President Newt?
What am I missing here?
Isn’t Newt Gingrich the lowest of the low? An egomaniac with no morals whatsoever?
The guy who earned $1.6 million consulting for Freddie Mac?
Why did South Carolina Republicans vote for a guy so brashly amoral?
He can’t win the Presidency. And the Republican establishment knows it.
That would be a disaster for the USA. And the world.
related – Democrat Chris Dodd is a scumbag, happy to sell his soul for $1.2 million / year as chief lobbyist for the movie industry. He and Newt will be in the same circle of Hell, so far as I’m concerned.
Antwerp Train Station
Antwerpen-Centraal (Antwerp Central) is the name of the main railway station in the Belgian city …
In 2009 the American magazine Newsweek judged Antwerpen-Centraal the world’s fourth greatest train station.
It’s gorgeous. Interesting photos on Flickr.
Click PLAY or watch a flash mob at the station on YouTube. One of the best ever.
I’d totally join in one of those.
Today the Channel Tunnel Eurostar to Newsweek’s #1 train station — St. Pancras, London. At 300km per hour (186 mph).
why Apple builds in China
Thomas Lee for The New York Times:
… Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.
Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.
Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said …
That article has been getting wide circulation. Not even an embargo of Chinese goods by President Newt is going to bring back manufacturing. Read the article to see why.
applying to work at Foxconn
Foxconn City has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. … many workers earn less than $17 a day. …
related – why you shouldn’t use the new Apple iBooks Author software 
“it’s a girl”
The statistics are sickening. The UN reports approximately 200 million girls in the world today are ‘missing’. India and China are said to eliminate more female infants than the number of girls born in the US each year. Lianyungang in China has the worst infant gender ratio on record with 163 boys born for every 100 girls. …
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
(via Kottke – The three deadliest words in the world: “it’s a girl”)
blogging and online comments
I listened to an excellent audiocast:
Hosts: Leo Laporte and Tom Merritt
Best known as a prominent blogger, and Vice President and Chief Evangelist of Expert Labs, Anil Dash is this week’s guest.
Three of the smartest internet gurus, together.
Of greatest interest to me was Anil’s opine on why true blogging (better) was eclipsed by microblogs like Twitter & Facebook (inferior). The true blogging platforms (e.g. WordPress & Blogger) are still too much work. Tumblr is better.
Next … the pros and cons of online comments.
Gurus MG Siegler and Anil, amongst others, recently turned comments off on their sites.
Matt Gemmell did too. Then posted the most detailed commentary I’ve seen on online comments – Comments Still Off
Personally, I have few enough hateful and ignorant comments on my blogs not to feel compelled to turn them off. The value — especially comments correcting my many errors — outweigh the negative Karma.
Issues regarding comments come up about once a week or so on my Gymnastics blog. I try not to delete or edit, but am forced to occasionally.
My advice, as always — DON’T READ COMMENTS.
LOVOS – Lifestyles of Voluntary Simplicity
Thanks Kate.
My personal philosophy now has a catchy acronym – LOVOS.
… oriented to health and sustainability; and … critical of consumption and consumerism. …
Unfortunately it doesn’t really dovetail with my new religion, the Missionary Church of Kopimism.
“In our belief, communication is sacred.”
why eBooks are the future
Whether you love old fashioned books or not, I’m thinking they’ll be an expensive custom order product sooner than you think.
Why?
The traditional publishing industry is driving all but best selling authors to eBook.
Take, for example, Trey Ratcliff, author of A World in HDR, which deals with a new technology, high dynamic range (HDR) photography.
He got a $20,000 advance from the biggest photography publisher, Peachpit, and 15% of each copy sold.
Sounds pretty good — right?
Nope.
After that misadventure Ratcliff launched an online company called FlatBooks to self-publish and now earns an “80% profit margin”.
Read his story on GigaOm – Why e-books will be much bigger than you can imagine
In 2012 the interface for reading eBooks is still evolving. I don’t enjoy it. In the meantime, I’ll stick with audio.
Apple soon may be releasing new software to help put old publishing out of its misery. God speed.
remembering Rob Glaser
Ron Shewchuk:
Beautiful video by Michael Glaser documenting a trip by family and friends up Two Pine to commemorate the anniversary of his dad Rob’s passing. Thanks for this, Michael. It’s a fitting tribute that generously shares the experience to those who couldn’t be there today. I can feel the snow on my face.
Click PLAY or watch it on Vimeo.
