Author: Serkadis

Daciyao, China | Rites and Rituals

The Hanging Temple, located about 60 km southwest of Datong, China in Shanxi province, is one of the world’s forgotten wonders. Clinging to a crag of Hengshan mountain, in apparent defiance of gravity, it consists of 40 rooms linked by a dizzying maze of passageways. The temple is said to have been built by a monk named Liao Ran, during the late Northern Wei Dynasty (386-534 AD) and restored in 1900.

The temple was constructed by drilling holes into the cliff side into which the poles that hold up the temples are set. Interestingly the temple is dedicated to not just one religion, but three, with Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism all worshiped within the temple and represented in 78 statues and carvings throughout the temple.

Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via, France | Instruments of Science

As far as energy sources go, focused solar heat is ancient. In ancient Greece, glass vases were filled with water to create a “burning glass” and as the Greeks got better at creating lenses, focused sunlight was used to light sacred fires and even cauterize wounds.

The most famous of these solar powered burning lenses is the system Archimedes is said to have used to ignite a fleet of Roman ships. And it wasn’t just the Greeks and Romans who used solar power lenses either, “Visby” lenses made of ground rock crystal were used by the Vikings in the 1000s, and similar technology is believed to have been used by the Celts and even the ancient Egyptians.

The name “solar furnace,” translates in Latin to heliocaminus. A heliocaminus was simply a glass enclosed room meant to focus and heat the room, much like a modern sunroom. The principles behind a modern solar furnace hasn’t changed much from these sun rooms and “burning lenses.”

The world’s largest solar furnace is located in Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via, a commune in the sunny Pyrenees mountains on the French-Spanish border. The furnace consists of a field of 10,000 mirrors bounce the sun’s rays onto a large concave mirror which focuses the enormous amount of sunlight onto an area roughly the size of a cooking pot which reaches temperatures above 3,000 °C or 5,430 degrees Fahrenheit.

The solar furnace itself itself exactly new. The first modern solar furnace was built in Mont Louis, in 1949 by professor Félix Trombe, and the current one was constructed in 1970. However the solar furnace continues to generate a beam of focused sunlight as powerful today as it was 3000 years ago.

Filed under: Performance, Ferrari, Rumormill

It’s been nearly six years since production ended on the Ferrari Enzo. That’s longer than we had to wait for the Enzo to arrive after the preceding F50 ended production, but far longer than the gap between the F40 and F50 or between the 288 GTO and the F40. In the interceding years, rival automakers like Lamborghini, Bugatti and even Aston Martin have been glad to present the uber-wealthy with million-dollar supercars, but Ferrari hasn’t sat idly by. The exotic automaker from Maranello has been working on plans of its own, speculative details of which have begun to take shape.

According to reports, the project codenamed F70 should hit the streets by 2012. And when it does, expect it to take its cues from the FXX development program and the Millechilli concept car. That means all the latest high-tech race-derived technology packed into a compact frame placing its emphasis on weight reduction.

A carbon fiber body and chassis, along with a stripped-down cockpit will do their part, but don’t expect the F70 to go light on the power. Ferrari’s new turbo system could be ready for the Enzo replacement, possibly employing electric actuators to spool up the twin turbos to avoid lag. Coupled with direct injection, the V8 should at least match the Enzo’s 650 horsepower, but cut down significantly on carbon emissions while rocketing its rich occupants to sixty in three seconds flat and top out around 230 miles per hour. Of course, this is all an educated guess at best, but it looks good so far.

[Source: Auto Express]

REPORT: Ferrari’s twin-turbo F70 shapes up to succeed the Enzo originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been somewhat amusing over the last day or so to see a bunch of our usual critics all submit the same exact story with some sort of triumphant “I told you so!!!!!” (usually in less friendly language). It’s a report that music sales are up in Sweden following the strict anti-piracy law that went into effect earlier this year. The claim is that this is proof that the RIAA/MPAA/IFPI/BPI/etc strategies work. To them, this is clear, irrefutable evidence that draconian measures to crack down on unauthorized file sharing really does make people buy. That would be quite interesting if true, but our friends employed by these companies might want to wait a bit before breaking out the champagne over a dead cat bounce.

