The parents of former Red Wing resident 16-year-old Devon Jenkins sought Monday to have him released to their custody, saying he would be under close adult supervision and attend all scheduled court appearances.Eighth District Judge Michael Thompson denied the request for release and ordered the youth to remain in detention at Prairie Lakes Youth Programs in Willmar.
Jenkins, accompanied by his parents, attorney and a group of family supporters, appeared in court Monday for a probable cause hearing on two charges of second-degree murder. He is the youngest of three defendants in the slaying two weeks ago of Lila Warwick, 79.
The Red Wing School District has records of Devon Jenkins attending school there from April 2010 to January 2011 as a seventh and eighth grader.
Warwick, who lived alone on the outskirts of Willmar, was found stabbed and strangled in her home on July 29. Within days, three suspects were arrested: Brok Junkermeier, 19, who is alleged to have committed the killing; and Robert Warwick, 17, the victim's grandson and alleged mastermind of a plan to rob Warwick of her money.
Jenkins told investigators he waited outside Lila Warwick's house in Junkermeier's car but was not involved in the robbery or Hands free access, according to court documents that accompanied the formal filing of charges. Her sister-in-law lives in Red Wing but declined to discuss the family's loss.
Jenkins and Warwick are both juveniles but could be tried as adults pending the outcome of certification hearings.Because they are accused of felony-level crimes, their court appearances are open to the public.Junkermeier is scheduled to be in court today for a hearing. Warwick has a court appearance on Thursday.
Fred Jenkins and Vanessa Mitchell said Monday that if their son was released to either of them, they were each prepared to keep him under adult supervision and out of any potential trouble.
Mitchell, who lives in Red Wing, said he would have 24-hour surveillance under her custody and would attend online schooling. The youth has attended every court appearance so far and "real time Location system" why he would miss any future scheduled court dates, she said. She also said it would benefit her son to be away from the Willmar area.
Jenkins's father, Fred, who lives in Willmar, said the family has strong ties with their local church. Devon realizes the impact of Warwick's murder and understands "how much trouble he really is in," he said.
The youth is not a flight risk, Fred Jenkins said. He also offered to pay for an electronic monitoring bracelet if this could be an option."I just leave it in your hands, your honor," he concluded.But Thompson ruled quickly against release, ordering Devon Jenkins to stay in custody at Prairie Lakes.
"There is a lot of incentive to disappear. A 16-year-old can disappear even when being monitored," he said.Stephen Wentzell, the prosecuting attorney with the Kandiyohi County Attorney's Office, also requested the continuation of Jenkins's detention order, citing the "serious nature" of the crime with which he's charged.
Jenkins sat quietly during the hearing, facing the front of the courtroom and answering "yes" or "no" to the judge's questions. During a break in the proceedings he turned around to talk to his parents, who were seated behind him.Thompson also granted motions Monday to waive the timeline for Jenkins's attorney to challenge probable cause, as well as the timeline for holding an adult certification hearing.
The certification hearing, held to determine whether Jenkins should be tried as an adult, had been set for Aug. 29 but was removed from the court calendar while an independent examiner conducts an assessment. Jenkins's attorney, Carter Greiner, said the defendant also will reserve the right to challenge probable cause pending the outcome of the certification hearing.
The debate about the continued global use of fossil fuels has intensified in recent times as a result of the threat posed by climate change to the very essence of human existence. It has required greater urgency as the world spirals towards a 4-5 degree celcius global warming change that could have devastating impacts on Africa’s ability grow enough food and deliver people out of poverty.
As with many developmental problems, the poorest, particularly women, are again at the sharp edge of the knife and bear the full brunt of climate change impacts: floods will have a much greater impact on a Diepsloot woman in a shack with a small food garden than someone in a million-rand apartment in Sandton.
In rural Africa, when the local pond dries up, and the forest line recedes, women have to walk and work longer hours in search of water and wood for cooking. Sadly, however, poor communities also bear the injustice of contributing the least to the problem.
Globally, it is industrialised countries that have caused the problem through years of exploitation of coal, gas and oil to support their growth, which has released vast amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that have warmed the globe and caused climate change.
Owing largely to the failure of rich countries to take action to stop emitting greenhouse gases, countries like South Africa which now sits amongst the top 20 emitters in the world, must also play a part in reversing the scourge.
But here too, a similar injustice is reflected – whilst industry and the rich enjoy easy (if frequently interrupted) access to energy in the form of electricity, which is the cause of most of South Africa’s carbon dioxide emissions, millions of poor households don’t even have access to power.
2013年8月14日星期三
2013年7月29日星期一
Syrian government forces take control
Syrian government forces seized control of a key neighborhood of Homs on Monday, activists and state media said, delivering a blow to besieged opposition fighters in the city once dubbed “the capital of the revolution.”Rebels had retreated from about 95 percent of the Khaldiyeh neighborhood by midday Monday after a morning air raid that was followed by bombardment with surface-to-surface missiles and mortar shells, activists said. Syrian state television went further and said government forces had “restored security and stability” to the area.
The fall of the neighborhood, which had been in rebel hands for more than a year, marks a strategic loss for the opposition, slicing in two the remaining rebel-controlled territory in the city. It also builds on a steady string of government gains in central and southern Syria, where the tide seems to have turned in favor of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, bolstered by militants from Iran and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement.
Government troops made inroads into Khaldiyeh over the weekend. They took the 13th-century Khalid ibn al-Walid mosque on Saturday, and its shrine was severely damaged in the fighting.The operation has taken a devastating toll, leveling large areas of Indoor Positioning System. Photographs of government forces moving into the neighborhood showed the level of destruction as soldiers picked their way through battered streets piled with rubble. An aerial image distributed Monday by activists, who said it was taken by a downed surveillance aircraft, showed flattened buildings and deserted streets in Khaldiyeh.
Standing in the wreckage, a reporter for the pro-Assad Iranian television channel al-Alam interviewed soldiers about their advance against rebel fighters. “Our will is strong, and we are determined to chase them to the end of the world,” one said.The government launched an offensive a month ago to squeeze out pockets of resistance in Homs, after troops seized the nearby border town of Qusair, cutting rebel supply lines to the central city that has been a bastion of opposition to Assad’s rule. In addition to the symbolic significance, controlling Homs would help the government secure a clean sweep of territory from the coastal ports of Latakia and Tartus to the capital, Damascus.
Some clashes continued Monday on Khaldiyeh’s eastern edge, near Qahira Street, but the neighborhood had essentially fallen, said Abu Rami al-Homsi, a spokesman for the Syrian Revolution General Command activist network in Homs.With access cut from the rebel-held Old City to opposition strongholds in Qusour and Juret al-Shayah, he said, it is only a matter of time before the other neighborhoods fall.
“There have been no reinforcements for us to break this siege; there are no weapons to change the way of the battle,” Homsi said from Qusour, the sound of automatic gunfire crackling in the background. “I think we might resist weeks or maybe a month, but not long. There’s no balance between the two sides.”
Abu Jaafar Safsafa, another Homs-based activist, said the army had taken control of the entire neighborhood by Monday afternoon. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that the majority of Khaldiyeh was in government hands but that sporadic clashes continued Monday.
After inching forward Sunday, the main Western-backed opposition group slammed the army’s “hollow gains,” which it said were made after the area was “pulverized.”“Such a tactical withdrawal by FSA fighters is not indicative of Assad’s ability to maintain control over the indoor Tracking,” the Syrian Opposition Coalition said in a statement, referring to the rebel Free Syrian Army. “The Assad regime is attempting to lift the low morale of its militias by propagandizing and exaggerating its hollow victory in Homs. However, Assad holds only temporary control, until the FSA are ready to retake the area.”
Steve Murrells, head of retail for The Co-operative Group, said: “As a community-based retailer we have listened to the concerns of our customers and members, many of whom say they object to their children being able to see overt sexual images in our stores.”
“The most effective way of doing this is for these magazines to be put in individual, sealed modesty bags.”
The move comes after the Lose the Lads’ Mags campaign by UK Feminista and Object, which called on high-street retailers to withdraw magazines and papers featuring explicit front covers from their stores.
It also comes at a time of growing concern about children being exposed to adult content. The UK government is pushing for every home in the country to have a web filter that blocks pornography unless the internet subscriber has explicitly asked for the filter to be removed.
The fall of the neighborhood, which had been in rebel hands for more than a year, marks a strategic loss for the opposition, slicing in two the remaining rebel-controlled territory in the city. It also builds on a steady string of government gains in central and southern Syria, where the tide seems to have turned in favor of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, bolstered by militants from Iran and Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement.
Government troops made inroads into Khaldiyeh over the weekend. They took the 13th-century Khalid ibn al-Walid mosque on Saturday, and its shrine was severely damaged in the fighting.The operation has taken a devastating toll, leveling large areas of Indoor Positioning System. Photographs of government forces moving into the neighborhood showed the level of destruction as soldiers picked their way through battered streets piled with rubble. An aerial image distributed Monday by activists, who said it was taken by a downed surveillance aircraft, showed flattened buildings and deserted streets in Khaldiyeh.
Standing in the wreckage, a reporter for the pro-Assad Iranian television channel al-Alam interviewed soldiers about their advance against rebel fighters. “Our will is strong, and we are determined to chase them to the end of the world,” one said.The government launched an offensive a month ago to squeeze out pockets of resistance in Homs, after troops seized the nearby border town of Qusair, cutting rebel supply lines to the central city that has been a bastion of opposition to Assad’s rule. In addition to the symbolic significance, controlling Homs would help the government secure a clean sweep of territory from the coastal ports of Latakia and Tartus to the capital, Damascus.
Some clashes continued Monday on Khaldiyeh’s eastern edge, near Qahira Street, but the neighborhood had essentially fallen, said Abu Rami al-Homsi, a spokesman for the Syrian Revolution General Command activist network in Homs.With access cut from the rebel-held Old City to opposition strongholds in Qusour and Juret al-Shayah, he said, it is only a matter of time before the other neighborhoods fall.
“There have been no reinforcements for us to break this siege; there are no weapons to change the way of the battle,” Homsi said from Qusour, the sound of automatic gunfire crackling in the background. “I think we might resist weeks or maybe a month, but not long. There’s no balance between the two sides.”
Abu Jaafar Safsafa, another Homs-based activist, said the army had taken control of the entire neighborhood by Monday afternoon. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that the majority of Khaldiyeh was in government hands but that sporadic clashes continued Monday.
After inching forward Sunday, the main Western-backed opposition group slammed the army’s “hollow gains,” which it said were made after the area was “pulverized.”“Such a tactical withdrawal by FSA fighters is not indicative of Assad’s ability to maintain control over the indoor Tracking,” the Syrian Opposition Coalition said in a statement, referring to the rebel Free Syrian Army. “The Assad regime is attempting to lift the low morale of its militias by propagandizing and exaggerating its hollow victory in Homs. However, Assad holds only temporary control, until the FSA are ready to retake the area.”
Steve Murrells, head of retail for The Co-operative Group, said: “As a community-based retailer we have listened to the concerns of our customers and members, many of whom say they object to their children being able to see overt sexual images in our stores.”
“The most effective way of doing this is for these magazines to be put in individual, sealed modesty bags.”
The move comes after the Lose the Lads’ Mags campaign by UK Feminista and Object, which called on high-street retailers to withdraw magazines and papers featuring explicit front covers from their stores.
It also comes at a time of growing concern about children being exposed to adult content. The UK government is pushing for every home in the country to have a web filter that blocks pornography unless the internet subscriber has explicitly asked for the filter to be removed.
2013年7月22日星期一
Disney Infinity hands on with the future
In one single moment, I realised that Infinity is, quite probably, a work of genius. I was at a Disney demo event in London, exploring the Toy Box mode, a vast creative pleasure dome where you use dozens of objects, buildings and tools to construct your own mini Disney adventures. I'd created a race track that culminated in a giant ramp, and now I was about to zoom across it in Cinderella's fantasy carriage – except I had tricked it out with monster truck wheels. Oh and the ramp went over the Epcot centre's Spaceship Earth. And it was being patrolled by Recognizers.
And suddenly the possibilities just kept opening up ahead of me. I could drop in a stadium full of cheering people, or I could place a physics action on the finish line that would set off a firework display. Or I could plonk in a Phineas and Ferb water park, or … Or I could abandon the project and get my character to ride around on a shrunken elephant.
Disney has always been about the realisation of childhood dreams, but too often the video games have fallen way short of the movies and theme parks as vehicles of imaginative desire. Infinity though, seems to be all about the possibilities presented by these characters and Indoor Positioning System. It is like mainlining Disney magic.
Of course, most conversations about Infinity place it beside Skylanders, Activision's hugely successful role-playing adventure. That game added the ability to place dedicated action figures on a special USB-connected plinth, transferring their likenesses into the virtual environment. It was the perfect synergy of toy and game, and it has made Activision billions of dollars.
Infinity uses the same basic recipe: you buy the game as a starter kit, with a USB plinth – or Infinity Base – and a collection of three figures: Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, Mr Incredible from The Incredibles and Sulley from Monsters University. Each figure opens up a different narrative adventure within the game – and buying more Playsets gets you access to new quests. Plus, as in Skylanders, each action figure toy retains the player's data, so they're handy save files too.
You can't belittle this element of Infinity – it's going to be huge. At launch there will be just over 20 figures to collect, each one beautifully designed (just like the Skylanders toys) with vibrant colours and neat, intricate details. The game's developer, Avalanche Software, has constructed a narrative in which it's the toy versions of the characters that come to life in the games, not the movie characters; so the action figures have a slightly angular appearance, reflecting the polygonal nature of their onscreen counterparts. It's a neat way of ensuring a subtle, exclusive relationship between the figures and the game. You can imagine the years of R&D and marketing experience that went into all of this.
But it doesn't stop there. Added to the figures are the power discs, which will be sold in packs of two for ￡3.99 and which can also be placed onto the Infinity Base: the hexagonal ones change the themed backgrounds in the Toy Box mode, while the circular ones can be placed under the action figures on the base to buff their powers or give them cool new gadgets. This is the true masterstroke really. The Playsets (which provide access to the Playset adventures in the game) retail for around ￡30 each and the figures go for ￡13, which puts both into the birthday/Christmas/special treat category for most kids. However, the power discs are within pocket money range – and can be placed on top of each other in the Base to unlock extra capabilities, so you'll want lots of them. As a seasoned toy manufacturer, Disney knows how to build licensed goods into spectrums of affordability – whatever a kid has, they can spend it here.
How should we feel about that? Well, you know, collectibility has been a part of toys since the arrival of mass manufacturing. Our parents hoarded Corgi cars and Hornby trains sets, while my generation saw the dawn of cross-promotional play, with Star Wars figures, Transformers and themed Lego sets. These days the likes of Pokemon, Games Workshop and Moshi Monsters all use vertical branding to lock us into lucrative product relationships. It's tough for us parents, but this is the way merchandising works.
The responsibility for Disney is in ensuring that each purchase provides plenty of playability. So in Infinity, when you buy a Playset from a new franchise, it opens up a dedicated adventure in the game. I got a quick play on the Monsters University Playset, which takes place on the campus and involves competing against educational rival, Fear Tech. This college is barely mentioned in the film, but it becomes the focus of the Playset story – and apparently this is how all the character adventures will pan out; exploring lesser-known facets of the universe rather than re-playing familiar movie plot lines. Although there are mission objectives, the environments are wide open, allowing exploration and experimentation. Sulley is able to pull pranks on his fellow students, for example, replacing newspaper stands with slingshot devices to fling them across the campus. It's diverting stuff with lots of Hands free access, cut-scenes and fun dialogue. Apparently, each Playset adventure is around four to six hours long, although as they're open and explorable, 10 hours may be a better marker.
Furthermore, progressing in the Playset adventures opens up new items and objects to use in the Toy Box mode, which for me is the main draw. Like LittleBigPlanet, this is an immensely powerful level creator, jammed with objects and characters. As well as generic items like trees, tracks and stadia, you can slap in a few Recognizers from Tron, some vehicles from Cars, Ramone's House of Body Art, the Disney castle … A simple set of menus placed on the shoulder buttons gives access to all the tools, as well as useful modifiers like an enlarging gun, and a Buzz Lightyear jetpack to get your around the landscape faster.Better still, there are special 'Creativi-toys', which can have physics behaviours and switches attached to them. Confetti cannons, slingshots and score boards can all be hooked up to create functioning traps and interactive elements.
As in LittleBigPlanet, then, players may craft their own gadgets and mini-games. According to producer John Day, one coder has already managed the old LBP trick of producing a working calculator; others have manipulated the camera into different 2D views to create Disney-themed versions of Donkey Kong and Gauntlet. All the Toy Box environments allow up to four players to co-operate or compete – so if you want to build a pitch, drop in a scoring mechanic, and play football while galloping about on Bullseye, you can.
And suddenly the possibilities just kept opening up ahead of me. I could drop in a stadium full of cheering people, or I could place a physics action on the finish line that would set off a firework display. Or I could plonk in a Phineas and Ferb water park, or … Or I could abandon the project and get my character to ride around on a shrunken elephant.
Disney has always been about the realisation of childhood dreams, but too often the video games have fallen way short of the movies and theme parks as vehicles of imaginative desire. Infinity though, seems to be all about the possibilities presented by these characters and Indoor Positioning System. It is like mainlining Disney magic.
Of course, most conversations about Infinity place it beside Skylanders, Activision's hugely successful role-playing adventure. That game added the ability to place dedicated action figures on a special USB-connected plinth, transferring their likenesses into the virtual environment. It was the perfect synergy of toy and game, and it has made Activision billions of dollars.
Infinity uses the same basic recipe: you buy the game as a starter kit, with a USB plinth – or Infinity Base – and a collection of three figures: Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, Mr Incredible from The Incredibles and Sulley from Monsters University. Each figure opens up a different narrative adventure within the game – and buying more Playsets gets you access to new quests. Plus, as in Skylanders, each action figure toy retains the player's data, so they're handy save files too.
You can't belittle this element of Infinity – it's going to be huge. At launch there will be just over 20 figures to collect, each one beautifully designed (just like the Skylanders toys) with vibrant colours and neat, intricate details. The game's developer, Avalanche Software, has constructed a narrative in which it's the toy versions of the characters that come to life in the games, not the movie characters; so the action figures have a slightly angular appearance, reflecting the polygonal nature of their onscreen counterparts. It's a neat way of ensuring a subtle, exclusive relationship between the figures and the game. You can imagine the years of R&D and marketing experience that went into all of this.
