text:
Warner Bros. has moved the release of "Gangster Squad" to January after the film's climactic cinema shoot-out scene drew comparisons to the Aurora, Colo., shooting.
"Gangster Squad" chronicles a bloody 1940s battle between Los Angeles police and mobsters. It culminates in a scene where gangsters shoot automatic weapons into a crowded movie theater from behind the screen.
The film is expected to be reshot and edited. A spokesman for Warner Bros. declined to comment on how the film would be altered.
"Gangster Squad" had been planned for a Sept. 7 release. The postponement means "Gangster Squad" won't be eligible for Academy Awards consideration this year, shifting from a plum fall release to a month often considered a dumping ground.
It's a blow for an anticipated movie with a starry cast. Directed by Ruben Fleischer, it stars Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone and Josh Brolin.
The trailer for the film, which included footage from the movie theater scene, was pulled from theaters and the Internet after the Colorado shooting at a screening of "The Dark Knight Rises."
Shot at the famous Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, the scene is a centerpiece to the film, meaning reshoots may be extensive.
Though the "Gangster Squad" trailer had been paired with "The Dark Knight Rises" (also a Warner release), it didn't play in the Aurora theater where a gunman killed 12 people last week.
This is the second time this year a high-profile studio movie has had its release altered by news events.
Twentieth Century Fox's "The Watch," which is out Friday, had its title changed from "Neighborhood Watch" after the Trayvon Martin killing in Florida. The film's trailer and promotional materials were also adjusted to distance the film from the incident.


text: SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY COMMISSION (As approved amended September 2, 2004) Minutes of the regular meeting of Thursday, June 3, 2004 The San Francisco Public Library Commission held a regular meeting on Thursday, June 3, 2004 in the Koret Auditorium, Main Library. The meeting was called to order at 4:05pm. The following members were present: Commissioners Bautista, Chin, Coulter, Higueras, Steiman, and Strobin. Commissioner Streets was excused attendance. Agenda Items: 1. Public Comment 2. Approval of the Minutes of April 1, 2004 3. Approval of the Minutes of May 6, 2004 4. City Librarian's Report 5. 2004/05 Library Budget 6. Library Privacy Policy 7. Resolution Honoring Dr. Starr 8. BALIS Update Report 9. City Librarian Search Process 10. Friends of the Library Report 11. Labor Union Report 12. New Business 13. ADJOURNMENT 14. APPENDIX A AGENDA ITEM #1 PUBLIC COMMENT An anonymous member of the public commented on the importance of the search for a new City Librarian and about the history of previous City Librarians. Mr. Peter Warfield discussed the new Seattle Main Library, noted the Library had been in the news, and commented about his comments to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force concerning remarks he attributed to President Higueras. Mr. David Pilpel, Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, lauded the Library's "Shades of the Sunset" neighborhood history program thanking the Friends of the Library for supporting it, and thanked City Librarian Susan Hildreth for her exemplary service to San Francisco. AGENDA ITEM #2 APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF April 1, 2004 Public comment on AGENDA ITEM #2 APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF April 1, 2004 An anonymous member of the public noted that this was the second time these minutes were proposed for approval, noted that there were two different draft versions of these minutes available, and expressed shock at the lack of detail in reporting of the RFID discussions. Mr. Peter Warfield expressed dismay that there had been two drafts of the revised April 1st minutes and that it was difficult to distinguish changes, and found that the revised minutes left out many details about the RFID presentations. Mr. Warfield also felt many of his comments during the meeting were not accurately reported or had been left out. COMMISSION discussion of AGENDA ITEM #2 APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF APRIL 1, 2004 The Secretary noted draft minutes were always subject to change by the Commission prior to adoption and that he would annotate future drafts so as to make changes between drafts more evident. In response to President Higueras' questions the Secretary clarified which RFID presentations were being addressed in these minutes. MOTION: by Commissioner Chin, 2nd Commissioner Bautista for approval of the Minutes of the regular meeting of April 1, 2004 as revised. Approved by the following vote: ACTION: 5-0 AYE (Bautista, Chin, Coulter, Higueras, and Strobin) AGENDA ITEM #3 APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF May 6, 2004 Public comment on AGENDA ITEM #3 APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF MAY 6, 2004 An anonymous member of the public found these minutes largely inaccurate, citing reported public comments offered by this individual that this person did not make at that meeting. It was noted that instead this person had discussed remarks attributed to President Higueras and that what if the minutes were not intended as a joke, and noted that the Commission's minutes were widely distributed and read. Mr. Peter Warfield noted that these minutes correctly identified which RFID presentation was discussed, cited Commission comments on the RFID discussions, and found serious problems with the reporting of public comments about the Library's Privacy Policy, and decried use of the term "woefully" in his reported comments about the Privacy Policy. COMMISSION discussion of AGENDA ITEM #3 APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF MAY 6, 2004 The Secretary proposed to review the meeting tape again and correct any error in reporting of the anonymous member of the publics' reported public comment. Commissioner Coulter noted that he thought that he had been the maker of the motion concerning the Library Commission's decision to explore implementation of RFID. Commissioner Coulter further suggested that the Commission's intent go carefully and thoughtfully forward with minimal first stage funding on RFID and encourage those concerned with RFID to work in partnership with the Library to pioneer addressing these issues for the library world be made more clear in the minutes. MOTION: by Commissioner Coulter, 2nd Commissioner Bautista for approval of the Minutes of the regular meeting of May 6, 2004 as amended regarding the cited public comment and with further clarification of the RFID discussion by the Secretary to address the points raised by Commissioner Coulter. Approved by the following vote: ACTION: 6-0 AYE (Bautista, Chin, Coulter, Higueras, Steiman, and Strobin) AGENDA ITEM #4 CITY LIBRARIAN'S REPORT The City Librarian reported on the following subjects: the enactment of the library citizen's advisory committee; the Library 125th Anniversary; a Prop. E (Library Preservation Fund 1994) lawsuit; status of the Branch Library Improvement Program Advisory Committee; the Friends of the Library lease; a BALIS Advisory Board vacancy; the Mission Branch lobby reconfiguration; Chinatown Branch carpeting; and exhibits and programs (copy attached) Ms. Hildreth also reported Planning Commission approval for a conditional use permit for the new Ingleside Branch Library. Public comment on AGENDA ITEM #4 CITY LIBRARIAN'S REPORT An anonymous member of the public commented on the Library's 125th celebrations recalling those in honor of its centennial, and reported that they had lost their lawsuit against the Library concerning Prop. E expenditures this person also expressed disappointment at the demise of the BLIP Advisory Committee, and looked forward to the library citizen's advisory committee. Ms. Sue Cauthen commented on the reasons upon which the Mayor had declined to sign the Board of Supervisors' legislation creating a library citizen's advisory committee. Mr. Peter Warfield commented on the many reported 125th Anniversary activities and discussed the Board of Supervisors creation of a library citizen advisory committee. Mr. Warfield also commented on implications of the loss of the lawsuit against the Library. Commission discussion of AGENDA ITEM #4 CITY LIBRARIAN'S REPORT President Higueras and Commissioner Bautista applauded the hard work staff had provided in making a success of the celebrations honoring the San Francisco Public library's 125th Anniversary. In response to President Higueras' question, the City Librarian reported that it was expected that the Friends would complete their office relocation this Fall. AGENDA ITEM #5 2004/05 LIBRARY BUDGET (Library Finance Director George Nichols reported to the Commission concerning the Mayor's Budget proposal for the Library as submitted to the Board of Supervisors). Copy attached Library Finance Director George Nichols presented a detailed update report on the Library's proposed $58.972 million 2004/05 Budget as submitted by the Mayor to the Board of Supervisors for their consideration. Mr. Nichols reported good news that revenues had been better than expected and that while some costs were also greater than expected the additional revenues meant that there would be fewer reductions and less need to use funds from the Library's reserve. The Library Finance Director reported the budget balanced with an additional increase in funds to the book budget. Mr. Nichols cautioned the Commissioners that it was highly likely that several anticipated baseline budget cost increases would require that the Library carefully review all of its programs and services to prepare for continued difficult budget challenges certain to occur in the next few years. Public comment on AGENDA ITEM #5 2004/05 LIBRARY BUDGET An anonymous member of the public found the report sobering and expressed concern that the manner in which library services had been defined might encourage Board of Supervisors initiatives to expend library funds elsewhere. This person noted that the budget for the City Librarian search was lower that an amount previously budgeted , suggested that a new City Librarian might reconsider RFID, and applauded more funds for books. Mr. Peter Warfield complained that the report had not been available prior to the meeting and cited a number of budget items he suggested the Commission should review. Mr. Warfield also questioned elimination of the work order to the Tax Collector for materials recovery, and asked for more information about POE related projects. Commission discussion of AGENDA ITEM #5 2004/05 LIBRARY BUDGET Vice President Steiman noted that there had been many discussions of and reports on the Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) Report related Main Library projects. The City Librarian noted that an unsuccessful effort had been made to work with the Tax Collector's Office on materials recovery after the Board of Supervisors declined to approve use of the collection agency as requested by the Commission. The Chief of the Main Library discussed how labor intensive it had been to convert library information into a usable format for the Tax Collector and reported their proposed per account charge to the Library was $50. Additionally Ms. Lawhun reported that the Tax Collector's Office had indicated that they could only handle very large accounts over $500. Ms. Lawhun concluded that this was not cost effective. The City Librarian expressed a hope that future Boards might reconsider the far less expensive and proven effective materials recovery program that the Library had proposed. In response to questions by