Mereja

Blog

  • Second RE5: Alternatve Edition scenario revealed

    Capcom has scratched that “TBA” off of the second new episode in Resident Evil 5: Alternative Edition. A recent feature in Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu has confirmed it to be

  • VIDEO: Last Mustang Unleashed short combines magic and Las Vegas strip

    Filed under: , ,

    Steve Wyrick’s Mustang Unleashed stunt — Click above to watch video

    There have been rallies and skateboards and drag races and tattoos, among other things. Now, the tenth and final film of the 2010 pony car festival that is Mustang Unleashed has gone out in smoky style, with a big Las Vegas number filmed on the strip. This time Vaughn Gittin, Jr. plays a support role to Hard Rock’s illusionist Steve Wyrick, who pulls off a little sleight-of-car-and-body that channels Houdini and almost any Nicholas Cage stunt scene that has a car in it.

    Like the best tricks, it isn’t long but will have you wondering how it was done. If you get any ideas, the video warns you not to try this at home – not even driving – without the use of magic. Follow the jump to see it for yourself.

    [Source: Mustang Unleashed]

    Continue reading VIDEO: Last Mustang Unleashed short combines magic and Las Vegas strip

    VIDEO: Last Mustang Unleashed short combines magic and Las Vegas strip originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

    Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • John Rekenthaler: Stocks Are The Only Good Investment For 2010, Everything Else Is A Bubble

    I always did like the Grinch a lot better before those meddling Whoville residents swelled up his heart.

    In tribute to that (ig)noble creature, I offer Bad Investment Ideas for 2010. Unlike all those sappy happy Best Investment Ideas pieces from my fellow Morningstar analysts that congest your inbox and befoul your spirits, this article delivers recommendations that would warm the Grinch’s soul, if he had one. Ideas that, if implemented, would lead to wonderfully empty space under next year’s Christmas trees.

    Opening the Bad Investment Ideas menu are the highly leveraged exchange-traded funds–the funds that carry 100% leverage or greater. When it comes to causing misery, these funds are irreplaceable. Heads you lose, tails you might lose. Who could wish for more? These funds lose pots of money when the market moves against them, and they can also lose money when the market moves with them. Beautiful! Bull fund, bear fund, no matter what the animal fund, if you hold a highly leveraged ETF for a prolonged period, there’s a high probability that you’ll bleed red. The Grinch is giggling.

    The bulk of our meal, however, will not come from bioengineered food, but instead from a distinctly old-fashioned source: hot money. My hunting ground consists of the fund categories that attracted the most new investor assets in 2009. These choices are nowhere near as reliable as the highly leveraged ETFs for faring poorly. Some of these categories will perform well in 2010, perhaps even spectacularly well. But as a general rule, loading up on one year’s most popular fund types is a fine way to shed tears the next year.

    No need to be pedantic; matching up the exact categories is less important than seeing the overall trend. For 2009, the sales trend was quite simple: bond funds were a big yes. A Very Big Yes. Nine of the top 10 selling U.S. mutual fund categories during 2009 have been bond funds, with the lone exception being diversified emerging-markets stocks. At $120 billion in net new cash flow, intermediate-term bond funds alone have gobbled up as much cash as all ETFs and target-date mutual funds–combined.

    Some of these purchases, to be sure, have proven savvy. The bond market produced some extraordinarily awful performances in 2008, with many lower-quality and less-liquid securities ending the year trading at deep discounts and sporting abnormally high yields relative to Treasuries. Those who got in early, and many did, enjoyed a terrific rebound. But that party is largely over.

    And what’s left, I believe, is an unduly large preference for bonds. A decade ago, the everyday investor expected that stocks would return about 15% annually over the long term (there were a host of polls to prove it). Today, that same investor is locking into a bond market that pays 2% per year on Treasuries over the next five years, and 4.5% per annum for the next 30 years. Were investors too cheery about stocks in 1999? You betcha. However, the pendulum has most definitely swung in the other direction.

