Circle of Blue captures the life and land in Southwest China — the front lines of the country’s freshwater crisis. While water access is difficult, these images reveal communities pushing forward the best they can to survive. Some of these images are on display at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C.
Toyota’s Prius Custom Plus Concept is a futuristic and altogether nonsensical-looking Lamborghini wannabe.
Giant, triangular vents on the model’s front end create a wide body “chosen to accentuate the 2010 Toyota Prius’s wedge profile,” Jalopnik reports.
New specs include a weight-saving carbon hood and “winglets” behind all four (ridiculous-looking) wheels.
No word on whether the aerodynamic design will translate into the CPC actually going fast.
Join the conversation about this story »
See Also:
Along with their trainer "Crazy" Bob Cook, UFC welterweights Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck take oaths to be honorary police officers as part of an anti-drug campaign in Pennsylvania. The American Kickboxing Academy teammates are now back in San Jose training for their fights. Fitch will fight Thiago Alves at UFC 111 and Koscheck is rumored to be facing Paul Daley at 113. Take your shot at a caption in the comments; the winner gets an honorary police badge from the Scranton Police Department. Read on for winners from our last create-a-caption.
First place: Chuck is tired of people not-so-subtly telling him he needs to improve his chin. — Rob R
Second place: Well someone had to sexy up the picture. — Diego G
Third place: I lost so much weight on Dancing with the Stars I might be able to cut to 145. Hmmmm, who would be a good challenger? — Clint
Honorable mention: Did you ever get the feeling Maggie was a bad MMA wrighter? — Travis S (This one had me laughing for an hour.) Also, there was one that was very, very funny that I could not use because it was not PG. But Allen, rest assured, that was hilarious.
Sutter Health, located in San Leandro, announced late last week of a grant of $1 million to Doctors without Borders, and an additional $250,000 to MedShare to help with shipping expenses of critical medical supplies, which are also being donated on behalf of Sutter Health. This maybe the largest donation to disaster-relief in the history of the health care system.
For the official announcement, read Sutter News.
Civic Engagement Magazine seeks to deepen the discourse about, and underscore our shared commitment to, public service. Civic Engagement features the exemplars of public service—people and projects—as well as publications, other resources for “doing” public service, and personal reflections. It is available on the Alliance website at: http://publicservice.newark.rutgers.edu/index.php/home/civic-engagement.html
Watching this ad for Grasshopper phone systems, you might not notice anything amiss. Watching this ad for Grasshopper phone system while fast forwarding, you still probably won’t notice anything amiss. And that’s the whole point.
The ad foils commercial-skipping DVR users by planting a brand icon—that grasshopper there—in the middle of the screen throughout the ad, and ending with a simple information panel. It looks more or less the same whether viewed at regular speed or high speed, so even if ad-skippers don’t have to sit through the audio pitch, they still end up absorbing some of the ad’s information, in theory. Another neat trick: By using this gimmick, Grasshopper has fooled numerous bloggers into posting about their ad. Planning on spending your commercial break browsing Giz? Ha. Grasshopper’d.
