The advantages of open-plan living are many: increased light, ease of entertaining, and greater household interaction, to name a few. But combining distinct spaces into one fluid, multifunctional whole also presents unique challenges. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be featuring three New England kitchens that use creative design solutions to integrate seamlessly with adjacent spaces.
Update 1/29/2010: After reading the conversation with President Barack H. Obama with the Republican Caucus, I was impressed with how level-headed he was no matter what question was thrown out. Better yet, he was big enough to admit when he was wrong and continuously insist that we (Democrats, Republicans and Independents) must stop all the finger-pointing about what the other side isn’t doing instead of getting to the root of the issue. For that reason, as of this day, I’m going to stop saying “the Republicans don’t want…” or “the Republicans want…” instead of narrowing it down to a particular issue. From this conversation, more often than is published via the media, the three parties can agree on issues, but we spend so much time attacking each other when we don’t agree. This is one of the many reasons I continue to emphasize voting in all elections. It gives us the option to vote on people individually instead of just party voting. We should be paying attention to what each candidate says instead of the solo letter next to their names or skin complexion. So I’m going to stop my own finger-pointing and embrace the fact that so many Republicans find my tweets interesting on Twitter (refer to original blog opening below).
Update 1/16/2010: In the February 2010 issue of Ebony magazine, there’s an image of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. looking at the Reverend Andrew Young as he directs voter registration from his Chicago apartment. As soon as I flipped to that page, it reminded me of this blog. Dr. King and other civil rights leaders weren’t just fighting for voting for one rank, they were fighting for blacks to be able to vote for all categories. How do you say you respect this man’s work and then not go vote?
Original Entry Starts Here: Lately I’ve been having a few conservative Republicans follow me on Twitter. For the life of me I can’t figure out why because my opinions are so far to the left even Beyonce couldn’t sing the “Irreplaceable” lyrics to my views–to the left, to the left, everything I believe is an idea to the left. Initially I thought the conservative Tweeters may have the same mindset of my grandfather–always pay attention to your enemy, which is why he just loves to watch FOX News. He genuinely believes we have to know their wacko views. To each his own.
But what caught my attention was one of my favorite Twitter users who made the following comment: “conservative.republican.democrat. — whocares?” Considering how opinionated he is and how he proclaims to be black and conscious, I was surprised he wasn’t one of those who did care so we had a lengthy debate about politics and voting. As did many people I know, he voted in the presidential election but will not vote in the local elections. Why?
He said he didn’t have time, “cuz i have bills to pay & other stuff to worry about.” Of course I had to respond to that. Anybody who believes that local politicians don’t effect your daily activities has another thing coming. We’ve heard the issues that happened when Governor Pat Quinn let Illinois prisoners that were originally deemed non-violent prisoners be released early. (Grudgingly I must admit that Joe the Cop may have had a point although I still stand on my views on recidivism.) We all know about the fiasco with Todd Stroger and raising taxes. And I’m pretty sure by now I don’t have to talk about all the wrong things Blagojevich has managed to say and do, including his statement that he’s blacker than Obama. And we helped these people get into office.
What they do while they’re in office effects us just as much as who’s in the White House. And then I got the age old response I’ve heard a billion times before from African-American voters, “if the black media did a decent job on covering politics i would be more willing to participate.” Let’s cut the B.S.
Previously I worked for an African-American newspaper and listened to two reporters and myself who had very different views on who should be elected the next
What a slap in the face when the highest rank in office is filled by an African-American man. I’m tired of the black media accusations. I’m bored with people blaming the black media for why they don’t know more about politics. The black media is doing some of the same things that independent voters can be doing. We’re researching the politicians, attending the conferences, listening to the speeches, visiting the Web sites of the politicians and holding discussions on who is the best leader. There’s nothing so special about a journalist that the average voter can’t do too outside of one-on-one interviews.
I recall a lady calling my office when I worked for this publication asking when we were going to print or publish online who the newspaper would endorse as political candidates. I asked her, “Wouldn’t it be better if you made your own decisions on who you want to win? You may not agree with all of the candidates endorsed by one editor or president.” She told me she didn’t have time to look up every politician, but she would trust an African-American paper to lead her the right way. When did skin tone become the deciding factor in a vote? Condolezza Rice was brown-skinned, and she went shoe shopping through Hurricane Katrina news. Michael Steele is just now taking a breath from his hip hop dictionary, and he still sounds just as dumb. And Clarence Thomas voted against affirmative action. Brown skin does not mean great advisers.
