By Andy Ihnatko, Contributor, Chicago Sun Times
My Wednesday began with a worried focus on tablet computers.
Before lunchtime I closed my eyes, commended my soul to God, and bought roundtrip airfare to San Francisco for the last week of January.
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By Dave McClure, Blogger, Master of 500 Hats
Haven’t really gotten on a rant in awhile… guess i’ve been doing a lot of travel lately, but now that I’m back in California for awhile, there’s something i’ve been meaning to bring up that bothers me. It’s kind of a dirty little secret of the startup industry, but there are very few good product, design, and marketing people in tech. And hardly any of them that are good seem to make it into the venture capital profession.
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Climate Change @ Gowlings – December 31, 2009
Mondaq News Alerts (registration) The generation and sale of carbon credits creates wealth through environmental protection. As such, carbon offset projects offer a promising and still … |
Egypt will host a conference in April for countries demanding the return of their antiquities, stolen but on display in museums round the world, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said. The conference will “discuss the question of returning stolen antiquities,” the council said in a statement. It gave no dates for the three-day conference. Thirty countries, including Greece, Mexico, Peru, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia and China, will participate in the Cairo gathering, said Egypt’s antiquities director Zahi Hawass, who has made the return of looted Egyptian artefacts the hallmark of his tenure. “Officials from these countries will discuss taking action internationally to support efforts to return stolen antiquities to their countries of origin… and exhibited in certain museums and showrooms around the world,” Hawass said. The conference aims to work out “specific recommendations” and draw up a list of the antiquities claimed by each participating country. It will also review international laws on the subject, for their “reconsideration” and “to protect the rights of the countries to recover their cultural and archaeological property,” Hawass added.
Swansea archaeologist David Gill has been analyzing the sale of antiquities in New York since 1999. Some $300 million worth of antiquities have been sold at Sotheby’s and Christie’s since 1998. There are normally two sales a year for each of the auction houses.Around $20 million of antiquities were sold in 2009, down by over $8.5 million from the previous year. This is similar to the levels in 2003 ($20.4 million) and 2006 ($19.9 million). Only 2002 was significantly lower.
Sotheby’s seems to have been achieving lower sums. 2009 saw one of the lowest amounts achieved in the decade at just under $8.6 million. The worst year was in 2006 with $6 million. However, in December 2006 ,the auction house sold a single antiquity, the Guennol Lioness, said to have been found near Baghdad and displayed in the Brooklyn Museum since 1948, for $57.161 million.
Christie’s, in contrast, has been increasing its market share.
However, during 2009, a number of antiquities were seized from auction houses in New York at the request of Italian authorities. Some appear to have been identified from images seized during police raids on a dealer’s warehouse in Geneva.
One trend over the decade has been the decrease in the element of Egyptian antiquities. At Sotheby’s, Egyptian objects only represent some 17% of the value of the sales. A study of the median value of the lots in the sales suggests that prices are around their 2004 level.
Al Ahram Weekly (Dena Rashed)
The residents of Cairo’s cemeteries are sceptical about government plans to reorganise the area, as they explain to Dena RashedDeadly silent may sound like a cliché when describing the alleyways that separate the cemeteries in Cairo, but there is an unexpected quietness at the Al-Ghafeer cemetery nonetheless. There are no burials, and no one is walking about or visiting the graves of loved ones. Minutes away from the bustling noise of Cairo’s streets and in the middle of the day, stray dogs seem to own the place, relaxing and sleeping in the sandy alleys.
The residents are the people who keep the place alive, with many either choosing to live in the cemeteries or having little choice but to do so. Since Egyptian tombs consist of an underground burial room and a vacant area above ground level housing a room or two, many families reside in rooms above the dead. People residing there are not always related to the business of burials. Having not succeeded in finding cheap accommodation in the city, they end up renting rooms in the cemeteries.
Now it seems that this situation is about to change, since the government has announced that some cemeteries will be moved in an effort to revamp the city over the coming decade. While the Al-Ghafeer area is not among the cemeteries slated for removal, the future of its residents has long been on the line. The Ain Al-Sira cemeteries are expected to be moved to the outskirts of the city, on the other hand, because the area suffers from rising ground water.
Chemistry Chair Richard (Dick) Zare was honored on Jan. 6 with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. He was among 87 recipients of the award, which was presented by Pres. Obama at the White House.
The award was presented to Zare “for embodying excellence in mentoring underrepresented students and encouraging their significant achievement in science, math and engineering.” Zare was nominated for the prestigious award by Associate Dean of Research and Chemistry emeritus Prof. John Bravman.
A Stanford professor since 1977, Zare has distinguished himself as an educator and leader in public service, and he remains active in both research and teaching.
