Category: News

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has voted no on the cloture motion to start debate on Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform bill — meaning the motion will likely fail, 58 to 42, short of the 60 votes needed. Republicans will tout this as an extraordinary victory demonstrating bipartisan opposition to moving forward on financial regulation until the bill is tried, tested and sorted. But my guess is that Nelson knew the motion would not pass, having failed to garner Sen. Olympia Snowe’s (R-Maine) vote earlier today, and decided not to vote for it at that point.

Regardless, the optics are terrible. Nelson’s “Cornhusker kickback” delayed health care reform. Today, news broke that Warren Buffett, the head of Berkshire Hathaway and a resident of Omaha, lobbied for the Senate Agriculture Committee, on which Nelson sits, to create a derivatives loophole that would benefit his company to the tune of billions, a proposal Senate Democrats swatted down. And now, Nelson is holding up progress on the financial front again.

Filed under: Performance, China, Earnings/Financials, Ferrari, Luxury

It looks like Ferrari’s love affair with China isn’t one-sided. According to a recent report, the Prancing Horse moved a total of 220 cars in China last year, and of those, 20 percent were snapped up by well-to-do women. That means China’s ladies are buying Ferraris at four times the rate of their western counterparts. Why? It all has to do with business.

Ferrari says there are somewhere between 400-500 millionaires in China and that a fair portion of those are women who have earned their money by building and operating competitive businesses. They’ve got cash, and they want the toys that come with it.

Interestingly enough, the company also said that the average age of a Chinese Ferrari buyer is 10 years younger than in Europe or North America. If you were looking for proof that the automotive industry is shifting its focus from the west, look no further.

[Source: Go Auto]

Chinese women driving new Ferrari sales? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When President Obama returns to Iowa Tuesday he will face a community where more than one person in ten is out of work. It seems like a tough first stop on his White House to Main Street tour that will take him through Iowa, Illinois and Missouri.
The trip is billed as a series of ‘economic listening events’ and the President could very well get an earful.
In Fort Madison, Iowa, which will be the president’s first stop, Mr. Obama could hear frustration over the slow pace of economic recovery. Lee County bank president is not alone in his criticism of the president for not making the economy a top priority, saying, “if he worked on that nationally, I think our recovery would have been stronger, quicker.”
That’s not to say there hasn’t been any recovery. In fact you will find the anxiety of the economy is subsiding in southeast Iowa a bit. Small business owners like Martha Wolf who owns the Ivy Bake Shoppe and Cafe says she sees more traffic in her downtown restaurant. After a dreary winter where her staff of twenty all agreed to cut their hours to keep everybody employed, Martha says things seem to be improving. The one word you’ll hear often when people here explain the turnaround…Siemens.
The German manufacturer opened it’s windmill blade plant in Fort Madison back in 2007 with 200 jobs. That number has almost doubled as the plant has expanded to fill the demands of a green technology that has windmills dotting landscapes all around the country.
Siemens will be the stage for President Obama when he visits Fort Madison. He is certain to celebrate the green technology plant and it’s growing roll of employees.
But the lesson may go beyond the potential benefit of green technology jobs. Call it midwestern sensibility or fiscal conservatism but one thing you’ll learn in Iowa is to live within your means. Martha Wolf says a big reason people aren’t hurting as much is because they spend wisely. “I’m ok. You know. I haven’t been extravagant and I don’t think you’ll find a lot of midwestern, at least in Fort Madison, that are extravagant people.”

The widespread media coverage of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Goldman Sachs has created some public interest about how Wall Street works. To many Main Street observers, the deal looks pretty shady. There’s some possibility that Goldman misled investors, but a new report about Deutsche Bank doing largely the same thing makes it appear that the SEC’s case could be based on a mere technicality. Goldman referred to an independent collateral agent having created the portfolio for the security purchased by investors, though a hedge fund manager was also involved. Deutsche Bank employed no such third-party, so there could have been no such deceit on its part.

