lots of pictures of shelves full of stuff See the full gallery on Posterous via posterousThanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogPictures of stuff on shelvesRelated posts:The Forbidden City, Beijing ChinaPictures of new species discovered in New GuineaDivshare – Free file hosting for mp3s and blog pictures
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Pictures of stuff on shelves
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/06/20/pictures-of-stuff-on-shelves
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June 20 2011, 9:48am | Comments »
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The London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporate
Sponsors to the fore in torch relay but who will light the flame in the London 2012 Olympic stadium?This article titled “The London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporate” was written by Owen Gibson, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 19th May 2011 09.58 UTCAs Seb Coe stood up to speak about the inspirational effect of the flame that will a year from now be passing through the cities, towns and villages of Britain having been “lit by the power of the sun on Mount Olympus”, three other figures looked on intently.They sat alongside him as he went on to talk about the galvanising effect he expected the tour to have on communities as the Olympic spirit coursed through them and they hosted their own celebratory events in the early summer gloaming.And they listened intently as Coe spoke affectingly about a husband and wife team who sold their house so the community gym they run in south-east London could survive – his nomination for one of the 7,200 out of 8,000 torchbearer slots reserved for members of the public.The three onlookers, who then got to take their turn to speak, were representatives of the three “presenting partners” – Samsung, Coca-Cola and Lloyds TSB – who get to plaster their branding over the torch relay. The man from Coca-Cola alone promised to bring “happiness and celebration” to the route.It is they (along with local authorities along the way) who effectively pay for the hoopla that will surround the torch relay that organisers hope will be the moment that the nation drops any lingering cynicism and truly embraces the Games.It was the most obvious manifestation in London to date of the sometimes uneasy, but ultimately profitable, mix of heady Olympic ideals and hard-nosed commercialism that has turned the modern Games into the globe-straddling event that it is.The genius of the International Olympic Committee’s commercial growth since the Los Angeles Games of 1984 has been to rake in huge sums from sponsors while enforcing very strict rules on how they can use the rights.As one of the very few events that the IOC allows them to overtly brand, the torch relay is where that symbiotic relationship – the organising committee Locog needs the sponsors to contribute £700m towards its £2bn budget, the sponsors want to extract every last drop of value out of their huge investment – becomes clearest.So it was that Coe began his press conference invoking the loftiest of Olympic ideals and ended it defending the involvement of Coke and answering questions on how many fizzy drinks his children guzzled.In common with their wider activity to date surrounding the London Games – which has tended to focus on warm and fuzzy corporate social responsibility activity rather than overt branding – all three sponsors have bought into the idea of using the relay as a means to run campaigns offering worthy members of the public the opportunity to claim their own slice of Olympic history and run a few hundred yards with the torch.A Locog team has spent two years painstakingly researching the 8,000-mile route and negotiating with local authorities. They hope that when the relay hits town, backed by wall-to-wall coverage from local media who will concentrate on the rich back stories of those running and the celebratory event that will take place every night (something between a Radio 1 roadshow and a county fair sponsored by multinationals, by the sound of things) Olympic fever will take hold up and down the country.Whether they succeed will depend to a large extent on those sponsors. If they get it right, Locog, the brands and the public will benefit. Get it wrong, and it could dent public enthusiasm.Sally Hancock, head of 2012 at Lloyds TSB, argued at the launch that in many ways the Olympics couldn’t have come at a better time for her company. Struggling to repair public trust and negotiating the internal challenge of merging two huge banks, the opportunity to create a feelgood factor around an event that is at once local and national in scale could be a huge one.But if the public is turned off and fails to buy into the concept – Locog has promised half the runners will be between 12 and 24 and 90% will be ordinary members of the public, to be nominated through four separate campaigns by the organisers and the sponsors– then it will feel like a long 8,000 miles.Locog will also have to get the balance right between safety and celebration. The defining public image of the Beijing international torch tour, which caused the IOC to turn it into a domestic event confined to the host country, was of a scrum of security guards bludgeoning their way through human rights protesters as bussed-in supporters of the Chinese government looked on.The UK’s experience will be becalmed by comparison. But Coe – who has often described Britain as a “slow-burn nation” that will take time to reach fever pitch over the Olympics – knows more than anyone how crucial it is that the relay is the moment at which the flame ignites that enthusiasm.And by the time the torch reaches the Olympic stadium, the eyes of the world will be on it. Which raises three obvious questions: Who will light the cauldron? How? And where will it be (there is still debate within Locog about whether it should be in the stadium, on top of it or on some sort of structure nearby)?The most memorable final torchbearers – Muhammad Ali in Atlanta, Cathy Freeman in Sydney – have held resonance beyond merely their status as sporting heroes in their home country. And the more spectacular the method of lighting the cauldron (the archer in Barcelona, the flying Beijing gymnast), the greater the risk of global humiliation.The task for Danny Boyle, the Trainspotting director already planning the opening ceremony in an east London warehouse, will be to come up with something to top what has gone before. Bookmakers immediately installed Sir Steve Redgrave as favourite, but will the emphasis on youth that characterised the bid promises lead organisers to a younger face? Coe, who might have been a leading contender were he not already so intimately involved with the staging of the Games, has already ruled himself out. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogThe London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporateRelated posts:London Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame routeLondon 2012 Olympics countdown clock stopsLondon 2012: Ten best of the web
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May 19 2011, 5:24am | Comments »
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Never has London’s atmosphere as a rich city-state felt so extreme
Geographically, never mind socially, we are not all in this together. Life in London feels different to anywhere outside. By London, though, we are only talking about a small area of central, west and north london. Out in the banlieu, you might as well be in Bradford.