Vice President Steiman, Ms. Hildreth then discussed the details of the proposed technology refreshment program. Responding to President Higueras, the City Librarian noted that the $300,000 designated for RFID startup would revert to the reserve if not approved. AGENDA ITEM #6 LIBRARY PRIVACY POLICY (Deputy City Librarian Paul Underwood presented a detailed overview of the revised draft of the proposed Privacy Policy) Deputy City Librarian Paul Underwood reported that the proposed privacy policy had been reformatted to match the arrangement recommended for other Library policies. Mr. Underwood then outlined the changes and rearrangement of topics made in the proposed Privacy Policy to incorporate the suggestions made by the Commissioners during their previous discussion Commissioner Chin left the meeting at 5:25pm and returned at 5:45pm. Public comment on AGENDA ITEM #6 LIBRARY PRIVACY POLICY Mr. Peter Warfield wished that the changes in the text were more clearly marked. Mr. Warfield further remarked that he still had serious concerns about the proposed policy, citing in particular the staff guidelines and concerns about use of RFID tags. Commission discussion of AGENDA ITEM #6 LIBRARY PRIVACY POLICY Vice President Steiman found the revised Policy clear and in particular cited the sections about how staff should appropriately respond to law enforcement agency requests and concerning the use of RFID tags. President Higueras thought the revised policy much better organized. Commissioner Coulter commended Mr. Underwood for his hard work in clarifying the language and addressing issues of public concern with potential data gathering. Commissioner Coulter suggested very clear opt in-opt out information be made available. Commissioner Coulter also found the references to the USA PATRIOT Act improved. Deputy City Attorney Catharine Barnes noted that the text referring to privacy protections related to law enforcement requests should include language clarifying the Library's response would be to the fullest extent allowed by law. Commissioner Coulter thought the draft 90% ready and suggested one more rewrite. Vice President Steiman, and Commissioners Bautista and Chin noted that the law imposed limits on what the Library could do despite the clear intent of the proposed policy. Final action on the Privacy Policy was continued to an upcoming meeting to allow for changes suggested during the meeting. AGENDA ITEM #7 RESOLUTION HONORING DR. STARR City Librarian Susan Hildreth presented for the Commission's approval a proposed resolution honoring Dr. Kevin Starr, California State Librarian Emeritus and former San Francisco City Librarian, for his decades of leadership and public service on behalf of California's libraries to be presented to Dr. Starr during the Library's 125th Anniversary observances on June 3, 2004 (copy attached). City Librarian Susan Hildreth read the proposed text into the record. Vice President Steiman left the meeting at 5:50pm Public comment on AGENDA ITEM #7 RESOLUTION HONORING DR. STARR An anonymous member of the public was gratified by this item and commented that events were coming full circle suggesting that scholar/librarian Dr. Starr's tenure as City Librarian had been a "Golden Era" in retrospect. Mr. Peter Warfield commented that he had enjoyed the reading of the proposed resolution. Ms. Deborah Doyle rose in support of the proposed resolution honoring Dr. Starr's many contributions to California's libraries. Commission discussion of AGENDA ITEM #7 RESOLUTION HONORING DR. STARR Commissioner Coulters suggested a change in tense in a section of the resolution; cited scholar/librarian Dr. Starr's stories in author Peter Wiley's history of the Library; and recalled in particular Dr. Starr's assistance during the controversy concerning the relocation of the Pioneer Monument. MOTION: by Commissioner Chin, 2nd Commissioner Bautista for approval of the proposed resolution honoring former City Librarian and California State Librarian Emeritus Dr. Kevin Starr. Approved by the following vote: 5-0 AYE (Bautista, Chin, Coulter, Higueras, and Strobin) The Commission recessed at 6:04pm. The Commission returned to session at 6:11pm. AGENDA ITEM #8 BALIS UPDATE REPORT Ms. Deborah Doyle, made her fourth report and final report to the Commission as San Francisco's representative on the Bay Area Library and Information Systems (BALIS) Advisory Board at the end of her 2nd and last term on the BALIS Board. Public comment on AGENDA ITEM #8 BALIS UPDATE REPORT (None offered) AGENDA ITEM #9 CITY LIBRARIAN SEARCH PROCESS Ms. Hildreth reported that Mayor Newsom had indicated that the Commission should move forward with a search process for a new City Librarian. The City Librarian outlined a proposed process based on previous experience that suggested use of an executive search firm from three that were pre-qualified to participate in City contracts. The identified pre-qualified firms were: the Hawkins Company; PS Executive Search, and Bob Murry & Associates. President Higueras noted that using this process could more quickly identify and bring candidates forward for Commission consideration. Public AGENDA ITEM #9 CITY LIBRARIAN SEARCH PROCESS An anonymous member of the public commented on the importance that the City Librarian search process be seen as fair suggesting that previous City Librarians had been burdened with a perception that their selection was not perceived as fair. Mr. Peter Warfield called for an open process, suggesting that the Commission should choose the firm and direct the search with maximum opportunity for public input. Mr. Warfield offered his help in selecting a new City Librarian Commission discussion of AGENDA ITEM #9 CITY LIBRARIAN SEARCH PROCESS President Higueras noted that the Commission was charged to submit up to three candidates to the Mayor and discussed the various choices open to the Commission between using a pre-qualified firm or choosing a firm through the City's request for proposals (RFP) process. In response to a question by Commissioner Chin, Ms. Hildreth outlined what had been done during the previous City Librarian selection processes. Commissioner Coulter noted that use of a combined Commission and staff committee had worked well. Ms. Hildreth outlined how using a pre-qualified firm could speed up the process but still retain options for extensive input. Ms. Hildreth noted that each of the pre-qualified firms had indicated willingness to use a specialized library consultant as a subcontractor in conducting the search process. The City Librarian noted that it would be important to get the word out about the City Librarian search at the upcoming American Library Association (ALA) conference in Florida. Commissioner Chin noted that choosing a City Librarian was one of the most important jobs of the Commission and that community stakeholders input should be sought. Commissioner Bautista observed that qualities the Commissioners might want in a candidate to be City Librarian and the potential challenges any new City Librarian might face had not yet been discussed. In response to a question by Commissioner Strobin, Ms. Hildreth outlined the various steps in the proposed search process. President Higueras noted that the Commission would make sure that the process used was one that the Commissioners wanted. MOTION: by Commissioner Coulter, 2nd Commissioner Chin to authorize the Library's Director of Human Resources with the assistance of a staff committee that also could include at least two Library Commissioners to recommend to the Commission selection of a professional executive search firm using one of three firms pre-qualified for use by City Departments to conduct the search process for the position of City Librarian. Approved by the following vote: 5-0 AYE (Bautista, Chin, Coulter, Higueras, and Strobin) AGENDA ITEM #10 FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY REPORT Ms. Deborah Doyle, Friends Board member, announced that Martín Gómez, Executive Director of the Friends of the Library would be leaving to become the President of the Urban Libraries Council and that with the concurrence of the Board, she would serve as Acting Executive Director until a new permanent Executive Director for the Friends was selected. Ms. Doyle then reported on: the Friends support for the Library's 125th Anniversary activities; and reported Friends' grants of $725,000 to Library staff for 2004/05. Commission discussion of AGENDA ITEM #6 FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY REPORT The Commissioners thanked the Friends of the Library for their support for the 125th Anniversary celebration and applauded the new design for the Friends logo. Public comment on AGENDA ITEM #6 FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY REPORT (None offered) AGENDA ITEM #11 LABOR UNION REPORT (No report offered) AGENDA ITEM #12 NEW BUSINESS (No items were proposed) AGENDA ITEM #13 ADJOURNMENT MOTION: by Commissioner Bautista, 2nd Commissioner Strobin that the meeting be adjourned. Approved by the following vote: 4-0 AYE (Bautista, Coulter, Higueras, and Strobin) There being no further business, at the hour of 6:57pm the Public Library Commission adjourned. Michael Housh, Commission Secretary 9/3/04 Please note: Amendments to these Minutes are in alternative typeface. Copies of Commission Minutes and handouts are available in the Office of the Commission Secretary, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 ATTACHMENTS to the June 3, 2004 Minutes: Revised draft Privacy Policy (PDF 162K) 2004/05 Budget Report (PDF 13K) Dr. Starr resolution (PDF 110K) BALIS Update Report Minutes of the regular Commission Meeting of June 3, 2004 Appendix A Library Commission meeting of June 3, 2004 The Public Comment Summary Statements included in these Minutes are authorized by San Francisco Administrative Code Section 67.16. These summary statements are provided by the speaker. Their contents are neither generated by, nor subject to approval or verification of accuracy by, the San Francisco Public Library Commission. The number of members of the public who spoke anonymously at this meeting. 1 Explanatory documents: Copies of listed explanatory documents are available as follows: (1) from the Commission Secretary/Custodian of Records, Main Library, 6th Floor, (2) in the rear of the Koret Auditorium immediately before and during the meeting, and (3)to the extent possible, on the Library's Web site. Additional materials not listed as explanatory documents, if any, that are distributed to the Library Commissioners prior to or during the meeting in connection with any agenda item will be available to the public for inspection and copying in accordance with Government Code Section 54954.1 and Sunshine Ordinance §§ 67.9, 67.28(b) & 67.28(d).

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Peugeot have introduced a special series version of their updated Satelis maxi scooter. Now available in a choice of titanium grey or ice white, the Satelis 125i in RS trim gets a floating 260mm wave disc brake at the front, tinted sports screen and stainless steel grip plates on the floor pan. Its alloy wheels, lower fork legs, engine casing and pillion grab handles are all painted black, while the specially upholstered seat is trimmed with stitching that is colour matched to the scooter's decals.
Powered by Peugeot's latest LFE (Low Friction Efficiency) 125cc engine, which is 50% quieter than the previous generation, the Satelis emits just 65g of CO2/km and is remarkably fuel efficient, consuming just 3.6/100km (78.5mpg).
Combining a steel dual cradle chassis with 37mm front forks and equipped with Michelin Pilot SC tyres, the Satelis is stable at speed, while its exceptional turning circle of 86° makes it agile around town too.
