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Why Yahoo Is Sweet on Tumblr
Could an investment in or purchase of the hipster blogging service Tumblr take years off Yahoo's age? All Things D's Peter Kafka joins digits. Photo: Getty Images.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... I ... why would it make sense for Yahoo to find tumble on ... stage and will explain in on Digits good afternoon and welcome I'm Simon Constable and peanut half ... of all things that you'll joins us now from Brooklyn Hispanics climate zones ... PETA thanks for being map ... so ... that there is talk of Gianluca labs flying flying tumble off ... why would it make sense ... there were were were broken ... it will be part of the more ... he'll give it up ... a little far ... in the future wanted it but it's not just you and that it is a ... diversion ... Facebook ... is granted by a year ago ... for your by a fast growing ... yet that ... that doesn't do that to achieve user of complimentary ... bring the much younger user base to you ... Manawatu to bother with a Wall Street to get bigger across traffic ... now and in this case ... timeline is a lot farther along in its evolution home and its growth of an ... and so Graham was an Instagram was ... and frankly tiny when you look at selected heck am global growth possible Thomas come a long way already has and does not change the question for you what does that does make it ... just as good a case ... it was seven years old but it did ... the clincher skyrocket ... nowhere ... oh and to provide the local people ... were very well have come a long time the last two years ... into ... the washer it but the only company at the heart of much people think this ... may be over forty now on to the ground after the account ... of ... the ... matter to conclude that the funnier reform of the the the ... although the company have bought it ... um that that they're proof that I'm an alpha and that ... is purely for the perfect is this picture was for Facebook ... I'm in the mobile products ... so what will stop and think what is clear for Yahoo ... Minogue know ... that he now what one other things I find interesting here is that with with instruments has been kept separate from Facebook assembly operations although it still owned by him and ... his identity the same way if it only gets bored Zambia ... is not possible ... to live every party I was issued and the car that was that rule doesn't go for coffee or does it want to ... believe that ... entertain the notion of keeping the company for effort ... the problem there and that ... it didn't go down have an ad that the ... other obviously particularly Facebook right away ... we're ... probably going to pay for the benefit to the Yahoo ... mining companies were the biggest operation to get the pressures are always connect those two ideas together ... it's ... not can use the site Yahoo is looking closely at plants and seriously and tumble of when will we get a yes or no on this t think ... I know odd soon report ... he'll come into the next few days I've heard that I felt like ... it I'll go on what to ... expect a deal to throw in a couple things that the proposed move around ... miners can do to create serious conversations happening right now ... ok we went with bated breath thank you very much to the cast of all things digital ... I'm Simon Constable and that was digits ...


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New Havertys Bedroom Sets Plans FreeHome >> Bedroom >> New Havertys Bedroom Sets Plans Free >> Great Havertys Bedroom Sets Collection
New Havertys Bedroom Sets Style are posted/uploaded by winbackrespect.org obtained from sources that are highly skilled in the field of design of houses and furniture. So you don't have to worry about with winbackrespect.org give this information simply upload a photo or image only. This information can be your reference when you are confused to choose the right design for your home.

subset: commoncrawl


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Quotes I Like*
"If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot of different places, just write a Unix operating system." -- Linus Torvalds
*Your mileage may vary. Some quotes are puns, or require historical or technical literacy to appreciate. If you miss the humor, please re-read the Internet and then try again.
More About This Website
Dr. George's Science Web is 100% kid-safe, pro-Christian and pro-Free Software. Read more about DGSW here.
You are in a humid room, with faintly-glowing fungus growing on the walls. The 20-foot ceiling is reinforced by large, sturdy roots, perhaps those of an apple tree you remember. From one large root hangs a thick rope, perhaps one inch in diameter, easily strong enough to support your weight. The rope extends to the floor, leaving about five feet curled neatly on the damp floor at your feet.
A single passageway leads east.
You have a short sword.


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First Fridays: Holiday CelebrationVIEW EVENT DETAILS
Celebrate the holidays with Asia Society. Experience a night of fun and culture with friends and colleagues.
MUSEUM TOURS at 6:30 and 7:30 pm of Asia Society Museum's Iran Modern exhibition, featuring 100 works by 26 artists working from the 1950s through '70s
MUSIC by DJ Duane Harriott
K-POP "I Love Dance" demonstration at 7:00 and 8:00 pm
LEO BAR special drink prices from 6:00-7:00 pm; specially priced Holiday Leo-tini
ASIAN-INSPIRED APPETIZERS available for purchase
TEA FORTE holiday tea tasting
ASIASTORE holiday discounts
Event Details
Fri 06 Dec 2013
725 Park Avenue (at East 70th Street), New York, NY
Free admission.
Tell your friends on Facebook!


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Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Comradeship at the RNA Conference
11 comments:
Sounds like a wonderful conference. All of the important information will pop back in as you need it. :)ReplyDelete
Thoughts in Progress
It was fantastic to meet you. Here's to the next one!ReplyDelete
You're quite right about the comradeship - such a very friendly and fun-loving group of people. I had a wonderful time!
- Anonymous13 July 2010 at 17:50
Sounds like you had a blast!ReplyDelete
Just keep on prodding that brain of yours and I would think some of that advice will show up eventually. :}
Mason and Amanda, I'm hoping I did retain most of the information, so I will share it with you.ReplyDelete
Ruth, it was great to meet you there.
Hi Sarah - you've summed it up so well!ReplyDelete
Lovely to meet you at the conference and hope you'll be back at the Ox Lunch again too!
It was SUCH a good conference and so nice to meet you and everyone else - including the wonderful RF and Henrietta! :)ReplyDelete
I can't wait until the next one!
It was great to meet you, Sarah. It's a long time until next year, and who knows? All that advice may have resulted in you being published!ReplyDelete
Sarah - brilliant to meet you in person and I'm sure you will have remembered it all once it has time to settle!ReplyDelete
- Anonymous14 July 2010 at 18:43
Lovely meeting you, Sarah.ReplyDelete
Hasta la proxima!
Jan S x
It sounds like it was amazing! I have yet to attend a conference.ReplyDelete
We only briefly said 'hello' unfortunately but you must be sure to come next year when I think it's in Wales. Cooler and wetter I should think but just as much fun. Look forward to seeing you there?! Yes, it is incredibly hard getting published - I'm working through one of the manuscripts an editor looked over and it's driving me nuts.....and I don't even know if it'll be worth it!ReplyDelete


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I guess it would be interesting to blog about my second venture.
Remembered Angels & Mentors? After going through the venture, I could say that starting up a business from an idea is not easy and that's the reason why there are not many angel investors in Malaysia.
Perfect Fresh & Frozen is a company dealing in frozen food and meat supplies (cow, lamb, goat, rabbit, yeap whatever you name it as long as it's in our sijil HALAL JAKIM) and is a local franchisor registered with KPDNKK.
I joined in as one of the partners to try and stimulate the business model. Get things up and running to ensure it reaches profitability. It is not an easy task.
However, below is our re-engineered business model:
- Targets both retailers and restaurants.
- Wholesale prices for all, even lower prices for everyone for above 5KG.
- Customer service without extra cost. We think about you and your customers. We always do followup to ensure we can provide products according to your requirements.
- We are expanding our Yeehaa Kiosk model where entrepreneurs could set up a hybrid of western food + grab and bite food at only 11k (including working capital!)
Wish me luck on my business.
To know more, login at http://www.perfectfreshfrozen.com
Or you can visit us at No 15, Jalan Impian Murni 1/5, Saujana Impian, 43000 Kajang, Selangor. We are open from 9am – 10pm, everday!
It's near to TESCO Kajang by the way.
Or call us at +603 8739 3042


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West African countries hardest hit by Ebola are ramping up efforts to stop the virus from spreading.
Guinea announced Saturday it was closing its borders with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Together, the three countries have lost nearly 1,000 lives to the disease.
One of the most recent fatalities was a Congolese nun, who contracted Ebola while working with Spanish Catholic missionaries in Liberia.
There have also been at least two Ebola deaths in Nigeria, which along with the other three countries, has declared a state of emergency to authorize additional funds to address the crisis.
The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is on pace to infect more people than all previous outbreaks of the virus combined. The disease has no known cure or vaccine.
In response to the outbreak, the World Health Organization has declared the epidemic an international health emergency.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has activated its emergency operation center at the highest level. CDC chief Dr. Thomas Frieden says his agency will soon have 50 disease experts in West Africa, and that he is confident the virus will not result in any major outbreak in the United States.
The World Health Organization Friday reported the number of Ebola cases in the four West African countries affected stands at 1,779, and that 961 of those people have already died.
WHO director Dr. Margaret Chan says the four nations "do not have the capacity to manage an outbreak of this size and complexity," and appealed for greater international aid.
Liberia's Assistant Minister of Health Tolbert Nyenswah made a similar plea, telling VOA that Liberian health workers are afraid of being infected.
He said Liberia's government has started discussions with the U.S. National Institutes of Heath to see about obtaining some of the experimental medicine that seems to be helping two U.S. health workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia.
Ebola patients may experience fever, vomiting, diarrhea, body aches and uncontrollable bleeding from all openings in the body, including the eyes, mouth and ears. Initial symptoms are often similar to malaria.
Some information for this report comes from AP, AFP and Reuters.


