Hasta La Gadget!

 The PERI Duo is an iPhone battery case for the frequent entertainer — those who go out with friends and find that they’re the one stuck hooking their phone up to a speaker and doing some impromptu DJing. Read More

The Pirate Bay, the internet’s favorite torrent search engine, is back online right now, roughly seven weeks after being raided by law enforcement in home country Sweden. While the website and its founders have long been targeted by authorities for violations of piracy laws, this was the longest period the site was offline, and it was definitely in question if … Continue reading

NEW YORK (AP) — Weeks removed from an open revolt from his own police force that had officers turning their backs on him, Mayor Bill de Blasio now declares he has moved past the rift, striking a tenuous truce with a strategy to stay above the fray and public opinion that eventually soured on the cops’ behavior.

While he acknowledged much work remains to repair the hard feelings over the chokehold death of Eric Garner, de Blasio told The Associated Press he has regained the footing to move on to other matters, including an agenda he plans to outline in next week’s State of the City address.

“It was a perfect storm. It was based on two tragedies. The death of Eric Garner and the murder of these two officers. People felt pain all around,” de Blasio said in an interview Friday. “I do believe things are much better. I believe the dialogue is moving forward.”

It was the biggest crisis of the Democrat’s year-old administration. Rank-and-file police had already been distrustful of him over his plans to reform such enforcement tactics as stop and frisk, and for his ties to the Rev. Al Sharpton, a fierce police critic.

Those seeds grew early in December when the streets filled with protesters angry over a Staten Island grand jury’s decision not to indict a police officer for the chokehold death of Garner.

Then on Dec. 20, two police officers were ambushed by a gunman who said he wanted to “put wings on pigs.” The head of the city’s largest police union declared de Blasio had “blood on his hands.”

On the very night of the slayings, police who gathered at the hospital where the slain officers were taken turned their backs on the mayor, a searing rebuke caught by television cameras.

De Blasio’s planning on how to handle the crisis began the next day when shaken members of his inner circle devised a playbook.

Unveiled for the first time to the AP, that plan involved three parts:

—Stay on the moral high ground and maintain focus on the grieving families of the slain officers.

—Empower carefully chosen surrogates to speak on the administration’s behalf, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Police Commissioner William Bratton, who allied himself closely with de Blasio but remained in good standing with the police unions.

—Avoid engaging in verbal warfare with the unions, hoping that the passage of time would dissipate the rank-and-file’s anger.

For a while, the strategy failed.

Some police officers who had turned their backs on de Blasio at the hospital repeated that act at both funerals. The mayor was also heckled at a police graduation ceremony, and appeared tired and angry at his first news conference with reporters after the shooting.

Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association head Patrick Lynch criticized the mayor for revealing that he told his son, who is biracial, to be wary of encounters with police. And union leaders blamed the mayor for supporting the Garner protesters, which they believed created an anti-police atmosphere that led to the killings. While most of the protests were peaceful, some demonstrators called police murderers and compared the NYPD to Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.

At the peak of the crisis, Edward Mullins, head of the sergeants union, demanded that de Blasio apologize.

The mayor refused. A meeting between de Blasio and the union heads yielded nothing. And arrests citywide plummeted as the police officers went into a work slowdown.

But then the momentum shifted.

A Quinnipiac poll showed that de Blasio’s approval rating held steady during the crisis, numbers that were mirrored in City Hall’s own internal polling. And another poll showed that two-thirds of New Yorkers did not approve of the police unions’ behavior. Cracks in their front began to show.

Lynch was confronted with an insurrection and could face a tough re-election fight. Mullins had a private meeting with the mayor mid-month and emerged saying de Blasio was “a gentleman.”

“I think the public cared that City Hall stepped back from the debate and respected the families. Some others didn’t,'” de Blasio said, calling the back-turning by some officers “an overstep — really inappropriate.”

Neither Lynch nor Mullins would comment for this story.

Money may also have played a subtle role in brokering peace. Several of the police unions are working on expired contracts and while the PBA is in arbitration, the sergeants union is close to a deal. Also, the City Council announced $7.3 million to purchase new NYPD bulletproof vests, and de Blasio has dedicated additional funding to defend police officers from litigation.

Asked if he had any regrets during the crisis, de Blasio said it was in not moving quickly enough to repudiate the harsh rhetoric of protesters.

“I didn’t understand how vile some of the language was,” he said. “I wish I had understood better because there’s no question in my mind it was unacceptable behavior even if Constitutionally protected.”

But while anger has cooled, tensions remain and the crisis could flare again.

