World War Z Review: A Cure for the Common Blockbuster

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How to get iMore to cover your apps and games

Today's Talk Mobile was all about helping developers better market their apps. Media outlets like iMore are an important part of that marketing, yet like any resource, we have our limits. We get dozens of app submissions a day and sometimes hundreds a week, but we only have time to cover a handful. And as much as we love developers and apps, we love our readers even more, and take our responsibility to them incredibly seriously. We're only ever going to offer them the very best apps and games we can find. To put it bluntly, if something looks or works like crap, we're not going anywhere near it.

So, if you're a developer and you've made an amazing app or game, what's the best way to ensure it gets featured on iMore? There's no absolute answer to that question -- it's a classic chaos equation -- but there's a lot of things that can help, and a few that can hinder:

Things that make our lives -- and covering your apps -- easier

1. Do direct your app submission to the appropriate email address. If you flood our inboxes with multiple emails to multiple people, it'll be harder for us to find it, and figure out who's looking at what. Here are your go-tos: iosapps@imore.com and macapps@imore.com.
2. Do send personal notes. If it's not written by a human, it's not reasonable to expect it to be read by a human. Over time we come to know and trust you, and that can't happen with robots.
3. Do keep it short. 1 to 2 paragraphs about why your app is awesome will always be read. Multiple paragraphs or pages of text are almost impenetrable. What kind of app is it, what does it do, and why's that super compelling for our readers -- that's all you ever have to tell us.
4. Do include pre-release options, when available. If it's a major app release, or a complicated app, we appreciate TestFlight or Hockey builds so we can do a good job, rather than a rushed one.
5. Do include an App Store link, post-release. If we can't find your app, we can't cover it.
6. Do include a link to a YouTube video, if you have one. Yes, we know the cool kids prefer Vimeo, but YouTube is the second biggest search engine in the world. (Would you refuse to list your website on Google and keep it exclusive to Bing?)
7. Do follow our writers on Twitter and App.net, and don't hesitate to message us there. The character limit means it's easy to get into quick back and forth discussions, and you can more easily find out which of us is into what kinds of apps, and target us more specifically. Again, be human.

Things that make our lives -- and covering your apps -- harder

1. Don't send us pages of text, .PDF or .DOC attachments, or canned press releases. We have to filter somehow, and that's a great sign there's no one who cares about the app or game behind it.
2. Don't contact us the day of release and expect coverage that day. It didn't take you an hour to make your app, it won't take us an hour to cover it. We actually try out the stuff we cover, and we appreciate the time to do it right.
3. Don't send us to Facebook pages, web sites, or anything other than your App Store page. Those are great for reaching potential customers and fans. We need a direct way to find your app so we can help you reach more potential customers.
4. Don't offer to write your review for us, or pay for us to do a review. We'll cut off any and all communications at that point. Integrity matters a great deal to us.
5. Don't be a dick. We'll cover your apps regardless because we're professionals, but we appreciate dealing with professionals as well.

Our ultimate goal here at iMore is to delight and serve our readers. That means finding them the best apps and games possible. If that app or game is yours, we want to know all about it so we can tell our readers all about it. Help us help you help them.

(And if any of this comes off as obnoxious, that's absolutely not the intent. It's simply the best way we've come up with to date to deal with the incredible amounts of app submissions we get on a daily basis, and balance it with the best interests of our readers. Wow them, and you'll have our attention, support, and gratitude.)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/12VlrPSMaLE/story01.htm

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Government on offensive outside Syria's capital

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian government forces stepped up their attack against rebel strongholds north of the capital Damascus on Saturday, while opposition fighters declared their own offensive in the country's largest city Aleppo.

Both sides intensified operations as an 11-nation group that includes the U.S., dubbed the Friends of Syria, began meeting in Qatar to discuss how to coordinate military and other aid to the rebels seeking to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Friends of Syria agreed on Saturday to do more to help the embattled rebels trying to overthrow Assad, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said. While he offered no specifics about stepped-up military and humanitarian aid, Kerry said the assistance would help change the balance on the battlefield.