If they have the choice, people don’t watch ads, and increasingly, people do have a choice. I imagine we’ll see more than a handful of awkward stunts like this over the next few years, at least until traditional TV advertising falls by the wayside, replaced by something more akin to the unskippable ads we’re starting to see in online video. [Adrants via Gawker]
|
Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal, The long neglected nation of Haiti is finally the focus of the worlds attention, even if a 7.0 magnitude earthquake is in tight competition with ten centimetres of snowfall for UK headlines. Ive just heard a prominent Republican advocating turning Haiti into a UN protectorate on a BBC World Service Newshour special on the countrys humanitarian needs. The idea of establishing Haiti as a UN protectorate has been circulating for some time, but the notion of revoking the hard-fought independence of the first truly postcolonial country is naturally tainted. The fear is that otherwise crisis led pledges will last only as long as the attention of the news media. But for all the gestures of support donned by the international community, one genuine remedy is yet to be prescribed; the relocation of United Nations headquarters from uptown New York to the ruins of Port-au-Prince. Such a move would, without impinging Haitian sovereignty jealously guarded since independence, signal the necessary commitment and investment to rebuilding that which was destroyed and much more, while bringing beneficial byproducts to the wider global community. The two cities are clearly worlds apart, regardless of suburban American intellectuals virulent paranoia of the third world creeping into Americas urban centres. UNHQ would bring massive economic stimulus to one of the worlds most deprived cities. It has in total 15,000 employees, while 2,230 diplomats are on permanent assignment in New York.:cheers: In 2007, renovation plans were announced for the New York compound at a cost of $1billion. By comparison, the UK has so far pledged just £6million to help rebuild Haiti. In a country with a GDP, before the earthquake struck, of $6.9billion, the influx of such sums would be of huge consequence. Objectors, who will no doubt include staff attached to the restaurants and bars of midtown, are likely to cite the insecurity of a now more dangerous and instable capital. Yet the commitment to locating UNHQ, and with it the inevitable presence of the worlds most important individuals, in Port-au-Prince will make the city, like the banking institutions rescued in the financial crisis, too big to fail. The cost of security will be high, but for every private security guard accompanying each diplomatic vehicle, some portion of their work will be siphoned into a well of public good, enjoyed by ordinary Haitians as well as diplomats, their aides and families. Securing a country as wretched as Haiti will leave a rejuvenated UN an incontestable legacy of success in at least one corner of the world. |
http://www.opendemocracy.net/daniel-…ocate-to-haiti
I would highly applaud it!:cheers:
This week’s favourite city is going to be FRANCE, why? most people find that this time of the year is the right time to travel to ‘Paris’ which is the capital of France 🙂
France, Paris
The Alliance for Public Service website contains up-to-date information on public service news, events, organizations, research, publications, and more. The website also contains career information such as professional development and internship opportunities.
Mens Travel Socks With a Pocket. Comprised mostly of the patented high-performance fiber, Comfortrel XP, this comfy, moisture-wicking calf-high sock is perfect for the savvy traveler on the move. There’s nothing like going through train stations or airports with your hands full always wondering if your valuables are safe and secure. With a pocket large enough to carry your passport, cash, keys, and money, you can outsmart even the slickest thief determined to ruin your trip. Zip It Travel Socks – smart gear for savvy travelers. One pair; white. Fabric content: 70% Comfortrel XP, 15% Nylon, 15% Spandex. Fits mens sizes: 6 12-1/2.
really like this
A NEW Goldman Sachs report on the state of the real-estate market in America includes the nice graphic below, on America’s lacklustre labour market:
 |
Employment used to recover a lot more quickly than it has in recent recessions, but even by the pitiful standard of those recent downturns the current recovery is a jobless one. The gist of the report on housing, by the way, is that the sector’s performance in 2010 is likely to be disappointing relative to the second half of 2009, thanks to the withdrawal of government supports, continued labour-market weakness, and foreclosure troubles.
Already the data appear ready to support the Goldman conclusion. Just today, the National Association of Home Builders released its report on builder confidence for January, and its index declined from December—the second consecutive monthly drop. As Calculated Risk notes, data on housing starts tend to follow builder confidence pretty closely, which suggests that the autumn rebound in home construction is likely to stall out. That will mean fewer new jobs in construction, and we’re back to the point about the jobless recovery. It will be a while until the American economy pulls itself out of this trap.
Johannesburg – After 25 years of production, Volkswagen South Africa (VWSA) is retiring its iconic budget hatchback Citi Golf.
The Citi is a South Africa-only model and over its lifetime more than 377 000 units found owners. Together with sales of the first Golf model (the A1) on which the Citi is based, more than 517 000 vehicles have been produced on the same platform in Uitenhage since 1978.