    So the main course of Bad Investment Ideas for 2010 consists largely of bond funds. Treasuries are a natural. The astute folks at FPA New Income (FPNIX) wrote flatly in September that “Treasury yields” were “devoid of investment merit.” (As bad ideas go, ones that are devoid of merit tend to rate highly.) As part of this analysis, they pointed out that if Treasury yields revert to the normal level that they’ve held over the past half century, then the holders of a 30-year Treasury would be in the red for the next six years. Now, I don’t see 30-year yields hitting 6.3% anytime soon, but the point remains that low yields + a long time horizon = sharp pain from a modest rise in prevailing interest rates. When it comes to bad, pain is good.

    Treasuries are not alone in their potential to cause suffering. In some ways, GNMA mortgages are worse. The Federal Reserve has done a terrific job of boosting Ginnie Mae securities prices through its massive agency mortgage purchase program. So terrific that at times this year, after adjusting for the optionality of mortgages (i.e., mentally adjusting the yield of Ginnies to account for the unfortunate fact that mortgage securities get longer when interest rates rise, and shorten when they decline), Ginnies have sometimes traded at higher prices than Treasuries. Low underlying yields made even lower by an artificial and temporary market stimulus … just the prescription for bad fun.

    Finally, there are five-year TIPS. A while back, these securities got so hot that they boasted a negative real yield, meaning that investors agreed to own them in exchange for getting a yield that was absolutely, positively guaranteed to be less than the inflation rate. Such a deal. Today, real yields have risen to 36 basis points. The particularly rotten aspect of these securities is unlike 20-year TIPS (which are a better deal), these securities won’t be around if and when CPI truly spikes, because whatever inflationary pressures are currently building won’t appear in earnest over the next few years. So holding five-year TIPS is like buying fire insurance for the monsoon season.

    Although bonds have dominated the hot funds list, they’ve been supplemented by two additional sectors. One is diversified emerging-markets funds, the only non-bond category to crack the Top 10 mutual fund sales list in 2009; meanwhile, several emerging-markets categories have made the ETF best sellers’ chart. Of course, U.S. investors are hardly alone in gobbling on the emerging markets. It’s a global phenomenon, fueled by dinky interest rates and greed. Yes, it’s a bubble.

    And when it comes to Bad Investment Ideas, there’s nothing quite like a bubble. The trouble with bubbles as bad ideas, of course, is that they can continue to expand for a long time after being identified. As Mr. Keynes stated, the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent. (Or I.) So emerging-markets stocks are a trifle dangerous as a Bad Idea for 2010. But I sure wouldn’t label them a good idea.

    In the same spirit should be mentioned that other hot sector, gold. Earlier this year, Morningstar created not one, not two, but six–yes, six!–new fund categories to accommodate all the new commodity funds that have been launched. Chief among the commodities, of course, has been gold, that staple of 1 a.m. infomercials. If my father were still alive, he would be buying gold. When investors like him get in, you should get out. (The man remains the only perfect contrarian indicator I have ever known.)

    Speaking of enticements, this investment is so seductively bad that it almost snared me: currency funds. Just last month, I was nosing around the list of short-term currency funds, seeking protection against the declining dollar because I knew that the dollar would continue to fall. Then I realized that what I actually know about the dollar’s future wouldn’t flood a very small thimble. About the dollar, Jim Rogers recently said, “When everybody’s on one side of the boat, it’s time to go to the other side.” Diversification into other currencies is a good idea. Rushing to shed dollars today is a Bad Investment Idea for 2010.

    Finally I must, for once, side with the crowd. Nobody is rushing to buy regional bank sector funds, for the simple if not always useful reason that those funds always seem to be going down. They got whacked in 2008 along with everything else, and then got whacked again in ’09. Predictably, this unrelievedly bad news had me scouting for a bargain. Not this time. If I am to buy into an industry with unrelievedly bad news, including being early in the cycle of writing off ever-worsening commercial mortgages, then I want to do so with prices at rock bottom. Yet many of these banks sell at a substantial premium to book value and with price/earnings ratios in the teens. So count me in the majority on this item, and count regional bank stocks as my concluding Bad Idea.