Whether or not Goldman is ultimately found to have committed fraud, many people who have read some details of the case likely believe that there were ethics violations, given the appearance that Goldman believed the security would perform poorly. Shouldn’t an investment bank that creates a security have an obligation to only sell it if the bank believes it will perform well? Not necessarily.

The Role of an Investment Bank

First, it’s important to understand the role of an investment bank. It’s a glorified middle man. Its job is to bring together buyers and sellers and facilitate a transaction. This involves all sorts of financial products. Here are a few examples:

• M&A: If a firm is looking to be acquired or acquire another, an investment bank can advise it on its options, pricing, etc. It can also solicit offers and facilitate the transaction’s closing.
• Equity/Debt Sales: If a company wants to sell some stock or bonds, it can go to an investment bank. The bank can then work with the company to create an offering and find investors to purchase the resulting securities.
• Derivatives: If a company or investor wants some kind of financial exposure, an investment bank can find another company or investor who wants the opposite exposure. It can then create a derivative to satisfy the demands of both parties.

An investment bank shouldn’t be confused with a personal financial advisor. The latter is a professional who generally provides investment advice to clients, like to buy or sell a stock. An investment bank isn’t there to provide its opinion when selling securities. Its job is just to provide sufficient information to all parties so they can make their own investment decision. The exception to this rule is the equity or debt research groups that sometimes exist in investment banks specifically to provide investment advice. They are required to be isolated from the investment bank’s other activities.

An Example: Derivatives

Let’s imagine an example where an investment bank is creating a derivative based on subprime mortgage-backed securities in early 2007 — right before the market collapsed. One long investor believes the mortgage market will continue to do well, the other short investor thinks it will do poorly. What the bank believes will occur is entirely irrelevant: it’s just there to create a deal that satisfies the demands of both parties and disclose all the data they need to analyze it. If each obtains the information associated with the deal, finds it appropriate, and buys the securities offered, then the bank’s job is done.

If the bank has a fiduciary duty, which investor does it have a duty to protect? For example, imagine that the bank believed that the mortgage market was about to go bust. If it advised the long investor not to buy the security, it would be breaching its duty to the short investor. Alternatively, what if the bank believed the mortgage market would continue to thrive? Then, if it advised the short investor accordingly, it would breach its duty to the long investor. These investors’ interests necessarily conflict. The bank can’t give preference to one client over the other. For it to do its job best, it must create a security, disclose all of its characteristics, and allow investors to decide on their own whether to buy.

In fact, in this example, it would be impossible for the bank to sell both securities if it had to believe anything it sold would perform well. One security will necessarily do poorly. It’s a zero-sum trade.

Where an Investment Bank Can Go Wrong

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for a bank to act in an ethically reprehensible way. If a bank misleads a client, then that’s fraud. But if a bank happens to believe a security might not do poorly, based on its interpretation of future events, then that’s irrelevant. Its job is just to provide sufficient information for the investors to evaluate the security within their own interpretation of future events. After all, the investment bank could very well be incorrect. Fraud would occur if the information it presents is false or inaccurate, because then investors could not have fairly assessed the security based on their own assumptions. If the data is accurate and complete, then the investors can successfully perform their analysis, and the investment bank has done its job.

Tomorrow afternoon, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will meet to examine the country’s mine safety policies — the first such exploration since 29 miners were killed in a horrific mine blast in Southern West Virginia on April 5. And although Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) isn’t a member of that panel, he’s been asked to participate in the proceedings, his office just announced.

Federal regulators have been feeling the heat since this month’s blast, with many critics — including former federal regulators — arguing that recent safety concerns at the Upper Big Branch mine should have led the Mine Safety and Health Administration to shut the project down. Joe Main, who heads MSHA, is expected to testify at tomorrow’s hearing.

Notably, no representative of Massey Energy, the company that owns the mine, is scheduled to appear.

Commenter mbp3 has some trenchant thoughts on the pharmaceutical market:

One thing you don’t mention in this post (but perhaps you discuss in your piece on pipelines) is that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) like Medco are structured such that their incentive to maximize profits aligns with employers/government incentive to reduce costs. Medco makes more money from each generic drug dispensed than from each brand name drug, even though the cost of brand drugs can be 10x higher.