Kerry also denounced Assad for inviting Iranian and Hezbollah fighters to fight alongside his troops, saying the Syrian president risked turning the civil war into a regional sectarian conflict.

The fighting in Damascus came as the Syrian government announced salary increases to state employees and members of the military, days after the Syrian currency dipped to a record low of 210 pounds to the dollar compared with 47 when the crisis began more than two years ago. The raise also covered pensions.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on an extensive network of activists in Syria, said the shelling of the district of Qaboun has killed three children, including two from the same family, since Friday.

Activists reported heavy shelling on many fronts on districts north of Damascus, apparently an attempt to cut links between rebel-held districts that have served as launching pads for operations against the capital.

The Lebanese TV station Al-Mayadeen, which had a reporter embedded with Syrian government forces in the offensive, quoted a military official as saying that the operation aims to cut rebel supply lines, separate one group from another, and secure the northern entrances to the capital. The regime's forces have struggled for months to regain control of these suburbs.

The Observatory said the neighborhood was being attacked from several different sides, while the shelling has caused structural damage and started fires. Activists from Qaboun posted on Facebook that government forces had brought up new tanks to reinforce its positions outside the neighborhood, and the bombardment had brought buildings down.

The Observatory said rebels targeted a police academy in the nearby Barzeh area Saturday, pushing back against a government attempt to storm the neighborhood. One rebel was killed in overnight fighting, it said.

State news agency SANA said troops "inflicted heavy losses" among rebels in several suburbs of Damascus.

A recent declaration by the U.S. that it had conclusive evidence that President Bashar Assad's regime used chemical weapons on a small scale against opposition forces prompted Washington to authorize the arming of rebels, a major shift in policy. The decision also followed advances by the government forces aided by fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Rebels say they have already received new weapons from allied countries? but not the U.S. ? that they claim will help them to shift the balance of power on the ground. Experts and activists said the new weapons include anti-tank missiles and small quantities of anti-aircraft missiles.

It was not clear if any of the new weapons have made it to the Damascus area. A spokesman for one of the main groups fighting outside of Damascus, the al-Islam brigade, said his group had none of the new weapons. The spokesman, who declined to be named for fear of government reprisals, spoke to The Associated Press through Skype.

He said government forces were shelling Barzeh from Qasioun mountain overlooking Damascus. Syria's main Western-backed opposition group said Thursday that 40,000 civilians in the two northern districts of Damascus are suffering from shortages of food and medical supplies.

Rebels and government also clashed in and around the northern city of Aleppo, where government forces announced an offensive earlier this month. Activists said troops clashed in the southern neighborhoods of Rashideen and Hamdaniya and in the western suburbs.

The Observatory said rebels pounded a military academy in the area, causing a fire in the compound. There were no immediate reports of casualties. In Rashideen, rebel forces have pushed government forces out from parts of the neighborhood, according to the local Aleppo Media Center network and posts on Facebook.

A statement by a coalition of rebel groups, posted on the Center's page, declared that the fighters are launching a new operation to seize control of the western neighborhoods of Aleppo. Amateur showed what appeared to be intense government shelling of villages in the area.

On Saturday, a dozen shells from Syrian forces landed in a northern Lebanese border town, some landing near homes, causing a panic among residents, the Lebanese news agency reported.

Syria's official news agency said government troops were targeting a group of infiltrators across the border. It gave no further details.

Rockets from Syria fall regularly into towns and villages near the border. On Friday, a rocket slammed into a suburb of Beirut, bringing the war closer to Lebanon's bustling capital, the second in less than a month. No one claimed responsibility for that attack, but rebels in Syria have vowed to retaliate against Hezbollah's Beirut strongholds for its increasingly active role assisting Assad.

In Damascus, a presidential decree said that the raise for the public sector could reach up to 40 percent depending on the salary of the civil servant. Pensions could rise by up to 25 percent, according to the decree.

