The Golden Raspberry Awards is headed to a network near you! The pre-Oscars spoof ceremony that has been poking fun at Hollywood’s worst in show since 1980 is set to make its television debut next winter.
The 31st Annual Razzie Awards will air on February 26, 2011, the night before the 2011 Oscars, on a still-to-be-determined TV network, Access Hollywood insiders spilled on Monday.
Apple and Microsoft support old computers for many years, only dropping them from a new operating system release when it’s absolutely necessary. How long will companies support your older iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows phone and tablet hardware? More »
Who is Grok?
Or, more accurately – what does Grok represent?
He’s no messiah. He’s not a real historical figure. He doesn’t sit on my shoulder at night, whispering post topics into my ear as I sleep.
Grok is simply a starting point for the discussion of human health. His dietary habits, his physical behaviors, his proclivities, his sleep patterns are not technically “his,” because there is no literal him. Grok is just an artifact of our big brains’ propensity to arrange data. We process information by compartmentalizing it, by sticking bits of data together with other bits of data for efficiency’s sake. Mental file cabinets. This makes thinking easier, and it allows higher levels of thought and innovation. The Grok concept is an easy reference point – a figurehead. Everything we know about the course of human evolution, all the fossil records and anthropological literature, is effectively represented by the Grok name. A four letter name that just happens to be easy to remember and easy to type. And you have to admit, it’s a cool visual.
It necessarily follows that the activities we ascribe to Grok (and to our ancestors) are also just starting points for our exploration of optimum modern health and fitness. They form a basic framework of acceptable evolutionary precedents that are innocent until proven guilty by modern science. Our job, as Primal enthusiasts, is to examine evolutionary biology and apply rigorous standards to those precedents to determine whether they are indeed optimal and useful. This is Grok logic – taking “what would Grok do” and looking sideways at it to ensure it passes muster.
We refer to Grok logic for two reasons, here at MDA:
First, it’s a helpful analogy, especially for beginners, to whom I try to attract and cater. If I want to give the quick and dirty blessing to a particular food, exercise, or other helpful concept, I use the analogy. People intuitively get the “what would Grok do” line of thought – the evolutionary angle is the thing that grabs a newbie’s attention right away and provides the light bulb moment where a person goes, “Huh, you know, I never thought about grains like that, but it makes total sense!” The light bulb moment is powerful, and, though the ancestral rhetoric doesn’t trump science where the two conflict, utilizing that power to effect change in people’s health right away is worth it. I may inadvertently create one or two roadkill-eating, neighbor’s cat-hunting, honey-gorging newbies convinced that anything Paleolithic is beneficial, but that’s why I’m writing this post, and why I’ve written others in the past. It’s far simpler to turn a neat phrase that’s generally accurate and clarify afterwards.
Second, it’s useful, and usually quite accurate. Grok logic is just a starting point, as I’ve pointed out, but it’s a damn good one that gets things right most of the time, especially with regards to diet and exercise. It makes intuitive sense that things we’ve been eating for the longest time are also foods to which we are highly adapted. It makes intuitive sense that movements we’ve been performing for the longest time are also movements which our bodies perform best and which elicit the most favorable hormonal responses or gene expression. It makes intuitive sense that our bodies have come to expect a certain amount of sleep, a certain amount of light exposure, based on multiple millennia of certain environmental pressures.
The Primal Blueprint might sound like the classically flawed appeal to nature, at least upon first glance. All this talk of Grok, the Paleolithic, hunting, nature, gathering, unprocessed wild foods, and the limitations and failures of agriculture and modern nutrition often gets the eyes rolling. Throw in a few references to raw meat, bug eating, and loin cloths, and you’ve a recipe for summary dismissal of the whole shebang, especially among skeptics and others with an immense personal stake (career, education, physician relative) in upholding Conventional Wisdom.
But the PB (and other content in the paleosphere) does not commit the naturalistic fallacy, which states that all that is natural is good, and all that is unnatural is bad. That’s far too simplistic, far too dogmatic. Life is made of gray, not stark black and white dualities. Context is everything. We may start with the “natural,” but we discard anything that isn’t also buttressed by science. It’s actually the most rational way to go about things, and the most opportunistic. Humans are classic capitalists (small “c”) – we literally capitalize on opportunities and seize control of a situation where it benefits us – and the Primal Blueprint is all about cherry picking the good stuff from Grok logic and discarding the bad stuff. That which proves beneficial under the glare of science wins out in the end, even if it’s a product of agriculture-enabled civilization. If there’s a proven shortcut to health or fitness here (or a convenience or a hedonistic treat with little downside), I’m taking it.
