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I’m not a keyboard-only guy; I know when a mouse makes more sense. That being said, if I can do it from my keyboard, I do. So, as a followup to my post on the handy BetterTouchTool, I’d like to point out another free utility, KeyRemap4MacBook. It’s an awkward moniker, and it’s not pretty, either, but it’s stable, works with any Mac (not just MacBooks, as the name would indicate) and offers drool-worthy functionality.

So, what does it do? Out of the box, it offers you dozens and dozens of options for remapping keys and key combinations to potentially more useful actions. Turn your space bar into a shift key when it’s pressed in combination with another letter. Turn your trackball into the world’s biggest Mighty Mouse scroll ball when you’re holding control and command.

My favorite right now is remapping control-i,j,k and l to arrow keys, meaning I no longer have to move my right hand for basic cursor functions when Emacs mode isn’t supported or applicable. I’ve also got the right option key on my aluminum Apple keyboard set up to turn my arrow keys into page up, page down, home and end when used in combination. In short, the usability of my keyboard has skyrocketed. I shudder to think what will happen the next time I jump on someone else’s computer and my muscle memory has to re-adjust.

KeyRemap4MacBook can be used to improve accessibility, or to offer familiar shortcuts to switchers. You can even have it remap keys only in certain applications, meaning I can have Command-R remap to Control-R in VMWare or Fusion … that will save me a lot of fumbles when testing multiple browsers! There’s also the capability to add your own mappings, with sample definitions included. It’s not exactly a breeze to customize, but it could be worse. I recall it being much more difficult to pull off this kind of extensive remapping in the past, even with tools like ControllerMate in the game.

KeyRemap4MacBook is free, and you can grab a copy at the pqrs.org website. There’s even source code available, if you’re savvy with C++ and wondering how it works. There’s a fully-functional uninstall feature in the preference panel, so you can try it worry-free!

TUAWKeyRemap4MacBook: the utility keyboard lovers have dreamed of originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A changing of the guard at mobile browsing powerhouse Opera Software—as co-founder and CEO Jon von Tetzchner is stepping down—with long-time vet Lars Boilesen taking his place. Von Tetzchner ran Opera for 15 years; he’ll stay on full-time in a “strategic” capacity, though no word on his official title.

Boilesen (pictured) had been serving as Opera’s chief commercial officer since January 2009; he joined the company in 2000 and spent five years as EVP of sales, before leaving to head up Alcatel-Lucent as CEO of the Nordics and Baltics.

Both Boilesen and von Tetzchner were instrumental in helping Opera grow into a multi-platform (with an emphasis on mobile) browser software provider, as opposed to just a bit player in the desktop browser market. And though the company maintains that the change in leadership won’t derail the execution of its current strategy, Boilesen is taking the reins in the midst of a mobile browsing boom that Opera is primed to capitalize on.

The company has been giving both Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) serious competition in the fight for mobile browser supremacy: AT&T picked Opera as its preferred mobile browser for a “refreshed” experience on its feature phones late last year, and last May, Opera edged out Safari as the most-used mobile browser in the world. Release.

Related

• Opera, Motricity Help To Roll Out AT&T’s New Mobile Web Experience
• Opera’s Mobile Browser Takes Slim Lead Over iPhone’s Safari

Just when Iceland was about to take responsibility for foreign debts related to the collapse of its Icesave bank, the president vetoed repayment.

Fitch Ratings immediately downgraded Iceland’s long-term foreign- and local-currency issuer default ratings by one notch to BB+ and BBB+.

This comes only two weeks after Fitch said things were looking up in Iceland.

WSJ: Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson on Tuesday cited massive public opposition in his decision to reject the bill. The presidential veto is only the second to happen since Iceland gained its independence from Denmark in 1944. Iceland’s parliament in December voted 33-30 to approve the payback.

“Today’s decision by Iceland’s president to refer the Icesave agreement to a referendum creates a renewed wave of domestic political, economic and financial uncertainty,” said Paul Rawkins, senior director of Fitch’s sovereigns team in London. “It also represents a significant setback to Iceland’s efforts to restore normal financial relations with the rest of the world.”

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Wanted:Social Media Junkies To Intern @ Sentara Healthcare

Sentara Healthcare and Optima Health are seeking two undergraduate-level interns for the spring 2010 semester (Jan-May),15-20 hours per week to work during 9-5 work day. Candidates should be passionate about social media, but are equally enthusiastic about public relations. We’re looking for self-motivated individuals who know their way around the social media world, and have the writing skills to do traditional PR tasks.