First, there are some who are questioning the actual numbers. So far, the only numbers have come directly from the IFPI, who hasn’t provided much in the way of detail (and have a long history of publishing questionable, fact-challenged numbers). In fact, the very lack of detail would likely indicate that there are extenuating circumstances here. And, when we’re talking about Sweden, it has to also be noted that services like Spotify (which dragged the labels kicking and screaming into the modern world) were just launched at the very end of last year. So, it could be that it was one of these more modern services that helped convince people to buy music rather than any crackdown. But, of course, the bigger question is whether or not any boost is sustainable. It was reported that there was a drop in file sharing after the Swedish IPRED law went into effect (though, again, many argue that the “drop” was simply because more people started using encryption and those who measure file sharing traffic had no way to deal with it, so pretended they all stopped). Yet, it didn’t take long for the traffic numbers to bounce back up.

And that’s the issue. If your entire business model is based on whacking people with a stick and telling them what they can’t do, you may get brief moments of compliance, but at the first chance they get to go back to a more consumer-friendly system, they will. So while our friends in the entertainment industry will likely misread this situation into believing that its strategy of pissing off pretty much everyone makes business sense, let’s wait and see how this works out in the next year or so. Dead cat bounces can fool lots of folks, but there are very few industries that succeed by basing their future on such things.

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Senate needs to take action, now

Editor, The Times:

U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon continues to press the Senate to take action on climate change, and they have continued to delay moving forward with a bill [“U.N. chief prods Senate to tackle climate change,” Seattletimes.com, Business/Technology, Nov. 10]. They seem willing to postpone it until after health-care and financial reforms are enacted.

The problem with this strategy is that the longer we wait, the worse the effects of climate change will become. Even worse, we will be giving a head start to other countries who are already investing in clean-energy technology.

Instead, we should be investing in clean-energy projects that will create green-collar jobs — jobs that most anyone can do. Contrary to what some may think, these jobs don’t require fancy technology, and actually only require basic skills like the use of a caulking gun.

This is why we need Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell to not only support a bill, but to urge that we confront the problem of climate change now.

With unemployment hovering around 10 percent, a climate-change bill would help provide funding that allows the U.S. to become a leader in clean energy and would provide much-needed jobs.

— Matt Ojala, Seattle

No one cares what Ban Ki-moon, United Nations thinks

All the recent discussion of U.N. Secretary-general Ban Ki-moon [“Global climate change accelerates in dozen years since Kyoto accord,” page one, Nov. 23], misses an important point: Nobody cares what Ban Ki-moon or the U.N. thinks.

If efforts to transition to clean energy are seen as appeasements to these figures, or anyone besides the American people at large, they will never enjoy success. The massive amount of political will needed to power this change can only come from one source: the economic self-interest of the American people.

In fact, clean energy is in the economic self-interest of the American people, but this is seldom talked about. According to Thomas L. Friedman, it is the next global industry, set to generate enormous amounts of wealth.

We need to be much more vocal in asserting the economic rationale for going green. It is on this point that the battle is currently being waged in Washington, D.C. And it is the point that Ban Ki-moon will need to emphasize if he wants anyone to take him seriously.

— Daniel Silbaugh, Lynnwood

Global warming is a natural disaster, nothing else

Global warming, earthquakes, volcanoes, global cooling, global freezing, tornadoes, hurricanes, typhoons and a new ice age or melting ice caps.

They all have in common one thing: They are natural disasters that mankind has no control over. Period.

We have to prepare as best we can to cope with results of these disasters that we have no hope of stopping.