It said those who make 10,000 pounds ($54) a month will get a 40 percent raise, while who make double that amount will get a 20 percent boost. People making 40,000 pounds a month will get a 5 percent raise, it said.

Syria's 2-year civil war has killed nearly 93,000 people. It increasingly pits Sunni against Shiite Muslims and threatening the stability of Syria's neighbors.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/government-offensive-outside-syrias-capital-113710792.html

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NKorea demands dissolution of UN command in SKorea

UNITED NATIONS (AP) ? North Korea's U.N. envoy demanded the dissolution of the United Nations command in South Korea on Friday, accusing the United States of using the force to prepare for war against the North and build an Asian version of NATO to realize President Barack Obama's pivot to Asia.

Ambassador Sin Son Ho told reporters at a rare news conference that the most pressing issue in northeast Asia today is the hostile relations between North Korea and the United States "which can lead to a new war at any moment."

He reiterated North Korea's surprise offer last Saturday of wide-ranging senior-level talks with the United States "to defuse tension on the Korean peninsula and ensure peace and security in the region."

The proposed talks followed months of rising tensions and anti-American rhetoric by North Korea and the collapse earlier this month of proposed high-level talks between North and South Korea, amid bickering over who would lead the two delegations.

Sin stressed that the deteriorating situation on the Korean peninsula "is not caused by the DPRK," the initials of the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"All deteriorations and intensified situations (are) entirely caused by the United States of America," he insisted on several occasions.

Sin said U.S.-North Korea talks should include replacing the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-53 Korean War ? and one of the "prerequisite requirements" for establishing "a peace mechanism" to replace the armistice is the dissolution of the U.S.-led U.N. Command.

The ambassador said the talks can include "a world without nuclear weapons," which the United States has already proposed.

But he warned that North Korea will not give up its nuclear "self-defense deterrent" unless the United States "fundamentally and irreversibly abandons its hostile policy and nuclear threat" toward the North and dissolves the U.N. Command, and as long as there are nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula.

The Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, and left the Korean Peninsula divided by a heavily fortified border monitored by the U.N. Command. Washington also stations 28,500 American troops in South Korea to protect its ally against North Korean aggression.

In a lengthy statement, Sin claimed the U.N. Command "was a tool of war for aggression which was organized by the U.S." and "has nothing to do with the U.N."

"The U.N. Command is the U.S. command in essence," he said, and if necessary the DPRK will submit the issue to the U.N. General Assembly to dissolve it.

Sin said all the facts show that the U.S. is gradually transforming the U.N. command into a multinational military alliance "which would serve as a matrix of the Asian version of NATO" and "a stepping stone for the U.S. armed forces for aggression toward the DPRK and the realization of ... America's pivot to Asia strategy."

The U.S. aim, he said, is to make South Korea "a forward base for domination of (the) Asia Pacific region and hold fast to it as a cannon fodder for an aggressive war."

As a result, he said, "the situation on the Korean peninsula this year has reached to the full-scale nuclear showdown and to the brink of war between the DPRK and the U.S."

___

Associated Press Writer Maria Sanminiatelli contributed to this report from the United Nations

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/nkorea-demands-dissolution-un-command-skorea-160628448.html

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Graphene-based system could lead to improved information processing

June 21, 2013 ? Researchers at MIT have proposed a new system that combines ferroelectric materials -- the kind often used for data storage -- with graphene, a two-dimensional form of carbon known for its exceptional electronic and mechanical properties. The resulting hybrid technology could eventually lead to computer and data-storage chips that pack more components in a given area and are faster and less power-hungry.

The new system works by controlling waves called surface plasmons. These waves are oscillations of electrons confined at interfaces between materials; in the new system the waves operate at terahertz frequencies. Such frequencies lie between those of far-infrared light and microwave radio transmissions, and are considered ideal for next-generation computing devices.

The findings were reported in a paper in Applied Physics Letters by associate professor of mechanical engineering Nicholas Fang, postdoc Dafei Jin and three others.