So, I submit that the Medicare prescription drug program has come in below original spending projections because incentives are aligned: plans that prescribe more generics cost less for customers and allow the PBMs such as Medco to generate more profit. A win-win for everyone except brand drug companies.

The new HC reform bill does not have the same alignment of incentives. Goverment will attempt to cut costs administratively, by reducing Medicare payments and forcing companies to pay large fees, while doing vey little to reduce the subsidy given to employer based plans and while increasing the number and scope of mandatory coverage.

Later (s)he adds:

I think the structure of Part D had a lot to do with it. Management of the prgram was outsourced to profit maximizing companies, the reimbursement is based on a competitive bidding system so a higher bid forces a plan to charge a higher monthly premium — which can make the plan less attractive to seniors. Also the entire program is re-bid each year — meaning unhappy seniors can switch plans at the end of each year.

Look at the rate of generic drug substitution in Medicare – it’s 70%+. Much higher than in any other country that uses a single payor / nationalized system. These systems have the same opportunity to generate savings as in the Medicare drug program, yet they have not done so, at last partly because there is little incentive to do so.

What I’m saying is, yes there were structural changes happening. BUT, the Medicare drug program was structured in such a way as to take advantgae of these changes and perhaps to accelerate them. HC reform is not.

by Tom Philpott

An
April 13, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) announced the four winners of its second annual
“Growing Green” awards, which honor leaders in the sustainable-food
world in four categories: “thought leader,” “producer,”
business leader,” and “water steward.” I interviewed
“thought leader” Fred Kirschenmann here and “business leader” Karl Kupers of Shepherd’s Grain here. Now I turn my attention to Mike Benziger, who brought home
the “water steward” prize for his work at Benziger Family Winery.

——————-

Mike Benziger on the family farm. When Mike Benziger and his family began growing grapes and
making wine in 1970s-era Sonoma County, the prevailing agricultural style could be described as
“scorched earth.” Agrichemical concoctions fed the vines, killed the pests, and flattened
the weeds; plentiful well water provided easy irrigation.

But such practices not only kill soil, they also deaden
wine. Over time, the Benzigers began to rethink modern viticulture. One motivation was improving the product, making it stand out out from the gusher of wine
coming out of Sonoma. Another was the sinking water table on Sonoma
Mountain, where the family keeps its vineyards. Faced with surging water costs,
the family began searching for new farming methods that didn’t treat water as a
cheap and easy resource. Thus started an odyssey that inspired the family to
convert its Sonoma property to biodynamic growing practices in the
mid-1990s—and that won Mike Benziger recognition from the NRDC as a “water
steward.” I caught up with Mike last week via phone.

Q. Tell
us about how Benziger saves water.

A. It
all started because we were running out of water—our wells were dropping.
Necessity really was the mother of invention. We’re located on Sonoma Mountain,
and water recharge was not happening anywhere near as fast as we were using
the water. The bottom line in California is there’s probably not going to be
enough water to go around.

So,
what are we going to do to address that? You throw climate change into that mix,
and the problem gets that much more critical. There’s a saying in the wine
business: wine is for loving, but water is for fighting. But it turns out that
when you use significantly less water in the field, you can actually raise the quality
of wine. There’s not a tradeoff between water use and wine quality. Of course,
there are economic benefits, too—one of the biggest costs we incur at
our facility is for pumping water out of the ground.

So
we looked to the vineyard first. Far and away, our growing practices used the
most significant quantities of water. So, by designing vineyards that needed
less water, by not planting in areas that had an excess demand for water, and
by planting plants that were smaller, by planting plants that were less
thirsty, by planting plants that had rootstalks that went deeper and pulled
water from lower soil depth, we saved a lot of water.

And
we quickly found that by irrigating less and using less inputs, our grapes,
olives, and other products were more concentrated in flavor, higher in quality,
and had a longer shelf life to it.

Q. Benziger
is well-known in the industry for being certified biodynamic. Talk about the relationship between
biodynamic growing practices and water conservation.