Take dairy fat, for example. Is butter paleo? Was heavy cream available fifty thousand years ago? Does it matter?
I often discuss the importance of considering the totality of a food, rather than its constituent parts (walnuts aren’t just bags of linoleic acid, etc), but it’s also helpful to understand what makes certain foods acceptable. Why do we prefer tallow, leaf lard, and coconut oil as cooking fats? Is it because they’re paleo? No. Because Grok ate them? Sort of, but not exactly. We prefer highly saturated animal and vegetable fats because saturated fat is what the human animal has been eating for hundreds of thousands of years, making it the fuel source to which we’re best adapted; because our own body preferentially stores excess energy as saturated body fat to be used later for self-sustenance; and (most importantly) because modern science has shown (despite the lipophobes’ best attempts) it to be a supremely healthful source of food energy. Butter (and ghee, and other dairy fats), being basically pure animal fat, a majority of which is saturated, is simply a fantastic way to introduce large amounts of delicious, healthy energy into the diet. Plus, you don’t have to hunt and kill a fat-backed, ornery caribou to get it.
Modern convenience is undoubtedly a good thing, too, even though it isn’t paleo. Buying a stick of Kerrygold butter down at Trader Joe’s takes, what, fifteen minutes and a couple bucks? Compare that to the energy it’d require for Grok to obtain a half pound of pure animal fat.
You might argue that the getting is what made us who we are, that the hunting, the gathering, and the physical labor required for living in the wild was what made humans such remarkable, adaptive creatures. I won’t argue with that. In fact, I’ll readily accept that. I’ll gladly reap the benefits of Grok’s intensely physical existence by choosing a few of the specific movements that science proves generate the most benefit with the least time, pain, suffering or sacrifice. A few hundred thousand years of hard-scrabble living has resulted in a hardy, capable species of hominid, and I’m happy to enjoy the resultant genetics. In the end, that’s what the Primal Blueprint is all about: navigating the modern world with these ancient corporeal vessels, using modern science to chart our progress. It’s important that we all note the genetic realities of our evolutionary heritage, but we can’t stop there. It’s not good enough. If we truly want to live well and live long (longer and better than Grok and your average modern health nut), we have to optimize the application of our anthropological knowledge to the realities, opportunities, and advantages of civilization.
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Last month we were told that Infiniti is working on its own version of the Nissan Leaf that will stay true to the brand’s promise of “Inspired Performance” – and well, that had us hoping that it would look less like a Nissan Leaf and sportier and more luxurious like an Infiniti.
Well, U.S. officials of Infiniti were hanging out at Nissan’s San Diego styling studio earlier this year and complained that the car looked like another version of the Leaf but now things have apparently changed. Ben Poore, vice president of the North American Infiniti Business Unit, says more recent designs have corrected the problem.
Click here for more news on the Nissan Leaf.
“I was in Japan last week and saw the final three or four designs for the car,” Poore says. “And I can tell you without a doubt that we’re going to have a uniquely Infiniti product.”
Larry Dominique, North American vice president for Nissan and Infiniti product planning, says the Leaf and the Infiniti version will share a platform and a lot of the driving components “but we think it needs to be very unique, not only in exterior design but in interior materials and in terms of its driving performance,” he said.
“It has to accelerate like an Infiniti. It has to be an Infiniti from the standpoint of dynamic performance.”
– By: Omar Rana
Source: AutoWeek
Filed under: Motorsports, Audi, Diesel, Racing
Despite winning in its debut at the 2009 12 Hours of Sebring, last year was not a stellar year for Audi’s Le Mans Prototype program. After a thorough reboot, Audi is trying again this year with the R15+ TDI. The heavily revised R15+ has been testing for two months and this weekend it is competing for the first time at Le Castellet in France for the first round of the Le Mans Series. In qualifying the Audi managed to get onto the front row alongside the first privately run Peugeot 908 fielded by Team Oreca. Follow the jump to find out what happened in the eight-hour race.
Gallery: Audi R15+ TDI at Le Castellet
[Sources: Audi, Le Mans Series]
Continue reading Spoiler Alert: Audi’s new R15+ racer comes out storming
Spoiler Alert: Audi’s new R15+ racer comes out storming originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The redevelopment of the waterfront in West Palm Beach Florida, a 12.5-acre project featuring a new park, water gardens, boat piers, and new paths, also includes a new ”living” dock that doubles as a water-filtration system, writes GreenSource magazine. The dock is designed to support natural systems — mangroves, grasses, and oysters that create habitat and provide water-filtration services.