The system would provide a new way to construct interconnected devices that use light waves, such as fiber-optic cables and photonic chips, with electronic wires and devices. Currently, such interconnection points often form a bottleneck that slows the transfer of data and adds to the number of components needed.

The team's new system allows waves to be concentrated at much smaller length scales, which could lead to a tenfold gain in the density of components that could be placed in a given area of a chip, Fang says.

The team's initial proof-of-concept device uses a small piece of graphene sandwiched between two layers of the ferroelectric material to make simple, switchable plasmonic waveguides. This work used lithium niobate, but many other such materials could be used, the researchers say.

Light can be confined in these waveguides down to one part in a few hundreds of the free-space wavelength, Jin says, which represents an order-of-magnitude improvement over any comparable waveguide system. "This opens up exciting areas for transmitting and processing optical signals," he says.

Moreover, the work may provide a new way to read and write electronic data into ferroelectric memory devices at very high speed, the MIT researchers say.

Dimitri Basov, a professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego who was not connected with this research, says the MIT team "proposed a very interesting plasmonic structure, suitable for operation in the technologically significant [terahertz] range. ? I am confident that many research groups will try to implement these devices."

Basov cautions, however, "The key issue, as in all of plasmonics, is losses. Losses need to be thoroughly explored and understood."

In addition to Fang and Jin, the research was carried out by graduate student Anshuman Kumar, former postdoc Kin Hung Fung (now at Hong Kong Polytechnic University), and research scientist Jun Xu. It was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/4eQl1-5Fu_M/130621095620.htm

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How Can I Keep My Family from Disturbing Me When I Work at Home?

Dear Lifehacker,
I love my family and I love working from home, but these two things don?t always go well together. Now that school?s out and my wife and kids are home more often, I?m afraid the noise and interruptions while I?m trying to work might drive me insane. How can I limit disturbances so I can actually get work done?

Signed,
Distracted Dad

Dear Distracted,

It?s almost funny, isn?t it? Working from home is often lauded as one of the best ways to achieve work-life balance, yet the biggest hurdles to working productively at home are disturbances or demands for your attention from family members. Significant others and children often don?t realize that being at home doesn?t mean you?re available to hang out or play.

While there?s no solution for getting rid of family distractions entirely (and, no, you can?t tie them up or lock them in a sound-proofed room), a few tricks can make this situation a lot easier on everyone. These are things I?ve learned over fifteen years of working from home, as well as good advice on Twitter from Lifehacker readers.

Set Some Boundaries

The first thing to do is have a discussion with your family to make sure they know how important it is for you to actually be able to work when you?re at home. You might say something like, ?I love having you near me while I?m working, but I have trouble focusing when I?m interrupted or there?s a lot of noise in the background. I?d really appreciate it if you could help me by keeping the noise down and pretending I?m not even here during my work hours. Otherwise my boss will kill me!? (Point them to this study if you have to.)

Make it crystal clear when you?re in your no-interruption zone. If you have a separate office (a real must if you work from home often with others around!), keep your door closed or even hang a ?Sorry, we?re closed? sign on it. On Twitter, tbanting says he uses a red post-it note on the door as a signal he?s busy, while Lea Antonio says: ?I wear my 'I?m working' hat which means no interruptions unless fire or blood is involved.?

That brings me to another point. Sometimes family members should interrupt you, but the key is to get them to know which interruptions are okay and when. Give them examples of things that are both urgent and important that you can be interrupted for immediately (disasters and emergencies), as well as important but not urgent things that can wait until you take a break. Urgent and important: someone broke a leg. Important but not urgent: someone needs new shoes. Neither important nor urgent: someone found the remote that went missing two minutes ago.

Your home office door can also be a signal system, as Joel Falconer writes on Speckyboy Design Magazine:

My system is simple: if it?s closed all the way, leave me alone ? unless one of the kids is dying or the house is on fire. If it?s half-closed, interrupt me for important things ? for instance, if my wife needs my card to go get some groceries ? but not for anything trivial. And if its open, it means it doesn?t really matter. I?m catching up on industry news or taking a break and I don?t care if one of the kids wants to come in for a game of Angry Birds. Set your boundaries and enforce them.