A. When
we first moved into our property in 1980, we hired the best advisors. And they
told us, “Hey, you better get rid of all of the natural things in your
vineyards and push them out to the other side of the fence. We don’t want any
competition in your vineyards. Let’s get rid of all the insects, let’s get rid
of all the weeds, let’s get rid of all the birds. We need to have this under
control. Only vines should be in a vineyard area.”

Over
time, we did a pretty good job of killing everything. One day, we went outside
and we didn’t hear a peep: we didn’t see an insect, we didn’t hear a bird, our
soils were eroding because they were dead, and quite frankly, our wines were
hit and miss. And that’s when we knew we needed to look for some farming practices
that maybe treated the land with a little bit more respect.

In
about 1994-95, we started to look around for different farming practices.
Biodynamic farming resonated with us because it did two things: it regenerated
the land, meaning it built biological capital, and it individualized our
product. And that was the thing that really, really attracted us. By farming
this way, and by looking at biodynamics as a closed system of agriculture, we
were able to individualize—make our property more distinctive over time.

Biodynamics
means recycling all the products within your property, and reducing the use of
imported inputs … including water. Over time, our philosophy came to never ever
feed the vine, but to only take care of the soil. When you feed the vine, when
the food for the vine is put on the surface of the soil and then dripped in
with an irrigation system, the roots stay right where the food is, which is
right in the first eighteen inches. If we take care of the soil, the roots go
deeper to find the nutrients the plant needs—the nutrients aren’t all there at
the surface. The goal is to get the roots to explore the entire soil profile
and to eventually get down to where more permanent sources of water are, which
in our case, tend to be down below six to eight feet. Once we can tap into
that, then we can really delay our irrigations and save hundreds of thousands
of gallons of water.

When
the roots reach the lower depths, we can really tap into what I call the Holy
Grail: and that is in being able to showcase what is called in the wine
business the terroir of the property …
the sense of place, the sense that the wine came from somewhere
specific.

Q. Animals are integral to biodynamic farming. What kind of animals
are on your farm?

A. In
biodynamic farming, you try to eliminate the use of inputs by enabling natural
systems, through use of  plants and
animals. We use plants as habitat areas to bring in good insects that eat the
bad bugs, which eliminate the need for pesticides, and we bring in the
caretakers of soil biology and that eliminates the need for fertilizer.

So
we have cows, which provide the manures for our compost, and sheep, which are
out in the vineyards every day during the fall, winter, and the early part of
spring. With every step, sheep do three things: they eat, they shit, and they
till. They’re pretty cool animals and they really invigorate the soil biology
by keeping the grasses down low, that way we don’t have to bring our machinery
in early when compaction is a problem. They also provide the ability to turn
their manures into grasses under, so that they break down and they keep the
soil biology humming. They also put little dents, not too many, but little
dents in the soil that act to hold water and help to recharge the soil aquifer
faster. The other thing they do, which is really important, is they take care
of disease protection by turning under with their paws all the litter that’s
left over from last year that usually has mildew and other bacteria in it; they
turn it under and the soil bacteria take care of it right away.

Virtually
all farms had animals for 10,000 years. They’ve been pushed off most farms over
the last hundred years because we decided that monocrops are more efficient.
But we really didn’t look hard enough to see the real reasons why our ancestors
were using animals

Q. What
else are you doing to reduce water use in the winemaking process?

A. We’ve
constructed wetlands that recycle 2-3 million gallons of water a year. All of
the winery waste water and some of the grey water on our facility is captured
in a pond and then, by gravity, it’s recycled through this large wetlands that
acts as a kidney that cleans the water to an incredibly high level—to where it
looks good enough to drink. That’s the water that we then use for landscaping,
and we then use for irrigation. It’s used twice.

In
the actual winemaking process, we recently invested in what’s called
“all-vibration technology.” We’ve eliminated all belts and all screws. And
that right there, eliminated, I think, 18-20 percent of the water use for harvest last
year alone, just converting out of belts and screws to these very
easy-to-clean, very efficient vibration tables. They clean up almost by
themselves.