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Ways To Give
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Being there for the community is something upon which the JCC prides itself…and scholarships have always been available for those who demonstrate a true need. But, with the economic downturn, rising fuel, utility and food costs, more and more individuals are turning to the JCC looking for help to participate in their community – more than we are able to help.
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Many past recipients are now donors to our scholarship funds. You can help others experience the JCC – all donations to the scholarship campaigns will enable a child to attend camp, come for a full-day Jewish preschool education, or enable a family or senior adult in need be a part of their community with a recreational or social membership. Click here to donate today.
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Make a bequest by naming the JCC as a beneficiary in your will. The JCC is honored to accept these very special gifts, as they will allow us to continue to welcome and connect our Jewish community in an atmosphere of warmth and meaning. If you have already named the JCC in your will, or made us the beneficiary of a life insurance policy or retirement account, please let us know so we may thank you for your gift to help others in the future. For more information, please contact Harriet Rothman at 414-967-8239 or email@example.com.
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Views: 239
Replies to This Discussion
Hi Janet,
That sounds good! I'm free Sat mornings and I don't usually sleep in (the dog wakes me up). May I ask how advanced you are? I'm afraid I haven't in a while and may take me a while to get back into it. I don't want to disappoint or frustrate you on court =). Let me know which Sat works for you.
i live in north burnaby as well, near brentwood mall. I have courts at my building, or there are many others confed park or there is a good one just off gilmore and just south of parker. Weekdays are best for me, anytime after 530 or so.
if that works, let me know, i would say i am intermediate......i like to just rally.
© 2019 Created by Mark / The Mayor. Powered by


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Intel: Better Tablet Prospects, But Ultrabooks Key, Says Morgan Stanley
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Morgan Stanley's Joseph Moore today reiterated an Underweight rating on shares of Intel (INTC), and a $20 price target, writing that he believes the company can hold its own against competitors in the battle for tablets based on Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows 8, but that it won't mean much for the company financially.
Moore takes as his cue the presentation last week by Intel of its new "Silvermont" CPU core for mobile devices, an announcement that prompted several analysts to take a brighter outlook on Intel. Intel is now more competitive with licensees of ARM Holdings's (ARMH) microprocessor architecture, such as Qualcomm (QCOM), Broadcom (BRCM), and Nvidia (NVDA):
Intel has made great strides optimizing its Atom architecture for the performance per watt needed for ultra mobile devices. While it is hard to say for sure until we see product benchmarks in customer devices, it certainly appears that the Silvermont architecture announced this week puts the company in position to compete aggressively on specifications.
Moore models Intel selling 50 million of its "Atom" line of processors for tablets through 2015, with the net impact being just an additional 6 cents per share in profit, or 4% above current expectations.
Moore models total tablets next year and in 2015 of 282.8 million and 327.5 million, respectively. Of that, perhaps 13% in 2014 will be based on Microsoft's Win 8, and 16% in 2015, the rest being Apple's (AAPL) iPad, and devices based on Google's (GOOG) Android. Atom might take almost 8% of Android shipments, and 75% of Win 8 tablets, and the combination, 36 million shipments in 2014 and 50.2 million in 2015, would produce $722 million and $1 billion, respectively, in revenue, at an average price of $20 per chip, and 5 cents and 6 cents per annum at a gross profit of 50%.
Here's Moore's table of that back-of-the-envelope calculation (click for larger image):
Moore opines that for Intel to get any real meaningful financial uplift from mobile devices, the company must see success with its higher priced "Haswell" based chips in "ultrabook" laptops and hybrid computers:
While we are encouraged by Intel's progress in ultra mobile, the key debate for the stock remains higher end Haswell architectures, and the next generation Ultrabooks that they will enable. If Intel is able to use very innovative form factors to mitigate tablet cannibalization altogether, without sacrificing its own ASP, it will allow them to maintain traditional profits, which are unmatched by any other semiconductor end market. We continue to view higher end Ultrabooks as somewhat challenging; by adding touch panels, SSDs, and thin form factors, providing high end detachable and convertible form factors, Intel is adding $200+ to the bill of materials. So, if Ultrabooks are going to return the industry to growth, there is implicitly the assumption that PC ASPs will rise, which historically speaking has been a difficult proposition.
Moore thinks "penetration of the Android tablet market will likely prove much more difficult for Intel" than the Win 8 market:
At the same time, a higher performance x86 CPU on an Android tablet may not be an immediate selling point with Android tablet vendors we talk to, at least until Intel achieves critical mass. Apps developers indicate that most apps are written to run on mainstream apps processors. Many Android apps have been developed on iOS, the most unified development environment, and ported over, and others are written directly for ARM based Android CPUs. There are very few tablet apps that won't run effectively on a dual core A15, since those apps would not sell on any commercial platforms. This creates a bit of a chicken and egg problem for Intel. The CPU is not currently a binding constraint for many users, and the applications that drive up CPU requirements will not be written until higher performance CPUs have higher share.
Intel shares today closed up 36 cents, or 1.5%, at $24.20.


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I would like to ask Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake to please don't insult our intelligence by telling citizens that the purpose of speed cameras is school safety ("Goal is 'zero' speed errors: Mayor's vow comes as camera criticism rises," Nov. 20).
Baltimore's very loose interpretation of the state regulation regarding what is considered a "school area" has led to the placement of cameras all around the city in locations that have no bearing on ensuring that students arrive at school safely.
One needn't drive far to see cameras placed where they are for the purpose of revenue enhancement — the "school area" at Lake Avenue and Charles Street on the city-county line, for example, where the speed limit drops from 40 mph to 30 mph.
It doesn't take much to realize what the true intentions of the city are there. Perhaps if Baltimore simply had followed the state's definition of a school zone, there wouldn't so much criticism of this money-grabbing scheme.
Donna McCann, Baltimore