— Brian Maes, Olympia

A dose of courage, a splash of confidence

What is needed right now in Congress is a large dose of courage and intelligence [“State Dems still divided,” News, Nov. 23].

Courage to stand up and make decisions that benefit the majority of Americans, and the intelligence to truly understand that if we don’t begin the crucial task of reforming health care in a significant way today, runaway costs will make the system even more untenable. Then America would really be in trouble tomorrow.

It is a dark time in America, and witnessing a courageous stand by our politicians on behalf of the citizens would be a balm for a troubled nation.

— Rebecca Sullivan, Seattle

H.R. 676: Rep. John Conyers’ health-care bill

I am dismayed at the approach and trajectory of the health-care reform solutions.

The best solution to the health-care access crisis is Medicare for all, as outlined in H.R. 676, otherwise known as the Conyers Bill.

As a person approaching the age of 65, I am very concerned that Medicare will be severely limited by the time I enroll. Let’s fix Medicare first, then use it as the model to provide single-payer health care for all.

— Marcia Stedman, Bothell

Health and fitness has its place in current reform

One important aspect of health and fitness is being left out of the health-care reform debate. Physical exercise is not being given a role in health-care reform, even though it has the potential to save billions of dollars.

Sometimes doctors will prescribe exercise, but because of the lack of incentives most of the time it is not followed. Patients find it much easier to take medications. Some doctors think that getting patients to exercise is as hard as getting them to quit smoking, which implies the need for incentives.

Minimal amounts of cardiovascular exercise, when practiced by the aged and disabled, have a value in saved medical costs comparable to the hourly rate of a high-paid occupation. Although strength, balance and flexibility exercise are more specific in effects, they also have high value.

The government, whose primary role is that of a rule maker, has the duty to promote positive behavior through incentives. Incentivizing exercise could yield rewards not just for citizens, but also for the government’s finances in saved medical costs.

— Dale McCracken, Renton

Filibuster is full of it, let’s get rid of it

It is time to end the power of the Senate filibuster [“First key vote on Senate health bill,” page one, Nov. 21]. This anti-democratic process has distorted the vote of the Senate far too many times (112 times recently), and Americans are frustrated by the inability of elected officials to do what they’ve been elected to do.

We elected Barack Obama and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate to end the Iraq war and implement universal health care. Yet, because of the filibuster, the minority still controls the direction of the country.

It takes 60 votes to end a particular filibuster, but only 51 to reform or eliminate this roadblock. This is not a nuclear option— it is an option to return to a more democratic and productive system of government that would be more equipped to address current grave economic, environmental and global problems.

I suggest retaining the filibuster as a temporary delaying device, so the voice of the minority can be heard one last time before a vote is taken. Then no vote would be needed to override the filibuster, only a deadline. We need to urge our elected officials to reform this process so we can make the much-needed changes we’ve already voted for.

— Rosemary Adang, Seattle

Do we really need another downtown parking garage?

Editor, The Times:

How dare you, Seattle.

More than 60 years past a remarkable generation of Americans, our friends, fathers, mothers, grandparents and our youth, joined forces during World War II. Now 62 years later, our city of Seattle is planning to desecrate a war memorial dedicated to our youth, who gave their all fighting for our freedoms [“The end of Memorial Stadium?,” page one, Nov. 25].

Some of those youth never returned, and their resting place is Memorial Stadium.

How dare you, Seattle?

Seattle’s Memorial Stadium was dedicated Thanksgiving Day 1947 to honor this remarkable generation. How soon we forget the sacrifices our youth made going into war directly out of Seattle schools.

Shame on you, Seattle to even think about desecrating a war memorial honoring those youth and our future youth. Do we really need another parking garage in lieu of a war memorial? The Seattle Center and Seattle Public Schools staff have reached a tentative agreement to do just that.