Why are people so busy that they can’t research people who are going to effect the city you live in? What is on your planner so tough that you can’t do the same thing these journalists are doing? Why do you need a leader or a journalist to hold your hands in the voting booths? Please cut it out with the excuses. Everybody is waiting on a leader to follow, but why not step up and be that leader.
Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Imagine if he’d have waited for someone else to step up for equality and fight against segregation. Imagine if Malcolm X had decided to wait for some other Muslim to speak to the crowd. Imagine if Harriet Tubman would’ve given in to narcolepsy and said, “Screw it. I’m done freeing you guys. I’m going to set up shop in my new home.” Imagine if Frederick Douglass didn’t learn to read and start a newspaper about anti-slavery.
I think my Twitter friend is one of the most fascinating people I followed and I enjoyed his conversation, but I completely disagree with him on voting. And he’s not alone in his thoughts. I’ve heard his arguments about leaders and black media from plenty of other mouths of African-American non-voters. Although it’s especially disappointing to hear someone who claims to be conscious ignore voting, it’s even worse for those who complain about “the white man.” How do you complain about “the white man” when as a black man (or black woman), you don’t exercise the basic rights of any American? Why are you waiting for someone else to hold your hand and guide you to the voting booths? Quiet as it’s kept, every last one of us can be leaders. All we have to do is step up to the plate and handle our own responsibilities, and one of the responsibilities black Americans have is to step up to the voting booths. If King Jr. died for us to have those types of rights, why do some of us spit on his grave by not doing it?
The early elections are going on as I type. Get up. Go vote. Find time.
Yale Environment 360 has an article on the impact of global warming on the arctic – Arctic Tundra is Being Lost As Far North Quickly Warms.
During the summer of 2007, lightning strikes sparked five tundra fires on Alaska’s North Slope. Two of the fires — rare events north of the Arctic Circle — began in neighboring drainages, only a couple of days apart. That, in itself, might have gained the attention of tundra researchers. But the 2007 fire season would ultimately burn a record swath across the North Slope, while reshaping the way scientists think about the Arctic’s response to global warming.
Researchers have known for years that the Arctic landscape is being transformed by rising temperatures. Now, scientists are amassing growing evidence that major events precipitated by warming — such as fires and the collapse of slopes caused by melting permafrost — are leading to the loss of tundra in the Arctic. The cold, dry, and treeless ecosystem — characterized by an extremely short growing season; underlying layers of frozen soil, or permafrost; and grasses, sedges, mosses, lichens, and berry plants — will eventually be replaced by shrub lands and even boreal forest, scientists forecast.
Much of the Arctic has experienced temperature increases of 3 to 5 degrees F in the past half-century and could see temperatures soar 10 degrees F above pre-industrial levels by 2100. University of Vermont professor Breck Bowden, a watershed specialist participating in a long-term study of the Alaskan tundra, said that such rapidly rising temperatures will mean that the “tundra as we imagine it today will largely be gone throughout the Arctic. It may take longer than 50 or even 100 years, but the inevitable direction is toward boreal forest or something like it.”
With temperatures increasing across the Arctic, the Alaskan tundra as we know it could be gone before the end of the century, some scientists predict.
Dominique Bachelet, a climate change scientist at Oregon State University, forecasts that by 2100 tundra “will largely disappear from the Alaskan landscape, along with the related plants, animals, and even human ecosystems that are based upon it.” She made that prediction in 2004, and now says “the basic premise still holds, but the mechanism of change may be different than we thought.” Instead of long-term, incrementally complex changes caused by gradually warming temperatures, “extreme events will be the important triggers for change.” Hot-burning fires or slumping hillsides tied to melting permafrost could “clean the slate and allow new species to establish themselves,” Bachelet said.
Berlin – Vier Busse der Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) sind am Donnerstag beschossen worden. Es blieb bei gesprungenen Scheiben, verletzt wurde niemand, wie die Polizei am Freitag mitteilte.
Betroffen waren am Nachmittag und Abend in Schöneberg zwei Busse der Linie M48 und ein Fahrzeug der Linie M85. In Zehlendorf wurde ein Bus der Linie 101 beschossen.
Die Polizei ermittelt wegen Sachbeschädigung. Zunächst war ungeklärt, welche Waffe verwendet worden war. Auch wurde noch geprüft, ob die Schüsse von einem oder mehreren Tätern abgegeben wurden und in Verbindung stehen.