Someone comes in for a pointless chat while the door is half-closed? Use a flamethrower or whatever it takes to dissuade future infringements.

You can also apply classic tricks to curb distractions from co-workers in the office at home: wear noise-cancelling headphones, give them a chore to do when they interrupt you, or move your work area (maybe to the farthest, most uncomfortable room in your house or even the garage).

Schedule Your Time Carefully

Your work-at-home boundaries should also include time. Set a consistent schedule with clear times when you?re working, taking breaks, or officially off the clock. In effect, set office hours. These can be flexible (e.g., a couple of hours in the morning with an hour break, then a few more hours of work with fifteen minute breaks) so you get some quality time in during the day with your kids or partner. Again, just make sure everyone?s in on this program.

If a set schedule isn?t working, though, you might have to break up your day or change your work hours to get real focus time. That might mean getting up earlier or working late at night. When my daughter was younger, I used to schedule phone calls during her nap times (oh, how I miss nap time), and I still find the midnight-to?3am writing slot to be the most peaceful. There?s nothing like working while your loved ones are sleeping soundly in the next room.

Keep Them Occupied or Make Them Self-Sufficient

An alternative is to find a way to occupy restless or needy kids and spouses. This is especially important if your job involves talking on the phone or has similar needs for real quiet. Kathy Jimenez recommends, for example, reserving TV time for times when you need to be on Skype for a meeting. (And then close your office door and be ready with the mute button.) Jessica Reeder says that in addition to a closed door, it helps to plan meals and activities ahead. Anti-boredom activity boxes keep school-aged kids engaged. And, yes, this goes for adults, Reeder says: ?e.g., ?You?ve got the day off? That?s great, why don?t you go gamble all day and bring home some pizza?.?

For working at home with young kids, child care is a must, at least part-time for those hours you need to concentrate. Many kids are good at entertaining themselves, but that only works up to a point. You might feel pangs of guilt dividing your attention between work and your child. That?s where childcare comes in. Encourage the caregiver to take your kid outside, if possible, because it can be just as hard hearing your child laugh and squeal in the next room without you as it is to constantly say ?No, I can?t play right now.? (Actually, this kind of distraction applies to significant others too, such as when your spouse is watching the latest episode of True Blood without you.)

Also, while it?s nice to be needed sometimes, it?s aggravating to be interrupted for things the other person can do on their own. Identify those weak spots ahead of time so you can wean your family off of your help. For example, keep snack packs in reach of little hands, create a central location for supplies (so that mom?s not the only one who knows where the tape is) or even information (e.g., share the passwords for important sites so you don?t have to hear someone yelling from downstairs, ?What?s the password for???).

Embrace Your Family Interruptions

Finally, dealing with distractions is something all workers struggle with, no matter where they work. In addition to the tips above, a change in perspective might help you when you get stressed by the interruptions. As Jose says on Twitter, ?I can?t tame the #homeworking interruptions, but I can shut them out and ignore them.? Father of three kids, Geof Hileman, says: ?just embrace it - kid interruptions are my water cooler time.?

If worse comes to worst, you might have to leave the house for a brief stint working from a coffeeshop (or, as Jafet.js jokes, ?don?t tell them you are working from home, pretend going to office, get back through the bathroom window, and then hide somewhere inside and work.?)

But hopefully you won?t have to go to that extreme.

Cheers,
Lifehacker

Photos by pagetx, Joshua Blount, Rituparna Choudhury.