Then
there’s cleaning wine barrels. You can imagine how hard it is to clean a
60-gallon barrel and get it all clean on the inside when there’s only a little
hole to work through. In the past, we used up to 25 gallons per barrel. But
with the new technologies that we’ve invested in, which is based on steam,
we’ve been able to get that to below 5 gallons per barrel.

Q. Benziger
is obviously known most for its wine—what else is grown on your Sonoma Mountain land?

A. Yeah,
we grow about 30 different types of vegetables and we make olive oil and we
make honey. We have about 100 lamb. We
sell all of our olive oil in the tasting room, then we supply local
restaurants
with vegetables and beef. We’re also trying to make on a regular basis
what I call an estate meal, which is a meal made entirely off the property of
the lamb or the beef or the chicken with all the vegetables that we grow, with
the olive oil and the honey, tasted alongside the wines that are made right
there in that system, and to see if there’s an overlap or a crossover in the
flavors or the profiles or the textures of the wine or the olives oil or even
the veggies.

Q. Sounds
like an old-school diversified Mediterranean farm—olive groves, vineyards,
vegetables, meat, all growing right on top of each other.

A. Our
property is 85 acres and less than 40 of it are in grapes. Then the other 35 or
40 are the biological support system for the grapes. The grapes are the lead
character in the play. A lot of the time, [all the supporting actors] makes the lead character
interesting. I don’t want to give the impression we think we’re perfect in
terms of sustainability—we can always do better! But it turns out that by
doing things like conserving water and improving soil health, we make better
wine. So we’re committed.

Q. Please
recommend a few relatively inexpensive examples of your wines. Nothing too fancy—I work at Grist!

A. First,
I’d try the 2009 Benziger Sauvignon Blanc –– that’s just hitting the markets right now. Then I would recommend the 2006
Benziger Sonoma Country Cabernet Sauvignon.
And then we have another one called Signiterra that’s a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon that is a biodynamic property
in transition—that is an awesome wine. Those
would be the three that I would recommend.

Related Links:

Cuba’s urban-ag revival offers limited lessons

Interview with ‘Growing Green’ business leader Karl Kupers

Fred Kirschenmann, winner of NRDC’s Growing Green “Thought Leader” award

These are the voyages of the Starship Meaterprise. Its continuing mission: to fill your stomach with deliciousness. And if wanting to destroy this on contact make me some sort of dirty Romulan, so be it. More »

Filed under: Aftermarket, Design/Style

Let’s say you want to go all Mad Max on your BMW 330i, but aren’t quite ready to give your shiny paint that Krylon finish. No worries. As user djaemac over on E90 Post found out, wrapping your car in vinyl isn’t as hard as the pros make it out to be. Over a week’s worth of evenings, the guy set about covering his entire car in matte black vinyl using nothing but some application fluid, a felt squeegee, a heat gun, an X-Acto knife and a heaping helping of patience. The results look just as good as any of the pro wraps we’ve seen.

The best part is that djaemac managed to do the whole thing for a mere $120. Considering the thousands of dollars a shop will charge you for the same work, that’s not a bad deal. While we aren’t likely to go flat black on any of our personal cars, the writeup makes the thought of covering our front bumpers in clear protective vinyl all that more tempting. Hop over to E90 Post to see the full project for yourself.

[Source: E90 Post]

How to ‘murder out’ your ride for just $120 – in your garage originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In light of the mayor’s scathing criticism of DWP’s management, it’s worth noting what the mayor’s point man, Jobs Czar and Interim General Manager Austin Beutner is telling the utility’s staff.

“While I have been at the Department for a few days, I have already gained great respect and admiration for the linemen, engineers, managers, support staff, and thousands of professional men and women of this Department. You insure the reliability of incredibly complex water and power systems. For this, I extend the thanks of a grateful City,” Beutner said in a letter to staff Monday. (Read the full letter at OurLA.org)

“These efforts are led by a very capable senior management team that gets the
job done day in and day out. The senior management team has my confidence,
and I look forward to working with them over the coming months.”