This article titled “Never has London’s atmosphere as a rich city-state felt so extreme” was written by Ian Jack, for The Guardian on Saturday 16th April 2011 07.30 UTC In Bradford on a winter’s night 25 years ago, I stood in front of an estate agent’s window and made a calculation. For the price of our terrace house in north London – two up and two down and a bit of garden at the back – I could buy 10 similar houses in Bradford. This month I read that Burnley has the lowest property prices in England, and made another calculation. For the price of our London house I could buy 40 houses in Burnley that were averagely cheap and 80 of the very cheapest. This doesn’t mean that the differential in house prices between London and northern England has grown by more than 400% since 1986. I live in a bigger house now, and Burnley isn’t Bradford. But the gap is certainly widening: according to Halifax figures, houses in Newcastle-on-Tyne cost on average 28.8% less than they did in 2007, while in Islington they’ve risen 9.7% in the past year after changing very little – up or down – in the previous two. I look at pictures of the cheap houses in Burnley. They’re Victorian terraces. Their doors open straight on to the street, but they look solidly built from Pennine stone, no frills, but handsome. I imagine workers came home to them from cotton mills. Our house is certainly more imposing, three floors rather than two, with bow windows and ornamental red brick. But it has shallow foundations in London clay, so whether it’s sturdier is doubtful. I imagine someone who earned money in a suit, a senior clerk or a shopkeeper, first moved in when the terrace was completed in 1890. Without substantial inherited wealth, not even two-income families in the modern equivalent of those jobs could move in now. Newspapers sometimes write that the coalition cabinet contains “18 millionaires” as though it were a peculiar outrage, but everybody who’s paid off their mortgage in my street is a millionaire, if property is counted among their assets. And I stress that this is an ordinary street; until 30 or 40 years ago, a schoolteacher or a Fleet Street sub-editor could have afforded a house here. What explains my good fortune? To some extent many of my generation share it, especially if they worked in a trade or profession that blossomed in the 1980s (better, on the whole, to have been a national-newspaper journalist than a mechanical engineer). Most people I know have grander homes than their parents, no matter where they live in the United Kingdom. If they live in favoured parts of cities such as Edinburgh and Leeds, their homes are often enviable for their architecture and space. Only the very grandest of them, however, could be swapped for 40 cheap houses in Burnley. Above every other consideration – career, age – the combination of judgement and happenstance that made me a London house-owner is what explains my relative wealth. To a certain degree, this is an old story, and common to every metropolis. Moving to London four decades ago, I discovered one-bedroom flats were double the price of those I’d left behind in Glasgow. But then the 1980s arrived and the British economy’s centre of gravity shifted sharply (and to date, permanently) south. Between 1979 and 1986, jobs in manufacturing industry declined by almost two million; 94% of jobs lost in every sector in those years were north of a line drawn between the Wash and the Bristol Channel. The traditional idea of Britain – one taught in school geography books – was a country that made its money in the midlands and the north (including Scotland, and not forgetting Wales) and spent the profits mainly in the south. But now both the generation and consumption of wealth grew concentrated in the same place, and the north-south divide suddenly marked something more fundamental than dialects and traditions. It was during this time, soon after the miners’ strike, that I stood with a notebook in a Bradford street and worked out the house price ratio. I wondered then if it could last. It didn’t seem possible that it could get worse – and for several years around the turn of the century it didn’t. Public spending financed by European grants and taxes raised in the City of London secured for many northern towns at least the suggestion of a viable future, if viability is measured in warehouse conversions, art galleries, warm cappuccino and rising property costs. The crash has since jeopardised all these simulacra of metropolitan living. The odd thing – the unfair thing, considering where the crash originated – is that the metropolis itself is immune. Geographically, never mind socially, we are not all in this together. Life in London now feels different to anywhere outside, as though you leave through city gates at turn-offs on the M25. Never has its atmosphere