    Here’s a truly Grinchlike idea: cut and paste this column, replace all the uses of “bad” with the word “good,” and send along to a mortal enemy, along with your best wishes for 2010. But please leave my name off that effort, OK? Even those of us with itty-bitty hearts have some pride.

    John Rekenthaler is Vice President of Research for Morningstar.

    Join the conversation about this story »

    See Also:

  • Does Google Need Permission From Philip K. Dick’s Estate For The Nexus One?

    There’s been plenty of buzz over the past few days about Google’s alleged plans to offer a phone of its own design (built by HTC, potentially sold both directly and by T-Mobile, if not others), which has been dubbed the “Nexus One.” I didn’t write anything about it, because there didn’t seem much to write about at this point. I’m always happy to see more competition in the market, though, and if the phone is really good, that’s obviously a good thing. But one thing did catch my eye. The NY Times is noting that the name “Nexus One” appears to be a play on how Philip K. Dick named the replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was subsequently turned into the still popular movie Blade Runner. In both stories, the replicants are “Nexus-6” devices, being the sixth generation of that type of robots. It’s a fun little homage by Google and an obvious play on the fact that its operating system is called Android.

    And yet… the estate of Philip K. Dick is not pleased. The article notes (surprisingly) that Motorola paid George Lucas for the rights to use “Droid” for its Android phone, but no one spoke to the Dick estate, who now claim they are “shocked and dismayed.” Really? Shocked? Isa Dick Hackett, Philip’s daughter is claiming:


    “We were never consulted, no requests were made, and we didn’t grant any sort of permissions.”

    Perhaps that’s because Google doesn’t need permission from you to do such a thing. Of course, since Google hasn’t made any official announcement on this, there’s still a good chance they could change the name, just to avoid having to deal with an angry and misguided family member who doesn’t like the idea of anyone paying tribute to her father without first paying up. You have to imagine there must be some other science fiction author out there who would be thrilled to have Google promoting his or her work, rather than whining about getting permission (i.e., “payment”) for the use of a name.

    Permalink | Comments | Email This Story





  • Bisphosphonates Such As Fosamax And Femur Fractures: Some Recent 2009 Medical Journal Articles

    Atypical Low-Energy Femoral Fractures Associated With Long-Term Use Of Fosamax And Other Bisphosphonates

    (Posted by Tom Lamb at DrugInjuryWatch.com)

    The Journal Watch General Medicine (JW Gen Med) published December 15, 2009 included an article, “Atypical Fractures in Long-Term Bisphosphonate Users” (subscription required), by Allan S. Brett, MD.

    In this brief article, Dr. Brett reviewed the following two recent medical journal articles about Fosamax (alendronate) or other bisphosphonates and femur fractures, also known as femoral fractures:

    “Bilateral low-energy simultaneous or sequential femoral fractures in patients on long-term alendronate therapy” (J Bone Joint Surg Am 2009 Nov; 91:2556); and,

    “Association of low-energy femoral fractures with prolonged bisphosphonate use: A case control study” (Osteoporos Int 2009 Aug; 20:1353)

    As regards those two medical articles, here is what Dr. Brett observed:

    Comment: These reports, and several others (e.g., JW Gen Med Apr 5 2005), suggest that a small subgroup of women could be susceptible to atypical femoral fractures after prolonged bisphosphonate use; suppression of bone turnover and accumulation of microdamage is a postulated mechanism. Prospective studies are needed to prove a causal relation; if causality is demonstrated, we’ll need to determine whether the incidence of this complication is appreciable and whether at-risk patients can be identified.

    Following my review of those two medical articles about low-energy femoral fractures in patients using bisphosphonates such as Fosamax, I collected several other recent articles from various medical journals, which are listed below:

    “Bisphosphonate-associated femoral fracture: implications for management in patients with malignancies” (J Bone Joint Surg Am 2009 Nov 91:2556);

    “Low-energy femoral fractures associated with the long-term use of bisphosphonates: a case series from a Swiss university hospital” (Drug Saf. 2009;32(9):775-85);

    “Subtrochanteric and diaphyseal femur fractures in patients treated with alendronate: a register-based national cohort study” (J Bone Miner Res. 2009 Jun;24(6):1095-102);

    “Atraumatic bilateral femur fracture in long-term bisphosphonate use” (Orthopedics. 2009 Aug;32(8)); and,

    “Bilateral low-energy simultaneous or sequential femoral fractures in patients on long-term alendronate therapy” (J Bone Joint Surg Am. 2009 Nov;91(11):2556-61).

