Why you should buy a new smartphone every two years

4 hrs.

Will you get a new phone when your wireless contract ends? If not, you might want to reconsider. Consumer Reports says it?s worth spending $100 to $200 on a new phone if you can afford it and you don?t plan to switch carriers anytime soon.

It?s not simply because that old model will start showing its age, it?s a matter of economics.?

When you bought that cellphone, as part of your 2-year service agreement, your wireless company subsidized about half ? or more than half ? the cost. A $400 phone will likely cost you just $200 or less up front.

You pay the rest of the expense back to the carrier in two years? worth of monthly bills.?

That?s why carriers have smartphone early termination fees of $300 or more, a charge that reduces every month you have your device: They don?t want you walking away with a phone you haven?t finished paying off.

But here?s the catch: Your monthly bill doesn?t go down after your service contract ends and you?ve paid back the cost of that old phone.

?After the contract is up, you?re essentially paying for a new phone whether you get one or not,? noted Mike Gikas, senior electronics editor at Consumer Reports. ?So why not get something for your money??

Another reason to upgrade when eligible: Cellphone technology is constantly improving, both the hardware and software. Downloading over-the-air updates can only prolong the inevitable obsolescence for so long.

?Operating systems and the applications that run on them are being updated constantly and the hardware on your phone may not be able to keep up,? Gikas explained.

For those who can?t wait for their contract to end, prepare to pay through the nose to have the latest-and-greatest smartphone.?

Consumer Reports went looking for the highly?rated Samsung Galaxy S III and found a huge price difference for an early upgrade at all four major carriers.?For example, Verizon charges $200 for the 16GB?Galaxy S III with a new 2-year agreement. Customers who upgrade halfway through their contract pay $600.

With the iPhone, it can be even steeper: The cost of a 16GB iPhone 5 under 2-year contract is also?$200, but the out-of-contract price tag is $650.

Grab a deal now
And if you do?qualify for a new phone, now would be a good time to get it.?

?The December holiday season is one of the best ??if not the best ? time to purchase a new smartphone,? said Louis Ramirez, senior features writer at dealnews.com. ?Prices aren't expected to go up after the holidays, but the promotions are expected to be less frequent after Christmas.?

Consumer Reports says you can get some ?top-notch? phones, such as the HTC One X from AT&T and the Motorola Droid Razr M from Verizon, for just $100 with a 24-month contract.

Wireless carriers and third-party resellers are offering some great deals. For example, with a quick search, I found a new Nokia Lumia 822 Windows Phone?8 smartphone for free with a new contract. Some retailers have been running gift cards promotions. Buy a phone and you get a gift card that?s worth more than the cost of that phone.?

?If you're looking to make a smartphone purchase, we recommend jumping on the first bundle deal (gift card + smartphone) you see between now and Christmas,? Ramirez told me.

Herb Weisbaum is The ConsumerMan. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter or visit The ConsumerMan website.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/why-you-should-buy-new-smartphone-every-two-years-1C7455618

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Gain Confidence With Your Womanhood With Breast Implants ...

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Attracting the opposite sex is puzzling some people. Many women cannot get into a relationship because they fail to figure out how to get men into them. Keep in mind that men are always different to women. Forget about the stereotypes you know about men and learn more how their minds work to capture their hearts. Every man has a different preference in a woman, so find out the top five characteristics of women that attract men.