as a rich city-state felt so extreme. “Revenues have bounced back and we are again seeing strong sales growth. The outlook for the UK as a whole may be gloomy but I think the long-term prospects for London, especially with the Olympics, are very good.” These are the words of Des Gunewardena, who runs a chain of expensive restaurants (Le Pont de la Tour, Quaglino’s) and I read them last week in the Evening Standard, underneath the headline, “Surge in dining out feeds a flurry of restaurant launches”, next to a picture of Sienna Miller arriving at Sheekey’s. Each in the list of a dozen new restaurants still to open has the name of a chef attached. One of those already opened, the Pollen Street Social in Mayfair, took 5,000 calls looking for reservations in its first day. Beyond the hope that manufacturing industry can rebalance the economy, and the faraway prospect of a high-speed rail line to Birmingham, no government strategy exists to spread this wealth further north. The political tone is southern – look at the party leaders, or many of the Labour candidates parachuted to northern seats. It has been left to the BBC to do a little social engineering by – bravely or foolishly – relocating departments to Salford, Cardiff and Glasgow, so that half of its output will be produced outside London by 2016. Will better programmes result? Very few BBC staff seem to think so; on the evidence of BBC2′s Review Show, now made in Glasgow, extra expense in travel and hotel costs looks the likeliest difference. But three formerly great industrial cities will have BBC budgets and salaries added to their troubled economies; there will be job opportunities; the middle class in each place should grow a little larger. The staff who refuse to go are easily mocked. Haven’t they heard about the better quality of life, the Lowry, the easily accessed countryside, the “creative buzz” that’s now reported along the banks of the Clyde and the Manchester ship canal? Their reluctance to move is usually expressed in personal and professional terms: of not wanting to interrupt their children’s education, or being too far away from their show’s guests. But perhaps among their worries there’s something less easy to define; that by quitting London they’re removing themselves from its cultural, political and economic heft, which has grown so remorselessly and, whether or not BBC Breakfast gets done in Salford, will carry on regardless. The country’s centrifuge: both awful and interesting.
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Related posts:Compensation is only for the rich To us, it’s an obscure shift of tax law. To the City, it’s the heist of the century Arc Royal to extend London City Airport
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April 16 2011, 11:21am | Comments »
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Talk About Local Unconference 2011 gets under way in Cardiff
Tweets and news from the first Talk About Local unconference to take place in Cardiff, Wales – looking at issues around local publishing 2011
This article titled “Talk About Local Unconference 2011 gets under way in Cardiff” was written by Hannah Waldram, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 2nd April 2011 13.53 UTC Community publishers met in Cardiff today to talk about issues surrounding promoting your local area online. The first Talk About Local Unconference to take place in Wales, roughly 80 people met at the Atrium in Adamsdown for a day of tea, coffee, tweeting and sessions on all issues which affect local bloggers. Sessions, organised ad hoc in an ‘unconference’ style, looked at hyperlocal bloggers and councils, elections, law, issues around content, making money and supporting each other in a community were all discussed throughout the day. Attendees included Twitterers, bloggers, web publishers, photographers and anyone with an interest in producing content online about a place important to them – travelling from Edinburgh, Leeds, Isle of Wight, London and across the UK. Session topics were pitched and then posted onto a day schedule to run throughout the day. Networking and chatting among hyperlocal publishers will continue into the evening at Gwdihw Cafe Bar. The event was supported by Guardian Local and Rightmove. We’ve been tweeting from the event today along with others on Twitter using the hashtag #TAL11. Scroll down this Storify to follow tweets from the beginning of the day. Also see this live blog from Talk About Local here. If you went to the unconference or have any comments about it – feel free to leave them in the comment box below.
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Related posts:Talk About Local Unconference to take place in Cardiff Pub of the year award goes to a London local for first time Why would councils want to exclude bloggers and tweeters?
