And you thought Roy Halladay drove a sweet ride to work. Left-handed weather man Derek Holland of the Texas Rangers blows the bullpen doors off Doc’s hot rod with this dune buggy that appears to have been driven directly off the set of Tupac Shakur’s epic “California Love” video.

T.R. Sullivan of MLB.com snapped the main photo above of an automobile called a Ranger (naturally) RZR S. It’s good for driving in the ruggedly arid terrain of the White Tank Mountains near Rangers camp in Surprise, Ariz. — which Holland frequently does. But to work? Holland says the car is “perfectly legal” to drive on the street because “it has license plates.” If you say so, Dutch.

It’s a two-seater, so Holland can take a teammate with him. Pitcher Cody Eppley rode along to camp on Tuesday and has been up in the mountains with him. But Eppley made it clear that riding with Holland is perfectly safe.

“We’re not stupid,” Eppley said. “It’s just nice to get out and see the mountains and the White Tanks and get away from everything.”

This vehicle really would be handy in case of the apocalypse, which Tupac predicted in the dystopian-themed video for his biggest hit:

Now let me welcome everybody to the wild, wild west. It appears the forecast for tomorrow is sandy, with a chance of Dr. Dre eye patch. Considering the song is Tupac’s love letter to his home state, isn’t Holland’s buggy better off being used by the Los Angeles Angels? Does Erick Aybar drive something with a roll bar?

Spring Training has arrived! Follow Dave on Twitter — @AnswerDave — and engage The Stew on Facebook for your fill of Grapefruit and Cactus!

Twitter, Facebook and other social networks have long counted on the rise in smartphone usage to help fuel their growth: that trend, however, seems to also be taking a toll on mobile carriers — specifically in the form of revenues.

The analyst firm of Ovum, part of the Informa Group, has estimated that operators lost $13.9 billion in SMS revenue in 2011, as a result of their customers using services like Twitter and Facebook to message each other instead of the carriers’ own text messaging services. A separate report from mobile analytics firm Bytemobile has also charted huge growth in the use of social media on mobile — with operators getting virtually no benefit as a result.

Bytemobile, using data it gathers from its tier-one carrier customers, found that the average mobile user spends around nine minutes per day each on Facebook and YouTube on mobile. YouTube, being a video service, generates 300 times more traffic on data networks. In both of those cases, it notes, neither service generates any mobile operator revenue.

There is a caveat, of course: carriers are still making money from people using their phones to use social networks: users are, after all, still buying 3G and 4G data plans; and many (but not all) carriers also roll public WiFi connectivity into those plans.

It’s questionable, though, whether that incremental data revenue for tweets, status updates and check-ins, and the more substantial data usage from services like YouTube, are able to offset the loss from the more lucrative messaging services that operators built up and still count on for revenues.

It appears that the figure is gradually growing: Ovum points out that a $13.9 billion loss works out to some nine percent of messaging revenues for carriers worldwide, a rise from the six percent of revenues lost in messaging revenue to social messaging in 2010, when carriers lost $8.7 billion in SMS revenues to social media messaging.

Ovum’s suggestion? For carriers to work more closely on making their messaging and other services more collaborative — that is, more partnerships with social networks so that they use the carrier infrastructure to underpin their own communication tools.

There is some of that happening already, particularly in developing countries. France Telecom-owned operator Orange last week announced that it would be launching a new way of accessing Facebook in developing markets, using USSD functionality on GSM devices. It is offering this as an extra paid service to users.

But by and large, operators have missed the boat in more developed markets, where smartphones and mobile apps are the order of the day.

There is still an opportunity in those advanced markets. Carriers, if they got the lead out, could act as mobile app developers and make their own clients to access those social networks, which link in better with the services they already have in place — say for messaging or billing services. That’s something that has been relatively untapped so far.

‘I believe that reaching out for help is the bravest thing a person can do,’ the ‘Harry Potter’ star says in the 30-second spot.
By Kara Warner

Daniel Radcliffe in the Trevor Project PSA
Photo: Trevor Project

As if we needed more reasons to love and respect Daniel Radcliffe.