Source:Gain Confidence With Your Womanhood With Breast Implants

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Surgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic CultureSurgery Junkies: Wellness and Pathology in Cosmetic Culture"Surgery Junkies is an innovative, fast-paced mix of theory and empirical research that advances our understanding of contemporary bodies, lifestyle medicine, and the making of the embodied, self-fashioned self. Scholars and teachers of cultural and media studies, sociology of the body, and health and society will value its contributions to both their research and their teaching."-Arthur W. Frank, author of The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics and The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, Medicine, and How to Live "Whether analyzing Extreme Makeover, 'Body Dismorphic Disorder,' or her own rhinoplasty, Pitts-Taylor makes difficult theoretical concepts clear-and clearly relevant to our lives."-Susan Bordo, author of Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body Despite the increasing prevalence of cosmetic surgery, there are still those who identify individuals who opt for bodily modifications as dupes of beauty culture, as being in conflict with feminist ideals, or as having some form of psychological weakness. In this ground-breaking book, Victoria Pitts-Taylor examines why we consider some cosmetic surgeries to be acceptable or even beneficial and others to be unacceptable and possibly harmful. Drawing on years of research, in-depth interviews with surgeons and psychiatrists, analysis of newspaper articles, legal documents, and television shows, and her own personal experience with cosmetic surgery, Pitts-Taylor brings new perspectives to the promotion of "extreme" makeovers on television, the medicalization of "surgery addiction," the moral and political interrogation that many patients face, and feminist debates on the topic. Pitts-Taylor makes a compelling argument that the experience, meanings, and motivations for cosmetic surgery are highly social and, in doing so, provides a much needed "makeover" of our cultural understanding of cosmetic surgery. Victoria Pitts-Taylor is associate professor of sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is the author of In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification. Cosmetic Facial Surgery, 1eCosmetic Facial Surgery, 1e

Take your practice to the next level! Cosmetic Facial Surgery provides a highly illustrated, case-based approach to common face and neck procedures. In this full-color reference, internationally renowned surgeon Joe Niamtu III, DMD, covers techniques including brow, face, and neck lifts; nose, eye, and ear surgery; cosmetic surgery practice with discussions of the process of facial aging, diagnosing and consulting with patients, clinical digital facial implants; skin resurfacing; the use of neurotoxins; and the removal of skin lesions. The book also prepares you for photography, and anesthesia considerations. In a companion DVD, video clips feature Dr. Niamtu demonstrating key procedures addressed in the text.

  • Comprehensive coverage includes the full range of surgical procedures from the upper face to the lower face/neck area.
  • Over 3,000 full-color photos show surgical techniques and before-and-after shots of actual cases done by Dr. Niamtu.
  • A DVD includes videos of procedures performed by the author, bringing complicated procedures to life.
  • Accessible, easy-to-grasp descriptions, written in an engaging, first-person narrative, explain concepts based on real cases and on Dr. Niamtu's experience.

Tags: cosmetic surgery

Source: http://www.jackiesbazaar.com/womensinterests/cosmetic-surgery/gain-confidence-with-your-womanhood-with-breast-implants

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Obama seeks to put personal touch on cliff talks

President Barack Obama walks with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, as he returned from speaking about the fiscal cliff at Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

President Barack Obama walks with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, as he returned from speaking about the fiscal cliff at Business Roundtable, an association of chief executive officers. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

House Speaker John Boehner, of Ohio, and the House GOP leadership leave after a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, following a closed-door GOP strategy session. At left is Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

(AP) ? President Barack Obama, trying to put a personal touch on "fiscal cliff" negotiations, visited a northern Virginia family's basement apartment Thursday to press his hardline on tax rate increases for the wealthy.

"We're in the midst of the Christmas season," Obama said, sitting at a table in the Santana family's Falls Church, Va., home. "I think the American people are counting on this getting solved. The closer it gets to the brink, the more stress there is going to be."

Obama and lawmakers have until the end of the year to avert across-the-board spending cuts and tax increases. The president reiterated the firm stance he has taken in recent days, warning that he's willing to let that economy-rattling double whammy take effect if Republicans don't drop their opposition to higher tax rates for the wealthy.

"Just to be clear, I'm not going to sign any package that somehow prevents the top rate from going up for the folks in the top 2 percent," Obama said.

"But I do remain optimistic that we can get something done that is good for families like this one and is good for the American economy," Obama said.

The president's quick trip to northern Virginia ? just a 15 minute drive from the White House ? is part of an effort to rally public support for his tax proposals. The family whose home he visited was one of many who shared a story online, at the White House's urging, of how they would be hurt if their taxes went up at the end of the year. The president will also travel to Detroit on Monday.

Obama and House Speaker John Boehner spoke on the phone Wednesday, their first known conversation in nearly a week. Neither side provided details of the call, but the White House said the lines of communication with Capitol Hill Republicans were open and there had been multiple conversations between staff.

Unless the president and Republicans reach a deal, George W. Bush-era tax rates will expire on all income earners on Jan. 1. Obama wants to continue them for 98 percent of Americans, while letting them expire on the upper income earners.

