(CNN) -- An asteroid is whizzing past Earth on Friday -- and it's
traveling with its own moon in tow.
1998 QE2, as NASA has named it, will not come anywhere near enough to
collide with our world.
The closest it will come is about 3.6 million miles away -- that's
over 15 times the distance to our moon. It will reach that point just
before 5 p.m. ET.
But it's giving astronomers the "best look at this asteroid ever," NASA said.
Scientists have been rubbing their hands for a decade and a half for
this opportunity since they discovered the asteroid on August 19,
1998, the year for which it is named. The letter "Q" stands for the
month of August.
A milestone asteroid
1998 QE2 represents a milestone in NASA's Near Earth Object Project,
which scopes out the heavens for potential danger from celestial
projectiles whizzing past.
"It's one of the initial successes of our effort to find the big
asteroids that could hit the Earth and cause global catastrophe," said
Paul Chodas, a scientist with the project. "It's certainly one to keep
an eye on."
NASA has been tracking it with radar devices since Thursday, not to
clock its speed but to get good pictures of it. A day before,
scientists got a shot of its moon. The images look less like photos
and more like ultrasound images.
The discovery of its moon surprised the astronomers, said NASA radar
scientist Marina Brozovic, who helped take the images at Deep Space
Network antenna at Goldstone, California. "It turns out that 1998 QE2
is a binary asteroid," she said. "This is something we did not
expect."
More than 15% of asteroids travel in groups of two or three objects
revolving around one another, according to NASA.
Destructive potential
1998 QE2's moon, which is 2,000 feet wide, is large enough for NASA to
term it a "potential city killer."
The asteroid it revolves around is 1.7 miles wide. "This is one of the
big ones," Chodas said.
To put the potential for damage by an asteroid into perspective, the
one that paleontologists believe triggered the extinction of dinosaurs
on Earth 65 million years ago was six miles in diameter.
The meteor that exploded over Russia in February, injuring more than
1,000 people and causing millions of dollars in damage, was a "very
small asteroid," according to the space agency.
Any asteroid as large as a half-mile across would cause a global
catastrophe, if it struck the blue planet, Chodas said.
The most dangerous asteroids contain a lot of stone or iron, according
to NASA. 1998 QE2 contains a good bit of carbon and well as amino
acids, the building blocks of protein.
The NEOP has identified 95% of asteroids of this most dangerous order,
Chodas said. Luckily, there is no known possibility of one slamming
into the planet.
But NASA has not yet done much work on the meteors one class lower,
known as the "potential city killers." They start at a size of 150
yards in diameter. NASA astronomers have identified only 10% of the
10,000 they believe pass close to Earth.
NASA this year told a congressional panel in Washington, which was
considering future defense systems to prevent a potential asteroid
strike, that there is only a chance of one in 20,000 that a truly
dangerous one could hit Earth in a year's time.
Having a look
Astronomers will continue making images of 1998 QE2 through June 9
with two radar antennas -- the one in California and a second one in
Puerto Rico.
Amateur astronomers with telescopes as small as 10 inches long may
just barely be able to eyeball it in the southern skies. But the
devices should be computer controlled because locating it otherwise
will be difficult, NASA advises. The coordinates to locate the
asteroid are on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory website.
NASA takes threats from asteroids seriously, and will keep calculating
the orbits of the large ones they identify long to check their flight
paths for any potential danger to Earth.
1998 QE2 will curve back out toward the solar system's outer asteroid
belt, which is just short of Jupiter.
It gets its next shot at hitting Earth in 200 years, and will likely miss again.
Friday, 31 May 2013
NO GAME FOR GOOD MEN
The IPL is a denial of the rights of equal citizenship
I detest wearing a tie, and do so only when forced. One such oc casion was a formal dinner at All Souls College, Oxford, where opposite me was an Is raeli scholar who had just got a job at the University, and was extremely anxious to show how well he knew its ways and mores. He dropped some names, and spoke of his familiarity with the manuscripts collection at 'Bodley' (the Bodleian Library). In be tween his boasts he kept scrutinizing my tie. Then, when he could contain his curiosity no more, he walked across the table, took my tie in his hand, looked at it ever more closely, and asked: "Is this Magdalene?"
I did not answer. How could I? For the tie signalled not membership of a great old Oxford College, but of a rather more obscure institution, the Friends Union Cricket Club in Bangalore. I joined the club in 1963, aged five, because my uncle, a legendary one-handed cricketer named N. Duraiswami, played for it. I would go along with him for practice, stand by the side of the net, and at the end of the day be allowed to bowl a few balls from 12 yards or thereabouts. By the time I was 10, I was helping lay the mat and nail it to the ground. When I reached my teens, I was bowling from where everyone else did.
As a boy and young man, I was an episodic member of the FUCC. In those years, I was based in North India, and came south for my summer and winter holidays. In 1994, I moved to Bangalore for good. In the past two decades, I have watched the FUCC win the First Division Championship three times, and seen a series of young players graduate from club cricket to represent the state in the Ranji Trophy. My club has produced two India internationals and at least 15 Karnataka players, all of whom I have known personally and/or watched play.
Largely because of N. Duraiswami — who has been captain or manager for 40 years now — the FUCC enjoys a reputation that is high both in cricketing and ethical terms. No cricketer of the club has ever tried to use influence to gain state selection. Where other clubs sometimes adjust games to make sure they do not get relegated, the FUCC does not resort to this. The FUCC cricketers do not come late for practice, and never abuse the umpire. And they play some terrific cricket too.
The FUCC was one of a dozen clubs that provided the spine of Karnataka cricket. The others included Jawahar's, Crescents, Bangalore United Cricket Club, Swastic, Bangalore Cricketers and City Cricketers. The men who ran those clubs were likewise personally honest as well as fantastically knowledgeable about the game. The cricketers they produced won Karnataka six Ranji Trophy titles, and won India many Tests and one-day internationals too.
This year, I mark the 50th anniversary of my membership of the FUCC. In this time, the FUCC has commanded my primary cricketing loyalty; followed by my state, Karnataka, and only then by India. Six years ago, however, a new club and a new format entered my city and my life. I was faced with a complicated decision — should I now add a fresh allegiance, to the Royal Challengers Bangalore?
I decided I would not, mostly because I disliked the promoter. In cricketing terms, Vijay Mallya was the Other of N. Duraiswami of the FUCC. He had never played cricket, nor watched much cricket. He had no knowledge of its techniques or its history. He had come into the sport on a massive ego trip, to partake of the glamour and celebrity he saw associated with it. He would buy his way into Indian cricket. And so he did.
It was principally because Mallya was so lacking in the dedicated selflessness of the cricketing coaches and managers I knew, that I decided the RCB would not be my team. So, although I am a member of the Karnataka State Cricket Association and have free entry into its grounds, I continued to reserve that privilege for Ranji Trophy and Test matches alone.
The KSCA stadium is named after its former president, M. Chinnaswamy, who was one of N. Duraiswami's heroes. When I was growing up, Durai would tell me of how Chinnaswamy supervised the building of the stadium, brick by brick. This great lover of cricket abandoned his lucrative law practice for months on end, monitoring the design, the procurement of materials, and the construction, with no cost overruns and absolutely no commissions either. In other ways too, Chinnaswamy was exemplary. Never, in all the years he served the KSCA, did he try to manipulate a single selection. Later, when he became president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, he met the challenge of Kerry Packer by increasing the fees per Test match tenfold. It was while he ran Indian cricket that our players were for the first time treated with dignity and paid a decent wage.
I wonder what M. Chinnaswamy would have made of his grasping, greedy successors as presidents of the BCCI. I wonder, too, what he would have made of a man who can't pay his own employees having a free run of the stadium that Chinnaswamy so lovingly built. This past April, the Bangalore edition of The Hindu carried a front-page story on an summons that the Special Court for Economic Offences had issued to Mallya, who owed the income tax department some 75 crores, which he had not paid despite repeated reminders. The police, waiving the rules for the powerful, as they often do, told the court that they were too busy to execute the summons.