    Moving from the medical realm to the legal arena, there have been product liability lawsuits filed on behalf on people who have suffered femur fractures during or following their use of Fosamax and other bisphosphonates.

    We will continue to watch and periodically report about this emerging drug injury topic.

    ______________________________________________________________________________

    DrugInjuryLaw.com: Legal Information And News About Prescription Drug Side Effects






















  • ANDERSON’s NOTEBOOK: Copenhagen Stormed by the States, Provinces, Cities, and Regions

    Fred Anderson is providing an inside look at COP-15 in Copenhagen to The Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) World Climate Change Report. 

    Today, Anderson’s Notebook (12/16/09), titled Copenhagen Stormed by the States, Provinces, Cities, and Regions, discusses how state, provincial, municipal, county, and regional governments are taking the lead to meet climate challenges. 

    To read the full entry, please click here.

  • How To: Cook And Clean Dungeness Crab

    It’s Dungeness crab season in California! I’ve been buying these yummy critters for $2.99 per pound at Sun Fat Seafood. Great prices on cheap crab are being found all over San Francisco at places like Manila Oriental Market, Chinatown, and Clement Street. If you’ve felt intimidated about cooking and cleaning your own Dungeness, don’t. I’ll talk you through it here.

    Read Full Post


  • CIBC Analyst Rubin: OPEC Doesn’t Have Enough Oil To Feed Us Anymore

    opec tbi

    Jeff Rubin, the former chief economist for CIBC World Markets, has an insightful piece on why the U.S. can’t rely on OPEC: Its member states that are guzzling down their own oil.

    TheGlobeAndMail.com: OPEC, together with two non-cartel oil producers, Russia and Mexico, consumes 14.5 million barrels of oil per day. That’s nearly twice as much as China, in case anybody is keeping track. Oil demand among OPEC members has been growing at well over double the world average. And the more these countries consume their own oil, the less they have to export to you.

    Continue reading here.

    Join the conversation about this story »

    See Also:

  • And the Best of the Decade Award for Pretty Much Everything Goes to…

    You know how Michael Jackson won so many awards in his lifetime that they had to start inventing new ones to justify dragging him onstage? Entertainer of the Universe and Best Selling Artist in the New Galactic Empire spring to mind. Hey, that’s the price of über-success.

    Apple’s getting a taste of that very same medicine now, as it is named recipient of a boatload of “Best…” titles in AdweekMedia’s “Best of the 2000s” Awards. Described by AdweekMedia as “Our picks, and yours, for the decade’s best in the marketing, media and agency world” the awards include yawn-inducing categories such as “Agency executives of the Decade” and “Small Agency of the Decade” but thankfully all the best stuff is hugely more accessible — and interesting — to non-marketing-types (which, thankfully, describes most of us).

    Here’s the opening paragraph from AdweekMedia’s dedicated awards website:

    Steve Jobs and the iPod reinvented the music business. Sergey Brin and Larry Page tamed the Web. Ad shop Goodby, Silverstein & Partners rewrote the creativity book. And this thing called social media put amateurs in charge of just about everything else.

    They definitely start as they mean to go on, since Apple, its products, campaigns and personalities bag a good number of the awards. AdweekMedia say they spent a month working out a list of “…the best and brightest in the branding, marketing, media and agency world in 33 categories over the past 10 years.” I’m glad to see they’re mindful of the criticisms leveled at industry awards that never seek the opinions of the actual, product-buying public; “As a reality check, we sought your input here on this site over the past month.”  They add, “Those results are presented here, next to our selections. Much of the time, we agree. Other times it’s not even close.”

    Here’s the breakdown of the awards (images from the AdweekMedia awards website).