Soyabean oil production to increase biodiesel supplyBiofuels InternationalBy modifying the metabolism to create a sufficient quantity of oil, the problem of biodiesel production will be resolved and this biofuel will then replace …
For many years, cable/telco/satellite companies would do “exclusive” deals with apartment buildings and other developers, which would limit what services could be offered in those buildings. Back in 2007, the FCC stepped in to say such deals were illegal. But, of course, there are always loopholes. Broadband Reports highlights how a bunch of buildings are using loopholes like telling you can chose any cable company you like… but if you choose a different one they have to pay an extra $40 for water and trash. And… the FCC says these kinds of deals are legal, for now, though it may move against them soon. But, in the meantime, your landlord can effectively force you to choose a cable/telco/broadband provider.
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Before a vehicle hits the dealerships for sale to customers, the designers, engineers and the vehicle itself, go through numerous tests to make sure the buyer never comes across any issues. All that gets even more difficult when you’re introducing a vehicle in the market with new technology – like the 2011 Chevrolet Volt.
General Motors has just released a video of the Volt undergoing heat testing at 95 degrees Celsius (greater than 200 degrees Fahrenheit).
Of course, GM could just drive to some hot desert in the United States, but why leave frigid Detroit when you can create your own solar heat in Motor City.
Click here for more news on the Chevrolet Volt.
Check out the interesting video of the Volt undergoing solar heat testing after the jump.
2011 Chevrolet Volt:
2011 Chevrolet Volt:
– By: Kap Shah
Simon Cowell turned down a $100 million deal to remain a judge on American Idol, The New York Post’s Page Six Column. The British music mogul announced this week that he will be leaving his post on the popular FOX talent show to bring his UK singing show, The X Factor, to The States.
EPS of $.74 per share blew past estimates of $.61 per share. But revenue of $25.2 billion may be a bit light.
Analysts had been looking for $26.8 billion.
The stock is currently drifting lower by less than a buck on the news.
Here’s Jamie Dimon’s commentary on the numbers:
“We are gratified that we generated earnings of $3.3 billion for the fourth quarter and nearly $12 billion for the year. Though these results showed improvement, we acknowledge that they fell short of both an adequate return on capital and the firm’s earnings potential. We benefited from the diversity of our leading franchises, as demonstrated by the continued earnings strength of our Investment Bank, Commercial Banking, Asset Management and Retail Banking franchises. We are proud that, throughout these tumultuous times, we never stopped investing in the fundamental growth drivers of our consumer businesses – such as checking and credit card accounts in our Retail Banking and Card Services franchises – and have developed new products and services to meet the needs of consumers and small businesses. While we are seeing some stability in delinquencies, consumer credit costs remain high, and weak employment and home prices persist. Accordingly, we remain cautious.”
“In the fourth quarter, we further strengthened our credit reserves to nearly $33 billion, or 5.5% of total loans. Our earnings generated additional capital, and we ended 2009 with a very strong Tier 1 Capital ratio of 11.1% and a Tier 1 Common ratio of 8.8%. We remain confident that this capital and reserve strength, combined with our significant earnings power, will allow us to meet the uncertainties that lie ahead and still continue investing in our businesses and serving our clients and shareholders over the long term.”
Here, meanwhile, is further color on consumer lending, which is still looking very ugly:
Consumer Lending reported a net loss of $1.4 billion, compared with a net loss of $416 million in the prior year. The decrease was driven by lower net revenue, a higher provision for credit losses and higher noninterest expense.
Net revenue was $3.1 billion, down by $1.0 billion, or 24%, from the prior year. The decrease was driven by lower mortgage fees and related income and lower loan balances, partially offset by wider loan spreads. Mortgage fees and related income decreased due to lower mortgage production revenue and lower net mortgage servicing revenue. Mortgage production revenue was negative $192 million, compared with positive $62 million in the prior year, as an increase in reserves for the repurchase of previously-sold loans was largely offset by wider margins on new originations and the absence of markdowns of the mortgage warehouse in the prior year. Operating revenue, which represents loan servicing revenue net of other changes in fair value of the MSR asset, was $564 million, up by $41 million. MSR risk management results were $109 million, compared with $1.4 billion in the prior year.
The provision for credit losses was $4.0 billion, compared with $3.3 billion in the prior year. The provision reflected an increase in the allowance for loan losses of $1.5 billion in the current quarter, resulting in an allowance for loan losses to ending loans retained1 of 5.04%, compared with 3.16% in the prior year (see Retail Financial Services discussion of the provision for credit losses, above, for further detail).