The Citi will be replaced by an as yet unnamed entry-level product in the first quarter of 2010 However, VWSA MD David Powels said given the German manufacturer’s global model line-up, the new vehicle would inevitably be priced higher than the R87 000 the Citi is retailing at. The original Citi cost R6 700 at launch.
VW Brazil produces two cheap vehicles, the Gol and the Fox (VWSA briefly produced a CitiGolf with a boot called the Fox), which could be destined for these shores. The last Citi rolled off the assembly line on August 21 and, with 90% local content, was a true SA original.
VWSA is busy with a major retooling of its Uitenhage plant to cater for two model line-ups. Powels said the decision to halt production was not due to a lack of consumer demand. However, a lack of economies of scale and rising costs meant the CitiGolf was becoming commercially unviable.
Consumer expectations with regard to vehicle sophistication also played a role – the Golf A1 platform was unable to adapt fully to latest safety features, emission standards and design.
No overnight success
The CitiGolf wasn’t an instant success. When the more expensive Golf II replaced the A1 in 1984, VWSA had to come up with a way of continuing its presence in the entry-level segment.
It initially came up with an Econo Golf, a cheap model based on the A1. VWSA execs at the time realised at the time that Econo was drab (especially dressed up in Kalahari Beige), unimaginative and wouldn’t sell.
It was up to a group of young advertisers and designers to come up with something fresh and new that would appeal to a younger set of buyers.
The new Citi concept was presented to the VW board at headquarters by the then-VWSA chief Peter Searle. What came as a surprise to local executives, the radical project was given the nod by the conservative German car maker.
In 1984 the Dutch painter Piet Mondrean was the inspiration for red, blue and yellow models to hit showrooms. They proved to be a great success – despite management’s predictions of a maximum 300 units per month and a projected lifespan of three years.
One of those working on the first Citigolf was designer clothing retailer Jenni Button, who also designed the clothes used in the ad campaigns for the first model.
VWSA said a limited edition of 1 000 units called the Mk1 will go on sale at R113 000 to mark the exit of the brand. One of these will be displayed permanently at Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany.
The personal brander job doesn’t sound like such a stretch, and the space pilot gig is definitely something for young rocket enthusiasts to aspire to… but grower-of-body-parts is definitely not something you expect to see advertised at a job fair this year. But a new study done by the British government has indeed included this unique profession as one of the important jobs in the future.
The report commissioned by Britain’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills was carried out by market research group Fast Future, and tried to determine a list of both jobs that do not currently exist and current jobs that could become more prominent by 2030.
The BBC writes:
Potential jobs of the future will include more farmers of genetically engineered crops and livestock, specialists in climate change reversal, and personal branders who will help individuals to establish their own brand across social networking sites.
Not just that, the report predicts police officers will be needed to monitor weather manipulation, and electronic waste data managers will be employed by people who do not want to be tracked online.
Oh, and if you’re feeling a little slow, the report predicts that surgeons may be around to “boost your RAM” as it were, giving people the ability to get extra memory capacity.
Yay! The future is coming. Strap on your jet-packs.
Related Content:
Galleries: Is Vermin the Meat of the Future?
Future Tech: Doctor on-Call? Cell-Phone Cameras Can Diagnose Disease
Future Tech: The 3-D Simulation that Lets Your Surgeon Practice …on You
Image Credit: Flickr / Thorne Enterprises
In a bid to soften congressional criticism, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Monday invited the Government Accountability Office to audit the central bank’s involvement in the U.S. rescue of American International Group Inc.
In a letter to Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, Bernanke said the Fed would provide “all records and personnel necessary” for the auditing arm of Congress to review the rescue.
“To afford the public the most complete possible understanding of our decisions and actions in this matter, and to provide a comprehensive response to questions that have been raised by members of Congress, the Federal Reserve would welcome a full review by GAO of all aspects of our involvement in the extension of credit to AIG,” Bernanke wrote.
