Will You Tweet This?

When a piece of news breaks online, it's hard to predict how widely it will be discussed in blog posts or tweets and for how long.

Jure Leskovec, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University, is working to find a way to make it easier to predict which pieces of content will resonate for a long time. A lot of factors go into that equation, however?the content of the story itself, the popularity of the site where the story originally appeared, and the nature of the community of readers at which it's aimed.

Two new research papers, written by Leskovec and Stanford PhD candidate Jaewon Yang, reveal patterns in the way news stories are shared online, which offer a way to predict early on how a story's popularity will rise and fall.

Predicting how widely a news story, or any other piece of information, will travel could help websites position their content and advertising more effectively, Leskovec says. It could also help determine influence of a writer or blogger, by showing how his or her content is shared. Combined with other work, it could help provide a better picture of how information travels online generally.

The researchers analyzed 170 million news articles and blog posts over the course of a year, and 580 million Twitter posts over eight months. They measured the attention each piece of content received by tracing how many times it was mentioned in other blog posts, news stories, and tweets. They did this not by looking at links, but by tracking the appearance of distinctive phrases?such as "lipstick on a pig"? in blog posts and articles. They used this data to create a graph that revealed six distinct patterns. Some stories, for example, spiked rapidly and then fell away, making a sharp, pointed shape. Others had more staying power, rising and falling more gently.

"By looking at when particular types of media get involved, you can see different patterns arise," Leskovec says. For example, if a blog breaks a story, the pattern tends to be different than when a story is broken by a traditional news media. The point at which blogs get involved in a story, Leskovec says, is a major factor in determining its longevity. For example, even if traditional media focus on a story for a brief time, blog discussion can keep it in the public eye longer.

The early response to a new piece of content allowed the researchers to predict, with 75 percent accuracy, the shape of that item's popularity over a longer period.

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Google to release WebM plugins for IE9 and Safari

After Google announced that it would be dropping support for H.264 in Chrome and only support WebM going forward, the search giant has revealed that it will offer WebM plugins for Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 and Apple's Safari. It appears that the HTML5 video tag battle is going to get ugly, and it's not clear whether there will be a standard anytime soon.

"Bottom line, we are at an impasse in the evolution of HTML video. Having no baseline codec in the HTML specification is far from ideal," a Google spokesperson said in a statement. "This is why we're joining others in the community to invest in WebM and encouraging every browser vendor to adopt it for the emerging HTML video platform (the WebM Project team will soon release plugins that enable WebM support in Safari and IE9 via the HTML standard video tag). Our choice was to make a decision today and invest in open technology to move the platform forward, or to accept the status quo of a fragmented platform where the pace of innovation may be clouded by the interests of those collecting royalties. Seen in this light, we are choosing to bet on the open web and are confident this decision will spur innovation that benefits users and the industry."

The plugin announcement is reminiscent of Adobe's stranglehold on online video with Flash. Certain browsers requiring a plugin to support WebM video isn't very different. Google is actually trying what Microsoft has already attempted. Last month, Microsoft announced an updated version of its Windows Media Player plug-in for Mozilla Firefox that enabled H.264-encoded video on HTML5 by using built-in capabilities available on Windows 7.

Microsoft and Apple are betting on H.264 since it is much more widely adopted and because it has hardware decoders, which allows mobile devices to get long battery life and smooth performance for video playback. Google developed WebM as an alternative, and it has managed to get Mozilla and Opera on board because it is more open and is free. Microsoft has said that Internet Explorer 9 would only support H.264, but that it would make an exception for WebM, as long as the user installs the corresponding codec. Apple has so far stayed silent and is sticking solely with H.264.

All the browser vendors agree that their software should have support for the HTML5 video tag, but they can't agree on the standard that will allow it. The discussions around the recent announcements from Google and Microsoft have been interesting, but beyond that, it does not look like the industry is making any progress towards unification.

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At a Gun Show and a Safeway, Tucson Looks for ?Normalcy?

