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Kitchen remodeling, Bathroom remodeling
More Details about Kitchen remodeling, Bathroom remodeling here.
Thanks to various advances in technology, things like home remodeling have become a lot easier in recent times, and nowadays companies on those markets can provide a remarkably flexible service when you want to come up with an interesting idea for the new design of your home. As long as you know what you're trying to achieve, you'll find it very easy to work with a professional company to create the perfect vision for your home's interior, and enjoy living in it even more than before!
Computers are of great help in this, obviously -- modern design tools can make it really easy to see what the new decoration is going to look like, and to make any changes on the fly without having to limit yourself to more static imagery. Of course, not every company offers this in their services, so you'll need to spend a bit of time searching around to ensure that you're working with the right one. Usually, companies that work with computer aided design tools list those features on their websites, so it shouldn't be too difficult to find a good company to work with quickly. The Internet has also made communications a lot easier, so companies these days are better connected to the other services that they're using in their work. So if you're working with a home remodeling company which has solid connections on the markets for all of the services and products that they're using, this will reflect very positively on the quality of work that they're doing in your job, and how satisfied you're going to be in the end of course. This goes for you too -- you can use the Internet to get a good idea of what a company can offer you, not just by checking their website but also by looking up reviews from previous customers, which can give you a very good overview of the company's track record. Keep this in mind when you aren't sure whether a company will live up to the expectations that they're setting up -- you can easily verify that by using your favorite search engine and the appropriate keywords. Last but not least, proper use of modern technology has also made it easier to work in an environmentally friendly way -- because of this, companies that offer a "green" service aren't that rare on the market these days, and if you're concerned with the environment you can very easily find one of those companies with a bit of searching. Use this wisely, and don't think that you're going to have to pay a higher price to work with one of those companies -- the truth is that green construction techniques can actually be more cost-efficient than their outdated counterparts for a variety of reasons. If you take a little time to research the market, you'll find that out by yourself soon enough anyway -- so find out how things work, how to get the best service on the market, and you'll enjoy a fantastic new home in a very short period of time!
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More Details about Kitchen remodeling, Bathroom remodeling here.
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A year ago, Volkswagen in China launched a marketing campaign called The People?s Car Project (PCP), which invited Chinese customers to submit ideas for cars of the future. Participants were able to tinker with designs on a Web site that Volkswagen set up for that purpose, or they could upload their own designs. Wang Jia, a student and resident of Chengdu in the country?s Sichuan province, chose the latter, envisioning a two-person environmentally-friendly hover car.
Jia sent sketches of a levitating car that could be maneuvered easily in a downtown setting, says Simon Loasby, head of design at Volkswagen Group China. The VW team rounded out the design. ?We put a concept together, including a video depicting how it would function,? he adds. ?It was the ultimate in dreaming because a full-scale version of the car doesn?t exist.?
The imaginary car stays aloft with the aid of magnetic levitation, much the way some maglev trains travel along special rails using electromagnetic suspension. (Other maglev trains use electromagnetic forces for propulsion without actually lifting the train off the ground.) The Shanghai Maglev Train has been ferrying passengers since 2004 on a 30-kilometer line between Pudong International Airport and the city?s outskirts at speeds of up to 430 kilometers per hour. Magnets on board and in the track lift the train between eight and 12 millimeters, depending on how much electrical current is used.
What keeps maglev vehicles from gaining widespread use is the need to set up an infrastructure of electromagnetic rails and roads. In their video, Volkswagen designers envision a scenario where magnetic iron rock or ore beneath Chengdu help create the car?s levitation; alternatively, the minerals could be mined and mixed in with the tarmac. ?We built a one-quarter scale model of the car and used a bit of creative filmmaking to show how it would work,? Loasby says. As portrayed in the video (see below), the vehicle would be about two meters in diameter and about 1.5 meters wide.
In the video, Jia?s parents take the wheel-shaped hover car out for a spin through Chengdu. The narrator points out a number of the imaginary car?s features, including a joystick controller, auto-pilot, and a collision-avoidance? sensor. To add a bit of realism in one scene, a discarded can in the roadway rolls away from the car as it passes by.
Of course, for VW?s hover car to work in practice, it would have to cost less to run than an ordinary car, and experts question whether that is possible in the foreseeable future. ?You could argue that, because there?s less friction, the hover car would be more efficient than fuel-powered vehicles with tires, brakes and other mechanism,? says Jos? Holgu?n-Veras, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic University. ?I?m OK with that, but you?re still going to need a rechargeable battery or some form of energy to power this vehicle, and the initial investment in a maglev infrastructure for the car would be substantial.? The only vehicles that would benefit from such an infrastructure investment would be the hover cars themselves?wheeled vehicles running on combustion engines or batteries would still need well-maintained roads.