“I like the satisfaction of helping people,” Zare said. “I like to do things in life that make a difference.”
Professors, graduate students and alumni alike had praise for Zare. Former student Lori Gottlieb ’89 fondly reminisced about her Stanford experience with him. “I was a French major, but I still always hung out at his office,” she said. “He related to people of all majors.
“He was so available,” she added. “You could just come into his office and talk about even tangential things.”
Gottlieb noted that Zare caused his students look at the world in an entirely different way and “made science like storytelling.” She described her experiences in medical school.
“There was a difference between those people who had taken very traditional science classes and those people who I knew had gone through Professor Zare’s classes,” Gottlieb said. “The people who had gone through his classes looked at problems differently.
“He was one of the most inspiring professors–no, human beings–that I know,” she added.
Zare has also made an effort to reach out to foreign students. Tatsiana Lobovkina, a postdoctoral scholar from Sweden and current member of the “Zarelab”–the professor’s laboratory–commented on her experience coming to America to study chemistry.
Lobovkina said Zare supported her fully through correspondence while she was seeking financial aid support. “He really helped me with my application for a scholarship,” Lobovkina said. “All my questions were answered in such a nice way that it felt like I was an important person. I was really welcomed by him.”
Lobovkina recalled her first encounter with Zare: “I really liked the way he was talking about science–when I was talking to him, I just really got the feeling that this is the place I really want to be,” she said. “I could really feel like I could work with this professor.
“When I get back to Sweden,” she added, “I really want to spread the same type of attitude that Professor Zare displays to make people just as comfortable as I am.”
David Leahy Ph.D. ’92, current lab manager for the Zarelab, who was also one of Zare’s former students, said the professor motivated him to pursue his research career.
“He very much encouraged the sense of enthusiasm for having the passion for pursuing your problems of interest,” Leahy said.
A long-time veteran of the chemistry department, Zare also mentored several members of the current faculty.
Chemical engineering Prof. Stacey Bent Ph.D. ’92 was one of Zare’s mentees. According to Bent, a big part of her decision to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry was the desire to do the kind of research that Zare was doing in his laboratory, which she described as “state-of-the-art.”
Bent first met Zare when he presented at her school, UC-Berkeley. “His presentation was memorable because he had so much enthusiasm for the topic he was discussing,” Bent wrote in an e-mail to The Daily.
In addition to mentoring individuals, Zare has worked to improve the conditions for his department colleagues. When he became chair of the chemistry department five years ago, Zare instituted a paid maternity leave policy.
“I was interested in making the chemistry department family-friendly,” Zare said. “There’s no good time to have a child if you’re trying to have a career at the same time.
“Men and women are different, and no man gives birth that I know about,” he added. “We need to understand that, so that women can be involved; if not, we just cut off 50 percent of the population.”
Along with mentoring accomplishments, Zare also has received a slew of awards for research. He says he is best known for bringing laser techniques to bear on chemical problems–from how reactions occur to the chemical analysis of tiny volumes.
“What’s so unique about Prof. Zare is that he’s both an outstanding teacher and mentor who cares deeply about inspiring his students, and also a brilliant researcher making tremendous scientific contributions to the world,” Gottlieb said. “It’s not often that you find these two qualities in the same person.”
Rare is the opportunity to hear a first-hand, uncensored account of life in North Korea. Students had the chance to glimpse at the infamously closed country while listening to Gopalan Balagopal Friday in his presentation “Beginning with Children: Reflections on UNICEF’s work in North Korea,” a part of the Korean Studies Colloquium Series.
From September 2006 until November 2009, Balagopal led the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF) office in Pyongyang, where UNICEF has been active since 1997.
Balagopal’s work addressed three major risks for children in the country: food insecurity, institutionalization and degradation in the quality of services such as medicine and water sanitation.
Food insecurity has caused staggering levels of malnutrition: in 1998, 60 percent of children were stunted or underweight.
According to Balagopal, the country’s insufficient levels of medical services was gruesomely illustrated in a 2007 mass outbreak of measles. UNICEF was able to intervene and immunize 16 million of the infected. In subsequent research on the causes of the pandemic, the organization found that 35 percent of the country’s medical equipment was nonfunctional.
Defective equipment also precludes access to clean water.
“The water sanitation systems are antiques–they belong in museums,” Balagopal said.
UNICEF, capitalizing on the possibilities of the country’s hilly landscape, created and installed energy-efficient treatment systems that utilize gravity for power.
The last of these problems–the prevalence of institutionalized children–proved more difficult to address.
“Abolishing all these institutions, we understand, cannot be possible,” Balagopal said. “But we can improve the children’s lives within them.”