LED lights surround both front and rear light clusters for daytime visibility and the powerful twin 55w headlights increase the beam density by 35%. Wide angle non-spherical glass wing mirrors provide clear rear views and the blue back-lit instrument panel features an onboard computer that indicates fuel economy and average speed.
There's a handy lockable glove compartment with a 12-volt power supply so you can charge devices on the move and beneath the spacious seat is a storage bay, large enough to carry two full face helmets, complete with an internal light so you can find your luggage in the dark.


text:
The calloused hands
Of a Kentucky coal miner,
The sad, solemn eyes
Of a hungry child,
The bent shoulders of a
Georgia sharecropper
Digging crab-grass from
His new-ground corn patch...1
I descend from a Georgia sharecropper. Actually, I descend from many "types" of farmers: A fourth great grandfather of mine was a planter. He was a large, wealthy landowner and conducted his business "plantation style." A second great grandfather of mine was a poor farmer. He owned his property, but that was about it. Finally, a great grandfather of mine was a sharecropper. He farmed his whole life, but never owned anything. These men (of no relation to one another) are examples of the wide spectrum of tenders of the good Earth found in my family tree.
Both of my grandfathers have shared stories of their upbringing on the farm. Grandpa Lincecum has told of nothing being wasted, and how meat was sometimes scarce. There was always good food from the garden, though. Grandpa Logue has told stories of questioning his mother as to why he had to sweep a dirt floor, as well as being very afraid of the king snake living in the barn that kept the rodent population down.
Half of my great grandparents were gone before I was born, but I vividly remember great grandpa Chester Campbell and the chicken coop in the backyard. A garden was present there, as well. In fact, I can also remember what seemed like a huge garden in the backyard of the Logue household (the whole backyard seemed a lot bigger when I was younger). To this day, Grandma Logue has a small patch of land she tends.
You might think all this reverence for the good Earth by my ancestors would mean I would have a green thumb, or at least translate into a love of being outdoors... Nope. That didn't make it's way to me.
However, the gifts and lessons that were passed down to me include a deep appreciation for our good Earth as well as a passion for preserving it, and the knowledge that the farmers of today deserve my utmost respect and gratitude for providing me with the good food I eat. For that, I can thank the generations of planters, farmers, and sharecroppers that came before.
Topic = the Good Earth
1. Excerpt from poem entitled "And I Have Loved" by Don West, 1946.


text:
It is a testament both to the early allure of the automobile and to the difficulty of travelling very far in one that, in 1907, Andrew McNally II, the grandson of the co-founder of Rand McNally & Company, chose to spend his honeymoon in Milwaukee. He and his bride drove there, from their home town of Chicago. The way was mostly unpaved and unmarked. In those days, there were no route numbers or state roads; in Wisconsin, there were merely old cart and carriage thoroughfares, whose primary purpose was the conveyance of food from farm to market. It wasn't yet clear how drivers would find their way around. Navigation depended, mainly, on asking people along the way where to go next—an untenable state of affairs, it would seem, as long as the drivers were men, which most of them were.
Rand McNally started out printing railway tickets and flyers, and then, in the eighteen-seventies, branched out into the business of publishing wax-engraved maps for gold prospectors and other hardy tourists. These were maps more of terrain than of roads through it. Still, Andrew McNally II had a sense that the automobile might enhance the way-finding side of the business, and so, on this honeymoon trip, he strapped a camera onto the front fender of his car and, at every junction—every right or left turn—stopped and snapped a photograph. He and his bride did the same on the return trip. Back in Chicago, McNally compiled the photographs into a booklet, with a little arrow in each photograph indicating the proper direction to take. The booklet was called a Photo-Auto Guide and was essentially a driver's-eye view of the way to Milwaukee, at least as it looked that spring. (Obsolescence loomed; a new barn or a fallen oak could alter the appearance of the road.)
In 1909, an engineer named J. W. Jones invented a device called the Jones Live-Map, which connected to a car's odometer. It consisted of a glass-enclosed dial, on which you could place a disk representing a particular trip. The disk had mileage numbers around the perimeter and driving directions printed like spokes on the face. As you progressed down the road, the disk would rotate, telling you where you were and what to do. Live-Map No. 16, for example, guided the "motorist tourist" from Columbus Circle to Waterbury, Connecticut (specifically, the Elton Hotel), telling him, at various intervals, to "take right fork at flag pole," "pass under trolley arch," or "caution for dangerous curves." A promotional booklet for the Jones Live-Map read, "You are always sure of your road. . . . You fly past sign boards at speed without a thought. You never stop to inquire your way. Right or wrong, all chance information is useless to you. You are as easy about your road as though you were 'running on rails.' "
Now that we have been conditioned, by experience or Kerouac, to idealize the open road, it may seem quaint that the dream, in those early days, was to replicate the surrender and effortlessness of train travel, where you didn't have to navigate at all. But, in some respects, the rail ideal persists; we've just got craftier about aspiring to it. Navigation is big business these days. Web sites that offer maps and directions, such as MapQuest and Google Earth, are growing more sophisticated; global-positioning satellite technology and the in-car navigation systems that rely on it, such as General Motors's OnStar and Hertz's NeverLost, are becoming ubiquitous. Geographic Information Systems, or G.I.S., may be the plastics of our time. It's not hard to envision the demise of the paper road map, in a generation or two, because a map, for all its charms, is really a smorgasbord of chance information, most of it useless. Who cares where Buffalo is, if you're trying to get to Coxsackie? Most people just want to be told where to turn.
Both the Photo-Auto Guide and the Jones Live-Map were precise and mechanical attempts to replicate the oldest navigation tool on earth: landmark-based instructions, transmitted verbally or in writing by a person with local knowledge. And this is what the new gadgets aspire to as well, flawed as they can sometimes be. They employ algorithmic calculations that seek to impersonate the friend riding shotgun who knows where he's going, or the bystander who can tell you what you'll see when you've gone too far. Before there were maps, as we understand them, there were itineraries, sequences of customized directions. Maps, to say nothing of the ability to read them, were the stuff of progress. To see and depict the landscape in such abstract terms, as you might from above, requires a measure of sophistication that the mere itinerary, with its blindered view of the world, does not. So it's curious that the current geographic revolution is in many ways a reversion to primitive techniques: it is a high-tech gloss on the lowest-tech approach.
The biggest change, of course, is that the Global Positioning System solves the ancient problem of fixing your location, so that you can devise a way to get to the next one. As the brochure put it a hundred years ago, "The Jones Live-Map tells you just where you are and tells you what to do then and there. The hand on the rim of the disk always means Now." Being told where you are, however, is not the same as knowing where you are.
In the fifteenth century, Henry the Navigator, a Portuguese prince, presided over a court in Sagres that became a center for cartographers, instrument-makers, and explorers, whose expeditions he sponsored. Seafarers returning to Sagres from the west coast of Africa reported their discoveries, and new maps were produced, extending the reaches of the known world, which in those days did not go much beyond Cape Verde. These maps became very valuable, owing to their utility in trade, war, and soul-saving, and were jealously guarded as state secrets.
The latter-day equivalent is a company called Navteq. It is the leading provider of geographic data to the Internet mapping sites and the personal-navigation industry—the boiler room of the where-you-are-and-what-to-do business. Its only real competitor is a Belgian company called Tele Atlas. Most of the Web sites, car manufacturers, and gizmo-makers—anyone involved in what are known as intelligent transportation systems—get the bulk of their raw material from these two companies. The clients differ mainly in how they choose to present the data. This allows civilians to have preferences. For example, in the recent "Saturday Night Live" mock-rap video "Lazy Sunday" two guys seeking "the dopest route" from the West Village to the Upper West Side consider using Yahoo! Maps:
**{: .break one} ** "I prefer MapQuest!" "That's a good one, too." "Google Maps is the best." "True dat." "Double true!" **
Despite the digitization of maps and the satellites circling the earth, the cartographic revolution still relies heavily on fresh observations made by people. Navteq, like Prince Henry, produces updates periodically (usually four times a year) for its corporate clients. Its explorers are its geographic analysts, whose job is to go onto the roads to make sure everything that it says about those roads is true—to check the old routes and record the new ones. The practice is called ground-truthing. They drive around and take note of what they call "attributes," anything of significance to a traveller seeking his way. A road segment can have a hundred and sixty attributes, everything from a speed limit to a drawbridge, an on-ramp, or a prohibition against U-turns. New signs, new roads, new exits, new rules: if such alterations go uncollected by Navteq, the traveller, relying on a device or a map produced by one of Navteq's clients, might well get lost or confused enough to be "fit for Muldoon's Asylum," as the Jones Live-Map brochure put it, in an early acknowledgment of the anguish of being lost in an automobile. ("It's his for the violent ward, straight and sure.") A driver making a simple left turn—say, from Broadway onto Forty-second Street—encounters a blizzard of attributes: one-way, speed limit, crosswalk, traffic light, street sign, turn restriction, two-way, hydrant.
Navteq has about six hundred field researchers and offices in twenty-three countries. There are nine field researchers in the New York metropolitan area. One morning this fall, I went out with a pair of them, Chris Arcari and Shovie Singh. They picked me up on Forty-second Street, in a white S.U.V., after making that unextraordinary left off Broadway. "We're going to be working over by LaGuardia Airport," Arcari said. "One of the items we need to check out is some street names. They've put up new signs. Then we'll proceed to an area that we have targeted." Arcari, who is thirty-seven and was brought up on Long Island, was the senior member of the team, and he tended to speak in the formal, euphemistic manner of a police officer testifying in court. He'd been with Navteq for ten years. Singh, a native of Trinidad who grew up in Queens, was a new hire. He'd got hooked on geography after taking some classes in the subject in college.