As imaginative as the VW hover car is, Holgu?n-Veras says, mass transit is still the best option for urban populations in the future as city populations swell and traffic congestion grows.
Perhaps the solution, then, isn?t cars propelled along by electromagnetic energy but rather city buses that can make use of this technology. These could accommodate more passengers while providing greater coverage than maglev trains confined to specific guideways. Still, after seeing the video VW put together, who wouldn?t want to take Jia?s hover car for a spin?
Below?s an excerpt from a Charleston magazine article, ?Asheville by the forkful,? ?a ?gastronomic trek through Western North Carolina?s new culinary star.?
Writer Sandy Lang hits The Lot, the Lowdown food truck (?a messy, delicious start?), Dobra Tea, Sky Bar, Curate, the Red Stag Grill, Rocky?s Hot Chicken, White Duck, the French Broad Chocolate Lounge, and the Admiral (?I?m almost dizzy with the meal?s flavors?in a good way?and we eat every forkful?).
That?s my Asheville. Scroll to the bottom of the article for Lang?s recommendations on where to eat, where to stay, and what to do in Asheville.
Continuing our motor tour, we cruise over to the River Arts District and stop at White Duck Taco Shop in the Hatchery Studios. Opened in spring 2011, the small caf? is painted in pastel colors and has patio tables offering views of the railroad tracks and the French Broad River. In line, I hear a woman mention her penchant for the Bangkok shrimp tacos listed on the tall chalkboard menu, and we order those, too. The tortillas filled with shrimp, cucumber, and chili aioli are fresh and tasty, and I bet they?re a fine match for the Son of a Peach beer featured at the White Duck. We drive around a bit more before returning to park and walk the downtown blocks of shops and restaurants near Pack Square.
At the French Broad Chocolate Lounge, a three-story brick building with a blue-and-brown-striped awning, people are lining up for the handmade chocolate confections, cakes, and caramels. Inside, among the upholstered couches and chairs set in cozy groups and nooks, I meet Jael Rattigan, a young chocolatier who opened the store in 2008 with her husband, Dan. She tells me they are expanding the business and will be opening a ?bean-to-bar? chocolate factory this year on nearby Buxton Avenue. Though I?ve been scanning the neat rows of house-made truffles in the display case, I opt for Jael?s recommendation of the ?Indian Kulfi? drinking chocolate made with rose petals, pistachio, and cardamom melted with cream. In the lounge, I hold the petite mug made by a local potter, and I can?t get enough of the rich, chocolate treat.
>>>how do you get 5,000 ducks to follow instructions? they appreciate being talked to nicely. this former in china managed to herd all 5,000 to a nearby pond with just one other helper. he makes this trek with his duck friends on a regular basis. the folks are used to holding up traffic for a while as they pass by.
Aung San Suu Kyi made an emotional return to Britain on her 67th birthday Tuesday, visiting her former home of Oxford and speaking of the "sacrifice" her family were forced to make.
The Myanmar democracy icon was greeted at Oxford University, her alma mater, after taking part in a debate at the London School of Economics (LSE) and meeting the radio DJ she credits with giving her a lifeline during 24 years spent mainly under house arrest.
She spent nearly 20 years in Oxford, southern England, and brought up her two sons there with her late husband, the academic Michael Aris.
When she left for her homeland to care for her dying mother in 1988 she had no idea it would be nearly a quarter of a century before she could return.
As leader of the country's democracy movement, she refused to leave Myanmar, fearing that the military leaders would prevent her from returning.
As a result, she only saw her husband and sons a handful of times in the intervening years. Her husband died of cancer in 1999, having told her not to come back but to continue her struggle.
"I've said very often, in fact again and again ad nauseam, that I don't look at what I have done as a sacrifice. It was a choice I made," Suu Kyi told ITV television.
"It was a sacrifice for my husband and sons. Especially for my sons, because my husband after all was adult, but the children were young and it must have mattered to them not to have both parents near them.
"And I don't feel good about it, but on the other hand I think that in the end, one decides what one's priorities are and one lives with one's decisions."
Britain's last Hong Kong governor Chris Patten, the Chancellor of Oxford University, gave her an official welcome and her former college St Hugh's was playing host to a birthday party.
It was, however, unclear whether both her sons would attend the private celebration.
Her younger son Kim, now 35, still lives in Oxford and was expected to attend the reunion, but it was not clear if her older son Alexander, 39, who reportedly lives in the United States, would be there.
People cheered and shouted "welcome back" as she arrived in Oxford.
Earlier at the BBC World Service headquarters in London, she finally met Dave Lee Travis, the bearded radio DJ nicknamed the "Hairy Cornflake", whose music programme she listened to while she was detained.