His words are in sharp contrast to what the mayor told the LA TImes last Wednesday, words that drew a sharp rebuke from union boss Brian D’Arcy and set off a firestorm of anger among senior managers.

“For four years, I’ve battled a bureaucracy that just won’t respond to the policy direction” to move away from coal toward renewable fuels like solar and wind energy. It’s been an absolute war,” the mayor said.

“Every time that we tried to figure out what the numbers are,” the bureaucracy resists. “Getting through that Byzantine bureaucracy is very difficult…. We’ve got to figure out a way to make that agency more transparent.

“They undermined [former General Manager Ronald] Deaton, they undermined [former General Manager David] Nahai. Even [outgoing General Manager S. David] Freeman,” Villaraigosa said. “…I’m talking about that upper-level management…You can’t fire them. They just go back to the Civil Service system” and they lose about $15,000 in salary as well as their city-provided cars, but they stay in the DWP. “They out-wait you. They’ve out-waited everybody.”

Sometimes the best way to get younger audiences interested in the word of God is to present the Holy Scriptures to them with the help of their own music. After all, Kirk Franklin built an empire off of it. Now motivitional Christian rapper Tamara Lowe is taking things to the next level.

There’s something a bit giggle-worthy about a middle-aged lady performing a hip-hop-inspired praise song — a fact many a critical YouTube commenter rarely allows Lowe to forget. We say go with whatever works. Over the past six months, Tamara — who went from drug addict to born-again Chrisitan — has performed her viral smash at a series of motivational seminars across the US and on shows like The 700 Club.

Spotted@

Do you like your Hulu free? Then enjoy the next month, because things are about to change.

The online TV and video streaming site is going ahead with its plan to put old episodes of popular shows behind a $9.95 monthly subscription wall called Hulu Plus. The last five episodes of popular shows will still be free, plus advertising. Everything before that will require subscription.

Hulu started to turn a profit six months ago, but joint owners News Corp, NBC and Disney are pushing the site to start experimenting with additional pay models. While the journalism and music industries have tried to copy Hulu with digital storefront and Vevo, Hulu has gazed enviously on Netflix, the movie rental service which coaxes a monthly subscription fee in exchange for limitless online viewing.

Don’t blame Hulu for abandoning the ad-only approach to supporting online media. Newspapers like the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal have the same combo strategy of charging for premium content and supporting the rest with advertising. The New York Times is looking to put up its own internal meter in 2011. Ad supported music sites like Pandora and Grooveshark offer limitless listening and zero ads in exchange for a monthly fee. Large media companies will continue to dip their toes into price differentiation — charging higher levels for “premium” media experiences — because until somebody figures out how to convince advertisers to pay dead-tree rates for pixel ads, publishers will have to soak users for some extra dough.

After being criticized for offering to pay University of Connecticut students extra money for every Republican registered at a voter registration drive this week, U.S. Senate candidate Linda McMahon has decided not to offer the bonuses.

“We have dropped the bonus component of our voter registration drive,” said McMahon’s spokesman, Shawn McCoy, today. “The bonuses are in full compliance with the law, but Linda weighed the concerns that were raised and asked that we drop that component of the plan prior to the launch.” 

Students who help with the drive will still receive $10 an hour, but will not be paid the $5 bonus, McCoy said, noting that this is not the first voter registration drive McMahon has worked on. It, however, is the first time the Republican candidate was going to offer bonuses, he said.

McMahon’s plans to offer bonuses got the attention of House Majority Leader Denise Merrill, D-Mansfield. Merrill said Monday that she would add an amendment to an existing bill that would make it illegal to pay money in exchange for registering new voters.

“I am very troubled by the practice of using money to influence or persuade a person to register to vote before an election,” said Merrill, who is running for secretary of the state this year. “Any practice like this is fraught with the potential for voter fraud.”

Merrill said she was shocked to learn that McMahon intended to pay people to register voters in her own district. “The fact that someone might take advantage of a student in need of money is appalling,” she said.

While practice of paying people to register voters is not illegal, Merrill said concerns have been raised by the U.S. Department of Justice. The department is currently looking into McMahon’s voter registration drive, she said.