Source: http://lifehacker.com/how-can-i-keep-my-family-from-disturbing-me-when-i-work-518375734

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The STEHM Microscope: Finally, Nanoscientists Can See What They're Doing

Your average atom is about 62 to 520 picometers in diameter, but since that's a full factor smaller than the 390 to 700 nanometers human eye can perceive, direct observation using conventional microscopes is physically impossible. But that's where the electron beams come in. The University of Victoria has just installed the most powerful scanning electron microscope in history.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/aq88m1UgUpU/the-stehm-microscope-finally-nanoscientists-can-see-w-514153554

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Instagram video: Parents need not change their approach with the new feature

Instagram now has video (15 seconds compared to Vine's six). Parents need not develop a new approach to Instagram's new video feature, though, and ConnectSafely's guide to Instagram still holds up.?

By Anne Collier,?Guest Blogger / June 21, 2013

Instagram founder Kevin Systrom talks about an added video feature to the Instagram program at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., June 20.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

Enlarge

Facebook?s little photo-sharing app just became a video-sharing app too. Whether they?re using Apple or Android phones, Instagram?s 130 million users can now simply pick whether that image they want to capture is better static or in motion, then click on either the little camera or videocam icon. If they go with video, they can capture up to 15 seconds (no looping over and over as in other video-sharing apps like Vine). The filters that have always added to the fun in this app are there for video too (13 of them for it), and they can pick the frame they want to use to represent that little video on their profile or wherever they share it. If their shooting isn?t very steady, there?s a pretty amazing feature called Cinema (for now just for iPhone 4s and 5) that stabilizes the video for them.

Skip to next paragraph Anne Collier

Guest Blogger

Anne Collier is editor of NetFamilyNews.org and co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a Web-based interactive forum and information site for teens, parents, educators, and everybody interested in the impact of the social Web on youth and vice versa. She lives in Northern California and has two sons.

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Everything else about this new addition is a lot like the photo part of Instagram ? which is almost more about illustrated conversations than mere photo-sharing. ?We?re still committed to making sure you have control over all of your content. Only the people who you let see your photos will be able to see your videos,? wrote Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom in the?IG blog. And we ConnectSafely folk have written a straightforward, 5-page?parents? guide to Instagram?that tells you how to help your kids keep it fun and constructive (we?re in the middle of updating it as I write this). Here?s coverage of the video announcement at?TechCrunch.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/hcqrt289UXk/Instagram-video-Parents-need-not-change-their-approach-with-the-new-feature

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Gandolfini mourned in NJ's 'Sopranos' towns

ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) ? A bag of uncooked ziti in the driveway, a "reserved" sign at the ice cream parlor booth where the series abruptly ended, and a framed photo at a strip club were among the tributes paid to James Gandolfini in the northern New Jersey communities where his TV character Tony Soprano lived, loved and whacked people.

The star of the HBO series about a mob boss with anxiety issues and a midlife crisis died Wednesday night in Italy of an apparent heart attack.

In neighborhoods where "The Sopranos" was shot, Gandolfini was recalled Thursday with mixed emotions: a global star who made their communities famous, but sometimes at the expense of their reputations.

Vito Mazza, who was busily preparing for an Italian-American festival in Elizabeth this weekend, said the actor had local credibility.

"He was as Jersey as it gets, through and through," he said.

The "Sopranos" star was born and raised in New Jersey and attended Rutgers University. His character has become an indelible part of the state's global image, as much a part of New Jersey culture as tolled highways, smokestacks and crooked politicians.

Pete Canu, a limousine fleet owner who was sipping coffee in an Elizabeth butcher shop Thursday morning, said Tony Soprano was very realistic.

"He had frailties and failings; he was human, aside from all that gangster crap," Canu said. "A lot of people were offended by it. They say it makes it look like all Italian-Americans are mobsters, but people know we're not. We're just hardworking people who get up every day and do our jobs and provide for our families. It was just a TV show."

But the butcher shop's owner, John Sacco, said "The Sopranos" spread negative stereotypes about Italian-Americans far and wide.

He said when he went to a dentist in Florida and when he revealed he was from New Jersey, someone in the office said, "Oh, the place with all the mobsters!"

"It didn't show us in a real great light," he said.

At Satin Dolls, the real-life Lodi strip club that served as the fictional Bada Bing club in the show, employees put a framed photo of Gandolfini where he frequently sat, calling it "the boss's seat."

