve members are equipped with ?live? badges for touting their prowess with up-to-the-minute data on sites and forums. Evolve has recently added in-game screen and video capture to help gamers ?prove once and for all that their kung fu is the best,? says Sellke.

QUIT PLAYING WITH YOURSELF

There are a lot of social tools and game tracking/achievement aggregators out there, but no other platform directly facilitates game coordination and connectivity like Evolve. ?Everything we do is aimed at maximizing the gaming experience for gamers,? says Sellke. ?A big part of that is bringing gamers together and reducing the time it takes to actually get playing.? Multi-protocol IM, group chat and in-party VoIP allow gamers to connect, gab and kvetch to each other, virtually anywhere, in real-time. Friendships can be inherited from Facebook. Others are able to be recruited via invitation links that bring players together as friends or into groups and parties. Joining a party establishes a VPN connection in one-click for LAN play and built-in VoIP. One other feature, an industry first, is the party finder?a universal matchmaking system that allows gamers to poll the network for multiple games of interest at the same time. As soon as the system finds others who share the same pursuits, all those concerned are offered a match and, upon acceptance, are instantly placed into a party.

SUMMARY

Fragmentation and platform proliferation threaten gamers? ability to maintain a singular reference point to their gaming activities and limits their social value. Evolve, through its game-agnostic connectivity tools and common player profile is establishing a free, open and universal platform in this space, spanning the void and making it the inevitable solution.

ABOUT EVOLVE

Evolve [http://www.evolvehq.com is a social platform for gamers developed by Echobit, LLC. Evolve makes it easy to keep tabs on gaming friends and rally them together for raids, deathmatches and co-op play. The Evolve experience is available both on the web as well as in-game via its overlay technology. Evolve optionally integrates with existing social networks and services including AIM, Twitter, Facebook, Raptr, Xfire, MSN, ICQ, XMPP and Google Talk, all while fully respecting its members? privacy.

ABOUT ECHOBIT, LLC

Echobit, LLC [http://www.echobit.com is a Minneapolis, MN based startup. Founded in 2006, Echobit is focused on dislodging entrenched, closed business models by building democratic platforms that help people better connect with each other. Its flagship platform, Evolve, is aimed at making gaming a more engaging and social experience.

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On Tuesday, January 10, FORA.tv, the leading online destination for video programs from the world?s best conferences and events, will broadcast the first debate of the Intelligence Squared U.S. (IQ2US) 2012 season. Hailed as America?s premier debate series, Intelligence Squared U.S. will present five engaging events this spring and will kick of the season with a look at one of the world?s most protracted political conflicts: the volatile relationship between Israel and Palestine, and specifically whether the U.N. should admit Palestine as a full member state. After 20 years of failed talks with Israel, can the recent plea by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to the U.N. really serve as an effective way to create a two-state solution? Or is Palestine setting the peace process back by bypassing negotiations?

FORA.tv will live stream the debate from the NYU Skirball Center in New York starting at 6:45pm ET (3:45pm PT) on Tuesday, Jan. 10. The free live online event can be viewed at intelligencesquaredus.fora.tv. Following the live event, FORA.tv will offer the debate as a free on-demand program.

In support of the motion:

Mustafa Barghouthi, Former Palestinian National Authority Presidential Candidate

Daniel Levy, Former Israeli Government Negotiator & J Street Co-Founder

Against the motion:

Aaron David Miller, Former U.S. Mideast Negotiator, and advisor of Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State

Dore Gold, former Israel Ambassador to the United Nations

The Moderator: John Donvan is a correspondent for ABC News? ?Nightline.? In a career that spans more than two decades for ABC News, Donvan previously served as the Chief White House Correspondent, along with postings in Moscow, London, Jerusalem and Amman.

Throughout the spring FORA.tv will live stream four additional IQ2US debates, which will consider the government?s role in managing obesity (2/7/12); whether China is better at capitalism than the U.S. (3/13/12); the impact of the Internet on politics (4/17/12); and if college football should be banned (5/8/12).

ABOUT FORA.tv

FORA.tv is the leading online destination for video programs from the world’s best conferences and events. With more than 10,000 free and fee-based videos and its iPad ?Conference Channel? app, FORA.tv has the web’s largest collection of programs that feature the people, issues, and ideas changing the world. FORA.tv helps hundreds of organizations including the Aspen Institute, the Economist, the New York Public Library, and Wired expand the audience for their events. FORA.tv has been named a Top 50 Web Site by TIME, and a Top Education Site by The Telegraph. FORA.tv is funded by a select group of investors led by William R. Hearst III and is based in San Francisco. For more information, visit http://fora.tv.