The “Harry Potter” actor successfully carried a history-making franchise on his shoulders for more than a decade, charmed audiences on the Great White Way with his critically acclaimed performance in “How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” and is making great post-”Potter” career choices. Not only is he generally talented and charming, but he has also put his star power behind the Trevor Project, which is a nonprofit organization that offers support to sexual minority youth, particularly those experiencing emotional difficulty dealing with their sexuality who need someone to talk to. The Trevor Project also endeavors to foster safe and inclusive environments in homes and schools.

Radcliffe’s latest work with the organization is a 30-second PSA that aired Tuesday night during “Glee” and MTV News now has exclusively online. In the spot, Radcliffe addresses the very important issue of supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth.

“I’m Daniel Radcliffe, and I believe that reaching out for help is the bravest thing a person can do,” Radcliffe says in the PSA. “If you are struggling and need support, call the Trevor Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386. It’s free and confidential, and trained counselors are there to listen 24/7 without judgment.”

The 22-year-old said in a statement that his work with the Trevor Project has taught him the importance of being a straight ally and offering his support. “When we let someone know that we accept them for who they are and that we are safe to talk to, we can help save lives,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Radcliffe has been involved with the Trevor Project since 2009, appearing in public service announcements for the group’s prevention hot line and speaking out in support of LGBT youth. Radcliffe has called his work with the Trevor Project “one of the most important, if not the most important, thing that I’m associated with.”

• Roland Mouret announced that he’s starting a footwear line, which will be available next season. [Grazia]

• Mary Katrantzou on her digital prints: ”With print, it is about educating the customer to try it on and see what it does with the silhouette. For me, with print, it is being really flattering on the woman, trying to do with print what a black dress would do onto their body. And it works!” [NYT]

• Kanye West was evidently being hilarious at the Mark Fast show (well, at least Zara Martin made it look that way). [Catwalk Queen]

• Backstage at Mulberry, Elizabeth Olsen said, “I love London style. I want to be a British schoolboy. There’s nothing better than a navy fitted blazer.” [Vogue UK]

• This season, New York’s runways were the most diverse they’ve been since 2008 —  20 percent of the models booked for Fashion Week shows were non-white. [Jezebel]

• Nicki Hilton weighs in on fall 2012 runways: “I dislike the whole neon thing. And I’m a leather fanatic, so I love just the leather tops, dresses, pants, and all of that.” [Elle]

• Beyoncé and Jay-Z made their first public appearance together since Blue’s birth at the New York Knicks game last night. [Just Jared]

• The International Palladium Board has teamed with the British Fashion Council to sponsor a jewelry competition among ten designers. [Vogue]

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Filed Under: mary katrantzou ,kanye west ,elizabeth olsen ,zara martin ,rouland mouret ,loose threads ,nicky hilton ,model tracker ,mulberry ,london fashion week fall 2012

Filed under: Investing, Streetwise

A month and a half into the new year, all’s well on the stock markets. Through the end of last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) had:

• 19 “up” days.
• Only 14 “down” days.
• Overall posted a 6% positive return for the year.

Taking note of the Dow’s progress, The Wall Street Journal recently called its performance “eerie … calm … too quiet.” Indeed, if things keep going at this rate, we’re on track for the stock markets to gain more than 50% this year. Dow 18,000, anyone?
…

Wall Street Plays a Risky Game, Again originally appeared on DailyFinance.com on 2012-02-21T15:20:00Z.

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Poor Denard Robinson.

Also season he faced a lot of criticism because of his lack of accuracy. It didn’t matter that he helped take Michigan to the Sugar Bowl — its first BCS bowl since 2006 — and beat Virginia Tech 23-20 in overtime. Nope, Michigan fans (and probably its coaches) wanted to see Robinson improve upon his 55 percent completion rate and maybe cut his 15 interceptions in half.

Unfortunately, nearly two months removed from the BCS game, Robinson’s accuracy hasn’t gotten any better.