They were, you might say, free-driving—no navigation device or map—being not only locals but also professionals in the arcane and endlessly fascinating tri-state-area discipline of getting from here to there. They spend two to three days a week just driving around. Manhattan's grid may be the easiest road network to master in the developed world (if we overlook the nuances), yet the routes leading to and from it are as tricky as the tributaries of the Amazon. (One of the things you notice, as you approach New York City, is that there are almost no signs saying "Manhattan." Instead, the traveller is introduced to such notions as "Mosholu" and "Major Deegan.") The highways are a mad thatch of interstates, parkways, boulevards, and spurs, plus river crossings galore, each with its own virtues and idiosyncrasies. There are many ways to get from point A to point B in New York, and, because of all the permutations, anyone can be a route-selection expert, or at least an enthusiast. Family gatherings inevitably feature a clutch of relatives eating cocktail nuts and arguing over the merits of various exits and shortcuts. So it was that I found myself muttering a bit when Arcari chose to take the Queensboro Bridge and maneuver through the streets of Queens to get to the Long Island Expressway and then the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Clearly, the way to get to LaGuardia, tolls aside, is either (a) the Queens-Midtown Tunnel or (b) the F.D.R. Drive up to the Triborough Bridge. Arcari disagreed. "The F.D.R. Drive can be hit or miss," he said. "At times, in the middle of the day, I have sat there for extended periods." Perhaps, but after merging onto the B.Q.E. we sat there for extended periods as well.
As we inched forward, we began to talk of our favorite and least favorite road segments. Whatever our differences, we agreed that the Cross-Bronx Expressway, a deep, eternally sluggish river of brake lights and diesel exhaust coursing through a waste of twisted rebar and abandoned scrap, is as gruesome a stretch of highway as exists in these parts. Its horrors, however, are invisible to the likes of MapQuest.
Eventually, we pulled into a gas station near the airport. Singh and Arcari mounted a G.P.S. antenna, shaped like a giant mushroom, on the roof of the car, and connected a laptop to it, upon which a map would show our progress, a G.P.S. track "like a birdseed trail." Though we were within rocket-launcher distance of the runways and were assembling some suspicious-looking hardware, no one paid us any mind.
Singh bought a Red Bull and took the wheel. Arcari sat in back with the laptop, ready to note any changes in what they called the "geometry" of the roads.
"Whenever you're ready, Shovie," he said.
The first thing the men noticed was a "No Left Turn" sign out of the gas station. "That doesn't go in the database," Arcari said. "That's unofficial geometry, since it pertains to a private enterprise."
An analyst has some leeway in proposing recon missions in his territory. "The situation at LaGuardia was something I had noticed myself and thought should be revisited," Arcari explained. In his free time, he'd been driving past the airport and, nudged by curiosity, if not conscience, had made a little detour, discovering that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, had put up a few new road signs. This was the situation at LaGuardia.
"We'll circle around the perimeter and then check the terminals," Arcari said. "As we're driving, I'm checking our geometry against what exists in reality." Left on Runway Drive ("drop a name check"), merge onto LaGuardia Road (another name check), left onto Delta Arrivals Road. The sign for it was new. "A valid unnamed feature," Arcari said, turning the laptop so that I could follow along as he recorded it onscreen. "I point an arrow to where the feature occurred." A few hundred yards along, there was another new sign: "East End Rd." Its short-lived existence as mere reality had come to an end; it was geometry now.
Seeing the road through the eyes of a ground-truther made it seem a thicket of signage—commands and designations vying for attention, like a nightmare you might have after a day of studying for a driving exam. Once you start looking for attributes, you spot them everywhere.
"Why don't we loop around again?" Arcari said. "I want to be sure we collected everything correctly."
The familiar frustration of going around and around on an airport road was ameliorated by the fact that no one was lost or late. After the extra orbit, we drove into Astoria, the neighborhood next to the airport. Arcari approached the neighborhood as a Zamboni would a sheet of ice, driving around the outside of the "project area," and then going up and down the streets within it. He observed that, driving around like this, you become acutely aware of how many people are not at work. Arcari said that one of the issues that have come up in New York in recent years is the naming of streets and squares for the victims of the September 11th attacks. We came upon one of them, James Marcel Cartier Way, and Arcari was pleased to see that the name was in the database. A kind of contentment took hold, as other anomalies encountered along the way—an unlikely median strip, a "Do Not Enter" sign—turned out to be accounted for. "This should be a two-way. O.K. Good."
Over lunch at a local diner, we discussed various attribute incidents. "One item that was an issue: on the B.Q.E., they started renumbering the exits. They did some but didn't do others, so for a while there were two Exit 41s."
After lunch, Arcari and Singh were due back at the central office, in Syosset, to download their findings. They offered to drive me back into Manhattan, but we agreed that it would make more sense for me to take the subway. None of us knew where to find it, though. Subway stations are not attributes; Navteq honors the primacy of the automobile, promulgated by the makers of road maps of a century ago, whose mandate was to promote auto travel and, with it, the purchase of gasoline, cars, and tires. We pulled into a gas station, and I ran inside to ask for directions.
A map is a piece of art. It is also a form of language—a rendering of information. A good map can occupy the eye and the mind longer than almost any other single page of data, including Scripture, poetry, sheet music, and baseball box scores. A map contains multitudes.
For the past twenty-five years, scholarly discussion of cartography has been dominated by "critical geography," what you might call a post-structuralist approach to map reading. Such scholars as J. B. Harley and David Woodward, the late, founding editors of a gargantuan and ongoing project called "The History of Cartography" (Volume 1 was published in 1987; Volume 3 is due out in late 2007), began applying the ideas of Derrida and Foucault to maps, seeing in maps' myriad presentations coded signals about how we look at the world, or, more to the point, how the people who make the maps would like us to see the world.
The purpose and emphasis of a map are usually determined by who is paying for or benefitting from it. Web sites like MapQuest make money in much the same way that road-map publishers always have. They feature banner ads that direct users to fast-food restaurants, hotels, and services. Their maps become tourism-promotion documents. Personal navigation devices have their favored stops and "points of interest," too. As they become more sophisticated, they will come to know your preferences and needs and make suggestions—the nearest Jiffy Lube or Starbucks—turning G.P.S. into a sort of customized, localized Yellow Pages. Harley and Woodward would have been intrigued, though hardly surprised.
The American road map tends to be treated more like folk art. Its leading expert is probably Jim Akerman, the director of the Smith Center for the History of Cartography, at the Newberry Library, in Chicago. "Scratch someone who's interested in the history of cartography and you'll most often find someone who was into road maps as a kid," he told me when I went to visit him at the library recently. He likes to point out that he was born in the same year as the interstate system, 1956. The Newberry has a peerless road-map collection, in a climate-controlled vault—a kind of giant, fantasy glove compartment.
Akerman pulled out boxes of old road maps. Some of the earliest had been made by bicycle enthusiasts; a bike craze in the eighteen-eighties had engendered a movement, led by the League of American Wheelmen, to get the government to put up signs and to improve the muddy, rutted byways that passed for roads. Cyclists had also accumulated their observations of various routes into regional diagrams, which became a critical source for motorists, who, before the government got involved, had to cobble together their own routes. For good maps to exist, there needed to be identifiable roads, with signs. It would do no one any good to have a map in his lap if there were no signs on the road telling him where on that map he might be. Eventually, in 1916, the federal government passed the first of several road-improvement acts. State highway departments were established, and in due time roads were standardized. In 1926, the government established a system of road numbers—odd for those running north-south, even for those running east-west. Soon, gas companies and tire manufacturers began commissioning highway maps, from Rand McNally and others, which they distributed free at service stations.
Akerman also had some old railroad maps. Most railroad maps are essentially graphic itineraries, indicating where you get on and off, drawn not to scale but, rather, to the self-aggrandizing proportions of the rail line in question. They are pretty much useless for navigation. Pointing out that this itinerary model was similar to the one used in the ancient and medieval worlds, he said, "The other fundamental way of navigating is to reach an understanding by trying to grasp the entire territory in question. These are the maps we know. You see not just the single route but the layout of all the routes within the area, with some differentiation in quality. And it is up to the traveller to make choices about which route to take. This kind of map comes into common use in the eighteenth century. It's broadly associated with greater freedom of movement." When you navigate by map, he told me, "you are the one doing the algorithm."
To offer some perspective, he retrieved, from a vault within the vault, one of the library's oldest and most precious maps, a so-called Portolan chart of the Mediterranean, dating to 1456. It showed the sea's entire coastline, with hundreds of ports labelled in the manner of stations on a railroad map, the names neatly lined up parallel to one another, in the order in which one would encounter them if one were sailing along the coast.
"The tension between these two modes of navigating goes back to these maps," he said. "The itinerary represents space as one experiences it on the ground. A map like this has that element, but it starts to introduce the notion that you can conceive of it as a larger unit. It's a God's-eye view, which puts you in charge of navigating through space. This is the origin of the notion that you can pull yourself away from the world and see it from above."
The irony is that centuries later, when we have perfected the God's-eye map and become conversant with it, we have, in the thrall of technology, turned back to the ancient way: the itinerary and the strip map. OnStar and MapQuest zero in on the information that's relevant to reaching your destination. "They close down your choices and give you a route," Akerman said.
It can be amusing to see what MapQuest and its ilk come up with. They don't always work. For example, I recently looked to see how MapQuest would get me from East Ninety-sixth Street in Manhattan to the North Shore of Long Island, an hour-long trip that I and countless other drivers have honed (with variations for personal preference, traffic avoidance, and monotony-breakage) over the years. Triborough Bridge to the Grand Central Parkway to the Whitestone Expressway to the Cross Island Parkway to the Long Island Expressway. Bing-bang-boom. MapQuest had an unprecedented suggestion: take the Triborough Bridge to the Bruckner Expressway and then to the Throgs Neck Bridge. From the Upper West Side, a few traffic lights west, MapQuest, snickering, guides you to the Cross Bronx Expressway and then to the Throgs Neck. The Cross Bronx? It would seem that the algorithms are new to the area. These directions involve a disconcerting degree of noncontiguousness. Why cross a body of water at its widest possible point? Why even mess with the Bronx? You may as well stick a sandwich in your ear before putting it into your mouth.