The ideal candidates will be enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program at a local college/university in the fields of advertising, marketing, web development, communications, English, public relations, journalism or related field. Juniors or seniors preferred. Should be proficient in Microsoft Office products – Excel, Word, PowerPoint. Should be proficient using social media tools including YouTube, Facebook,
Delicious, Digg, Flickr, Twitter, Wikis, blogs, etc. Should also have good verbal and written communication skills and an ability to work individually on a project or in a team environment.Candidates should have experience using simple video technology to create short video clips for social media sites. Interns will provide support to existing social media efforts at both organizations by creating content while maximizing designated keywords; create/shoot/edit short videos on healthcare and health insurance topics to upload to social media sites; write articles on healthcare topics;write news releases, pitch media stories and attend weekly team meetings.

Deadline for applying is January 22.

To apply, send cover letter and resume to:Becky Lawson, APR, Sentara Healthcare Corporate Communications Department, at [email protected].

www.optimahealth.com ( http://www.optimahealth.com/ )
“We Improve Health Every Day”

For more information about Sentara Healthcare, please visit our website
at www.sentara.com

Introspection is an important trait, but how can one write an obituary for the past decade? The typical lament that comes with eulogizing the end of something dear tends to be positive, but really, the first 10 years of the new millennia was a real loser in the span of American history.

So, instead of looking backward at the hellish morass we just discarded, I am seizing the opportunity to play Miss Cleo and identify the top 10 news stories of the coming decade. Events abound–a couple more presidential elections, another season of American Idol, the end of the world perhaps. The true stories of change in the coming decade are going to be subtler, but far more important.

In higher education, the tuition bubble of the past two decades will crash, beginning a second wave of realignments across universities. In the process, the core mission of universities will become more specialized as unpopular programs and tenure lines are cut. Long term, a renaissance of higher education is in order, focusing on more interdisciplinary skills and higher standards.

Students entering universities will be better prepared than their predecessors due to the new K-12 Core Standards currently close to implementation. As teachers begin to teach math and science skills again in American public schools, the country will note a general improvement in international test scores and an influx of new STEM majors in universities.

Those STEM majors will continue developing automated systems that replace humans in more and more industries. First it was the cashiers at Wal-Mart, but soon it will be your local lawyer. The bread-and-butter cases of law are simple matters–trusts, wills and estates–that will slowly be replaced with intelligent computer programs that can write legitimate–and legal–text. This change, coupled with the opening of additional law schools, will lead to a major glut in lawyers that could make law school quite unattractive for all but the best students.

In California politics, the state will reach an untenable level of dysfunction, driving up support for a new constitution. Whether the constitution is replaced or significantly revised remains an open question, but it will be a good bet that direct democracy provisions will be curtailed.

Dysfunction will also come to a head at the national level, where the U.S. Senate will vote to end the filibuster, either replacing it with one more sane and robust or eliminating it completely. As legislation from both parties continues to be stopped by the minority faction, the Senate will be left with little choice but to change the current system or risk a severe response at the ballot box.

The rancorous partisanship and extreme positions of both parties leaves a gaping hole in the moderate middle, and I believe a small but influential third party will fill that hole. That party will begin at the state level, but will pick off just enough seats in the House to be the balance of power. If history is any suitable indication, it will not last long, but will be a spark for change in its brief existence.

The major issues facing the legislature will continue to be jobs and the economy for the foreseeable future. Structural unemployment–incongruity between the skills of job-seekers and the skills needed by employers–is the central issue. While it will take most of the decade to transfer people from dying to growth industries, America will reach a strong level of economic competitiveness by 2020.

At the international level, the biggest story of the next decade will be the climax to the Taiwan question, which will finally be answered (what way is unclear). The forces pulling Taiwan into the mainland’s orbit and the reactionary forces that will attempt to stop it are gathering in strength. The battle of the two sides will be surprisingly swift and final.

Despite the prominence of Copenhagen, climate change will not be the primary motivator of international discussion next decade. Instead, tightening supplies of oil will be the crisis of the moment. Whether peak oil has happened or will shortly, supply will never match the growth in demand from developing countries. As the world responds to this new energy situation, it will largely eliminate the climate problems in the process.

Finally, despite that new California constitution, the legislature will finally eliminate UC-Berkeley from its budget. Maybe it is my inner Stanford talking, but I just cannot see that other Bay Area institution making it through another decade.

The 2010s may not be rosy, but it will be a vast improvement over the one we have just finished. A decade of renewal is also a decade of dynamism, and the changes that are wrought will strengthen the nation and the world.

Our Tricia Duryee is grabbing live Q&A’s and tweeting from the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Nexus One press event … so in the meantime, here’s a rundown of the confirmed details (as opposed to the bits and pieces of rumors that had trickled out in the days before).