— Guy Gallipeau, Seattle

Jerusalem, Israel | Incredible Ruins

The immovable ladder of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a religious symbol of a sort, a kind of miracle possible only through human folly. It is also one of the most powerful and iconic symbols of the divisions and religious disputes within Christian World.

Proposed as the site of the death and resurrection of Jesus the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is one of the holiest places in Christianity and has been the site of pilgrimages since the 4th century. However, even this most venerated shrine could not escape the quirks of human nature, vanity, pride and envy.

Even from its earliest days Christianity was subject to splintering, creating numerous denominations and sects, all claiming to be the only true school of followers of Jesus Christ. The most prominent of these fought bitterly over the centuries for the dominance over the holy places in Palestine. During the time of Muslim dominance over the area, a government equally hostile to all Christian denominations, no one sect could achieve a clear advantage over the others. As the disputes rolled on, the methods of gaining advantage became ever more dubious including outright bribery, blackmai, and the use of force.

Today, the current situation is an uneasy status quo, a kind of an fragile compromise reached in several stages, through the mediation of the Ottoman empire and several European powers.

The care over the church is shared by no less then six denominations. The primary custodians are the Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic and Roman catholic church, with lesser duties shared by Coptic, Ethiopian and Syriac Orthodox churches. The whole edifice is carefully parceled into sections, some being commonly shared while others belonging strictly to a particular sect. A set of complicated rules governs the transit rights of the other groups through each particular section on any given day, and especially during the holidays. Some of the sections of the church however still remain hotly disputed to this day.

Arguments and violent clashes are not uncommon. In November 2008 the internet was flooded with videos of a fistfight between Armenian and Greek monks in one such dispute. A small section of the roof of the church is disputed between the Copts and Ethiopians. At least one Coptic monk at any given time sits there on a chair placed on a particular spot to express this claim. On a hot summer day he moved his chair some 20cm more into the shade. This was interpreted as a hostile act and violation of status quo. Eleven were hospitalized after a fight resulting from this provocation.

This state of affairs makes any agreement about renovations or repairs on the edifice impossible. The church is in a state of decay as a result.

The famous immovable ladder is a bizarre outcome of this religious stubbornness pushed to extremes. Some time in the first half of the 19th century, someone has placed a ladder up against the wall of the church. No one is sure whom he was, or more importantly, to which sect he belonged. The ladder remains there to this date. No one dares touch it, lest they disturb the status quo, and provoke the wrath of others. The exact date when ladder was placed is not known but the first evidence of it comes from 1852.

The ladder hasn’t moved since.

Chief of NOAA should have done more

Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will be attending the last court hearing before a ruling on how to run hydroelectric dams in the Columbia Basin without driving wild salmon to extinction [“Judge praises Obama fish plan,” NWTuesday, Nov. 24].

NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center has reported that salmon runs in the Pacific Northwest are correlated with changes in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation cycles, and that salmon runs declined steadily during the warm Pacific Decadal Oscillation cycle from 1977 to 1998. The listing of several salmon stocks as threatened or endangered coincided with a prolonged period of warm ocean conditions beginning in the early 1990s.

The center also reported a dramatic increase in salmon runs from 2000 to 2004 that coincided with the return to a cool cycle in late 1998, and that cold offshore ocean conditions have now become well established, boding well for good salmon runs over the next few years.

NOAA chief Lubchenco, trained as a marine ecologist, has the responsibility to testify at this court hearing that changes in Pacific Decadal Oscillation cycles, not Columbia Basin hydroelectric dam operations, have been the primary factor influencing Pacific Northwest salmon runs in recent decades.

— Ken Schlichte, Tumwater

Computers don’t create lesson plans, teachers do

Perhaps Brittany Hake [“Teaching with computerized lesson plans?,” Opinion, Northwest Voices, Nov. 20] needs to take another look at her reaction to the current tempest-in-a-teapot education issue in our fair state.

Any new teacher worth her or his salt discovers that lesson plans are the construction girders of education. As a building needs a sound foundation, so a teacher needs a lesson plan to teach a novel.