"It's like we lost a member of the family," spokesman Bill Pepe said. "Everybody is shocked."

Paul Pereira, of Lodi, stopped to put flowers on a sign in front of the club. He said the show gave a more nuanced picture of people involved in or somehow connected to the mob.

"It showed that these are real people, family people," Pereira said. "You notice that every episode ended with him with his family."

Thursday afternoon, a workman outside the club climbed a ladder and changed the club's marquee from "Bartenders Wanted" to "Thank You, Jimmy; Farewell Boss."

At Green Hill, the West Orange nursing home where scenes involving Tony's ailing mother were shot, executive director Toni Lynn Davis said the residents loved the show. Several even got hired as extras, and the show's payments helped buy a giant flat-screen TV on which they watched the show each week.

"They said it was their weekly vocabulary lesson," Davis said. "They learned all those new swear words."

She said the show has become part of the fabric of New Jersey.

"There are definitely parts of New Jersey that are very close to what was depicted," she said. "You can't go anywhere in New Jersey and not hear that the Sopranos was shot there. They went all over."

The house where Tony Soprano lived is in North Caldwell, and fans were stopping by to show their respects to Gandolfini. Michael Primamore, who lives nearby and whose family runs an auto repair business, left a bag of dried ziti next to the candles that sprouted in the driveway.

He said the show accurately reflected the experiences of his and other Italian-American families who settled in Newark before moving to the suburbs.

"The show was full of so many northern New Jersey Italian expressions, if you weren't raised in that world, you wouldn't get some parts of it," he said. "The show reached me on a personal level in so many ways."

Several North Caldwell residents recalled seeing and meeting cast members.

"They were great people, very personable," said Chris Masi, who said he met Gandolfini. "They would come up and give you a hug. They put us on the map. It meant a lot."

Fans also gathered at Holsten's, the Bloomfield ice cream parlor where the show's famous cut-to-black last scene was shot.

"I'm sad he died," said Fred O'Neil of Montclair, who, like Gandolfini, is 51. "I can't believe it. It makes me think of my own mortality."

Primamore said his reaction to Gandolfini's death was a lot like what Tony Soprano's would have been: "It's a tragedy. What are you gonna do?"

___

Associated Press writers David Porter in North Caldwell, N.J., Julio Cortez in Bloomfield, N.J., and Katie Zezima in West Orange, N.J. contributed to this report.

___

Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gandolfini-mourned-njs-sopranos-towns-133116230.html

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World War Z

Brad Pitt in World War Z

Courtesy of Jaap Buitendijk/Paramount Pictures

After you?ve seen World War Z, come back and listen to our Spoiler Special:

Brad Pitt outruns a big-ass pile of very fast zombies?and near-singlehandedly thwarts a worldwide invasion by the undead?in Marc Forster?s World War Z, an adaptation of the 2006 novel by Max Brooks (who is also the author of the best-selling Zombie Survival Guide and, in a completely un-zombie-related but fun note, the son of Mel Brooks and the late Anne Bancroft).

If you were a fan of Brooks? book, which used a Studs Terkel?style oral-history format to explore the societal breakdown such a flesh-chomping pandemic might bring in its wake, you may be disappointed at this thriller?s comparatively modest ambitions. Forster really doesn?t aim to do much more than plonk Pitt down on a series of zombie-studded obstacle courses?set in such far-flung global locales as South Korea; Jerusalem; and Cardiff, Wales?and let us watch while he hacks, shoots or sometimes flat-out sprints his way through the slavering hordes to (very temporary) safety. The script, by Matthew Michael Carnahan (State of Play, The Kingdom) with an eleventh-hour rewrite by Lost?s Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof, pragmatically dispenses with any lofty aspirations toward political allegory or genre satire. Ours is not to wonder what the zombie craze says about our current cultural or political moment; ours is but to watch in awe as the Holy City?s walls are breached by a writhing, seemingly sentient mass composed of hundreds of soulless yet still somehow mobile human bodies.

