Rob Ford 'obsessed' with ridding Toronto of graffiti [Photos] [Video]

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TORONTO?-?

Mayor Rob Ford?s war on graffiti rolled out a new weapon Wednesday.

Ford heralded the awarding of a $400,000-a-year graffiti removal contract to Goodbye Graffiti with a press conference in Etobicoke?s West Deane Park. The new contract, which starts Thursday, bundles together graffiti removal for all the city?s divisions including transportation services, parks, Toronto Water, municipal licensing and standards along with Toronto Community Housing.

?I?m obsessed with getting graffiti out of the city and keeping it out of the city,? Ford said. ?As you know, I?ve been fighting since I was first elected to get this city as clean as possible by removing all the graffiti. Through Clean Toronto Together the city works with businesses and residents to keep our streets clean of garbage, graffiti vandalism and illegal postering.

?A cleaner Toronto, as you know folks, is better for everyone.?

Ford argued the contract takes his Clean Toronto Together campaign to ?the next level.?

?Everywhere that there is graffiti, I will guarantee that we will be removing it,? he said.

Before spraying graffiti off a wall in the park, Ford encouraged residents to report graffiti vandalism to his office or to the city?s 311 service.

?Or please call 911 if you witness graffiti vandalism in progress,? Ford said. ?All you have to do is take a picture and we will catch the culprit doing it.?

If someone sees someone engaging in graffiti vandalism, Toronto Police said it is appropriate to call 911 to get officers to the scene as quickly as possible.

?Whenever there is a crime in progress you should contact 911,? Const. Tony Vella said.

The mayor managed to clean about half the wall before leaving it for staff at Goodbye Graffiti to finish the job.

Brent Bowman, franchise owner of Goodbye Graffiti, joked Ford?s graffiti removal technique was ?a little bit off.?

?But I?m sure with a little more training he?d be just fine,? Bowman said.

Ford said he?ll stick to his current job.

?Obviously I?m going to monitor closely, we?re spending taxpayers? money on this,? he said. ?Let them go out and clean up city facilities and I?m sure everyone will be happy with what they do.?

Councillor Adam Vaughan complained about Ford?s anti-graffiti push.

?Every time he does this we get more graffiti,? Vaughan said. ?The graffiti artists see it as a taunt and they respond by tagging people ? usually it?s anti-Ford stuff.

?The way to deal with it is to deal with it the way it is presented to us, by stealth. You just deal with it. But these high-profile campaigns, they actually generate more graffiti than they clean. Some of this anti-Ford stuff is priceless.?

Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2013/07/31/rob-ford-obsessed-with-ridding-toronto-of-graffiti

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Uh oh, looks like somebody's got a serious case of space madness. Either that or Nancy Sinatra's siren song has already taken hold of his senses. Either way, this stranded astronaut is royally screwed. The creatives over at Wildlife.la crafted this Gulliverian tale of interplanetary exploration and eventual psychosis.

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Apple's $85.5 million executive Mansfield shifts to projects

Apple's (AAPL) Bob Mansfield, whose $85.5 million compensation made him one of the highest-paid U.S. executives in 2012, is stepping down as technologies chief to work on special projects.

"Bob will no longer be on Apple's executive team, but he will continue to work on special projects," Katie Cotton, an Apple spokeswoman, said by phone.

Mansfield, 52, requested the change so he could focus on creating new products without the distractions of being on the executive committee, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because

Bob Mansfield, formerly senior vice president of technologies at Apple, poses in this undated company photograph released to the media on April 23, 2009. (Photo courtesy of Apple)

the information is private. He is the third executive to leave the top leadership ranks since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs in October 2011.

Mansfield presided over some of Apple's toughest hardware-engineering jobs in the past decade, including a transition of its Mac personal computers to Intel (INTC) chips and development of the iPad tablet. He retired in June 2012 and returned about two months later, when Apple granted him a pay package that made him the second-best-paid executive at any Standard & Poor's 500 company.

The management change comes as investors focus on whether Apple can come up with breakthrough new products to jump-start growth for the Cupertino-based company, whose revenue increased less than 1 percent in the most recent quarter. Apple has been developing a watchlike wearable device that would include features of the iPhone and other capabilities, people familiar with the matter have said.