The letter comes as the Fed faces increasing heat on Capitol Hill from its actions involving the insurer since the September 2008 bailout. A House committee plans to hold a hearing next week on AIG’s payments of more than $62 billion to trading partners — using government funds — in the months after the firm’s collapse, even though those counterparties would’ve received far less if AIG had gone bankrupt. Fed officials say they had little leverage in the matter.
The invitation from Bernanke does not change existing policies about congressional reviews of the Fed. The GAO already has authority to review the central bank’s involvement in the AIG bailout, along with other company-specific rescues by the Fed and Treasury Department.
Bernanke and other Fed officials in recent months have said they welcome reviews of company-specific rescues and the financial integrity of its lending programs. But they’re fighting legislation that would broaden GAO authority to review the Fed’s monetary policy and internal deliberations about setting interest rates.
The GAO released a report last September, a year after the Fed-led rescue, suggesting it was too early to tell whether AIG could repay the government, which has provided $182 billion in support for the company.
Read previous GAO reports on AIG.
Image Credit: The Next Bench
Do we really need another name for devices that are smaller than a notebook and bigger than a smartphone? I’m finally seeing the name MID, or Mobile Internet Device, lose traction but now it looks like it could be replaced with “NetTabs.” Ugh. No matter what you call them — slates, tablets or MIDs — they’re poised to sell big in 2010: to the tune of tens of millions, says a Deloitte report quoted in the Telegraph.
”NetTabs are expected to meet specific consumer needs compared to smartphones on the one hand – which are still a bit small for watching videos or even Web browsing – and notebooks, netbooks, and ultra-thin PCs, on the other – which are too big, heavy, or expensive.”
Obviously, the basis for at least some of these thoughts is around an Apple tablet device, expected to appear later this month. But smartphones and other handhelds are maturing to drive this market as well.
While I don’t agree with the name, I do see a point in the first part of the NetTab definition — these devices are “expected to meet specific consumer needs.” I take that to mean media playback, web browsing and other popular content consumption activities. Why make that distinction? Because when I look from the first Origami devices to the latest HP / Microsoft slate shown off at CES, I’m convinced that this market won’t fully succeed with a desktop operating system and paradigm.
Yes, the touch features of Windows 7 are ideally slated for a slate, but all of the extra baggage and functionality of Windows simply isn’t needed for a device targeted at content consumption. If and when this market takes off — as I expect it will this year — it will be interesting to see which devices have sold and which really haven’t. My money is on devices that meet specific consumer needs without much extra native functionality. After all — thriving app stores can fill functionality gaps quite nicely.
For world travelers on AT&T and T-Mobile, it’s understandable that you want to unlock your phone when you travel overseas. In a kind gesture, T-Mobile has reduced the requirements that must be met prior to them unlocking your beloved wireless device. Before today, FlexPay, postpaid, and prepaid (provided you’ve had a minimum $10 balance and have refilled the account in the past month) customers were required to wait 90 days before receiving an unlock code. As it stands now, FlexPay and postpaid customers will be able to receive their code after 40 days of service, while prepaid customers will be able to receive theirs after 60 days of service.
It’s important to note that the account must be in good standing, with no service interruptions or past-due balances. It’s free, and enables you to put any kind of GSM SIM card in your device. Why not? Hit the comments section and let us know how it goes!
Via Engadget Mobile
Mariska Hargitay — best known to Law & Order fans as SVU’s tough-as-nails Olivia Benson — steps off the mean streets of crime TV for a cover story on the pages of the February issue of More Magazine, arriving on newsstands Jan. 26th.
The cover girl — who recently recovered from suffering a collapsed lung after a work-related injury — chats about the late night shakeup at home network NBC, financial woes, and her late mother, sex symbol Jayne Mansfield.