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April 2 2011, 3:00pm | Comments »
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London walks podcast: Poetry and literature in Kensington Gardens
Sarah Crown strolls through Kensington Gardens, the Serpentine and the ponds, an enduring source of inspiration for authors and poets
This article titled “London walks podcast: Poetry and literature in Kensington Gardens” was written by Presented by Sarah Crown, produced by Francesca Panetta and Lucy Greenwell, with field recordings by Pascal Wyse, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 23rd February 2011 12.08 UTC London’s parks have been a source of escape and inspiration for centuries. Kensington Gardens has seen the likes of JM Barrie, Matthew Arnold and Ezra Pound scribbling lines in pads of paper as they sit on the park’s black benches. Sarah Crown explores the city sanctuary with Nick Lane, the park’s education and community engagement officer. They set off from the ornate Italian Gardens where the fountains play their own sort of music. To test the old adage, “inspiration doesn’t come by appointment”, poet, and Costa Book of the Year winner Jo Shapcott takes a parallel journey on her own through the gardens – with notebook in hand – to get her creative juices flowing. Sarah and Nick meander along the Serpentine towards the statue of Peter Pan, worn down over the decades by the hands of little children. JM Barrie erected the statue in the dead of night as a surprise for the park’s young visitors, to remind them that Peter Pan was dreamt up here, under the bows of the huge plane trees. Author William Boyd values the escape that London’s parks offer and explains why parks are so important to urban writers like him. Ever since he was a child, and especially after his wife died, poet Dannie Abse has sought sanctuary in London’s parks, and reads a poem that reminds him of his own park life. The bridge over the Serpentine is a good spot to survey the Lido, where the Serpentine Swimming Club members plunge into the waters every morning of the year, even if they have to bash through the ice first. Sarah stops by the Serpentine Gallery and then onto the Round Pond, where Paul Cavel, circle-walking meditation expert, takes us round and round the pond as a means of calming our minds, and healing our bodies. They finish in the shadow of Kensington Palace, where you can stop for a cup of tea in the Orangery. You can enjoy this documentary at home by listening here or you can download it on to your phone or mp3 player and take it out as a walking tour. Click here to download. And there is a map to go with the audio too.
Many thanks to: Nick Lane, education and community engagement officer for the park William Boyd Dannie Abse Jo Shapcott The Serpentine Swimming Club The Serpentine Gallery Paul Cavel of Circle Walking
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Related posts:Flightless Birds at Kew Gardens Elche Palm Gardens with Surprising Water Feature Sculpture First Draft – methodology/ethics/literature
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March 25 2011, 2:01pm | Comments »
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Libya rebels on the defensive as Gaddafi forces enter Benghazi
Intense fighting continues as Gaddafi forces enter the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. One jet, believed to be the rebels’ only plane, is shot down. International leaders meet in Paris to discuss action against Gaddafi in Libya.
This article titled “Libya rebels on the defensive as Gaddafi forces enter Benghazi” was written by Chris McGreal in Benghazi and Matt Wells, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 19th March 2011 13.08 UTC Forces loyal to the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have penetrated the rebel stronghold of Benghazi, apparently shooting down the revolutionaries’ only jet fighter and capturing parts of the city. Intense but sporadic fighting has taken place in the south-west of Benghazi, in defiance of international demands for an immediate ceasefire and forcing rebels to mount a fierce defence. It was not immediately clear whether the downed jet belonged to Gaddafi or rebel fighters, but rebels later conceded it was their only plane. Talks on implementing the UN-sanctioned no-fly zone have started in Paris, attended by US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the British and French prime ministers, Arab leaders and ambassadors from the 28 Nato states. Benghazi residents were angry at the delay. “Europe and America have sold us out. We have been hearing bombing all night and they have been doing nothing. Why? We have no one to help us but God,” Hassan Marouf, 58, told Reuters, standing outside the door of his house. “Us men are not afraid to die, but I have women and children inside and they are crying and in tears. Help us.” Diplomats say military action is unlikely until after the Paris meeting. A French government source told Reuters: “Everything is ready but the decision is now a political one. It’s clear we have to move quickly.” Fighting continued in Benghazi and Misrata, despite a promise of a ceasefire on Friday by the Libyan foreign minister, Moussa Koussa. That statement has not been broadcast on Libyan state TV, suggesting it was intended only for an international audience. Rebels told the Guardian that Gaddafi’s forces had entered the south-west of Benghazi, where a large, well-armed contingent was holding them back. The rebels later claimed to have repelled the Gaddafi forces, saying they had captured tanks and prisoners. Earlier on Saturday, a jet fighter was seen in the air, circling Benghazi. Suddenly it went into a spin, erupted in a ball of fire, and plunged to the ground in the west of the city. The rebels concede it was their only plane, a Russian-made fighter-bomber. Rebel leaders called for the west to act quickly. Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, head of the rebel council, told al-Jazeera: “Now there is a bombardment by artillery and rockets on all districts of Benghazi. There will be a catastrophe if the international community does not implement the resolutions of the UN security council. “We appeal to the international community, to the all the free world, to stop this tyranny from exterminating civilians.” Gaddafi said western powers had no right to intervene in Libya. Mussa Ibrahim, a government spokesman, quoted the Libyan leader as saying in a letter to France, Britain and the UN: “This is injustice, this is clear aggression. You will regret it if you take a step towards interfering in our internal affairs.” The Libyan government blamed the rebels, which it says are members of al-Qaida, for breaking the ceasefire around Benghazi. But rebels said Libyan jets had bombed the road to Benghazi airport and elsewhere on the outskirts. Fathi Abidi, a rebel supporter who works on logistics, said at the western entrance to the city: “They have just entered Benghazi and they are flanking us with tanks, missiles and mortars.” Inside the city, residents set up makeshift barricades with furniture, benches, road signs and even a barbecue at intervals along main streets. Each barricade was manned by half a dozen rebels, but only about half of those were armed. Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said she believed Gaddafi had violated the terms of the UN resolution which required him to stop fighting in Libya.