Noninterest expense was $1.7 billion, up by $215 million, or 14%, from the prior year, reflecting higher servicing and default-related expense.
See the full presentation and listen to the conference call here — >
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t’s the end of the week and we know what that means kiddos, time to share how I spent my time since our last visit. And that visit was a long time ago given the holidays and that big trade show in the desert. Besides the big show I went on vacation, attended a wedding and read a lot of e-books. This week’s column is dedicated to Steve Rubel, read on to find out why.
The first week of the long hiatus from writing this column was my vacation, which was wonderful. We didn’t go anywhere, my wife and I simply hung out at the house and did the sort of stuff you do when you don’t have to work each day. I read lots of good books and we had a wonderful holiday period as a result. I did miss writing this column far more than I thought I would. I came to realize that I really enjoy sharing my weeks with you, and I almost broke down and wrote a column during my week of vacation. I came to my senses, though, and kept at the vacation as I should.
The holidays held an unexpected joyous event, as my step-daughter got married on New Year’s Day. She married a great guy, a firefighter who has his head on straight. They had intended to get married later this year but he has an opportunity for a great job with another fire department for a lot more money, and since they are expecting their first child they were concerned about the health insurance situation given the job change. They decided not to risk losing coverage so they got a judge to marry them in his chambers on January 1st. It was really cool as the judge is the same guy who married Sheri and I 11 years ago. Talk about coming full circle.
Sin City
Of course the biggest time filler over the past three weeks was the big trip to Las Vegas for the CES. I won’t get into a lot of detail about the trip as I covered it on the site. But I do have some observations/ ruminations about the CES that are worth sharing. The week was so action-packed that there was a lot I couldn’t cover through normal show coverage so I’ll dump it on you here.
The CES is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) show of its type for the press in the U. S. Each year thousands of us register for press credentials that provides access to press events and allows us to use the press facilities at the show. Each year the CES organizers along with Toshiba give each press registrant a press kit that is contained in some sort of laptop bag or backpack that can be used during the week. The bags are yours to keep, and it’s not unusual to see these distinctive bags at other events throughout the year as some start using them full-time going forward.
I had accumulated so many of these press bags that in the past few years I have not brought them home, I would give them away to someone in Vegas before leaving. Not this year, as I really liked the messenger bag that the CES handed out. It is a really good messenger bag that will handle a laptop and all the assorted gear one normally carries with one. I like it so much I’ve been using it quite a bit since returning from the trip. Thanks CES and Toshiba for providing a useful piece of gear this year.
The show was smaller than in years past, a reflection of the economic conditions affecting the industry. I did find that everyone at the show was highly optimistic about the near future, and that feeling was contagious. I returned from the show feeling quite good about the way the industry is headed, and about things to come this year.
The show floor seemed as crowded as ever, and I grew quite tired of getting pushed and shoved while walking around the convention. One thing hadn’t changed this year, the prevalence of folks racing through the crowded halls while pulling a rolling laptop case behind them. I must have tripped on these things a dozen times, and I absolutely hate that people will use them in big crowds like this. I so wish they would be banned by the organizers, but I know that’s never going to happen. I wonder if anyone has ever been sued for injuries caused by these rolling bags? It’s definitely a big pet peeve of mine.
Without a question the best part of the CES week is seeing friends that I interact with online but rarely get to hang out with in person. Kevin and I hang out all week, which is cool, and this year we got to spend a fair bit of time with podcast co-host Matt Miller. Matt’s a great guy and I love hanging out with him so it was a real treat. The three of us had a great dinner at the beginning of the week and it was a lot of fun. Matt’s dinner was pretty spicy and it was funny watching him sweat his way through it.
Both Kevin and Matt ordered a Nexus One from Google and had them delivered to their hotel in Vegas. Talk about geeks, that’s about the geekiest thing you can do. Of course I was jealous, what kind of geek wouldn’t be?
One of the strangest things about the CES each year is that it runs alongside the Adult Entertainment Expo. This makes for some very amusing scenes indeed, with scantily clad people walking all over Vegas alongside scores of geeks with pocket protectors. I was walking back to my hotel room in the Venetian one day and spotted a small group of women walking through the middle of the casino, and they were wearing thongs and not much else. That will make you stop what you’re doing.