Mariska On The Hollywood Pressure To Be Beautiful: “I think I’m a very attractive person, but I don’t put myself in the realm of the beauty. That’s not where I get my esteem. I’m a size 8, and I feel proud of that, because it’s healthy. I’ve never felt compelled to be a skinny actress,” Mariska reveals. “A guy at ABC told me to change my name and get a nose job. I said, ‘You get a nose job.’”
Mariska Remembers Mom Jayne Mansfield: “I can never compete, so I don’t try. It’s mega über, it’s legendary, it’s iconic. Being a sex symbol is not my thing; it’s not where I shine.”
Mariska’s Joyful Heart Foundation for Survivors of Sexual Assault: “Doing something about it takes away some of my sadness. We can get closer to cures by shining a light on [the abuse]. I liken it to what happened with AA 15 years ago, where there’s not a stigma to it. We’d love to see that happen to sexual assault.”
Mariska On Money Woes: “I constantly worry about money. I make a lot now, but I don’t feel that way, because I was poor and had no money for a lot longer than I’ve had it,” she said. “As an actor, if this show ends next year, then what? As an aging woman, then what? I’m saving money to live on, for the future. There are not that many roles for women, and I’ve been blessed with one of the great ones.”
How Did Leno’s Move From Late Night To Primetime Impact SVU’s ratings: “It ruined our numbers. The first four episodes, we were considerably down because nobody knew when the show was on. Finally, we’re starting to find our audience again…..I hope we go back to where we belong. It was doing so well. Why mess with it?”
Attention lovers of old-timey science: the good stuff keeps on coming. Last month, when Britain’s Royal Society released digital versions of some of its greatest scientific papers to celebrate its 350th anniversary, we brought you delightfully odd and gruesome samples from the library. Now the society has uploaded another batch of classic manuscripts, including a book containing an early account of Isaac Newton’s apple story, one of science’s most famous anecdotes.
A biography written by William Stukeley, one of Newton’s contemporaries, relates the apple story as Newton himself told it to Stukeley. The text of Stukeley’s Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life has long been available online, but the Royal Society opened up digital access to the handwritten manuscript itself Sunday [Scientific American]. In his 1752 book on Newton, Stukeley writes:
After dinner, the weather being warm, we went out into the garden and drank tea under the shade of some apple trees, only he and myself.
Amidst other discourse, he told me he was just in the same situation as when formerly the notion of gravitation came into his mind.
Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself, occasion’d by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood.
Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth’s centre? Assuredly, the reason is that the earth draws it.
While Newton personally told this story to Stukeley, the latter’s book wasn’t published until a quarter-century after Newton’s death. And the great scientist himself may have embellished the anecdote. Keith Moore, the Royal Society’s head of library and archives, said: “Scholars know where the apple story comes from, and clearly it’s an anecdote Newton polished. What we want is for the public to see the manuscript itself. It wasn’t just Newton that polished it, succeeding generations put a gloss on it as well – that story just humanises him just a little bit” [The Guardian]. Indeed, some popular retellings have embellished the tale to add that the apple didn’t just plop to the ground near Newton, but actually clonked him on the head.
However padded or polished, the apple story still inspires the imagination. Thomas Levenson, MIT professor, DISCOVER contributor, and author of Newton and the Counterfeiter, tells DISCOVER that scholars have gone to great length to investigate its details, including some who took cuttings of what they believed to be Newton’s original apple tree. MIT has an apple tree grown from the supposed Newton cuttings that saw first fruits in 2006.
Stukeley’s Newton book isn’t the only newly released manuscript, though. The Royal Society also digitized Henry James’ fossil sketches, Richard Waller’s watercolors, and more.
Related Content:
DISCOVER: Gimmie That Old-Time Science: DIY, Gruesome, and Spelled Funny
Cosmic Variance: Celebrity Throwdown? Einstein vs. Newton
Cosmic Variance: Guest Post: Tom Levenson on Isaac Newton as the First Cosmologist
Image: The Royal Society