It?s this use of zombies as a kind of sculptural material that will likely be World War Z ?s main contribution to the form. In scene after scene, but most spectacularly in the big Jerusalem set piece, they pour down city streets like flooding rivers and scramble over seething mounds of their undead brethren. The effect?digitally produced, I hope, or those better have been some well-compensated extras?is chilling, not least because the zombie masses, often seen from above in bird?s-eye view, sometimes move in ways that suggest an insect colony or a horde of rodents. Forster?s action scenes are workmanlike (though, to his credit, not incoherent, at least not as compared with those in his unsatisfying Bond entry Quantum of Solace). But the undulating-mass-of-zombies image is this movie?s ace in the hole, the reliably jolting vision it returns to whenever things start to feel a little thin in the story department.

That happens fairly early on, as Pitt?s Gerry Lane, a retired U.N. disaster specialist, is driving his wife Karen (Mireille Enos) and two daughters (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove) through downtown Philadelphia one ordinary school morning. Within minutes, their commute has become a Dante-esque scene of horror, with cars jack-knifing everywhere as one driver after another is attacked and infected by packs of flesh-eating zombies so invincible they can break through car windshields with their heads. (In this movie?s version of zombie science, the infected start to ?turn? after only about 12 seconds, making for a couple of tense scenes structured around suspenseful countdowns.)

Because of Gerry?s bigwig status at the U.N., he and his family, along with an orphaned boy they pick up along the way, are eventually evacuated to a quarantined aircraft carrier. There, Gerry?s former boss (Fana Mokoema) half-guilt-trips, half-strong-arms him into leading a mission to South Korea to find the patient zero of this global pandemic. What he and his team discover there will lead them to Jerusalem and, eventually, to a World Health Organization facility in Wales, where a secure vault full of the world?s most dangerous pathogens may hold a clue to halting the zombie onslaught. But only if Jerry and his crew?by now pretty much reduced to the W.H.O. personnel and one fearless female Israeli soldier (the stone-faced, scene-stealing Danielle Kertesz)?can successfully make their way to the vault through a final, milling mass of zombies.

It?s in the closing scenes that World War Z?s rocky production history begins to show through around the edges (the $200-plus-million-dollar-budgeted film was set to be released last December but was held back for recuts, rewrites, and the shooting of additional material). A jumbled coda alludes to a series of zombie-human skirmishes as we briefly glimpse first Rome, then Moscow abandoned to the undead hordes. It?s clear that these are fragments of a larger story that?s been trimmed for the sake of expediency, but given how efficiently World War Z has delivered jolts and screams over the course of its sleek 116-minute running time, it?s easy to forgive this rushed and slightly muted finale. Not every blockbuster needs to ratchet up the scale of world destruction and the soundtrack volume scene by scene; sometimes it?s just as scary to lock a few people in a deserted lab with some hungry zombies.

I?m not sure if it?s a casualty of the recuts or of tent-pole-Hollywood sexism that poor Mireille Enos, stuck with three kids in a crowded bunkhouse on that aircraft carrier, gets so little to do besides hit redial on her heroic husband?s cellphone number and weep quietly (Though it?s worth noting that Enos also smiles more in a two-hour movie about the zombie apocalypse than she did during an entire season as the glum, Nicorette-chomping lead of AMC?s The Killing.) Brad Pitt, for his part, has perfected the soulful thousand-yard stare of the thinking action hero. There?s a significant element of infantile fantasy in Pitt?s role as the only person on earth capable of reasoning his way out of the zombie crisis (or, it seems, of forming a working scientific hypothesis). Pitt has said that he made the PG-13?rated World War Z (which, for all its high body count, is relatively gore-free) in part so he could have a fun summer movie to take his children to. If Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Knox, and Vivienne get too spooked by the writhing zombie hordes, at least they?ll sleep safe in the knowledge that they live with the guy who can save the world.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/movies/2013/06/world_war_z_starring_brad_pitt_reviewed.html

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