If Republicans try to block that effort, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said, the administration will "absolutely" let the country go over the fiscal cliff.

The size of the problem is so large it can't be solved without rates going up," he told CNBC on Wednesday.

Geithner drew a fierce response from Republicans. Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah called his statement "stunning and irresponsible." He added, "Going over the fiscal cliff will put our economy, jobs, people's paychecks and retirement at risk, but that is what the White House wants, according to Secretary Geithner, if they don't get their way."

Economists inside and outside the government warn that failing to reach agreement on taxes and spending could land the economy back in recession.

Beyond his insistence that taxes increase on the wealthy, Obama has also warned Republicans not to inject the threat of a government default into negotiations over the fiscal cliff as a way of extracting concessions on spending cuts.

"It's not a game I will play," he said Wednesday, recalling the brinkmanship of last year in which a budget standoff pushed the Treasury to the edge of a first-ever default.

The White House reaffirmed Thursday that it did not believe the president had the authority through the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling by executive order. Democrats have previously suggested Obama could take that step.

Both sides say they want a compromise, although the administration's hand in bargaining is strengthened by polls showing public support for Obama's position on taxes, as well as by his re-election last month. The president is also working to rally the public to his side and has a trip scheduled to Detroit next week.

In a concession, Republican leaders have agreed to back increased tax revenue. Yet despite defections from within the rank and file, they have so far balked at Obama's demand that rates go up on income over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. They have also called for spending cuts and measures to slow the growth of government benefit programs. Earlier this week, they called for curbing the growth in Social Security cost-of-living increases, as well as delaying Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67, beginning in a decade.

Obama has said he will back spending cuts, including savings in Medicare, as part of a deal that includes the tax proposal that was a key part of his re-election bid.

Once Republicans yield on taxes, he told the Business Roundtable, "We can probably solve this in about a week; it's not that tough."

Republicans argue that they can raise about $800 billion in additional government revenue over a decade by closing loopholes and narrowing tax deductions on the wealthy, rather than raising income tax rates. They argue the rate increase would impose a particularly harmful impact on the economy and job creation at a time when the country is still struggling to recover fully from the deepest recession in decades.

___

Espo reported from Washington.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-12-06-Fiscal%20Cliff/id-35c80c7468ac4f60beba92dd1482941f

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Triangle Arts & Entertainment reviews FOR WHEN THE VEIL ...

The first critic?s review is in FOR WHEN THE VEIL DROPS.?Brandon J. Fiedor reviews the anthology, which features my short story, ?724,? for Triangle Arts & Entertainment.

At a time when the literary community has seen a resurgence of interest and respect for all things gothic,?FOR WHEN THE VEIL DROPS, a newly published anthology of short fiction by West Pigeon Press is a rather refreshing read. Billed as ?a collection of resonant, unbridled dark fiction . . . unburdened by genre,? the anthology brings together the work of more established writers in the genre and those up and coming as well.? Of the fifteen short stories?

Read the rest of the review here. And if you haven?t read FOR WHEN THE VEIL DROPS yourself, you?re missing these fine stories:

  • ?724? by Christian A. Larsen
  • ?The Chopping Block? by Doug Murano
  • ?The Persistence of Frondu? by Yarrow Paisley
  • ?Bless You? by C. Bryan Brown
  • ?A Coat that Fell? by Michael Wehunt
  • ?The City Underneath? by Robin Wyatt Dunn
  • ?Beside Still Waters? by B.V. Lawson
  • ?The Condition She?s In? by Nick Medina
  • ?St. Mollusks? by Paul L. Bates
  • ?Thicker Than? by Lydia Peever
  • ?The Third List? by Samuel Minier
  • ?Nothing Bad Has Ever Happened Here? by A.A. Garrison
  • ?Oh Abel, Oh Absalom? by J.R. Hamantaschen
  • ?Misery Don?t Wait on Me? by Joshua Clark Orkin
  • ?Still Life? by Michael Trudeau
FOR WHEN THE VEIL DROPS is "a rather refreshing read."

FOR WHEN THE VEIL DROPS is ?a rather refreshing read.?

FOR WHEN THE VEIL DROPS is now available in paperback and Kindle eBook formats through Amazon.com.

