God of War

OK so I was supposed to be workin on my San Andreas game this past weekend but I got throw off by this game called GOd of War that I saw on TV.. First of all Ive always like that good ol classic movie Clash of the Titans. BUt they made it a game for real.. I put it in and said Id only play the first few levels.. then the next day oh well.. guess I got past the first few levels.. It was with this game that I found out that there are progressive scan games.. They gonna make me buy a progressive scan hdtv so I can really see the graphics on this thing..

3 words: BUY THIS GAME!!

Bootycrack.com - The LIVEST Urban Site on the net.

Bootycrack.com - The LIVEST Urban Site on the net.

THE RETURN OF THE BOOTYCRACK

Can I getta Amen?

Formula 50

50 Cent's got a new product out, and he hopes you like it like a fat kid loves cake. Actually, it's quite possibly 50's own experience as a cake-loving fat kid that's behind his first foray into the soft drink market. Eschewing the sugary, chemical-laden energy drinks and intoxicating spirits endorsed by other MCs, Fiddy's joined ranks with the makers of Vitamin Water to create Formula 50, a grape-flavored version of the popular "nutrient enhanced water beverage."

Vitamin Water's manufacturer, Energy Brands, Inc., and the G-Unit camp have yet to make any official announcement regarding the beverage, but 50 Cent plugged away about his new creation while calling into New York's Hot 97 this morning. Always looking to catch a good story (or a few moments of late-afternoon sunshine on a gorgeous autumn Friday), vibe.com took to the streets with hopes of tracking down a bottle. Sadly, the field trip didn't last long; much like copies of Vibe, Formula 50 seems to have reached New York retailers well in advance of its official release. Two stores within two blocks of Vibe's offices stocked Formula 50, and, after plunking down $1.99, the purple drink was headed for a taste test with Vibe staffers.

Staring out from the cold case of your local refreshment center, Formula 50 hardly screams "P.I.M.P." In fact, with a mauve hue falling somewhere between Barney fur and your grandma's favorite shade of lipstick, the beverage blends right in with the muted color spectrum of Vitamin Water's other varieties. "He's a big thug, but his drink is pinkish purple," cracked associate research editor Lacey Bunis.

A closer inspection of the label, though, reveals a truckload of 50 references, namely a wordy product description, pictured here. The text:

Formula 50 Vitamin Water
inspired by today's most talked about artist, hottest record producer, and soon-to-be movie star, this "not so-hypnotic" tonic contains (hint, hint) 50 (per) cent of many of the important vitamins that you need every day.

however, unlike mister fifty (of "fiddy" as the kids say), this drink does not contain talent, a seven-figure recording deal, platinum jewelry, a big entourage or a bulletproof vest.

And Vitamin Water isn't kidding about the nutritional content. Quite amazingly, each bottle contains exactly 50 calories per serving and exactly 50 percent of several vitamins and minerals. Imagine being the chemist who had to meet those specifications. Some staffers felt a little jilted, not understanding why 50 couldn't go the distance and hook consumers up with the full 100 percent.

Formula 50 scored high marks for taste in our informal office poll. "It's better than the original grape flavor of Vitamin Water," said senior editor Noah Callahan-Bever. "If you're thirsty, it's got that light, Gatorade feeling." Editorial intern Delia Desai also mentioned a Gatorade similarity, while associate music editor Rondell Conway said it reminded him more of a low-in-sugar Kool-Aid. However, Lynne d Johnson, general manager of new media, wasn't feeling it, saying the drink "lacked flava."

But what about 50? What does this type of product say about the South side Queens MC? "It's a pretty cool product for him to endorse because his health regiment is so crazy," said research director Laura Checkoway. "This is actually something that's good for you." Deputy managing editor Andrew Simon also felt it's a good move for 50 because "people are very aware that everyone's drinking Vitamin Water."

Many noticed how subtly the product's packaging conveyed 50's involvement. There's no photo of the rapper, no G-Unit logos, no coupons for G-Unit sneakers. Simon said it reminded him of the Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors that make casual references to rock acts like the Grateful Dead, Phish, and the Dave Matthews Band, but never seem like over-the-top, co-branded promotions. "To me, it just looks like another flavor of Vitamin Water, which I drink already anyway," said assistant editor Donnie Kwak.

If anything, the emergence of Formula 50 is just another example—albeit a bizarre one—of urban culture overtaking the mainstream. "I'm a little freaked out that it says 'Fiddy' on a bottle of Vitamin Water," said Checkoway.