TUCSON ? A week after a gunman killed six people and wounded 13 others here, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, a gun show at the Pima County Fairgrounds went forward as planned on Saturday, and the Safeway supermarket where the shooting occurred reopened for business.

At both places, visitors observed a moment of silence in honor of the victims.

At the Safeway, Nancy Ostromencki, 56, said, ?I decided I needed to come here again to start to reclaim normalcy.?

Ms. Ostromencki, a piano teacher who said she was inside the store when the shooting occurred, said her daily routine included buying a Frappuccino and treats for her dog, Bailey, at the supermarket, and ?I can?t let that worm have more control than he?s already had.?

Jared L. Loughner, 22, has been charged in the rampage, in which Ms. Giffords was severely wounded and a federal judge, a 9-year-old girl and four others were killed.

Doctors on Saturday operated on Ms. Giffords to remove her breathing tube and replace it with a tracheotomy tube, officials at University Medical Center said in a statement. Doctors said they also inserted a feeding tube ?to provide nutritional support.?

Doctors said Ms. Giffords was able to breathe on her own but the breathing tube was a precaution. With it removed, doctors said they could evaluate her ability to speak.

The gun show is one of five that is held in Tucson each year by Crossroads of the West, a Utah company. An answering machine greeting for the company on Saturday morning said, ?Yes, the Tucson gun show in Arizona will be on.?

Bob Templeton, the company?s owner, said he and Crossroads of the West?s other leaders considered canceling the Tucson show, which is scheduled to run through Sunday, and even consulted with the fairgrounds operators about whether to do so.

Mr. Templeton said the organizers asked themselves: ? ?Are we being insensitive?? ?

He said they concluded that they were not.

?This really is not about guns,? he said, referring to the shooting. ?It?s about mental illness and a person who had an agenda.?

Mr. Templeton said that none of the roughly 200 exhibitors had canceled, and more than a thousand people had shown up by early Saturday.

Items for sale included ?gun juice,? a type of lubricant; 40-round magazines for AK-47s, at $19.99; and bumper stickers critical of President Obama.

Jerry Mercante, an employee of Defensive Arms and Ammo, which has a small store in Tucson and a large display of handguns at the show, said he had sold more than a dozen weapons in a little more than 90 minutes, including at least one Glock. A Glock 19, the model that was used in last week?s shooting, was on sale at Mr. Mercante?s booth for $489.

Mr. Mercante said sales at his store had edged up this week, just as they have across Arizona since the shooting. ?If you turn on the TV and see gun, gun, gun, people want to buy a gun,? he said.

Still, there were small indications that things were different at the gun show this weekend. A box at the exhibit hall?s entrance solicited donations for a ?Tragedy in Tucson? victims fund. (A sign promoting the National Rifle Association was beside the box.) An American flag flew at half-staff.

At 12:15 p.m., Mr. Templeton asked the crowed to observe a moment of silence and asked for reflection on ?what we might do in the future to mitigate this kind of violence.? He extended condolences to the victims and encouraged people to ?lawfully and thoughtfully continue to exercise your Second Amendment rights.?

Rick Krueger, the first person in line early Saturday, blamed the mental health system for the shooting spree.

?It?s not guns that kill people,? said Mr. Krueger, 58, who added that he worked in the mental health field. ?People kill people.?

In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama spoke about the shootings and urged members of Congress to work together as they returned to Washington. He recalled that in the days right after the attack, ?one of the places we saw that sense of community on display was on the floor of Congress.?

?One by one, representatives from all parts of the country and all points of view rose in common cause to honor Gabby and the other victims and to reflect on our shared hopes for this country,? the president said. ?As shrill and discordant as our politics can be at times, it was a moment that reminded us of who we really are ? and how much we depend on one another.?

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, in an article on The Washington Post?s Op-Ed page on Sunday, praised the president for the speech he delivered on Wednesday at a memorial service in Tucson.