But let me not single out Mallya here. The truth is that almost all the owners (seven out of nine, by one estimate) of the Indian Premier League teams are being investigated by one government agency or another, in one country or another, for economic offences of one kind or another. Since this is a shady operation run by shady characters, Indian companies known for their professionalism, entrepreneurial innovation and technical excellence have stayed away from the IPL altogether. Here is a question for those who still think the tournament is worth defending — why is it that companies like the Tatas, the Mahindras or Infosys have not promoted an IPL team?
To this writer, that the IPL was corrupt from top to bottom (and side to side) was clear from the start —which is why I have never exercised my right of free entry into its matches in Bangalore. But as I watched the tournament unfold, I saw also that it was deeply divisive in a sociological sense. It was a tamasha for the rich and upwardly mobile living in the cities of southern and western India. Rural and small town India were largely left out, as were the most populous states of the Union. That Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, both of which have excellent Ranji Trophy records, had no IPL team between them, while Maharashtra had two, was symptomatic of the tournament's identification with the powerful and the moneyed. The entire structure of the IPL was a denial of the rights of equal citizenship that a truly 'national' game should promote.
The IPL is representative of the worst sides of Indian capitalism and Indian society. Corrupt and cronyist, it has also promoted chamchagiri and compliance. The behaviour of Lalit Modi and N. Srinivasan cannot shock or surprise me, but I have been distressed at the way in which some respected cricket commentators have become apologists for the IPL and its management. Theirs is a betrayal that has wounded the image of cricket in India, and beyond. George Orwell once said: 'A writer should never be a loyal member of a political party'. Likewise, for his credibility and even his sanity, a cricket writer/commentator should keep a safe distance from those who run the game in his country.
What is to be done now? The vested interests are asking for such token measures as the legalization of betting and the resignation of the odd official. In truth, far more radical steps are called for. The IPL should be disbanded. The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, played between state sides, should be upgraded, making it the flagship 20-20 tournament in the country. Then the clubs and state associations that have run our domestic game reasonably well for the past 80 years would be given back their authority, and the crooks and the moneybags turfed out altogether. Even now, in every city and town in India, there are selfless cricket coaches and administrators actively nurturing young talent, supervising matches and leagues. The way to save Indian cricket is to allow these modern-day equivalents of N. Duraiswami and M. Chinnaswamy to take charge once more.
rcguha telegraph
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Containers have been more important for globalisation than freer trade
THE humble shipping container is a powerful antidote to economic
pessimism and fears of slowing innovation. Although only a
simple metal box, it has transformed global trade. In fact, new
research suggests that the container has been more of a driver of
globalisation than all trade agreements in the past 50 years taken together.
Containerisation is a testament to the power of process innovation. In
the 1950s the world's ports still did business much as they
had for centuries. When ships moored, hordes of longshoremen unloaded
"break bulk" cargo crammed into the hold. They then
squeezed outbound cargo in as efficiently as possible in a game of
maritime Tetris. The process was expensive and slow; most
ships spent much more time tied up than plying the seas. And theft was
rampant: a dock worker was said to earn "$20 a day and
all the Scotch you could carry home."
Containerisation changed everything. It was the brainchild of Malcom McLean, an
American trucking magnate. He reckoned that big savings could be had by packing
goods in uniform containers that could easily be moved between lorry and ship.
When he tallied the costs from the inaugural journey of his first
prototype container
ship in 1956, he found that they came in at just $0.16 per tonne to
load—compared
with $5.83 per tonne for loose cargo on a standard ship.
Containerisation quickly
conquered the world: between 1966 and 1983 the share of countries with container
ports rose from about 1% to nearly 90%, coinciding with a take-off in
global trade.
The container's transformative power seems obvious, but it is
"impossible to quantify", in the words of Marc Levinson, author of a
history of "the box" (and a former journalist at The Economist).
Indeed, containerisation could merely have been a response to
tumbling tariffs. It coincided with radical reductions in global trade
barriers, the result of European integration and the work of
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor of
the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Yet a new paper aims to separate one effect from the other. Zouheir
El-Sahli, of Lund University, and Daniel Bernhofen and
Richard Kneller, of the University of Nottingham, looked at 157
countries from 1962 to 1990. They created a set of variables
which "switch on" when a country or pair of trading partners starts
using containers via ship or rail (landlocked economies, such
as Austria, often joined the container age by moving containers via
rail to ports in neighbouring countries, such as Hamburg in
Germany). The researchers then estimated the effect of these variables on trade.
The results are striking. In a set of 22 industrialised countries
containerisation explains a 320% rise in bilateral trade over the
first
five years after adoption and 790% over 20 years. By comparison, a
bilateral free-trade agreement raises trade by 45% over 20
years and GATT membership adds 285%.
To tackle the sticky question of what is causing what, the authors
check whether their variables can predict trade flows in years
before container shipping is actually adopted. (If the fact that a
country eventually adopts containers predicts growth in its trade
in years before that adoption actually occurred, that would be
evidence that the "container" jump in trade was actually down to
some other pre-existing trend.) But they do not, the authors say,
providing strong evidence that containerisation caused the
estimated surge in trade.
What explains the outsize effect of containers? Reduced costs alone
cannot. Though containers brought some early savings,
shipping rates did not drop very much after their introduction. In a
2007 paper David Hummels, an economist at Purdue
University, found that ocean-shipping charges varied little from 1952
to 1970—and then rose with the cost of oil.
Put them in a container
More important than costs are knock-on effects on efficiency. In 1965
dock labour could move only 1.7 tonnes per hour onto a
cargo ship; five years later a container crew could load 30 tonnes per
hour (see table). This allowed freight lines to use bigger ships and
still slash the time spent in port. The journey time from door to door
fell by half and became more consistent. The container
also upended a rigid labour force. Falling labour demand reduced
dockworkers' bargaining power and cut the number of strikes.
And because containers could be packed and sealed at the factory,
losses to theft (and insurance rates) plummeted.
Over time all this reshaped global trade. Ports became bigger and
their number smaller. More types of goods could be traded
economically. Speed and reliability of shipping enabled just-in-time
production, which in turn allowed firms to grow leaner and
more responsive to markets as even distant suppliers could now provide
wares quickly and on schedule. International supply
chains also grew more intricate and inclusive. This helped accelerate
industrialisation in emerging economies such as China,
according to Richard Baldwin, an economist at the Graduate Institute
of Geneva. Trade links enabled developing economies
simply to join existing supply chains rather than build an entire
industry from the ground up. But for those connections, the
Chinese miracle might have been much less miraculous.
Not only has the container been more important than past trade
negotiations—its lessons ought also to focus minds at future
talks. When governments meet at the WTO's December conference in Bali
they should make a special effort in what is called
"trade facilitation"—efforts to boost efficiency at customs through
regulatory harmonisation and better infrastructure. By some
estimates, a 50% improvement in these areas could mean benefits as big
as the elimination of all remaining tariffs. This would not
be a glamorous outcome, but the big ones seldom are.
theeconomist
pessimism and fears of slowing innovation. Although only a
simple metal box, it has transformed global trade. In fact, new
research suggests that the container has been more of a driver of
globalisation than all trade agreements in the past 50 years taken together.
Containerisation is a testament to the power of process innovation. In
the 1950s the world's ports still did business much as they
had for centuries. When ships moored, hordes of longshoremen unloaded
"break bulk" cargo crammed into the hold. They then
squeezed outbound cargo in as efficiently as possible in a game of
maritime Tetris. The process was expensive and slow; most
ships spent much more time tied up than plying the seas. And theft was
rampant: a dock worker was said to earn "$20 a day and
all the Scotch you could carry home."
Containerisation changed everything. It was the brainchild of Malcom McLean, an
American trucking magnate. He reckoned that big savings could be had by packing
goods in uniform containers that could easily be moved between lorry and ship.
When he tallied the costs from the inaugural journey of his first
prototype container
ship in 1956, he found that they came in at just $0.16 per tonne to
load—compared
with $5.83 per tonne for loose cargo on a standard ship.
Containerisation quickly
conquered the world: between 1966 and 1983 the share of countries with container
ports rose from about 1% to nearly 90%, coinciding with a take-off in
global trade.
The container's transformative power seems obvious, but it is
"impossible to quantify", in the words of Marc Levinson, author of a
history of "the box" (and a former journalist at The Economist).