But it doesn't stop there. Added to the figures are the power discs, which will be sold in packs of two for ￡3.99 and which can also be placed onto the Infinity Base: the hexagonal ones change the themed backgrounds in the Toy Box mode, while the circular ones can be placed under the action figures on the base to buff their powers or give them cool new gadgets. This is the true masterstroke really. The Playsets (which provide access to the Playset adventures in the game) retail for around ￡30 each and the figures go for ￡13, which puts both into the birthday/Christmas/special treat category for most kids. However, the power discs are within pocket money range – and can be placed on top of each other in the Base to unlock extra capabilities, so you'll want lots of them. As a seasoned toy manufacturer, Disney knows how to build licensed goods into spectrums of affordability – whatever a kid has, they can spend it here.
How should we feel about that? Well, you know, collectibility has been a part of toys since the arrival of mass manufacturing. Our parents hoarded Corgi cars and Hornby trains sets, while my generation saw the dawn of cross-promotional play, with Star Wars figures, Transformers and themed Lego sets. These days the likes of Pokemon, Games Workshop and Moshi Monsters all use vertical branding to lock us into lucrative product relationships. It's tough for us parents, but this is the way merchandising works.
The responsibility for Disney is in ensuring that each purchase provides plenty of playability. So in Infinity, when you buy a Playset from a new franchise, it opens up a dedicated adventure in the game. I got a quick play on the Monsters University Playset, which takes place on the campus and involves competing against educational rival, Fear Tech. This college is barely mentioned in the film, but it becomes the focus of the Playset story – and apparently this is how all the character adventures will pan out; exploring lesser-known facets of the universe rather than re-playing familiar movie plot lines. Although there are mission objectives, the environments are wide open, allowing exploration and experimentation. Sulley is able to pull pranks on his fellow students, for example, replacing newspaper stands with slingshot devices to fling them across the campus. It's diverting stuff with lots of Hands free access, cut-scenes and fun dialogue. Apparently, each Playset adventure is around four to six hours long, although as they're open and explorable, 10 hours may be a better marker.
Furthermore, progressing in the Playset adventures opens up new items and objects to use in the Toy Box mode, which for me is the main draw. Like LittleBigPlanet, this is an immensely powerful level creator, jammed with objects and characters. As well as generic items like trees, tracks and stadia, you can slap in a few Recognizers from Tron, some vehicles from Cars, Ramone's House of Body Art, the Disney castle … A simple set of menus placed on the shoulder buttons gives access to all the tools, as well as useful modifiers like an enlarging gun, and a Buzz Lightyear jetpack to get your around the landscape faster.Better still, there are special 'Creativi-toys', which can have physics behaviours and switches attached to them. Confetti cannons, slingshots and score boards can all be hooked up to create functioning traps and interactive elements.
As in LittleBigPlanet, then, players may craft their own gadgets and mini-games. According to producer John Day, one coder has already managed the old LBP trick of producing a working calculator; others have manipulated the camera into different 2D views to create Disney-themed versions of Donkey Kong and Gauntlet. All the Toy Box environments allow up to four players to co-operate or compete – so if you want to build a pitch, drop in a scoring mechanic, and play football while galloping about on Bullseye, you can.
2013年7月7日星期日
No redemption as Thompson stops Price in five
It had been a wild heavyweight brawl, with Thompson tasting canvas himself in round two, before a series of powerful head shots had Price against the ropes and ultimately battered into submission. Both men looked like 'going' at numerous points in the contest, swaying like tall trees in a hurricane, as they shipped each other's heavy punches. Make no mistake, this time there was no lucky punch and no obvious excuses. If the first encounter - a second round TKO defeat in February - ended in disappointment for Team Price, then you can file this one under full-blown catastrophe. Although he wasn't flattened, the manner of defeat for Price was a hundred times worse than the last time.
With bitter rival Tyson Fury seemingly having overtaken Price in the queue for major honours, Price fans came out in droves to see whether their hero could get back on track towards an assault on the world scene. Fury of course had spent much of the week winding up Price's mentor Lennox Lewis, who had positioned himself at ringside approximately six feet from the Price corner. As somebody questioned Lewis's vantage point he could be seen to say "I'm staying right here". Nobody questioned him a second time.
Both men looked in terrific physical condition as they were introduced to the crowd – Thompson at 18st 7lb slightly lighter than the first encounter, and Price 3lb heavier than fight one at 17st 12lb. Price seemed incredibly nervous during the walk-ins and indoor positioning system. Whereas Thompson was the opposite. As Price walked out to James Brown's 'The Payback', The Tiger and all of his team took the opportunity to dance and high-five each other throughout, Thompson completely unfazed by the assignment ahead of him. This was all after what just about qualified as 'pre-fight entertainment' - a couple of midgets carrying flags and a fella committing homicide by saxophone - a truly awful rendition of 'Born In The USA'. If the music was designed to transport the listener to another place, then it certainly succeeded. Unfortunately, that place was pushing a trolley around Kwik Save on a Tuesday morning.
Back to the fight, and perhaps Price's nerves were responsible for a very cautious opening round. Thompson immediately began landing the southpaw jab, as Price pawed with his left for openings. Right hands were few and far between, and when Price did graze Thompson's chin, Tony just smiled and got on with the job in hand. In round two, although Price tried to establish his own jab, one or two landing solidly, he soon found himself backed up and under pressure, and looked all at sea. As Thompson closed the distance and moved inside, he just let his hands go. Price was content to clinch, but Thompson inflicted cumulative damage clubbing the side of his opponent's head with his free hands.
Tony wasn't waiting on the outside either - his fast jab making Price think about every attack. The crowd ignited as Thompson hit the deck from a push, but were soon cheering legitimately as Price threw a looping right to the top of the head as Thompson came in. Tony collapsed to the floor above the press row at ringside and it appeared touch and go whether he was going to beat the count. He did beat it, at nine, and ref Marcus McDonnell allowed him to continue. Price didn't go for the kill, remaining cautious as Thompson's legs appeared solid beneath him.
Round three saw some terrific action. A left hook inside had Price hanging on and appearing in some distress. He responded, slamming in a right hand of his own, sending Thompson back against the ropes and complaining of a punch behind the head. Thompson used every ounce of his experience to lean back against the ropes and out of danger from Price's follow up. Whenever Thompson attacked, Price seemed content to allow the American as much time and space as he needed to load up with hard bursts from angles. By round four, Price appeared frozen, almost statuesque with gloves protecting his chin but still plenty of target area for Thompson to place shots unchallenged.
Price looked thoroughly lost when Thompson got close, unable to get any punching leverage, Thompson dominated the close action, moving and hitting the static Scouser at will. The ending had a sense of inevitability. Thompson was by now more confident that when he attacked, and Price wasn't responding. As two solid right hands put Price in deep trouble, Thompson moved in, missing with little. Tony fired in accurate, powerful punches, Price's head now rolling around under the force. But rather than hold on, take a knee, or punch back, David allowed Thompson free rein. Price caught at least a dozen consecutive blows to the head but might have caught a break when ref McDonnell generously adjudged the ropes to be holding him up and issued a standing eight count. But upon looking into Price's eyes, he wisely called an end to the fight, Price completely done under Thompson's sustained assault.
As for what next, that is the million dollar question. Being so easy to hit in this fight, Price has serious defensive issues to address as a matter of urgency. But his lack of stamina was also disturbing - rather like Wladimir Klitschko's performance against Lamon Brewster back in 2004. He was breathing hard as early as the second round. He allowed Thompson unlimited access, and wasn't sure how to respond. The next career move will require much thought and strategising. Full credit once more to Tony Thompson, who showed class in victory and demonstrated that, despite his advancing years, he is a serious test for any heavyweight contenders out there.
Nineteen hearses departed from the medical examiner's office in Phoenix, rolled past a collection of firefighters outside the Arizona state Capitol and will pass through the community of Yarnell where the 19 died.
Firefighters, police officers and everyday people held hands over their hearts or saluted as the motorcycle-led escort slowly drove by and a quartet of bag pipers played a mournful song to a marching cadence. The firefighters' names were posted on a side window of each hearse.
The procession included several firefighting vehicles, including a truck that bore the name of the elite crew to which the 19 firefighters who died on June 30 belonged.Lon Reiman of Scottsdale carried two small American flags as he waited for the procession to begin. Reiman said he has several relatives who are firefighters and thought of them once he heard the news of the deaths.
Click on their website http://www.ecived.com/en/.
With bitter rival Tyson Fury seemingly having overtaken Price in the queue for major honours, Price fans came out in droves to see whether their hero could get back on track towards an assault on the world scene. Fury of course had spent much of the week winding up Price's mentor Lennox Lewis, who had positioned himself at ringside approximately six feet from the Price corner. As somebody questioned Lewis's vantage point he could be seen to say "I'm staying right here". Nobody questioned him a second time.
Both men looked in terrific physical condition as they were introduced to the crowd – Thompson at 18st 7lb slightly lighter than the first encounter, and Price 3lb heavier than fight one at 17st 12lb. Price seemed incredibly nervous during the walk-ins and indoor positioning system. Whereas Thompson was the opposite. As Price walked out to James Brown's 'The Payback', The Tiger and all of his team took the opportunity to dance and high-five each other throughout, Thompson completely unfazed by the assignment ahead of him. This was all after what just about qualified as 'pre-fight entertainment' - a couple of midgets carrying flags and a fella committing homicide by saxophone - a truly awful rendition of 'Born In The USA'. If the music was designed to transport the listener to another place, then it certainly succeeded. Unfortunately, that place was pushing a trolley around Kwik Save on a Tuesday morning.
Back to the fight, and perhaps Price's nerves were responsible for a very cautious opening round. Thompson immediately began landing the southpaw jab, as Price pawed with his left for openings. Right hands were few and far between, and when Price did graze Thompson's chin, Tony just smiled and got on with the job in hand. In round two, although Price tried to establish his own jab, one or two landing solidly, he soon found himself backed up and under pressure, and looked all at sea. As Thompson closed the distance and moved inside, he just let his hands go. Price was content to clinch, but Thompson inflicted cumulative damage clubbing the side of his opponent's head with his free hands.
Tony wasn't waiting on the outside either - his fast jab making Price think about every attack. The crowd ignited as Thompson hit the deck from a push, but were soon cheering legitimately as Price threw a looping right to the top of the head as Thompson came in. Tony collapsed to the floor above the press row at ringside and it appeared touch and go whether he was going to beat the count. He did beat it, at nine, and ref Marcus McDonnell allowed him to continue. Price didn't go for the kill, remaining cautious as Thompson's legs appeared solid beneath him.
Round three saw some terrific action. A left hook inside had Price hanging on and appearing in some distress. He responded, slamming in a right hand of his own, sending Thompson back against the ropes and complaining of a punch behind the head. Thompson used every ounce of his experience to lean back against the ropes and out of danger from Price's follow up. Whenever Thompson attacked, Price seemed content to allow the American as much time and space as he needed to load up with hard bursts from angles. By round four, Price appeared frozen, almost statuesque with gloves protecting his chin but still plenty of target area for Thompson to place shots unchallenged.
Price looked thoroughly lost when Thompson got close, unable to get any punching leverage, Thompson dominated the close action, moving and hitting the static Scouser at will. The ending had a sense of inevitability. Thompson was by now more confident that when he attacked, and Price wasn't responding. As two solid right hands put Price in deep trouble, Thompson moved in, missing with little. Tony fired in accurate, powerful punches, Price's head now rolling around under the force. But rather than hold on, take a knee, or punch back, David allowed Thompson free rein. Price caught at least a dozen consecutive blows to the head but might have caught a break when ref McDonnell generously adjudged the ropes to be holding him up and issued a standing eight count. But upon looking into Price's eyes, he wisely called an end to the fight, Price completely done under Thompson's sustained assault.
As for what next, that is the million dollar question. Being so easy to hit in this fight, Price has serious defensive issues to address as a matter of urgency. But his lack of stamina was also disturbing - rather like Wladimir Klitschko's performance against Lamon Brewster back in 2004. He was breathing hard as early as the second round. He allowed Thompson unlimited access, and wasn't sure how to respond. The next career move will require much thought and strategising. Full credit once more to Tony Thompson, who showed class in victory and demonstrated that, despite his advancing years, he is a serious test for any heavyweight contenders out there.
Nineteen hearses departed from the medical examiner's office in Phoenix, rolled past a collection of firefighters outside the Arizona state Capitol and will pass through the community of Yarnell where the 19 died.
Firefighters, police officers and everyday people held hands over their hearts or saluted as the motorcycle-led escort slowly drove by and a quartet of bag pipers played a mournful song to a marching cadence. The firefighters' names were posted on a side window of each hearse.
The procession included several firefighting vehicles, including a truck that bore the name of the elite crew to which the 19 firefighters who died on June 30 belonged.Lon Reiman of Scottsdale carried two small American flags as he waited for the procession to begin. Reiman said he has several relatives who are firefighters and thought of them once he heard the news of the deaths.
Click on their website http://www.ecived.com/en/.
2013年7月2日星期二
Peek into the inboxes of the rich
I don't like to boast, but yesterday I received emails from Lena Dunham and Kirsten Dunst. Lena was letting me know that she'd decided against buying the $24,000 Swedish sofa. And Kirsten was cc'ing me on some financial admin to do with selling her car to her friend Jessica.
In truth, I wasn't the intended recipient, nor was I the only person to receive these emails. Girls creator Dunham and Hollywood actress Dunst are two of 10 public figures who have agreed to throw open their Gmail accounts for a new project. The writer and film-maker Miranda July asked stars of film, fashion, science and sport to comb their sent folders and forward her 20 emails they have written to other people. She in turn is now forwarding those private emails on to the public – in the name of art. Who needs Prism?
"There will be nothing in the gallery itself," says July, who lives in Los Angeles. "I don't even have to go to Stockholm." Every Monday for 20 weeks until November, subscribers will receive a round-robin package of 10 emails from the group on a specific theme. The first, sent out yesterday, was An Email About Money, hence the insights into Dunham's furniture-buying habits and the fate of Dunst's old car. Future themes include An Email to Your Mom, An Email About Something You Want, An Email that Gives Advice and An Angry Email. All of the emails were written before the project started, to give the most authentic picture of the senders.
"I'm always trying to get my friends to forward me emails they've sent to other people – to their mom, their boyfriend, their agent – the more mundane the better," explains July. "How they comport themselves in email is so intimate, almost obscene – a glimpse of them from their own point of view."
July was originally going to ask her closest friends to contribute. "But then I thought that wouldn't be interesting to anyone except me," she says. "I realised that people needed to feel like they were friends with the emailers too. It seemed like a good use of indoor Tracking."
Along with Dunham, every girl's fantasy best friend, who says that the project is "one of the coolest things I've ever been involved with", July asked fashion designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte, the basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Sheila Heti, writer of How Should a Person Be? to contribute. The Israeli writer Etgar Keret, photographer Catherine Opie, Lee Smolin, a theoretical physicist, and artist Danh Vo make up the group.
It is a deliberately mixed bag. "I needed someone who would deliver, and knew that Lena Dunham would be totally uninhibited," says July. "Then I chose Kirsten Dunst as an actress whose power comes from you not really knowing who she is." Fellow writer Heti is a friend, who in turn suggested her neighbour Smolin – "I needed someone who wasn't an artist. Someone whose head works differently..." Abdul-Jabbar, the highest scorer in NBA history, came on board when July found, to her surprise, that he had written a blog praising her as "the voice of a generation". "I know no one in sport. But I knew he was a fan of mine." Did anyone say no? "No one."
July is best known for her films Me and You and Everyone We Know and The Future but has form with collaborative art. In 1996 she created Joanie4Jackie, "an all-girl video chain letter" to share short films made by women. Then, in 2002, she founded the online project Learning to Love You More, for which she and artist Harrell Fletcher set regular assignments for artists – Repair something; Climb to the top of a tree and take a picture of the view; Document your bald spot, etc. It ran for seven years, 8,000 people took part and the work is now in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's collection.
For July, who has her hands full with a new novel and a new baby, email proved a convenient medium for her latest artwork. Having found her correspondents, she compiled a list of subjects and simply waited for her inbox to ping. The replies ranged from the mundane to the outrageous, the administrative to the intimate. "I felt different kinds of discomfort reading them. I'd feel evil, then moved. When I first read Catherine Opie's, I was just screaming at my desk. They were unbelievable," says July. "And I was kind of surprised with Lena Dunham by how many are to her boyfriend. I assume Jack [Antonoff] knows she's doing this. And that he's cool with it."
Future mail-outs will include Dunham dispensing righteous relationship advice to a friend, Heti pondering whether to buy a new dress, the Rodarte sisters drawing up a detailed list of props for a shoot and Opie giving her niece or nephew some tough love about his/her high-school grades.
The thrill for subscribers is the chance to spy on the real lives of brilliant people. "But is it real, or is it a total illusion?" asks July. The project also raises questions about the method of communication which rules modern life and the 21st-century tendency to overshare online. Does our email style reflect our personality? Does using all caps on screen equal a VERY SHOUTY person in the flesh? Or are these emails a construct, a self- portrait in tersely tapped-out words, chosen to create an impression? Why is Dunham choosing to share that she has decided against buying a $24,000 bespoke Swedish sofa? Does it show us that (a) She has good taste (b) She is successful (c) She hasn't let her newfound wealth go to her head, or (d) All of the above? Do we glean anything more from a sweet snapshot of Dunst's feet and those of her mother in matching ballet shoes, than an illusion of intimacy with a superstar?
"It's very odd to see the way they construct themselves," says July. "It was quite sweet, really. More human and less crass than I expected. I worried that they would expose themselves too much, but in fact, everyone knows how to protect themselves. I became interested in the artful ways people came up with of protecting their privacy."
The first batch arrives in the wake of revelations about America's controversial surveillance programme, Prism. The timing is coincidental, says July, but the idea grew out of growing discomfort about the Byzantine privacy settings of social-networking sites. "Privacy, the art of it, is evolving," says July. "Does privacy even exist right now?" Not when it comes to We Think Alone, for which the original correspondence is reprinted in full, with only the email addresses and occasionally addressees redacted. "It has been quite a legal headache, to be honest," admits July.
Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en/!
In truth, I wasn't the intended recipient, nor was I the only person to receive these emails. Girls creator Dunham and Hollywood actress Dunst are two of 10 public figures who have agreed to throw open their Gmail accounts for a new project. The writer and film-maker Miranda July asked stars of film, fashion, science and sport to comb their sent folders and forward her 20 emails they have written to other people. She in turn is now forwarding those private emails on to the public – in the name of art. Who needs Prism?
"There will be nothing in the gallery itself," says July, who lives in Los Angeles. "I don't even have to go to Stockholm." Every Monday for 20 weeks until November, subscribers will receive a round-robin package of 10 emails from the group on a specific theme. The first, sent out yesterday, was An Email About Money, hence the insights into Dunham's furniture-buying habits and the fate of Dunst's old car. Future themes include An Email to Your Mom, An Email About Something You Want, An Email that Gives Advice and An Angry Email. All of the emails were written before the project started, to give the most authentic picture of the senders.
"I'm always trying to get my friends to forward me emails they've sent to other people – to their mom, their boyfriend, their agent – the more mundane the better," explains July. "How they comport themselves in email is so intimate, almost obscene – a glimpse of them from their own point of view."
July was originally going to ask her closest friends to contribute. "But then I thought that wouldn't be interesting to anyone except me," she says. "I realised that people needed to feel like they were friends with the emailers too. It seemed like a good use of indoor Tracking."
Along with Dunham, every girl's fantasy best friend, who says that the project is "one of the coolest things I've ever been involved with", July asked fashion designers Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte, the basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Sheila Heti, writer of How Should a Person Be? to contribute. The Israeli writer Etgar Keret, photographer Catherine Opie, Lee Smolin, a theoretical physicist, and artist Danh Vo make up the group.
It is a deliberately mixed bag. "I needed someone who would deliver, and knew that Lena Dunham would be totally uninhibited," says July. "Then I chose Kirsten Dunst as an actress whose power comes from you not really knowing who she is." Fellow writer Heti is a friend, who in turn suggested her neighbour Smolin – "I needed someone who wasn't an artist. Someone whose head works differently..." Abdul-Jabbar, the highest scorer in NBA history, came on board when July found, to her surprise, that he had written a blog praising her as "the voice of a generation". "I know no one in sport. But I knew he was a fan of mine." Did anyone say no? "No one."
July is best known for her films Me and You and Everyone We Know and The Future but has form with collaborative art. In 1996 she created Joanie4Jackie, "an all-girl video chain letter" to share short films made by women. Then, in 2002, she founded the online project Learning to Love You More, for which she and artist Harrell Fletcher set regular assignments for artists – Repair something; Climb to the top of a tree and take a picture of the view; Document your bald spot, etc. It ran for seven years, 8,000 people took part and the work is now in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's collection.
For July, who has her hands full with a new novel and a new baby, email proved a convenient medium for her latest artwork. Having found her correspondents, she compiled a list of subjects and simply waited for her inbox to ping. The replies ranged from the mundane to the outrageous, the administrative to the intimate. "I felt different kinds of discomfort reading them. I'd feel evil, then moved. When I first read Catherine Opie's, I was just screaming at my desk. They were unbelievable," says July. "And I was kind of surprised with Lena Dunham by how many are to her boyfriend. I assume Jack [Antonoff] knows she's doing this. And that he's cool with it."
Future mail-outs will include Dunham dispensing righteous relationship advice to a friend, Heti pondering whether to buy a new dress, the Rodarte sisters drawing up a detailed list of props for a shoot and Opie giving her niece or nephew some tough love about his/her high-school grades.
The thrill for subscribers is the chance to spy on the real lives of brilliant people. "But is it real, or is it a total illusion?" asks July. The project also raises questions about the method of communication which rules modern life and the 21st-century tendency to overshare online. Does our email style reflect our personality? Does using all caps on screen equal a VERY SHOUTY person in the flesh? Or are these emails a construct, a self- portrait in tersely tapped-out words, chosen to create an impression? Why is Dunham choosing to share that she has decided against buying a $24,000 bespoke Swedish sofa? Does it show us that (a) She has good taste (b) She is successful (c) She hasn't let her newfound wealth go to her head, or (d) All of the above? Do we glean anything more from a sweet snapshot of Dunst's feet and those of her mother in matching ballet shoes, than an illusion of intimacy with a superstar?
"It's very odd to see the way they construct themselves," says July. "It was quite sweet, really. More human and less crass than I expected. I worried that they would expose themselves too much, but in fact, everyone knows how to protect themselves. I became interested in the artful ways people came up with of protecting their privacy."
The first batch arrives in the wake of revelations about America's controversial surveillance programme, Prism. The timing is coincidental, says July, but the idea grew out of growing discomfort about the Byzantine privacy settings of social-networking sites. "Privacy, the art of it, is evolving," says July. "Does privacy even exist right now?" Not when it comes to We Think Alone, for which the original correspondence is reprinted in full, with only the email addresses and occasionally addressees redacted. "It has been quite a legal headache, to be honest," admits July.
Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en/!
2013年6月30日星期日
Federal Community-Resilience Investments Swamped by Disaster Damages
Seven months after the second most costly hurricane in history, Mayor Bloomberg proposed investing $19.5 billion to make his city much more resilient to future extreme weather events. More than one-quarter of these resources will come from federal funds included in the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, which provides aid to New York, New Jersey, and other affected states to help them recover from Superstorm Sandy. New Jersey is also investing significant portions of its Superstorm Sandy federal aid in resilience efforts, particularly along the Jersey Shore. These investments will make New York and New Jersey homes, businesses, infrastructure, and coastal areas more resistant to damage from future storms, sea-level rise, and other climate-change impacts.
Unlike New York City and New Jersey, many communities lack the financial resources to become more resilient to future extreme weather events, and the federal government woefully underfunds such resilience needs. This CAP analysis estimates that the federal government spent a total of only $22 billion on general resilience efforts from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2013. The Obama administration requested an additional $13 billion for mitigation efforts in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York after Superstorm Sandy, but it is difficult to determine the actual mitigation spending from this sum. The federal government does not have a comprehensive tally of its spending for community resilience and other pre-disaster mitigation programs.
A previous CAP analysis estimated that the federal government spent $136 billion — or nearly $400 per household annually — on disaster relief and recovery from FY 2011 through FY 2013. Based on those indoor positioning system, federal taxpayers spent nearly $6 for disaster recovery for every $1 spent to increase general community resilience over the past three years.
We must help communities enhance their ability to withstand the high winds, flood waters, scorching heat, searing wild fires, and parched earth from extreme weather. Every $1 invested in such “pre-disaster mitigation,” or resilience measures — which help communities withstand the effects of extreme weather — reduce the cost of damage from these extreme weather events by $4, according to a study for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The severe, extreme weather during the past two years exacted a significant human and economic toll. From the start of 2011 through the end of 2012, there were 25 extreme weather events that caused at least $1 billion each in damage, with a total tab for destruction of $188 billion and 1,100 fatalities.
Although extreme weather continues in 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has yet to identify any $1 billion damage events this year. Insurance broker AON Benfield estimates, however, that there were three weather events that each caused at least $1 billion in economic losses thus far this year. The costliest of these events were the Oklahoma tornados, which caused 24 fatalities in mid-May and an estimated $5 billion in damages. Extreme weather will likely continue throughout 2013. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts an “active or extremely active [hurricane] season this year… [that is] well above the seasonal average.”
The New York Times additionally reports that, “just over 44 percent of the country remains in drought.” NOAA predicts a continued persistent drought this summer through most of the southwestern United States. This could lead to significant economic damage from wildfires, as well as continued harm to the farm economy.
Mitigation means adapting buildings, infrastructure, and natural systems that will allow communities to better withstand high winds and rain, ocean storm surge, unusually high temperatures, wild fires, and drought.
The technologies needed to accomplish this goal vary in cost and complexity. The St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri, for instance, was essentially destroyed by a tornado in 2011 and has been rebuilt with a tornado-proof design that includes windows that can resist winds of up to 250 miles per hour at a cost of $170 per square foot — $70 more per square foot than standard windows. The cost of including a safe room designed to protect people from tornados in the construction of a new home can cost $8,000, and it costs about $10,000 to add to an existing home.
Several coastal Texas cities that are vulnerable to hurricanes recently invested in community shelters to protect their residents. Edna, Texas, built a $2.5 million hurricane shelter large enough to shield the town’s 5,500 residents from winds up to 300 miles per hour. The shelter also doubles as a high-school gymnasium. FEMA paid for 75 percent of it, and it plans to invest $683 million in similar shelters in 18 other states.
New York and New Jersey are buying out homeowners with severely damaged homes located in flood-prone areas using federal funds provided under the Disaster Relief Act. This resilience measure is expensive and something many coastal communities cannot afford to undertake on their own.
Many communities lack the resources to invest in projects that would protect their structures and inhabitants from major storms. Superstorm Sandy, for instance, damaged two-thirds of the downtown homes and businesses in Highlands, New Jersey. Local officials there told NBC News that they had previously considered resilience measures — such as raising the height of the town — but that construction costs were prohibitively expensive.
A similar lack of financial resources prevented other communities from adequately investing in resilience. In the wake of the tornados in Moore, Oklahoma, The New York Times reported that, “only about 10 percent of homes in Moore” had storm-safe rooms or underground shelters. And The Wall St. Journal reported that efforts to build safe rooms in local schools were also limited by the lack of federal assistance. According to The Journal, “Local officials said Tuesday [May 21, 2013] that about 100 schools in the state are equipped with safe rooms that were built with federal funds. The money had dried up in past years, officials said, and many schools were on a waiting list.”
Joplin, Missouri, which was flattened in 2011 by the deadliest tornado since 1950, had previously applied for FEMA funds to build safe rooms. The New York Times reported that the “state used money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency primarily for disaster relief from flooding.”
Click on their website www.ecived.com/en/ for more information.
Unlike New York City and New Jersey, many communities lack the financial resources to become more resilient to future extreme weather events, and the federal government woefully underfunds such resilience needs. This CAP analysis estimates that the federal government spent a total of only $22 billion on general resilience efforts from fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2013. The Obama administration requested an additional $13 billion for mitigation efforts in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York after Superstorm Sandy, but it is difficult to determine the actual mitigation spending from this sum. The federal government does not have a comprehensive tally of its spending for community resilience and other pre-disaster mitigation programs.
A previous CAP analysis estimated that the federal government spent $136 billion — or nearly $400 per household annually — on disaster relief and recovery from FY 2011 through FY 2013. Based on those indoor positioning system, federal taxpayers spent nearly $6 for disaster recovery for every $1 spent to increase general community resilience over the past three years.
We must help communities enhance their ability to withstand the high winds, flood waters, scorching heat, searing wild fires, and parched earth from extreme weather. Every $1 invested in such “pre-disaster mitigation,” or resilience measures — which help communities withstand the effects of extreme weather — reduce the cost of damage from these extreme weather events by $4, according to a study for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The severe, extreme weather during the past two years exacted a significant human and economic toll. From the start of 2011 through the end of 2012, there were 25 extreme weather events that caused at least $1 billion each in damage, with a total tab for destruction of $188 billion and 1,100 fatalities.
Although extreme weather continues in 2013, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has yet to identify any $1 billion damage events this year. Insurance broker AON Benfield estimates, however, that there were three weather events that each caused at least $1 billion in economic losses thus far this year. The costliest of these events were the Oklahoma tornados, which caused 24 fatalities in mid-May and an estimated $5 billion in damages. Extreme weather will likely continue throughout 2013. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts an “active or extremely active [hurricane] season this year… [that is] well above the seasonal average.”
The New York Times additionally reports that, “just over 44 percent of the country remains in drought.” NOAA predicts a continued persistent drought this summer through most of the southwestern United States. This could lead to significant economic damage from wildfires, as well as continued harm to the farm economy.
Mitigation means adapting buildings, infrastructure, and natural systems that will allow communities to better withstand high winds and rain, ocean storm surge, unusually high temperatures, wild fires, and drought.
The technologies needed to accomplish this goal vary in cost and complexity. The St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri, for instance, was essentially destroyed by a tornado in 2011 and has been rebuilt with a tornado-proof design that includes windows that can resist winds of up to 250 miles per hour at a cost of $170 per square foot — $70 more per square foot than standard windows. The cost of including a safe room designed to protect people from tornados in the construction of a new home can cost $8,000, and it costs about $10,000 to add to an existing home.
Several coastal Texas cities that are vulnerable to hurricanes recently invested in community shelters to protect their residents. Edna, Texas, built a $2.5 million hurricane shelter large enough to shield the town’s 5,500 residents from winds up to 300 miles per hour. The shelter also doubles as a high-school gymnasium. FEMA paid for 75 percent of it, and it plans to invest $683 million in similar shelters in 18 other states.
New York and New Jersey are buying out homeowners with severely damaged homes located in flood-prone areas using federal funds provided under the Disaster Relief Act. This resilience measure is expensive and something many coastal communities cannot afford to undertake on their own.
Many communities lack the resources to invest in projects that would protect their structures and inhabitants from major storms. Superstorm Sandy, for instance, damaged two-thirds of the downtown homes and businesses in Highlands, New Jersey. Local officials there told NBC News that they had previously considered resilience measures — such as raising the height of the town — but that construction costs were prohibitively expensive.
A similar lack of financial resources prevented other communities from adequately investing in resilience. In the wake of the tornados in Moore, Oklahoma, The New York Times reported that, “only about 10 percent of homes in Moore” had storm-safe rooms or underground shelters. And The Wall St. Journal reported that efforts to build safe rooms in local schools were also limited by the lack of federal assistance. According to The Journal, “Local officials said Tuesday [May 21, 2013] that about 100 schools in the state are equipped with safe rooms that were built with federal funds. The money had dried up in past years, officials said, and many schools were on a waiting list.”
Joplin, Missouri, which was flattened in 2011 by the deadliest tornado since 1950, had previously applied for FEMA funds to build safe rooms. The New York Times reported that the “state used money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency primarily for disaster relief from flooding.”
Click on their website www.ecived.com/en/ for more information.
2013年6月25日星期二
Porter strike ends after contract ratified
The 22 members of the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union who work for Porter Fixed Based Operations Ltd., a subsidiary of Porter Aviation Holdings Inc., were trying to negotiate a first contract when they walked off the job on Jan. 10.
The main issue was wages, though Porter spokesman Brad Cicero would not disclose any details of the settlement.“It’s not dissimilar to another contract that was reached with the cleaning and facilities group earlier this year,” he said. “It’s in line with our principle of making sure we have similar agreements with different groups of the company.”
When the strike began, the union said 11 employees earned $12 an hour and 11 other workers who have a higher qualification earned $14.50 an hour. The union says the workers’ average annual income is $28,000.According to the union’s Twitter feed, the strikers voted 85 per cent to ratify the real time Location system.
Cicero added that a transition plan for workers to return work will be implemented, but added at least two or three individuals resigned during the strike.“I don’t think anybody would have expected the strike to last as long as it did,” he said.
A $4 million defamation suit filed by Porter in April against the union and a COPE staffer Mary Stalteri for comments including ones posted to Twitter have now been dropped.The union, which hired lawyer Clayton Ruby to defend the case, called the lawsuit a diversionary tactic. “The purpose is not to get redress in the courts, but it’s to silence people,” Ruby said in a May interview.
The executive, Chip Starnes of Specialty Medical Supplies, denied the workers’ allegations of two months of unpaid wages as he endured a fifth day of captivity at the plant in the capital’s northeastern suburbs, peering out from behind the bars of his office window.
About 100 workers are demanding back pay and severance packages identical to those offered 30 workers being laid off from the Coral Springs, Fla.-based company’s plastics division. The demands followed rumors that the entire plant was being closed, despite Starnes’ assertion that the company doesn’t plan to lay off the others.
Inside one of the plant’s buildings, about 30 workers, mostly women, hung around, their arms crossed. One worker, Gao Ping, told reporters inside an administrative office that she wanted to quit because she hadn’t been paid for two months.
Dressed in blue overalls and sitting down at a desk, Gao said her division – which makes alcohol prep pads, used for cleaning skin before injections – had not been doing well and that she wanted her salary and compensation.
Workers in other divisions saw her division doing badly, thought the whole company was faring poorly and also wanted to quit and get compensation, said Gao, who had been working for the company for six years.
Chu Lixiang, a local union official representing the workers in talks with Starnes, said the workers were demanding the portion of their salaries yet to be paid and a “reasonable” level of compensation before leaving their jobs. Neither gave details on the amounts demanded.
Chu said workers believed the plant was closing and that Starnes would run away without paying severance. Starnes’ attorney arrived Tuesday afternoon. Chu later told reporters that there would be no negotiations for the rest of the day.
Starnes said that since Saturday morning, about 80 workers had blocked every exit around the clock and deprived him of sleep by shining bright lights and banging on windows of his office.
The standoff points to long-ingrained habits among Chinese workers who are sometimes left unprotected when factories close without severance or wages owed. Such incidents have been rarer as labor protections improve, although disputes still occur and local governments have at times barred foreign executives from leaving until they are resolved.
Fast forward 40 years, though, and the six-tower TD Centre complex had begun to show its age and even looked somewhat dated next to the latest crop of towers in the downtown core.
The modernist monument could have been relegated to B-class commercial property obscurity. That is, until owner Cadillac Fairview, the development and property management giant, hit upon an innovative plan to revitalize the distinctive towers – giving the original black Mies masterworks a green reimagining.
“We work in a very competitive industry where green is a given and we wanted to differentiate this property,” explains David Hoffman, Cadillac Fairview’s general manager of the Toronto-Dominion Centre. “The entire financial sector was built around the TD Centre and I think many people still believe incorrectly that TD Centre is old and not environmentally friendly, but that’s not the case.”
Beginning with 77 King St. West in 2010, Cadillac Fairview embarked on an ambitious multi-year revitalization program borne as much of altruism – saving energy, cutting waste and promoting sweeping sustainability initiatives across the complex – as pragmatism.
The latter is driven by the business need to maintain TD Centre’s tenant attractiveness, preserve its top-tier property status, and ensure strong, stable rental rates.To date, two towers – 77 King St. West and 100 Wellington St. West – have achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold and platinum certification, respectively, in the existing building operations and maintenance category.