The justice department has not been reached for comment.

For the past week, I’ve been reviewing a Plantronics .Audio 476 USB headset the company offered to loan me. Since I listen to music most of the day and also make heavy use of voice chatting on Google Talk and Skype, I’ve probably logged 40 hours with the headset already. It’s certified for Skype 4.0 super wideband voice and works quite well for chatting. The only issue I’ve had on that front is with our weekly podcast. Since the headset uses an open-ear design, I find some sound leaking out and captured by the microphone — you can blame me for any echo issues in our last podcast episode.

That minor issue aside, I found this headset to perform admirably. For the price, music is a joy to listen to on the 476s — it uses 32mm drivers with a response range of 20Hz to 20kHz, so bass is quite nice. And Digital Signal Processing is built in to help with echo cancellation — that wouldn’t help with the podcast because of the method we use to record our tracks, but for general chatting, it works very well.

One area I find headphone-makers skimp on is in the length of cable, but that’s not the case here. Plantronics provides a full 2-meter cable from the headset to the USB 2.0 connector. Also handy is the inline remote for volume control and muting — that actually worked well on the podcast as I slurped coffee while muted. For traveling, the 476s fold up, but I’d like to see a small bag included with them  – perhaps I’m spoiled by my old folding Plantronics headset that did have a travel bag.

The Plantronics .Audio 476 USB headset works with either a Microsoft Windows PC or a Mac OS X computer — no drivers are needed. The MSRP is $54.95, although I’m sure you can find them online for less. For general music enjoyment and voice chatting, I’m pretty impressed. If it weren’t for my specific podcasting requirements, I’d probably pick up a pair of these myself.

Reports suggest that many cars in London are used for less than an hour per day and people would gladly pay for renting cars from their neighborhoods. Founder of Whipcar, Vinay Gupta designed an ingenious solution. After the car owner and the renter have registered themselves on the site, Whipcar runs some background checks on them. When the renter has selected a car, an e-mail is sent to the owner and depending on the rate offered the owner can accept or reject the renter’s offer. Once the owner accepts the offer, the appropriate amount is deducted from the renter’s credit card and the owner is provided with the last four digits of the renter’s driver’s license for verification purpose. After this, both parties agree to meet a chosen location for the renter to pick-up the car and drop it off at the return time.

The car is automatically insured for the renter during the hired period in addition to its existing insurance. Though, it is only available in London for now, Whipcar offers an innovative solution to reduce requirement, thus reducing production and in turn saving huge amounts of energy.
[psfk]

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

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Make your connection to Microsoft Windows Home Server “Vail” Public Beta through Fileforum now.

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One of Silverlight video’s biggest advantages to date has been the server’s ability to tweak the bitrate of video playback as it’s being played back, and as the bandwidth of the connection varies. It’s the smooth streaming feature that premiered last June with Silverlight 3. Now, with Silverlight 4 already well under way, Microsoft today premiered a public beta of a forthcoming release of Windows Home Server, which will be capable of smooth-streaming video to any Silverlight-enhanced client via the Web.

With the new server software, code-named “Vail” (as in Colorado, not “veil” as in fabric cover), the new generation of DLNA home video and audio components — including Blu-ray players and notebook PCs — will be able to receive “pushed” setup information through the home’s wireless router, enabling those components to connect to the wireless network. It will be the new Windows Home Server that does the pushing, via the “Play To” functionality that already premiered in Windows 7 but has yet to be tested in a full server setting.

“DLNA enables your home server to participate in a ‘Play To’ environment as a Digital Media Server (DMS),” reads the reviewer’s guide to the “Vail” server, published today. Other DLNA-compatible devices — TVs, stereos, your Xbox 360 (in Windows Media Center Mode) and more — can automatically find your home server from within your home network and then stream videos, music, and pictures on demand from it.”

“Vail” will also be the first Home Server rendition that plays the role the system should have been born to play: captain of the Homegroup. For the first time in Microsoft’s history, the Homegroup feature has made network connectivity actually easy. With “Vail,” libraries enrolled in the Homegroup become pushed to users’ computers throughout the home, and shared by user name rather than system ID.

