Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

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Every investor wants to earn more. It is how we define “more” and how we go about earning it that defines the type of investor we are. Income investors want more income. Yield is a significant determinate of income. Instead of buying a current high-yield stock, investors in dividend growth stocks prefer to build their own. Granted, the current yield may never be classified as high-yield, but over time the yield-on-cost can reach epic heights.

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Exoplanets?worlds orbiting other stars?are one of the hottest topics in astronomy, as researchers close in on detecting potentially habitable Earth-like planets, ?while also finding exotic worlds such as ?Tatooine?, which orbits a double star. iPad app Journey to the Exoplanets ($9.99) is a multifaceted, immersive introduction to the subject, complete with beautiful artists? renditions of our best guess as to what some of these worlds might look like up close.

Journey to the Exoplanets, a collaboration between Scientific American and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is classified in the iTunes App Store as a book. As an interactive, multimedia eBook, it?s highly impressive, rich in information and with beautiful supportive graphics (and in some cases, audio or video clips). It does well in covering even basic material in a lively, engaging way, and should be enjoyable to a wide-ranging audience, from young students to astronomy buffs, teachers, and scientists. It?s in easy pick as an Editors? Choice as an educational app.

Upon opening the app, the user is at the controls of a starship, with different panels or buttons to access various functions. It’s a bit hokey, perhaps, but it’s as effective an interface as any. Most of the controls are duplicated in a bar at the top of the screen that contains 10 small buttons with icons?the bar remains in place no matter what section of the app you navigate to. The buttons are labeled Mission Control (the Home button, by another name); What is a Planet?; Exoplanet Timeline; What is A Star; Radiation And Space Travel; Finding Exoplanets; Exoplanet Gallery; Planet Builder; Filtering Starlight; and Little Scientist. A larger tab to the right, Planet Picker, lets you access specific worlds (listed by name) from the Exoplanet Gallery.

Cherry-Picked Worlds

The Exoplanet Gallery is the centerpiece of this app; opening it up brings up 88 thumbnails?16 to a screen?showing beautifully illustrated artists? renditions of alien worlds. (In the cases of Fomalhaut b and Beta Pictoris b, actual images of the star systems are shown.) At the bottom of each illustration in the Exoplanet Gallery is a dial, with the choices Info, Distance, and Discovery. Discovery gives the planet?s discovery year and month, Distance gives the system?s distance in light years, and spinning the dial to Info causes a translucent block of text with a description of the planet to pop up. For many worlds, audio files (and in one case, a video) are accessible, giving additional info. The depictions of these worlds are uniformly beautiful, and at least in part speculative, as we have limited information about many of these systems. The final 5 are largely fanciful depictions of alien life in different habitats.?

Although the vast majority of the 88 graphics in the gallery were smoothly accessible through Planet Picker, maybe 3 of them?one of them being ?Upsilon Andromedae System??would not only fail to open but tapping on their names would crash the app, and I?d have to relaunch it. I had no trouble accessing the graphics in question by clicking on their thumbnails in Exoplanet Gallery.

The Lowdown on the High Up: Planets and Stars

Although some of the topics (for example, What is a Planet? and What is a Star?) may seem basic at a glance, they?re covered in some detail. It wasn?t long ago that astronomers were debating the very question of what constitutes a planet. The section on planets starts with the ?wanderers? known to the ancient Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans through the discovery of asteroids (which were counted as planets until it was clear how small and numerous they are), Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, and the eventual demotion of Pluto in 2006 along with the first formal definition of a planet, at least in our solar system. ?

The discovery of exoplanets has revealed new classes of planets; for example, Hot Jupiters (gas giant planets that orbit very close to their stars), Super-Earths (planets more massive than Earth but less so than ice giants like Uranus and Neptune), and Rogue Planets (worlds that wander the galaxy, unbound to any star). The app discusses these as well as hypothetical worlds such as Carbon Planets.?

In addition to going into similar detail about stars, What is a Star? has a subsection called 20 Stars: a 3D representation of the 20 stars nearest the Sun, showing their locations relative to the Sun, to each other, and to the galactic center.