I taught secondary school for 31 years, and yes from time to time I purchased a lesson plan at the local school-supplies store. There have been great plans for decades, and I always found ways to tailor them to fit my student population.

Does she think this is the easy way out?

I am curious to know Hake’s definition of the computerized lesson plans, which enrage her.

If I were to type my lesson plans onto a computer and teach from them, would that make them computerized? Or, if I were to purchase another teacher’s plans, download them to my computer, or copy them on a machine, does that invalidate their purpose?

Or am I just making use of new technology and sharing ideas with other teachers, ideas that can and should enrich my teaching and my students’ learning?

Computers do not make up lesson plans; teachers do that.

— Margaret Lauderdale, Everett

The hungry family next door: Schools must step up

The economic recession may be coming to a close, but the effects of it will forever have an impact in the future generations [“Hunger’s familiar face,” Opinion, editorial, Nov. 19].

For one in five children living in Washington state, the cycle of poverty prevents them from receiving a school lunch, making it hard to focus. Due to the recession, 425,000 more families had to take advantage of reduced or free school lunches, and some children did not get any food at all.

The economic setback also meant that families are not spending as much money on healthier foods, and instead settling for fast foods, encouraging children to eat unhealthy foods and discouraging good eating habits while they are young. This results in a higher risk of obesity and the risk for future health problems.

In 2009, one in three children has obesity. To prevent this number from increasing, schools need to take responsibility for children, in order to ensure they are receiving the proper nutrition and caloric intake every single day.

This must happen in order for the mind to develop to its full potential, because after all, the child going hungry and without food could be your own.

— Jennifer Briant, Seattle

Israel’s illegal occupation Palestine: fact or fiction?

In his letter from Nov. 14, Donovan Fisk described what he calls the illegal Israeli occupation of a place called Palestine [“Celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Opinion, Northwest Voices].

Occupation, as defined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, involves one nation taking over the territory belonging to another sovereign nation.

I was 24 in 1967 and remember it well. Israel captured the West Bank, which had been annexed by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip, which had been taken over by Egypt. Both of those nations were illegally occupying that land, according to the almost unanimous vote of the United Nations.

I would challenge Fisk to find one news report from June of that year claiming “Israel invades Palestine.” No such nation existed there.

The Palestine Liberation Organization, in its 1964 Charter, declared that the Palestinians had no claim on these territories. All their efforts were directed at destroying Israel inside the 1949 armistice lines. The U.N. agreement between Israel and Jordan clearly stated that the Green Line was not a border, and that a final settlement would be between the parties. In July of 1988, Jordan abandoned any claim it had to the West Bank.

So who had the best claim?

The League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, in 1922, granted all land west of the Jordan River to the Jewish people, who had helped to liberate it, and who had identified with that land for 3,000 years. About a million Jews lived in the Middle East at that time. The land that was offered to the Palestinian Arabs by the U.N. partition plan, which they rejected, was Jewish land according to international law.

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion. Nobody is entitled to his own facts.

— Robert G. Kaufman, Seattle

Krauthammer on Islam: an inconvenient truth

Please drop Charles Krauthammer as a columnist on the Opinion pages, except in those rare moments when he is talking about economic policy — a subject on which he has something of value to contribute.

Krauthammer’s latest nonsense takes facts upon which no sentient entity can disagree — the slaughter at Fort Hood and the cultural and religious background of the perpetrator [“A dangerous delicacy about Islam,” Opinion, syndicated column, Nov. 14] — and then aims his arrow at a predefined target.

His most telling, and egregiously, inaccuracy being that “Allahu Akbar” is a jihadist battle cry. Well it is in a sense, but only in the same sense that most Americans say the same thing in English under similar circumstances.