According to GreenSource, the living dock system is multi-layered and includes geotextiles: “Measuring approximately three times wider than a normal dock, the living dock is made of concrete over a foam core and its public surface is clad in sustainably harvested Ipe planks. A series of indentations of varying sizes runs down the center of the 400-foot-long living dock; each is surrounded by an aluminum safety railing as well as seating for visitors. For the floating mangroves and spartina, a special soil mix is sandwiched between layers of geotextiles.”
The geotextiles help create a growing substrate for the oysters. Embedded within these geotextile layers are oyster shells from restaurants, which were brought it to help spur natural oyster growth. ”The volume containing the oysters is more perforated to boost water flow. Oyster shells discarded from restaurants fill the bottom, since those shells are ideal for prompting subsequent oyster colonization.”
Each oyster can filter 40 gallons of water per day. From the photos, it also looks like the oyster water-filtration area is clearly visible to users of the floating dock. The green infrastructure component is open, adding an educational component to the project.
However, GreenSource notes there are some limitations to the geotextile substrate – they are almost impermeable, meaning they may limit the erosion-control capabilities of the mangroves. ”Because the geotextiles cradling the spartina and mangroves are almost impermeable (and these root balls are becoming more sealed as barnacles accrete to their planting substrates), they aren’t necessarily controlling erosion as they would in a natural setting.”
Even more ambitious plans are in development. More than $2 million has been raised to rehabilitate another portion of the area’s Intracoastal Waterway. “When completed, this undertaking will feature entire oyster reefs and, one-upping even the innovative living dock, it will include stepped tidal gardens whose mangroves and spartina will filter stormwater, build underwater habitat, and provide safe haven for birds.”
The waterfront’s park includes Lake Pavilion, a LEED certified municipal building featuring a 17-KW photovoltaic roof system. The waterfront’s development was led by Michael Singer Studio, and the landscape architecture was designed by Carolyn Pendleton Parker, ASLA, at Sanchez & Maddux and Connie Roy-Fisher, ASLA, Roy-Fisher Associates.
Read the article and see a slideshow.
Image credit: Michael Singer Studio / GreenSource
Far be it from us to scoff at that hideously square Motorola Android phone — possibly called the Twist — that made the rounds over the weekend, but, well, it was pretty bad. But just because it’s bad doesn’t mean it might not exist, and Android France snagged what appears to be specs of the blockish Motoblur device. Size is listed at 67x67mm, and just less than 16mm thick, with a 2.8-inch screen at 320×240 pixels. Quad-band EDGE and dual-band HSPA is listed (with North American 3G freqs, to boot). There’s also a 3MP camera, 512MB ROM/256MB RAM, WiFi b/g, aGPS, a TI OMAP 3410 processor at 700MHz … and a mere 940 mAh battery.
Real or not, that’s a tiny phone, and a tiny battery. And it’s square. (And it has Motoblur.) Really, people, is this something you’d want in your pocket? [Android-France.fr]
Over on Rick Moser’s blog, he posted this photo of a billboard in NYC featuring a mammoth bed bug looming over a strip club, a souvenir shop and a pizza joint. Aside from it just being creepy-to-the-max, might this billboard not also be doing damage to the businesses below?
Would you buy a slice of pizza from a pizzeria underneath this billboard? Or get a lapdance at the “gentleman’s club”? And what about for the people who live and/or work inside that building? We don’t have answers to these questions, but we’d sure love to hear your answers.
Bed Bug Pizza [Rick Moser]
This time the leaked accessories are for the highly anticipated HTC EVO 4G. This device isn’t even out and there are some great looking surprises in store for potential buyers. The only thing missing from the list is carrying cases and pricing.
Engadget has gotten their hands on the above screen shot. The two things I would like to know more about are the car dock and the HDMI video dock. I wonder if HTC will include Bluetooth capabilities in the car dock like Google has done with the Nexus One. The screen is so massive on this device that is will look awesome as a GPS receiver. Can you imagine watching movies on this thing in the car? Maybe they can integrate the HDMI to work with existing Head units that will turn this device into another monitor or maybe even a park assist monitor. The choices are endless, hopefully they can do something special with this dock.
The HDMI video dock is also interesting. This will likely just be an easy way to link your phone to your television or other monitor that has an HDMI jack for viewing videos. Or, you might be able to control your entire home entertainment system from the device, the big screen on this handset will make for a great universal remote. More information on these accessories should be out shortly.