To acknowledge these accomplishments, Cadillac Fairview was recently honoured by its peers with the REX Green Award for sustainability work at the TD Centre. It was the first time the NAIOP Greater Toronto Chapter’s accolade was awarded to an existing building instead of a new-build.
The move to retrofit aging buildings such as the TD Centre is a growing trend, explains Pierre Bergevin, the Toronto-based president and CEO of commercial property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield Ltd.
“In Montreal you’re going to see it because you have older stock … you’ll see more retrofitting across the country. These are buildings that are more than 40 years old, but they have an advantage with their location.”
As Mr. Bergevin explains, the move to reimagine aging buildings is made possible by the nature of their ownership – many fall within the portfolios of very well-capitalized institutional owners such as pension funds, who understand the cost-saving and tenant-luring value of making those improvements. And they have pockets deep enough to embark on costly renovations.
The main issue was wages, though Porter spokesman Brad Cicero would not disclose any details of the settlement.“It’s not dissimilar to another contract that was reached with the cleaning and facilities group earlier this year,” he said. “It’s in line with our principle of making sure we have similar agreements with different groups of the company.”
When the strike began, the union said 11 employees earned $12 an hour and 11 other workers who have a higher qualification earned $14.50 an hour. The union says the workers’ average annual income is $28,000.According to the union’s Twitter feed, the strikers voted 85 per cent to ratify the real time Location system.
Cicero added that a transition plan for workers to return work will be implemented, but added at least two or three individuals resigned during the strike.“I don’t think anybody would have expected the strike to last as long as it did,” he said.
A $4 million defamation suit filed by Porter in April against the union and a COPE staffer Mary Stalteri for comments including ones posted to Twitter have now been dropped.The union, which hired lawyer Clayton Ruby to defend the case, called the lawsuit a diversionary tactic. “The purpose is not to get redress in the courts, but it’s to silence people,” Ruby said in a May interview.
The executive, Chip Starnes of Specialty Medical Supplies, denied the workers’ allegations of two months of unpaid wages as he endured a fifth day of captivity at the plant in the capital’s northeastern suburbs, peering out from behind the bars of his office window.
About 100 workers are demanding back pay and severance packages identical to those offered 30 workers being laid off from the Coral Springs, Fla.-based company’s plastics division. The demands followed rumors that the entire plant was being closed, despite Starnes’ assertion that the company doesn’t plan to lay off the others.
Inside one of the plant’s buildings, about 30 workers, mostly women, hung around, their arms crossed. One worker, Gao Ping, told reporters inside an administrative office that she wanted to quit because she hadn’t been paid for two months.
Dressed in blue overalls and sitting down at a desk, Gao said her division – which makes alcohol prep pads, used for cleaning skin before injections – had not been doing well and that she wanted her salary and compensation.
Workers in other divisions saw her division doing badly, thought the whole company was faring poorly and also wanted to quit and get compensation, said Gao, who had been working for the company for six years.
Chu Lixiang, a local union official representing the workers in talks with Starnes, said the workers were demanding the portion of their salaries yet to be paid and a “reasonable” level of compensation before leaving their jobs. Neither gave details on the amounts demanded.
Chu said workers believed the plant was closing and that Starnes would run away without paying severance. Starnes’ attorney arrived Tuesday afternoon. Chu later told reporters that there would be no negotiations for the rest of the day.
Starnes said that since Saturday morning, about 80 workers had blocked every exit around the clock and deprived him of sleep by shining bright lights and banging on windows of his office.
The standoff points to long-ingrained habits among Chinese workers who are sometimes left unprotected when factories close without severance or wages owed. Such incidents have been rarer as labor protections improve, although disputes still occur and local governments have at times barred foreign executives from leaving until they are resolved.
Fast forward 40 years, though, and the six-tower TD Centre complex had begun to show its age and even looked somewhat dated next to the latest crop of towers in the downtown core.
The modernist monument could have been relegated to B-class commercial property obscurity. That is, until owner Cadillac Fairview, the development and property management giant, hit upon an innovative plan to revitalize the distinctive towers – giving the original black Mies masterworks a green reimagining.
“We work in a very competitive industry where green is a given and we wanted to differentiate this property,” explains David Hoffman, Cadillac Fairview’s general manager of the Toronto-Dominion Centre. “The entire financial sector was built around the TD Centre and I think many people still believe incorrectly that TD Centre is old and not environmentally friendly, but that’s not the case.”
Beginning with 77 King St. West in 2010, Cadillac Fairview embarked on an ambitious multi-year revitalization program borne as much of altruism – saving energy, cutting waste and promoting sweeping sustainability initiatives across the complex – as pragmatism.
The latter is driven by the business need to maintain TD Centre’s tenant attractiveness, preserve its top-tier property status, and ensure strong, stable rental rates.To date, two towers – 77 King St. West and 100 Wellington St. West – have achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold and platinum certification, respectively, in the existing building operations and maintenance category.
To acknowledge these accomplishments, Cadillac Fairview was recently honoured by its peers with the REX Green Award for sustainability work at the TD Centre. It was the first time the NAIOP Greater Toronto Chapter’s accolade was awarded to an existing building instead of a new-build.
The move to retrofit aging buildings such as the TD Centre is a growing trend, explains Pierre Bergevin, the Toronto-based president and CEO of commercial property consultancy Cushman & Wakefield Ltd.
“In Montreal you’re going to see it because you have older stock … you’ll see more retrofitting across the country. These are buildings that are more than 40 years old, but they have an advantage with their location.”
As Mr. Bergevin explains, the move to reimagine aging buildings is made possible by the nature of their ownership – many fall within the portfolios of very well-capitalized institutional owners such as pension funds, who understand the cost-saving and tenant-luring value of making those improvements. And they have pockets deep enough to embark on costly renovations.
2013年6月23日星期日
Rogue SUV isn't small on personality
While at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this year, several manufacturers mentioned the small crossover segment as a strong area for the U.S. market. Buyers want something easy to maneuver with ample storage while still providing a slightly elevated view of the road.
Nissan’s answer to that is the Rogue. This is the smallest of the SUVs from Nissan, just below the Murano in the lineup.
From the outside, it is easy on the eyes. Clean, rounded design with stylish wheels, a good stance and a very attractive Cayenne Red paint job on the test model.
Power is supplied by a 2.5-liter Xtronic CVT (continuously variable transmission) with 170 horsepower, 175 pound-feet of torque and placed on the pavement by an intuitive all-wheel-drive system.
The Intelligent Key option enables you to keep the key in your pocket and lock/unlock the doors via a button on the door handle. Once inside you just turn the fob where the key normally goes and the engine fires up.
You will be pleasantly surprised by how simple and uncluttered the interior and dash appear. There are some storage areas, but nothing too extravagant or confusing. In the dash is a 5-inch touch-screen navigation and Bose stereo system. The screen is a bit small, but displays the information adequately.
The seats and steering wheel are covered by leather and the SL package also provides a rear-view camera and Around View monitor, one of Nissan’s trademark parking aids. An SUV of this size is pretty easy to park and maneuver, but the options provide an extra sense of confidence.
On road, the Rogue is pretty nice. The CVT supplies ample power to zip along with traffic and the lack of “shifting” makes for smooth power delivery. On hill climbs or entry to the highway, you have to really stand on the accelerator and the engine revs pretty loudly, but once you let up the revs drop to a comfortable level.
There’s no doubt driving a vehicle with CVT is different and takes some learning, but it’s absolutely ideal for city driving where stop-and-go is the norm. Driving at night is made easy with the optional HID headlamps that provide great vision and clarity.
With the rear seats up, there is enough room for two suitcases in the back. With the seats down you can fit a good amount of cargo. Sitting in the back is a struggle if you’re over 6 feet tall and can be a little rough over bumpy roads since you’re basically sitting over the rear axle.
I found the Rogue to be a very pleasant vehicle overall. It does everything pretty well and doesn’t bog you down with unnecessary options. Other than adjusting to the CVT transmission and the keyless entry system, the Rogue is very simple to operate and live with.
After completing her morning treatment, the pair would head to their daughter’s home to play with their two toddler grandchildren before coming back at the end of the day for Evelyn to undergo a second round.
Had Evelyn been diagnosed with breast cancer a few months earlier, the couple would’ve had to travel an additional 25 miles to the hospital’s main campus in Charlotte for the treatment or opt for the traditional six-week radiation.
The targeted radiation therapy known as MammoSite has been FDA approved since 2002, but doctors at the Battle Cancer Center at CMC-Northeast just started administering it in May.
Telluride Grown is proposing to build a food-growing system on the Pearl Property that uses a technology known as aquaponics to grow produce and raise fish for consumption. The project would be comprised of several greenhouses, and its proponents say the system would allow the town to drastically cut down on carbon emissions related to importing food, produce healthy products for its denizens and serve as an example to other communities.
While town council members and residents in the audience lauded the concept, many tripped over the location. And the inclusion of the Pearl Property ultimately cost the project support of three of the five council members who considered it during a work session.
Cieciuch said he chose the 1.5-acre parcel of uplands on the north side of the property for several reasons. After researching all vacant town-owned land that would be appropriate for the project, he said this best fit the project’s objectives. The parcel is flat, it gets great sun exposure, and it would be a visible example to visitors and locals that Telluride is working toward a greener future, he said.
But the Pearl Property, which has a contentious past, poses some hurdles. The 7.3-acre parcel of marshy land that sits between Telluride and the Valley Floor has been at the center of a number of public debates and votes in the last two decades as townspeople squabbled over development rights, wetlands and whether or not to put a parking lot there. In 1998, voters approved a restriction on the Pearl to prevent a proposed parking lot, and the development restriction remains today. It’s currently zoned for public purpose.
The land is now at the center of a proposal years in the making to divide the property into two parcels — a large undeveloped open space parcel preserved by a conservation easement and a small paved parcel where the RV lot is now located that could be used for a public benefit such as a new medical center.
The decision emphasises employers’ responsibilities to provide workers with accommodation commensurate with international labour standards. Each facility operating in the country has to upgrade its workers’ accommodation conditions to comply with these standards. In implementation of this decision, Abu Dhabi has invested about Dh20 billion ($5.4 billion) in 23 workers’ “cities” which are capable of providing accommodation for 385,000 workers. These complexes have been built in line with the new manual which stipulates that all labour accommodations must include its own medical clinic equipped with full services, parking, yards, walkways, mini-market, green spaces and playgrounds.
Other innovations in the efforts to protect workers’ rights are aimed at introducing greater flexibility and freedom of movement in the labour market, and establishing a balanced contractual relationship between employer and worker.
At the same time, access to effective legal remedies in the event of a labour dispute have been vastly improved. In particular, the Ministry of Labour (MoL) has set up a collective labour disputes committee, with representatives of workers and employers in each labour office. The committees must issue a decision on a dispute within two weeks of referral. Their decisions can be challenged before an appeal court within 30 days of issuance.
Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en/!
Nissan’s answer to that is the Rogue. This is the smallest of the SUVs from Nissan, just below the Murano in the lineup.
From the outside, it is easy on the eyes. Clean, rounded design with stylish wheels, a good stance and a very attractive Cayenne Red paint job on the test model.
Power is supplied by a 2.5-liter Xtronic CVT (continuously variable transmission) with 170 horsepower, 175 pound-feet of torque and placed on the pavement by an intuitive all-wheel-drive system.
The Intelligent Key option enables you to keep the key in your pocket and lock/unlock the doors via a button on the door handle. Once inside you just turn the fob where the key normally goes and the engine fires up.
You will be pleasantly surprised by how simple and uncluttered the interior and dash appear. There are some storage areas, but nothing too extravagant or confusing. In the dash is a 5-inch touch-screen navigation and Bose stereo system. The screen is a bit small, but displays the information adequately.
The seats and steering wheel are covered by leather and the SL package also provides a rear-view camera and Around View monitor, one of Nissan’s trademark parking aids. An SUV of this size is pretty easy to park and maneuver, but the options provide an extra sense of confidence.
On road, the Rogue is pretty nice. The CVT supplies ample power to zip along with traffic and the lack of “shifting” makes for smooth power delivery. On hill climbs or entry to the highway, you have to really stand on the accelerator and the engine revs pretty loudly, but once you let up the revs drop to a comfortable level.
There’s no doubt driving a vehicle with CVT is different and takes some learning, but it’s absolutely ideal for city driving where stop-and-go is the norm. Driving at night is made easy with the optional HID headlamps that provide great vision and clarity.
With the rear seats up, there is enough room for two suitcases in the back. With the seats down you can fit a good amount of cargo. Sitting in the back is a struggle if you’re over 6 feet tall and can be a little rough over bumpy roads since you’re basically sitting over the rear axle.
I found the Rogue to be a very pleasant vehicle overall. It does everything pretty well and doesn’t bog you down with unnecessary options. Other than adjusting to the CVT transmission and the keyless entry system, the Rogue is very simple to operate and live with.
After completing her morning treatment, the pair would head to their daughter’s home to play with their two toddler grandchildren before coming back at the end of the day for Evelyn to undergo a second round.
Had Evelyn been diagnosed with breast cancer a few months earlier, the couple would’ve had to travel an additional 25 miles to the hospital’s main campus in Charlotte for the treatment or opt for the traditional six-week radiation.
The targeted radiation therapy known as MammoSite has been FDA approved since 2002, but doctors at the Battle Cancer Center at CMC-Northeast just started administering it in May.
Telluride Grown is proposing to build a food-growing system on the Pearl Property that uses a technology known as aquaponics to grow produce and raise fish for consumption. The project would be comprised of several greenhouses, and its proponents say the system would allow the town to drastically cut down on carbon emissions related to importing food, produce healthy products for its denizens and serve as an example to other communities.
While town council members and residents in the audience lauded the concept, many tripped over the location. And the inclusion of the Pearl Property ultimately cost the project support of three of the five council members who considered it during a work session.
Cieciuch said he chose the 1.5-acre parcel of uplands on the north side of the property for several reasons. After researching all vacant town-owned land that would be appropriate for the project, he said this best fit the project’s objectives. The parcel is flat, it gets great sun exposure, and it would be a visible example to visitors and locals that Telluride is working toward a greener future, he said.
But the Pearl Property, which has a contentious past, poses some hurdles. The 7.3-acre parcel of marshy land that sits between Telluride and the Valley Floor has been at the center of a number of public debates and votes in the last two decades as townspeople squabbled over development rights, wetlands and whether or not to put a parking lot there. In 1998, voters approved a restriction on the Pearl to prevent a proposed parking lot, and the development restriction remains today. It’s currently zoned for public purpose.
The land is now at the center of a proposal years in the making to divide the property into two parcels — a large undeveloped open space parcel preserved by a conservation easement and a small paved parcel where the RV lot is now located that could be used for a public benefit such as a new medical center.
The decision emphasises employers’ responsibilities to provide workers with accommodation commensurate with international labour standards. Each facility operating in the country has to upgrade its workers’ accommodation conditions to comply with these standards. In implementation of this decision, Abu Dhabi has invested about Dh20 billion ($5.4 billion) in 23 workers’ “cities” which are capable of providing accommodation for 385,000 workers. These complexes have been built in line with the new manual which stipulates that all labour accommodations must include its own medical clinic equipped with full services, parking, yards, walkways, mini-market, green spaces and playgrounds.
Other innovations in the efforts to protect workers’ rights are aimed at introducing greater flexibility and freedom of movement in the labour market, and establishing a balanced contractual relationship between employer and worker.
At the same time, access to effective legal remedies in the event of a labour dispute have been vastly improved. In particular, the Ministry of Labour (MoL) has set up a collective labour disputes committee, with representatives of workers and employers in each labour office. The committees must issue a decision on a dispute within two weeks of referral. Their decisions can be challenged before an appeal court within 30 days of issuance.
Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en/!
2013年6月20日星期四
VeriSilicon Announces ZSP G4 Architecture
A leading Custom Silicon Solutions and Semiconductor IP provider, today announced the introduction of its fourth generation ZSP architecture (ZSP G4) and the availability of the ZSP981 Digital Signal Processor (DSP), the first core in the ZSP G4 series. The ZSP G4 architecture is compatible with the previous generation architecture and extends it further by introducing vector computation capabilities, higher bandwidth interfaces and more execution resources. Designed with inputs from wireless industry experts, the ZSP981 offers a 17X performance improvement over third generation ZSP cores while providing the power efficiency needed for mobile devices. ZSP981 provides modem developers the right level of programmable signal processing capability to implement new and evolving wireless technologies such as LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), 802.11ac and more.
ZSP981 is the first of a set of cores based on the ZSP G4 architecture family. The cores range from a 4-issue, 4-MAC scalar core to a 6-issue, 260-MAC vector core. The cores differ primarily in their performance, power and area characteristics. They offer the flexibility and scalability necessary to target evolving application needs. Developers can easily select a DSP core from the ZSP G4 family that best satisfies the power, performance, area and flexibility considerations of the target platform. In addition, they can define custom instructions to exercise user defined hardware via the enhanced Z.Turbo interface. Cores based on ZSP G4 are ideally suited for multi-mode terminals, femto-cells, smart grid, M2M and mobile infrastructure.
ZSP981 is a fully synthesizable, 6-issue superscalar DSP core. Running at 1.2 GHz, a single ZSP981 can deliver 82 billion multiply accumulate operations per second. With wide, high speed interfaces to shared memory and enhanced Z.Turbo coprocessor ports to hardware accelerators, the ZSP981 enables system designers to achieve the desired balance between software and hardware in their systems. Also included in the ZSP981 subsystem are a power management module, a multi-core communication module and a multichannel Direct Memory Access (DMA), which greatly simplify system level integration and development.
"A pure Software Defined Radio (SDR) approach presents power challenges in mobile devices. User equipment system developers seek an optimal balance between performance and power, which is made possible by our ZSP981 DSP core," says Dr. Wayne Dai, President and CEO of VeriSilicon. "Based on the ZSP G4 architecture, we have created an adaptive and scalable wireless platform that can help mobile communication SoC vendors achieve the best solution in the shortest time."
The ZSP981 architecture is supported by ZView(TM) , a full-featured, easy-to-use suite of tools consisting of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), compiler, assembler, optimizer, linker, debugger, simulators, and profiling utilities. ZView(TM) incorporates a number of significant new enhancements, including a vectorizing C compiler, and other optimization tools to accelerate software development.