—Hardware by HTC
—Purchase the phone unlocked through Google’s new “web store” and plug it with any GSM-supporting SIM card for whichever carrier your heart desires
—11.5mm thin; weighs 130 grams; 5 megapixel video and still photo camera
—Android 2.1 lets you use multiple Gmail accounts, aggregate multiple phone books, and even use a voice-enabled keyboard for everything from texts, to IMs, to Facebook updates
—Voice-powered actions, too (meaning you can “tell your phone” who to call, where to map, or what keywords to search for)
—Get it with a two-year contract from T-Mobile first—with the option for Verizon and Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) coming later this year.
—Available in the U.S., the U.K., Singapore and Hong Kong initially Release.

LAKEWOOD – Eleven grants totaling $500,000 have been awarded through the state Department of Agriculture’s Advancing Colorado’s Renewable Energy program, including $75,000 to assist in the implementation of a waste-to-energy plant in LaSalle and $50 …

People’s Revolution founder, fashion marketing maven, and PR spitfire Kelly Cutrone has landed a chance to chew out spoiled socialites and aspiring designers on her own reality soap. Kell on Earth will debut next month on Bravo, The New York Daily News’ Gatecrasher Column reported on Tuesday. The show will reportedly give viewers a look at Kelly’s life as single mom.

The former Hills pundit has appeared on the last two seasons of MTV’s The City.

Notre Dame Law School alumnus David Scheper ’85 was selected as a Fellow of the prestigious American College of Trial Lawyers. Fellowship is extended only by invitation, and membership in the organization can never be more than one percent of the total lawyer population of any state or province in the United States and Canada. Members are chosen for their skill as advocates and for careers marked by the highest standards of ethical conduct, professionalism, civility and collegiality.

Mr. Scheper has successfully represented companies and individuals in high-stakes cases and investigations throughout the country, both in federal and state proceedings. He served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles from 1987 to 1999 and as Chief of the Criminal Division from 1997 to 1999. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, Mr. Scheper was responsible for the investigation, trial, and appeal of federal criminal cases involving, tax, securities, and bank fraud; money laundering; murder; bank robbery; and narcotics. As Chief of the Criminal Division, he oversaw the work of approximately 180 prosecutors in the largest U.S. Attorney’s office in the United States. Mr. Scheper also served as a member of the Criminal Chiefs’ Working Group, an assembly of selected criminal chiefs from across the country devoted to policy analysis. Mr. Scheper tried 20 cases and briefed and argued numerous appeals during his tenure as a federal prosecutor.

Before helping to form Scheper Kim & Overland LLP, from 1999 to March 2004, Mr. Scheper was a partner at Winston & Strawn and chaired the litigation department in the Los Angeles office. He practices in the areas of general commercial and business litigation, internal investigations, and white collar criminal defense.

In the civil arena, Mr. Scheper has represented numerous businesses and financial institutions in federal and state courts throughout California and elsewhere. His engagements have included the successful defense at trial of a national investment real estate firm accused of intentional interference with contractual relations; the successful defense at trial of a prominent law firm in a legal malpractice action; representation of a Fortune 20 telecommunications firm in a multi-billion dollar breach of contract case; representation of a defense contractor in a False Claims Act case involving the National Missile Defense Program; representation of an international architectural firm in a multi-million dollar uninsured False Claims Act case resulting in a nuisance value settlement on the eve of trial; representation of a Fortune 250 managed services firm in environmental, antitrust and breach of contract disputes; representation of a Midwest bank in a RICO case; negotiation of multi-million dollar severance packages for high-level executives at a closely-held corporation; and representation of an individual in a multi-million dollar dispute over commission payments owed on a financing deal.

In Mr. Scheper’s white collar practice, he has represented senior executives and companies in investigations involving, among other things, the backdating of stock options, the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws, Medicare and Medi-Cal fraud, bankruptcy fraud, tax fraud, securities fraud, investment fraud, and federal and state antitrust defense. He also served as independent counsel to the City of Thousand Oaks in connection with the enforcement of the City’s campaign finance laws. In addition, Mr. Scheper has conducted internal investigations into allegations of conflict of interest by the prosecuting attorney of a large California municipality and alleged wrongdoing by employees of Fortune 500 companies in the paint, oil, communications, housing, insurance and managed services fields.

Mr. Scheper received an A.B. in history from Harvard College in 1980, where he was the center on the football team. He received a J.D., cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1985 and was a member of the National Moot Court Appellate Team.

As Joel noted, over at Opinio Juris, they are discussing the new book by Greg Shaffer and Mark Pollack, When Cooperation Fails: The International Law and Politics of Genetically Modified Foods (Oxford, 2009).  Greg and Mark introduce the book as follows:

As its title suggests, When Cooperation Fails has two distinct aims.  The specific empirical aim is to provide a definitive and theoretically informed account of one of the most bitter and politically charged international disputes of the past two decades, between the United States and the European Union over the regulation of genetically modified foods and crops.  Our theoretical aim, however, goes far beyond the specifics of the GMO case:  indeed, we seek to contribute to literatures in international law and international relations that identify the sources of international regulatory and trade disputes, the obstacles to successful cooperation, the interaction of hard- and soft-law international regimes, and the role of WTO dispute settlement in managing conflict.