The Exoplanet Timeline encompasses 4,000 years of planet-related discoveries, with nearly a third of the timeline citing events since the first exoplanet discovery two decades ago. The Radiation and Space Travel section describes the danger faced by astronauts from cosmic radiation?the risk greatly compounded in long voyages such as those required to reach even the nearest stars. The section depicts possible shielding methods for spaceships, and includes an audio interview with a quantum physicist, Anton Zeilinger.

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Enlarge Jeff Brady/NPR

The U.S. oil boom has created a glut of crude in Cushing, Okla., a major oil storage hub. This sign dubs the city the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World.”

Jeff Brady/NPR

The U.S. oil boom has created a glut of crude in Cushing, Okla., a major oil storage hub. This sign dubs the city the “Pipeline Crossroads of the World.”

For years, Cushing, Okla., has been on the receiving end of a 500-mile pipeline funneling oil from the Gulf of Mexico to the American heartland.

Starting this weekend, that pipeline will start moving crude in the other direction. That flow reversal could soon have implications at gas pumps around the country.

“For 40 years, crude oil flowed north,” says Philip Verleger, a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “Today, oil flows south. It’s as if we turned the world upside down.”

Until recently, it was assumed the days of oil-drilling booms in the middle of North America were over. But controversial practices, like mining the oil sands of Alberta and hydraulic fracturing, are changing that.

Today, oil drilling booms are producing huge quantities of crude in places like North Dakota.

Increasing production in the middle of the country has oil gushing into huge tanks in Cushing, Verleger says. All that surplus means a barrel of oil in Cushing sells for $15 to $20 less than on the coasts ? and that means there’s a lot of money to be made by transporting that cheaper oil to refineries in Texas.

The two companies that own the Seaway Pipeline ? Enterprise Products Partners and Enbridge Inc. ? will move 150,000 barrels a day out of Cushing to Texas to start. Next year, the companies will boost that to 400,000 barrels a day.

Other energy companies have other pipelines planned, including TransCanada’s controversial Keystone XL pipeline.

A year ago, Verleger says, “there was no capacity to move oil from Cushing down to the Gulf Coast.” Now, Verleger expects to see “up to a million barrels a day of capacity” flowing within the next 18 months.

That should bring Cushing’s relatively low oil prices more in line with world prices.

Enlarge Seaway Crude Pipeline Company

After 17 years of operation, the Seaway Pipeline will reverse flow and send oil from the U.S. heartland to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

Seaway Crude Pipeline Company

After 17 years of operation, the Seaway Pipeline will reverse flow and send oil from the U.S. heartland to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

Higher prices will help small oil producers in places like Oklahoma, who will earn more money for each barrel they sell.

But big changes in the oil business often lead to losers as well as winners. Tom Kloza, an analyst with the Oil Price Information Service, says the oil reversal out of the middle U.S. will drive gasoline prices higher in some parts of the country.

“Drivers in the Midwest, Upper Midwest and the West ? like Colorado and perhaps parts of Texas ? may see a slight increase, relative to the rest of the country,” Kloza says.

Drivers along the Gulf Coast and in the Southeast will end up on the winner’s side, he says. All that cheap oil from Cushing moving to the Gulf will mean lower gasoline prices there.

Kloza predicts that some places with low gas taxes ? like South Carolina ? could see fuel as cheap as $3 a gallon in the coming months.

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ROME ? Top-ranked Novak Djokovic made a solid return to red-clay courts, dominating Australian teenager Bernard Tomic 6-3, 6-3 Tuesday night to open his Italian Open title defense.

On the women?s side, Serena Williams beat 46th-ranked Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan 6-2, 6-3 for her 14th consecutive victory, following titles in Charleston, S.C., and Madrid ? and two wins in Fed Cup. Also, Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova and defending champion Maria Sharapova won in straight sets at Foro Italico to reach the third round.

Coming off a quarterfinal loss to fellow Serb Janko Tipsarevic on the blue clay at last week?s Madrid Open, Djokovic went ahead with two early breaks and faced minimal resistance from the 19-year-old Tomic, the youngest player in the top 50 at No. 32.

“It was a good match for me to start with,” said Djokovic, who wore a black outfit featuring Serbia?s red-white-and-blue colors running down one side. “(Tomic) has a lot of talent and he changes things up well, so you don?t know what to expect ? that?s what makes him dangerous.”