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Source: http://exlibrislarsen.com/2012/12/05/triangle-arts-entertainment-reviews-for-when-the-veil-drops/

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Keira Knightley Pretty Sure She Doesn't Explode In 'Jack Ryan'

Actress describes Chris Pine-starring film as a 'good old-fashioned Hollywood thriller' — and promises she won't be in 'Fifty Shades of Grey.'
By Amy Wilkinson, with reporting by Josh Horowitz


Keira Knightley
Photo: MTV News

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1698376/keira-knightley-pretty-sure-doesnt-explode-jack-ryan.jhtml

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Egypt's Mursi leaves palace as police battle protesters

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police battled thousands of protesters outside President Mohamed Mursi's palace in Cairo on Tuesday, prompting the Islamist leader to leave the building, two presidential sources said.

Police fired teargas at demonstrators angered by Mursi's drive to hold a referendum on a new constitution on December 15. Some broke through police lines around his palace and protested next to the perimeter wall.

Several thousand people had gathered nearby in what they dubbed "last warning" protests against Mursi, who infuriated opponents with a November 22 decree that expanded his powers. "The people want the downfall of the regime," the crowd chanted.

"The president left the palace," a presidential source, who declined to be named, told Reuters. A security source at the presidency also said the president had left the building.

Mursi ignited a storm of unrest in his bid to prevent a judiciary still packed with appointees of ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak from derailing a troubled political transition.

Riot police at the palace faced off against activists chanting "leave, leave" and holding Egyptian flags with "no to the constitution" written on them. Protesters had assembled near mosques in northern Cairo before marching towards the palace.

"Our marches are against tyranny and the void constitutional decree and we won't retract our position until our demands are met," said Hussein Abdel Ghany, a spokesman for an opposition coalition of liberal, leftist and other disparate factions.

Despite the latest protests, there has been only a limited response to opposition calls for a mass campaign of civil disobedience in the Arab world's most populous country and cultural hub, where many people yearn for a return to stability.

A few hundred protesters gathered earlier near Mursi's house in a suburb east of Cairo, chanting slogans against his decree and against the Muslim Brotherhood, from which the president emerged to win a free election in June. Police closed the road to stop them from coming any closer, a security official said.

Opposition groups have accused Mursi of making a dictatorial power grab to push through a constitution drafted by an assembly dominated by Islamists, with a referendum planned for December 15.

Egypt's most widely read independent newspapers did not publish on Tuesday in protest at Mursi's "dictatorship". Banks closed early to let staff go home safely in case of trouble.

Abdelrahman Mansour in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the cradle of the anti-Mubarak revolt, said: "The presidency believes the opposition is too weak and toothless. Today is the day we show them the opposition is a force to be reckoned with."

After winning post-Mubarak elections and pushing the Egyptian military out of the political driving seat it held for decades, the Islamists sense their moment has come to shape the future of Egypt, a longtime U.S. ally whose 1979 peace treaty with Israel is a cornerstone of Washington's Middle East policy.

The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies, who staged a huge pro-Mursi demonstration on Saturday, are confident that enough members of the judiciary will be available to oversee the mid-December referendum, despite calls by some judges for a boycott.

Cairo stocks closed up 3.5 percent on Tuesday as investors took heart at what they saw as prospects for a return to stability in a country whose divisions have only widened since a mass uprising toppled Mubarak on February 11, 2011.

Mohamed Radwan, at Pharos Securities brokerage, said the Supreme Judicial Council's agreement to supervise the referendum had generated confidence that the vote would happen "despite all the noise and demonstrations that might take place until then".

"NO WAY PERFECT"

Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, a technocrat with Islamist sympathies, said in an interview with CNN: "We certainly hope that things will quiet down after the referendum is completed."

He said the constitution was "in no way a perfect text" that everyone had agreed to, but that a "majority consensus" favored moving forward with the referendum in 11 days' time.

The Muslim Brotherhood, now tasting power via the ballot box for the first time in eight decades of struggle, wants to safeguard its gains and appears ready to override street protests by what it regards as an unrepresentative minority.

It is also determined to stop the courts, which have already dissolved the Islamist-led elected lower house of parliament, from further obstructing their blueprint for change.