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March 24, 2010
Big Bang for beginners-9: Dark energy
(My latest book God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom has just been released and is now available through the usual outlets. You can order it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, the publishers Rowman & Littlefield, and also through your local bookstores. For more on the book, see here. You can also listen to the podcast of the interview on WCPN 90.3 about the book.)
For previous posts in this series, see here.
In addition to the appearance of dark matter, another interesting development arose when observers tried to determine the curvature of the universe, an important fact in determining the ultimate fate of the universe.
To understand this consider, as an analogy, a ball thrown upwards from the surface of the planet. It will slow down as it goes up due to the gravitational attraction of the planet's mass. But will the ball eventually fall back to the ground or will it escape from the planet and go on forever? The answer depends on both the speed of the ball and the size of the planet. For a given speed of the thrown ball, if the mass of the planet is below a certain value, its gravitational pull on the ball is not sufficient to bring it back and the ball will escape and travel out in space forever.
The same feature holds for the universe. We currently know the speeds of the galaxies as they move apart form each other. We know that the gravitational field of the other galaxies is trying to slow them down. Whether the expansion eventually stops and the universe starts collapsing again or whether the expansion of the universe goes on forever depends of the combined mass of all the other galaxies, or more precisely, the density of the universe. And in turn, the density of the universe determines the shape of the universe.
If the density of the matter in the universe is below a certain value that we can calculate (called the 'critical density'), the standard Big Bang theory predicts that the universe curves at every point in the shape of a saddle (called negative curvature) and will expand forever.
If the density of the universe is greater than the critical density, theory predicts that the universe curves the opposite way like a sphere (called positive curvature) and will stop expanding at some point and then start to collapse back into itself, like a thrown ball falling back to Earth.
Thus the ultimate fate of the universe is dependent on the curvature of the universe, which in turn is directly related to whether the actual density is greater or less than the critical density. The ratio of the actual density to the critical density is given by the Greek letter Ω and if this quantity is greater than 1, the universe is said to be closed (finite), if it is less than one it is said to be open (infinite and saddle shaped), and if it is exactly equal to one, it is said to be flat (and infinite). This figure from a NASA website provides a visualization by analogy with 2D space.
So clearly, knowing the curvature of the universe would give us important information about the ultimate fate of the universe. There are two ways to do this: measuring the density of the universe, calculating Ω, and thus inferring the curvature as above, or by directly measuring the curvature itself. Measurements of all the visible matter in the universe seems to indicate that the density of the universe is well below the critical density, signaling a saddle shape, and that we will have perpetual expansion. Even adding in all the postulated dark matter still gives a density that is only about 20-40% of the critical density.
But it is also possible to directly measure the curvature of space. How does one directly measure the curvature of space while living within that space? An analogy with the Earth may help. We currently live on the surface of the Earth. People have known for more than two thousand years that the Earth was a sphere. For most of that time, they inferred it indirectly, by observing eclipses, ships sinking over horizon, and so forth. In more recent times people have had direct confirmation for its spherical shape as a result of having circumnavigated the globe and viewed the Earth from outer space.
But it is theoretically possible for someone to determine the curvature of the Earth even if they never leave their living room or look outside, provided they have very precise measuring instruments. All they would have to do is draw a triangle on a sheet of paper that is laid flat on the ground (as shown in the figure), measure the three angles, and add them up. As all students are told, the total should be 180 degrees. But what many don't know is that this result is a very special case that only occurs if the sheet of paper is flat.
If the surface of the Earth is curved into a sphere (and the sheet of paper follows that curvature), the sum of the angles will be greater than 180 degrees. You can easily see that this is true by imagining that we could draw a triangle large enough that one of its vertices is the North Pole and the other two vertices are on the Equator. We see that the two angles formed at the equator are each 90 degrees, which means that the sum of the three angles must be greater than 180 degrees. If the surface of the Earth had been saddle-shaped, the sum would be less than 180 degrees. The sum of the angles of a triangle drawn on a small sheet of paper would differ from 180 degrees by only a tiny amount, which is why you need precision instruments to measure the curvature of the Earth's surface this way.
To directly measure the curvature of space in an analogous manner, a satellite called the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) was launched in 2001 and the surprising result that it returned (with an astoundingly low 2% margin of error) was that the universe is neither saddle shaped nor spherical but flat, which meant that Ω=1 and hence the density of the universe must be almost exactly equal to the critical density. The unlikely coincidence of the actual density being equal to the critical density cries out for an explanation.
The 'inflationary model' of the universe, which is an add-on to the standard Big Bang theory, says that the very early universe underwent an extraordinarily rapid expansion within a tiny fraction of the very first second of life of the universe. This theory has gained widespread acceptance because a 'flat' universe would be an outcome, in addition to also solving what is known as the 'horizon' problem, which I will not go into.
So assuming that the universe is indeed flat, what is the source that is making the density of the universe exactly equal to the critical density? The solution that has been proposed is that space is filled with something called 'dark energy' that fills the entire universe (dark matter is assumed to only be present in galaxies) and this provides the amount of energy needed to make the universe flat.
But what is this new form of energy? And where did it come from?
Next: The cosmological constant and dark energy.
POST SCRIPT: Crazy health care opponents
I have not been writing recently about the health care issue even though it is important because a lot of recent activities was pure theater, mainly posturing and parliamentary maneuvering. But I will get back to it after the Big Bang series ends.
But what amazed me watching the process unfold me was the irrational and over-the-top rhetoric that was being thrown around by reform opponents. This video clip of the people at the demonstration last weekend gives a taste of the ignorance and selfishness prominently on display.
TrackbacksTrackback URL for this entry is: http://blog.case.edu/singham/mt-tb.cgi/22319
In today's entry, you talk about the curvature of space through time, while in the What lies beyond the edge of the universe? entry, it sounds like you're talking about the curvature of space at one moment in time. Are they necessarily the same? I can imagine that space could possibly have spherical curvature, making it finite at any one time, but it still might expand forever, making it ultimately infinite.
If the space has positive curvature, it means that it will stop expanding and start to collapse so it would not become infinite.


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Whatever the weather, with the BMW EnduroGuard suit, you're ready for anything. This professional jacket offers a maximum of functionality. The specially developed material made of dynatec and ceraspace print ensures top values in abrasion resistance. The 3-layer laminate with c_change membrane ensures perfect interior climate, making the jacket wind and waterproof, and breathable. The abundance of ventilation zips and other functional details also allows every rider to keep cool and calm even in warm temperatures.
Jacket and Pants are sold separately - available in Men's and Women's specific versions.
Color: Men's Grey or Black; Women's Grey only.
BMW Motorcycles EnduroGuard Jackets are sold in US SUIT sizes.
• New generation suit for off-road or touring use, WATERPROOF.
• Highly abrasion-resistant shell of dynatec and dynatec stretch, with a ceraspace layer in some areas, a BMW innovation in cooperation with Schoeller Textil AG
• 3-layer laminate with BMW C-Change Climate Membrane™, wind and waterproof, highly breathable
• NP2 protectors on back, shoulders, elbows, hips and knees (infinitely height-adjustable)
• Coccyx protector, retrofittable
• Extremely good all-round ventilation through many generously sized ventilation options, double front zipper as an AirVent system
• Lining – 100% polyester; Mesh lining in jacket and pants and 3D-Mesh on the back, breathable and elastic
• 8 jacket pockets, 7 of which are waterproof, men's jacket with additional breast pocket, 3 pants pockets, 1 of which is a key holder (ideal for Keyless Ride)
• Sleeves and legs can be opened wide, recessed cuffs provide protection in foul weather
• Wind guards and recessed cuffs in the jacket provides effective protection against wind and rain
• Waterproof storm hood integrated into the collar
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• Snap buttons on the jacket front are concealed to avoid scratching the tank; and hook-and-loop straps allow a variety of width adjustments and ventilation openings
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BMW Motorcycles EnduroGuard Jacket 2018
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*SOLD OUT* Please note, this program is full and no further registrations will be accepted. Join us in 2014 for our next Emerging Program Institute!
This 2-day bootcamp combines best practices from the nonprofit arts sector with specific, hands-on information about artists' residencies. If you are interested in or involved in launching a new residency program, you won't want to miss this! Click on the links to the left for an agenda, registration, and more information.
"It's a huge boon to know that you're not alone, that there are others with like passions and values available as resources. It gives us the incentive to move forward with passion and purpose."
- past Institute attendee
The primary host for the 2013 Emerging Program Institute is The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
Additional hosting is provided by the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art and Lower Manhattan Cultural Center. The Institute is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
See a description of our 2011 Emerging Program Institute here


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Note: This item is included with four others in the Menu Navigation Mega Pack. Further information about each item can be found in the links listed on that page.
"Menu Navigation Pack V" is a collection of six matching samples that cover most basic menu interface interactions. Created using a simple synthesized pop bubble sound, these samples are subtle, gentle and friendly-sounding.
This pack is versatile and would be suitable and functional for almost any type of software interface (e.g. games; applications; web pages). Suggested assignments for each sample can be found in the track list below.
The tracks and their duration are listed here in the order they play in the preview above:
- Menu_Nav_Pack_5_01_Step_Forward – (0:01)
- Menu_Nav_Pack_5_02_Step_Backward – (0:01)
- Menu_Nav_Pack_5_03_Setting_Adjustment – (0:01)
- Menu_Nav_Pack_5_04_Confirm_Changes – (0:01)
- Menu_Nav_Pack_5_05_Cancel_Changes – (0:01)
- Menu_Nav_Pack_5_06_Error_Alert – (0:01)