Generally, MapQuest and OnStar choose a road based on their calculations of which will get you there fastest. The criterion is time, a function both of speed and of distance. They do not, as some people suspect, simply pick the shortest route; otherwise, you might spend all your time on side streets, stuck at traffic lights or goat crossings. The algorithms consider the length of a road segment and the expected speed of the road and calculate the time it will take you to pass along it. Every road segment has a "costing," a sum of the features that can slow a driver down. Turns, merges, exits, toll plazas, stoplights, speed zones: they all carry a cost. (Navteq has five "functional classes" of road, ranked according to connectivity and speed. An interstate highway is a one; a local street is a five.) These systems do not yet take into consideration traffic, construction, weather, time of day, or one's tendency, on certain roads, to go faster than the speed limit.
There are features that we associate with maps or navigation which have little bearing on the kind of road directions favored by MapQuest and OnStar. Traditional visual landmarks—flagpole, river bend, stone church—are hardly recognized. And a road that traverses water (i.e., a bridge) is no different from one that cuts through a golf course or a drug-free school zone if the speed limit is the same. This is why the Throgs Neck looks more reasonable to an algorithm, even if to a driver that extra water crossing may mean another toll and greater potential for bottleneck traffic.
With MapQuest, you can either look at a map, presented in a manner that makes your route the center of the world, or you can get an itinerary. But, since MapQuest's directions are derived from looking at a route on a map, the advice it gives is based mostly on map reality, not driver reality. Traditionally, verbal directions capture the experience of driving on the road, much as the McNally Photo-Auto Guide did; MapQuest captures that of plotting the route, from a God's-eye view. This is why, for instance, MapQuest will identify a short stretch of road—an off-ramp, a connector—that to the traveller would normally be negligible (without mentioning that you should keep the river or the graveyard on your right). Whether a segment is 0.1 or two thousand miles long, it is given equal billing. This sometimes has a ludicrous effect. For example, Google's directions for leaving Spokane, Washington: "Head north from N. Lincoln St., go 33 feet. Turn left at W. Main Ave., go 0.1 mi. Turn left at W. Spokane Falls Blvd., go 127 feet." Certainly, once someone following this kind of itinerary loses his way he has no idea where he is, because he has no sense of how the directions he's following fit into the larger picture.
Most navigation devices in cars display your route on a small dashboard screen; the settings can be altered, but more often than not the top of the display represents the direction in which you are moving. The onscreen map, in other words, is not oriented north-south, like a paper map. The map constantly readjusts itself, so that the road ahead is up. This is a boon to people who may be disinclined to see the ground in terms of north-south—people who when standing on a street corner will hold a paper map and turn it so that what is in front of them on the ground is also in front of them (above them) on the map. As to the age-old and oft-debated question of whether women are more apt to do this than men—of whether geographic proficiency correlates to one gender or the other—there is a great deal of straight-faced academic research. Suffice it to say that the scholarship is inconclusive, though it does tend to find that men and women, whether by nature or by nurture, perceive space differently.
At any rate, the in-car map displays generally represent small swatches of land, your immediate surroundings. You can zoom in and zoom out, but the area you're passing through is a disembodied square, free of the context of the larger landmass. For example, as you pass along the Bruckner, on your way to the Throgs Neck, you see a web of lines, and words like "Port Morris" and "Hunts Point." What you tend not to see is where the Bruckner and the Bronx fit into the bigger picture—the Bronx poised like a catcher's mitt between the legs of Manhattan and Long Island, the southernmost wedge of New York State mainland breaking up into an archipelago. You do not see, in other words, how taking the Throgs Neck might appear, on a standard map, to be a detour.
In the spirit of fair-mindedness, I tried this route one Saturday morning, when there would likely be little traffic to corrupt the results of the experiment. The affront to both habit and the inner compass—every fibre crying out, "Turn east, east!"—was especially acute as, per MapQuest, I followed signs directing me to New England, instead of to Long Island. So was the unpleasant prospect of paying the additional toll of four-fifty that the Throgs Neck would require: a deal-breaker, especially if you're one of those people who plot routes primarily on the basis of toll avoidance. (You know the type: he loves the Macombs Dam Bridge.) Still, I stayed with it. The road was clear and fast, the prospect—Rikers Island, from the north!—refreshing. As the Throgs Neck Bridge conveyed me onto Long Island, and I rejoined the usual route, on the Cross Island Parkway, I noted, on the digital clock on the dash, that I'd made great time. Perhaps this way was a minute or two longer. Hardly more. Over the years, those minutes, not to mention the toll payments, could add up, but still: MapQuest's algorithms had apparently opened an iconoclastic alternate route, a Long Island commuter's Northwest Passage.
Chicago, you might say, is the Sagres of the American imperium, a hub of geographic and cartographic expertise. This is due mainly to Chicago's role, in the nineteenth century, as a major railroad center. Rand McNally ("to maps what Jell-O is to gelatine," as Akerman said) was based there (it is now just up the pike, in Skokie), as were many other prominent map publishers. The University of Chicago had, until recently, one of the best geography departments, and is still a leading publisher of scholarly books on geography and cartography.
Navteq (the name is a contraction of Navigation Technologies) started life in 1985, in Silicon Valley, and moved to Chicago in 1997. Its revenues have tripled since 2002, amid the digital mapping boom. It occupies an ever-expanding suite of offices on an immense floor of the Merchandise Mart, one of the largest commercial buildings in the world. It would be wise, when visiting Navteq, to bring bread crumbs or a handheld G.P.S. to keep from getting lost. One morning this fall, in a conference room I'm sure I could never find again, I met Judson Green, the company's C.E.O., and Salahuddin Khan, a senior vice-president, who supervises the complicated task of converting raw data, including the observations of analysts like Arcari and Singh, into lefts and rights. Navteq is as much a collator of information as a collector of it. The raw information comes from a variety of sources, including the government—for example, from what are known as TIGER files, prepared by the Census Bureau. This information is in the public domain. A lot of it is out of date, idiosyncratic, incompatible, and, at the very least, requires cleaning up. Digital aerial photography is used as well.
The existing data, from the government and other sources, had not been collected with way-finding in mind, so it was necessary to look at the world again through the eyes of a driver, instead of those of a tax collector or a land surveyor—"to add all the attributes no one ever thought to add because they weren't thinking of navigation in the first place," Khan said. "Guidance, one-way systems, no left turns. Does something go under or over when you have two lines that cross a map?"
Khan, who was born in Pakistan, is placid and precise, with a neatly trimmed beard and a slight burr, a vestige of more than three decades in Britain. He happened to be heading out himself the following day to do a little ground-truthing in Wyoming.
"It's like news reporting," Khan said. "You could not do it all from Washington. You need to have stations and field offices in order to get that local knowledge."
Khan has three cars and a single-engine plane; being a pilot (and, by training, an aeronautical engineer) got him interested, years ago, in moving maps, in which the map centers on your present location—a kind of predecessor to the devices employed in cars these days. He began using navigational systems well before he came to Navteq, in 1998, and finds it strange that in this day and age someone would have a road atlas in the car. "Maybe that's a guy thing," he said. He is a self-professed "map nut," but really more of a gearhead. "Historically, I had what I would call 'lost anxiety'—anxiety about being lost," he said. "I then got to experience navigation systems. And I feel that I have effectively diluted lost anxiety out of my system. In other words, I've been conditioned not to be anxious when lost, even when I am in a vehicle that does not have a navigation system."
As he calmly summoned a world in which technology would do away with the experience of going astray, I began reassessing, in the rearview mirror of my mind, all the times I'd been lost or confused, angry at the map or the person next to me who couldn't make sense of it. Panic in a New Jersey rotary; despair in the pitch black of the Poconos at night; the shame, after you've got on the wrong highway, of hurtling past a sign saying "NEXT EXIT 13 MILES." All the rash U-turns and frantic attempts to get the attention of the driver in the next car—you give him the now quaint but still widely recognized "roll down your window" signal and shout helplessly across the gulf, "Where can I find Route 17?" Yours for the violent ward, straight and sure. For the first time, I began to think that one of those devices might not be such a bad idea. Even map nuts get lost.
What Khan was describing was a process of refinement. Over time, as the systems grow more sophisticated, the digital maps will come to look more and more like the world as it's perceived through the windshield of an automobile. Bodies of water, for example, are often given short shrift, because one cannot drive on them. Navteq takes note of "water polygons," as they're called, mainly because people are accustomed to seeing them on their maps. "Maps look very strange if they don't contain those things," Khan said. "There's an almost paradigmatic expectation on the part of consumers to see maps that look like maps." It will be interesting to see how long this expectation survives. As Green told me, Navteq is "revolutionizing the way people think about and interact with maps." He went on, "This technology is going to be pervasive. One thing we're talking about is potentially having digital maps inform the operation of the car. If you put a digital map in the engine of a car, you may have headlights turning in anticipation of the curvature of the road." He mentioned other G.P.S. applications. "A mobile consumer can get all kinds of questions answered," he said. "Where are my buddies? Where's my family? Where are my kids? Where can I find a barbecue grill within ten miles for less than four hundred dollars?"
After talking to Green and Khan, I was taken down a series of corridors to something called the Dynamic Content Operations Center, an embryonic attempt to provide up-to-the-minute traffic information. Two technicians sat before a dozen screens on which were displayed city traffic maps, with little icons indicating accidents and construction projects. Navteq gets the data, which it transmits to XM Radio, from local outfits. For now, Navteq keeps track of the traffic in twenty-two cities. Certainly, this system is an improvement on such blunt instruments as the periodic updates on AM radio, which seem always to report traffic on routes that do not pertain to your own—a reassuring absence of news, until you hit the afore-unmentioned jam. The Navteq method is more like having a friend or a family member you can call who spends all day watching the traffic cams on cable television, and not everyone has one of these.
