September 30, 2007
New York City - Outdoor Cafes - Restaurants - Dining - Food - New York Times
Theory 1: It lets them pretend they’re in Europe. While many Americans outside New York get excited about “freedom fries” and dismiss Europeans as too-thin scolds with too-small cars, New Yorkers envy their fuel efficiency, their monuments, their cheese, their eyewear.
And their cafes. Never mind that eating outside in Rome means a Bernini statue and a Baroque church while eating outside in uptown Manhattan means an unobstructed panorama of Bed, Bath & Beyond. New Yorkers are fantastic at make-believe, which leads me to ...
Theory 2: New Yorkers have a highly evolved, unrivaled knack for glossing over the limitations, absurdities and dubious habitability of an unforgiving metropolis.
They walk into a friend’s 545-square-foot two-bedroom (one bath, no tub) and stammer: “Just $4,965 a month for this?” They walk into the Spotted Pig at 5:55 p.m. on a Tuesday night and exult: “Only a 90-minute wait?”
And they sit in a sidewalk cafe — sirens blaring, vagrants swearing and jackhammers jittering all around them — and sigh: “It’s so relaxing to soak up the street life.”
Theory 3: If something is in limited supply, New Yorkers want it, period.
Most restaurants don’t have sidewalk cafes. If they do, there are fewer seats outdoors than indoors. So these seats take on an exclusive aura, and once all of them are occupied, they become more exclusive still. In New York, the only thing better than something there’s not enough of is something there’s absolutely none of.
At the restaurant L’Impero on a recent night, most of the precious few tables in front of the entrance were taken. Most of the dozens of tables inside weren’t. When I turned down the hostess’s offer of one of the remaining perches outside, she just about went pale with shock. I explained that while I was fond of fresh air, what I was really gaga about was air-conditioning.
All good theories.
Posted by TY at 2:17 PM
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September 21, 2007
10 Things Your Insurer Won't Tell You
6. "...and even if it isn’t."
Ever hear of "diminished value"? The insurance companies are betting you haven’t. Even if your car is repaired after an accident, there could be flaws in the repair process. Either way, your car’s bound to be worth less in the resale market, and your insurance company is obligated to pay you the difference.
"By just raising the issue of diminished value before the car is repaired, consumers can get a much better deal," says James Lynas, president of Wreck Checks, a service that will examine your car after it’s been repaired and tell you whether it’s lost some of its value. If it has, you can file a supplemental claim to recover the difference. (The service is available in 34 states; call 770-956-8700. Fees range from $75 to $150.) Lynas says that while insurance companies may try to fight you on it, diminished-value claims have been paid out in every state and by every major insurance company.
When Jay Archer’s Lexus had $9,300 worth of repair work done after a hit-and-run accident, a Wreck Check assessor told him it had lost $3,964 of its value. His insurer, Geico, denied the supplemental claim on 10 separate occasions, Archer says, but through pleas, demands and arguments -- "I brought all my letters down to the Geico office in Dallas and had them stamp the date and who received it" -- Geico ultimately backed down. In the end, it wrote him a check for the full amount.
7. "You need a lawyer."
Insurance companies don’t like to deal with lawyers, but few go to the lengths that Allstate does. Since 1993 the company has been sending brochures to its customers who’ve been in accidents, advising them that they don’t need a lawyer. Allstate even tells this to people insured by other companies after they’ve been in an accident with an Allstate customer. Fourteen states have complained about the brochures. The company claims it’s a freedom of speech issue and still sends the brochures out in every state but Connecticut and Massachusetts.
Stacey Adkins of Parkersburg, W.Va., had more than $7,000 in medical bills following an accident in which the other driver was at fault. She didn’t get a lawyer because Allstate (which insured both drivers) advised her not to. Its offer? Just $1,000. Allstate also demanded access to her medical records and entered some of that information into a national database, where other insurers now have access to it.
Adkins hired an attorney who won her a settlement of $12,000 for her injuries and is now suing Allstate for invasion of privacy, for lowballing on its initial offer and for unlawful practice of law. Allstate will not comment on specific cases.
8. "Our body shops work for us, not you."
Most insurers have a list of body shops that they prefer to use through what’s called a "direct-repair program." It’s similar to managed care, in that you can take your car elsewhere but your insurance company might not pay the full cost of repairs if you do. The catch is that these direct-repair body shops get on the list by keeping their costs low -- sometimes spending less time on repairs, using cheaper parts and overlooking damages that only an expert could spot. State Farm’s Service First program even includes a gag clause that prevents shop owners from talking to customers about their cars until they’ve cleared it with State Farm first. And because the companies hold so much clout, many shops can’t stay in business unless they stay on those preferred lists.
8. "Our body shops work for us, not you."