Indeed, containerisation could merely have been a response to
tumbling tariffs. It coincided with radical reductions in global trade
barriers, the result of European integration and the work of
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor of
the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Yet a new paper aims to separate one effect from the other. Zouheir
El-Sahli, of Lund University, and Daniel Bernhofen and
Richard Kneller, of the University of Nottingham, looked at 157
countries from 1962 to 1990. They created a set of variables
which "switch on" when a country or pair of trading partners starts
using containers via ship or rail (landlocked economies, such
as Austria, often joined the container age by moving containers via
rail to ports in neighbouring countries, such as Hamburg in
Germany). The researchers then estimated the effect of these variables on trade.
The results are striking. In a set of 22 industrialised countries
containerisation explains a 320% rise in bilateral trade over the
first
five years after adoption and 790% over 20 years. By comparison, a
bilateral free-trade agreement raises trade by 45% over 20
years and GATT membership adds 285%.
To tackle the sticky question of what is causing what, the authors
check whether their variables can predict trade flows in years
before container shipping is actually adopted. (If the fact that a
country eventually adopts containers predicts growth in its trade
in years before that adoption actually occurred, that would be
evidence that the "container" jump in trade was actually down to
some other pre-existing trend.) But they do not, the authors say,
providing strong evidence that containerisation caused the
estimated surge in trade.
What explains the outsize effect of containers? Reduced costs alone
cannot. Though containers brought some early savings,
shipping rates did not drop very much after their introduction. In a
2007 paper David Hummels, an economist at Purdue
University, found that ocean-shipping charges varied little from 1952
to 1970—and then rose with the cost of oil.
Put them in a container
More important than costs are knock-on effects on efficiency. In 1965
dock labour could move only 1.7 tonnes per hour onto a
cargo ship; five years later a container crew could load 30 tonnes per
hour (see table). This allowed freight lines to use bigger ships and
still slash the time spent in port. The journey time from door to door
fell by half and became more consistent. The container
also upended a rigid labour force. Falling labour demand reduced
dockworkers' bargaining power and cut the number of strikes.
And because containers could be packed and sealed at the factory,
losses to theft (and insurance rates) plummeted.
Over time all this reshaped global trade. Ports became bigger and
their number smaller. More types of goods could be traded
economically. Speed and reliability of shipping enabled just-in-time
production, which in turn allowed firms to grow leaner and
more responsive to markets as even distant suppliers could now provide
wares quickly and on schedule. International supply
chains also grew more intricate and inclusive. This helped accelerate
industrialisation in emerging economies such as China,
according to Richard Baldwin, an economist at the Graduate Institute
of Geneva. Trade links enabled developing economies
simply to join existing supply chains rather than build an entire
industry from the ground up. But for those connections, the
Chinese miracle might have been much less miraculous.
Not only has the container been more important than past trade
negotiations—its lessons ought also to focus minds at future
talks. When governments meet at the WTO's December conference in Bali
they should make a special effort in what is called
"trade facilitation"—efforts to boost efficiency at customs through
regulatory harmonisation and better infrastructure. By some
estimates, a 50% improvement in these areas could mean benefits as big
as the elimination of all remaining tariffs. This would not
be a glamorous outcome, but the big ones seldom are.
theeconomist
Tuesday, 14 May 2013
Are we prisoners of our tedious working habits?
Work lends purpose to life, and contributes to an economic machine that we benefit from-but only up to a point, says Mitali Saran.
What we think of as "normal" is constantly evolving. Somewhere along the line, it became normal for people to prioritise work at the expense of everything else.
It became normal to suffer a chronic shortage of sleep because of long work hours and conference calls scheduled in other time zones.
What we think of as "normal" is constantly evolving. Somewhere along the line, it became normal for people to prioritise work at the expense of everything else.
It became normal to suffer a chronic shortage of sleep because of long work hours and conference calls scheduled in other time zones.
Are we prisoners of our tedious working habits?
Last updated on: May 14, 2013 12:17 IST
At some point, people accepted that it is normal to sit in an office chair for eight hours a day.
We decided that careers are more important than relationships. We don't think there's anything odd about paying with our health for money, and then using the money to tend to our health.
We decided that careers are more important than relationships. We don't think there's anything odd about paying with our health for money, and then using the money to tend to our health.
Click NEXT to read more...
"It's work," is a non-negotiable reason to spend dinner texting under the table, skip family events, and, most of all, to avoid the difficult work of asking uncomfortable questions in the general vicinity of "Who am I, what am I doing here, and what does it all mean?".
Work lends purpose to life, and contributes to an economic machine that we benefit from-but only up to a point.
At the end of the day here we are, marking time until we turn to dust.
At the end of the day here we are, marking time until we turn to dust.
What the hell to do with all the long hours that are in fact so short? Evolving a system of goal posts and rewards helps to enthuse people to do things.
Except that somewhere along the way, we've lost sight of the point. The point is to make life more, not less, enjoyable.
Except that somewhere along the way, we've lost sight of the point. The point is to make life more, not less, enjoyable.
Those of us who don't ask questions will join the rat race and stay there.
The rest of us will be known as "losers", and spend our lives being made to feel bad for not matching the parameters defined as "success".
If we continue not to feel bad about it, we will simply be ignored.
The rest of us will be known as "losers", and spend our lives being made to feel bad for not matching the parameters defined as "success".
If we continue not to feel bad about it, we will simply be ignored.
Someone I know joined a company known for creativity, innovation and fantastic products.
It was a plum job with immense prestige and great pay.
Three years later he put in his papers; he never got more than four hours of sleep, spent vast amounts of time on airplanes, and had a boss from hell.
He absolutely hated his plum job.
It was a plum job with immense prestige and great pay.
Three years later he put in his papers; he never got more than four hours of sleep, spent vast amounts of time on airplanes, and had a boss from hell.
He absolutely hated his plum job.
I have another friend who seems to have found a nice balance between a satisfying work life and a creative, social, love-filled personal life.
He fits in overseeing nine offices of a company he founded, spread over several countries, with being a fantastic father to his children, a wonderful husband to his wife, and a rock solid friend to his friends.
He fits in overseeing nine offices of a company he founded, spread over several countries, with being a fantastic father to his children, a wonderful husband to his wife, and a rock solid friend to his friends.
He finds pleasure in both work and his personal life, and has the energy and the preternatural cheeriness to handle the stresses and pitfalls. He's happy.
But this man is unusual. Most of us have limited energy, limited emotional bandwidth, and limited capacity for doing something difficult over a long period of time.
But this man is unusual. Most of us have limited energy, limited emotional bandwidth, and limited capacity for doing something difficult over a long period of time.
The majority of average people push themselves beyond what is reasonable for them, in an attempt to emulate the outliers.
For women, this means the extra demands of bearing children and, despite a few exceptions where men pitch in, also raising them.
In most countries women also expect themselves to have spotless houses, abundant tables, and maintain ties with extended families.
In most countries women also expect themselves to have spotless houses, abundant tables, and maintain ties with extended families.
This doesn't sound like accomplishment or achievement to me - it sounds like a nightmare, or a form of oppression.
It sounds like the surrender of calm and contentment, the surrender of a form of time that is vastly underrated: free time.
It sounds like the surrender of calm and contentment, the surrender of a form of time that is vastly underrated: free time.
This doesn't apply to people who find hyperactivity to be genuinely pleasurable.
I'm talking about those who experience their full and busy lives as a constant pressure to perform in ways that may not have anything to do with what they would have enjoyed doing.
I'm talking about those who experience their full and busy lives as a constant pressure to perform in ways that may not have anything to do with what they would have enjoyed doing.
Those who find that their bodies are breaking down under the stress of sedentary or overactive lives, but cannot give up the carrots of social approval for the benefit of good health.
Those who can't remember what sex or love is like. Those who wake up at the end of their lives thinking: I would have liked to do something else.
Technology has physically liberated us from the office but at the same time put us on a longer, more insistent leash of ringtones and beeps.
A palliative nurse named Bronnie Ware wrote a book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, based on her conversations with people at the end of their lives.
The two most common regrets were: 1) I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me; and 2) I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
The two most common regrets were: 1) I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me; and 2) I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
Almost everyone has to work. Everyone has to die. Ask the questions, answer them honestly, and make your choices. Maybe, at some point, happiness will be normal.
Stress-related illnesses, such as heart diseases, diabetes and accelerated ageing, are now some of the biggest health issues in workplaces.