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Related posts:Benghazi rebels plead for Libya air strikes as Gaddafi forces advance Libya rebels isolate Gaddafi, seizing cities and oilfields Benghazi celebrates as reports emerge of battles in central Tripoli
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March 19 2011, 12:42pm | Comments »
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Smartphone competition heats up as HTC closes in on Apple
Will the iPad 2 really be announced out on Wednesday? Yes, it appears so. How much will it weigh? “more tablets than Mesopotamia” lol.
This article titled “Smartphone competition heats up as HTC closes in on Apple” was written by Dominic Rushe, for The Observer on Sunday 27th February 2011 00.06 UTC According to his business card, John Wang is a wizard. Chief innovation wizard to be precise. He certainly seems to be working his magic at HTC, the Taiwanese firm where he oversees new products at a company that is rapidly becoming one of the hottest brands in tech. This week is set to be another Apple week – the second generation of the iPad is expected to be unveiled on Wednesday. But in the UK the biggest-selling launch is likely to be HTC’s. The hyperbolically named HTC Incredible S is Wang’s latest smartphone and has received glowing reviews so far in the tech press. Later this year HTC will launch its iPad rival, the Flyer. With tech firms churning out more tablets than ancient Mesopotamia, Wang says the Flyer will not be another “me-too” device. “Whatever we do has to be quietly brilliant,” he says. He says the Flyer was designed to weigh the same as the average paperback book (420 grammes), about half the weight of an iPad, and will be far smaller. And while it will be a touch-screen device, Wang says it won’t be defined by touch – users will be able to draw and write notes on any part of the device. The aim, he says, is to produce something different, something that produces “moments of delight”. In order to get to these moments HTC has a “magic lab” where ideas are worked through. One idea from the lab is a technology that makes its smartphones ring loudly in a bag or pocket, but softly when picked up. Wang started the lab five years ago and its engineers work through ideas to make their devices as simple and user-friendly as possible. The Incredible S, for example, has buttons that change their orientation depending on which way the phone is held. “When people use the word innovation they are often referring to the 1.5ghz, the 4.4in display, megapixels,” he says. “But it’s often the details, not the specifications that make customers think ‘that is so right’.” The strategy seems to be paying off. According to technology analysts Gartner, HTC sold 3m smartphones in the UK last year, compared with Apple’s 5m. In the last quarter of the year HTC sold 1.1m, close to Apple’s 1.4m. Overall, the company made a net profit of $500m (£310m) for the last quarter of 2010, a leap of 160% from 2009′s final quarter. Sales surged 153% from a year ago. The firm, formerly known as High Tech Corporation, started life in 1997 making notebook computers. It has been building a position in smartphones for years, but Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi says the turning point for HTC was the launch of Google’s Android mobile operating system in 2007. The success of Android and HTC’s close co-operation with Google gave the firm a new lease of life in mobile. Google and HTC are close partners: the search giant’s team used HTC phones when they were developing Android. Initially Android looked like a dud, but it now outsells all its competitors combined in the US. Next up is the tablet, where Google is also keen to make its mark. “I think we are just at the beginning for innovation in the tablet market,” says Wang. Graham Stapleton, chief commercial officer for Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy, said the retailer had seen enormous growth in HTC sales in recent months. “Their customer traditionally has been more of a business/professional user. In the last 12-18 months they’ve targeted more of the pioneering customers, people who want the latest technology.” He said HTC was becoming a brand people asked for unprompted. “That’s a huge change. They’ve done an incredible job over the last 18 months.” It hasn’t gone unnoticed. HTC and Apple are now locked in a patent spat, with each side accusing the other of ripping it off. Milanesi says that’s the price of success. “Can Apple go after Google? No, they don’t make phones. They will go after who they can go after,” she says. It’s probably the biggest compliment Apple is ever likely to pay them.