Jo Becker and Jennifer Medina contributed reporting.

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Will You Tweet This?

When a piece of news breaks online, it's hard to predict how widely it will be discussed in blog posts or tweets and for how long.

Jure Leskovec, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University, is working to find a way to make it easier to predict which pieces of content will resonate for a long time. A lot of factors go into that equation, however?the content of the story itself, the popularity of the site where the story originally appeared, and the nature of the community of readers at which it's aimed.

Two new research papers, written by Leskovec and Stanford PhD candidate Jaewon Yang, reveal patterns in the way news stories are shared online, which offer a way to predict early on how a story's popularity will rise and fall.

Predicting how widely a news story, or any other piece of information, will travel could help websites position their content and advertising more effectively, Leskovec says. It could also help determine influence of a writer or blogger, by showing how his or her content is shared. Combined with other work, it could help provide a better picture of how information travels online generally.

The researchers analyzed 170 million news articles and blog posts over the course of a year, and 580 million Twitter posts over eight months. They measured the attention each piece of content received by tracing how many times it was mentioned in other blog posts, news stories, and tweets. They did this not by looking at links, but by tracking the appearance of distinctive phrases?such as "lipstick on a pig"? in blog posts and articles. They used this data to create a graph that revealed six distinct patterns. Some stories, for example, spiked rapidly and then fell away, making a sharp, pointed shape. Others had more staying power, rising and falling more gently.

"By looking at when particular types of media get involved, you can see different patterns arise," Leskovec says. For example, if a blog breaks a story, the pattern tends to be different than when a story is broken by a traditional news media. The point at which blogs get involved in a story, Leskovec says, is a major factor in determining its longevity. For example, even if traditional media focus on a story for a brief time, blog discussion can keep it in the public eye longer.

The early response to a new piece of content allowed the researchers to predict, with 75 percent accuracy, the shape of that item's popularity over a longer period.

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Intel Sandy Bridge launch was pointless

While the review we published yesterday of Intel's new Sandy Bridge range of CPUs was extremely glowing, the fact remains that launching it at 5am (UK time) on 3 January was pointless.

This is because, more than 33 hours after the so-called 'launch' of Sandy Bridge, you can't still buy one of these new CPUs or an LGA1155 motherboard to put one in.

In short, Sandy Bridge is a paper launch and Intel has joined the ignoble list of companies that 'launches' products you can't buy. There are several reasons why the launch on Monday is such a joke.

First of all, just days before launch, Intel pulled forwards the launch date by a couple of days, throwing the industry into disarray. For example, we had to suddenly get the review prepared earlier than expected; not a whole lot of fun when you're on national holiday and the team is spread around the globe.

Intel Sandy Bridge launch was pointless *Intel Sandy Bridge launch was pointless
You can get your own paper Sandy Bridge CPU by printing out this image

However, while most major review sites managed to scrabble some coverage together, retailers and manufacturers have still yet to catch up. As a result, no major UK or US retailer is listing any Sandy Bridge products as available to ship, let alone pre-order.

It's not just the press and retailers that are confused either - I've yet to receive a single press release from a manufacturer about their Sandy Bridge motherboards, memory or CPU coolers either. Perhaps we'll see some news later on today, when Sandy Bridge was originally meant to launch.

So, even if Sandy Bridge does (on paper) make the whole existing range of LGA1156 CPUs and most LGA1366 processors obselete, in reality it doesn't.

The sad fact is that Intel didn't need to rush out the release of Sandy Bridge in such a slap-dash manner. Its competitor has nothing remotely threatening planned until quite a lot later this year, so it's a baffling decision.

That is, unless you believe its a cynical ploy to drum up demand so that when you finally can buy Sandy Bridge, Intel can mysteriously up the price. In the meantime, don't expect a January Hardware Buyer's Guide anytime soon...

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A Test for 400 Inherited Diseases

Researchers have developed a new test designed to simultaneously detect genetic mutations involved in more than 400 severe diseases. The test, which was shown to be highly accurate, is initially aimed at screening prospective parents for mutations linked to rare inherited disorders.