People are facing increasing stress not only in office, but also while commuting.
Passengers wait at a check-in counter at Vienna airport in Austria.
A traveller checks in at a Lufthansa automated machine at Frankfurt's Airport in Germany.
Commuters struggle through heavy rain and strong winds across London Bridge to the city of London in United Kingdom.
Passengers walk at the Fiumicino International airport in Rome, Italy.
Brokers react while trading at a stock brokerage firm in Mumbai.
Commuters stand on a Metro Rail bus in North Hollywood, California, United States.
Hundreds of commuters climb the stairs of a train station in Manila, the Philippines.
Commuters crowd into the Metro at Chatelet station in Paris, France.
Commuters leave the city financial district as they cross London Bridge in central London.
Students take a university entrance examination at a lecture hall in the Andalusian capital of Seville, southern Spain.
Monday, 13 May 2013
How Much Is That Jobless Dane in the Window?
COPENHAGEN—Steen Mengel was walking down a busy street a few weeks ago
when he stumbled onto a sign reading "an available academic is sitting
here." An arrow pointed to people sitting in the window of a
storefront.
The 47-year-old real-estate developer didn't have a job to offer
anybody, but he was intrigued. "The idea, though, I like," he said, as
he stood a few feet from the big picture windows framing the scene.
"It catches people's attention."
Catching people's attention is exactly what more than a dozen job
hopefuls in Denmark's capital are looking to do, even though they seem
to be ripping a page from Amsterdam's famous red-light district to
achieve their goal. After pounding the pavement for two years in some
cases, highly trained professionals—ranging from lawyers to former
CEOs to tax experts—are standing in line to get a seat in the
"exhibit."
"I'm willing to try anything," said Hannibal Camel Holt, an unemployed
political scientist, as he took his place in the window one afternoon.
Armed with a laptop computer and wearing a dark blue button-down
shirt, Mr. Holt has been "kicking doors in and chasing leads," as he
puts it, on and off for four years, striking out despite
qualifications that include speaking six languages. For him,
sitting-in represented a necessary, albeit awkward step.
"I feel like a monkey…in a cage as people walk by and just stare at
me," the former tax ministry employee said as he sat behind a desk and
occasionally glanced at passersby. After he had recently missed out on
a job that had attracted 265 applicants, he realized that "there comes
a point when your CV is, like, dead." A résumé, in other words,
doesn't necessarily do the trick.
Before resorting to sitting in the window, Mr. Holt had worked with
the program's organizers to compose a video and create a Facebook
profile that pedestrians could access by using a smartphone to zap a
Quick Response bar code displayed on a banner next to the job seeker.
Mr. Holt was slated for several shifts in coming weeks sitting in the
window, joining 14 others planning to do the same between late April
and early May. To pass the time, he planned to hunt for jobs online,
update his curriculum vitae and freshen up his social profile.
Denmark has been insulated from Europe's deepest economic problems
because of its low public debt, but municipal finances are tight and
wages have been under extreme pressure in recent years amid concerns
about exports and low productivity. Unemployment remains relatively
low, but for higher-rank employees it is a tough slog.
DJOEF, the professional trade union behind the windows gambit,
estimates that 41% of Danes with new master's degrees are still
searching for work one year after graduating. The organization thinks
the root of the problem lies in a surplus of white-collar talent and a
reluctance among small companies to hire in-house lawyers and other
professionals. So the union is encouraging job seekers to take the
initiative more aggressively.
Alexander Peitersen, managing director of Reputation, was one of the
architects of the program and offered his agency's windows as the
display case for the unemployed. He has used the windows for a variety
of campaigns—including a 12-hour karaoke competition two years ago
staged to launch a new Microsoft Corp. Xbox product. He figured the
venue would work well for a job hunter's "exhibition" since there are
many business professionals nearby.
"Companies can get 50 applications every week and all of them start to
look the same," Mr. Peitersen said, while sitting in an office not far
from the job seekers sitting in windows.
Mr. Peitersen, running an office with 36 creative staffers, said he
has learned to appreciate go-getters, especially in a place like
Denmark, where a social safety net and generous unemployment benefits
shield many young people from the harsh realities of business.
"I was sitting at my desk one day and my phone rang," Mr. Peitersen
recalls. "Some guy on the other line said, 'Hey, I'm at the Barresso
[coffee bar] and I'm ordering coffee now, what's your favorite?' " Mr.
Peitersen took the bait, ordering a double latte and eventually taking
on the caller as an unpaid intern.
The windows stunt appears to be working. Organizers have extended a
two-week run to accommodate demand from job seekers.
Lene Damgaard Jorgensen and Christel Werenskiold were the first two
people to take seats in the program on April 25. As she prepared to
take part, Ms. Jorgensen, a former economist seeking work in "change
management," fielded questions about the obvious connection to
Amsterdam's red-light district, where prostitutes sit in windows and
are ogled by passersby.
"They asked me 'what are you going to wear?' " Ms. Jorgensen said, who
was wearing a floral skirt, a black shirt and a jean jacket with a
pink scarf wrapped around her neck. "I honestly didn't think anything
of it."
She got a job in a week.
Ms. Werenskiold, a former CEO in a school district who has a master's
degree in public administration, was laid off in 2011 after spending
two decades in the workforce without ever having a problem finding
work. But out of a job in a tough economy, she got on a plane to
Honduras for 10 months on a religious mission. "I came back to a
crisis and it seems to have gotten a lot worse," she said.
With hard times in mind, she put a dancing shoe in the window along
with a CD of gospel music for good luck and to tell onlookers
something about herself.
Within one week, she had been approached by seven headhunters and her
LinkedIn profile had attracted 539 hits, quadrupling the traffic she
experienced the week before the campaign. Her Facebook page was
littered with comments like "well done," "good luck," "great
initiative" and "I wish my union had the same kind of creativity."
Ms. Werenskiold quickly landed a job as an organizational-development
consultant.
wsj
when he stumbled onto a sign reading "an available academic is sitting
here." An arrow pointed to people sitting in the window of a
storefront.
The 47-year-old real-estate developer didn't have a job to offer
anybody, but he was intrigued. "The idea, though, I like," he said, as
he stood a few feet from the big picture windows framing the scene.
"It catches people's attention."
Catching people's attention is exactly what more than a dozen job
hopefuls in Denmark's capital are looking to do, even though they seem
to be ripping a page from Amsterdam's famous red-light district to
achieve their goal. After pounding the pavement for two years in some
cases, highly trained professionals—ranging from lawyers to former
CEOs to tax experts—are standing in line to get a seat in the
"exhibit."
"I'm willing to try anything," said Hannibal Camel Holt, an unemployed
political scientist, as he took his place in the window one afternoon.
Armed with a laptop computer and wearing a dark blue button-down
shirt, Mr. Holt has been "kicking doors in and chasing leads," as he
puts it, on and off for four years, striking out despite
qualifications that include speaking six languages. For him,
sitting-in represented a necessary, albeit awkward step.
"I feel like a monkey…in a cage as people walk by and just stare at
me," the former tax ministry employee said as he sat behind a desk and
occasionally glanced at passersby. After he had recently missed out on
a job that had attracted 265 applicants, he realized that "there comes
a point when your CV is, like, dead." A résumé, in other words,
doesn't necessarily do the trick.
Before resorting to sitting in the window, Mr. Holt had worked with
the program's organizers to compose a video and create a Facebook
profile that pedestrians could access by using a smartphone to zap a
Quick Response bar code displayed on a banner next to the job seeker.
Mr. Holt was slated for several shifts in coming weeks sitting in the
window, joining 14 others planning to do the same between late April
and early May. To pass the time, he planned to hunt for jobs online,
update his curriculum vitae and freshen up his social profile.
Denmark has been insulated from Europe's deepest economic problems
because of its low public debt, but municipal finances are tight and
wages have been under extreme pressure in recent years amid concerns
about exports and low productivity. Unemployment remains relatively
low, but for higher-rank employees it is a tough slog.
DJOEF, the professional trade union behind the windows gambit,
estimates that 41% of Danes with new master's degrees are still
searching for work one year after graduating. The organization thinks
the root of the problem lies in a surplus of white-collar talent and a
reluctance among small companies to hire in-house lawyers and other
professionals. So the union is encouraging job seekers to take the
initiative more aggressively.