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Steven Seagal: I Can't Believe It's Not Buddha!
He used to be just another harmful action figure. But then Steven Seagal pulled a Dalai Lama, reemerging as a Tibetan Buddhist master. (Don't ask how. It's very mysterious.) Prepare ye the way of bad karma.
I will come to know it as the Omega Hug: the official embrace of the Omega Institute of Holistic Studies. The woman in the fringed halter top and wraparound skirt sees someone she knows. Walking across the wide planked veranda—long limbed as a Modigliani, her ankle bracelets of tiny silver bells tintinnabulating as she moves—she embraces her friend, eyes closed, a beatific smile on her face, her hand moving slowly and healingly up and down the other's back. The Omega hug is long and intense—it takes a full half minute to execute—but I will see it countless times over the next three days.
At the moment, there is plenty of time to hug. About 200 of us are sitting around waiting for Steven Seagal to arrive at the famed New Age retreat center. Set in Rhinebeck, New York, among the gently rolling hills of the Hudson Valley, the Omega Institute usually expends its exquisitely positive energy offering hundreds of courses and seminars, led by such reigning spiritual superstars as Deepak Chopra. Courses like "Out of Body Experiences and Dream Exploration," "The Art of Everyday Ecstasy," and "Women's Sacred Summer Camp." But this Memorial Day weekend the seminar is titled "Cultivating Compassion & Clarity," and the teacher is none other than Seagal—movie star, aikido master and, lately, teacher of Tibetan Buddhism.
According to the Omega minivan driver who picked me up at the train station, a Santa type who lives six months of the year in a nudist colony in Florida, this weekend's seminar is quite an occasion, second only to the one led by Thay Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese monk and author who attracts seven hundred attendees. There is some concern that it is Seagal's reputation as an aikido master, as opposed to his fame as a movie star, that will bring out the crazies. "You know," says the driver, "guys who want to be able to say they mixed it up with Steven Seagal."
I've paid roughly $700 for the three-day seminar, including meals and lodging in cabin. Scrappier types—those who choose to doss down in Omega's Spartan pup tents—are paying less. As we all wait for Seagal's arrival, the head of programming for the institute welcomes us. He is impressed with the number of men who've shown up (generally, the seminars are largely female). He advises us that "the customary greeting for a teacher is a slight bow with the hands clasped. And it would be perfectly appropriate to address him as Rinpoche. It means 'esteemed sir' in Tibetan—literally, 'precious jewel.' "
Precious Jewel eventually does arrive, some forty-five minutes late—what turns out to be Seagal standard time. He is a large man now, with a bit of a late-model-Brando girth about him. His narrow eyes, sleek ponytail, and variation on traditional Tibetan attire—an aubergine skirt and a saffron yellow satin jacket—lend him the air of a Mongol potentate. He shambles in slowly, displaying a kind of bewilderment, as if this temporal world were too jarring and suffused with craving and pain for him to absorb just yet.
He begins with asking us three questions. "How many of you have some experience with Buddhism?" Easily half the audience has none. He will have to adjust his dharma talks, the Buddhist teachings of the Way, accordingly. And finally he asks, "Did the infamous J.J. ever show up?" A blond wearing a wrap skirt and a Lycra tank top raises her hand. "Ah, there you are. I see you, girl," he says.
If we are a monolithic group, it is only in that we are overwhelmingly white. There are some archetypal New Age Stevie Nicks types decked out in southwestern pot-smoker chic—turquoise jewelry, dangling earrings, flower skirts, and scarves—who all seem to know one another. ("Didn't we meet on the Inner Voyage Cruise to Cozumel?" one woman murmurs to another.) There's also a healthy contingent of aikido/Seagal devotees from a martial-arts studio on Long Island—to a man displaying the thick-necked, wide-ass bulk of the fraternity brother. The rest of the group, including me, seem to be unwitting members of the American Gap–oisie. We are eastern-seaboard types, vaguely disgruntled seekers who, if not of actual Buddhist leanings, are at least conversant with the rudiments of the Eight Fold Path. We've been lactose intolerant in our lives; we do yoga.
Of course, there are a few people among us who have come solely to see the movie star, like the older man who knows nothing about Buddhism and whose questions to Seagal are generally along the lines of "How many meals do you eat a day?" and "Anyone ever tell you, you look like a cross between Robert Taylor and Ray Milland?"
Seagal frames his involvement with Tibet in much the same way that he has described his past possible involvements with international intelligence and the CIA—semishrouded, covert, and intrinsically unknowable.
Seagal hasn't had a big movie in years; his last film, The Patriot, never made it to American theaters (it was shown abroad). He explains to us that his absence from the screen is but an inevitable consequence of his emergence as a Holy Man. "The studios know exactly what they want. Fighting. As I became a lama, I had to establish a line I could not cross, and I've taken two years off as a result."
The Tibet thing is fairly new in Seagal's repertoire of identities. All I had known or read about him prior to this weekend had located him in a different, albeit now less fashionable, part of Asia—Japan. Aikido is a Japanese martial art, and in the crypto-autobiographical opening sequence of his first film, Above the Law, Seagal is seen teaching an aikido class in Japan, speaking beautiful Japanese. In countless subsequent articles about him, including one in this magazine, Seagal has spoken exhaustively, if a tad mysteriously, about the many years he spent over there. So the new and precariously trendy embrace of Tibet comes as something of a surprise. According to the Omega catalog, Seagal, a.k.a. Terton Rinpoche, has been formally recognized as a tulku (incarnate lama from a past life) by H.H. lama Penor Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. There is perplexity among some American activists devoted to the Tibetan cause as to how Seagal earned the title so effortlessly. "I haven't looked into this, but I'm curious as to under what condition or terms he was accorded this status," says Ganden Thurman, director of special projects at Tibet House in New York. "I'm afraid it troubles me." Thurman pauses, then adds, "I always wondered at the action heroes he played. He always seems to be the only one who tortures his enemies."
For his part, Seagal frames his involvement with Tibet in much the same way that he has described his past possible involvements with international intelligence and the CIA—semishrouded, covert and intrinsically unknowable. "I was in a monastery in Kyoto," he tells us, "and met some monks from Tibet who had been tortured by the Chinese. As I was the only one who had studied herbology, bone manipulation, and acupuncture, I treated them, and there was an immediate connection."
One day you're a simple bone manipulator, the next you're teaching torture victims how to get centered. It's a familiar trajectory: You almost can't swing a reincarnated cat without hitting someone who's followed this path. The audience seems unbothered by the unverifiability of Seagal's explanation. Most nod with appreciative understanding, some closing their eyes and smiling, savoring the moment like a divine chocolate.
"Mealtimes are signaled by three blows on a conch shell," says the Omega welcome booklet. It's a fairly impressive display of lung capacity, and the people lying here and there about the hill outside the dining hall applaud. Can I really be the only one for whom a conch shell resonates with association to Lord of the Flies and the grisly death of Piggy? But blithe decontextualization seems to be the name of the game here (Inner Voyage Cruise, anyone?).
Just as at freshman orientation in college, where the first person you eat lunch with ends up being the person with whom you take all your meals for the rest of the week, whether you like it or not, I will be forcibly bonded with Megan, a woman in her late thirties from Massachusetts. She is the first person to speak to me at breakfast on Saturday. I ask her what she thinks of Seagal.
"He's interesting," she says.
"Yes. Counterintuitively so," I reply.
"What's that?"
"It's counter to my intuition. I'm surprised. He's quite smart and funny. It's not what I was expecting."
She rolls her tongue around inside her cheek with a smile.
"That's not intuition. That's judgment." She is very pleased with herself. This is what passes for a New Age zinger.
Despite his Buddhist-CIA puffery, the biggest surprise about Seagal is that he is not an idiot. More often than not, he is smart, funny, and charming and displays great patience and equanimity in answering three days' worth of frequently whacked-out questions with respect and good humor.
But he is also chemically, tragically late. As seminar leader, Seagal has fairly light duties. The school day consists of a morning session, from nine to noon, and an afternoon session, from 2:30 to 5:30. But Seagal tends to arrive at least an hour into each, and he stays for only an hour. People start to switch to other workshops, and as the seminar continues, the attrition rate mounts. Those who remain are led through a twice-daily stretching routine by Larry Reynosa, Seagal's main aikido disciple. There is a desperation to these calisthenics. We know that Rinpoche is not in the building, and Reynosa knows we know. The routines are lengthened and repeated. What begins on Saturday morning as a fifteen-minute break between exercises and Seagal's arrival stretches by Sunday afternoon into three-quarters of an hour.
When Seagal does lecture, he teaches at a primer level. ("It is the law of cause and effect—also known as karma.") As the weekend continues, he shows that he's capable of elevating the discourse. ("We look at all phenomena as the miraculous activity of the unfolding of the divine. The only thing that's common is what one makes common by one's impure perception.") Basic or sophisticated, however, what's clear is that Seagal doesn't seem to have a whole lot of lecture in him; his sessions quickly devolve into Q. and A. And, as anyone who has ever been to a film festival, a stockholders' meeting, or college can tell you, when a room is outfitted with microphones for Q. and A., you will hear precious little of anything resembling an actual Q. So, when a young man kicks off the open-mike portion of our weekend with "I guess I'll share something with the group. I recently took out a personal ad that read 'Pagan Universalist Unitarian Buddhist seeks...,' " I know this retreat will be no different.
It is sadly telling that the weekend's open discourse begins with someone talking about a personal ad. Questions at this seminar don't get bogged down with the rest of the world. Only one woman asks Seagal what she should do in the face of hate speech. She hears so much of it, mostly against blacks and gays.
"Well, I'm black and gay, and I'm proud of it," says Seagal. The straight, white audience laughs appreciatively and applauds. Racism eradicated, we move on. I find her at dinner that night and tell her how much I admired her questions. She thanks me and tells me she has switched seminars and gone over to the "Freeing the Fire Within" retreat.
Questions of compassion are now left to the likes of a woman who says, "We had some lamas visiting down in Charleston, and they led us in a meditation where we took on all the pain of the universe. And I had to stop, because there's so much pain in the universe." This is the same woman who will later ask, "If we are all one and God is in us, does that mean we are God?" She poses it quizzically, as if she had a question about Schedule B on her taxes.
But her remarks speak to a larger truth about the Omega crowd. These folks seem very concerned with the universe, with the skein of fate and predestination that enmeshes everything, and their concerns affect even the most quotidian incidents: Meg bought a Lumina because "the Spirit told me to. And also the name. Lumina? Luminous?" (Wait a sec! "Lumina" does sound like "luminous"! My God, do the executives at Chevy know about this?) Behind me in the lunch line, a young woman tells her friends, "So I started to think, Am I going to hear another song about angels tonight? And I turned on the radio and that song 'On the Wings of Love' came on. And, you know, the first verse is all about an angel, and I was like, 'I definitely did not plan this. This is so random.' And then I thought, Maybe it's not so random..."
And over breakfast one morning, a statuesque Susannah York type, a participant in the "Healing the Light Body" shamanistic workshop, rolls her eyes back into her head rapturously. "You know, yesterday I prayed for organic yogurt, and here it is. It's a manifestation!" she says, her voice breathy and awestruck at the mysterious ways of the Breakfast Deity.
But if things are habitually attributed to higher causes, I am hard-pressed to see them redound to higher purposes. I hear a lot of talk about the good karma accrued by being good to oneself, but hands-on altruism gets almost no play the entire weekend. When I ask Meg why, at a weekend devoted to the notion of bodhicitta (awakened compassion), there are no newspapers for us to monitor the suffering of, say, the Kosovars, Meg tells me, "It's karma." Meaning, I suppose, that those pushy ethnic Albanians are getting what they deserve. "Besides," she continues, "you should take a break from all that." I counter that the casualties of the globe's misfortunes, the very objects of our compassion, don't have the luxury of taking a break. Meg immediately holds up her hands in a frightened stop gesture. "I was told I just have to say things. So I'll say that this gives me agita. When things get heavy, I can't eat. Can we talk about something else?"
The subject of Tibet, origin of the weekend's teachings, is dispensed with in three minutes. A woman steps up to the mike and mentions that she heard that the "purpose" of the oppression by the Chinese is to get the world at large to pay attention to Tibetan Buddhism. A kind of genocidal PR campaign, ordained by karma: Hitler wore khakis. She relays this information as though she were passing on a handy stain-removal tip.
Even the political T-shirt, that ubiquitous manifestation of principles, is completely absent. I see endorsements from blue-green algae (FOOD OF CHAMPIONS) and Kiss My Face lotion, several polar bears and an embarrassment of angels (how random, then again...maybe not). The only shirt concerned with others is focused on a demographic so remote as to be politically negligible: U.F.O.RIA.
A week prior to my arrival here, a friend and I were in Disney World, where the staff are referred to as "cast members"; where we walked from an animatronic display of the nation's presidents to a reproduction of Tom Sawyer's island in under one minute; where, in the middle of lunching on our "Patriot Platter" in Liberty Square, we were visited at the table by Goofy, Minnie Mouse, Chip and Dale. And yet it all felt less oppressive than the faux Arcadia of Omega. There is nothing wrong, I keep telling myself, with people finding relaxation any way they want. Perhaps there is something to admire in seeking higher truths in one's spare time. I certainly manage, over the course of the retreat, to have many interesting conversations about Buddhism with many delightful people. Why, then, as I sit in an Adirondack chair under the spreading boughs of a majestic pine tree, a bed of orange poppies beside me, a brook babbling not ten feet away, do I feel as though I am trapped in hell? Funnily enough, Seagal had described hell as when you are "put in a place where everyone has the same delusion."
The collective delusion of Omega is that of overwhelming narcissism posing as altruism. I have ended up at a spa that refuses to call itself a spa, an "institute" with a terror of the world so crippling that it has no newspapers. Should I have bothered, before I came, to parse the terms self-help and retreat? The one unabashedly egocentric, the other suggesting defeated flight.
By Sunday morning, the hall is decidedly sparser—easily half the people are gone or have decided to opt out of poor Larry Reynosa's relentlessly frequent stretching exercises. There is a picked-over feeling in the room, a buffet down to its garnishes on a soiled tablecloth. "Something very exciting had better happen today," say the couple beside me.
Rinpoche certainly tries. We are told he will lead a special fire ritual this morning in honor of the auspicious full moon. But he is late, and as we congregate on the lawn in the hot sun, our numbers dwindle further. The ceremony, when he finally begins it, is impressive. A smoldering brazier of pine branches and burning pieces of red-and-yellow cloth sends a plume of thick white smoke up into the summer sky. Seagal chants Tibetan verses, which he reads from texts bound up in a beautiful silk-and-lacquer reticule. The English translation is poetry of exquisite intricacy and refraction, speaking of unknowable worlds of bliss and terror—"the five realms of existence, including one called Hell." We are chastened into silent thought.
Arriving at the dining hall that evening, we are informed that Seagal will host an unprecedented evening session. I tell Meg it all smacks vaguely of the eleventh-hour bang for the buck: Seagal is trying to make up for his "punctuality issues." I say this lightly. Meg, whom at this point I'd almost sooner saw my tongue off with a plastic knife than have another one-on-one conversation with, says, "Maybe it's our issue. I view this time as a bubble. Maybe we should go with the flow, like we're in a monastery." Unable to bear it any longer, I say, my voice far sharper than I had intended, "Even in a Buddhist monastery, where I've been,"—a bald-faced lie—"they show up at the time they say they will. I don't think it's invalid, having told 200 people he'd be here at a certain time, to show up then."
I frankly don't care whether Rinpoche shows up at all. I am by now only thinking about the next day, when I can take a cab to the Amtrak station and return to that nest of perversion and unenlightenment known as New York City, where the practice (and criminal nonpractice) of empathy and compassion has all the immediacy, importance, and conflicting allegiances of war.
Meg and I are so clearly sick of each other that her ensuing attempt at jocularity merely highlights, rather than defuses, the tension. "Wait, let me back up," she says. "Let me learn nonresistance and try to align myself with you." The corners of her eyes are shining as sharp and gleaming as rat teeth.
It's moot, as it turns out, because by the time supper is over, we are told that the evening session has been canceled.
Seagal, expected at 9 a.m., arrives at 11:45 for our final session. The entire seminar is ending at noon. "Is everybody getting hungry?" he asks the clearly had-it-up-to-here crowd. A young man appears at the mike, unilaterally deciding to start the Q. and A. early. "We were wondering where you were last night and why you're late today. It's kind of funny and I'm kind of nervous asking, but we're wondering about the mutual-respect thing you keep talking about and why you show up for one hour of these three-hour things."
Seagal's face is unreadable as he answers, neither defensive nor angry. "I've been teaching for thirty years, and I've never taught as much as I taught yesterday, and it comes to a point of diminishing returns as to what you can absorb. I would be happy to give you your money back and a bonus." He then adds, perplexingly, "In my tradition, teachers don't explain. I'm not here to take your money. I'm not flippant about people's time and energy, and I'm very respectful to everyone."
Immediately mollified about his taking of their money and disrespect shown by his flippant disregard of their time and energy, the audience members applaud. The man thanks him for his direct answer and sits down.
Meg, seeking to calm yet further the already glass-smooth waters, stands up at the mike. "I've been thinking about the chocolate cake my friend and I have been eating every night in the café?" she up-speaks. "It's sold in such small slices because it's very rich? What we get here is very rich?" She sits down.
Seagal assumes a demeanor of aching humility for the concluding few minutes of the seminar. He asks in the oblique and roundabout grammatical construction of translated Japanese if it might be all right if he were to possibly read for us a Tibetan prayer called "Inexpressible Confession." "Would that be OK?" he mewls. Yes! we answer, collective tantrum having subsided, triumphantly forgiving and eager once more for dharmic enlightenment.
But I leave as he starts in on the chanting. My taxi is here to take me to the train station. It is a scorcher of a Memorial Day, and as the cab drives away, the vinyl of the car seat burns the backs of my thighs. I am grateful for this small introduction back to samsara—the ocean of suffering, the endless cycle of life, death, and misery. Cracking a window, I lean back and close my eyes, happy to breathe the stifling air.
This essay was first published in GQ's October 1999 issue.