The inconvenient truth Krauthammer does not wish to acknowledge is that fanatics of any stripe are going to do bad things. Islamic fanatics, Christian fanatics, Jewish fanatics, Hindu fanatics, Agnostic fanatics. Krauthammer is not being intellectually honest when he chooses one brand of fanatic over another, and The Times should stop giving him a soapbox on which to do so.

There is no brand of fanatic that should make anyone feel safe.

— Daniel A. Morgan, Seattle

Capacitive screens are of course a blessing and a curse, and in the winter the curse side is more evident when you find your favourite gloves no longer work with your brand new HTC HD2.

Instructibles have the solution, with a quick tip for turning your standard gloves into ones suitable for a capacitive screen by the simple expedience of sewing in some conductive thread in the finger and thumb area.

See Instructibles here for the simple and detailed instructions.

Via Mobilemag.com

Filed under: Europe, Hirings/Firings/Layoffs, GM, Opel

General Motors shouldn’t expect to achieve David Hasselhoff-level popularity in Germany anytime soon. The Detroit News reports that since GM has elected to keep and restructure its Opel division, 9,000 jobs (or somewhere thereabouts) will likely be cut, with the majority of those losses expected in Deutschland. The jobs will be eliminated as part of a $5 billion restructuring plan, which GM hopes to fund with a lot of help from European governments, as well as “employee contributions” (read: concessions). Just don’t expect Angela Merkel to break out her Visa debit card anytime soon.

Opel/Vauxhall CEO Nick Reilly wins the Unintentionally Hilarious Quote of the Day award for this line: “We have also said that GM can and will put some money in, as well.” What a novel concept. Digressing for a moment: Given that GM is out shaking the coffee can looking for ways to fund the Opel restructuring, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where they find a way to save Saab, too. Getting the Opel business in order hardly sounds like it’s going to be a picnic, so a rescue of the ailing Swedish automaker has got to be low on the priority list right now.

[Source: The Detroit News | Image Source: Thomas Lohnes/Getty]

GM swings the axe: 9,000 Opel jobs likely to be eliminated originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I FELT THIS WAS NECESSARY TO POST HERE AS WELL.

I just want to post this because we are receiving a massive amount of copy threads. Alot from beginners, some looking to change it up and everything so i figured id post here and have everyone post here with all the basic fundamentals so we can open up the forusm to product reviews, new products, etc..

Fundamentals of gaining mass:

Proper diet – about 1-1.5 grams of protein per lb of bodyweight
water intake – about 1 gallon a day, dont chug at once (water intoxication blog on my site)
sleep – this is necessary for recovery
calories – know what good calories vs empty calories are
fats – know saturated vs unsaturated means

if your going to supplement and have never done so, or your getting back to it.. You’ll want the following

protein – on gold whey isolate or hydrowhey, dymatize elite, myofusion
multivitamin- universal animal pak, russian bear 5000, cl orange triad
creatine – go for a monohydrate flavorless, higher power, creapures good
can do a fish oil –

if you want a pre workout.. Which you take roughly 30 minutes prior to working out.. Use…. Jack3d, superpump 250, cl white flood, vpx redline

intra workout – cl purple wraath, cl purple in train, vpx redline

post workout – feed that muscle baby!!! Get that protein in their, grab some chicken grilled or a protein shake, throw some carbs such as brown rice and oats and do some creatine

before bed – grab a protein – casein is fine, some zma if you wish and sleep dont stay up late.

If you want to do a weight gainer- on pro complex gainer, gaspari real mass,

its all about doing the research and find what works for you, different strokes for different folks.

Training : There is a thing of overtraining shouldnt be lifting for more than 45min to an hour.. Do a 10 minute cardio warm up to get the blood going and prevent cramping, stay hydrated.

Pre package your meals the day before or on a sunday, you cant tell me you dont have time.. It requires 30-40 minutes to do this.