    Marketer of the Decade – Steve Jobs

    Good old Steve. Last month Fortune named him CEO of the Decade, and he’s a finalist for TIME’s Person of the Year 2009. Another award can’t hurt, right? Here’s a brief excerpt from AdWeekMedia’s positively glowing review of El Jobso:

    Visionary, iconoclastic and fearless, Steve Jobs the marketer is inseparable from Steve Jobs the personality. His inimitable blend of competitive skill and design savvy hasn’t just saved a fading brand, it’s recast two businesses that used to have nothing to do with computers: music and mobile phones. Over the past decade, Apple’s iPod and iPhone have redefined popular culture, and returned the company to its roots in innovation and just-plain coolness.

    Campaign of the Decade – Apple, “Get a Mac”

    The genius is in the casting. For Apple, the campaign managed the neat trick of making the brand look laid back and cool while it mercilessly skewered its rival.

    Out-of-Home Ad of the Decade – Apple, “Silhouettes”

    You’d have thought Andy Warhol did them—and why not? In the end, the work was nearly as iconic. The treatment […] achieved what in branding is the nearly impossible: defining a product without showing what it even looked like up close.

    Brand of the Decade – Apple

    Though the brand almost petered out in the ’90s, last year consumers told Interbrand that Apple was the thing they couldn’t live without and the one they found most inspiring.

    There wasn’t always consensus between AdweekMedia’s nominations and the opinions of their readers. The Marketing Innovation of the Decade award was won by “Viral Videos” while their Reader’s Choice had it go to Apple for “iPhone Apps.” The Reader’s Choice award for Digital Device/Platform of the Decade was the iPhone, while AdweekMedia preferred to give it to Facebook, instead.

    In a nice twist where, again, readers didn’t agree with AdWeekMedia’s choice, at least they were in disagreement over which Apple product to laud; both the iPod and the iPhone won Product of the Decade, depending on your point of view. And while the readers voted Steve Jobs Media Executive of the Decade, it went instead to Rupert “Google is Stealing My Stuff” Murdoch. Other big names receiving awards include Google, television show The Sopranos, the Disney Channel and WIRED magazine.

    Despite the disagreements (there are many more instances in which Apple and Apple products feature prominently in the reader’s votes, check out the awards website to view the numbers) it’s still inspiring to see Apple take so many of the top awards. Of particular note is the Brand of the Decade award; coming from a company of professional advertisers and marketers, it’s obvious how much respect and admiration the world of marketing has for Mr Jobs’ company. Remarkable, too, given how much trouble that company was in last decade.

    I recommend taking the time to view the awards website and read the full descriptions for each winner; you’ll get an insight into a world we otherwise try very hard to avoid (after all, who likes Marketing?) but be warned — it’s often a polarizing experience! And when you’re done, come back and tell us whether you agree with the choice in winners.

  • Tiger Woods, Scandal, & a Game Very Loosely Related to the Automotive Industry

    3545255950

    When news of Tiger Woods’ accident first broke what seems like eons ago, every automotive blog desperate to cash in on what was destined to remain in Google Trends for weeks to come threw up a post about Tiger’s ill-fated Escalade. RideLust, of course, refrained.

    Today, however, we’ve opted to take the road more heavily traveled thanks to a game forwarded to us by a certain staff member’s father. Introduced by Break.com, “Tiger Hunting” is a relatively simple game whose primary focus is successfully avoiding various obstacles while fleeing an enraged Elin Nordegren.

    It sounds almost too basic to be enjoyable, but it’s addicting. Of course, at the risk of sounding like Lavar Burton à la Reading Rainbow, don’t take our word for it – hit the link to do a little “Tiger Hunting” of your own.

    Source: a dad with way too much time on his hands via Break.com


  • Eye Bleeding Again. Discouraged.

    As many of you know, I had a fairly major retinal hemorrhage in May at the end of my pregnancy.