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Related posts:Apple’s slice makes the iPad a bad deal for newspapers Quarter of a racehorse for sale BBC NEWS ¦ Business ¦ Indian firm ‘eyeing UK graduates’
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February 27 2011, 8:05am | Comments »
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Those Wisconsin Unions
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/22/those-wisconsin-unions
Wisconsin Unions battle against the state by occupying the Capitol building in Wisconsin. Links via Mark Dilley:
act.credoaction.com/campaign/we_support_wisconsin koch-brothers-behind-wisconsin-effort-to-kill-public-unions http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/02/18/koch-brothers-behind-wisconsin-effort-to-kill-public-unions/ 70,000 protest in Madison, Wisconsin Mass protests and strikes in Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Pakistan supports wisconsin Egypt supports wisconsin This article titled “Those Wisconsin unions” was written by Michael Tomasky, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 21st February 2011 13.29 UTC Today is a holiday here in the states, Presidents’ Day, so I’m basically taking the day off and reading the diaries of the underappreciated Franklin Pierce. But I thought that I should check in quickly on the continuing Wisconsin situation. If you saw Krugman today, you saw the liberal case laid out: In this situation, it makes sense to call for shared sacrifice, including monetary concessions from state workers. And union leaders have signaled that they are, in fact, willing to make such concessions. But Mr. Walker isn’t interested in making a deal. Partly that’s because he doesn’t want to share the sacrifice: even as he proclaims that Wisconsin faces a terrible fiscal crisis, he has been pushing through tax cuts that make the deficit worse. Mainly, however, he has made it clear that rather than bargaining with workers, he wants to end workers’ ability to bargain. The bill that has inspired the demonstrations would strip away collective bargaining rights for many of the state’s workers, in effect busting public-employee unions. Tellingly, some workers — namely, those who tend to be Republican-leaning — are exempted from the ban; it’s as if Mr. Walker were flaunting the political nature of his actions. Why bust the unions? As I said, it has nothing to do with helping Wisconsin deal with its current fiscal crisis. Nor is it likely to help the state’s budget prospects even in the long run: contrary to what you may have heard, public-sector workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere are paid somewhat less than private-sector workers with comparable qualifications, so there’s not much room for further pay squeezes. So it’s not about the budget; it’s about the power. I always find it a little frustrating when someone writes a column like that and doesn’t include any numbers so the reader can varify, so I went looking for some. According to the economist Menzie David Chinn at the University of Wisconsin, yes, state and local employees in the state are somewhat undercompensated compared to their private-sector counterparts. First of all, here’s a chart, which reflects national averages not Wisconsin ones but is interesting anyway, comparing public- and private-sector workers’ wages (I assume whoever made this chart means wages specifically, which refers to money compensation only and not benefits). It shows that at every level of education except “less than high school,” private-sector employees out-earn public-sector ones. The difference gets more stark as you go up the education ladder, as you might expect. However, the “all” category on this chart shows that the sectors are almost exactly even on wages, which is explained I suppose by the large number of less-than-high-school educated people who are in public-sector unions. Another chart compares total compensation, including benefits, and the story is basically the same. Now to Wisconsin itself. Chinn does a regression analysis finding, he says, that public-sector workers are less-well compensated than private counterparts to the tune of 4.8%. Presumably, given the above, the workers with college degrees are in the 8 or even 10% range, higher in some cases. That’s not chopped liver. So they make less money. But the benefits issue is the public-sector unions’ Achilles heel. Politifact, which I trusted when it exposed Sarah Palin’s absurd lies (aha! So I worked in a mention) so I might as well also trust today, looked into Governor Scott Walker’s claim that “most state employees could pay twice as much toward their health care premiums and it would still be half the national average.” It found the claim to be true. You can read all the facts in the preceding link, but basically, private-sector employees pay 25-30% of the cost of their healthcare premiums in the US, and Wisconsin public employees generally pay just 6%. The understanding has long been that public-sector employees make less, so they should have better benefits. There’s some logic to that. But it seems that the wage differential against them isn’t as great as the benefits differential working for them. Krugman alludes to Wisconsin union leaders saying they were willing to make concessions. I know not what of he speaks, but it makes political and moral sense to me for the state’s union leaders to say okay, our people will contribute more to their healthcare packages and put a non-fake number on the table. That would give them the place of prominence on the moral high ground. And it would expose Walker’s one-sidedness for what it is. If he were trying to bargain an outcome in good faith, that would be one thing. But he’s not. He’s decreasing the state’s take from corporations by nearly 30% and not asking sacrifice of anyone at the top of the pyramid while bullying the people who mop the floors in the university’s buildings. Put me down on the side of the floor moppers. If public-sector unions are busted in the US, combined with the Citizens United decision, corporate influence on our politics would double, triple, who knows. But I have to say that I can see why a $38,000-a-year private-sector worker with two kids who’s paying 30% toward their healthcare coverage would be a upset at the deal the public-sector workers have. Democrats and liberals should fix this imbalance before those on the right “fix it” for them.
