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BC eliminates UM from bowl contention
The Canes had a valiant fight, but couldn't back it up with enough talent to overcome a Heisman Trophy candidate and Boston College team that scored 14 fourth-quarter points for a 28-14 victory. The Hurricanes, who had all of 23 seconds to savor a 14-14 tie early in the fourth quarter, ended their regular season with their fourth consecutive loss and sixth loss in seven games -- good for a 5-7 overall record and 2-6 finish in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Now, when they'd usually be gearing up for Christmas in fill-in-the-city, they're contemplating their worst season since Lou Saban's 3-8 squad in 1977. ''It definitely hurts a lot,'' senior guard Derrick Morse said in a silent, sad locker room. ``It's the first year I'll be home at Christmas. It's my last game as a Hurricane.
Anchors Away With RFID Smartbuoys
A new electronic mooring system billed as a boon for pampered boaters is also good for the environment since it eliminates the need for dropping a coral-killing anchor. The Italian-engineered MarPark system, launched on an experimental basis last summer in a few protected areas in Liguria and Sardinia, lets boaters cruise into idyllic bays and hook a rope with a rubber ring to a smartbuoy. Simple as that, they're safely harbored, no anchor necessary. And that's just the start. If they've reserved a water taxi or need supplies or services, a microchip in their SeaPass ring relays that info to an onshore service center. A text message reassures the skipper via mobile phone that all systems are go. Like many inventions, MarPark (mare means sea in Italian) was born out of frustration.
The thrilling woes of that thing called 'love story'
It's the only off note in this otherwise irresistible anthology of 27 love stories sure to make hearts flutter well beyond Valentine's Day. My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead was edited by Eugenides at Dave Eggers's behest, to benefit the Chicago chapter of 826 National, his writing programs for teens, a cause as worthy as amour. Eugenides's point is that love stories – as opposed to love itself – thrive on obstructions: sparrows, dead or alive. As he explains in his introduction, they "depend on disappointment" and "nearly without exception, give love a bad name." What he doesn't mention is that reading love stories thrillingly combines the pleasures of prurience and schadenfreude. Unlike Zadie Smith, who commissioned new stories by hip young writers for "The Book of Other People," her anthology for Eggers's literacy project, Eugenides sought suggestions rather than submissions from contemporary authors.
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