What made this scene memorable was another couple also walking through the casino at that time, accompanied by their two small children. Why anyone would take their kids to a Vegas casino is beyond me to begin with, but given this scene even worse. What do you say to your 6 or 7 year-old daughter about this, anyway? “No dear, that is highly inappropriate, but it’s OK in Vegas.” I don’t think so.
One of the best things I did in Vegas, and I don’t mean the scene I just described, was having dinner with Steve Rubel. Steve and I had met once before this, and I always enjoy time spent with him. Steve is one of the first A-list bloggers, and his lifestream is one I follow religiously. He’s one of the smartest people I know, and he has a great knack for getting to the core issues of any topic under discussion. I always learn a lot chatting with Steve, and it was the best thing I did all week. I was glad Kevin got a chance to meet Steve in person at this dinner.
I must admit that I was quite embarrassed when Steve told our waiter that jkOnTheRun is the best technology web site on the web. I don’t think the waiter really cared, he probably just wanted to get rid of us and go on a break. It was nice of Steve to pimp us out, though.
This column is dedicated to Steve, as he confessed something that made my entire trip worthwhile. It seems Steve finds this column his favorite thing that I do, and he emails the column to himself each week. This lets him have the entire column on his phone, and he has developed a ritual where he reads This Week in Mobile Tech Manor on the weekend in a coffee shop while he has a good coffee. This is just so cool I can’t tell you. Sorry for the long hiatus, Steve.
He spends 2/3 of his time traveling on business, and he is a true dedicated road warrior. He told us he has taken to leaving his laptop at home as much as possible, and just using his smartphone on his trips. He does this by using his phone for any content he creates of less than 1,000 words. I know I couldn’t do that, but he claims it has made his traveling so much easier that it is well worth it. That’s a true mobile geek.
Last CES for Me?
I haven’t made up my mind for sure but there’s a very good chance that the CES trip this year may be my last. It’s not easy for me to give up something I enjoy so much but I found this trip to be almost too much for me to handle. I suffered a severe back injury 20 years ago that has resulted in two different back surgeries over the passing years. These two laminectomies have been due to the initial injury and then re-injuring it years later. In each of these surgieries they had to remove the lowest disc from my spine. These surgeries were tough, and required a 6-week recovery each time where I couldn’t risk damaging my spinal cord. The disc is the shock absorber between the spinal vertabrae, and when one is removed extreme caution must be taken to prevent permanent damage, even paralysis, until scar tissue grows back to replace the removed disc.
Both of these recoveries went well for me, but an end result is that standing for extended periods, or even walking, can cause nerve pain that gets quite bad. In years past, given the tremendous amount of walking around the CES (up to 8 miles a day), by the end of the week my back has made its presence known by causing back pain and worse, cramps in my calves. If you’ve ever had a cramp in your calf you know how painful that is.
This year I was troubled to find my calves cramping up the very first day of the show, and it happened again every day I was walking around Vegas. When the cramps hit, all I can do is sit or stretch out until they pass. Then I was able to continue for a while until my legs started cramping up again. By the end of the week it had almost gotten to be too much for me, and I seriously started thinking that this would be my last trip to cover the show.
I must also admit that the extreme exhaustion that is caused by the massive effort to cover the CES scares the hell out of me. Casual readers probably don’t realize that I had a small stroke two years ago. That traumatic event was one of the most frightening of my life, and I relive it every year at CES time. You see, that stroke happened less than two days after returning from covering the CES that year. There’s no way to know for certain that the exhaustion from the constant walking played a role in my stroke, but the doctors at the time admitted it could have played a role.
You can perhaps see now why I approach the CES trip with a fair amount of trepidation. Hell, I might as well admit that the trip scares me a great deal. That fear actually gets worse after returning from the exhausting trip, and I find I am watching myself closely for any adverse effects. I’m thinking it may be time to hang up my CES bag.
Help for Haiti
The devastating earthquake that hit Haiti is on all of our minds currently, and they need all the help they can get. There are many aid programs in place to accept donations, and the tech community is rallying to help in case you are interested. Xavier Lanier of notebooks.com is spearheading an effort to match text messaging donations for the people of Haiti. It’s a great cause so see if you can help out these poor people in this devastating time.