Most insurers have a list of body shops that they prefer to use through what’s called a "direct-repair program." It’s similar to managed care, in that you can take your car elsewhere but your insurance company might not pay the full cost of repairs if you do. The catch is that these direct-repair body shops get on the list by keeping their costs low -- sometimes spending less time on repairs, using cheaper parts and overlooking damages that only an expert could spot. State Farm’s Service First program even includes a gag clause that prevents shop owners from talking to customers about their cars until they’ve cleared it with State Farm first. And because the companies hold so much clout, many shops can’t stay in business unless they stay on those preferred lists.
interesting and good to know.
Posted by TY at 1:50 PM
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Can't beat quality of life in Scandinavia, says world ranking - Yahoo! News
Nordic countries take the greatest care of their environment and their people, according to a ranking published on Thursday by the publication Reader's Digest.
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Finland comes top of the 141-nation list, followed by Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and then Austria, Switzerland, Ireland and Australia.
At the bottom of the list is Ethiopia, preceded by Niger, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso and Chad.
The United States comes in 23rd, China 84th and India 104th.
The ranking combines environmental factors, such as air and water quality, respect for biodiversity and greenhouse-gas emissions, as well as social factors, such as gross domestic product, access to education, unemployment rate and life expectancy.
not surprising
Posted by TY at 1:12 PM
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September 18, 2007
Should teachers be allowed to pack a gun? - Yahoo! News
"Jane Doe," who agreed to be interviewed by phone on condition of anonymity, says she does not want to be viewed as an "Annie Oakley." Trying to extricate herself from an abusive relationship led her to buy her first gun just a few years ago, she says. Prior to that she had not been an activist in defense of the US Constitution's Second Amendment provision regarding "the right to keep and bear arms."
But as a veteran teacher, she has come to believe strongly that having responsible armed adults on campus could have prevented tragedies such as those at Columbine High School in Colorado, Thurston High School in Oregon, and Virginia Tech University last April.
"I have no doubt at all that any time a criminal has gone into a school intending to commit violence they did so knowing nobody was going to be able to stop them," she says. "We've seen what happens when teachers do nothing or can do nothing, and that's not acceptable to me."
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 37 states have laws specifically banning guns at schools. In general, administrators, teachers' organizations, and law-enforcement agencies favor such laws. In the confusion of a school shooting, police officials have said, adding guns to the situation just makes the predicament more dangerous.
The state panel investigating the April 16 shootings by a mentally disturbed student who killed 33 people at Virginia Tech University (the nation's deadliest school shooting) agrees.
"If numerous people had been rushing around with handguns … the possibility of accidental or mistaken shootings would have increased significantly," the panel wrote.
But that has not stopped a push by the NRA and other gun advocates to allow guns on school property as a safety measure.
what could possibly go wrong?
Posted by TY at 4:58 PM
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September 17, 2007
Man in China dies after three-day Internet session - Yahoo! News
A Chinese man dropped dead after playing Internet games for three consecutive days, state media said on Monday as China seeks to wean Internet addicts offline.
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The man from the southern boomtown of Guangzhou, aged about 30, died on Saturday after being rushed to the hospital from the Internet cafe, local authorities were quoted by the Beijing News as saying.
"Police have ruled out the possibility of suicide," the newspaper said, adding that exhaustion was the most likely cause of death. It did not say what game he was playing.
doh
Posted by TY at 11:16 AM
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September 13, 2007
Prisons' budget to trump colleges' / No other big state spends as much to incarcerate compared with higher education funding
As the costs for fixing the state's troubled corrections system rocket higher, California is headed for a dubious milestone -- for the first time the state will spend more on incarcerating inmates than on educating students in its public universities.
Based on current spending trends, California's prison budget will overtake spending on the state's universities in five years. No other big state in the country spends close to as much on its prisons compared with universities.
But California has all but guaranteed that prisons will eat up an increasingly large share of taxpayer money because of chronic failures in a system that the state is now planning to expand.
Interesting
Posted by TY at 3:13 PM
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September 12, 2007
Italians Call for 1-Day Pasta Strike -- Newsday.com
Be it fettuccine, linguine or spaghetti, Italians will soon be paying up to 20 percent more for their pasta.
Consumer groups are calling for a one-day pasta strike Thursday -- not against eating it, but against buying it -- to protest the increase. But producers say the strike targeting Italy's national dish is wrongheaded because the price is linked to a global rise in the cost of grain.
Pasta is an Italian staple, entwined with the national identity. It's not uncommon for families to discuss which pasta best fits that day's sauce -- tubular penne, twisty rigatoni or flat linguine. The average Italian eats about 62 pounds of pasta a year, on a peninsula so far untouched by low-carb diet crazes.
whoa
Posted by TY at 12:45 PM
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Kilo Prototype Mysteriously Loses Weight -- Newsday.com
The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight -- if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.