To combat poor internet connectivity in Africa, founders of Ushahidi, David Kobia, Juliana Rotich, and Erik Hersman, are set to launch a modem, BRCK, that provides internet connection even without electricity.
BRCK, is a product designed by Africans, for Africans to work best in areas of the continent where internet connectivity is unpredictable. It can work even in remote areas where there are fairly unreliable internet connections.
Head at MIT Center for Civic Media Ethan Zuckerman described it as, “the equivalent of a backup generator for the net.”
BRCK connects two mains and has a battery that could work for 8 hours without power. It works much like a cell phone by gaining its connectivity through a standard SIM card and/or Ethernet or WiFi connections while intelligently and seamlessly switching between Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and 3G or 4G connections. It is extremely small, and designed to be the easiest possible networking device to set up. Once operating, it can connect up to 20 devices with a WiFi signal that can cover several rooms.
The idea to create BRCK was born out of the problem encountered in Ushahidi (“Ushahidi” means “testimony” in Swahili.), a non-profit technology company created in Africa in 2008 in response to the post-election violence in Kenya. With the use of Ushahidi, citizens can report incidence of violence and use this information to build maps illustrating where troubled spots are. Ushahidi builds open source software and digital tools to help people in the developing world use information more effectively.
“As a company full of engineers working in places with poor infrastructure, we simply cannot get connected as reliably as our peers in the developed world,” the company says.
“At Ushahidi, we face this problem all the time. We realised that what we really needed was a smart, rugged device that could connect to the internet any way it could, hop from one network to another, create a hotspot for multiple devices, while plugged in or running on battery power.”
However, when the founders devised that failure in internet connection could mar the purpose of the project Ushahidi; they launched a “KickStater” to fund it. The project started with the help of $172,107 raised on crowdfunding site for the Kickstarter.
Click on their website www.ecived.com/en/ for more information.
ZSP981 is the first of a set of cores based on the ZSP G4 architecture family. The cores range from a 4-issue, 4-MAC scalar core to a 6-issue, 260-MAC vector core. The cores differ primarily in their performance, power and area characteristics. They offer the flexibility and scalability necessary to target evolving application needs. Developers can easily select a DSP core from the ZSP G4 family that best satisfies the power, performance, area and flexibility considerations of the target platform. In addition, they can define custom instructions to exercise user defined hardware via the enhanced Z.Turbo interface. Cores based on ZSP G4 are ideally suited for multi-mode terminals, femto-cells, smart grid, M2M and mobile infrastructure.
ZSP981 is a fully synthesizable, 6-issue superscalar DSP core. Running at 1.2 GHz, a single ZSP981 can deliver 82 billion multiply accumulate operations per second. With wide, high speed interfaces to shared memory and enhanced Z.Turbo coprocessor ports to hardware accelerators, the ZSP981 enables system designers to achieve the desired balance between software and hardware in their systems. Also included in the ZSP981 subsystem are a power management module, a multi-core communication module and a multichannel Direct Memory Access (DMA), which greatly simplify system level integration and development.
"A pure Software Defined Radio (SDR) approach presents power challenges in mobile devices. User equipment system developers seek an optimal balance between performance and power, which is made possible by our ZSP981 DSP core," says Dr. Wayne Dai, President and CEO of VeriSilicon. "Based on the ZSP G4 architecture, we have created an adaptive and scalable wireless platform that can help mobile communication SoC vendors achieve the best solution in the shortest time."
The ZSP981 architecture is supported by ZView(TM) , a full-featured, easy-to-use suite of tools consisting of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), compiler, assembler, optimizer, linker, debugger, simulators, and profiling utilities. ZView(TM) incorporates a number of significant new enhancements, including a vectorizing C compiler, and other optimization tools to accelerate software development.
To combat poor internet connectivity in Africa, founders of Ushahidi, David Kobia, Juliana Rotich, and Erik Hersman, are set to launch a modem, BRCK, that provides internet connection even without electricity.
BRCK, is a product designed by Africans, for Africans to work best in areas of the continent where internet connectivity is unpredictable. It can work even in remote areas where there are fairly unreliable internet connections.
Head at MIT Center for Civic Media Ethan Zuckerman described it as, “the equivalent of a backup generator for the net.”
BRCK connects two mains and has a battery that could work for 8 hours without power. It works much like a cell phone by gaining its connectivity through a standard SIM card and/or Ethernet or WiFi connections while intelligently and seamlessly switching between Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and 3G or 4G connections. It is extremely small, and designed to be the easiest possible networking device to set up. Once operating, it can connect up to 20 devices with a WiFi signal that can cover several rooms.
The idea to create BRCK was born out of the problem encountered in Ushahidi (“Ushahidi” means “testimony” in Swahili.), a non-profit technology company created in Africa in 2008 in response to the post-election violence in Kenya. With the use of Ushahidi, citizens can report incidence of violence and use this information to build maps illustrating where troubled spots are. Ushahidi builds open source software and digital tools to help people in the developing world use information more effectively.
“As a company full of engineers working in places with poor infrastructure, we simply cannot get connected as reliably as our peers in the developed world,” the company says.
“At Ushahidi, we face this problem all the time. We realised that what we really needed was a smart, rugged device that could connect to the internet any way it could, hop from one network to another, create a hotspot for multiple devices, while plugged in or running on battery power.”
However, when the founders devised that failure in internet connection could mar the purpose of the project Ushahidi; they launched a “KickStater” to fund it. The project started with the help of $172,107 raised on crowdfunding site for the Kickstarter.
Click on their website www.ecived.com/en/ for more information.
2013年6月16日星期日
How a gold fetish is killing India's economy
Investors are fleeing the yellow metal, whose price has slumped more than 10 percent over the past three months.But Indians are so gold crazy they're sacrificing their currency and their country’s economy in the bargain.
By buying up billions of dollars worth of foreign gold, they are sending Indian cash overseas, disrupting the balance money entering and leaving the country, and thus driving down the value of the rupee. That in turn makes key imports *more costly*, and makes it harder for business to pay international loans.
"If for one year there are no gold imports, it will change the current account deficit story of the country," said Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday. “Indians think they are buying gold in rupees. Actually they are buying gold in dollars.”
India is the world's biggest gold importer, soaking up a third of the world's supply every year. Gold is the country's biggest foreign purchase after oil. The impact? The current account deficit (the net outflow of money) is 5.4 percent of GDP, about double what economists recommend.
"I once again appeal to everyone to resist the temptation to buy gold,” Chidambaram said. “This will show positive impact on every aspect of the Indian economy.”
While India's current account deficit is too high, the real concern is whether enough money is flowing into the country to make up the difference, Bibek Debroy, an economist affiliated with the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, told GlobalPost. And there things get extra tricky.
“The worry for the government really is that whatever capital inflows we have are in the nature of portfolio investments” — such as stock purchases — “which tend to come and go,” Debroy said. In contrast, direct investment in factories and in other ventures tend to carry long-term benefits, and the capital remains regardless of short term market fluctuations.
“So we should really be asking, ‘Why aren't investments coming in?’ — rather than picking on people who are buying gold.”
According to Chidambaram, India's gold imports fell from an average of $135 million in the first half of May to $36 million in the second half of the month, but he neglected to mention the reason: This year the Akshaya Tritiya festival, the second-biggest holiday for buying gold, fell on May 13.
The post-holiday lull gave some relief to the central bank, which on Tuesday was forced to intervene in currency markets to bring the rupee back from its lowest level against the dollar in history (58.98 rupees to the greenback).
But the rupee resumed its fall after the finance minister's speech Thursday. And the dip in gold demand is likely only to be temporary — because for Indians gold is more than an investment.
Gold is synonymous with savings and security for many of India’s 1.24 billion people, for a variety of reasons. Only about 36,000 of India's 650,000 villages have a bank branch. And minimum balances and other requirements mean that house maids, security guards and construction workers hold much of their assets in gold coins and jewelry as a hedge against bad times, when they can be sold or used as a collateral with the local moneylender.
Moreover, the metal's cultural importance makes it essential for weddings and various other ceremonies. Even bankers and lawyers still think of buying gold jewelry as a foolproof financial strategy. And with both the capital markets and real estate losing luster lately, India's wealthy have emerged as a new class of gold buyers.
“Traditionally, there's always been a demand for gold. But what has added to that in the last four years or so is a different kind of demand. That is a demand for gold that I would call investment,” said Debroy.
Consider this: Even though gold prices have plunged from more than $1800 in November to around $1400 an ounce last month, the World Gold Council has forecast that India's gold imports for April-June would amount to almost half the total imported in 2012.
Bad investment? Probably. Experts say a rise in gold prices is unlikely without a big slump in the US stock market or in the value of the dollar, neither of which seems likely. And even long term, gold prices tend to skyrocket and plunge because there's paltry “real” business demand for the yellow metal, with investors who buy gold and sit on it as an investment accounting for more than half of the volume purchased every year.
For the Indian economy, however, the gold obsession is worse than a poor investment. Unlike buying stocks or bonds, parking money in gold slows, rather than stimulates, economic growth by sucking cash out of the system.
Meanwhile, a growing trade deficit forces the country to devalue its currency – for India, about 10 percent a year for the past two decades. Those plunging values scare people out of rupees, and foreign funds out of India. That, in turn, means less investment and slower growth, and thus a further weakening rupee.Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en!
By buying up billions of dollars worth of foreign gold, they are sending Indian cash overseas, disrupting the balance money entering and leaving the country, and thus driving down the value of the rupee. That in turn makes key imports *more costly*, and makes it harder for business to pay international loans.
"If for one year there are no gold imports, it will change the current account deficit story of the country," said Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Thursday. “Indians think they are buying gold in rupees. Actually they are buying gold in dollars.”
India is the world's biggest gold importer, soaking up a third of the world's supply every year. Gold is the country's biggest foreign purchase after oil. The impact? The current account deficit (the net outflow of money) is 5.4 percent of GDP, about double what economists recommend.
"I once again appeal to everyone to resist the temptation to buy gold,” Chidambaram said. “This will show positive impact on every aspect of the Indian economy.”
While India's current account deficit is too high, the real concern is whether enough money is flowing into the country to make up the difference, Bibek Debroy, an economist affiliated with the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, told GlobalPost. And there things get extra tricky.
“The worry for the government really is that whatever capital inflows we have are in the nature of portfolio investments” — such as stock purchases — “which tend to come and go,” Debroy said. In contrast, direct investment in factories and in other ventures tend to carry long-term benefits, and the capital remains regardless of short term market fluctuations.
“So we should really be asking, ‘Why aren't investments coming in?’ — rather than picking on people who are buying gold.”
According to Chidambaram, India's gold imports fell from an average of $135 million in the first half of May to $36 million in the second half of the month, but he neglected to mention the reason: This year the Akshaya Tritiya festival, the second-biggest holiday for buying gold, fell on May 13.
The post-holiday lull gave some relief to the central bank, which on Tuesday was forced to intervene in currency markets to bring the rupee back from its lowest level against the dollar in history (58.98 rupees to the greenback).
But the rupee resumed its fall after the finance minister's speech Thursday. And the dip in gold demand is likely only to be temporary — because for Indians gold is more than an investment.
Gold is synonymous with savings and security for many of India’s 1.24 billion people, for a variety of reasons. Only about 36,000 of India's 650,000 villages have a bank branch. And minimum balances and other requirements mean that house maids, security guards and construction workers hold much of their assets in gold coins and jewelry as a hedge against bad times, when they can be sold or used as a collateral with the local moneylender.
Moreover, the metal's cultural importance makes it essential for weddings and various other ceremonies. Even bankers and lawyers still think of buying gold jewelry as a foolproof financial strategy. And with both the capital markets and real estate losing luster lately, India's wealthy have emerged as a new class of gold buyers.
“Traditionally, there's always been a demand for gold. But what has added to that in the last four years or so is a different kind of demand. That is a demand for gold that I would call investment,” said Debroy.
Consider this: Even though gold prices have plunged from more than $1800 in November to around $1400 an ounce last month, the World Gold Council has forecast that India's gold imports for April-June would amount to almost half the total imported in 2012.
Bad investment? Probably. Experts say a rise in gold prices is unlikely without a big slump in the US stock market or in the value of the dollar, neither of which seems likely. And even long term, gold prices tend to skyrocket and plunge because there's paltry “real” business demand for the yellow metal, with investors who buy gold and sit on it as an investment accounting for more than half of the volume purchased every year.
For the Indian economy, however, the gold obsession is worse than a poor investment. Unlike buying stocks or bonds, parking money in gold slows, rather than stimulates, economic growth by sucking cash out of the system.
Meanwhile, a growing trade deficit forces the country to devalue its currency – for India, about 10 percent a year for the past two decades. Those plunging values scare people out of rupees, and foreign funds out of India. That, in turn, means less investment and slower growth, and thus a further weakening rupee.Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en!
2013年6月8日星期六
Fragile peace in San Salvador as youth gangs
The main square in Ilopango is bustling with noise as the sun disappears behind the distant mountains. The queue for papusas, tortillas filled with beans and melted cheese, is growing as hymns ring out from the evangelical church.
Across the square two girls – cousins aged five and six – persuade me to join in their boisterous game of football, oblivious to the young couples trying to enjoy a quiet moment. Turn the clock back a year, and this typical San Salvador twilight scene could not have existed.
The town was a battleground for the country's two biggest street gangs, Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13) and Calle 18, with gang graffiti marking territory street by street. Both gangs used the square to display dead bodies, so everybody knew who was responsible. This public show of violence instilled deep fear among the street vendors, shop owners and taxi drivers, who were all forced to pay into the gangs' extortion rackets. No one came out after dark. El Salvador was ranked the world's second most murderous country in 2011.
Then, in March 2012, the gangs unexpectedly announced a truce. Leaders from both sides promised to stop the killings in return for more humane prison conditions and help in reintegrating members back into society. The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) government, former leftwing guerrillas, risked the wrath of the gang-hating electorate by negotiating for peace. Within weeks the murder rate fell from 14 a day to five or six. Ilopango was one of the most dangerous municipalities of San Salvador, with 117 murders in 2011. The killings fell dramatically to 62 in 2012, and improbably it became the first area declared free from gang violence.
Marvin Gonzales, 29, a spokesman of MS-13 in Ilopango, is one of 30 gang members operating a chicken farm – a showcase truce project attracting international attention for the city's mayor. He tells me about choosing MS-13 over his family at the age of 12; this farm is his first legal job. "I served 10 years in hell for killing a boy whose name I didn't even know over territory. When my niece's father was sentenced to 136 years for triple murder, I knew this had to stop. I lost six friends to Indoor Positioning System, I can't do it any more."
It's a steep, sweltering descent from the road to the farm, which overlooks El Salvador's largest lake. Though once a chicken farm, for the past 16 years this land served as a rubbish dump. Alex Renderos, 26, screws up his face as he recalls the mountain of stinking rubbish. "That's all we did for three months, it was disgusting, the insects were huge."
He was jailed for three years when his girlfriend was pregnant for possession of a 9mm gun. "I didn't see my daughter until she was three – which hurt here," he says, patting his heart. "That's why we are motivated to make this work."
Grinning, Gonzales hands me an envelope he's been carrying in his back pocket. His girlfriend is pregnant and he wants to show off the 12-week ultrasound scan. "I spent the best years of my life in jail, 100 men in a 20-by-15-metre room. Life for us pandilleros [gang members] is short: we end up in jail or dead. I don't want that for my child."
A couple of days later we drive to the flagship Calle 18 project – a tiny bakery down a side street that is covered in gang graffiti. The ovens are full and young boys are speeding off on bicycles loaded with bread rolls, honking their horns to attract customers. The senior gangsters aren't here, delayed at another meeting at the mayor's office with government officials, MS-13, and Father To?o Rodríguez – a controversial priest who recently joined the negotiating table.
Javier García, 22, has been working in the bakery for four months, earning $5 a day. He was kicked out of school at 14 and, like many teenagers, saw the gang as a laugh, better than being at home. "When I'm in the bakery I am not on the streets, so that's good for everyone," he says while lifting from the oven trays of pan francés – salty bread rolls that Salvadoreans eat with breakfast and dinner. "Maybe I will want to leave one day, but right now I still feel very strongly in my heart for my gang, we look after each other like the three musketeers."
García says his friend Kevin was killed by MS-13 only three months ago after stepping into their territory while selling avocados. "I can never imagine MS-13 as my friends, never. If I saw one now, I would hit him, for Kevin. For this truce to work, we have to stay apart."
The mayor, Salvador Ruano, came to power in Ilopango last May, after a narrow win for the rightwing National Republican Alliance, known by the acronym Arena in Spanish, in a FMLN stronghold – with the party punished for years of infighting by a record low turnout. Despite his squat physique, Ruano cuts an imposing figure as he bellows at me as if addressing a large crowd. "I promised both groups I would help them earn an honest living, as long as they kept their side of the compromise, and now I have them around the same table talking peace and people are definitely safer."
"The problem of violence here is decades old and there is no magic formula, no manual, no perfect solution… I cannot say Ilopango is free from violence, but after one year in power we are in transition from violence to peace. Those who criticise maybe have something to lose from peace."
Ilopango's square has a bloody past. During the 12-year civil war, it was from the airbase around the corner that the feared Atlacatl Battalion, a US–trained special forces unit, was sent in helicopters to massacre civilians in "red zones" such as El Mozote and El Calabozo.
Members of the urban guerrilla movement were captured and tortured and bodies were dumped in the square, says David Munguía, the director of FMLN Ilopango, whose office is adorned with pictures of the "martyrs".
"After one year, all we have is a bakery and a chicken farm that employs a handful of people, this cannot sustain [the] truce," Munguía says. "There are no social programmes or prevention projects and, OK, there are fewer murders, but delinquency, extortion and kidnappings are up.
The fragile truce has powerful religious and political opponents. Norman Quijano, the mayor of San Salvador and Arena's 2014 presidential candidate, is pledging to get tough on crime and stop negotiating with criminals.
El Salvador has the most overcrowded prisons in the world, with 26,000 inmates kettled in prisons built for 8,400 – a direct result of the 2004 Arena Mano Duro or iron-fist policy. But Quijano's claims that murderous gangsters are now living it up with plasma-screen TVs hits a nerve, and his popularity is growing. One taxi driver tells me that he still pays $8 a week to Calle 18 – a quarter of what he earns – and wants them all locked up for life. Mauricio Funes, the president of El Salvador, promises to tackle extortion next, but the police, narcos and other organised criminals are all at it – so that is easier said than done.