During ESPN’s college basketball Gameday at Michigan last Saturday, the crew asked Robinson to throw a football through a basketball hoop from one end of the court to the other — about a 30-yard pass. And, spoiler alert, he missed.

His first attempt was the closest, the next two were ugly and the final attempt, he tucked, ran up the court and then flubbed a potential layup or dunk – a couple times. It was an all-around embarrassing effort for the Wolverines’ starter.

Even host Rece Davis was kind of taunting Robinson saying, “There’s no Junior Hemmingway out there Denard, you’ve got to put it on line.”

Perhaps Robinson needs to call former BYU quarterback and current Kansas transfer Jake Heaps for pointers. Heaps threw a football into the basket from the stands last year during a promo with Jimmer Fredette last year.

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Graham Watson is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow her @Yahoo_Graham

AP – An unmistakable dynamic is playing out in the money game among Republican presidential candidates: New “super” political action committees are growing more powerful than the campaigns they support.

Mountain Lion, Apple’s latest version of OS X, is currently in beta. However, it is in a stable enough form that some journalists were given sneak peeks over the past few days. I’ve been working with the OS for most of the last week and weekend and, as a public service announcement, I’d like to state that while Mountain Lion is a compelling upgrade to OS X it’s not currently ready for prime time.

To be fair, the worst version of OS X I ever used was an early build of Lion. This build essentially rendered my machine useless and made me cry uncontrollably when my Time Machine backups failed. Never, as they say, again.

However, being a glutton for punishment, I gave Mountain Lion a spin.

Mountain Lion installed without a hitch on a 2010 vintage MacBook Air although it refused to install on a 2006 Mac Pro – a disappointment that still burns a little. I know this old workhorse is six years old and more than capable. I’m sure there will be a fix down the line but right now there is no way to get it to install.

The OS has “grey screened” once and my install was marred by a system failure that required, literally, about 24 hours to fix. I didn’t have to sit there the whole time to fix it, but apparently one install froze, the machine locked up, and the secondary install process required a massive download. This took most of a day and night.

The most interesting improvement is the Notifications system. Not unlike Growl, Notifications sit unobtrusively in the corner for a moment and then disappear. There is a new icon in the upper right corner, next to the search glass, that allows you to see recent notifications. Growl still works fine as do most of my apps. I only noticed that QuicKeys, a text macro app, failed for the first few hours of use and then magically started up when I reset the machine.

Messages is arguably abysmal, with two odd UIs clashing with each other wildly. When you look at messages, you mostly see the huge message window. However, there is also a smaller buddy window that is a clone of iChat yet also folks in video chat and Facetime in a melange of odd queues. I’ve also had trouble syncing my conversations across devices. I would love to be able to receive, for example, iMessages that appear on my phone on the desktop and reply from either device. As it stands, the service is focused around an iMessage email address. I’d love it to work with phone numbers as well.

Mail is improved slightly as well, with a new “star” system for important messages and a VIP system for important senders. For example, you can set Mom or the significant other to a VIP and then only receive a notification when a VIP emails. MacWorld has a wildly complete look at Mail, but there’s not much different that anyone would notice except that the new Mail does not support RSS feeds.

Twitter integration worked quite well as did page sharing in Safari.

As for behind the scenes I noticed that Mountain Lion was as stable as Lion and, barring the rare catastrophic shutdown, I’m working as quickly and as efficiently on ML as I was on Lion. I never experienced Gatekeeper’s security system during my time with the OS.

Would I recommend that non-devs upgrade right now, just to “kick the tires?” Assuming you have access to a beta – for whatever reason – I’d say no. I’ve seen a number of bloggers and other tech-types mentioning they we’re upgrading but generally it’s not worth the potential headache and the agony of waiting 24 hours to see if your MBA was totally hosed thanks to an install error was enough to make me want to revert to Lion. However, Apple sent this out as a pre-release for a reason. It works quite well and the new features are actually mostly apps rather then baked-in improvements. Don’t pull the trigger yet. It’s fun to experiment but it’s also fun to have a computer that works.