"The mystery is that they were all made of the same material, and many were made at the same time and kept under the same conditions, and yet the masses among them are slowly drifting apart," he said. "We don't really have a good hypothesis for it."
whoa
Posted by TY at 11:17 AM
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Mountain View Voice : Google founders can fly jet out of Moffett
NASA Ames released a statement Monday explaining why a Boeing 767, owned by Google founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, was seen on Moffett Field's runway last week.
Public affairs director Delores Beasley explained that under an agreement with the executives, the plane has been fitted with scientific equipment that allows NASA Ames to "regularly collect earth atmospheric and terrestrial observations" -- thereby allowing the plane to land at Moffett Field under provisions of a two-year lease.
NASA spokesperson Michael Mewhinney confirmed that the agreement allows the Google execs to "come and go as they please," and NASA researchers do not have to be on board. The plane will "operate out of" Moffett, Mewhinney wrote. According to some reports, the agreement also covers other planes owned by Page and Brin, including one or more Gulfstreams.
sweet deal
Posted by TY at 10:39 AM
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September 11, 2007
Portals - WSJ.com
Those who work behind-the-mic in the music industry -- producers, engineers, mixers and the like -- say they increasingly assume their recordings will be heard as MP3s on an iPod music player. That combination is thus becoming the "reference platform" used as a test of how a track should sound. (Movie makers make much the same complaint when they see their filmed images in low-quality digital form.)
But because both compressed music and the iPod's relatively low-quality earbuds have many limitations, music producers fret that they are engineering music to a technical lowest common denominator. The result, many say, is music that is loud but harsh and flat, and thus not enjoyable for long periods of time.
"Right now, when you are done recording a track, the first thing the band does is to load it onto an iPod and give it a listen," said Alan Douches, who has worked with Fleetwood Mac and others. "Years ago, we might have checked the sound of a track on a Walkman, but no one believed that was the best it could sound. Today, young artists think MP3s are a high-quality medium and the iPod is state-of-the-art sound."
It isn't. Producers and engineers say there are many ways they might change a track to accommodate an iPod MP3. Sometimes, the changes are for the worse.
interesting
Posted by TY at 10:38 PM
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September 6, 2007
Some Food Additives Raise Hyperactivity, Study Finds - New York Times
Common food additives and colorings can increase hyperactive behavior in a broad range of children, a study being released today found.
It was the first time researchers conclusively and scientifically confirmed a link that had long been suspected by many parents. Numerous support groups for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have for years recommended removing such ingredients from diets, although experts have continued to debate the evidence.
But the new, carefully controlled study shows that some artificial additives increase hyperactivity and decrease attention span in a wide range of children, not just those for whom overactivity has been diagnosed as a learning problem.
The new research, which was financed by Britain’s Food Standards Agency and published online by the British medical journal The Lancet, presents regulators with a number of issues: Should foods containing preservatives and artificial colors carry warning labels? Should some additives be prohibited entirely? Should school cafeterias remove foods with additives?
After all, the researchers note that overactivity makes learning more difficult for children.
“A mix of additives commonly found in children’s foods increases the mean level of hyperactivity,” wrote the researchers, led by Jim Stevenson, a professor of psychology at the University of Southampton. “The finding lends strong support for the case that food additives exacerbate hyperactive behaviors (inattention, impulsivity and overactivity) at least into middle childhood.”
Not surprising
Posted by TY at 2:01 PM
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ON THE JOB / Pig balls and stuck skunks: A 311 customer service rep has a window onto San Francisco's secret heart.
"Thank you for calling San Francisco 311, this is Kyle speaking, how may I help you?"
"Yes, there's a skunk with his head stuck ..."
Kyle Sutton is one of 50 or so customer service representatives, or CSRs, asking this question 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The free service launched in March not just to funnel 2,300 government phone numbers into a single line, but to give the city more of a service orientation. About 6,000 calls come in every day, and program director Ed Reiskin says 311 is on track to answer 2 million a year.
Officially, the purpose is to supply a handy route to non-emergency government services and information. Unofficially, it's a glimpse into the funny inner mind of the city.
"Hello, how long does it take to build a cable car?"
"There's cocaine all over my clothes! There's cocaine everywhere!"
"My roommate has been passed out for two days."
"There's pig balls on the street."
wacky
Posted by TY at 12:38 AM
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September 5, 2007
Nuclear Bombs Mistakenly Flown Over US -- Newsday.com
A B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for more than three hours across several states last week, prompting an Air Force investigation and the firing of one commander, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called the mishandling of the weapons "deeply disturbing" and said the committee would press the military for details. Rep. Edward J. Markey, a senior member of the Homeland Security committee, said it was "absolutely inexcusable."
"Nothing like this has ever been reported before and we have been assured for decades that it was impossible," said Markey, D-Mass., co-chair of the House task force on nonproliferation.
doh
Posted by TY at 11:35 AM
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