    If you already know "my retinopathy story" you can skip this paragraph:
    I’ve had proliferative retinopathy for a number of years but it was stable prior to the pregnancy – the pregnancy kicked it into high gear again in one eye and the pregnancy-related hypertension contributed to the hemorrhage. I had great bloodsugars during the pregnancy, so it was just "one of those things". It’s not bad enough for a vitrectomy (ophtho isn’t concerned about permanent damage at this point and I can still see reasonably well b/c most of the blood is in the periphery and only one eye), and I had a bunch of laser treatments shortly before the bleed (ophtho doesn’t feel it is necessary to do more at this point, nor can he see well to do more b/c of the blood in the vitreous), so it’s kind of a really ****ty waiting game.

    So, big bleed in May. Started clearing up FINALLY in late summer. Then another small bleed. It was still messy in there, but slowly….SLOOOOOWLY…..clearing up, and then yesterday I started to have more bleeding again! UGH! This time it was in the periphery at the bottom of my eye, so again it’s not really impeding much of my vision, but it’s SO discouraging! I really expected to have most of it gone by Christmas, but now there’s no way that’ll be the case. I’ll be lucky if it’s all cleared by my daughter’s birthday in May! Heck, I’ll be lucky if it stops BLEEDING by then!

    My bloodsugars are good, my blood pressure is GREAT…I’m doing the right things, but it’s still dribbling like a leaky faucet. I’m SICK OF IT!

    This whole eye-thing is going to be the deciding factor in the question of whether or not we have another baby (in a couple of years). We really want another one, but the more this continues, the more scary the thought of that becomes. My daughter is definitely worth this – 1000 times over – but deciding to do it again could be another story. I just don’t know….

    Sorry to be so negative. I’m not looking for advice or second opionions to that of my ophtho. Given all the information in the picture (not all of which is in this post), I’m very comfortable with the decisions my ophtho and I have made for the time being. I just needed to unload in a place where I know there are others who have been there.

  • Confirmed: Mega Man 10 also coming to PS3 and Xbox 360

    A lot of rumored info (qjnet/wii/mega-man-10-rumors-third-character-two-player-gameplay-ps3-xbox-360-release.html) on Mega Man 10 hit the interwebs last week, one of them being the likelihood of the game to hit the PS3 and Xbox 360, apart from

  • Scott Billeadeau: IMAX Is A Top Pick In The Small-Cap IT Sector

     

    Scott Billeadeau, Managing Director, Fifth Third Asset Management

    • Current weightings on the small-cap side
    • Technology, healthcare, and consumer discretionary make up 2/3 of small-cap portfolio
    • IMAX a favorite in the IT sector
    • What is the small-cap growth strategy?
    • Repositioning the portfolio for 2010
    • Accessibility to management of small-cap names

    Produced By: Kamelia Angelova & William Wei

    More Video: TBI Calendar Click HERE >

    Join the conversation about this story »

  • Only the best will do

    You have to be able to count on your systems 100%! Under no circumstances is a connector allowed to be responsible for a system’s malfunction. And this is why you should make no compromises here when it comes to the functionality, quality and contact stability.

    Various contact technologies are available on the market, such as hyperbolic, lamella, coil spring, etc. All of these systems can transfer current and voltage, but the springwire contact technology from ODU in Mühldorf, Germany offers the greatest contact stability. A multitude of individually cushioning contact springs ensure constant power transmission, even under difficult conditions such as vibrations. Even at a contact diameter of 0.76 mm, 16 individual contact springs are built in, meaning 16 contact points for the power transmission.

    The most important data at a glance
    – Proven technology, with more than 60 years of experience
    – Far more than 100,000 mating cycles, long product service life
    – High current-carrying capacity up to 2,000 A
    – Lowest contact resistances
    – Large number of independently cushioning contact springs,
    e.g., 40 pieces with Ø 5
    – Low insertion and withdrawal forces
    – Extremely certain contacting
    – Constant power transmission, even under difficult
    conditions such as vibrations or temperature fluctuations
    – Simple fabrication– screw or crimp connection
    – Both round and flat versions are available as “single contacts”

    Contact stability is important no matter what the branch, and so ODU’s springwire contacts are used in all markets of the future, such as medical technology, renewable energies, industrial electronics, automation, etc.

  • Howard Dean: You May Want To Buy Health Insurance Stocks If This Thing Passes

    howard dean

    Wow!