One of Balagopal’s most treasured experiences during his three years at UNICEF in Pyongyang involved collaborating with the organization “Art in All of Us.” Through a joint project, North Korean children created drawings and poems to share with children in other countries. According to Balagopal, the children’s work conveyed a surprising hope and desire to help others, despite their own hardships. One girl wrote a poem about flying a kite high enough for South Korean children to see it and be happy.
“Very often you don’t know what these kids are thinking,” Balagopal said. “You tend to demonize everyone, which isn’t always the case.”
Perceptions of life in North Korea can be distorted on a larger scale, as well, Balagopal said, pointing to ongoing problems with data collection.
“There is very little reliable information in the country,” he said.
Balagopal dismissed ambitious figures from a census that stated that as much as 85 percent of North Korean citizens have access to water. However, he affirmed the accuracy of some unsettling information, such as a sharp increase in maternal and infant mortality and stagnant population growth.
UNICEF has been working to compile a more accurate data set–the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey–whose results will not be available until March.
Balagopal said that the success he saw in UNICEF’s work and the optimism he encountered among the North Korean people, assured him that there is hope for the country<\p>–<\p>though the process of improvement may be long and difficult.
“What is it that I remember?” Balagopal asked himself. “Individuals. These people who have so little and are so touched by what we can do.”
This is a very funky, juvenile video for Aston Martin, as the luxury brand promotes its Aston Martin Cygnet model. The Cygnet is only available to those who already own an Aston, and the ad probably reflects more the Toyota iQ that the Cygnet is based on. At this stage, only 2,000 Cygnet models will be produced.
You probably noticed that when you buy shoes and the man measures your feet, one foot is larger than the other. Since one foot does not do any more work than the other, why should this be so?
It is related to the fact that our body is “asymmetrical”, that is, it does not consist of two identical halve right and left you can see this for yourself in many ways. If you look at your face in the mirror, you will notice that the right half of your face is more developed than the left. The right cheek is more prominent, and the mouth, eye, and ear are moulded with greater precision.
The same applies to the rest of our body. The legs are not equal in strength and dexterity. The heart is on the left side and the liver on the right, so that internally the body is not exactly balanced. The result is that our skeleton develops in a slightly unbalanced way.
Now this slight difference can have a tremendous effect on how we do things. The uneven structure of the body causes us to walk unevenly. The result is that when we cannot see, as in a snowstorm, a fog, or when blindfold, we will walk in a circle. The same is true of animals, whose body structure is also uneven. And if anyone were to drive a car blindfold, he would end up driving in a circle, too!
When we come to the question of right-handed and left-handed people, we run into something curious. Ninety-six per cent of all people are right-handed. But this is not due to asymmetry of the body; it is due to asymmetry of the brain.
With photos
Rare Greek papyrus texts and Coptic textiles from Egypt form the basis of a dramatic exhibition at the Ian Potter Museum of Art that gives a fascinating insight into ancient lifestyles. Katrina Raymond reports.Papyrus fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus, a site in Upper Egypt, include the first book of Thucydides and other texts as well as private accounts, receipts and personal letters. An extraordinary declaration concerns the sale of an eight-year-old slave girl without blemish apart from epilepsy and leprosy.
The papyrus texts and the Coptic textiles that once belonged to elaborately adorned items of clothing worn in the time of Christian Egypt, during the fourth to seventh centuries, will be on display at the Potter until April.
The ancient texts were donated to the University of Melbourne in 1901 and 1922 by the Egyptian Exploration Society, London UK.
Chicago Tribune (William Mullen)
James Henry Breasted, founder of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, was short, bespectacled and cerebral — hardly fitting the picture of Indiana Jones, the fictional archaeologist many think was based partly on him.Yet some of the cinematic “Indy” swashbuckle could have been inspired by a perilous, 11-month journey Breasted took through the Middle East in 1919 and 1920, just after founding the institute.
On Jan. 12, the institute celebrates its 90th anniversary with a temporary exhibit — “Pioneers to the Past” — that retraces the adventure, including tense haggling with shady antiquities dealers, encounters with armed Arab horsemen and even a little fisticuffs.
It is described in Breasted’s own words in vivid accounts he sent home to his family, photos taken by him and four companions, and hundreds of ancient artifacts he brought back. . . .
He had written several well-regarded histories of the ancient world, including a 1916 best-seller, but he had never been able to raise enough money to fulfill his dream of creating a great research institute at Chicago.
In May 1919, he was elated when John D. Rockefeller Jr., son of the world’s richest man, pledged $50,000 in seed money to start the institute and finance a Middle East trip.