Mohamed ElBaradei, coordinator of an opposition National Salvation Front, has said Mursi must rescind his decree, drop plans for the referendum and agree on a new, more representative constituent assembly to draft a democratic constitution.

In an opinion piece published in the Financial Times, he accused Mursi and the Brotherhood of believing that "with a few strokes of a pen, they can slide (Egypt) back into a coma".

ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who once headed the U.N. nuclear watchdog, wrote: "If they continue to try, they risk an eruption into violence and chaos that will destroy the fabric of Egyptian society."

Despite charges that they are anti-Islamist and politically motivated, judges say they are following legal codes in their rulings. Experts say some political changes rushed through in the past two years have been on shaky legal ground.

A Western diplomat said the Islamists were counting on a popular desire for restored normality and economic stability.

"All the messages from the Muslim Brotherhood are that a vote for the constitution is one for stability and a vote against is one for uncertainty," he said, adding that the cost of the strategy was a "breakdown in consensus politics".

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry, Tamim Elyan and Edmund Blair; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-push-referendum-despite-opposition-protests-120640035.html

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94% Looper

All Critics (232) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (217) | Rotten (15)

The reasoning behind all this may not reward prolonged inspection, but Johnson is smart enough to press onward with his plot, leaving us with neither the time nor the desire to linger over the logic ...

Writer-director Rian Johnson establishes himself as an original talent who clearly believes storytelling must prevail.

A mind-bending ride that is not afraid to slow down now and again, to explore themes of regret and redemption, solitude and sacrifice, love and loss. It's a movie worth seeing and, perhaps, going back to see again.

Looper has more heart than Brick and the 2008 con-man flick The Brothers Bloom. Both fine achievements, they could also be described as viscerally cerebral.

I'm a sucker for time-travel movies.

Looper felt to me like a maddening near-miss ...

Intelligent, extremely imaginative, visually stunning and constantly surprising, this is filmmaking of the highest order from Rian Johnson.

Looper is among the cleverest, most skillfully crafted and entertaining sci-fi thrillers of the past 20 years.

The smartest, most stylish and most outright entertaining science-fiction film of the year.

A thought-provoking, heart-pounding take on the applications and ethics of time travel which, oddly enough, doubles up as a lesson in the importance of good parenting.

This is one of those rare genre movies (like the original TERMINATOR) that reminds us that Sci-Fi can be smart. It's much more than just a bunch of special effects and explosions. It's what all movies should aspire to be.

While it sometimes feels like it's trying to do much, Looper manages to be a creditable and exciting sci-fi flick that homages the past while carving out a unique identity.

Much as he did in Brick, Johnson creates a carefully drawn world in Looper that exists by its own particular set of rules.

... has an irresistible energy and a don't-give-a-damn unpredictability ...

Beautifully crafted, acted and written.

Anchors high-concept thrills and captivating ideas in a world of challenging morality and intricate personal consequences.

Truly imaginative but all the twists and turns make the overall film difficult to follow. Plus Gordon-Levitt has not reached leading man status yet.

Kind of a reverse-"Terminator" without any of James Cameron's wit (or wisdom),

An endlessly creative mind-blowing film that captures everything right about the movie going experience. Johnson conjures up the most imaginative action/science fiction film since 'Inception.'

Part science fiction, part mob movie, and with a nice infusion of dark comedy at just the right moments, Looper is Johnson's best movie yet, and manages to be hugely entertaining, affecting, and thought-provoking.

takes us far beyond the film's high-concept premise into the kind of emotional terrain that too often escapes even the best genre filmmakers

Doesn't quite reach the heights of the lofty ideals that it so ardently seeks to expound, but makes up for this with the sheer thrill of the journey Rian Johnson takes us on.

Ingenious with a fine performance by Emily Blunt, but far too much cold-blooded violence.

Engaging, exciting, and successfully cross-breeding elements of Terminator and even Pet Sematary, Looper is a solid work of palatable science-fiction.

Looper's super. An action-thriller that bothers to have a brain.

Looper may not take us back to the future as satisfyingly as Robert Zemeckis' Marty McFly trilogy or James Cameron's Terminator franchise, but writer-director Rian Johnson does enough right to all but guarantee that he has a future cult film on the books.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/looper/

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