I can only imagine the ordeal that Haitians are facing right now. The coverage of the earthquake I have seen has been troubling to say the least. I’ve only been through one earthquake myself, and that was frightening enough even though fortunately it was not close enough to my location in Venezuela when it hit to be very damaging. Even so, to be on the 12th floor of a skyscraper that was swaying dramatically back and forth was downright scary, so I can only imagine what Haiti is like today.
e-Books of the Weeks
The long hiatus gave me plenty of time to read lots of good e-books, so I’ll only mention my top picks this time. I read the second and third installments in David Hewson’s great Nic Costa series. The Villa of Mysteries and The Sacred Cut were both stellar mysteries, and I quite enjoyed seeing how David has developed the characters in the series. That’s one of the joys of finding a good series, watching how the novelist advances the characters, as well as watching the writing get better and better. Hewson weaves very intricate, picturesque stories, and I am anxious to read the other four novels in the series.
I read a lot of books on the new Kindle 2 I got for the holidays, and was happy to find some free books on Amazon’s top 100 list. One of them was a great find — Serial by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch. What happens when a serial killer who preys on hitchikers picks up a serial killer who hitches rides? A great story, that’s what. It’s still free, BTW.
I found another series that I am really getting to like, the Alex LaDuca series by Noel Hynd. The first two books, Conspiracy in Kiev and Midnight in Madrid were action-packed mysteries that had more twists and turns than most novels. I am looking forward to continuing this series, too. Both of these books were free from Amazon, but I see they are not free anymore. They’re good enough that I’d have no problem paying for them. This shows it pays to check the Amazon list often for free novels.
Wrap-up
This has been a long piece for you to wade through, and I hope you enjoyed it. The CES dominated this week’s column, due to the huge show that it is. I am getting asked what gadget I liked best at the show, and invariably my answer is the Lenovo U1 Hybrid Notebook. I spent an hour with one in Vegas and I want one so badly. Until next week, take care.
Il y a quelques jours,nous vous présentions la Ford Focus 3. Après quelques videos sans intérêt de mulets, Ford nous propose maintenant le premier film promotionnel de la voiture.
Pour retrouver toutes les caractéristiques de la future Focus III, rendez-vous ici. Voici donc la video et en dessous,le rappel de la gallerie photo.
Nouveau: pour profiter facilement et rapidement des notifications de nouveautés sur le site, pensez à vous abonner via Twitter. Chaque modification, nouvel article ou nouvelle vidéo sur notre chaîne Youtube, fait l’objet d’un Tweet immédiat!
This is a guest post by Joseph Matthews from Art of Approaching, a hands-on guide to picking up any woman.
To quote the actor Chris Tucker – “It’s Friday, you ain’t got no job, and you ain’t got sh*t to do!”
Well, maybe you do have a job and things to do, but are you doing the things you WANT to do?
Namely: Are you going out tonight to meet some women?
Friday night is probably the BEST night of the week to meet women.
Think about it:
It’s been a long, hard week. People are getting off work. They don’t have anything to do the next day.
They can sleep in as late as they want. They’re looking to unwind and release some stress. In other words…
They’re out looking to have fun!
And what does having fun entail? Well, for most women, having fun on a Friday night means – MEETING A MAN!
That’s right. We go out to meet women. They go out to meet us!
But the question you gotta ask yourself is: Are they gonna meet YOU?
This is important. This can mean the difference between getting laid and quietly sobbing in the shower.
So how are these women going to meet you?
Well, that’s entirely up to you. I can give you some suggestions that will help you out, but honestly, it’s up to you to act and make it happen.
The first thing you need to do to make sure women are going to meet you tonight is…
Are you ready?
GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!
That’s step number one. You GOTTA get out and go to where the women are. This means going out with friends, or, if they’re not around to hang out, go out by yourself!
Regardless of how you do it, if you DON’T go out, you have 0% chance of meeting women. (I’m talking real women who could go home with you TONIGHT! Not internet women).
The second step is **go to where the women are!**
This is important. Bars and clubs are always a good bet to find women. But if that’s not your scene, you have other options available to you.
1. Happy hour.
Yes, I know, this is a bar thing. But, happy hour usually occurs BEFORE things get too hectic, so if you’re older, this may be a good alternative to fighting off all those youngsters out there. Most women go to happy hour after work, and then go home and change for a night out on the town. This is a GREAT opportunity for you to set up a date for LATER THAT NIGHT.
2. Bookstores & Coffee Shops
If you have a little bit more of a laid back lifestyle, bookstores and coffee shops are a good place to check out on a Friday night. If you can find a coffee shop that’s open late, all the better! Typically, the women here are quieter, book-
worm wallflower types. So it may be harder to initially engage them, but it’ll be easier to wrangle them into a conversation.