Jeanne Rikkers, from the human rights and prison reform NGO Fespad, says: "Despite the US roots, the gangs were an El Salvadorean response to an El Salvadorean reality, flourishing in a perfect storm. State obligations to rehabilitate, reintegrate, improve prisons, reform education and health, need to be done transparently with access for all, not just negotiated for some. A promise to stop killing cannot solve underlying complex social problems."
Mejicanos, a suburb of San Salvador, will become the tenth area declared free from gang violence on 20 June, the third anniversary of the notorious Calle 18 arson attack in which 17 bus passengers died. Father To?o, who moved here from Madrid 14 years ago, chats over coffee while his guards – whose presence is the result of death threats from drug traffickers – loiter outside. "The gangs are the product of the unresolved causes of the civil war: huge inequalities in wealth, democracy and land ownership.
Across the square two girls – cousins aged five and six – persuade me to join in their boisterous game of football, oblivious to the young couples trying to enjoy a quiet moment. Turn the clock back a year, and this typical San Salvador twilight scene could not have existed.
The town was a battleground for the country's two biggest street gangs, Mara Salvatrucha 13 (MS-13) and Calle 18, with gang graffiti marking territory street by street. Both gangs used the square to display dead bodies, so everybody knew who was responsible. This public show of violence instilled deep fear among the street vendors, shop owners and taxi drivers, who were all forced to pay into the gangs' extortion rackets. No one came out after dark. El Salvador was ranked the world's second most murderous country in 2011.
Then, in March 2012, the gangs unexpectedly announced a truce. Leaders from both sides promised to stop the killings in return for more humane prison conditions and help in reintegrating members back into society. The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) government, former leftwing guerrillas, risked the wrath of the gang-hating electorate by negotiating for peace. Within weeks the murder rate fell from 14 a day to five or six. Ilopango was one of the most dangerous municipalities of San Salvador, with 117 murders in 2011. The killings fell dramatically to 62 in 2012, and improbably it became the first area declared free from gang violence.
Marvin Gonzales, 29, a spokesman of MS-13 in Ilopango, is one of 30 gang members operating a chicken farm – a showcase truce project attracting international attention for the city's mayor. He tells me about choosing MS-13 over his family at the age of 12; this farm is his first legal job. "I served 10 years in hell for killing a boy whose name I didn't even know over territory. When my niece's father was sentenced to 136 years for triple murder, I knew this had to stop. I lost six friends to Indoor Positioning System, I can't do it any more."
It's a steep, sweltering descent from the road to the farm, which overlooks El Salvador's largest lake. Though once a chicken farm, for the past 16 years this land served as a rubbish dump. Alex Renderos, 26, screws up his face as he recalls the mountain of stinking rubbish. "That's all we did for three months, it was disgusting, the insects were huge."
He was jailed for three years when his girlfriend was pregnant for possession of a 9mm gun. "I didn't see my daughter until she was three – which hurt here," he says, patting his heart. "That's why we are motivated to make this work."
Grinning, Gonzales hands me an envelope he's been carrying in his back pocket. His girlfriend is pregnant and he wants to show off the 12-week ultrasound scan. "I spent the best years of my life in jail, 100 men in a 20-by-15-metre room. Life for us pandilleros [gang members] is short: we end up in jail or dead. I don't want that for my child."
A couple of days later we drive to the flagship Calle 18 project – a tiny bakery down a side street that is covered in gang graffiti. The ovens are full and young boys are speeding off on bicycles loaded with bread rolls, honking their horns to attract customers. The senior gangsters aren't here, delayed at another meeting at the mayor's office with government officials, MS-13, and Father To?o Rodríguez – a controversial priest who recently joined the negotiating table.
Javier García, 22, has been working in the bakery for four months, earning $5 a day. He was kicked out of school at 14 and, like many teenagers, saw the gang as a laugh, better than being at home. "When I'm in the bakery I am not on the streets, so that's good for everyone," he says while lifting from the oven trays of pan francés – salty bread rolls that Salvadoreans eat with breakfast and dinner. "Maybe I will want to leave one day, but right now I still feel very strongly in my heart for my gang, we look after each other like the three musketeers."
García says his friend Kevin was killed by MS-13 only three months ago after stepping into their territory while selling avocados. "I can never imagine MS-13 as my friends, never. If I saw one now, I would hit him, for Kevin. For this truce to work, we have to stay apart."
The mayor, Salvador Ruano, came to power in Ilopango last May, after a narrow win for the rightwing National Republican Alliance, known by the acronym Arena in Spanish, in a FMLN stronghold – with the party punished for years of infighting by a record low turnout. Despite his squat physique, Ruano cuts an imposing figure as he bellows at me as if addressing a large crowd. "I promised both groups I would help them earn an honest living, as long as they kept their side of the compromise, and now I have them around the same table talking peace and people are definitely safer."
"The problem of violence here is decades old and there is no magic formula, no manual, no perfect solution… I cannot say Ilopango is free from violence, but after one year in power we are in transition from violence to peace. Those who criticise maybe have something to lose from peace."
Ilopango's square has a bloody past. During the 12-year civil war, it was from the airbase around the corner that the feared Atlacatl Battalion, a US–trained special forces unit, was sent in helicopters to massacre civilians in "red zones" such as El Mozote and El Calabozo.
Members of the urban guerrilla movement were captured and tortured and bodies were dumped in the square, says David Munguía, the director of FMLN Ilopango, whose office is adorned with pictures of the "martyrs".
"After one year, all we have is a bakery and a chicken farm that employs a handful of people, this cannot sustain [the] truce," Munguía says. "There are no social programmes or prevention projects and, OK, there are fewer murders, but delinquency, extortion and kidnappings are up.
The fragile truce has powerful religious and political opponents. Norman Quijano, the mayor of San Salvador and Arena's 2014 presidential candidate, is pledging to get tough on crime and stop negotiating with criminals.
El Salvador has the most overcrowded prisons in the world, with 26,000 inmates kettled in prisons built for 8,400 – a direct result of the 2004 Arena Mano Duro or iron-fist policy. But Quijano's claims that murderous gangsters are now living it up with plasma-screen TVs hits a nerve, and his popularity is growing. One taxi driver tells me that he still pays $8 a week to Calle 18 – a quarter of what he earns – and wants them all locked up for life. Mauricio Funes, the president of El Salvador, promises to tackle extortion next, but the police, narcos and other organised criminals are all at it – so that is easier said than done.
Jeanne Rikkers, from the human rights and prison reform NGO Fespad, says: "Despite the US roots, the gangs were an El Salvadorean response to an El Salvadorean reality, flourishing in a perfect storm. State obligations to rehabilitate, reintegrate, improve prisons, reform education and health, need to be done transparently with access for all, not just negotiated for some. A promise to stop killing cannot solve underlying complex social problems."
Mejicanos, a suburb of San Salvador, will become the tenth area declared free from gang violence on 20 June, the third anniversary of the notorious Calle 18 arson attack in which 17 bus passengers died. Father To?o, who moved here from Madrid 14 years ago, chats over coffee while his guards – whose presence is the result of death threats from drug traffickers – loiter outside. "The gangs are the product of the unresolved causes of the civil war: huge inequalities in wealth, democracy and land ownership.
2013年6月7日星期五
“Hardcore” Holly on Respect for CM Punk
“It was a silly kind of a gimmick. And people – you know, to this day, people still make fun of it, and which that’s cool because I’d make fun of it too. But it gave me my start. And that’s what I want people to understand that laugh and joke about it, you know, and people still call me Sparky and laugh and, you know, stuff like that. But they’ve got to understand if they were in my shoes, they wouldn’t turn it down just to be in WWE. ‘Cause I guarantee they wouldn’t tell Vince, you know, whatever character they gave ‘em, silly character or whatever because back then it was – everything was cartoon characters, basically. And I guarantee to this day nobody would have ever turned them down [Laughter]. And I wasn’t about to, you know.
“And I thought, you know, this is what I’ve been working for, you know, all my life, to get in the WWE, WWF at the time, you know. And I darn sure wasn’t gonna turn it down. And I thought you know what? Just take it a step at a time. And hopefully, we can evolve to something else, in which, you know, fortunately, it did for me.
“It was Vince’s idea. See, I’m gonna back up a little bit here. When the whole ‘Sparkplug’ gimmick came along, after I had been there for about six months, between six months and a year, I actually went to Vince and asked him if we could change it. And he did not have a problem with it at all, you know. So he just – I just said, hey, do you think we could just drop, you know, the Thurman, and we’ll, you know, take baby steps and go, you know, Bob ‘Sparkplug’ Holly? And so we did that.
“And then eventually, you know, they put me in with the ‘Midnight Express’. So then they completely dropped that whole ‘Sparkplug’ gimmick. And, you know, of course, I was ‘Bombastic’ Bob. You know, and that was another thing I wasn’t too proud of, but I was still in WWE and I was still working [Laughter].
“Yeah. And so I thought you know what? Something better’s gonna come along. And then when they did the whole Brawl for All, you know, that kind of changed people’s opinions quite a bit. And so then they stopped the ‘Midnight Express’. And then the whole ‘Job Squad’ thing came along. And then I was just Bob Holly then.
“And then when they started the whole Hardcore Match, you know, and have the Hardcore Title and everything, and when I was introduced to that, that’s when Vince said, we’re gonna start calling Bob ‘Hardcore’ Holly. And so that’s how that how that whole hardcore thing evolved for me.”
“No, no… My loyalty – you know, to me, my loyalty laid with Vince. And, you know, I just felt committed to him because he’s always been so good to me. He really was. And so, you know, it didn’t matter. Money to me didn’t matter. My happiness and my comfort where I am was important to me and my loyalty. So, you know, it was never a thought to go to WCW, no matter how much money they offered me, you know. Because like I said, you know, Vince was always good to me. So that’s why I stayed loyal to him.”
“I was out with Kurt – with my broken arm, I was out eight months with that. And then with Brock, I was out thirteen months with that. And, you know, it was just a lot of – you know, it was almost like starting “I don’t think there was, you know. I just think the whole – the match was just a lead-up to as far as just blowing off the whole angle, you know. But I just – I don’t think that – honestly, in my opinion, that I was World Title material. I wasn’t ready for that, you know, because of where I was in the company and stuff like that. I just don’t think I was ready for that. So I really honestly don’t think there was any talk of, you know, putting the title on me, you know. And rightly so, you know, because honestly, you know, I wasn’t ready… I honestly don’t think I ever was. I think the time leading up to my broken arm with Kurt – because they were grooming me, you know, to work on top back then, you know. And then I just never gained the momentum back. And it was just a matter of where I was on the card and, you know, in the situations where they needed me to help – use me to get other guys over that they were bringing in.
“So I never, ever gained that momentum back, you know, because of the role that I was playing at the time as far as needing me to put guys over, you know. So I just don’t ever think there really was a period that I would have been ready, you know, unless they really had a good storyline for me and got good momentum behind me. But other than that, I just, you know – I just – in my opinion, I honestly wasn’t ready ever. I don’t think I ever was, you know. And I was cool with that because, you know, there’s only room at the top for so many, you know. And I understand how everything works. I understood how everything worked, you know. And I was cool with that.
“You know, it would have been nice to be World Champion. Don’t get me wrong. Because along with being World Champion, you carry the company and you make tons of money [laughter], you know. So it would have been really nice, you know. But it just wasn’t in the cards for me. And I was cool with that, you know.over, having to work out all over, you know, to gain your, you know, size and everything back. So that was a lot of work in itself, getting back to that, you know. But as far as getting back in the ring, you know, it was just like riding a bicycle.
“But, you know, as far as the, you know, rehab and everything, it was not that bad, you know. I never really had that, you know, many issues, you know, with the rehab end of it, coming back.”
“If you’re Vince’s pet project, you pretty much – you know, you’re a shoe-in there, you know. And all you got to do is just listen to him and do what he asks of you, and you’ll have it made, you know, because he’ll make sure that you get over. He will. Just do what he says, you know. And listen to him. And you will get over, you know. So yeah, if he’s got Vince behind him like that, that guy’s got it made.
“And another thing I love about what he [Fandango] does too is the way he gets in the ring. After he makes his entrance, watch the way he gets in the ring. He does that. Nobody’s ever done it that way. And to me, that’s different, and I like that, you know. But yeah, you know, if he’s Vince’s pet project, the guy’s got it made, you know. He just has to make sure he listens to him and doesn’t, you know, get the attitude well, I’m gonna do what I want to do, despite of what he says. Because then that’ll be the demise of him, you know. Which hopefully – I think he’s smart enough and he knows who to listen to. So, you know, I wish the guy all the best. I really do, you know. I really do.” Click on their website www.ecived.com/en for more information.
“And I thought, you know, this is what I’ve been working for, you know, all my life, to get in the WWE, WWF at the time, you know. And I darn sure wasn’t gonna turn it down. And I thought you know what? Just take it a step at a time. And hopefully, we can evolve to something else, in which, you know, fortunately, it did for me.
“It was Vince’s idea. See, I’m gonna back up a little bit here. When the whole ‘Sparkplug’ gimmick came along, after I had been there for about six months, between six months and a year, I actually went to Vince and asked him if we could change it. And he did not have a problem with it at all, you know. So he just – I just said, hey, do you think we could just drop, you know, the Thurman, and we’ll, you know, take baby steps and go, you know, Bob ‘Sparkplug’ Holly? And so we did that.
“And then eventually, you know, they put me in with the ‘Midnight Express’. So then they completely dropped that whole ‘Sparkplug’ gimmick. And, you know, of course, I was ‘Bombastic’ Bob. You know, and that was another thing I wasn’t too proud of, but I was still in WWE and I was still working [Laughter].
“Yeah. And so I thought you know what? Something better’s gonna come along. And then when they did the whole Brawl for All, you know, that kind of changed people’s opinions quite a bit. And so then they stopped the ‘Midnight Express’. And then the whole ‘Job Squad’ thing came along. And then I was just Bob Holly then.
“And then when they started the whole Hardcore Match, you know, and have the Hardcore Title and everything, and when I was introduced to that, that’s when Vince said, we’re gonna start calling Bob ‘Hardcore’ Holly. And so that’s how that how that whole hardcore thing evolved for me.”
“No, no… My loyalty – you know, to me, my loyalty laid with Vince. And, you know, I just felt committed to him because he’s always been so good to me. He really was. And so, you know, it didn’t matter. Money to me didn’t matter. My happiness and my comfort where I am was important to me and my loyalty. So, you know, it was never a thought to go to WCW, no matter how much money they offered me, you know. Because like I said, you know, Vince was always good to me. So that’s why I stayed loyal to him.”
“I was out with Kurt – with my broken arm, I was out eight months with that. And then with Brock, I was out thirteen months with that. And, you know, it was just a lot of – you know, it was almost like starting “I don’t think there was, you know. I just think the whole – the match was just a lead-up to as far as just blowing off the whole angle, you know. But I just – I don’t think that – honestly, in my opinion, that I was World Title material. I wasn’t ready for that, you know, because of where I was in the company and stuff like that. I just don’t think I was ready for that. So I really honestly don’t think there was any talk of, you know, putting the title on me, you know. And rightly so, you know, because honestly, you know, I wasn’t ready… I honestly don’t think I ever was. I think the time leading up to my broken arm with Kurt – because they were grooming me, you know, to work on top back then, you know. And then I just never gained the momentum back. And it was just a matter of where I was on the card and, you know, in the situations where they needed me to help – use me to get other guys over that they were bringing in.
“So I never, ever gained that momentum back, you know, because of the role that I was playing at the time as far as needing me to put guys over, you know. So I just don’t ever think there really was a period that I would have been ready, you know, unless they really had a good storyline for me and got good momentum behind me. But other than that, I just, you know – I just – in my opinion, I honestly wasn’t ready ever. I don’t think I ever was, you know. And I was cool with that because, you know, there’s only room at the top for so many, you know. And I understand how everything works. I understood how everything worked, you know. And I was cool with that.
“You know, it would have been nice to be World Champion. Don’t get me wrong. Because along with being World Champion, you carry the company and you make tons of money [laughter], you know. So it would have been really nice, you know. But it just wasn’t in the cards for me. And I was cool with that, you know.over, having to work out all over, you know, to gain your, you know, size and everything back. So that was a lot of work in itself, getting back to that, you know. But as far as getting back in the ring, you know, it was just like riding a bicycle.
“But, you know, as far as the, you know, rehab and everything, it was not that bad, you know. I never really had that, you know, many issues, you know, with the rehab end of it, coming back.”
“If you’re Vince’s pet project, you pretty much – you know, you’re a shoe-in there, you know. And all you got to do is just listen to him and do what he asks of you, and you’ll have it made, you know, because he’ll make sure that you get over. He will. Just do what he says, you know. And listen to him. And you will get over, you know. So yeah, if he’s got Vince behind him like that, that guy’s got it made.
“And another thing I love about what he [Fandango] does too is the way he gets in the ring. After he makes his entrance, watch the way he gets in the ring. He does that. Nobody’s ever done it that way. And to me, that’s different, and I like that, you know. But yeah, you know, if he’s Vince’s pet project, the guy’s got it made, you know. He just has to make sure he listens to him and doesn’t, you know, get the attitude well, I’m gonna do what I want to do, despite of what he says. Because then that’ll be the demise of him, you know. Which hopefully – I think he’s smart enough and he knows who to listen to. So, you know, I wish the guy all the best. I really do, you know. I really do.” Click on their website www.ecived.com/en for more information.
2013年5月30日星期四
What Can Big Data Do For A Small Business?
Large corporations regularly use big data to get insight on consumer behavior, target their marketing and boost revenue.
But small businesses typically do little with big data. Until now, most owners have considered it too difficult, too expensive and just plain intimidating.
That’s changing. These days an increasing number of small businesses are collecting and crunching volumes of data to lift their sales.
“Small businesses shouldn’t be scared off by big data,” says Steve King, partner at Emergent Research and coauthor of the recent report The New Data Democracy: How Big Data Will Revolutionize the Lives of Small Businesses and Consumers. “The growth of the Internet, wireless networks, smartphones, social media, sensors and other digital technology is fueling a big data revolution. Big data was the exclusive domain of statisticians and large corporations but not anymore.”