Thanks to inexpensive sequencing technology, scientists aim to offer the test for just a few hundred dollars, similar to the cost of tests currently available for detecting individual diseases or a handful of disorders.

"We want this test to become available in the same way Tay-Sachs and cystic-fibrosis testing has," says Stephen Kingsmore, chief scientific officer of the National Center for Genome Resources and senior author on the study. Tay-Sachs, a rare inherited disorder, strikes in infancy and is typically fatal within the first few years of life. "Forty years of experience with Tay-Sachs resulted in that awful disorder becoming pretty much eradicated in North America," he says. "This is just on a grander scale."

The new test, which reads the sequence of about 2 million letters of DNA spread out over 7,000 different chunks, is designed to detect mutations in genes that have been linked to so-called recessive Mendelian disorders, including cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs. People who inherit two mutant copies of the relevant gene are guaranteed to develop the disease, while people with only one copy will not. These diseases often strike early in life with severe consequences, including severe disability and death. And while they are individually rare, together they account for about 20 percent of infant mortality.

Testing prospective parents for these mutations can help them prevent or plan for the diseases. Couples who are both carriers of mutations in a particular disease-linked gene could choose to adopt, to conduct genetic tests on in-vitro-fertilized embryos, or to do prenatal testing and terminate affected pregnancies.

While more than 1,000 genes have been linked to recessive Mendelian disorders, the tests now available to prospective parents screen for only the most common, such as cystic fibrosis, and are mainly offered to parents in high-risk groups. Ashkenazi Jews are at particular risk of carrying Tay-Sachs mutations, for example.

"To be able to screen for more than 400 rare conditions is really an important advance," says Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, who was not involved in the study. "We don't have anything near that today."

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A Test for 400 Inherited Diseases

Researchers have developed a new test designed to simultaneously detect genetic mutations involved in more than 400 severe diseases. The test, which was shown to be highly accurate, is initially aimed at screening prospective parents for mutations linked to rare inherited disorders.

Thanks to inexpensive sequencing technology, scientists aim to offer the test for just a few hundred dollars, similar to the cost of tests currently available for detecting individual diseases or a handful of disorders.

"We want this test to become available in the same way Tay-Sachs and cystic-fibrosis testing has," says Stephen Kingsmore, chief scientific officer of the National Center for Genome Resources and senior author on the study. Tay-Sachs, a rare inherited disorder, strikes in infancy and is typically fatal within the first few years of life. "Forty years of experience with Tay-Sachs resulted in that awful disorder becoming pretty much eradicated in North America," he says. "This is just on a grander scale."

The new test, which reads the sequence of about 2 million letters of DNA spread out over 7,000 different chunks, is designed to detect mutations in genes that have been linked to so-called recessive Mendelian disorders, including cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs. People who inherit two mutant copies of the relevant gene are guaranteed to develop the disease, while people with only one copy will not. These diseases often strike early in life with severe consequences, including severe disability and death. And while they are individually rare, together they account for about 20 percent of infant mortality.

Testing prospective parents for these mutations can help them prevent or plan for the diseases. Couples who are both carriers of mutations in a particular disease-linked gene could choose to adopt, to conduct genetic tests on in-vitro-fertilized embryos, or to do prenatal testing and terminate affected pregnancies.

While more than 1,000 genes have been linked to recessive Mendelian disorders, the tests now available to prospective parents screen for only the most common, such as cystic fibrosis, and are mainly offered to parents in high-risk groups. Ashkenazi Jews are at particular risk of carrying Tay-Sachs mutations, for example.

"To be able to screen for more than 400 rare conditions is really an important advance," says Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, who was not involved in the study. "We don't have anything near that today."