In a debate at LSE, Suu Kyi spoke of the difficulties of reform in her homeland and stressed the importance of the rule of law.
"This is what we all need if we are to really proceed towards democracy," she told the packed audience.
"Unless people see that justice is done and seen to be done, we cannot believe in genuine reform."
Suu Kyi also said she had been "surprised" and "touched" by the reception she had received on her first trip to Europe since 1988 which has also taken in Switzerland, Norway and Ireland, and in Thailand shortly beforehand.
"During this journey, I have found great warmth and great support among peoples all over the world," she said.
"I think it's all of you, people like you who have given me the strength to continue," she said, "and, I suppose, I do have a stubborn streak in me."
As a special birthday gift, she was given a photograph of her father, independence leader General Aung San, taken on his visit to London in 1947, a few months before he was assassinated.
On Wednesday, she will receive an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, before addressing both houses of parliament on Thursday, a rare honour bestowed on only four foreign dignitaries since World War II.
She will also meet Britain's heir to the throne Prince Charles and Prime Minister David Cameron during her visit.
In parliament Tuesday, Foreign Secretary William Hague told lawmakers that despite their delight at welcoming Suu Kyi, there was still a long way to go on reform in Myanmar.
"There will be a variety of views about the democratic progress of Burma within the regime," he said.
"So it is vital for all of us who believe in freedom and democracy across the world to work with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi over the coming months and years."
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To: "radiolivre@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <radiolivre@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:22:53 -0700 (PDT)
Ceis viram a nota da EBC ?agora a pouco ? dizendo que o MiniCOM vai dar uma licen?a de funcionamento a R?dio C?pula . Quantos elementos neste epis?dio, hein ? abcs ________________________________ De: "guile@xxxxxxxxxx" <guile@xxxxxxxxxx> Para: radiolivre org <radiolivre@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Enviadas: Domingo, 17 de Junho de 2012 23:20 Assunto: [radiolivre] Re: [Fwd: ANATEL+PM tentam fechar radio cupula dos povos na rio+20] força pra vcs aà conrad abração gui > estou aqui na rádio... ainda há possibilidade de ação por parte da anatel > e da pf... o programa está pronto para ir ao ar às 21 horas... > > streaming: http://177.71.252.176/radiocupula.mp3 > > abraços... > > conrad > >> ---------------------------- Original Message >> ---------------------------- >> Subject: [radiolivre] ANATEL+PM tentam fechar radio cupula dos povos na >> rio+20 >> From:? ? joão Moura <joaomlr@xxxxxxxxxxx> >> Date:? ? Sun, June 17, 2012 2:14 pm >> To:? ? ? "radiolivrelistas listasradiolivre" <radiolivre@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> >> em contraposição a rio+20 tah rolando a cupula dos povos,, a rio+20 eh >> no >> riocentro, a radio fica no aterro do flamengo >> >> durante o periodo tah rolando a radio cupula dos povos na frenquencia >> 90.7fm,, no aterro do flamento >> >> a treta tah rolando e a transmissão continua ao vivo,,,, >> >> http://cupuladospovos.org.br/2012/06/anatel-tenta-fechar-a-radio-cupula/ >> >> --- >> Lista de discuss?o do projeto http://www.radiolivre.org >> Para ajuda sobre a lista, consulte http://www.radiolivre.org/node/483 >> >> > > > --- > Lista de discuss?o do projeto http://www.radiolivre.org > Para ajuda sobre a lista, consulte http://www.radiolivre.org/node/483 > > "uma certa 'carnavaliza??o' da consci?ncia precede e prepara sempre as grandes transforma??es, mesmo no dom?nio cient?fico" Mikhail Bakhtin --- Lista de discuss?o do projeto http://www.radiolivre.org Para ajuda sobre a lista, consulte http://www.radiolivre.org/node/483
The Create Jobs for USA program was launched last October, soon after Starbucks Chief Executive Howard Schultz publicly scolded politicians on both sides of the aisle for not doing more to deal with the country's fiscal woes.
By Allison Linn
Starbucks is expanding an unusual effort to create jobs through small business loans, which the company launched last fall after chief executive Howard Schultz lambasted politicians for not doing more to fix the economy.
So far the Create Jobs for USA program?has raised about $11.5 million, including about?$2.8 million from customers who bought brightly colored wristbands along with their lattes or donated to the program online.
Starbucks says its analysis shows the money?raised so far could create or retain about 4,000 jobs.
While that is just a tiny fraction of the 12.7 million people who are unemployed and looking for work, Starbucks spokesman Jim Olson said the coffee giant has received mostly positive feedback from customers and that the?program will continue indefinitely.