ABOUT INTELLIGENCE SQUARED U.S. DEBATES (IQ2US)

Rethink your point of view with Intelligence Squared U.S. (IQ2US), Oxford-style debates live from New York City. Based on the highly successful debate program based in London, Intelligence Squared U.S. has presented over 50 debates on a wide range of provocative and timely topics. From global warming and the financial crisis, to Afghanistan/Pakistan and the death of mainstream media, Intelligence Squared U.S. brings together the world?s leading authorities on the day?s most important issues. Since its inception in 2006, the goals of The Intelligence Squared U.S. Foundation have been to provide a new forum for intelligent discussion, grounded in facts and informed by reasoned analysis; to transcend the toxically emotional and the reflexively ideological; and to encourage recognition that the opposing side has intellectually respectable views. Visit http://www.iq2us.org for more information.

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ref. http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=186446

Best answer:

Answer by yeahright_V
yes, and more.

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/03/warner.speed.limit.ap/index.html

National speed limit pushed as gas saver
An influential Republican senator suggested Thursday that Congress might want to consider reimposing a national speed limit to save gasoline and possibly ease fuel prices.

Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology.

Best answer:

Answer by iviolated3
He is leaving, of course he can say what he wants, he’s not accountable to the people nay longer

Oh, btw it’s a stupid idea

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Carmel, CA : Seniors Need To Get Out To Vote: Important Issues On The Table : View From A Private Duty Caregiver Serving, Carmel, Carmel Valley, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Gilroy, Gonzalez, Greenfield, Hollister, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, San Juan Bautista, Seaside & Soledad California

At Family inHome Caregiving we have been urging our senior Clients to get out and vote in next year’s elections. We are at a critical juncture with the future of Social Security, Medicare, Medi-Cal and other programs which impact the elderly. And American’s are fed up with the situation in Washington D.C. so there will be plenty of opportunity to make important changes. After the bitter battle fought by Republicans and Democrats, they are now finding there’s a negative public backlash from voters. USA Today released a USA Today/Gallup Poll which said that by more than a 2:1 margin, those polled believe the bill which was passed to raise the debt ceiling will make the economy worse. Their pessimism can be seen in the poor performance of the stock market since the bill was passed. Many feel we are in grave danger of slipping into a double dip recession, particularly given the razor thin growth of just 1.3% in GDP in the first quarter. With the government planning to cut spending rather than spend to stimulate the economy, consumers are clearly worried. “Most people assume that whatever came out of this horrible process was pretty crappy,” Joseph White, a political scientist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland told USA Today. Ironically, although the Tea Party Republicans succeeded in setting the parameters of the deal, their members are among the most unhappy with the outcome (22% approve of the agreement compared with 26% Republicans and 58% of Democrats). There was more disturbing news for politicians in today’s New York Times. According to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, 82% of American’s now disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. That’s the highest disapproval rating since The Times began asking the question in 1977, even higher than the political stalemate led to a shutdown of the federal government in 1995. More than four out of five people surveyed said that they believe that the debt-ceiling debate was more about gaining political advantage than it was about doing what is best for the country. Almost three-quarters believe it tarnished our image of the U.S. around the world. 72% of Republicans disapproved of the way their party handled the negotiations, while 66 of Democrats disapproved. The Tea Party is now viewed unfavorably by 40% of the public and favorably by only 20%. In a mid-April poll, 29% of those polled viewed Tea Partiers unfavorably and 26% favorably. In the most recent poll, 43% of Americans now think the Tea Party has too much influence on the Republican Party, up from 27% in mid-April. By a 2:1 ratio, those polled said that creating jobs should be a higher priority than spending cuts, which I agree wholeheartedly with. The economy simply can not recover until unemployment levels (which are still rising in the majority of counties in the U.S.) are reduced. The poll dud find that President Obama emerged from the battle with less bruising. His overall approval rating remained stable, while Speaker John Boehner saw his disapproval soar by 16 percentage points since April. Clearly both will have a big fight to be reelected.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-08-03-poll-debt-agreement_n.htmhttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/us/politics/05poll.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

One of John McCain’s advisers recently called his running mate Sarah Palin a “diva” after she went off-script at a rally, and suggested she was looking after her own political future over the current campaign. Now another adviser ups the ante in a conversation with the Politico’s Playbook, labeling Palin a “whack job.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/28/palin-a-whack-job-top-mcc_n_138523.html

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Best answer:

Answer by Teekno
Your term is “mental”.

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Best answer:

Answer by Penfold plushie backdoor bear
Nobody takes my answers seriously anyway so I’m just gonna say stick a banana up your bum.

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