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Senior center Justin Glenn was named to the Atlantic Sun Academic All-Conference team, the league announced Tuesday. Glenn has a 3.4 grade point average and graduates this summer with both a bachelor's degree in accounting and a master's of accountancy.
The A-Sun introduced the new sport-by-sport Academic All-Conference teams this fall to recognize student-athletes who embody the conference's mission of Building Winners for Life. All the members of the team boast a 3.30 cumulative grade point average (GPA) or better and participated in at least half of their team's games.
Glenn averages 8.1 points and 7.3 rebounds for the Bison. He's started all 30 games and is second in the A-Sun for shooting (60.0 percent) and third in rebounding.
ETSU's Adam Sollazzo was named the Scholar-Athlete of the Year.


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Max Diamant (now Josef Burzminski)
Born: June 23, 1915
Vienna, Austria
Max was born to a Jewish family in the Austrian capital of Vienna. When he was a small child his family moved to Przemysl, an urban center in southeastern Poland with a largely Jewish population. Max spent the remainder of his childhood there; his parents ran a small grocery and cafeteria to support their five children.
1933-39: The Germans reached Przemysl on September 14, 1939. It was a brilliant sunny day when planes suddenly appeared; we thought they were our own until they began shooting people in the street. Poland was defeated quickly, and was divided between the Germans and the Soviets. Przemysl straddled the dividing line; the western half was taken by the Germans, and the eastern half, where I lived, was seized by the Soviets.
1940-44: In 1941 the Germans took all of Przemysl. We were lined up with Germans aiming their guns at us. Then an officer ran up: "We need fat Jewish people for soap!" So instead of being shot, we were put on a train. Wanting to die, I decided to throw myself off the train. Others helped, pushing me through the window head first. But when I saw the churning wheels I couldn't do it. So I hung out of the window feet first and jumped. Skidding in the snow, I hit a post that tore a hole in my shoulder. I walked back to Przemysl.
After spending three years hiding in Przemysl, Max was liberated by the Soviet army in early 1945. Later, Max immigrated to the United States and became a dentist.