There is now an array of technologies that give small businesses access to cost-effective, sophisticated data analytics. Google AdWords, for one. It’s a big data app that offers small firms market insight, improved decision-making ability and better bottom-line results—all those tools that were once the exclusive domain of corporations.
King gives an example. The Spillers Group, a company that owns three restaurants in Dallas, uses a data application called Roambi that enables it to share among management all the business information it collects, including point-of-sale data, labor metrics and accounting numbers. With Roambi, Spillers can link managers’ pay to their restaurant’s performance. The app has also cut Spillers’ labor costs 10%, saving thousands of dollars every two weeks.
“Before their data was a hodgepodge,” King says. “They had sales data in one place, supply data in another place and staffing data in another—and they never looked at how to bring them all together. So they were inefficient when it came to scheduling and supplies. When they brought the data together they discovered quickly they could cut costs by making minor changes. That’s a huge win.”
Small businesses that use data intelligently can do business better. They can improve pricing and just-in-time supply chains. They can find cheaper suppliers that are closer to their location and that offer more price transparency.
Small businesses can also use data to tailor products and services to individual customers. “Local shopkeepers once knew what their customers liked, right down to color, size and taste,” King says. “Big data is bringing back personalized service by giving businesses greater insight into consumer preferences, many times without even talking to them, because customers leave digital footprints when they use the Internet, use a credit card or post on Facebook FB +5.36%.”
It’s the same information that shopkeepers once collected and memorized from behind the counter. Modern merchants can now gather that data digitally and use it to deliver the goods and services customers want. Result: more loyal customers and higher sales.
Businesses can identify key customers and treat them better. They can understand customer patterns, know when they’re likely to come in and reward them for multiple visits.
“All this big data is helping to level the playing field for small businesses,” King says. “Even though the field is still tilted in favor of big business, big data is a way for small business to fight back. A lot of this stuff is made easy for small business, like Google GOOG +0.27% Analytics. You don’t have to be a data scientist to use these tools and get good insights.”
Roofing contractors are not the first professionals who spring to mind when you think cutting-edge technology. But some roofers are using big data to drastically cut their costs. A contractor used to take a call, drive to look at a roof and, often, realize it was not a job he could take on. That meant time and money wasted. Smart roofing companies use big data to avoid that expense. A contractor gets a call, takes an address and inspects the roof at Google Earth. If he does the job, he can use Google Earth to check out the roofs of other homes in the neighborhood and offer the owners a deal.
“Another trend is the rise of sensors to track and make decisions,” King says. “Small businesses are starting to benefit from that. FedEx has a cool product called SenseAware that lets you put sensors on perishable packages. It provides a shipment’s exact location, precise package temperature and information on whether a package has been opened or exposed to light or whether it was dropped, based on the recorded G forces.”
Nice breakdown. I’m gonna have to go read Stu’s take on that state. People forget this, but Begich was not declared the winner until the week of Thanksgiving. On election night Ted Stevens – who was found guilty less than two weeks before Election Day – was ahead by a couple thousand votes, but so many votes came from far-flung places that eventually Begich won.
(Side note: They’d eventually have a 60-senator caucus, but Dems went to sleep Election Night ’08 with only 56 certain! Oregon, Alaska and Minnesota hadn’t been called, and Specter was 6 months away from switching parties.)
In each of those top four races you’ve listed, Rs are trying to re-litigate the health-care law. Begich, Pryor, Landrieu and Hagan all voted for “Obamacare” and this is their first time on the ballot since. Republicans believe they can nationalize these races around those votes. Once again Senate Rs will try to nationalize the races, and Ds will once again run these races as mini-presidential campaigns built around the individual personalities and the broad cross-section of positions taken by incumbents.Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en!
But small businesses typically do little with big data. Until now, most owners have considered it too difficult, too expensive and just plain intimidating.
That’s changing. These days an increasing number of small businesses are collecting and crunching volumes of data to lift their sales.
“Small businesses shouldn’t be scared off by big data,” says Steve King, partner at Emergent Research and coauthor of the recent report The New Data Democracy: How Big Data Will Revolutionize the Lives of Small Businesses and Consumers. “The growth of the Internet, wireless networks, smartphones, social media, sensors and other digital technology is fueling a big data revolution. Big data was the exclusive domain of statisticians and large corporations but not anymore.”
There is now an array of technologies that give small businesses access to cost-effective, sophisticated data analytics. Google AdWords, for one. It’s a big data app that offers small firms market insight, improved decision-making ability and better bottom-line results—all those tools that were once the exclusive domain of corporations.
King gives an example. The Spillers Group, a company that owns three restaurants in Dallas, uses a data application called Roambi that enables it to share among management all the business information it collects, including point-of-sale data, labor metrics and accounting numbers. With Roambi, Spillers can link managers’ pay to their restaurant’s performance. The app has also cut Spillers’ labor costs 10%, saving thousands of dollars every two weeks.
“Before their data was a hodgepodge,” King says. “They had sales data in one place, supply data in another place and staffing data in another—and they never looked at how to bring them all together. So they were inefficient when it came to scheduling and supplies. When they brought the data together they discovered quickly they could cut costs by making minor changes. That’s a huge win.”
Small businesses that use data intelligently can do business better. They can improve pricing and just-in-time supply chains. They can find cheaper suppliers that are closer to their location and that offer more price transparency.
Small businesses can also use data to tailor products and services to individual customers. “Local shopkeepers once knew what their customers liked, right down to color, size and taste,” King says. “Big data is bringing back personalized service by giving businesses greater insight into consumer preferences, many times without even talking to them, because customers leave digital footprints when they use the Internet, use a credit card or post on Facebook FB +5.36%.”
It’s the same information that shopkeepers once collected and memorized from behind the counter. Modern merchants can now gather that data digitally and use it to deliver the goods and services customers want. Result: more loyal customers and higher sales.
Businesses can identify key customers and treat them better. They can understand customer patterns, know when they’re likely to come in and reward them for multiple visits.
“All this big data is helping to level the playing field for small businesses,” King says. “Even though the field is still tilted in favor of big business, big data is a way for small business to fight back. A lot of this stuff is made easy for small business, like Google GOOG +0.27% Analytics. You don’t have to be a data scientist to use these tools and get good insights.”
Roofing contractors are not the first professionals who spring to mind when you think cutting-edge technology. But some roofers are using big data to drastically cut their costs. A contractor used to take a call, drive to look at a roof and, often, realize it was not a job he could take on. That meant time and money wasted. Smart roofing companies use big data to avoid that expense. A contractor gets a call, takes an address and inspects the roof at Google Earth. If he does the job, he can use Google Earth to check out the roofs of other homes in the neighborhood and offer the owners a deal.
“Another trend is the rise of sensors to track and make decisions,” King says. “Small businesses are starting to benefit from that. FedEx has a cool product called SenseAware that lets you put sensors on perishable packages. It provides a shipment’s exact location, precise package temperature and information on whether a package has been opened or exposed to light or whether it was dropped, based on the recorded G forces.”
Nice breakdown. I’m gonna have to go read Stu’s take on that state. People forget this, but Begich was not declared the winner until the week of Thanksgiving. On election night Ted Stevens – who was found guilty less than two weeks before Election Day – was ahead by a couple thousand votes, but so many votes came from far-flung places that eventually Begich won.
(Side note: They’d eventually have a 60-senator caucus, but Dems went to sleep Election Night ’08 with only 56 certain! Oregon, Alaska and Minnesota hadn’t been called, and Specter was 6 months away from switching parties.)
In each of those top four races you’ve listed, Rs are trying to re-litigate the health-care law. Begich, Pryor, Landrieu and Hagan all voted for “Obamacare” and this is their first time on the ballot since. Republicans believe they can nationalize these races around those votes. Once again Senate Rs will try to nationalize the races, and Ds will once again run these races as mini-presidential campaigns built around the individual personalities and the broad cross-section of positions taken by incumbents.Read the full story at www.ecived.com/en!
2013年5月28日星期二
Twitter's Lead Generation Card expands social media marketing options
This week Twitter announced a bold expansion of its year-old Twitter Cards program, giving marketers a new way to directly obtain interested business leads via the social media service.
The new Lead Generation Card is squarely aimed at business tweeters, and it functions a lot like its name implies. Marketers can now embed a card within a standard Twitter message, generally promising some sort of promotional offer (such as "50% off on your first visit"). When readers expand the tweet by clicking on the embedded link, they're prompted to send their information to you. The neat trick is that the user doesn't have to fill out an "I'm interested" form. Their name, Twitter user name, and email address are pulled from their Twitter account, so getting in touch is a single-click operation. On the back end, you receive this information directly, after which you can follow up with the reader to make your sales pitch. In conjunction with Promoted Tweets, the promotional punch of the Lead Generation Card could be impressive.
The Lead Generation Card is currently in beta and launched this week to Twitter's managed clients. The company says it will be made available to small- and medium-sized businesses soon.
The Lead Generation Card is just the latest expansion to the functionality of Twitter, which originally limited tweets to a mere 140 characters of nothing but text. But now, as regular Twitter users surely have found, tweets can be embedded with all manner of extra goodies, including the popular Photo Card for embedded photographs and the new App Card for those who want to promote links to mobile phone applications.
The Lead Generation idea isn't a new one. LinkedIn pioneered the concept through its advertising system, which gives marketers an option to overlay their page with a lead collection pop-up that's similar to Twitter's Lead Generation Card. LinkedIn's Lead Generation prompt asks simply, "Would you like Bob's Donuts to follow up with you Indoor Positioning System?" As with Twitter's Lead Generation Card, potential customers can choose to send their information to the marketer with a single click.
This is a smart move on Twitter's end and potentially a great option for small businesses. It's a much needed step that may finally solve, at least for some businesses, a long-running, nagging problem with social media advertising. Many a business owner has now figured out that social media ads can make it easy to get additional followers on Twitter or Facebook, and then wondered what to do with them. For many business, followers and "Likes" are great, but they don't necessarily lead to increased sales. A case in point: Last month the New York Times reported on Coca-Cola's corporate study which took a hard look at its social media following. Despite 60 million Facebook fans and 700,000 Twitter followers, Coke "found that online buzz had no quantifiable impact on short-term sales."
Samsung targeted this midfield between a laptop and a tablet with its ATIV Smart PC range of laptops - essentially a tablet PC with a detachable solid keyboard and mouse trackpad. There's the ATIV Smart PC – which is the subject of this review – and the ATIV Smart PC Pro, which has a stronger kick to the teeth and your wallet.
But even the "starter" one of the two has a solid right-hook, albeit finely hidden. Let me explain: If you were to take a look at the specs, it might not sound all that great, but the real-life performance is quite impressive – listen to this: dual core Intel Atom processor, 2GB DDR2 RAM, 8 megapixel rear camera, 2 megapixel front camera, built-in wireless, 3G slot, S-Pen stylus, 11.6-inch screen, 1366x768 resolution, 128 GB built-in storage, microSD slot, and Bluetooth.
Like I said: on paper this doesn't sound all that impressive, but when you start to use it you'll be surprised at how well it handles. Much of this is due to Windows 8 being fairly light on its feet – you never get the feeling that the hardware had been partnered unfairly with the operating system.
Of course, the Pro version gets really serious. Most of the features between the two versions are the same, but the Pro has a few performance boosters: Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB RAM, 256 GB built-in storage, and a 1920x1080 Full HD resolution screen. There's a small trade-off in the 5 megapixel rear camera.
Both come with three USB ports – one on the tablet and two on the detachable keyboard. The tablet part of the PC also has a mini-HDMI, a microSD, and a SIM card slot. Tucked into the bottom right corner on the back of the tablet you'll also find an S-Pen stylus.
Personally I found the stylus fairly cumbersome to use as it wasn't sensitive enough to – quite frankly – replace my finger when using in tablet mode and certainly not good enough to replace a mouse when using in laptop mode.
The star of the hardware show is the physical keyboard – it has solid, responsive keys and the trackpad works as it should. In fact, when you've got it connected to the tablet, you'll see no difference between what you have before you and a normal laptop.
There were two hardware design issues that completely burned the harvest for me though: the tilt-level of the screen and opening the clamshell "laptop" (the latter revealing a shocking lack of foresight in design).
When the tablet is connected to the keyboard and serves as the screen, you can't tilt it back past a certain angle. This is very annoying as it doesn't go back far enough for you to have the correct viewing angle if you're tall. I tried to see whether there is a reason for why they would design it like this, but for the life of me I couldn't find out any. It's especially annoying as Samsung has created tablet/laptop hybrids before and those could fold open flat.
The other rather annoying niggle is that the opening mechanism – when using this device in laptop mode – is badly designed. There's a lot of fumbling going on before you're able to flip the clamshell open.
These two elements are frustrating and disappointing, but far from show-stoppers as it's off-set so much by the ATIV Smart PC's other attributes.
Case in point is the battery life: Samsung claims a 14.5 hour Mobile Mark battery life (that's actual usage, not standby time) and 10 hours video play-time. Normally one giggles a bit when faced with such numbers, but we got very close to that – which impressed us no end.
Right, so how much does all of this cost? Indeed, that's the thing: the ATIV Smart PC has a RRP of R10449 and the Pro version goes for R18999. Yes, those are choke-on-your-pie kind of numbers... but is it worth it? Perhaps not... I love this laptop but the price is steep.
The new Lead Generation Card is squarely aimed at business tweeters, and it functions a lot like its name implies. Marketers can now embed a card within a standard Twitter message, generally promising some sort of promotional offer (such as "50% off on your first visit"). When readers expand the tweet by clicking on the embedded link, they're prompted to send their information to you. The neat trick is that the user doesn't have to fill out an "I'm interested" form. Their name, Twitter user name, and email address are pulled from their Twitter account, so getting in touch is a single-click operation. On the back end, you receive this information directly, after which you can follow up with the reader to make your sales pitch. In conjunction with Promoted Tweets, the promotional punch of the Lead Generation Card could be impressive.
The Lead Generation Card is currently in beta and launched this week to Twitter's managed clients. The company says it will be made available to small- and medium-sized businesses soon.
The Lead Generation Card is just the latest expansion to the functionality of Twitter, which originally limited tweets to a mere 140 characters of nothing but text. But now, as regular Twitter users surely have found, tweets can be embedded with all manner of extra goodies, including the popular Photo Card for embedded photographs and the new App Card for those who want to promote links to mobile phone applications.
The Lead Generation idea isn't a new one. LinkedIn pioneered the concept through its advertising system, which gives marketers an option to overlay their page with a lead collection pop-up that's similar to Twitter's Lead Generation Card. LinkedIn's Lead Generation prompt asks simply, "Would you like Bob's Donuts to follow up with you Indoor Positioning System?" As with Twitter's Lead Generation Card, potential customers can choose to send their information to the marketer with a single click.
This is a smart move on Twitter's end and potentially a great option for small businesses. It's a much needed step that may finally solve, at least for some businesses, a long-running, nagging problem with social media advertising. Many a business owner has now figured out that social media ads can make it easy to get additional followers on Twitter or Facebook, and then wondered what to do with them. For many business, followers and "Likes" are great, but they don't necessarily lead to increased sales. A case in point: Last month the New York Times reported on Coca-Cola's corporate study which took a hard look at its social media following. Despite 60 million Facebook fans and 700,000 Twitter followers, Coke "found that online buzz had no quantifiable impact on short-term sales."
Samsung targeted this midfield between a laptop and a tablet with its ATIV Smart PC range of laptops - essentially a tablet PC with a detachable solid keyboard and mouse trackpad. There's the ATIV Smart PC – which is the subject of this review – and the ATIV Smart PC Pro, which has a stronger kick to the teeth and your wallet.
But even the "starter" one of the two has a solid right-hook, albeit finely hidden. Let me explain: If you were to take a look at the specs, it might not sound all that great, but the real-life performance is quite impressive – listen to this: dual core Intel Atom processor, 2GB DDR2 RAM, 8 megapixel rear camera, 2 megapixel front camera, built-in wireless, 3G slot, S-Pen stylus, 11.6-inch screen, 1366x768 resolution, 128 GB built-in storage, microSD slot, and Bluetooth.
Like I said: on paper this doesn't sound all that impressive, but when you start to use it you'll be surprised at how well it handles. Much of this is due to Windows 8 being fairly light on its feet – you never get the feeling that the hardware had been partnered unfairly with the operating system.
Of course, the Pro version gets really serious. Most of the features between the two versions are the same, but the Pro has a few performance boosters: Intel Core i5 processor, 4 GB RAM, 256 GB built-in storage, and a 1920x1080 Full HD resolution screen. There's a small trade-off in the 5 megapixel rear camera.
Both come with three USB ports – one on the tablet and two on the detachable keyboard. The tablet part of the PC also has a mini-HDMI, a microSD, and a SIM card slot. Tucked into the bottom right corner on the back of the tablet you'll also find an S-Pen stylus.
Personally I found the stylus fairly cumbersome to use as it wasn't sensitive enough to – quite frankly – replace my finger when using in tablet mode and certainly not good enough to replace a mouse when using in laptop mode.
The star of the hardware show is the physical keyboard – it has solid, responsive keys and the trackpad works as it should. In fact, when you've got it connected to the tablet, you'll see no difference between what you have before you and a normal laptop.
There were two hardware design issues that completely burned the harvest for me though: the tilt-level of the screen and opening the clamshell "laptop" (the latter revealing a shocking lack of foresight in design).
When the tablet is connected to the keyboard and serves as the screen, you can't tilt it back past a certain angle. This is very annoying as it doesn't go back far enough for you to have the correct viewing angle if you're tall. I tried to see whether there is a reason for why they would design it like this, but for the life of me I couldn't find out any. It's especially annoying as Samsung has created tablet/laptop hybrids before and those could fold open flat.
The other rather annoying niggle is that the opening mechanism – when using this device in laptop mode – is badly designed. There's a lot of fumbling going on before you're able to flip the clamshell open.
These two elements are frustrating and disappointing, but far from show-stoppers as it's off-set so much by the ATIV Smart PC's other attributes.
Case in point is the battery life: Samsung claims a 14.5 hour Mobile Mark battery life (that's actual usage, not standby time) and 10 hours video play-time. Normally one giggles a bit when faced with such numbers, but we got very close to that – which impressed us no end.
Right, so how much does all of this cost? Indeed, that's the thing: the ATIV Smart PC has a RRP of R10449 and the Pro version goes for R18999. Yes, those are choke-on-your-pie kind of numbers... but is it worth it? Perhaps not... I love this laptop but the price is steep.