The dream, in the navigation business, is that it will soon be possible to transmit real-time traffic information. The same technology that enables drivers to know where they are can, theoretically, be used to tell everyone else where they are and how fast they're going. An aggregate of that information will make it possible for a driver to know, instantaneously, how fast traffic is moving along the various road segments that he intends to take. Traffic will become, in essence, an efficient market.
The technicians showed me New York. I noted that traffic on the Throgs Neck was moving well but that there was an accident nearby, on the southbound side of I-678, on the approach to the Bronx Whitestone Bridge. There was something about having access to this information in Chicago that brought on a faint but pleasing kind of homesickness. Ah, yes, the Whitestone. I tried to think of someone I knew to whom this information would be useful.
While I was in Chicago, I went to see Kenneth Nebenzahl, a prominent dealer in rare books and old maps and the author of five books on the history of cartography. He lives in Glencoe, half an hour north of downtown Chicago. I went by taxi. The driver had no idea how to get there, and she had a fluid, if spirited, view of geography (she insisted, for example, that the Arabian Peninsula is part of Africa), so I got Nebenzahl to give me directions over the phone: "Take Lake Shore to Sheridan . . . go through ravine . . . do not cross railroad tracks . . . and if these directions are no good we'll call in the Glencoe Marines." I also had printouts of the area from MapQuest (which suggested taking the interstate), but they were hard to square with Nebenzahl's route. We wound our way along the North Shore. After the ravine, we got jumpy, made a premature turn, then tried to wing it, and soon found ourselves at a dead end. We put in a call to the Marines.
Nebenzahl is seventy-eight, a native of Long Island who dropped out of high school to enlist in the Marines in the hope of catching some combat in the closing days of the Second World War. (To his great distress and lasting benefit, he was deployed to the Caribbean, instead of to the Pacific.) As a child, he was obsessed with maps: when he was nine, he assembled a road atlas of his own by binding together, with tape, his collection of forty-eight service-station state maps.
He led me up to his study and began taking books and journals from the shelves: maps through the ages, a dizzying chronicle of ignorance and discovery. He showed me an image of what he considered to be the world's first road map, the Peutinger Tabula, a manuscript copy of an old Roman chart depicting the routes leading to Rome—an illustrated itinerary, really. He also had plates from the "Chronica Majora" of Matthew Paris, a collection of thirteenth-century maps of the journey from London to the Holy Land. They resembled pages from an A.A.A. TripTik, with little views of the towns and descriptions of distances.
Along the continuum of modern geography scholarship, Nebenzahl is a little old-fashioned; to him the maps themselves, and not just the information they convey, are worthy of study. He views the rise of digital mapping with a mixture of incomprehension, condescension, and sorrow, as a Brill Building songwriter might regard digital sampling.
"Geographers now hate maps," Nebenzahl said. "If you only give people a six-by-six-inch screen, how can they get a sense of where they are, or where they fit in? We're pushing the next generation into geographic illiteracy by not giving them a sense of what world geography is."
It was getting late, and Nebenzahl had to leave for a meeting of the Chicago Map Society at the Newberry Library. Ralph Ehrenberg, the former chief of geography and the map division at the Library of Congress, was giving a talk about Lewis and Clark and the map they'd made of their journey, a surprisingly accurate rendering of a large swath of the West, based mostly, as Salahuddin Khan might say, on nothing. Lewis and Clark relied on an array of methods and tools—a log line reel, compasses, watches, an octant, a sextant, a chronometer, a surveyor's chain, and Native American sketches of the terrain—and then sent readings back East, to be drafted by a cartographer in Philadelphia named Nicholas King. I imagined Chris Arcari and Shovie Singh, their white S.U.V. stuck in the mud at the foot of the Bitterroot Range: some serious geometry, a valid unnamed feature.
Nebenzahl offered to drive me back into the city. The car was new, but there was no navigation device. "I didn't want one of those damn things on the dashboard," he said. Before we pulled out of his garage, he listened to a traffic report on the radio, thought for a moment, and decided to take the lakeshore route—it was more scenic, certainly, in the twilight of a crisp late-autumn day. We wound our way through college campuses and elegant neighborhoods, admiring the attributes. Near the city limits, though, we ran into a jam. Nebenzahl sighed and said, "I should've known." We sat there for an extended period, as Chicago sparkled in the distance. ♦


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Selling under-construction flat before possession saves tax4 min read . Updated: 29 Nov 2010, 12:43 PM IST
Selling under-construction flat before possession saves tax
Selling under-construction flat before possession saves tax
The steep rise in property prices over the past three-four years, particularly in larger cities such as Mumbai, has placed one category of homebuyers in a very fortunate situation. Those who booked yet-to-be-constructed flats three or four years ago, made payments over the past few years at the old booking rates and are now getting possession of the ready flats, are tempted to sell the flats at the high prices that the ready flats now command compared with the price at which they were booked. How would the gain that they make be taxed if they were to sell the ready flats now?
In case of sale of all assets, other than shares, units of mutual funds or listed securities, the holding period in order to qualify for concessional tax treatment as long-term capital gain is 36 months. Long-term capital gains are taxed at 20% with the beneficial computation by indexing the cost of acquisition as opposed to taxation of short-term capital gains at normal slab rates (30% in case of taxpayers in the highest income bracket). The benefit of capital gains exemption by reinvestment in a residential house property or in specified capital gains bonds of the National Highway Authority of India or Rural Electrification Corp. Ltd is also available only in respect of long-term capital gains and not in respect of short-term capital gains.
Also Read Gautam Nayak's earlier columns
What is your asset in an under-construction flat
For a flat that is under construction, when does your holding period begin and how is it computed? For this purpose, it is important to note that there is a difference between a flat which is still under construction and the possession has not been given to you by the builder, and a flat which is ready and the possession has already been taken by you. Though both are capital assets, in the first case the asset is not the flat (as it is not yet complete and, therefore, not in existence) but the right to acquire a flat, while in the second case the asset is the flat itself. You, therefore, need to determine what is it that you are selling—the right to acquire the flat or the flat itself—to be able to determine the date of acquisition.
When the asset is your right
Generally, in cases of sale of flats under construction, a tripartite agreement is entered into between the seller (who had originally booked the flat), the purchaser and the builder. Under this agreement, the seller assigns his rights to the under-construction flat to the purchaser with the consent of the builder, the purchaser agrees to pay the balance of the original purchase price payable to the builder and the builder agrees to give possession of the ready flat to the purchaser directly. The agreement assigns the right to acquire a particular flat. To find out the date of acquisition of such right, one has to determine when exactly this right came into existence.
Normally, when one books a flat to be constructed, one pays a token amount as booking charges, a letter of allotment is issued when the layout is finalized and, thereafter, an agreement to purchase is executed and registered. If you have merely booked a flat in the building to be constructed with no particular flat having been allotted to you, you cannot be said to have acquired the right to purchase a specific flat. It is only when the letter of allotment is issued that such a right can be said to have come into existence.
The purchase agreement codifies the rights between the parties, which have already come into existence after the issue of the letter of allotment. However, a safer view is that the date of signing of the agreement to purchase is the date of acquisition of such right. Subsequent registration of the purchase agreement merely grants better legal protection to such right and, therefore, it is the date of agreement and not the date of registration that would be the date of acquisition of such right. The dates of payments made for such a purchase are irrelevant for this purpose.
When the asset is your house
When you take possession of the flat which you have agreed to purchase, the right to purchase the flat gets converted into the flat itself. Therefore, if you are selling the flat after taking possession of the flat, the period of three years starts from the date of taking possession of the flat.
If you are, therefore, intending to sell the flat soon after taking possession, it is better to carry out the sale while the flat is still under construction and possession is not yet taken by you. This will substantially reduce your tax liability in respect of the capital gains, provided of course that three years have elapsed since you entered into the agreement for purchase of the flat.
Gautam Nayak is a chartered accountant.


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Can anyone beat the NRA?
Wayne LaPierre may have more blood on his hands than Dracula, but — fair is fair — he also has the guts of a burglar.
He will say anything to advance the agenda of the National Rifle Association, which he runs, and he doesn't worry about his critics. Under his leadership, the NRA has grown and today is one of the most feared lobbies on Capitol Hill.
Story Continued Below
I should point out that, unlike Dracula, LaPierre neither kills people nor drinks their blood. It is just my personal belief that the NRA's gun mania has led to the slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women and children in this country.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is now spending $12 million of his own money on TV ads to combat the NRA and LaPierre. The ads are calm and reasonable. In one, a hunter in a plaid shirt, cradling a shotgun, says, "I support comprehensive background checks so criminals and the dangerously mentally ill can't buy guns."
But to LaPierre "calm and reasonable" is the same as "weak." Bloomberg "can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public," LaPierre sneered on "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "They don't want him telling them what food to eat; they sure don't want him telling them what self-defense firearms to own. And he can't buy America!"
All anyone really has to buy, however, is Congress. LaPierre knows how to intimidate senators.
He tells them that the "NRA's nearly 5 million members and America's 100 million gun owners" will not vote for legislators in 2014 who are trying to grab their assault rifles, limit the size of their ammo clips or create universal background checks that will, as LaPierre tells them, lead the government "to tax" and "to take" their weapons.
To LaPierre, the war over guns is a class war. "Political elites" he said in a recent speech, "insult, denigrate and call us crazy. In their distorted view of the world, they are smarter than we are. They are special and more worthy than we are."
LaPierre doesn't always win. Bill Clinton, who knew how to speak to what were then called "Bubba" voters, beat him and signed an assault weapons ban in 1993. But that ban expired in 2003. Barack Obama wants it back, as do Bloomberg and several senators. But not enough senators. Not nearly enough.