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One of the most frequent issues readers write to me about is the delay in hearing back from HR and hiring managers after an interview. I think if you've gone as far as to have someone in for an interview, that you've set up some kind of expectation and that person deserves to hear one way or another. I've tried really hard to give the benefit of the doubt to the people making the candidate choices, but I really can't get past the conclusion that there's a great deal of laziness or disorganization involved.
Really, what is a decent excuse for not letting a candidate know that he or she didn't get the job? Some people say that they don't want to tell the second-place candidate in case the first one doesn't work out. That's like waiting to confirm a prom date with an okay person while you wait to see if the person you really want to go with asks you out.
One hiring manager told me that if a candidate doesn't hear back within a certain amount of time, then he or she should conclude on their own that they didn't get the job. That's bull. How is that person to know that means(s) he didn't get the job as opposed to the company perhaps having a painfully slow assessment process?
To make the situation worse, some companies have policies where you can't apply for another job there unless you've been "officially released" from a previous job application. There is a health care company here in town that has that very policy. A friend of mine interviewed for a position there over two months ago and still hasn't been officially released, despite having heard from someone else that there is a person in that job now.
All the follow-up might be a hassle or a nuisance, but you're dealing with people here. People who need some kind of closure so they can move on to looking elsewhere. And, no, I'm not recommending that a job seeker only have one job possibility floating out there at a time, putting all the eggs in one basket so to speak. But normal people can't help but keep some kind of hope alive until they've been told otherwise.
I am throwing this question out to HR departments and hiring managers everywhere: Why don't you tell job candidates when they don't get the job?
Full Bio
Toni Bowers is the former Managing Editor of TechRepublic and is the award-winning blogger of the Career Management blog. She has edited newsletters, books, and web sites pertaining to software, IT career, and IT management issues.


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Wore a pair of Hincapie Jeans to the After Party last night – there was a fashion show and all. Def premium jeans, fit well, with enough room for cyclists thighs. Also comfortable enough for the short bike ride from the hotel to Mellow Johnnys.
Readers may remember that we spotted Hincapie's jeans last year when we visited Greenville SC for the Style in Motion event during the USPro Champs.
Uploaded by Hugger Industries | more from the Bike Hugger Photostream.


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Rox Sunk By Anchors Despite Building Early Lead
The Rox blew a 5-0 lead after two innings in a 7-6 loss to the lowly Blue Anchors last night at Joe Faber Field.
Adam Martin hit a solo home run in the first inning, and Chris Paul had a two-run shot in the second over the left-field scoreboard, but St. Cloud could not hang on for the win.
The Rox fall to 10-16 on the season and have been eliminated from first half playoff contention, 8.5 games out of first place.
The Rochester Honkers come to town tonight with a record of 15-10, in third place.


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Alfresco's Dr Ian Howells to Speak at UK Open Source Forum
Session to report on results of the Alfresco Open Source Barometer Survey and Open Source adoption trends in the UK
London, UK. – May 1, 2008 – Alfresco Software today announced that Ian Howells, CMO, will present at Red Hat's Open Source Forum in London on May 14. His session, entitled "Open Source Barometer" will outline trends in UK open source adoption and report on the results of Alfresco's Open Source Barometer survey.
Alfresco's unique survey tracks trends in the open source community, examining how enterprises evaluate, test and deploy both open source and proprietary software around Alfresco's enterprise content management system. The survey provides unprecedented levels of detailed information on their software infrastructure, including operating systems, application servers, databases, browsers and portals.
The 45,000 members of the Alfresco community are surveyed on a biannual basis with the aim of providing a leading indicator on enterprise open source adoption trends.
The Open Source Forum is presented by Red Hat and co-sponsored by Alfresco, blackduck, Zimbra and Sourcesense will take place on the May 14 in London.


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Well, sort of....several years back Rick Reilly (love him or hate him..) wrote a pretty cool piece of fiction about our favorit sport called "Missing Links". Now the story has broken that Missing LInks will be made into a feature film. For those of you who have not read the book, I highly recommend it - you can snag a copy right here.
It's a great story about a group of people who (what else) play golf and hang out at a local muni that's under seige by the neighboring high brow Country Club. It's got laughs, sex (yowza!!!), and even a few moments to tug your emotions. If that's not enough, it's rumored that Steve Carrell of "The Office" fame will take the starring role. I'm more of a fan of Ricky Gervais than Steve Carrell, but I'm sure the flick will be well worth the effort - so be sure to check it out


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Scarcity Is A Bad Thing, So Why Would You Want To Artificially Add Scarcity?
from the think-this-through dept
It's a situation where you have the opposite of scarcity. You have abundance, such that there need not be any argument over ownership, because everyone can have what they want... and suddenly people want to take away the good thing (abundance!) and replace it with limits and a situation that is worse for everyone. Why would you ever do that, unless you either don't understand economics or you dislike mankind and would prefer that the world have fewer resources and more arguments over ownership.
Apparently, some others feel the same way. Derek Reed points to an amusing quote in a post by Tycho over at Penny Arcade concerning Sony's Playstation Home:
"Chief among these bizarre maneuvers is the idea that, when manufacturing their flimsy dystopia, they actually ported the pernicious notion of scarcity from our world into their digital one. This is like having the ability to shape being from non-being at the subatomic level, and the first thing you decide to make is AIDS."While an extreme quote, he's making an important point. If you are creating a new world, where unfortunate and damaging resource limitations of other worlds wouldn't be necessary, why would you arbitrarily add those limitations back in? Why would you arbitrarily shrink the resource pool?