Mansfield's focus may now turn to wearable computing devices, according to Andy Hargreaves, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities.

"Apple is under heavy competitive pressure to create something new," said Tim Bajarin, founder of Creative Strategies, a technology consulting firm. "It would take someone like Mansfield to bring it out in a timely fashion."

Mansfield leaves the nine-person executive council without one of the people who helped propel Apple's rise to become the world's most valuable technology company. Soon after Jobs died, retail stores chief Ron Johnson left to become chief executive officer of J.C. Penney. In late 2012, mobile software head Scott Forstall was pushed out.

Cotton declined to comment on whether another executive would take over Mansfield's role as senior vice president of technologies, a position that was created for his return last year. Cotton also declined to comment on whether Mansfield's compensation would be adjusted to reflect his departure from the executive committee. Apple declined to make Mansfield available for an interview.

Mansfield ran key areas of technology development, including wireless communications and a group charged with planning Apple's long-term chip strategy. Since overseeing the change of the Mac's electronic brain to work with Intel chips, the group has experimented with finding a single family of chips to run all of Apple's products.

In late 2011, Mansfield pressured executives at Intel to make more energy-efficient processors for Apple's Mac line or risk having the company use the same A-series chips that run iPhones and iPads, said a former Apple manager who worked for Mansfield at the time. The A-series chips are based on designs from ARM Holdings.

Mansfield had a base salary of $805,400, with almost all of the rest of his $85.5 million pay coming from stock. The total was boosted by the value of a related accounting charge and options that vested earlier than other Apple executives'.

His role as a manager will be difficult to fill because he was highly respected by computer scientists and chip experts in the company.

Some of them complained when they were reassigned to Dan Riccio, the senior vice president of hardware engineering, after Mansfield left last June, according to three people familiar with the sequence of events who asked not to be named because the matter is private.

The complaints were one reason Apple CEO Tim Cook asked Mansfield to rejoin the company just two months later.

"Bob is the anchor of Apple's hardware organization," said Bob Borchers, a former Apple manager. "That's why it was so important to bring him back."

Mansfield also has a reputation for building bridges between Apple's sometimes myopic software, hardware and design operations. When Forstall left in October 2012, many insiders said it was because he was too focused on his own group. When Mansfield inherited some of his responsibilities, it was taken as a sign that Apple intended to make its Macs work more seamlessly with the company's mobile devices.

"One thing I really respect about Bob is he really has the entire company's best interests at heart," former Apple manager Brett Halle said in an interview last year.

Riccio will probably take over Mansfield's remaining duties and projects, said Hargreaves, the Pacific Crest Securities analyst.

"It shouldn't be a total shock that he's no longer on the executive team," Hargreaves said. "The plan seems to be he'll have more responsibility catered to whatever he wants to work on."

Apple's shares rose 1.5 percent to $447.79 at the close in New York. The stock has declined 16 percent this year, compared with an 18 percent gain in the S&P 500.

Source: http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_23754757/apples-85-5-million-executive-mansfield-shifts-projects?source=rss_viewed

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[unable to retrieve full-text content]A new study shows that families can save hundreds if not thousands of dollars by making their own household items with a 3-D printer.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/strange_science/~3/qcDHuqTst-4/130729144622.htm

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Xbox brings laughter to all ages with Comedy Central and Nickelodeon apps

Xbox Live Gold customers, get ready for a chucklefest in your living room. Two new apps to tickle the funny bone have just arrived for Microsoft's console courtesy of Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. We heard rumblings about the latter being added to the roster a while ago, but it looks like that has finally come to fruition. Your kids can enjoy full episodes of their favorite Nick shows, short videos and special animated shorts. The Comedy Central app is a touch more adult-oriented of course, with a focus on the channel's stand-up offerings. Dubbed "CC: Stand-up," the app boasts more than 6,000 videos of routines from around 700 comedians. So whether you're into Aziz Ansari or Spongebob Squarepants, you'll be able to get your fix via Xbox Live starting today.

Filed under: HD, Microsoft

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Source: Xbox Wire

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Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/space_time/astronomy/~3/OXO-k_H8Ujo/130726043406.htm

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