With regard to the regulatory differences that are at the heart of the GMO conflict, they note:

Fifth and finally, we return to the domestic level to assess whether several decades of discussion, negotiation, and litigation have resulted in significant reform and/or convergence of the two regulatory systems. We demonstrate that, despite some domestic changes on each side, the US and EU regulatory systems for agricultural biotechnology show few signs of real convergence toward a common regulatory model.

…

System friction between two entrenched regulatory systems is unlikely to be decisively settled in the near future, but the dispute can be managed, with key roles for international law and international institutions.

So, perhaps the conclusion is, things are bad, but they could be worse without the WTO! [ADDED: Now that I see the latest post by Greg and Mark, let me amend this statement to the following:  Things aren't all that bad, in part thanks to the WTO.]

As for the commenters, Rebecca Bratspies thought they (1) failed to address some core issues and (2) were a little too hard on the Europeans:

Where the book falls down a bit is in exploring … whether it is appropriate for the WTO’s dispute resolution process to dramatically expand the reach of trade law into erstwhile domestic environmental, consumer and food safety law questions via broad application of the SPS Agreement premise that regulation must be based on scientific risk assessment.

It was here that found myself wishing for more. The book was far too willing to credit United States claims of “scientific” regulation, and to dismiss the European approach as invalid. For example, at one point the European position gets reduced to the argument that “states have the right to be irrational.” (p. 209). This framing hardly does justice to the European position. It is not irrational to conceive of risk assessment as a combined political and scientific question, one that captures both the acceptability and the magnitude of a risk.

On the first point, I would add that it's not just the WTO's dispute resolution process that expands the reach of trade law — it's the substantive agreements themselves, which, in effect, means that it's the governments who drafted the agreements.

Sungjoon Cho is next up.  He makes the following point regarding the science behind the conflict:

the trans-Atlantic divergence (polarization) in the regulation of GM foods does reveal two different “philosophical” or hermeneutical patterns in perceiving (good) biotech “science.” Overall, the mode of scientific knowledge which the U.S. side applies here is a narrow, technical one depending largely on laboratory science (techne or episteme). In contrast, the EU side emphasizes a more common sense approach to biotech science (phronesis) which take seriously ordinary people’s perception of science in a given matter. Therefore, the U.S. side tends to condemn the EU position as a “bias” which must be remedied with enlightenment, while the EU side tends to criticize the U.S. stance as an attempt to “Americanize” the regulation of GM foods.

I wonder if perhaps the source of the conflict could be stated as follows.  There are two, very different approaches to putting new products on the market:  (1) they can only be sold if they are proven safe; or (2) they can be sold as long as they are not proven harmful.  Is it correct to say that both approaches are "based on science," in some sense?

Sungjoon concludes:

I agree with the authors that this dispute is something to be “managed” with patience, rather than “settled” once and for all. Managing the trans-Atlantic tension on GM foods regulation starts with the “fidelity to openness,” which pushes both sides to learn more about the other party’s position, including its policy rationale, context and tradition. Perhaps both sides should stop trying to “control” the situation: they should instead endeavor to “communicate” with each other. 

Finally, Tomer Broude had some quibbles with the authors' discussion of "hard" and "soft" law, including this point:

What I found much less convincing is the author’s symmetrical contention that the WTO’s ‘hard’ law, especially its dispute settlement system, has somehow been ’softened’ by the GMO dispute.

As for me, I'm curious as to what the authors think about labeling as a possible solution to these kinds of regulatory differences (I have not seen the book, so I don't know whether they talk much about this).  Under a GMO labeling regime, the EU would concede that GMO products could be sold, but the U.S. would have to accept a lower than expected sales volume as some consumers would be scared off by the label.  Is this a good compromise?

With just you and your buddy taking on an army much larger than two, there’s gonna be a lot of working together if you have plans on getting far. Army of Two has always been about the

The release of a memoir from South Carolina First Lady Jenny Sanford has been pushed up to next month, Ballantine Books said Tuesday.

The 240-page Staying True — Sanford’s story of surviving her estranged husband’s infidelity –goes on sale Feb. 5 after originally being tapped for publication in May. In June, Gov. Mark Sanford admitted to a yearlong extramarital affair after returning from a secret trip to Argentina to visit his lover. He told staffers he was hiking the Appalachian Trial.

Jenny’s tell-all will “recall her shock and anguish upon discovering that her husband was having an affair with a woman in Argentina, and the further pain when she learned — just a day ahead of most Americans — that he had not ended the affair when she believed he had,” according to promotional material from the book’s publishers. “She reveals the source of her determination to be honest and forthright instead of the victim in the tabloid passion play that gripped the nation in June 2009.”