The Console app to which users have grown accustomed for managing backup file locations and media libraries, has been replaced in “Vail” with a completely redone Silverlight app. While the built-in version of the new Dashboard looks simple enough, it’s actually the browser-based version that looks more dynamic. If it reminds you of apps you’ve seen recently on Windows Live, it’s not by accident. It gives “Vail” a kind of media server home page, from which the user can set up shop, literally becoming her own broadcaster.

Streaming audio from your Home Server to a client that runs Silverlight, also enables this animated album cover showcase. What will be interesting to see is whether mobile platforms on which Silverlight may run, will also be capable of presenting this same showcase. That could change the entire ballgame for many handset or netbook users who are currently stuck with substandard MP3 player apps. Imagine a media world where playback capabilities and experience are determined by your server, not by your device’s manufacturer.

(And yes, the question will inevitably come up: When a home broadcaster streams content online, including to herself, will she owe royalties? No, that is not meant in sarcasm or as a joke.)

Microsoft advises that “Vail” beta testers use clean installs only — very clean, in fact. The company would rather you not install “Vail” on a hard drive that has anything on it, including another operating system — wipe the partition clean first. Keeping true to its promise made in 2008, this server kernel is 64-bit only. A minimum 160 GB hard drive is required, which is fair enough if you stick to building a test system using parts made within the last three years.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

I happen to think that tiramisu is a great summertime dessert because it require any cooking and it is served cold. It is also great for entertaining because it can – and should -be made well in advance of when you want to serve it. The only drawback to a tiramisu as a summertime dessert is that it doesn’t make use of any of the luscious berries that are at their peak in the summer. You could say why not save the berries for another day? Today, however, I decided to simply incorporate berries into a tiramisu.

Strawberry Cheesecake Tiramisu is not a typical tiramisu. It does use coffee-dipped ladyfingers, but instead of a mascarpone cream, it uses a cream cheese-based cream to glue everything together. Since cream cheese is heavier than mascarpone, this makes the whole dessert a little bit more dense. That may sound like a bad thing, but in this case it serves to hold everything together and also makes the dessert taste a bit like strawberry cheesecake!

As a little experiment, I’ve posted a video of me making this dessert on YouTube so you all can see me prepare it. I tried to be brief, so the recipe below is actually a little bit more specific than the recipe as presented in the video. Still, it was fun to make and if you all like it, I’m planning to do some more (side note: I’ll be using a different camera in the future).

This dish tastes great, particularly after it has been in the fridge overnight and everything has really come together. I used berries from my local farmer’s market and they were super sweet, so the dessert didn’t need any added sweetened. If your berries aren’t, consider adding about a 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar to the cheesecake cream. Also, you’ll notice that I only dipped the ladyfingers in the coffee mixture for a second or two in the video. Mine were very absorbent, but if yours are drier, give them an extra couple of seconds to soak up the flavor, but be sure to get them out before they get too soft.
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While the bloggers and tech fans still debate the worthiness of the Apple iPad, some — like 99-year-old Virginia Campbell — have taken the plunge. This tablet is the senior citizen’s first computing device ever. 

What’s most touching about her story is that, despite being an avid reader, she had to forsake her love of books due to glaucoma. Large-print books weren’t working for her. But her new tablet does, since she can change the brightness and font size with a few simple taps. 

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These days, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of nitpicking or hyping a product based on specs, and give into loaded debates like “Whose platform is better?” or “Why did they skip all these features?! What a rip off!” Sometimes, I think we all lose sight of the most important thing: What these gadgets can ultimately bring to people in the real world. That goes for Droids, Nexus Ones,  BlackBerry 9650s, Palm Pres or other tablet devices. 

When it comes to this one, obviously not everyone is interested in it. And that’s completely understandable, as it lacks several things that spec geeks or mobile power users crave. But whether you’re an iPad fan or not, Virginia’s story is touching. And a great reminder of why technology in general exists in the first place. 

Via: Today’s iPhone, TUAW, Oregon Live