Alexander Peitersen, managing director of Reputation, was one of the
architects of the program and offered his agency's windows as the
display case for the unemployed. He has used the windows for a variety
of campaigns—including a 12-hour karaoke competition two years ago
staged to launch a new Microsoft Corp. Xbox product. He figured the
venue would work well for a job hunter's "exhibition" since there are
many business professionals nearby.
"Companies can get 50 applications every week and all of them start to
look the same," Mr. Peitersen said, while sitting in an office not far
from the job seekers sitting in windows.
Mr. Peitersen, running an office with 36 creative staffers, said he
has learned to appreciate go-getters, especially in a place like
Denmark, where a social safety net and generous unemployment benefits
shield many young people from the harsh realities of business.
"I was sitting at my desk one day and my phone rang," Mr. Peitersen
recalls. "Some guy on the other line said, 'Hey, I'm at the Barresso
[coffee bar] and I'm ordering coffee now, what's your favorite?' " Mr.
Peitersen took the bait, ordering a double latte and eventually taking
on the caller as an unpaid intern.
The windows stunt appears to be working. Organizers have extended a
two-week run to accommodate demand from job seekers.
Lene Damgaard Jorgensen and Christel Werenskiold were the first two
people to take seats in the program on April 25. As she prepared to
take part, Ms. Jorgensen, a former economist seeking work in "change
management," fielded questions about the obvious connection to
Amsterdam's red-light district, where prostitutes sit in windows and
are ogled by passersby.
"They asked me 'what are you going to wear?' " Ms. Jorgensen said, who
was wearing a floral skirt, a black shirt and a jean jacket with a
pink scarf wrapped around her neck. "I honestly didn't think anything
of it."
She got a job in a week.
Ms. Werenskiold, a former CEO in a school district who has a master's
degree in public administration, was laid off in 2011 after spending
two decades in the workforce without ever having a problem finding
work. But out of a job in a tough economy, she got on a plane to
Honduras for 10 months on a religious mission. "I came back to a
crisis and it seems to have gotten a lot worse," she said.
With hard times in mind, she put a dancing shoe in the window along
with a CD of gospel music for good luck and to tell onlookers
something about herself.
Within one week, she had been approached by seven headhunters and her
LinkedIn profile had attracted 539 hits, quadrupling the traffic she
experienced the week before the campaign. Her Facebook page was
littered with comments like "well done," "good luck," "great
initiative" and "I wish my union had the same kind of creativity."
Ms. Werenskiold quickly landed a job as an organizational-development
consultant.
wsj
Sunday, 12 May 2013
Facebook won't let you forget your ex, can make 'moving on' difficult
New York: Even though photos of your ex on Facebook can be deleted
with just a click, the proliferation of social networking sites has
made forgetting after a break-up a bigger chore, a new study has
found.
"People are keeping huge collections of digital possessions," said
Steve Whittaker, a psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz who
specialises in human-computer interaction.
"There has been little exploration of the negative role of digital
possessions when people want to forget aspects of their lives," said
Whittaker.
Whittaker and co-author Corina Sas, of Lancaster University, examined
the challenges of digital possessions and their disposal after a
romantic breakup.
Digital possessions, include photos, messages, music, and video stored
across multiple devices such as computers, tablets, phones, and
cameras, researchers said.
Their pervasiveness "creates problems during a breakup, as people
'inhabit' their digital space where photos and music constantly remind
them about their prior relationship."
In interviews with 24 young people between the ages of 19 and 34,
Whittaker and Sas found that digital possessions after a breakup are
often evocative and upsetting, leading to distinct disposal
strategies.
Twelve of the subjects were deleters, eight were keepers, and four
others were selective disposers.
Some of the heartbroken may want to forget but are "extremely
resistant to actual deletion," Whittaker and Sas found, most often the
"dumpees." Others later regret disposing of everything.
Disposal is made more difficult today because "digital possessions are
in vast collections spread across multiple devices, applications,
web-services, and platforms," they said.
"When the relationship is good, this promotes a rich digital life. But
when it sours... people have to systematically cull collections across
multiple digital spaces," researchers said.
Facebook photos can be untagged but not deleted if posted by someone
else. "It's time consuming and emotionally taxing because people tend
to re-engage with possessions, especially photos," they note.
Some of the initial tactics encountered were: changing one's
relationship status to "single," immediately unfriending or blocking
ex-partner's access to ones' profile.
The study appears in the conference proceedings.
ibnlive
with just a click, the proliferation of social networking sites has
made forgetting after a break-up a bigger chore, a new study has
found.
"People are keeping huge collections of digital possessions," said
Steve Whittaker, a psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz who
specialises in human-computer interaction.
"There has been little exploration of the negative role of digital
possessions when people want to forget aspects of their lives," said
Whittaker.
Whittaker and co-author Corina Sas, of Lancaster University, examined
the challenges of digital possessions and their disposal after a
romantic breakup.
Digital possessions, include photos, messages, music, and video stored
across multiple devices such as computers, tablets, phones, and
cameras, researchers said.
Their pervasiveness "creates problems during a breakup, as people
'inhabit' their digital space where photos and music constantly remind
them about their prior relationship."
In interviews with 24 young people between the ages of 19 and 34,
Whittaker and Sas found that digital possessions after a breakup are
often evocative and upsetting, leading to distinct disposal
strategies.
Twelve of the subjects were deleters, eight were keepers, and four
others were selective disposers.
Some of the heartbroken may want to forget but are "extremely
resistant to actual deletion," Whittaker and Sas found, most often the
"dumpees." Others later regret disposing of everything.
Disposal is made more difficult today because "digital possessions are
in vast collections spread across multiple devices, applications,
web-services, and platforms," they said.
"When the relationship is good, this promotes a rich digital life. But
when it sours... people have to systematically cull collections across
multiple digital spaces," researchers said.
Facebook photos can be untagged but not deleted if posted by someone
else. "It's time consuming and emotionally taxing because people tend
to re-engage with possessions, especially photos," they note.
Some of the initial tactics encountered were: changing one's
relationship status to "single," immediately unfriending or blocking
ex-partner's access to ones' profile.
The study appears in the conference proceedings.
ibnlive
The Posture Guru of Silicon Valley
MATT DRUDGE recently noted an anniversary of his aggregator news site
with a Twitter post: "18 years of DRUDGE REPORT in February! And STILL
sitting ;)."
Mr. Drudge, 46, hasn't just been sitting for two decades. Like so many
workers chained to their technology, he has been hunched over
desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets, and it's all taken a toll
on his body. He tries to limit the time he spends sitting to four or
five hours a day, but sometimes he sits for up to 17 hours.
To ease his back, neck and shoulder pain, Mr. Drudge says he has
learned how to adjust his posture. Whether he's typing in the car,
from the wooden folding chair in his Miami home office, or from a
boardwalk bench at the beach on cloudy days, he makes sure to tilt the
top of his pelvis forward, roll his shoulders back, elongate his spine
and straighten his craned neck.
Mr. Drudge is one of thousands of people who have trained with Esther
Gokhale, a posture guru in Silicon Valley. She believes that people
suffer from pain and dysfunction because they have forgotten how to
use their bodies. It's not the act of sitting for long periods that
causes us pain, she says, it's the way we position ourselves.
Ms. Gokhale (pronounced go-CLAY) is not helping aching office workers
with high-tech gadgets and medical therapies. Rather, she says she is
reintroducing her clients to what she calls "primal posture" — a way
of holding themselves that is shared by older babies and toddlers, and
that she says was common among our ancestors before slouching became a
way of life. It is also a posture that Ms. Gokhale observed during
research she conducted in a dozen other countries, as well as in
India, where she was raised.
For a method based not on technology but primarily on observations of
people, it has been embraced by an unlikely crowd: executives, board
members and staff members at some of Silicon Valley's biggest
companies, including Google and Oracle; and heavy users of technology
like Mr. Drudge.
"I need to do things that make sense and that I can see results from.
Esther's work is like that," said Susan Wojcicki, 44, one of Google's
senior vice presidents, who has suffered from back and neck pain that
she attributes to doing too much work at her desk.