We very often make a big salad over the weekend, leaving out the greens and using grains like barley, farro, or brown rice as the base. This becomes our lunch all week long, something we look forward to eating and that keeps us away from the leftover pizza in the office fridge! Here are our favorites – what are yours?
They say it takes a strong man to wear pink….and it takes an even tougher one to leave the house looking like this. Jared Leto debuted his brand-new pink Mohawk over the weekend.
Anybody out there looking to gamble on Palm’s sale price may have missed the boat. The stock is up 20% today to $6.16 as of this writing. That’s only a dollar. A week ago the stock was only $4 or so. That probably would have been the time to buy.
See Also: Who’s Going To Buy Palm?
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The editor of the Vatican newspaper told journalists at the Foreign Press Club in Rome Monday that he thinks charges of a conspiracy or a plot against the Vatican are ridiculous.
But Giovanni Maria Vian said he does believe there’s a “campaign” against the Catholic Church, with so many stories about sex abuse in the media.
“This news helps sell (papers); that’s the first key to the campaign,” Vian said. “Then there’s anti-Catholic hostility.”
Vian, a university professor who took over the Osservatore Romano under Pope Benedict – and actually managed to make it a readable newspaper – joked with a reporter from the New York Times when she identified herself and said, “Don’t shoot at me.”
Vian responded laughing, “You’re the ones shooting at us.”
He defended Benedict, and said the German cases accusing the pope of mishandling sex abuse by clergy were old stories that had been “dug up again.”
“The media campaign will continue; there will be more rehashing of old cases until the readers get bored,” he said. “But the Vatican will not forget the victims. Their lives have been ruined.”
Vian said he last saw the Pope on Friday, and that Benedict appeared serene and tranquil, as usual.
by Kenneth Anderson
Treat liquidity risk and runs on institutions as fundamentally a question of lack of information – the lack of information on the underlying financial solvency prompting flight from uncertainty. In that case, the question following the announcement in the press yesterday of the Greek-EU bailout is not so much what it signals about liquidity, as instead what contribution it will make toward the forward discovery of Greek solvency – if any.
As many observed, in this announced deal, there is a fixed amount of money committed, rather than vague political promises. At some 30 billion euros, plus additional commitments from the IMF, yes, of course, the effect of the announcement eases immediate liquidity fears. What remains is what the breathing space will do to fill in the missing information about Greece’s underlying solvency. As the WSJ’s Richard Barley says in today’s Heard on the Street:
Even the clearest, most credible part of the deal—the interest-rate mechanism—raises questions. On one level, a 5% rate for a three-year fixed-rate loan represents a concession relative to last week’s market levels. But this is still 3.7 percentage points over three-year German debt—a long way north of where the Greeks would like to be able to borrow. Indeed, if Greece were to take a 10-year loan under the package, it would be at a rate of well over 7%—the rate the market would have charged last week.
In a curious way, this may act as a floor to private-market rates. Why should a bond investor lend money more cheaply than other euro-zone governments are willing to do? After all, two-year yields on Greek debt, while down sharply from last week, are still 5.47%.
But the uncertainties over solvency in the longer term remain broadly political. Barley goes on to discuss the political issues of contributions by EU governments – including Spain, Ireland, and others also under pressure. But perhaps the greatest solvency uncertainty, and one which is not necessarily helped toward price discovery by means of the liquidity breathing space offered by the current funds, is whether Greece will be able to do anything near to what it has promised in the way of internal fiscal reform.
It is not a matter of an injection of liquidity, in other words, for the purpose of allowing for outsiders time to find out the “true condition” of the balance sheet of an institution. It is far more for the purpose of allowing outsiders to assess the ability of the government to reform that already whacked-out balance sheet. The immediate bailout funds will not last long enough to see a convincing answer to that question over the future which it necessarily entails. So outsiders will be making an assessment of political risk into the future. Will they believe the Greek government and Greek society? Should anyone?
The wonder, frankly, is that news stories over the weekend were suddenly talking about Greek solvency, as though it had ever been anything other than the fundamental question. Barley’s last point is particularly interesting – he calls for a mechanism for sovereign debt restructuring specific to the Eurozone:
The need may yet arise for a mechanism for an orderly restructuring of sovereign debt within the euro zone. Ultimately, this could strengthen the euro as an institution. Policy makers should use the time that Sunday’s deal has bought to work out what they would do if it doesn’t solve the problem—and Greece ends up following in the footsteps of Argentina, which defaulted after a decade of IMF bailouts.