2013年5月26日星期日
South Africa
It is “simply wrong” to be spending billions of rands on a brand new presidential jet when so many people in our country are poor and battle each day just to survive, says Democratic Alliance defence spokesman, David Maynier. He was reacting to the confirmation by defence minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula that funding had been approved to buy a new jet for President Jacob Zuma. Maynier said the existing plane, Inkwazi, was “perfectly serviceable”. The main reason given for spending “a fortune” on a jet was to have one with greater range. Maynier added the acquisition of a new presidential jet was “also likely to be at the cost of other more urgent defence capital acquisition projects such as transport aircraft”.
A former national police commissioner says what happened at Marikana, where 34 miners died at the hands of the police, stems from disgraced commissioner Jackie Selebi’s decision to dismantle public order policing units. George Fivas, who was appointed by president Nelson Mandela, told City Press a major problem at Marikana was that specialist units “were decentralised to stations all over the country”. Fivas said that during Mandela’s term as president, Gauteng had public order policing units “second to none”, who had undergone psychometric testing, and were properly trained and equipped. “How on earth can you have a country where you have so many marches per month without a special unit dealing with public order?” Fivas asked.
Oscar Pistorius has been audited by the South African Revenue Services (Sars) and found to have undeclared taxes, for which the tax authority has fined him “less than R1 million”, according to City Press. The paralympian, accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentines Day, had to declare his assets at his bail hearing which led to the audit by Sars. Police say the investigation into Steenkamp’s murder will be completed in August, but Pistorius is due to appear in court on 4 June. The National Prosecuting Authority said in a statement it is “content with the progress thus far" of the investigation. Pistorius is currently out on R1 million bail.
A Kruger National Park ranger has been shot during a joint operation between SANParks and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in which they encountered armed poachers. SANParks spokesman Reynold Thakhuli said ranger Andrew Desmet was shot in the stomach and airlifted to a medical facility in Mbombela where he underwent an operation. He is now in a stable condition. “While this incident was unfolding, another group of rangers made contact with a second group of armed poachers approximately two kilometres away where a shoot-out ensued,” Thakhuli said. The poachers escaped and no arrests were made. SANParks CEO David Mabunda said the ranger corps was facing “a war out there”.
The Cape Town jogger arrested for showing a rude hand sign to a convoy carrying President Jacob Zuma had a rifle bag placed over his head, the High Court has heard. The Sunday Times reported that papers filed by police minister Nathi Mthethwa said the rifle bag was placed on [Maxwele's] head so as to eliminate the possibility of him seeing the route that the president uses to get to his residence”. Chumani Maxwele, a political science student, is suing the state for R1.4 million for wrongful arrest. Lawyers for Mthethwa also said Maxwele's hands were cable-tied behind his back for "his own safety" as police escorting him had equipment and firearms in their possession and which were in close proximity to him”.
Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille says President Jacob Zuma is responsible for clearing whether President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle will receive the freedom of Cape Town, an honour they have already accepted. De Lille said Zuma’s office is responsible for the Obama’s itinerary during their upcoming visit to South Africa. "So we've been in contact all the time with the president's office. It is up to the president's office to work with [Obama's] office to make the Indoor Positioning System," she told the Sunday Times. The ANC has accused the DA-run Cape Town city council of “political expediency” in granting the award. Obama has requested meeting Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu during his visit.
The agriculture department must come clean on why meat products – including water buffalo, donkey and horsemeat – from Brazil and India, despite it posing “significant” risks. The Democratic Alliance agriculture spokeswoman, Annette Steyn said a reply to a parliamentary question from agriculture Tina Joemat-Pettersson failed to give reasons why the meat was considered to pose “significant risk” nor who was responsible for importing them. Steyn said the party would submit an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to the department of agriculture to determine exactly why this meat is considered hazardous, and who the responsible parties are. “The public deserves to know,” said Steyn.
Letlapa Mphahlele, president of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), has been expelled from the party, Sapa reported. The party’s disciplinary committee said Mphahlele had been charged with failing to account for parliamentary and Independent Electoral Commission funds, not respecting national executive committee (NEC) decisions, and appointing a chief administrator even though the position was not catered for in the PAC constitution. It also accused him of promoting factionalism in the ranks. The committee said neither Mphahlele nor his legal representative attended the meeting.
We will say no more about this except to ask – what is so irresistible about being modern that we should wish it on Jane Austen? What does Persuasion lose, what does Pride and Prejudice lose, by having been written 200 years ago? (I don't need to tell you that the second of those extracts was from Persuasion. The first was from The Temptation by K.M. Golland.
Is Anne Elliot's agitation, on being helped into the carriage by Captain Wentworth, any less materially present to us, is her disarrangement any less sensually felt, because there's no mention of where Wentworth puts his hands in relation to her bra strap? Isn't the fact that he puts his hands on her at all, that “he had placed her there” – sufficiently electrifying to explain Anne Elliot's perturbation? Don't be misled by the decorousness of the language. If the spirit is perturbed, so is the flesh. “His will and his hands had done it”: an act of unlooked-for consideration, but also of confident authority – thrilling, if you like your sea captains masterful – performed by a man Anne regrets having long ago rejected, and whose feelings for her now she can only guess at. “Yes, he had done it.” The shock, the sense of fait accompli, Anne's total capitulation to Wentworth's decisiveness, are all the proof that the thing done is no small matter to her. Just because Anne Elliot's skin is not described as “buzzing with excitement”, doesn't mean it isn't.
A former national police commissioner says what happened at Marikana, where 34 miners died at the hands of the police, stems from disgraced commissioner Jackie Selebi’s decision to dismantle public order policing units. George Fivas, who was appointed by president Nelson Mandela, told City Press a major problem at Marikana was that specialist units “were decentralised to stations all over the country”. Fivas said that during Mandela’s term as president, Gauteng had public order policing units “second to none”, who had undergone psychometric testing, and were properly trained and equipped. “How on earth can you have a country where you have so many marches per month without a special unit dealing with public order?” Fivas asked.
Oscar Pistorius has been audited by the South African Revenue Services (Sars) and found to have undeclared taxes, for which the tax authority has fined him “less than R1 million”, according to City Press. The paralympian, accused of murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentines Day, had to declare his assets at his bail hearing which led to the audit by Sars. Police say the investigation into Steenkamp’s murder will be completed in August, but Pistorius is due to appear in court on 4 June. The National Prosecuting Authority said in a statement it is “content with the progress thus far" of the investigation. Pistorius is currently out on R1 million bail.
A Kruger National Park ranger has been shot during a joint operation between SANParks and the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) in which they encountered armed poachers. SANParks spokesman Reynold Thakhuli said ranger Andrew Desmet was shot in the stomach and airlifted to a medical facility in Mbombela where he underwent an operation. He is now in a stable condition. “While this incident was unfolding, another group of rangers made contact with a second group of armed poachers approximately two kilometres away where a shoot-out ensued,” Thakhuli said. The poachers escaped and no arrests were made. SANParks CEO David Mabunda said the ranger corps was facing “a war out there”.
The Cape Town jogger arrested for showing a rude hand sign to a convoy carrying President Jacob Zuma had a rifle bag placed over his head, the High Court has heard. The Sunday Times reported that papers filed by police minister Nathi Mthethwa said the rifle bag was placed on [Maxwele's] head so as to eliminate the possibility of him seeing the route that the president uses to get to his residence”. Chumani Maxwele, a political science student, is suing the state for R1.4 million for wrongful arrest. Lawyers for Mthethwa also said Maxwele's hands were cable-tied behind his back for "his own safety" as police escorting him had equipment and firearms in their possession and which were in close proximity to him”.
Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille says President Jacob Zuma is responsible for clearing whether President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle will receive the freedom of Cape Town, an honour they have already accepted. De Lille said Zuma’s office is responsible for the Obama’s itinerary during their upcoming visit to South Africa. "So we've been in contact all the time with the president's office. It is up to the president's office to work with [Obama's] office to make the Indoor Positioning System," she told the Sunday Times. The ANC has accused the DA-run Cape Town city council of “political expediency” in granting the award. Obama has requested meeting Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu during his visit.
The agriculture department must come clean on why meat products – including water buffalo, donkey and horsemeat – from Brazil and India, despite it posing “significant” risks. The Democratic Alliance agriculture spokeswoman, Annette Steyn said a reply to a parliamentary question from agriculture Tina Joemat-Pettersson failed to give reasons why the meat was considered to pose “significant risk” nor who was responsible for importing them. Steyn said the party would submit an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) to the department of agriculture to determine exactly why this meat is considered hazardous, and who the responsible parties are. “The public deserves to know,” said Steyn.
Letlapa Mphahlele, president of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), has been expelled from the party, Sapa reported. The party’s disciplinary committee said Mphahlele had been charged with failing to account for parliamentary and Independent Electoral Commission funds, not respecting national executive committee (NEC) decisions, and appointing a chief administrator even though the position was not catered for in the PAC constitution. It also accused him of promoting factionalism in the ranks. The committee said neither Mphahlele nor his legal representative attended the meeting.
We will say no more about this except to ask – what is so irresistible about being modern that we should wish it on Jane Austen? What does Persuasion lose, what does Pride and Prejudice lose, by having been written 200 years ago? (I don't need to tell you that the second of those extracts was from Persuasion. The first was from The Temptation by K.M. Golland.
Is Anne Elliot's agitation, on being helped into the carriage by Captain Wentworth, any less materially present to us, is her disarrangement any less sensually felt, because there's no mention of where Wentworth puts his hands in relation to her bra strap? Isn't the fact that he puts his hands on her at all, that “he had placed her there” – sufficiently electrifying to explain Anne Elliot's perturbation? Don't be misled by the decorousness of the language. If the spirit is perturbed, so is the flesh. “His will and his hands had done it”: an act of unlooked-for consideration, but also of confident authority – thrilling, if you like your sea captains masterful – performed by a man Anne regrets having long ago rejected, and whose feelings for her now she can only guess at. “Yes, he had done it.” The shock, the sense of fait accompli, Anne's total capitulation to Wentworth's decisiveness, are all the proof that the thing done is no small matter to her. Just because Anne Elliot's skin is not described as “buzzing with excitement”, doesn't mean it isn't.
2013年5月12日星期日
Tech News
Seven Indian original-equipment manufacturers — in the mobile phone and tablet space — have inked a pact with Opera Software to pre-install the Opera Mini mobile web browser on the manufacturers’ upcoming mobile devices that run on the Android operating system. Opera Mini will be be pre-installed on all Android devices manufactured by Celkon, Karbonn, Lava and Intex, a press release from Opera Software stated. Opera Mini will also be preinstalled on select Android devices by Fly and Zen, as well as on HCL ME tablets. The Opera Mini is suited for Indian mobile networks as it uses a server to pre-process and compress websites to as little as 10 per cent of their original size before sending them to the mobile device. The open source browser has seen wide adoption in India, Opera Software claims. “The number of Indians accessing the web from mobile devices is growing at a much faster rate than those using a computer.
Hardware major Intel has launched a nationwide integrated campaign to increase the relevance and demand of personal computing devices, and to drive domestic adoption of technology by targeting consumers with the message of how a personal computer (PC) can change their lives. The six-weeklong campaign started this week in Rajasthan and will cover 40 cities across 10 States. It will continue to educate consumers on why a PC is a transformational device. Sandeep Aurora, Director of Marketing and Market Development, Intel South Asia, in a release, said: “In our quest to bring about nationwide awareness for digital literacy, we will continue to scale up our efforts under the National Digital Literacy Mission and through this new campaign we will urge consumers to pursue their passions and creativity with the power of an Intel processor-powered computer.” Intel will create experience zones under its ‘My Discoveries’ programme across 40 cities.
Tata Elxsi, a tech-design firm, announced the launch of the second edition of the Ignite Design Contest, which aims to encourage budding designers to enable change through design. The contest is part of connect D, an annual event organised by Tata Elxsi to commemorate World Industrial Design Day. This year’s theme, ‘Design enriching everyday life’, has been aligned to the Indoor Positioning System, ‘Industrial design is open’, set by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). The theme intends to convey the growing recognition of the importance of design across industries and how it can help brands and companies solve day-to-day problems to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace, a release from the firm stated. Design students pursuing full-time UG and PG courses in Product and Visual Design (Branding, Graphic Design and UI) in India can participate in the contest. Applicants can submit their entries in two categories: Age-friendly Kitchen Appliances for the Elderly, and Re-defining a Smart TV.
Zoho announced the launch of Card Scanner, an online business card scanning application for Zoho CRM. Now, users can take a photo of a business card and Card Scanner intelligently converts the image to text that is automatically saved either as a new contact, a lead in Zoho CRM, or as a new contact in Card Scanner, a release from the company stated. This app now eliminates the process of manually entering data into the CRM module for Zoho users. In a release, Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist, Zoho, said: “Entering data manually into any CRM application is a daunting task. Automating this process and making it simple for our users is the primary idea behind the launch of our new mobile app for Zoho CRM, Card Scanner. The app lets users save business cards on their iPhones while at meetings, events, conferences and trade shows, thus saving time and digitising the process.”
Combining their technical know-how with some business savvy and a little luck, the childhood friends and one-time University of Florida roommates have created a smartphone app for digital business cards that has attracted investors with international ties in venture capital — the kind of high-risk, high-reward financing that built Silicon Valley and other major technology centers.
So though Florida's share of the nation's newly invested venture capital has plummeted during the past year, the early success of Feathr — brainchild of Bishop Moore grad Aidan Augustin and Wekiva High grad Neal Ormsbee — could become a template for certain startups looking to finance future ventures.
"These guys are smart, energetic and, perhaps most importantly, they are coachable," said Dennis R. Pape, a veteran Central Florida venture capitalist and founder of VenturePitch Orlando, a networking event where Feathr demonstrated its product last week. "They are really a cut above the young entrepreneurs that we usually see."
After operating on a bootstrap budget since its founding last year, Feathr has secured $150,000 from a group of Indian-American investors in Tampa who are members of TiE Florida, the state chapter of an international organization of Indian entrepreneurs. Combined with money raised from "angel" investors — family members and advisers — Feathr has raised nearly $200,000 in the past 18 months.
The TiE Florida investors were impressed by Feathr's product and the sophistication of the novice entrepreneurs — especially Augustin, the company's chief executive and its point person when it's time to pitch the business.
"He was constantly in touch with us, persistently following up on his dream," said Sunal Jain, founder of the Tampa-based TiE chapter and president of Medical B&T Services LLC, a billing-technology company. "When we finally visited his place, saw his team and where they worked, and interviewed each team member, we were convinced of the prospects for this company."
Hardware major Intel has launched a nationwide integrated campaign to increase the relevance and demand of personal computing devices, and to drive domestic adoption of technology by targeting consumers with the message of how a personal computer (PC) can change their lives. The six-weeklong campaign started this week in Rajasthan and will cover 40 cities across 10 States. It will continue to educate consumers on why a PC is a transformational device. Sandeep Aurora, Director of Marketing and Market Development, Intel South Asia, in a release, said: “In our quest to bring about nationwide awareness for digital literacy, we will continue to scale up our efforts under the National Digital Literacy Mission and through this new campaign we will urge consumers to pursue their passions and creativity with the power of an Intel processor-powered computer.” Intel will create experience zones under its ‘My Discoveries’ programme across 40 cities.
Tata Elxsi, a tech-design firm, announced the launch of the second edition of the Ignite Design Contest, which aims to encourage budding designers to enable change through design. The contest is part of connect D, an annual event organised by Tata Elxsi to commemorate World Industrial Design Day. This year’s theme, ‘Design enriching everyday life’, has been aligned to the Indoor Positioning System, ‘Industrial design is open’, set by the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). The theme intends to convey the growing recognition of the importance of design across industries and how it can help brands and companies solve day-to-day problems to gain a competitive edge in the marketplace, a release from the firm stated. Design students pursuing full-time UG and PG courses in Product and Visual Design (Branding, Graphic Design and UI) in India can participate in the contest. Applicants can submit their entries in two categories: Age-friendly Kitchen Appliances for the Elderly, and Re-defining a Smart TV.
Zoho announced the launch of Card Scanner, an online business card scanning application for Zoho CRM. Now, users can take a photo of a business card and Card Scanner intelligently converts the image to text that is automatically saved either as a new contact, a lead in Zoho CRM, or as a new contact in Card Scanner, a release from the company stated. This app now eliminates the process of manually entering data into the CRM module for Zoho users. In a release, Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist, Zoho, said: “Entering data manually into any CRM application is a daunting task. Automating this process and making it simple for our users is the primary idea behind the launch of our new mobile app for Zoho CRM, Card Scanner. The app lets users save business cards on their iPhones while at meetings, events, conferences and trade shows, thus saving time and digitising the process.”
Combining their technical know-how with some business savvy and a little luck, the childhood friends and one-time University of Florida roommates have created a smartphone app for digital business cards that has attracted investors with international ties in venture capital — the kind of high-risk, high-reward financing that built Silicon Valley and other major technology centers.
So though Florida's share of the nation's newly invested venture capital has plummeted during the past year, the early success of Feathr — brainchild of Bishop Moore grad Aidan Augustin and Wekiva High grad Neal Ormsbee — could become a template for certain startups looking to finance future ventures.
"These guys are smart, energetic and, perhaps most importantly, they are coachable," said Dennis R. Pape, a veteran Central Florida venture capitalist and founder of VenturePitch Orlando, a networking event where Feathr demonstrated its product last week. "They are really a cut above the young entrepreneurs that we usually see."
After operating on a bootstrap budget since its founding last year, Feathr has secured $150,000 from a group of Indian-American investors in Tampa who are members of TiE Florida, the state chapter of an international organization of Indian entrepreneurs. Combined with money raised from "angel" investors — family members and advisers — Feathr has raised nearly $200,000 in the past 18 months.
The TiE Florida investors were impressed by Feathr's product and the sophistication of the novice entrepreneurs — especially Augustin, the company's chief executive and its point person when it's time to pitch the business.
"He was constantly in touch with us, persistently following up on his dream," said Sunal Jain, founder of the Tampa-based TiE chapter and president of Medical B&T Services LLC, a billing-technology company. "When we finally visited his place, saw his team and where they worked, and interviewed each team member, we were convinced of the prospects for this company."
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