Ms. Gokhale is not the first to suggest that changing posture is the
key to a healthy spine. Practitioners of the Alexander Technique and
the creators of the Aplomb Institute in Paris similarly help clients
find more natural and comfortable ways to position themselves. Pilates
and physical therapy can improve posture and bring awareness to it. A
handful of companies, like Lumo BodyTech, now sell personal posture
monitors, offering smartphone users constant feedback about the way
they hold their bodies.
Ms. Gokhale's methods have not been tested scientifically, though a
doctor at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation is planning on conducting
clinical trials by the end of the year.
But Ms. Gokhale, who was trained as a biochemist at Princeton
University and studied at Stanford's medical school, has some
influence among medical professionals, particularly in Silicon Valley.
Over 100 have referred patients to her, and a similar number have
taken her course, she says.
FOR many office workers in the United States, sitting at a desk all
day goes hand in hand with back, neck and shoulder discomfort. Stress
and poor positioning can bring on aches or exacerbate injuries among
workers faced with heavy computing, constant travel and long meetings.
Regardless of occupation or lifestyle, backaches affect most Americans
— about 8 in 10 deal with the pain at some point in their lifetimes,
according to Dr. Richard Deyo, a professor of family medicine at
Oregon Health and Science University.
The expenses are huge as well. By one estimate that appeared in The
Journal of the American Medical Association, the national cost of
treating people with back and neck pain was $86 billion in 2005. And
with back pain one of the top reasons for worker disability, missed
work because of these aches may cost employers close to $7 billion a
year, according to one study.
For the majority of people with back pain, the aches are short-lived
and relief comes with rest and time, according to Dr. Deyo. But
methods to help those with chronic pain are diverse. Using a standing
desk at work has become a popular way to ease discomfort. Exercise,
yoga, acupuncture and chiropractic have also been shown to reduce
pain. Medical treatments like surgery and steroids continue to be
important options, doctors say, even amid concerns that these have
been overused.
Dr. Haleh Agdassi, a rehabilitation doctor with the Palo Alto Medical
Foundation in California, sees back and neck pain so frequently among
heavy users of computers that she calls it the "Silicon Valley
syndrome." She encourages clients to try a mix of nonsurgical
strategies, but finds it frustrating that treatments for such a common
problem are only modestly effective.
"There's no magic bullet out there for back pain," she says. "That can
be overwhelming for patients. It's an anxious, vulnerable crowd —
they're looking for solutions."
Ms. Gokhale, 52, can relate to the anxiety of searching for an answer.
She previously dealt with pain in her lower back, first as a college
student practicing yoga, then as a young mother with sciatica. She
eventually had surgery for a herniated disk, but it failed, she said.
When doctors suggested she try a second time, Ms. Gokhale began a
search for other answers. Many of her own clients come to her
similarly exasperated, she said.
Mr. Drudge read Ms. Gokhale's book, "8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back,"
before training with her in person. "I needed her touch, her
observations and her humanity," he said.
Donna Dubinsky, co-founder and former chief executive of Palm, worked
with Ms. Gokhale two years ago after trying chiropractic, cortisone
shots and physical therapy to minimize the pain of herniated disks in
her back.
"All of these other things were about symptom relief. The question for
me became: what could I do to address the root cause?" said Ms.
Dubinsky, 57, who now stands during many meetings to practice Ms.
Gokhale's posture lessons. "Not that it's a miracle cure, but of all
the things I've tried, what Esther taught me was the most effective,"
she added.
IN Ms. Gokhale's courses, offered in her Palo Alto, Calif., studio and
in cities across the country, students relearn how to sit, stand,
sleep and walk. While some clients take private classes, many enroll
in group workshops with eight to 10 people who meet for six 90-minute
sessions. While the students are often strangers, the classes are
casual and intimate: most clients wear yoga clothes or sweat pants,
and they giggle awkwardly as Ms. Gokhale adjusts their bodies.
Ms. Gokhale says that most Americans tend to be relaxed and slumped
(think of a C-shaped spine), or arched up and tense (an S shape), the
stand-up-straight style of posture that some parents demand of their
children. She helps her students return their bodies to the stance
that she says nature intended: upright and relaxed (a tall J spine).
With the care of a kindergarten teacher, Ms. Gokhale adjusts clients'
bodies from bottom to top. She helps clients relax the front of the
pelvis downward, so the belt line slants forward and the butt angles
back, so "your behind is behind you, not under you" (a contrast to the
neutral pelvis recommended in Pilates and some physical therapy).
Ms. Gokhale guides students' rib cages that sway too far back, so they
are flush with the stomach. She takes their hunched shoulders, rolls
them up and brings them gently back and down. And she helps students
release tension in their necks by re-centering their heads over their
spines and pulling upward slightly at the hairline on the neck. The
result is an elongated and well-stacked spine that many students say
they can maintain comfortably because their muscles are not strained.
Ray Bingham, 67, the presiding director of Oracle's board, was
referred to Ms. Gokhale last fall for his lower back pain. Mr. Bingham
says he has found relief after using her methods and he diligently
practices his newfound ways of sitting, walking and standing. "This is
not an approach like physical therapy with a beginning and an end;
this is a new way of being from now on," Mr. Bingham said.
Ms. Gokhale encourages people to take the class with co-workers and
family members, so that students can help remind each other to adjust
their bodies. But even those who work alone find ways to remember
their posture.
After doing a group workshop with Ms. Gokhale this year, Mr. Drudge
says many things now remind him to make adjustments — seeing others
with poor posture at Starbucks or the gym, passing by his reflection
in a window, or sitting down in a chair to work.
"But I don't beat myself up about it. When I'm aware of my posture, I
fix it," Mr. Drudge said. "And eventually, I think, it becomes who you
are."
nytimes
with a Twitter post: "18 years of DRUDGE REPORT in February! And STILL
sitting ;)."
Mr. Drudge, 46, hasn't just been sitting for two decades. Like so many
workers chained to their technology, he has been hunched over
desktops, laptops, smartphones and tablets, and it's all taken a toll
on his body. He tries to limit the time he spends sitting to four or
five hours a day, but sometimes he sits for up to 17 hours.
To ease his back, neck and shoulder pain, Mr. Drudge says he has
learned how to adjust his posture. Whether he's typing in the car,
from the wooden folding chair in his Miami home office, or from a
boardwalk bench at the beach on cloudy days, he makes sure to tilt the
top of his pelvis forward, roll his shoulders back, elongate his spine
and straighten his craned neck.
Mr. Drudge is one of thousands of people who have trained with Esther
Gokhale, a posture guru in Silicon Valley. She believes that people
suffer from pain and dysfunction because they have forgotten how to
use their bodies. It's not the act of sitting for long periods that
causes us pain, she says, it's the way we position ourselves.
Ms. Gokhale (pronounced go-CLAY) is not helping aching office workers
with high-tech gadgets and medical therapies. Rather, she says she is
reintroducing her clients to what she calls "primal posture" — a way
of holding themselves that is shared by older babies and toddlers, and
that she says was common among our ancestors before slouching became a
way of life. It is also a posture that Ms. Gokhale observed during
research she conducted in a dozen other countries, as well as in
India, where she was raised.
For a method based not on technology but primarily on observations of
people, it has been embraced by an unlikely crowd: executives, board
members and staff members at some of Silicon Valley's biggest
companies, including Google and Oracle; and heavy users of technology
like Mr. Drudge.
"I need to do things that make sense and that I can see results from.
Esther's work is like that," said Susan Wojcicki, 44, one of Google's
senior vice presidents, who has suffered from back and neck pain that
she attributes to doing too much work at her desk.
Ms. Gokhale is not the first to suggest that changing posture is the
key to a healthy spine. Practitioners of the Alexander Technique and
the creators of the Aplomb Institute in Paris similarly help clients
find more natural and comfortable ways to position themselves. Pilates
and physical therapy can improve posture and bring awareness to it. A
handful of companies, like Lumo BodyTech, now sell personal posture
monitors, offering smartphone users constant feedback about the way
they hold their bodies.
Ms. Gokhale's methods have not been tested scientifically, though a
doctor at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation is planning on conducting
clinical trials by the end of the year.
But Ms. Gokhale, who was trained as a biochemist at Princeton
University and studied at Stanford's medical school, has some
influence among medical professionals, particularly in Silicon Valley.