This is the best advice in general you can get and its what we preach all the time to everyone. Take advantage of this posting, pm me or anyone you choose. Have a great day everyone

I guess it’s natural to lash out at technologies and companies that undermine a business model built up on artificial barriers and scarcity, but it won’t do much good in terms of actually adapting. But it’s kind of amusing when it’s done at the same time that someone is embracing those new technologies as they undermine other business models at the same time. Taylor Davidson points us to a photographer bashing the idea that microstock sites like iStockPhoto help “create new markets.” It’s actually been really depressing to see so many photographers react so poorly to new technologies, and this case is no exception. In the ranting post, he compares microstock sites to pollution in China and drug dealing. All the rant really screams out is “I’m so set in my ways that I can’t compete or adapt my business model.”

However, the really amusing part is highlighted by an anonymous commenter on the site who mocks the photographer for whining about how microstock sites are undercutting his old business model at the same time that he’s advertising his own books and services online, rather than advertising in newspapers and phone books. As the commenter notes:

If everyone is supposed to stop posting their photos and selling to istock, how about photographers stop using the Web and advertise in phone books and newspapers so those jobs aren’t lost? And maybe you can go back to using film instead of digital so that film manufacturers aren’t put out of business? Sounds like to me you’re all for taking advantage of technology except when others doing it hurts your bottom line.

And that’s really a key point. Technology changes markets, and the more you look, the more you realize that it almost always enlarges the overall market for those who take advantage of it. Yes, there’s more competition in the photographer market, and the model for stock photography has changed. But the nice thing about the microstock market is that it has opened new markets. A lot more people can and do buy stock photos than did in the past. If I can’t find a decent Creative Commons/public domain photo for presentations, I’ll go in search of one I can license from a microstock photo site in a second, because it’ll just cost $1 or so. So I actually end up spending a fair amount on stock photos in the course of a regular year. Compare that to the situation seven years ago when we were working on a revamp of our corporate website. We went in search of a photo to use, and the licensing deals we saw wanted about $1,000 for just one year of usage. That meant we spent nothing, because that just doesn’t make sense.

So, yes, the economics are changing, but if you’re smart, you can take advantage of it. It may mean moving beyond just the stock photo market, or using such photographs (or even giving away works for free) to build up reputation for freelance or custom assignments. Most photographers I know never made much money from stock photos anyway, finding much more value in commissioned work. And recently, I’ve been hearing of success stories from some really good photographers who have used their existing work, given away for free, as strong advertising to get more (and more lucrative) commissions.

In the end, it really comes down to how you deal with it. Do you whine and stomp your feet and compare the new world to pollution? Or do you figure out how to adapt? Economic progress doesn’t care in the slightest how much you liked how things used to be.

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Those not-so-naughty chaps at Naughty Dog has something special waiting for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves players this Friday, November 27: a new multipl…

Filed under: Spy Photos, Performance, Geneva Motor Show, Europe, Hatchback, Mini, Diesel

Spy shooters posted outside Mini’s testing facility in Germany snagged a duo of prototypes heading out for testing, but something seemed amiss. Both models — a standard Cooper and a mildly camo’d Clubman — sported the tell-tale exterior elements found on the S versions, specifically a central-mounted dual exhaust on the Cooper and the twin-tips and hood scoop on the Clubman. However, the exhaust note was decidedly diesel, causing us to wonder: Is Mini working on hotted-up S versions of its oil-burners?

If they are — and we’re not convinced either way — then a Cooper S and Clubman S diesel would need to benefit from more than a few design tweaks and an uprated suspension. Considering that the standard Mini D puts out around 90 horsepower and the Cooper D boasts another 20 bhp, then these S-ified models could be packing upwards of 140 to 150 hp and, more importantly, over 200 lb.-ft. of torque from their 1.6-liter turbodiesels. If they do make it to dealers, we’d expect them to debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March, with sales beginning in Europe late next year.

Spy Shots: Mini working on diesel “S” versions of Cooper, Clubman? originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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