(I’d be very interested to know what my favorite scholar of sovereign debt restructuring, WCL’s own Anna Gelpern, thinks about that possibility, or perhaps hear from her co-author, Mitu Gulati! Is there any sense to talking about a specifically euro-zone sovereign debt restructuring mechanism or authority?)
Filed under: Convertible, Coupe, Europe, Plants/Manufacturing, Hatchback, BMW, Electric, Diesel, Luxury
According to BMW, the 1-Series is selling like tequila at spring break. The small-scale Bimmer may not have exactly received a warm embrace from big-boned Americans, but sales of the 1 have been good enough around the globe for the company to build over a million examples. The 1-Series has only been on the market since 2004, and is still in its first generation.
Part of the car’s success is likely due to the wide variety of body styles and engine choices available outside of the States. European buyers can snap up efficient four-cylinder engines, both in gasoline and turbo-diesel guise, as well as functional hatchback versions of the 1. Meanwhile, we get our baby BMW in just two flavors – coupe and convertible – with only two engine options.
Odds are that the car will only get more popular as time goes on. BMW has made it clear that the all-electric ActiveE is headed to lease fleets sometime soon, and that car’s 170 horsepower electric motor is bound to be a welcome addition to the lineup.
Gallery: 2010 BMW 135i
[Source: BMW]
Continue reading BMW announces one millionth 1 Series built
BMW announces one millionth 1 Series built originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Gartman is done dithering on this market.
He has thrown in the towel on what ounce of equity bearishness was left in him and will no longer attempt to fight the market.
Despite his thoughts that those blindly following the general trend of the market are “stupid,” they are the ones making money right now.
He sounds frustrated at the amount of both mental and real capital that has been expended trying to time the end of the bull run.
Gartman gives a very Jesse Livermore-esque quote, saying: “In other words, don’t fight the tape and don’t ever fight the trend.” He goes on to say that the trend will end when it ends and not a moment beforehand.
Gartman’s only hope left for bearish salvation is April 15th – Tax Day. Gartman is of the belief that stocks tend to dip lower before the 15th as investors and taxpayers sell shares to raise cash for payments to the IRS. It certainly makes sense – we shall see if Mr. Gartman’s thesis ultimately is proven correct.
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The Queen of Daytime is looking for Twi-Hards for an upcoming Twilight-themed episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show expected to air later this year.
Even Madame O isn’t safe from the cultural phenomenon that is The Twilight Saga! What’s next — the kids from Jersey Shore?
“Calling all Twilight fans. Are you or your kids obsessed with the Twilight series?” reads a notice posted on the talk show diva’s Oprah.com over the weekend.
Oprah is reportedly planning a show about Stephenie Meyer’s wildly-popular book series and the blockbuster film franchise that followed, and she’s interested in how Twilight has impacted the lives of its fans.
Chances are The Oprah Show is completing audience prep for a possible Eclipse-related cast appearance, although no dates for such a show has been announced.
The announcement probes: “Have you or your kids read all the books, seen both movies and now you are counting down the days until the release of Eclipse? Have you already made plans for the release of the newest movie in June? Who’s your family’s favorite Twilight star…and why? Why do you love the story so much? How has it impacted your life? What have you learned from the series and how has it made you a better person? Are you a housewife who’s started a fan club with friends? Do you have a young adult in your family who’s been inspired to write his/her own stories? Has the romance in Twilight sparked the romance in your own relationship? ”
“Please only write if you are willing to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show….” the announcement adds.
The much anticipated Twitter client developed by RIM itself has now been moved from private beta to public beta. Over the past two months there has been quite a bit of hype about this new Twitter client being brought to the game, and now the wait is over. Though the application is not a full release, it is fully functional and is now a contender in the race for the best Twitter client.
Back when the initial version was released into private beta the application was fairly buggy, very slow, and obviously fresh out of the alpha phase. The public beta is the same version that was leaked last week, and In this version a long list of improvements were made due to feedback from the beta users. The list is as follows:
I’ve been using the Twitter for BlackBerry client fairly regularly and I must say, it is a very nice application. I’m glad to see RIM finally release it to the public, even if it is a beta version. To get your own copy of the Twitter for BlackBerry beta, head over to the Test Center for App World or you can download it OTA (from your BlackBerry Browser) by clicking here.
Tell us what you think about the client in the comments! (Remember, this is still in a beta phase which means RIM is looking for feedback.)