Over 100 have referred patients to her, and a similar number have
taken her course, she says.
FOR many office workers in the United States, sitting at a desk all
day goes hand in hand with back, neck and shoulder discomfort. Stress
and poor positioning can bring on aches or exacerbate injuries among
workers faced with heavy computing, constant travel and long meetings.
Regardless of occupation or lifestyle, backaches affect most Americans
— about 8 in 10 deal with the pain at some point in their lifetimes,
according to Dr. Richard Deyo, a professor of family medicine at
Oregon Health and Science University.
The expenses are huge as well. By one estimate that appeared in The
Journal of the American Medical Association, the national cost of
treating people with back and neck pain was $86 billion in 2005. And
with back pain one of the top reasons for worker disability, missed
work because of these aches may cost employers close to $7 billion a
year, according to one study.
For the majority of people with back pain, the aches are short-lived
and relief comes with rest and time, according to Dr. Deyo. But
methods to help those with chronic pain are diverse. Using a standing
desk at work has become a popular way to ease discomfort. Exercise,
yoga, acupuncture and chiropractic have also been shown to reduce
pain. Medical treatments like surgery and steroids continue to be
important options, doctors say, even amid concerns that these have
been overused.
Dr. Haleh Agdassi, a rehabilitation doctor with the Palo Alto Medical
Foundation in California, sees back and neck pain so frequently among
heavy users of computers that she calls it the "Silicon Valley
syndrome." She encourages clients to try a mix of nonsurgical
strategies, but finds it frustrating that treatments for such a common
problem are only modestly effective.
"There's no magic bullet out there for back pain," she says. "That can
be overwhelming for patients. It's an anxious, vulnerable crowd —
they're looking for solutions."
Ms. Gokhale, 52, can relate to the anxiety of searching for an answer.
She previously dealt with pain in her lower back, first as a college
student practicing yoga, then as a young mother with sciatica. She
eventually had surgery for a herniated disk, but it failed, she said.
When doctors suggested she try a second time, Ms. Gokhale began a
search for other answers. Many of her own clients come to her
similarly exasperated, she said.
Mr. Drudge read Ms. Gokhale's book, "8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back,"
before training with her in person. "I needed her touch, her
observations and her humanity," he said.
Donna Dubinsky, co-founder and former chief executive of Palm, worked
with Ms. Gokhale two years ago after trying chiropractic, cortisone
shots and physical therapy to minimize the pain of herniated disks in
her back.
"All of these other things were about symptom relief. The question for
me became: what could I do to address the root cause?" said Ms.
Dubinsky, 57, who now stands during many meetings to practice Ms.
Gokhale's posture lessons. "Not that it's a miracle cure, but of all
the things I've tried, what Esther taught me was the most effective,"
she added.
IN Ms. Gokhale's courses, offered in her Palo Alto, Calif., studio and
in cities across the country, students relearn how to sit, stand,
sleep and walk. While some clients take private classes, many enroll
in group workshops with eight to 10 people who meet for six 90-minute
sessions. While the students are often strangers, the classes are
casual and intimate: most clients wear yoga clothes or sweat pants,
and they giggle awkwardly as Ms. Gokhale adjusts their bodies.
Ms. Gokhale says that most Americans tend to be relaxed and slumped
(think of a C-shaped spine), or arched up and tense (an S shape), the
stand-up-straight style of posture that some parents demand of their
children. She helps her students return their bodies to the stance
that she says nature intended: upright and relaxed (a tall J spine).
With the care of a kindergarten teacher, Ms. Gokhale adjusts clients'
bodies from bottom to top. She helps clients relax the front of the
pelvis downward, so the belt line slants forward and the butt angles
back, so "your behind is behind you, not under you" (a contrast to the
neutral pelvis recommended in Pilates and some physical therapy).
Ms. Gokhale guides students' rib cages that sway too far back, so they
are flush with the stomach. She takes their hunched shoulders, rolls
them up and brings them gently back and down. And she helps students
release tension in their necks by re-centering their heads over their
spines and pulling upward slightly at the hairline on the neck. The
result is an elongated and well-stacked spine that many students say
they can maintain comfortably because their muscles are not strained.
Ray Bingham, 67, the presiding director of Oracle's board, was
referred to Ms. Gokhale last fall for his lower back pain. Mr. Bingham
says he has found relief after using her methods and he diligently
practices his newfound ways of sitting, walking and standing. "This is
not an approach like physical therapy with a beginning and an end;
this is a new way of being from now on," Mr. Bingham said.
Ms. Gokhale encourages people to take the class with co-workers and
family members, so that students can help remind each other to adjust
their bodies. But even those who work alone find ways to remember
their posture.
After doing a group workshop with Ms. Gokhale this year, Mr. Drudge
says many things now remind him to make adjustments — seeing others
with poor posture at Starbucks or the gym, passing by his reflection
in a window, or sitting down in a chair to work.
"But I don't beat myself up about it. When I'm aware of my posture, I
fix it," Mr. Drudge said. "And eventually, I think, it becomes who you
are."
nytimes
Pay People to Cook at Home
THE home-cooked family meal is often lauded as the solution for
problems ranging from obesity to deteriorating health to a decline in
civility and morals. Using whole foods to prepare meals without
additives and chemicals is the holy grail for today's advocates of
better eating.
But how do we get there? For many of us, whether we are full-time
workers or full-time parents, this home-cooked meal is a fantasy
removed from the reality of everyday life. And so Americans continue
to rely on highly processed and refined foods that are harmful to
their health.
Those who argue that our salvation lies in meals cooked at home seem
unable to answer two key questions: where can people find the money to
buy fresh foods, and how can they find the time to cook them? The
failure to answer these questions plays into the hands of the food
industry, which exploits the healthy-food movement's lack of
connection to average Americans. It makes it easier for the industry
to sell its products as real American food, with real American
sensibilities — namely, affordability and convenience.
I believe the solution to getting people into the kitchen exists in a
long-forgotten proposal. In the 1960s and '70s, when American
feminists were fighting to get women out of the house and into the
workplace, there was another feminist arguing for something else.
Selma James, a labor organizer from Brooklyn, pushed the idea of wages
for housework. Ms. James, who worked in a factory as a young woman and
later became a housewife and a mother, argued that household work was
essential to the American economy and wondered why women weren't being
paid for it. As Ms. James and a colleague wrote in 1972, "Where women
are concerned their labor appears to be a personal service outside of
capital."
She argued that it was a mistake to define feminism simply as equal
pay in the work force. Instead, she wanted to formally acknowledge the
work women were already doing. She knew that women wouldn't stop doing
housework once they joined the work force — rather they would return
home each evening for the notorious "second shift."
Many feminists at the time ignored the Wages for Housework campaign,
while some were blatantly antagonistic toward it. Even today, with all
the talk of the importance of home cooking — a huge part of housework
— no one ever seems to mention Ms. James or Wages for Housework.
But ignoring this idea once again devalues housework and places a
premium on working outside of the home. Since women first began to
enter the work force, families have increasingly relied on processed
foods and inexpensive restaurant meals. Those foods tend to have more
calories and less nutritional value than fresh vegetables, fruits and
meats, so it's easy to see how the change in meal patterns led to a
surge in obesity.
In 1970, Americans spent 26 percent of their food budget on eating
out; by 2010, that number had risen to 41 percent. Over that period,
rates of obesity in the United States more than doubled. Diabetes
diagnoses have also soared, to 25.8 million in 2011 from roughly three
million in 1968.
It's nearly impossible for a single parent or even two parents working
full time to cook every meal from scratch, planning it beforehand and
cleaning it up afterward. This is why many working parents of means
employ housekeepers. But if we put this work on women of lower
socioeconomic status (as is almost always the case), what about their
children? Who cooks and cleans up for them?
In the Wages for Housework campaign, Ms. James argued for a shorter
workweek for all, in part so men could help raise the children. This
is not a pipe dream. Several Northern European nations have instituted
social programs that reflect the importance of this work. The
Netherlands promotes a "1.5 jobs model," which allows men and women to
work 75 percent of their regular hours when they have young children.
In Sweden, parents can choose to work three-quarters of their normal
hours until children turn 8.