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An interesting description of the global economic situation came out of the press conference heralding the most recent World Economic Outlook crafted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week: a global economy stick in "three speed mode," in the words of Olivier Blanchard, economic counselor and chief economist for the IMF, with emerging markets still growing rapidly, the U.S. economy experiencing a steady yet sluggish recovery, while Europe continues to struggle.
"There is, however, a twist to that story, which is that growth almost everywhere is a bit weaker than we forecast last April, and the downward revisions are particularly noticeable in emerging market countries," he added. "After years of strong growth, the emerging market economies—the BRIC [Brazil-Russia-India-China] markets, to call them that way, are beginning to run into speed bumps. This means that the focus of policies will increasingly need to turn to boosting potential output growth or, in the case of China, to achieving more sustainable and balanced growth."
[You can watch Blanchard discuss those and other trends in the video clip below.]
Overall, the IMF expects global economic growth to remain subdued at slightly above 3% in 2013, the same as in 2012. Where the U.S., the IMF is now forecasting growth of 1.7% this year: a downward revision of 0.2%, but with expectations for a rebound to occur in 2014, when the IMF believes growth will hit 2.7% in the U.S.
In some ways, that "three speed" view of the global economy is an apt description of the competing perspectives on domestic economic growth: some are very bullish concerning prospects for U.S. growth, others see things staying the same, while still others think there's a lot of trouble in store for our nation. [A good example of the gloomy take on things can be found in this opinion column here.]
The IMF's Blanchard, for one, thinks the U.S. is on a good glide path. "The slowdown in the U.S., this 0.2% revision, is not particularly worrisome," he said. "What it hides is a robust recovery in private demand. What has happened is that that stronger than expected, and stronger than desirable, fiscal consolidation has been only partly offset by good performance of the housing market, with the net result being a small downward revision. If fiscal consolidation had been weaker, then growth in the U.S. would be substantially higher."
Optimism is growing among U.S. industrial manufacturers regarding the domestic economic outlook as well, as the Q2 2013 Manufacturing Barometer compiled by global consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) found that optimism in this sector increased to 63% during the second quarter, up from 55% in the first quarter – the highest level since the first quarter of 2012, the firm said.
In addition, 72% of respondents believed the U.S. economy grew in the second quarter, up 10 points from the prior quarter, though it's worthy to note that sentiment pertaining to the world economy remains guarded with only 31% expressing optimism and 59% voicing continued uncertainty, noted Bobby Bono, U.S. industrial manufacturing leader for PwC.
"There remains a persistent dichotomy in viewpoints regarding the outlooks for the U.S. and world economies," he added. "Optimism regarding the domestic economy has increased, while worldwide economic sentiment remains restrained, with global uncertainty reaching the highest level in the past 12 months."
Still, Bono pointed out that the "U.S. is starting to show signs of healthy demand trends and improving pricing power, supporting positive overall sentiment in the year ahead," though as a result of the mixed global outlook, combined with the moderate domestic recovery and the specter of increased legislative and regulatory pressures, management teams are continuing to carefully manage their costs, while maintaining a focus on growing profitably.
Another survey indicates strong optimism for the U.S. and the world, if you can believe it.
The Global Confidence Index – developed in conjunction with Roy Black, director of the real estate program at Emory University's Goizueta Business School in Atlanta – polled 90 executives at major multi-national corporations spread across a wide range of industries and found that their outlook is strong for the second half of 2013, while the prospects for corporate growth and expansion are also increasing.
According to the predictive survey, nearly two-thirds (62.5%) rated their outlook on the global economy for the coming six months as optimistic to very optimistic, compared to a year ago. Almost one-third (31.3%) were neutral on the question, with only incremental pessimism registered (4.2%).
Executives in the CoreNet Global survey also ascribed even higher confidence levels to the likelihood of their companies' growth for the second half of 2013, with a strong majority rating their confidence levels in the prospects for business expansion as optimistic (54.2%), very optimistic (14.6%), and extremely optimistic (4.2%).
Indeed, PwC found similar levels of optimism regarding revenues in its survey, where 82% of the industrial manufacturers polled expecedt positive revenue growth for their own companies in the next 12 months, with only 3% forecasting negative growth.
The projected average revenue growth rate over the next 12 months is expected to be 4.6%, up from 4.3% in the first quarter, but down from 5.6% in last year's second quarter.
Despite the reduced rate of forecasted growth, PwC's Bono said the outlook for the U.S. continues to contrast with the international picture, where optimism regarding commerce in the next 12 months was only 31%, compared to 36% in the first quarter. In addition, the projected contribution of international sales to total revenue over the next 12 months remained low at 32%, consistent with the first quarter survey, but down from 37% in the second quarter of last year.
In some ways that "dichotomy" isn't surprising, since perspectives based on economic data, though, are leading many to think the U.S. economic engine may be shifting to neutral.
Take the Conference Board's most recent Leading Economic Index (LEI) for theU.S., for example: it remained unchanged in June, at 95.3, which followed a 0.2% increase in May and a 0.8% increase in April.
"The U.S. LEI was flat in June [as] declines in building permits, new orders and stock prices were offset by gains in consumer expectations, initial claims for unemployment insurance, and other financial indicators," noted Ataman Ozyildirim, one of the chief economists for the Conference Board. "However, the LEI's six-month growth rate remains positive, suggesting the economy will continue expanding through the end of the year."
"Some segments of the economy are turning around faster than others, resulting in positive but moderate growth," added Ken Goldstein, another Conference Board economist. "The biggest uncertainties remain the pace of business spending, the improvements in consumer spending power and the impact of slower global growth on U.S. exports."
PwC's Bono echoed that sentiment based on his firm's survey findings.
"Sustained global uncertainty has likely led the way in fostering a more measured approach to capital spending, in conjunction with a return to more normalized spending patterns commensurate with the current stage of the post-recession cycle," he explained. "We are also continuing to see little enthusiasm for overseas expansion, while management teams target spending primarily on R&D, new product launches and IT [information technology]. This suggests they are focusing inward on innovation and leveraging their core strengths in a competitive domestic environment."
So, where do we go from here? Well the IMF's Blanchard believes that all the nations participating in the global economy – whatever their "speeds" – must keep a close watch on several risk factors; some old and some very new.
"The old risks are still very much present, the main one being the state of Europe and things which can go wrong there," he said. "Here's what we see as three main new risks."
The first is risk to growth in China. "After a very large increase in investments since the beginning of the crisis, an increase which was largely financed through the shadow banking system, Chinese policymakers face a difficult choice: either letting investment remain high at the risk of increasingly unproductive investment at the margin, and the buildup of credit risks; or tightening credit, slowing investment and risking a decrease in growth because consumption is unlikely to increase fast enough to compensate for the decreasing investment," Blanchard said. "As a result, this is a difficult path to negotiate, and we see potential downside risks to growth in China."
The second risk is Japan's "Abenomics," a three-pronged "arrow" policy named after that nation's prime minister that is centered on fiscal stimulus, aggressive monetary easing, and structural reforms.
"On this, unless the second arrow, which is the fiscal stimulus, is soon complemented by credible medium-run fiscal plan, and the third arrow, which is the structural reforms, reflects substantial reforms, I think the risk is that investors will become worried about that sustainability and then ask for higher interest rate on Japanese government bonds," Blanchard said. "And this clearly would make it difficult for Japan to maintain that sustainability and put Abenomics in trouble."
The third risk is the one associated with exit from quantitative easing in the U.S.
"We attribute the high volatility of financial markets in the recent past, not so much to news from the Fed, but to the sudden realization by investors that quantitative easing would eventually come to an end," Blanchard warned. "As they tried simultaneously to rebalance their portfolios both in the U.S. and abroad, the result was some overshooting, isolated dislocations in some markets, and high volatility. Going forward, we expect volatility to decrease, maybe not back to the levels of a few months ago, but to decrease relative to the highs of the recent past, but one cannot rule further attacks of nerves along the way."
And an "attack of nerves" is something we really don't want to see, especially in terms of how it might impact freight volumes.


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Creation Does Not Equal Ownership
from the thinking-does-not-make-it-so dept
The creator of content owns the content because he created it through his own labor, and you should always own the fruits of your own labor.The problem is this just isn't true and never has been. Simply providing the labor does not equal ownership. As Kinsella notes in his response:
His argument? "If a baker bakes a loaf of bread, he therefore owns it." And likewise, for "music, movies, software." But note the mistake here Johson makes: "If a baker bakes a loaf of bread, he therefore owns it." The "therefore" is the giveaway: he says this because he thinks of the creation of the loaf as the act that gives rise to ownership. Then this leads to the analogy with other created things, like music. But creation of the loaf is not the reason why the baker owns it. He owns the loaf because he owned the dough that he baked. He already owned the dough, before any act of "creation"--before he transformed it with his labor. If he owned the dough, then he owns whatever he transforms his property into; the act of creation is an act of transformation that does not generate any new property rights. So creation is not necessary for him to own the resulting baked bread. Likewise, if he used someone else's dough--say, his employer's--then he does not own the loaf, but the owner of the dough does. So creation is not sufficient for ownership.Exactly. Creation alone does not grant property rights if none existed prior to that transformation. I would even take the argument a step further. Even if you own something due to the fact that you created it, once you have given away or sold that product, you no longer have ownership of it -- and claiming you do actually removes property rights from the lawful owner.
That is, if I make a loaf of bread, and then sell it to someone, I no longer have control over that loaf of bread. I cannot tell the new owner that he can only make French toast with it and cannot feed the bread to the pigeons. That's for the new owner to determine. I certainly cannot tell him that he cannot take the bread and try to resell it or even give it away to others. That's part of the free market. Yet, intellectual property enthusiasts do want to remove these property rights from the recipients of copies of the original good. Despite their claims of being property rights supporters, they are actually the opposite. They are trying to deny property rights to any recipient.


text: We're sorry to report to you that Go Cry Emo Kid will no longer be actively posting new content starting this Wednesday, November 21. No need to cry about it, however! This site will remain open, and Memebase will continue to post great emo content. Hope you enjoyed your time here, and we'd like to thank you for all the memories!