By November, Breasted was in Egypt, intent on buying ancient artifacts from the world’s earliest civilizations for the new institute and touring ancient sites in Mesopotamia where he planned future Chicago-led archaeological digs.
Historytimes.com (Tony Holmes)
The magnificence of Ancient Egyptian art remains one of the constants of its more than 3,000 years of history. Some of the earliest works are as beautiful, accurate and skilful as those produced in the later period. We of the modern era are privileged to view and appreciate works by those fine artists. Most of the art produced by Egyptians in Ancient times was never meant to be seen by ordinary folk. Sculptures, carvings and paintings were either hidden in temple to which only priests had access or in tombs which were sealed once the occupant was laid to rest. The works of art were for the eyes of the gods and the benefit of the Ka or spirit of the deceased.All Ancient Egyptian art had a serious purpose. Nothing was painted, carved, sculpted or written without a precise and definite reason. According to the prevailing belief, a depiction in pigment or stone of a person, a god or an object had the potential through magic, of actually becoming the subject of the art.
Although there were several rumors about a potential split between former Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton and pop singer Nicole Scherzinger, the news had never been confirmed until now. However, during the course of this weekend, a spokesman representing the two confirmed for the media that they are no longer a couple.
According to the statement issued to the media by the spokesman, both 25-year old Hamilton and 31-year old Scherzinger decided to focus on their careers. While … (read more)
Thanks to Rhio Barnhart for the link.
Hmmm coffee a great way to start the week.
This year we should stop using those stupid paper cups and start using a real mug and why not get a cool one to start with 
Now you can own your own 1up coffee mug with 1up on both sides so that you and you jealous friends can both see him.
Order you real 1up mug today.
The Telegraph, UK (Roya Nikkhah)
British artist Andy Holden is to reveal how he stole a piece of the Egypt pyramids in a new exhibition at the Tate Britain in London.The artist’s guilty secret began with a seemingly innocent trip to Egypt.
Accompanying his father, who was there on business, Andy, then 12, was taken to the Great Pyramid of Giza: the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still surviving – relatively intact – and the oldest and largest of the pyramids at the Giza Necropolis.
“When we arrived at the pyramids, unthinkingly I broke off a lump of stone from the side of the Great Pyramid in Giza,” said Mr Holden. “I got home and put it on a shelf in my room alongside a collection of other souvenirs I had as a kid, but when my parents found out, they were furious and it ended up becoming this terrible guilt object.
“I didn’t tell anyone else what I had done, but it had been haunting me in the last few years, so I thought I’d try to undo the guilt by travelling back to Egypt and putting it back in its original spot.”
“Consumed” by guilt, Mr Holden’s attempts at reparation didn’t end there: he also created a “colossal” replica of the rock. The sculpture is now featuring in a new exhibition at Tate Britain in London.
Bad news, Droid owners. Android OS version 2.0.1, which all up-to-date Droids are running, has a bug that makes it fairly easy to bypass the phone’s screen-lock security mechanism. The security feature, when working, requires users to input a pattern using onscreen dots before they can access most of the phone’s features (the iPhone offers a similar option).
Exploiting the bug is fairly simple: while receiving an incoming call on a Droid that has its Lock screen activated, you can simply hit the dedicated ‘Back’ button to bypass the lock and jump to the homescreen. This, of course, gives access to the owner’s Email account, cookied web pages, phone directory, and everything else stored on the phone. You can take a tiny bit of solace in the fact that the thief would have to know your phone number or wait for someone to call your phone to exploit the bug, but that’s not particularly reassuring. The issue was first reported earlier today by The Assurer, which says that it is apparently only affecting Android version 2.0.1 on the Droid (which already represents a large chunk of Android’s userbase).
We reached out to Google about the issue, and a Google spokesperson gave us the following statement:
“We are aware of the issue and we’re working to deliver a fix to Motorola Droids shortly.”
Android isn’t the first smartphone OS to fall prey to security bugs like this. In August 2008 a similar flaw with the iPhone allowed people to easily bypass the phone’s lock screen.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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We have already told you that Peugeot is looking to adopt a new design line for its future models and here is the first product that comes to confirm this. The so-called S1 concept will be officially revealed at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show in March and comes equipped with several top-notch technologies aimed at cutting fuel consumption and emissions.
As you can see for yourselves in the photo gallery below, the concept is indeed using new design elements as compared to the existing… (read more)
The digital build of the first new Focus made going global look easy and was an important step toward Ford’s new global manufacturing capability. That’s because plants around the world will build the new-generation global cars using shared processes, tools and technologies, the American carmaker recently revealed.
It was an exciting moment, Bruce Hettle, executive director of Global Manufacturing Ford Motor Company, said in a release. We built the car part by part from start to fi… (read more)