To get Americans cooking, we need to make it possible. Stay-at-home
parents should qualify for a new government program while they are
raising young children — one that provides money for good food, as
well as education on cooking, meal planning and shopping — so that one
parent in a two-parent household, or a single parent, can afford to be
home with the children and provide wholesome, healthy meals. These
payments could be financed by taxing harmful foods, like sugary
beverages, highly caloric, processed snack foods and nutritionally
poor options at fast food and other restaurants. Directly linking a
tax on harmful food products to a program that benefits health would
provide a clear rebuttal to critics of these taxes. Business owners
who argue that such taxes will hurt their bottom lines would, in fact,
benefit from new demand for healthy food options and from customers
with money to spend on such foods.
If we truly value domestic work, we should also enact workplace
policies that incentivize health, like "health days" that employees
could use for health-promoting activities: shopping for food, cooking,
or tending a community garden.
We can't democratize good food without placing tangible value on the
work done in the home. So while proponents of healthier eating are
right to emphasize the importance of home-cooking and communal meals,
we will never create an actual movement without placing a cultural and
monetary premium on the hard work of cooking and the time and skills
needed to do it.
nytimes
problems ranging from obesity to deteriorating health to a decline in
civility and morals. Using whole foods to prepare meals without
additives and chemicals is the holy grail for today's advocates of
better eating.
But how do we get there? For many of us, whether we are full-time
workers or full-time parents, this home-cooked meal is a fantasy
removed from the reality of everyday life. And so Americans continue
to rely on highly processed and refined foods that are harmful to
their health.
Those who argue that our salvation lies in meals cooked at home seem
unable to answer two key questions: where can people find the money to
buy fresh foods, and how can they find the time to cook them? The
failure to answer these questions plays into the hands of the food
industry, which exploits the healthy-food movement's lack of
connection to average Americans. It makes it easier for the industry
to sell its products as real American food, with real American
sensibilities — namely, affordability and convenience.
I believe the solution to getting people into the kitchen exists in a
long-forgotten proposal. In the 1960s and '70s, when American
feminists were fighting to get women out of the house and into the
workplace, there was another feminist arguing for something else.
Selma James, a labor organizer from Brooklyn, pushed the idea of wages
for housework. Ms. James, who worked in a factory as a young woman and
later became a housewife and a mother, argued that household work was
essential to the American economy and wondered why women weren't being
paid for it. As Ms. James and a colleague wrote in 1972, "Where women
are concerned their labor appears to be a personal service outside of
capital."
She argued that it was a mistake to define feminism simply as equal
pay in the work force. Instead, she wanted to formally acknowledge the
work women were already doing. She knew that women wouldn't stop doing
housework once they joined the work force — rather they would return
home each evening for the notorious "second shift."
Many feminists at the time ignored the Wages for Housework campaign,
while some were blatantly antagonistic toward it. Even today, with all
the talk of the importance of home cooking — a huge part of housework
— no one ever seems to mention Ms. James or Wages for Housework.
But ignoring this idea once again devalues housework and places a
premium on working outside of the home. Since women first began to
enter the work force, families have increasingly relied on processed
foods and inexpensive restaurant meals. Those foods tend to have more
calories and less nutritional value than fresh vegetables, fruits and
meats, so it's easy to see how the change in meal patterns led to a
surge in obesity.
In 1970, Americans spent 26 percent of their food budget on eating
out; by 2010, that number had risen to 41 percent. Over that period,
rates of obesity in the United States more than doubled. Diabetes
diagnoses have also soared, to 25.8 million in 2011 from roughly three
million in 1968.
It's nearly impossible for a single parent or even two parents working
full time to cook every meal from scratch, planning it beforehand and
cleaning it up afterward. This is why many working parents of means
employ housekeepers. But if we put this work on women of lower
socioeconomic status (as is almost always the case), what about their
children? Who cooks and cleans up for them?
In the Wages for Housework campaign, Ms. James argued for a shorter
workweek for all, in part so men could help raise the children. This
is not a pipe dream. Several Northern European nations have instituted
social programs that reflect the importance of this work. The
Netherlands promotes a "1.5 jobs model," which allows men and women to
work 75 percent of their regular hours when they have young children.
In Sweden, parents can choose to work three-quarters of their normal
hours until children turn 8.
To get Americans cooking, we need to make it possible. Stay-at-home
parents should qualify for a new government program while they are
raising young children — one that provides money for good food, as
well as education on cooking, meal planning and shopping — so that one
parent in a two-parent household, or a single parent, can afford to be
home with the children and provide wholesome, healthy meals. These
payments could be financed by taxing harmful foods, like sugary
beverages, highly caloric, processed snack foods and nutritionally
poor options at fast food and other restaurants. Directly linking a
tax on harmful food products to a program that benefits health would
provide a clear rebuttal to critics of these taxes. Business owners
who argue that such taxes will hurt their bottom lines would, in fact,
benefit from new demand for healthy food options and from customers
with money to spend on such foods.
If we truly value domestic work, we should also enact workplace
policies that incentivize health, like "health days" that employees
could use for health-promoting activities: shopping for food, cooking,
or tending a community garden.
We can't democratize good food without placing tangible value on the
work done in the home. So while proponents of healthier eating are
right to emphasize the importance of home-cooking and communal meals,
we will never create an actual movement without placing a cultural and
monetary premium on the hard work of cooking and the time and skills
needed to do it.
nytimes
The world's first website is now back
On the 20th birth anniversary of the World Wide Web, CERN, a European
research organisation near Geneva, has announced to preserve some of
the digital assets that are associated with the birth of the web.
The URL to the world's first website - info.cern.ch - has already been
restored, and now the organisation will look at the first web servers
at CERN and see what assets from them can be preserved and shared. It
will also sift through documentation and try to restore machine names
and IP addresses to their original state.
On April 30 1993, CERN published a statement that made World Wide Web
("W3", or simply "the web") technology available on a royalty-free
basis. By making the software required to run a web server freely
available, along with a basic browser and a library of code, the web
was allowed to flourish.
When the first website was born, it was probably quite lonely. And
with few people having access to browsers - or to web servers so that
they could in turn publish their own content - it must have taken a
visionary leap of faith at the time to see why it was so exciting. The
early WWW team, led by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, had such vision and
belief. The fact that they called their technology the World Wide Web
hints at the fact that they knew they had something special, something
big," said CERN in a blog post.
British physicist Tim Berners-Lee invented the web at CERN in 1989.
The project, which Berners-Lee named "World Wide Web", was originally
conceived and developed to meet the demand for information sharing
between physicists in universities and institutes around the world.
The first website at CERN - and in the world - was dedicated to the
World Wide Web project itself and was hosted on Berners-Lee's NeXT
computer. The website described the basic features of the web; how to
access other people's documents and how to set up your own server.
Although the NeXT machine - the original web server - is still at
CERN, sadly the world's first website is no longer online at its
original address.
ibnlive
research organisation near Geneva, has announced to preserve some of
the digital assets that are associated with the birth of the web.
The URL to the world's first website - info.cern.ch - has already been
restored, and now the organisation will look at the first web servers
at CERN and see what assets from them can be preserved and shared. It
will also sift through documentation and try to restore machine names
and IP addresses to their original state.
On April 30 1993, CERN published a statement that made World Wide Web
("W3", or simply "the web") technology available on a royalty-free
basis. By making the software required to run a web server freely
available, along with a basic browser and a library of code, the web
was allowed to flourish.
When the first website was born, it was probably quite lonely. And
with few people having access to browsers - or to web servers so that
they could in turn publish their own content - it must have taken a
visionary leap of faith at the time to see why it was so exciting. The
early WWW team, led by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, had such vision and
belief. The fact that they called their technology the World Wide Web
hints at the fact that they knew they had something special, something
big," said CERN in a blog post.
British physicist Tim Berners-Lee invented the web at CERN in 1989.
The project, which Berners-Lee named "World Wide Web", was originally
conceived and developed to meet the demand for information sharing
between physicists in universities and institutes around the world.
The first website at CERN - and in the world - was dedicated to the
World Wide Web project itself and was hosted on Berners-Lee's NeXT
computer. The website described the basic features of the web; how to
access other people's documents and how to set up your own server.
Although the NeXT machine - the original web server - is still at
CERN, sadly the world's first website is no longer online at its
original address.
ibnlive
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