With the French Open less than two weeks away, Djokovic is looking to rediscover the form from his 43-match winning streak a year ago. Winning at Roland Garros is a top priority for him after taking the three other majors last year.

Fourth-ranked Andy Murray beat David Nalbandian of Argentina 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 in a strong return after taking last week off because of a bad back. Fifth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga cruised past Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-3, 6-2, and Juan Carlos Ferrero defeated 13th-seeded Gael Monfils 7-5, 6-3 to improve to 3-0 against the Frenchman.

Sixth-seeded David Ferrer beat fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 6-3, 7-6 (3); 10th-seeded Juan Martin del Potro downed Michael Llodra of France 7-5, 3-6, 6-4; and 14th-seeded Juan Monaco topped Romanian qualifier Adrian Ungur 6-2, 6-2. Marcel Granollers of Spain beat 15th-seeded Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 6-4, and 16th-seeded Richard Gasquet eliminated Jurgen Melzer of Austria 6-1, 7-6 (6).

Kvitova overcame eight double-faults to beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 7-5, 6-4 in her opening match. Kvitova struggled in the bright sunshine but still managed to dictate play with her attacking game.

“I didn?t feel very well and so I am happy I won, and I know where there is space where I can improve before the next round,” she said.

Sharapova held off a strong challenge from Christina McHale, beating the American 7-5, 7-5. Venus Williams eliminated Simona Halep of Romania 6-3, 6-4.

“It was different than last week,” Williams said, referring to the court in Madrid, where she lost in the second round. “I sort of had to make some adjustments to get used to this court.

“It was kind of windy and with the shadows it was kind of tough to see the ball and it made it very difficult and so I was happy that I finished it well,” Williams added.

Two-time champion Jelena Jankovic lost 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (4) to Sorana Cirstea of Romania.

? Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Firefox for Android launched the newly rebuilt Firefox Beta app on Google Play today! The following tutorial shows you how to install the Phony add-on for user agent switching on websites where you don?t want the mobile version.

This tutorial was created with androidscreencast.jnlp so there is added jerk and gradients that aren?t in the actual product. Enjoy the great new UI and performance (and Flash support) on your Android 2.2 phone or 7? tablet.

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As we approach the E3, the electronic gaming show in early June, I suspect that the value of “Retina” high-resolution displays will soon become apparent. While the prospect of Retina MacBooks is all but inevitable, we have reached a plateau when it comes to general computing and, more important, living room media. The first question is, in short, why do we need a Retina MacBook? Presumably it would be a superior experience for video and photo editing and offer designers far more real estate on a large screen, especially when viewing photos at lower resolutions. As evidenced by the iPhone’s Retina display, gaming will become considerably more compelling. This presupposes a rich and vibrant OS X gaming ecosystem.

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Nokia’s major focal points within the US market may currently be its Lumia 900 and Windows Phone, but that doesn’t mean it’s planning to leave its other notable offerings outside of Uncle Sam’s borders. Speaking with PC Mag, Nokia executive Chris Weber explained that the company aims to offer its current imaging- / Symbian Belle flagship-handset, the 41-megapixel Pureview 808, north of Mexico in the “next couple of months” — unsurprising, considering it recently passed through the underground testing-chambers of the FCC. Unlike the Lumia, however, this mega-phone will only be sold unlocked, naturally sporting AT&T bands for connectivity. While we’re still eager to find out more detailed availability information, you can now rest assured that you’ll soon be able to capture highly detailed photos of your freedom fries to post on Tumblr.

Nokia confirms intent to bring unlocked Pureview 808 handset to US originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 May 2012 15:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Inspired by the graphic novel “Five Fists of Science” — and perhaps encouraged by the plucky MIT student who made his own Tesla coil hat and survived — a DIYer named Rob designed a Tesla coil gun, which he says is fully functional. Rob used a Nerf gun cast in aluminum for the housing and created a high voltage switch with a 3D powder printer. The gun is powered by an 18V ion drill battery and a flyback transformer housed inside a PVC plumbing end cap. Though Rob has yet to fire the gun, photos show what he says are sparks from the setup, and a demo clip is on the way. While video proof is always nice, so is preserving your life. We wish Rob the best with both.

Tesla coil gun exists, may shoot lightning originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 May 2012 05:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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