    Howard Dean, who knows a thing or two about medicine, and has long been an advocate for reform, just said on CNBC that “you may want to buy health insurance stocks if this thing passes.”

    Basically, “reform” has turned into a big ol’ gravy train for private industry (not surprisingly, but surprising for a politician, even an ex-politician, to be so blunt).

    Video when we get it.

    Join the conversation about this story »

    See Also:

  • Geneva Preview: Rinspeed to unveil the UC? electric city car

    Filed under: , , ,

    Rinspeed UC? – click above for high-res image gallery

    When we get to Geneva next March, eccentric Swiss design house Rinspeed will be showing off a design for a new electric commuter vehicle called the “UC?” The design of the car itself doesn’t appear to be particularly novel with styling that looks like a cross between the Smart ForTwo and Fiat 500 (not to mention the Aston Martin Cygnet from earlier today).

    However, Rinspeed is proposing an interesting approach to extending the range of the EV. Because the UC? is only 2.5 meters long, it could theoretically take advantage of the same kind of perpendicular parking that many Smart drivers use. With that in mind, Rinspeed is proposing that railroads build special train cars that would allow the UC? to be driven straight on and off for travel between cities where the 75 mile nominal plug range would make travel impractical. Since most European trains are electric, it’s even conceivable that drivers could plug in their UC? models during the train trip. Rinspeed hopes to offer up the UC? to outside manufacturers who may want to build it.

    Gallery: Rinspeed UC?

    [Source: Rinspeed]

    Continue reading Geneva Preview: Rinspeed to unveil the UC? electric city car

    Geneva Preview: Rinspeed to unveil the UC? electric city car originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

    Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • Control in its wider sense

    A lot of companies seek to control employees. They have handbooks and policies. They monitor emails. They make rules about what’s allowed and what’s forbidden.

    But “control” is a tricky thing. The tighter the reins, the more you create an environment of distrust. An us vs. them mentality takes hold. And that’s when people start trying to game the system.

    That’s why workplace managers who seek “control” might want to consider the advice Shunryu Suzuki gives in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:

    The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in its wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.

    Imagine an employee handbook that just said: “We trust you. Be mischievous.”

  • Windows Mobile Call Block from SynergeTech Solutions

    Found under: Windows Mobile, Software,

    As the developers from SynergeTech Solutions claim the Windows Mobile Call Block is a simple application with just one purpose blocking unwanted calls The application is very easy to use. At any time you can edit the list of blocked numbers the blacklist. If any of the numbers on that blacklist try to call your phone they are blocked. But unlike other call blocking software available Windows Mobile Call Block does not just it ignore the call it hangs up on the call. This prevents the ca

    Read More

    Read more in mobile format

  • Google Suggest Gets Even Smarter

    Google’s suggestion box, aptly named Suggest, is a great tool, one that has been quickly adopted by other search engines and even browsers. It analyzes the typed query in real time and suggests similar ones before you’re done typing. Now, it’s gotten even smarter, it detects when you’re modifying an existing search term and adjusts the suggestion accordingly, as Google Operating System points out.

    For example, start typing “google chrome” and the feature suggests things like “google chrome os” or “google chrome mac,” to be expected considering the upcoming operating system and the recent mac beta launch of the browser. Go back and add a “b” in front of chrome and the suggestions immediately change to things like “google bookmarks chrome” or “google beta chrome.”

    It doesn’t matter if the letter is right next to another word, Google detects the change and starts to match queries to the one being typed. The position of the new word is also irrelevant, it works wherever it’s placed.

    In itself it may not look like much of a new feature, but it’s a big step forward for the tool and for the overall search experience. Refining a search is something we do very, very often, especially since we get to see in the suggestion box if our query is likely to wield the wanted results, w… (read more)

  • Making Colorful Sushi with Rham Fenton of Ramasushi Expert Tutorial

    Continuing the Kitchn’s recent series of sushi posts, we spent some time in the kitchen with Rham Fenton, a very skilled, albeit unconventional sushi expert who gave us some techniques and inspiration for at-home sushi making.

    Read Full Post