3. Hotel Lobbies & Bars
No, I’m not talking about the lobby of your local “Day’s Inn.” I’m talking about the NICE hotels in your area. You know, the 4 & 5 star kind with valet parking and an extremely nice bar area. These can be great places to meet women, especially considering a lot of “hotel hotties” are from out of town and looking for some adventure. This scene is also more laid back and less intense than your typical bar and club.
Okay, so now that we’ve covered step 1 & 2, it’s time to go to the final step:
MEET WOMEN.
Let’s face it, even though women’s lib is going strong, women STILL don’t typically approach guys. They wait for YOU to approach THEM.
So that begs the question: How do you approach them?
In my book, “The Art of Approaching,” I go into this subject in detail. Inside my book, you’ll find:
At the very least, walk up to these women and say to them “Hi.” But if you really want to SUPERCHARGE your ability to meet the kind of beautiful, interesting women you’ve always wanted, be sure to check out my book.
Wishing you success with women.
photo credits: top – True Russian Vodka, bottom – sheilakane
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Cognitive Daily covers a super-elegant study that helps us understand whether synaesthesia is really just a case of ‘crossed senses’ or whether the perceptual blending effect requires the person to have processed some of the meaning of the triggering experience.
The traditional explanation of most types of synaesthesia is that the brain’s sensory areas are overly connected, so activation of one sense triggers activity in another area which causes the experience. However, there has been some recent evidence that synaesthesia doesn’t work purely at this basic sensory level.
For example, a recent study by neuropsychologist Jamie Ward and colleagues reported that letter-colour synaesthetes needed to be concentrating on the letters to trigger colours – seeing them ‘out of the corner of the eye’ didn’t work – suggesting there must be some involvement of focus and concentration and not just a reliance on incoming sensory information.
To test the idea further, it would be ideal to be able to separate out experiences where we process just sensory information and experiences where we also understand meaning but as we tend to deal with both at once, this is not easy to do.
But this new study managed to do exactly this in people with colour-speech synaesthesia, where affected people experience colours when they hear specific words, using a perceptual illusion called the McGurk effect.
It’s an intriguing effect that you can see in action on the Cognitive Daily page, but essentially, it shows that seeing someone mouth a word affects what we hear, so if we are played the syllable ‘gah’, but see someone mouthing ‘bah’, the brain makes a compromise and we experience hearing the syllable ‘dah’.
So the effect is a perfect tool to separate out sensory information and meaning, because the researchers can play exactly the same sound but change what word the participants hear simply by showing clips of people mouthing different words.
If colour-speech synaesthesia works only through crossed-senses then the McGurk effect should make no difference to the colours because the exact same sound is played each time, but if this form of synaesthesia is triggered by meaning, the colours should differ because the McGurk effect changes which words are perceived and understood, despite the identical sound.
This is exactly what the researchers found, providing additional evidence that synaesthesia is not just a sensory confusion, it is based in how the brain understands meaning.
It’s an incredibly elegant study and the Cognitive Daily piece covers it equally as elegantly.
Link to CogDaily on ‘Synesthesia and the McGurk effect’.
Link to PubMed entry for study.
pdf of study full text.
JDRF Artificial Pancreas Project
Baby steps….but what the heck.
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Great little book – a must for anyone on this forum.
Listed Heritage
‘A detailed, authorative, and practical guide’
Architects Journal
‘It is a superb and erudite read, fluent and engrossing’
The Zoo of Antwerp,next to the trainstation, is the green heart of the city, populated by more than 5,000 animals. After more than 160 years this romantic English garden is still a unique meeting spot for young and old.
Then:
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Now:
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trainstation and tracks next to the zoo:
Station on the background:
Ariel view:
Extention of the zoo, finished 2018:
Flavio Briatore may have been exonerated by the Paris Tribunal de Grande Instance for his involvement in the crash-gate, but that doesn’t mean the Italian manager is going soft on his employees. As you all know by now, the 59-year old is also co-owner of London Championship division club Queens Park Rangers, where managers tend to stay for a very short period of time.
According to British newspaper The Guardian, Briatore just fired the manager/coach of his team Paul Hart after only 5 games in… (read more)
Add comedienne Rosie O’Donnell and veteran Harrison Ford to the growing list of celebrities joining Team Conan; both believe Jay Leno should hit the bricks and let his Tonight Show successor, Conan O’Brien, continue hosting the show.