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The Great Orangery Charlottenburg Palace is ideal for hosting meetings, conferences, and congresses. We especially recommend the two daylight-flooded wings for implementing classical formats with parliamentary or theatre-style seating or modern meeting formats such as open-space,
fishbowl or bar camps.
With subtle white decor and a generous ceiling height of 6.50m, the East Wing and West Wing of the Great Orangery offer a pleasantly spacious and inspiring alternative to the many confined and homogeneous meeting and conference venues in Berlin. Event organisers will appreciate this setting, which helps create a focused, dedicated, and results-oriented working and meeting environment.
The 2,000m2 Orangery Terrace is also available as an open-air site with no traffic noise to work, as well
as to relax and enjoy yourself.
Depending on the number of participants and the event concept, we recommend the exclusive use of the East Wing or the combined rental of both wings. The latter option offers different usage possibilities, such as a blend of a classic lecture programme in the east wing and an "after work party" with lounge ambience or an evening banquet at festive gala tables in the west wing.
In der Großen Orangerie ist unser Herzenswunsch einer romantischen Hochzeit in Erfüllung gegangen.
Eine beeindruckende Location in die wir uns sofort verliebt haben.
Von der ersten bis zur letzten Minute haben wir uns hier wohlgefühlt, auch aufgrund des reibungslosen planerischen Ablaufs.
Susanne M. & Michael M.
Ein riesiger Dank an Sie und Ihr Team für all die harte Arbeit bei der Vorbereitung unserer Hochzeitsfeier. Was für ein großartiger Service uns geboten wurde. Sie haben so zuvorkommend alle unsere Wünsche in der gesamten Organisation umgesetzt und dies auch am Tag der Hochzeit selbst. Für uns machte es die ganze Sache viel leichter, da wir uns gut aufgehoben gefühlt haben. Wir sagen danke!
Miriam S. & Volker S.
"I have never received so much effusive thanks from our employees and business partners for inviting them to the Christmas party. The partners of the Great Orangery really demonstrated a magic touch for creating something special. Great."
"We were looking for an extraordinary location – and we found one at the Great Orangery. The rooms were perfect for our festive occasion. Our guests felt almost like they were at the Prussian royal court and literally had a right royal time."
The creative team from Catering by Marriott Berlin will delight your guests' taste buds with the refined interplay between tasteful tradition and culinary trends. From exquisite appetizers to grandiose five-course gala dinners, Catering by Marriott creates enjoyable moments. On request, the professional team will also handle the decoration and laying the banquet table.
Modern, sexy, and creative: that's how Markus Herbicht describes his cuisine. The chef from the capital and his team combine seasonal and regional produce, fish, and meat from animals kept in species-appropriate conditions, and traditional preparation methods. Herbicht contrasts this down-to-earth quality with international culinary influences to serve you and your guests an innovative event catering at the highest level.
NIKKUS Veranstaltungstechnik ist der smarte Partner für ästhetisch anspruchsvolle, durchdachte und budgetkonforme Event–Lösungen. Die Berater*innen von NIKKUS sind Verbündete, Mitdenker und Sparringspartner. Sie planen alles bis ins kleinste Detail. Geben Ihnen Impulse und sprudeln vor Ideen. Vor Ort baut das Team alles blitzschnell auf und später wieder ab. Sie genießen eine technisch perfekt umgesetzte Veranstaltung.
With 500 employees at 21 locations across Europe, the Party Rent Group ensures the perfect atmosphere at events of all sizes. The company pays special attention to innovation and an instinct for trends. This is reflected in its clever contemporary furniture and catering services – from chairs and tables, to lounges and temporary offices, to kitchen, stage, and presentation technology.
Rent4Eent was founded in 2000 by industry professionals to raise the bar in the "non-food catering" sector (event equipment). The Berlin-based company has remained true to this aspiration to this day. Tableware (glasses, crockery, cutlery), service accessories, kitchen equipment, furniture: Rent4Event outfits your event suitably for the occasion and on any scale. Outstanding service included.
Universum sees itself as a traditional and above all reliable event outfitter. The range of items for hire includes crockery, glasses, cutlery, furniture, table linen, and accessories – packaged to prevent breakage, shrink-wrapped, labelled, delivered on time, and ready to use, so that you and your on-site service and catering partners can concentrate on the essentials: the perfect event.
With over 20 years of experience, B.E.S.T. offers a full service in terms of safety and service. In addition to traditional doormen (admission control), trained professionals ensure the security of your event both inside the premises and outside. On request, professional service staff will attentively welcome, verify, and seat your guests.
The photographers Kathrin Heller and Manuela Steinemann understand how to immortalise a unique atmosphere, a festive mood, and extraordinary moments in vivid images in a special way. As specialists in event, exhibition, and interior photography, the duo has made a name for themselves as a Pixel & Photography Dot – and thoroughly deserves their status as preferred partners of the Great Orangery.
The special occasion of passing your A-levels has to be celebrated properly! What would be better suited than a magnificent space with royal flair? Abitraum as a reliable partner for new graduates in Berlin and Brandenburg organizes your perfect prom with everything that goes with it, in our magnificent Great Orangery. Elegant gala dinner, stage entertainment or a party with lounge area, cocktail bar and DJ – everything is possible here and Abitraum helps you realize your wishes.
Ultimately, the Great Orangery Charlottenburg Palace stands out as an event venue thanks to its great flexibility and wide scope for designing events. You and your topics will also benefit from staging your function in a venue that combines classical baroque architecture with modern event concepts.
We will be glad to assist you in suitably implementing your ideas and concepts – both with an on-site project manager and with the best recommendations for our preferred partners in the technology, service, and catering sectors.
Independently of our personal support, the Orangery helps make your meetings and conferences successful with its facilities and logistics.
From the ground-level delivery up to 7.5t and the barrier-free access to all conference rooms to the permanently installed background sound system, suspension points for pictures and posters, and the option of installing a stage.
The prominent location of the Great Orangery near the City West area of Berlin also makes it convenient for your event participants. Berlin Tegel Airport and the main train station are only a few minutes' drive away, while the nearest motorway access is less than 1km away, and public transport is within easy walking distance. Ample parking spaces, even for coaches, are also available at the Great Orangery.


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Monday, August 19, 2019
Last Week
Special Photos
8-Year-Old Painting Prodigy "Mini Monet" is New Art World Star
A painting called 'Hong Kong' by Kieron Williamson, an eight-year-old painting prodigy is seen displayed in an art gallery in Holt, Norfolk in England. He's Britain's most talked-about young artist. His paintings sell for thousands of dollars and there's a long waiting list for his eagerly anticipated new works. AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth.
By: Jill Lawless, Associated Press Writer
He's Britain's most talked-about young artist. His paintings fetch hefty sums and there's a long waiting list for his eagerly anticipated new works.
It has all happened so quickly he's still getting used to the spotlight and Kieron Williamson fidgets a little when he's asked to share his thoughts on art.
"Cows are the easiest thing to paint," said Kieron, who has just turned 8. "You don't have to worry about doing so much detail."
Horses, he says, are "a lot harder. You have to get their legs right, and you have to make their back legs much bigger than their front."
Paintbrush prodigy Kieron dubbed "mini Monet" by the British press is a global sensation. All 33 of the pastels, watercolors and oil paintings in his latest exhibition sold, within half an hour, for a total of 150,000 pounds ($235,000). Buyers from as far away as the United States lined up overnight outside the gallery, and there is a 3,000-strong waiting list for his Impressionistic landscapes of boat-dotted estuaries, snowy fields and wide marshland skies.
He has a website and a business card. Strangers approach him at the gallery, asking him to sign postcards of his work. Journalists from around the world travel to his small home town in eastern England to interview him.
Kieron shrugs off the attention. "It feels normal to me," he says.
It definitely doesn't feel normal to his parents, Keith and Michelle Williamson. They are bemused, proud and a little anxious about their son's talent and its effects.
"It has been overwhelming," said Michelle Williamson, a 37-year-old nutritional therapist. She and her 44-year-old art dealer husband live in a small apartment with Kieron and his 6-year-old sister, Billie-Jo.
Kieron was a normal, energetic little boy, and his parents were surprised when he asked for pencils and paper during a holiday in Cornwall two years ago. They were astonished when the then-5-year-old produced an accomplished picture of boats in a harbor. He progressed rapidly to fully realized landscapes, many depicting the flat, open Norfolk countryside near their home.
"Keith and I don't paint, so we find it difficult to know what's going on inside his head," Michelle said.
"We don't understand it. We don't know where it comes from. But he's adamant it's what he wants to do. When your child has got such a gift and a talent, you have to support him."
That hasn't stopped the Williamsons worrying about whether they are doing the right thing in exposing him to so much attention. They showed Kieron's work to a local gallery, which has mounted two exhibitions and is helping them cope with the flood of global interest.
"It's not a natural thing to want to put your kid in the media spotlight," Michelle said.
"We've met so many sharks. All they see is the financial element. They don't see the emotional stuff. You can't separate the art from Kieron."
A self-possessed blond boy, dressed in a polo shirt, shorts and sneakers, Kieron doesn't seem like a hothouse prodigy.
He likes soccer he plays defense for a school team and messing around on the broad North Sea beaches near his home in Holt, a pretty Georgian town 125 miles (200 kilometers) northeast of London.
When he talks about his work, it's with a striking mix of the adult and the childlike. He can discuss his color choices and the interplay of light and dark, but also remembers more idiosyncratic details.
"This," he said, pointing at one landscape, "is when we came back from Holkham and we couldn't get fish and chips because there was a line going from the fish and chip shop to the car park."
When he starts to draw, with a confident, relaxed fluidity, all childishness disappears. Working from a photograph of a river at sunrise, Kieron swiftly sketches the horizon, the mounds of trees and the line of the river, then uses pastels to color the yellowy pink of the sky.
His parents are happy for people to watch him work it disproves any suspicions that the paintings are not his own.
They encountered that kind of skepticism at first, though Michelle Williamson says it has abated.