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G.O.P. Elects a New Chairman as Steele Drops Out

Mr. Priebus, who broke away from Mr. Steele?s close circle of advisers to run against him, said he would work to rebuild the trust of major contributors who had lost faith in the party and begin preparing to challenge President Obama. He pledged to heal any divisions among Republican constituencies.

?We all recognize that there?s a steep hill ahead of us,? Mr. Priebus said, delivering his first remarks as party chairman. ?The only way we?ll be able to move forward is if we?re all together.?

Mr. Priebus, 38, the chairman of the Wisconsin state party, presided over sweeping statewide and local Republican victories in the midterm elections, including the defeat of Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat. He was the preferred candidate of much of the Republican establishment and was recruited by party elders to replace Mr. Steele, whose stewardship of the party had become a central issue in the race.

Even in the intimate circles of Republican Party politics, Mr. Priebus is far from well known. He rose through the political ranks from his hometown, Pleasant Prairie, working as a local activist, the state party treasurer and finally the state chairman, which he became four years ago ? making him a member of the Republican National Committee. He also served as the committee?s general counsel.

Facing television cameras moments after his election, he was still wearing a nametag on his lapel. He conceded that he has limited experience on television, but he said his chief role would be raising money and working on the nuts and bolts of the party?s operation rather than being a frequent guest on national news programs.

The race for chairman unfolded with an air of uncertainty and drama here at the National Harbor resort outside Washington, where members of the committee gathered for their winter meeting. The vote took place in a series of secret ballots, complete with side agreements and closed-door meetings among the candidates.

On the fourth round of voting, Mr. Steele conceded to political reality and dropped his bid for a second term. He ascended to the stage and, in his last statement as chairman, declared, ?I will step aside because I think the party is ready for something different.?

Mr. Steele, 52, who was elected chairman two years ago in the belief that he had the communication skills to challenge the Democrats and Mr. Obama, spent a significant share of his tenure apologizing for gaffes, for a lack of discipline and for straying off message. He argued that Republican victories last fall, including regaining control of the House, were signs of his success, but members of the committee viewed it differently. He is leaving the committee with $21 million in debt.

Support for Mr. Steele slipped with every passing round of voting. But even in his departure, he sought to influence the race, endorsing the candidacy of Maria Cino, a longtime official in the administration of President George W. Bush and the preferred candidate of the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio. Rival candidates suggested that Mr. Steele and Ms. Cino had cut a deal, and she finished third.

Saul Anuzis, a longtime Michigan Republican official, received 43 votes. But the election reached a conclusion on the seventh ballot when Reince (rhymes with pints) Priebus (pronounced PREE-bus) received 97 votes, surpassing the 85-vote majority needed to become chairman. Ann Wagner of Missouri left the race after the sixth round.

?It is time that this committee heal and unify and remember that it is our job to beat Barack Obama in 2012,? Ms. Wagner said, urging members of the committee to focus on the bigger task at hand for Republicans. ?I believe that our party is the best hope for our conservative movement.?

While Republicans achieved major victories last fall, the Republican National Committee and many state parties are mired in precarious financial conditions. Several party leaders said Republican successes could have been even greater if Mr. Steele had raised more money during his chairmanship.

?I want to thank you so much ? so much ? for the chance to serve at a time when our party was changing, struggling to grow, regain its footing, find its voice, reconnect with people and to stand proud again,? Mr. Steele said. ?The efforts of our party, a party once tagged as an endangered species, speaks for itself.?

But Mr. Steele was unable to overcome other elements of his record, which party leaders said had become a distraction.

Last year, while speaking at a party fund-raising event, he stirred controversy with remarks about the United States military strategy in Afghanistan. Mr. Steele declared the conflict a losing battle and called it ?a war of Obama?s choosing.?

The gaffes could have been overlooked, several committee members said, but the financial stewardship of the committee could not. Major contributors across the nation have said that Mr. Steele had not reached out to them and that they did not have confidence in how he was disbursing the party?s money.