(I still like Letterman’s idea of letting the guys share co-hosting duties….)
The former View moderator shared her view after being asked at HBO’s Television Critics Association panel on Thursday.
“I have been a big fan of Conan O’Brien… and [‘The Tonight Show’ is] a franchise that has been 60 years with NBC, and if you’re privileged enough to be asked to drive the bus, you should say thank you and drive it to the best of your ability and when it’s time for them to hire a new driver, you should say, ‘Thank you for allowing me to drive this for as long as I did,’ and pass the keys to the new guy with red hair, and not try to flatten his tires, before he even gets going.”
Harrison Ford was in town for the red-carpet premiere of his new movie Extraordinary Measures. He also sympathizes with Conan. The pair have met a couple of times because their children attend the same California school.
“I mean, poor guy moved out to Los Angeles to do this show and moved his whole family out there. Put his kids in a new school,” the 67-year-old actor told reporters. “He’s getting the shaft in a way.”
O novo compacto global da GM, o Chevrolet Spark, já está confirmado para o mercado argentino. O modelo está sendo apresentado pela GM daquele país e a própria montadora informou que o modelo começa a ser vendido por lá até 2012.
O mais engraçado é que além dessa informação a GM argentina acabou confirmando indiretamente o que esperávamos ouvir, que o Spark terá sua produção iniciada na planta de Gravataí onde hoje são fabricados os Chevrolet Celta e Prisma. Sim, pois a GM estará investindo R$ 1 bi na planta para a produção de dois novos compactos, um hatch e um sedan, para substituir a atual geração do Celta e Prisma, projeto esse que é chamado de Ônix internamente pela GM do Brasil e que também tem data prevista de lançamento para até 2012 no mercado nacional.
Aqui no Brasil seu principal alvo será o novo Fiat Uno que chega ainda no primeiro semestre desse ano. Os propulsores a equipar os novos compactos da GM serão os atuais 1.0 e 1.4 ambos bicombustíveis.
Fonte: Auto Diário
Angelman syndrome (AS) was first described by Dr. Harry Angelman, who is an English physician. He noticed that there are 3 children under his care with similar developmental problems. They looked very happy and tend to flap their hands when excited. Therefore, Dr. Harry Angelman described these children in his paper called “Puppet Children” as these children’s characteristics just like the puppet.
Angelman Syndrome is now a familiar genetic disorder to most clinical geneticists and child neurologists in Cytogenetics. It is a recognizable syndrome which related to mental retardation and infantile seizures. Unlike Prader-Willi syndrome that I described last week, individual with Angelman syndrome is because the loss of maternally inherited region 15q11 – q13 of chromosome 15. Simple to say, the AS individual does not inherit the region 15q11 – q13 of chromosome 15 from his/her mother but only from father.
The Angelman syndrome clinical diagnosis is heavily dependent on the combination of some common behaviour like excessive laughter, apparent happiness with tremulous movements and gait ataxia (lack of coordination of muscle movement). Usually, the normal prenatal and birth history do not provides any clues in diagnosis of AS in Cytogenetics. CT scans, laboratory tests of blood and urine are usually normal including metabolic screening. Consequently, it is difficult for the clinical experts to encounter the AS especially when the child is less than 12 months of age. It is because the tremulous movements, ataxia and severe lack of speech may not be apparent during that time.
There are many common features of Angelman syndrome.
i. Severe speech deficit (usually absent speech)
ii. Mental retardation
iii. Microcephaly (small head)
iv. Seizures (convulsions in which AS patient’s body shakes rapidly and uncontrollably)
v. Developmental delay
vi. Feeding problems
vii. Hypopigmentation (the loss of skin color)
viii. Frequently drooling
ix. Tend to put objects in mouth
The facial features general physical appearances are generally normal for the individual of Angelman syndrome. As the child with AS growing up, the correct diagnosis may become evident when speech is essentially absent and the attempts at walking are compromised because of sever ataxia. In addition, the seizures will occur more frequently after 1 year of age.
In conclusion, the individual of Angelman syndrome may be hyperexcitable with excessive laughing, grabbing and pulling to engage others. They are just like the ‘Angels’ who always bring happiness to people. Usually, the parents may be the first to suggest the possibility of Angelman syndrome. Thus, earlier detection of this genetic disorder may help the children to overcome the learning problem through the assessment from the clinical experts.
Angelman Syndrome – Angel-like Genetic Disorder is a post from: Cytogenetics and Cancer Research
And they’re out