Critical opinion on Kieron's work is divided. One newspaper headline asked, "Is Kieron Britain's most exciting painter?" But others have wondered whether Kieron's paintings would be so well-regarded if he were an adult, and asked if his talent will endure.
The precedents are mixed. Pablo Picasso famously said that unlike in music, "there are no child prodigies in painting. What people regard as premature genius is the genius of childhood. It gradually disappears as they get older."
Picasso himself was a child prodigy, however, who went on to revolutionize art. The 19th-century English artist John Everett Millais was made a member of the Royal Academy at 11.
But for every Millais or Mozart there are many prodigies whose gifts do not survive puberty.
"Most brilliant 8-year-old pianists or footballers don't maintain it into adulthood," said Jack Boyle, a Glasgow-based child psychologist.
He advises the Williamsons not to worry too much. Kieron's talent is unlikely to do him any harm.
"Children like being successful and they like being the best," Boyle said. "My advice? Take the money and run. Milk it for every penny, but don't harm the child in the process.
"Develop his other interests and sell as many of the paintings as you can."
At the moment, Michelle Williamson is looking forward to the start of the school year in September, when exhibitions and interviews will be replaced by homework and normal childhood routines.
The gallery is offering two new landscapes Kieron's last work as a 7-year-old and his first as an 8-year-old by an online auction that closes Aug. 20. A new exhibition is planned for next summer.
Michelle Williamson says she and her husband won't be disappointed if Kieron one day stops painting, as long as he is happy.
"We fully expect Kieron to change his mind," she said. "But we know that whatever he ends up doing, Kieron is going to give it 200 percent."
Kieron says he knows what he wants to be when he grows up "painter and footballer."
And he is willing to offer advice for other aspiring artists.
"Never give up. Try and keep your buildings straight. And don't do a plain blue sky."
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.
Kieron Williamson
"Mini Monet"
New Art World Star
Today's News
August 14, 2010
Winner of Bravo's Work of Art, Abdi Farah, to Have Solo Exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum
In September, All Eyes will Be on Kees van Dongen Exhibition
Seattle Art Museum Presents Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of Quileute Wolves
Titanic Salvage Company Wins Award from Virginia Court
High Museum to Offer Half-Price Tickets for Dalí Exhibition
Iconic Ear Pendants by JAR Highlight Christie's October Jewels Sale
Arkansas Arts Center to Present A Century of Revolution: Mexican Art Since 1910
HBO Archives to Celebrate 75th Anniversary of Documentary Series
Romantics Display Opens at Tate Britain Following Major Re-Hang
Archaeologists from Cardiff University Discover Ancient Roman Buildings
Works by Rackstraw Downes on View this Winter at the Portland Museum of Art
London Show Explores Skin as Human Body's Frontier
Tacheles: Berlin's Alternative Scene Fights for Survival
Century-Old Scotch Pulled from Antarctic Ice at the Canterbury Museum
New Research Suggests Orangutans Not so Solitary
8-Year-Old Painting Prodigy "Mini Monet" is New Art World Star
Installations Highlight the Contemporary Art of the Dallas Museum of Art
The Royal Collection Announces A Victorian Christmas at Windsor Castle
Auction Offers Pieces of Country for Conservation
Maine Ram Island Ledge Lighthouse with Million-Dollar View for Sale
Nevada Museum of Art Opens Fletcher Benton: The Artist's Studio
President Obama Forcefully Endorses Mosque Near Ground Zero
Photographer Returns to Trace Liverpool Families
The AIA Recognizes Nine Projects with the 2010 CAE Educational Facility Design Awards
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Even though privacy is a complex problem with many facets - think about the new Google's Privacy policy, which provide for combination of personal data across different services, and the concern for the compliance with European data protection legislation - there isn't an easy way to address these problems without a legal framework and respect for the individual.
Nevertheless, state of art technology can help individuals to reduce the risk of losing control of their personal data, empowering the user to control personal data distributed among service providers, using a centralized authorization service.
At the Kantara User-Managed Access (UMA) Work Group, headed by Eve Maler, we are developing specs that let an individual control the authorization of data sharing and service access made between online services on the individual's behalf.
UMA is designed with Privacy in mind, with the goal to address the concept of Privacy by Design. UMA is inspired by the paradigm:
"The goal of a flexible, user-centric identity management infrastructure must be to allow the user to quickly determine what information will be revealed to which parties and for what purposes, how trustworthy those parties are and how they will handle the information, and what the consequences of sharing their information will be" - Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (Privacy in the clouds).
This approach helps to reduce sensibly the difficulties for individuals to stay in control of their personal data.A typical scenario involves online registration for websites to allow an individual to access its online service. This scenario may involve an host where the individual stores the personal data, a requester, which is the website that provides the service and the Authorization Manager which provides the authorization decision on behalf of the individual.
What data will be revealed
Individuals can control what data will be revealed because they are involved in the protocol. First, the Subject must register the resource which is collecting the personal data with a centralized Authorization Manager. This allows individuals to maintain a centralized view of what data is being collected.
UMA goes beyond just informing people what will happen if something is shared; it lets them activily control sharing.
Individuals are an active part of defining the how the personal information will be handled in the data sharing process. With UMA's centralized Authorization Manager, the Subject is able to define sharing policy (a connection), for what purposes the personal data is shared (or collected) and maintaining of control of it, including the possibility of canceling and disabling connection with service providers (Requester) at any time.
Any attempts to access to personal data by any party (Requester), will be intercepted by a policy enforcement point (at the local service provider) and to alert the Authorization Manager, which is in charge of taking an authorization decision. In this specific scenario, the Authorization Manager interacts with the subject for requesting consent to grant the access to the own personal data.
The following picture shows an individual online consent request based on UMA User Experience study applied to a mobile context.
Visualization plays a fundamental role in creating an abstraction layer for controlling distributed personal data. Last summer, I had the opportunity to visit the Newcastle University for 4 weeks on the SmartAM project, which is implementing UMA spec, with the goal of studing and contributing to human interface aspects.
As a result of this study, we introduced two main concepts to enhance the level of control of personal data. First is the connection which defines the context of a data sharing policy. In other words, it's a visualization technique that help the individual to define and determine what data will be revealed for what purpose, so it defines an appropriate context. The second one is an analytics feature which helps to maintain control of information which is revealed.
The picture below shows an example of how the individual would see all of the connections for own Personal data. In the middle of the example, "Personal Data" is shown in different contexts (i.e. Professional, University, Collab, etc.), each context includes Requester (MySelf, Person, Groups, ect.), which have access to the data and Applications which have access on behalf of the requester.
One of the most important and complex aspects for economic development and for encouraging individuals to adopt distributed authorization system is to build a trusted eco-system among Individual, Service Providers and Requester services. UMA WG is also defining a Trust Model in order to provide baselines to build technical and business Trust. At this link you can read a blog post that presents a brief introduction of the model.


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It was dinner time. I was hungry. My new husband already was home and I was still in the office, waiting for my boss to leave. It wasn't the first time or last time I stayed at the office just to look committed. Years ago, early in my career, I was uncomfortable leaving before my boss. I thought it made me seem like I was a slacker. At the time, I had to prove myself and I wanted to seem ambitious. But after weeks of staying late for no reason, my new husband insisted I was being foolish. So, I quietly slipped out around 7 p.m., leaving my computer on to look like I might still be around.
It's tricky when your boss puts in long hours. Most of the time, her or she gets paid big bucks for that committment. I enjoyed reading a Wall Street Journal article this week titled When the Boss Works Long Hours, Must We All? In the article, Sue Shellenbarger asks, "Every night, your workaholic boss is still glued to the computer when you need to leave. How do you go home without looking like a slacker?" The article urges workers to check their assumptions, claiming that sometimes people make guesses about managers' expectations that are just wrong,
In my former job, while I was worried about leaving earlier than my boss, I realized he could see my commitment in my productivity. I bet my former boss never even realized I was waiting around for him to leave.
On the other hand, if you leave at 5 p.m. every day, hours early than your boss, and you complain of having too much work, your boss will think you are a slacker. I have had bosses tell me they can't believe when employees want more money and more authority, but still want to leave at 5 p.m. on the dot.
Sue gives some great suggestions for how to handle a boss who toils long hours at the office: shift around your work hours, leave at the normal time but call attention to your productivity, offer reassurance that you are meeting deadlines, ask your boss if he or she expects you to stay late. That last suggestion might seem intimidating but it's probably the most effective.
Do you feel like you need to stay as late as your boss? How do you handle leaving the office at a decent time? Have you ever had a boss that wants you to stay late but doesn't set the example himself?
For more on this topic and others like it, visit my new blog at CindyKeepsUp.com.


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You are here: NJ SEO Company Home » traffic to your small business site


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MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. – After they complete action in the NCAA Southeast Regional this weekend the Georgia College softball team will hold open tryouts at the Peeler Complex Tuesday, May 14 at 6 p.m. All Interested participants should read the instruction form and must complete all steps by Monday, May 13 to be eligible for tryout.
The Bobcats are currently preparing for the first trip to NCAA Southeast Regional Tournament since 2009. They enter at the No. 7-seed and will start the tournament against No. 2-seed Lenoir-Rhyne Friday, May 10 at 4:30 p.m. in Hickory, N.C.
The Georgia College Department of Athletics, two-time winners of the PBC Commissioner's Cup, sponsors 11 varsity athletic programs at the NCAA Division II level. As a Division II program, Bobcat Athletics prides itself on balancing the life of the student-athlete, evidenced by the teams' multiple appearances in post-season competition as well as documented academic success and community-service involvement. Sign up at www.twitter.com/BobcatSports and www.facebook.com/gcbobcats for up-to-the-minute reports, and visit www.GCBobcats.com for more information, and to nominate your favorite former Bobcats and Colonials to the GC Athletics Hall of Fame.