Even before the vote began here, the annual presentation of the treasurer?s report provided a sobering view of the party?s finances. Several Republican officials rose in opposition to Mr. Steele?s proposed 2011 budget. They questioned expenditures he had approved for the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., along with other programs on his wish list.

?We cannot be the party of fiscal responsibility, we cannot be a shining example for the country, we cannot lead if we are operating in deficit,? said Tom Fetzer, the Republican chairman from North Carolina.

Mr. Steele, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland who was the first black chairman of the Republican National Committee, dismissed the concerns and pointed again and again to the party?s midterm victories last year. But when it became clear that re-election was out of his grasp, he took to the podium and made an announcement.

?Despite the noise, and Lord knows we?ve had a lot of noise, despite the difficulties ? we won,? he said. As the crowd rose to its feet to give him an ovation, he added: ?I thank you for the opportunity to serve and to leave. And now, I exit stage right.?

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Police Describe Busy Hours Before a Gunman?s Attack

The judge, John M. Roll, was honored Friday at an emotional funeral Mass.

The night before the rampage, authorities say, Mr. Loughner, 22, dropped off at a drugstore a roll of 35-millimeter film containing images he had shot of himself posing with a Glock semiautomatic pistol while wearing a red G-string. The authorities said he picked up the film early on the day of the shooting at a Walgreens in the same strip mall where he would later open fire at a citizens? forum held by Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona.

In some of the photos Mr. Loughner is holding the gun near his crotch, and in others, presumably taken in a mirror, he is holding the gun next to his buttocks, investigators said. It was not clear when the photos were taken.

Late Friday, Pima Community College released a video that it said Mr. Loughner made on Sept. 23. As the camera shook from his walking, the narrator on the video pointed out locations on the campus. ?This is the school that I go to,? he said. ?This is my genocide school, where I?m going to be homeless because of the school.?

According to the timeline the police have constructed of his movements, Mr. Loughner checked into a Motel 6 after midnight last Saturday. He returned to Walgreens to pick up the photos and make another purchase at 2:19 a.m. At 4:12 a.m., he posted a bulletin on his MySpace account titled ?Goodbye friends? that contained one of the photographs on the roll of film ? an image of the gun ? investigators said.

Just after 6 a.m. he made another purchase at a Wal-Mart and at a Circle K convenience store. At 7:04, he tried to buy ammunition at one Wal-Mart. He left without completing his purchase and went to another Wal-Mart, where at 7:27 a.m. he bought bullets and a black diaper bag.

Shortly after that, he was stopped by an officer for running a red light. He returned home, where his father confronted him about what was in the diaper bag.

He fled on foot and went to the Circle K where a cab picked him up and took him to a Safeway supermarket. Sixteen minutes elapsed between the time he entered the Safeway and when he began shooting just outside the entrance.

The shooting injured 13, not 14, as was originally reported, a decrease a sheriff?s spokesman attributed on Friday to the initial confusion surrounding the attack.

Also, it emerged Friday that the F.B.I had video of the episode taken from the surveillance cameras of businesses in the shopping center, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to speak publicly because the investigation was continuing.

The investigator said the authorities were hoping the video would not have to be used at Mr. Loughner?s trial, because it would probably be painful for the families of the victims.

The suspected target of Mr. Loughner?s attack, Ms. Giffords, continued Friday to make significant medical progress, her doctors said.

?We couldn?t have hoped for any better improvement than we?re seeing right now, given the severity of her injury initially,? said Dr. G. Michael Lemole Jr., chief of neurosurgery at University Medical Center in Tucson. Still, doctors continued to express caution, saying that for now they would not upgrade Ms. Giffords from critical condition.

At the funeral for Judge Roll, colleagues spoke about how his death had left a gaping hole in Tucson?s legal community. His absence has also created a huge backlog of cases, prompting federal judges from across the country to offer to help with his workload, colleagues said.

?Right after the shooting, I had e-mails and phone calls from all over the country from people saying they wanted to pitch in,? Judge Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, said in an interview. ?Judges from all over the country agreed to take 20 cases, 30 cases, to come over and sit to take up the burden.?