By Peter Gaston

New retroviruses jump from monkeys to humans | Two new strains of HIV found.

Two new retroviruses - the type of virus which causes AIDS - have jumped from non-human primates to people, a new study reveals.

The study of blood samples from nearly a thousand bushmeat hunters or handlers in Cameroon showed that at least six viruses had crossed from monkeys to the people who were exposed to freshly caught bushmeat. And two of these viruses have never been seen before in humans.

The newly discovered human T-cell lymphotropic virus 3 (HTLV-3) and HTLV-4 are closely related to the known viruses, HTLV-1 and HTLV-2. These are implicated in cancers like leukaemia and can cause inflammatory or neurological diseases.

Retroviruses such as HTLV or HIV insert their genetic material into a host cell's DNA. The emergence of HIV is widely blamed on a primate retrovirus, SIV, jumping to humans. Previously, it was thought that the emergence of these viruses was limited by the rarity of successful cross-species transmission.

But the identification of two entirely new human retroviruses from one study, along with a previous discovery by the same group that simian foamy viruses can jump from monkeys to humans, may be ominous.
No fluke

"What's increasingly clear is that the hunting and butchering of non-human primates is associated with the transmission of retroviruses to humans," says Nathan Wolfe, at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, US, who led the study.

He says the new results suggest the team's previous find of simian foamy viruses in bushmeat hunters was "not just a fluke". In the blood-screening study, 13 out of 930 people were found to be infected with simian retroviruses, and two with the new human strains.

The new findings are no surprise, agrees Martine Peeters at the retrovirus laboratory of the Institute of Research for Development in Montpelier, France. She and her colleagues, along with other groups, had described simian TLV-3 in primates in Cameroon in 2004 so the discovery of a human equivalent is not unexpected. Now scientists will look for the simian equivalent of HTLV-4.

HTLV-1 and -2 are not very pathogenic says Peeters, but about 1% of those infected may go on to develop leukaemia.
Global distribution

Wolfe points out that HTLV-1 and 2 are now global viruses, infecting 22 million worldwide. "This finding is in a class of disease known to have global distribution and known to cause disease. It's not just a few obscure viruses crossing over and staying only in hunters," he told New Scientist.

He says the next issue to tackle is whether these new retroviruses reach a "dead end" in hunters, or are capable of human-to-human transmission.

While HTLV-3 and HTLV-4 are not a serious threat to global health, Peeters warns that "it shows that there is still retroviral transmission from primates to humans, so maybe one day another SIV could become another HIV".

HIV-2 is believed to have jumped from mangabey monkeys and HIV-1 from chimpanzees. A new HIV could potentially jump from another species, she cautions.

The work was presented at a retrovirus conference in Boston, US, on Friday.

HIV was born out of a union more than a million years ago between two viruses that infected different species of monkey, a study of the genetic history of HIV-like viruses suggests.

The union took place when chimpanzees preying on the monkeys contracted the viruses, which then combined to form a new type of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the primate version of HIV. It wasn't until the 1930s, though, that this jumped to humans feeding off chimpanzee bush meat in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

SIV in chimps is the precursor to HIV-1, the most widespread form of the human virus. HIV-2, which is restricted to west Africa, is thought to have transferred from sooty mangabeys in Guinea-Bissau in the 1960s.

Who copyrights the happy birthday song anyway?

"Unhappy Birthday is a website/project commenting on the fact that the song "Happy Birthday To You" is under an actively enforced copyright held by Time Warner. The site offers tools and information to report unauthorized public performances of that work. If educating people and upholding the principle of copyright means risking a DoS of ASCAP's licensing enforcement infrastructure, that's a risk I'm willing to take."

The best way to stop infringement is to tell the authorities and the owners so that they can follow up and arrange for a license and for royalties to be paid. Licenses for Happy Birthday are controlled by ASCAP. While monetary royalties will be negligible for a single restaurant performance, it is the principle that is at stake.

If you have seen someone singing Happy Birthday in a restaurant, a park, or at a school, you should tell ASCAP so that they can arrange for a license. If you are an offender, you should apologize and offer to pay whatever is due — a nickel, a quarter, a dollar — whatever ASCAP demands.

There is an overwhelming amount of copyright infringement of Happy Birthday. Let's right the balance and tell ASCAP about every one of these violations!