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major macro economic indicators
|GDP growth (%)
|Inflation (yearly average, %)
|Budget balance (% GDP)
|Current account balance (% GDP)
|Public debt (% GDP)
(f): forecast
- Significant mining resources (molybdenum, copper, gold)
- Significant support from international organisations and the diaspora
- Comfortable foreign exchange reserves and relative flexibility of the dram exchange rate
- Member of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU); partnership agreement with the European Union
- Geographically isolated, aggravated by a lack of infrastructure
- Strong dependence on Russia (trade worth 20% of exports and 30% of imports, FDI, loans, transfers of migrants)
- High dollarisation of the economy (60% of bank deposits)
- Persistently high level of unemployment
- 30% of the population below the poverty line
- Conflict with Azerbaijan regarding Nagorno-Karabakh; precarious calm on the border with the Azeri enclave of Nakhichevan
Economic activity dependent on external factors
After a technical recession at the end of 2016, growth rebounded in 2017, driven by the recovery of activity in Russia, of mining activity in line with the rise in prices, and a positive trend in construction after several years of decline. Over the course of 2018, the pace of activity should be determined mainly by three key factors: the economic health of Russia, world metal prices, and the weakness of domestic growth drivers. Even modest growth in Russia should boost exports (almost one quarter of Armenian exports are destined for Russia), and would also encourage household consumption through expatriate transfers (more than 15% of GDP, 70% of which are from Russia), which are set to return to 2007 levels after their fall in 2016. Industrial production, which is highly dependent on the metals sector (50% of exports and almost 10% of GDP, half of which is for copper), should continue to benefit from the moderate rise in world prices, even if the low prices compared to their pre-2014 levels will likely continue to constrain investment. However, the start of production in the Amulsar gold mine, planned for 2018 but delayed due to popular opposition, could promote industrial activity beyond its current growth rate.
For domestic determining factors, the degraded business environment, poor infrastructure and the competitive deficit will continue to weigh negatively on potential growth. Moreover, unlike other countries in the region, Armenia maintains an unemployment rate close to the level reached during the 2008-09 crisis (18.5%), despite a period of high emigration in 2011-2013. Low labour market pressures are holding back underlying inflation, which has been negative since 2016. On the other hand, total inflation should increase, driven by rising food and energy.
Continued budget consolidation but widening current account deficit
The reduction of the budget deficit is expected to continue through the consolidation efforts undertaken since 2016 with the support of the IMF. The implementation of the new Tax Code in 2017 has already led to an increase in tax revenue, equivalent to around 0.7 percentage point of GDP, for an estimated potential of 2 percentage points of the GDP over the medium term. Moreover, the fight against tax evasion is one of the priorities of the new government. In addition, the revision of the fiscal rule adopted in 2008, submitted to the National Assembly in October 2017, should make it possible to make adjustments at a pace more adapted to the position of the economy in the cycle, and at the lowest cost for potential growth – a victim of cuts to infrastructure spending in recent years. Finally, the government will likely continue to introduce major structural reforms, both in terms of social protection and public enterprises: the pension reform adopted in 2014 should finally be implemented on a large scale, with the introduction of mandatory contribution for all employees in July 2018, while the reforms initiated in the utility sector (electricity and water) should reduce the losses associated with certain public enterprises.
The current account deficit is expected to widen slightly further in 2018 due to higher imports linked to sustained domestic demand. However, this deterioration should be limited by the increase in export earnings and the good performance of remittances from migrant workers and the diaspora. This deficit is financed by foreign direct investment as well as by government debt. Given its largely concessional nature, public external debt service (half of total external debt estimated at 90% of GDP) weighs little.
The "Velvet Revolution" is changing the political landscape
The considerable but peaceful street demonstrations in April and May 2018 forced President Serge Sarkissian to relinquish the role he had held since 2008. The population did not accept that Mr Sarkissian ran for the post of Prime Minister during the transition from a presidential regime to a parliamentary system (adopted by referendum at the end of 2015), thereby circumventing the limit of two presidential terms. This led to former journalist Nikol Pachinian, leader of the protest, becoming Prime Minister. He has formed a new government that brings together representatives of the opposition and qualified personalities.
On the 7th June 2018, Prime Minister Pachinian obtained a vote of confidence from parliament on his programme, which focuses on the fight against corruption and the underground economy, the separation of business from politics, the end of monopolies controlled by people close to former leader Sarkissian and his party, the Republican Party of Armenia (PRA), the holding of new legislative elections one year after the amendment of the electoral law with a move to proportional representation. This task was facilitated by the defections suffered by the PRA within its parliamentary representation, which caused it to lose the absolute majority it had held since the September 2017 elections. Prime Minister Pachinian has ensured Russia's benevolent neutrality – present in the country militarily (on the Turkish and Iranian borders) and economically (energy, rail transport, supply of military equipment) – by ensuring the intangibility of foreign policy. The new government will have to manage the impatience and expectation of change, especially of young people facing unemployment four times higher in urban than in rural areas and twice as high in their age group than for the rest of the population. Mr Pachinian will need their support to counter possible obstruction by former power-holders who retain a power of nuisance.
At the geopolitical level, the armed conflict with Azerbaijan persists over the self-proclaimed independent enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh (officially Azeri but predominantly populated by Armenians), and adjacent Azeri territories occupied by Armenian-backed independence fighters. The ceasefire at the border with the Azeri enclave of Nakhichevan is precarious. While the Russian military base at Gyumri seems to be preserving the rest of the Armenian territory from an overflow of conflict, security in the region depends above all on the balance maintained by Russia and, to a lesser extent by Turkey and Iran..
Last update : July 2018


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Lots of folks are grumbling about having to wait to file their taxes. Why? They get refunds.
Continue Reading Below
That's no secret. Every tax filing season, the Internal Revenue Service notes that most taxpayers get refunds.
But the American Tax and Financial Center, a new undertaking by tax software giant TurboTax, has taken a closer look at this refund trend.
A federal tax refund is the largest lump sum of money received in a year by the average American household, according to the Center. And based on 2011 and 2012 IRS data, it estimates that around $230 billion in federal tax refunds will be issued this year to American taxpayers.
They'll get this money, their money, eventually -- after the IRS finishes updating forms and its computer system to match the tax law changes Congress didn't approve until Jan. 1.
Because of that Congressional tardiness, the IRS is processing returns, and issuing refunds, a bit later this year. And that could cause a lot of people a lot of problems.
Tax refunds, says the American Tax and Financial Center, are especially vital for U.S. households living paycheck-to-paycheck and who depend on a tax refund to help cover the costs of everyday living.
42% of early tax filers plan to use their refund to pay down debt and cover the costs of rent, food and utilities, according to the Center's analysis.
Adjust withholding instead
As long-time readers of Bankrate and this blog know, I am not a fan of tax refunds. I think it's better to have your money in hand throughout the year via proper payroll tax withholding.
But I understand that a refund is an easy forced savings account. And with interest rates on traditional savings accounts and CDs at just fractional percentage points (thanks for nothing, literally, Federal Reserve!), you're not losing any earnings right now by letting Uncle Sam be your banker.
But you are losing access to your refund money because the IRS can't get it to you as quickly as you'd like.
So just think about adjusting your withholding this tax year. That way a bit of your usual refund will show up in each of your 2013 paychecks.
Sure, Congress might finally get its act together and tax filing this time next year may be on schedule. But we are talking about Congress.
If you're afraid you'll just spend that money that you usually get as a refund, there's a way to save yourself from yourself. Open a savings account and have the amount that you're sending to the IRS via payroll withholding directly deposited in your own account instead.
Since it won't be showing up in your pay, you won't be tempted to spend it. And I have faith that you can leave that savings account alone until you really need to tap it.
Want the latest news on taxes, tax reform prospects, filing deadlines, Internal Revenue Service alerts and tax-saving tips? Subscribe to Bankrate's free Daily Tax Tip newsletter, our Weekly Tax Tip newsletter or, if you're a true tax geek, both!
You also can follow me on Twitter @taxtweet.


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Why did you come to LACMA today?
Gatsby: Well, I'm new to L.A. and I just wanted to get to know the city and see some exhibits. I've been to the Getty, so I wanted to come to LACMA as well. Kinda made sense.
Where did you move from?
Gatsby: Atlanta. I've been in L.A. for three months now and I love it. Love the weather, no humidity. Just the earthquakes take some getting use to.
Marissa: I'm a member here and I suggested that we come because I know he likes museums. I was born and raised in L.A. so I've been coming to LACMA my entire life, but I've only been a member for two years because I was living overseas.
What's been one of your favorite museums or exhibitions?
Gatsby: Mine hands down is the Smithsonian, I just love it. I could just live in there. You feel like a kid in there. You can see dinosaurs and ancient history. You feel like you are in that movie Night at the Museum.
Marissa: For me, it's definitely the Louvre. It's beautiful. I don't know if I could think of my favorite exhibition, because I like constantly seeing new things and appreciate arts, different facets from different periods. Recently, one of my favorites was actually here, it was the Dali. The fact that they had mixture of paintings and films, it was multifaceted.


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Splash image is the image shown in the background when GRUB (the GRand Unified Bootloader) is displaying the list of operating systems you can boot. Typically, this is the corporate logo of your Linux distribution. But its very simple to customize it to an image of your choice. All you need is the GIMP and gzip.
Here's how:(You need to have root access)
1. Start the GIMP
2. Click on File->New or type Ctrl+N
3. In the new image dialog, change Width to 640 pixels and Height to 480 pixels. (The image should be of size 640×480 pixels.) Now click OK.
4. Create the image which you would like to be the splash image. It's quite fun to experiment with the various tools of the GIMP!
5. After you have finished creating the image, hit Alt+i or right click on the image and click on Image->Mode->Indexed…
6. In the Indexed Color Conversion dialog that appears, click on the radio button "Generate optimal Palette" and in "# of colors" enter 14. Click OK.(The image should be of only 14 colors) 7. Now right-click on the image and click on File->Save As…Save the file as splash.xpm in a directory of your choice.
8. Now open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where you have saved splash.xpm
9. Now key in gzip splash.xpm
10. You will find that a file named splash.xpm.gz is created in the directory where splash.xpm used to exist.
11. Copy this splash.xpm.gz to the /boot/grub directory. You may want to back up the pre-existing splash.xpm.gz file in the /boot/grub directory first.
That's it! When you reboot, you will find your image in the background, with the menu of operating systems etc. in the foreground.


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Dimensions: Base: 590cm diameter; top 60cm to 90cm diameter.
TRI-STAR, simple lines and materials The Tri-Star table features an unusual central stem with three triangular aluminium extrusions that form a 3-point, star-shaped base. The stem can support various tops, all suitable for different types of domestic or contract needs: round, square or – thanks to a combination of two stems – rectangular. Tri-Star is available in anodised aluminium or with an epoxy varnish in various colours.
Capdell is a brand created in 1981 from the evolution of Sillerias Alacuas, the historic company founded over 40 years ago.


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Posted Sun May 26th, 2013 - 07:40 AM PDT
Robert Pattinson is back at his own house in Los Feliz after packing up his belongings and moving out of Kristen Stewart's home just down the street.
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