Emerging from Judge Roll?s funeral, lawyers who worked with him or appeared before him recalled his meticulous legal mind and fierce independence and integrity.

One of the most important cases on Judge Roll?s docket is a challenge to a state law that has been used to declare the Mexican-American studies program in the Tucson Unified School District as illegal. It was not immediately clear who would pick up that case.

Judge Roll was no stranger to difficult legal disputes. His 2009 decision to allow a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit to proceed against a rancher who rounded up Mexicans as they crossed his land led to death threats. Federal marshals put him and his family under protection for a month.

Among the officials attending the service Friday were politicians from both sides of the aisle, as well as jurists from around the country, including Loretta A. Preska, chief judge of the Southern District of New York.

?Judge Roll treated the cafeteria workers in his courthouse as well as he treated the chief judge of the Ninth Circuit,? she said.

However, to some of those who said goodbye to him Friday, Judge Roll was not a man in a dark robe. His grandchildren spoke of how he took them to Disneyland, taught them to swim and camped with them in the desert.

A neighbor, George Kriss, recalled how Judge Roll used to walk his two basset hounds in the morning. Mr. Kriss said he was surprised to discover that this basset-lover was on the bench. ?I thought, ?How can this man be a judge?? He wasn?t mean enough,? Mr. Kriss said.

John Schwartz and Sarah Wheaton contributed reporting from New York.

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Solving the Climate Crisis At a Profit

A decade ago, environmentalist Hunter Lovins published Natural Capitalism, coauthored with her then-husband, Amory Lovins. The book influenced some business leaders to embrace what was a counterintuitive notion: that going green could be a way to save or make lots of money. Since then, she has gone on to establish Natural Capitalism Solutions, a Colorado-based firm that helps businesses and governments become more energy-efficient and better prepared for the global threats of climate change. She recently wrote Climate Capitalism, a book due out this spring that presents the climate crisis as a giant business opportunity.

TR: If you look back at the thesis of Natural Capitalism, what has changed and what has been surprising since then?

HL: Ten years ago, we were observing what the few best companies were doing to implement sustainability profitably. And we derived a set of four principles of natural capitalism, the first of which is to use energy resources dramatically more productively. In the intervening years, this is what most businesses that manage themselves as green or sustainable or responsible have been doing, and with massive savings. One surprise is how many savings still remain.

What are some examples of those kinds of savings?

My team walked into a company last year that had 6,300 computers and monitors that they left on 24/7 because of some urban myths: that it shortens the life of the computer to turn it off and turn it on. Well, no, that's not true. Or IT needs them left on [to do maintenance]. No, that's not true either. One night a week would do fine. In that company, just publishing a policy to turn the darned thing off when you're not sitting in front of it could save them $700,000 in the first year. This is free money.

What company is that?

I can't tell you, but it is endemic throughout society. In the United States alone, we waste something like $2.8 billion each year leaving computers on that have nobody in front of them. So a surprise is that even though we and a lot of other people have been saying this for 10 years, the opportunities still exist, and if anything, they are getting better.

So principle number one remains valid.

Yes, although a change in Climate Capitalism is that we've redefined the first principle to be: Buy time by using resources dramatically more productively.

What do you mean by "buy time"?

What the world is shortest in is the time to deal with the challenges facing us. Things like the climate crisis. Some scientists are saying it's too late.

Do you believe it's too late?

The short answer is we don't know. Maybe I'm just being an optimist, but in looking around, I believe that if the world's businesses did what is manifestly in their own economic interest, implemented all the available, cost-effective efficiency improvements, we could solve the climate crisis?and at a profit.

That is the thesis of Climate Capitalism. Suppose the climate crisis is a hoax. Frankly, don't go to Vegas on the odds of this being true. But if all you are is a profit-maximizing capitalist, you would do exactly the same thing as you would do if you were scared to death about climate change.

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