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February 22 2011, 10:25am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
New Zealand earthquake strikes Christchurch, killing at least 65 people
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/22/new-zealand-earthquake-65-dead
This article titled “New Zealand earthquake strikes Christchurch, killing at least 65 people” was written by Ben Quinn and Mark Tran, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 22nd February 2011 13.18 UTC At least 65 people have died and more than 100 are missing after a powerful earthquake struck the southern New Zealand city of Christchurch, collapsing buildings, burying vehicles under debris and sending rescuers scrambling to help people trapped under rubble. The 6.3-magnitude quake struck the country’s second largest city on a busy weekday afternoon. The mayor of Christchurch, Bob Parker, has declared a state of emergency and ordered people to evacuate the city centre. “Make no mistake this is going to be a very black day for this shaken city,” he said. Power and water was cut and hundreds of dazed, screaming and crying residents wandered through the streets as sirens blared throughout Christchurch in the aftermath of the quake, which was centred three miles from the city. The US Geological Survey said the tremor occurred at a depth of 2.5 miles. After rushing to the city within hours of the quake, the prime minister of New Zealand, John Key, said the death toll was 65, and may rise. “It is just a scene of utter devastation. We may well be witnessing New Zealand’s darkest day.” The spire of the city’s well-known stone cathedral toppled into a central square, while buildings collapsed in on themselves and streets were strewn with bricks and shattered concrete. The multi-storey Pyne Gould Guinness Building, housing more than 200 workers, has collapsed with an unknown number of people trapped inside. Television pictures showed rescuers, many of them office workers, dragging severely injured people from the rubble. Elsewhere, police said debris rained down on two buses, crushing them, while emergency workers were moving to rescue survivors trapped in other partially collapsed buildings across the city. New Zealand’s TV3 said 24 people were trapped on the 17th floor of the 19-storey Forsyth Barr office building, near the cathedral. The building was intact but a stairwell had collapsed, it said. Christchurch hospital had to deal with many injured residents. “We’ve had a lot of people at the emergency department … a significant number, a lot of major injuries,” said David Meates, the chief executive of the Canterbury health board. “They are largely crushes and cuts types of injuries and chest pain as well,” he said, adding some of the more seriously injured could be evacuated to other cities, where hospitals have been put on alert and prepared to accept casualties. All army medical staff have been mobilised, while several hundred troops were helping with the rescue, officials said. A woman trapped in one of the buildings said she was terrified and waiting for rescuers to reach her six hours after the quake. “I thought the best place was under the desk but the ceiling collapsed on top. I can’t move and I’m just terrified,” office worker Anne Voss told TV3 news. Emergency shelters had been set up in schools and at a racecourse, as night approached. Helicopters dumped giant buckets of water to try to douse a fire in one tall office building. A crane helped rescue workers trapped in another office block. “I was in the square right outside the cathedral – the whole front has fallen down and there were people running from there. There were people inside as well,” said John Gurr, a camera technician who was in the city centre when the quake hit. The city’s historic cathedral was one of the buildings that took significant damage, while cars were buried under rubble and roads buckled as the tremor opened fissures in the ground. “It is huge. We just don’t know if there are people under this rubble,” a priest standing outside the rubble of the damaged cathedral told Television New Zealand. Search and rescue teams are working through the night to look for survivors, the civil defence director, John Hamilton, said. “We have to be prepared to accept that it is going to be a heavy toll,” he said, adding that it was unclear how many people were trapped in buildings. “There could well be people who are stuck in buildings overnight. I can’t confirm, but I would expect that’s in all probability the case.” All airports and airspace in the country were shut down and all flights into, out of and around the country were put on hold immediately after the earthquake. Airways NZ, New Zealand’s national air traffic control organisation, is based in Christchurch. Local TV showed bodies being pulled out of rubble strewn around the city centre, though it was unclear whether any of them were alive. It was the second time in five months that the city has been struck by a major earthquake. Last September’s 7.1-magnitude earthquake was 30 miles west of Christchurch. About 100 people were treated at hospital with earthquake-related injuries then. Christchurch has been hit by hundreds of aftershocks since that earthquake, causing extensive damage and a handful of injuries, but no deaths. New Zealand, which sits between the Pacific and Indo-Australian plates, records on average more than 14,000 earthquakes a year, of which about 20 would normally top magnitude 5.0. Christchurch is home to about 350,000 people and is a tourist centre and gateway to the South Island.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.