“De Blaiso did a good job. He remained steadfast in what he believed,” said Joseph Mercurio, a longtime political consultant. “But these police union leaders have long been at odds with mayors. I imagine it will happen again.”

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

James Franco has a much-buzzed about sex scene with actors Charlie Carver and Zachary Quinto in the upcoming film “I Am Michael,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this week. But not all the love scenes in the actor’s career have gone quite so smoothly. In a recent interview with Vulture, Franco opened up about his very different experience shooting the sex scene with Michael Shannon in 2011 film “The Broken Tower.”

It was very different. Michael Shannon is an awesome actor, one of the best actors of our generation, and a good friend of mine who prides himself on being the guy who will do anything, but he was uncomfortable in that scene. I had to take him to dinner before we shot it because he was so uncomfortable … he was like, ‘We’ve gotta talk about this.’ So I went in to New York, and as soon as we sat down, he was like, ‘Aw, now I feel stupid that I’m such a wimp. All right, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.’ Once we got to set, we set up the lights and everybody else cleared the room. It was my DP and focus-puller, and that was it. We did one take, and if you look closely at the scene, you’ll see that I am pulling his face close to me because he [refused to get close], and we’re supposed to be passionately making out. And he’s a strong dude! But in the end, it worked … half-assed love scenes are the worst. Straight or gay! So I was just doing my job on [‘I Am Michael’].

Speaking to HuffPost Live in a recent interview, Franco’s “I Am Michael” co-star Carver opened up about shooting the aforementioned scene with Franco and Quinto.

“I think a scene like that you have to have a sense of humor, you just go for it,” he said. “There are plenty of things that are more awkward to shoot than a love scene or a sex scene.”

“I Am Michael” follows the story of Michael Glatze, a gay rights activist who turned to Christianity and later renounced his homosexuality. As Variety notes, Glatze was profiled in 2011 by The New York Times.

For Franco’s full interview, head over to Vulture.

Everyone in business understands what it means to “miss the mark.” In fact, business is fraught with failure and disappointment. Even so, it doesn’t lessen the emotional, mental, physical, and/or financial impact of defeat. How does one make a solid and quick rebound following a mortifying upset?

Not all setbacks are created equal. Business hardships range from losing a substantial, profitable contract to missing a hard-fought targeted goal to financial devastation resulting in business closure. Regardless of the reason, failing to achieve your intended objective can result in an emotional or mental crack that can be hard to come back from.

Experts continually tell us that failing with regularity is the quickest path to success. Although that’s a bitter pill to swallow, some misfortunes land a bigger punch to the gut than others.

Everyone deals with failure in their unique way. From ignoring it as if it didn’t happen to drowning your misery in a tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, each entrepreneur discovers their personal comeback journey.

Despite the individual road one must travel to return stronger and better than before, here are a few points to consider on your pilgrimage:

1. Prepare for it in advance. No entrepreneur sets out with the goal of failing. Still, we know failure is a natural part of business. Be that as it may, the consequences of false steps can be lessened by analyzing risks before leaping, developing financial reserves that allow you to take calculated risks, and keeping your mental, emotional, and physical tank full.

2. Don’t take it personally. Ugh! This is easier said than done. In reality, a setback doesn’t mean that you, personally, are a failure. It does mean the initiative failed. Be careful not to internalize the situation. View the circumstances with objectivity.

3. Learn from it. The worst thing that can happen following a setback is to learn nothing from it only to repeat the same mistakes. Conducting a critical analysis gives you insight into the changes that will make you stronger than before.

4. Keep moving. There’s a lot we can learn from basketball about how to “get our groove back”. When the forward is struggling and missing his/her mark, seldom does the coach bench them. The coach understands the importance of working through the challenges to get back on top of their game. It’s the same with entrepreneurs.

5. Act your way into new beliefs. Not “fake it ’til you make it” — that approach seldom feels right to most entrepreneurs — but rather catch yourself doing the right things for your comeback. Many entrepreneurs find it helpful to keep a “comeback journal” in which they document the actions taken during the day that support a swift and strong return.

6. Ask for help. A big downfall for many entrepreneurs is failure to ask for help. Whether its pride, ego, or a fear of looking ignorant, getting sage advice from trusted advisors can avert many disasters.

None of us want to fail or experience the agony of defeat. Embracing failure as a natural part of business evolution keeps us one step ahead, lessens the aftermath, and provides a giant step forward to a strong comeback.

What has been most effective in helping you make a strong comeback after a defeat?

This article first appeared on Synnovatia’s Bite Sized Chunks of Wisdom.