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February 22 2011, 7:53am | Comments »
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I posted to hubpages.com
45rpm Picture Sleeves of the '80s ~ ABC
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Released 9/11/82 The Look of Love (Pt One) b/w Theme From Mantrap - Mercury 76168 Released 1/29/83 Poison Arrow b/w Tears Are Not Enough - Mercury 810340 Released 2/4/84 ...
April 4 2010, 9:43pm | Comments »
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I posted to hubpages.com
A Winter Wonderland
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The First Snowstorm This Year Last night Maryland had it's first real snowstorm for the season. Snow piled up as high as twelve inches. Even though we have had snow trucks drive through our neighborhood, it...
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December 19 2009, 11:07pm | Comments »
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I posted to hubpages.com
Plus Size Celebrities
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I am concerned and a little disheartened by the fact that there aren't more big lovely women celebrities out there. When you hear a female singer on the radio, she may sound glorious, but you can bet...
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August 25 2009, 1:06pm | Comments »
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I posted to hubpages.com
Naked Chicks
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Do you like to look at naked women? Have you ever wondered why the nude female form is so alluring? The naked female body weilds a power that will not be totally understood, or undermined.
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August 10 2009, 2:27pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
How to Photograph Birds
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2009/04/06/how-to-photograph-birds
Wild Bird Photography Do you like watching wild birds? I do. Wherever I travel around the UK and the world the local wildlife is at least as interesting as the built environment to me. I take a lot of photographs without following any particular instructions and over the years I’ve produced very few good bird pictures, and that can be a bit frustrating at times. There are lots of pictures of small fuzzy distant ducks, little avian specs flying across a boring expanse of sky, and countless pictures of a wooden post from which a glorious example of an interesting bird species has just flown away out of sight. Why only yesterday I took a picture of a tree trunk with a goose flying behind it. How many shots have you taken like that? I’ve kind of accepted that you can’t get good pictures with ordinary cheap point and shoot cameras. But I’m not the sort of person who lugs a large camera bag around all day long, let alone a full length tripod. So which are the best compromises? Tips On How to Photograph Birds Most days I take a walk around the local duck pond just for a constitutional really, and keep an eye on which birds are visiting. Tame birds are easy to photograph and so are large ones like swans and geese. Birds which are preoccupied with feeding or some other essential activity may also be photographed from closer up when they are distracted by something important. Getting up close is the key here. Patiently waiting quietly is a rewarding skill to practice, so work out where is the best place to lie in wait and then stay calmly for as long as you possibly can, but be ready for when the perfect bird appearance suddenly arises.
Basic Equipment for Taking Pictures of Birds Optical zoom is essential, at least 3 times but preferably more powerful. You then need decent lighting conditions. Really, you do eventually need a digital SLR camera, not just a pocket sized micro point and shoot affair, although you can get some good results with these if you learn how to master the manual settings and strike lucky. A tripod is not essential if you have a steady hand, but the use of something to lean upon such as a ledge, wall rock or tree can only help to get a sharper photograph. A pair of binoculars will help to identify distant birds and inform your choice of the best place to wait. These should be wide field of vision rather than high magnification for bird watching. RSPB Digital SLR Competition To celebrate the spring, the RSPB is launching a Free Prize Draw on 6 April to win an Olympus E-520 Digital SLR camera along with a copy of the RSPB Guide to Digital Wildlife Photography (together worth over £400). Five runners-up will also receive a copy of the illustrated book by David Tipling, one of Britain’s best known wildlife photographers. Everyone who buys an RSPB membership online between 6 April and 14 May 2009 will automatically be entered into the prize draw including adult, family, children’s and gift memberships. RSPB membership makes a great alternative gift at Easter time - with over 100 nature reserves to visit with admission free to members.Join the RSPB
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Technorati Tags: bird, birds, David Tipling, digital slr camera, duck pond, Equipment, membership, Photograph, Photography, Pictures, pictures of birds, point and shoot cameras, rspb, SLR, tripod, watching, wild bird photography, wild birds, wildlife
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April 6 2009, 3:44am | Comments »
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