The?program was launched in November, soon after Schultz publicly scolded politicians on both sides of the aisle for not doing more to deal with the country?s economic woes. Schultz also called on Americans to stop donating to politicians and asked business leaders to step up hiring to boost economic growth.
Despite billions of dollars in economic stimulus and record-low interest rates,?the nation's unemployment rate remains?painfully high at?8.2 percent.
Starbucks said Tuesday?it plans to keep the focus on jobs by marketing a?temporary line of mugs and other items to?benefit the Create Jobs effort. It also announced that $1 million of the money raised so far had come from financial giant Citi and the bank?s foundation.
?
?
About $5 million in?funding has come from the Starbucks Foundation, and the company also is covering the program?s administrative costs. The rest of the money has come from other business partners.
Experts say the program has likely helped?small businesses and organizations in underserved communities get financing they might not have otherwise received. But?they say it?s very tough to say how many jobs are created by such grass-roots efforts.
?Yeah, sure, there?s job (creation), but it?s really about making the community healthy,? said Julia Sass Rubin, an associate professor at Rutgers University?s Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and an expert on this type of lending.
The program works like this: When a customer buys a wristband or makes a donation, the money goes to the nonprofit?Opportunity Finance Network. That organization passes the money on to community development financial institutions that in turn use the money toward loans?in underserved areas to groups that might not qualify for?a traditional bank loan.
Mark Pinksy, chief executive of Opportunity Finance Network, said lenders are required to use the donations to make loans and?not for?overhead costs. Starbucks said the $11.5 million in donations it has received so far can be leveraged to create up to $80 million in lending. Beneficiaries include a charter school, a community development corporation and a gelato store.
Pinsky said member institutions in the Opportunity Finance Network did more than $2 billion in total lending in 2010, the most recent data available.
The effort has attracted the attention of other big companies, such as Citi, the nation's No. 3 bank. Bob Annibale, global director of community development and microfinance for Citi, said the bank has long supported these financial institutions in other ways but that the Starbucks-founded program appealed?in part because it is?increasing awareness about?the small loans.
Rubin, the professor, said there?s been more demand for such loans in part because big banks have been less willing to loan money to small businesses and organizations since the financial crisis that began in September 2008. Annibale said Citi also has tried to address the issue directly by increasing lending to small businesses. In 2011, he said, the company loaned about $7 billion to small businesses, up from $4.5 billion in 2009.
Citi also has cut tens of thousands of jobs in recent years, and in December announced plans to cut another 4,500 jobs. Annibale said employment is down partly because the company sold off some of its business.
Starbucks' latest effort will include the temporary ?Indivisible? line of coffee beans, cups and mugs. The mugs are being made by a small factory in Ohio that received the type of small business loan the program supports, Olson said.
Starbucks itself has been adding jobs. The company employed 149,000 people as of October 2011, including 112,000 in the United States. That?s up from 137,000 as of October 2010, including 107,000 in the United States, according to the company?s annual reports.
Still, Starbucks employs fewer people than its 2008 peak of?176,000, including about 143,000 in the U.S. Starbucks was forced to close hundreds of stores and cut thousands of jobs as it grappled with the recession and other?woes, although business has since rebounded.
Here is a look back at Schultz's battle cry last summer:
Discussing political donations and lower coffee prices, with Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman/CEO.
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Older fathers pass more gene-protecting DNA to their paternal grandkids
Web edition : Monday, June 11th, 2012
Men who become fathers later in life may pass a mark of longevity down to their paternal grandchildren.
As men age, their chromosomes are tipped with longer telomeres ? structures that protect valuable genetic information from deterioration during cell division and other processes. Longer telomeres have been associated with long life, whereas short telomeres have been linked to aging and disease. ?
Scientists have known for a while that telomeres increase in length for every year a man ages and that children of older dads inherit longer telomeres. But the new study by researchers at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., extends that inheritance to grandchildren. The new finding, published online June 11 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could point to a mechanism by which men can influence the health of their offspring for generations.
?It?s a provocative finding and it?s well done on so many levels,? says Ken Smith, a biodemographer at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. But, Smith says, there is ample evidence that having an older father also puts children at greater risk for autism, schizophrenia, some cancers (SN: 3/29/08, p. 200) and other diseases. Some of those diseases may result in part from mutations that accumulate in sperm as a man ages. It is unclear if inheriting longer telomeres can offset the potential downsides of having an aging father or grandfather, he says.
In the new study, the Northwestern researchers studied multigenerational families from the Philippines, measuring the average length of telomeres in more than 2,000 people. A father?s age at birth influenced the length of the children?s telomeres, with older fathers having kids with longer telomeres. Both sons and daughters got the telomere boost from dear old dad, but the long chromosome caps were bequeathed on grandchildren mainly through the paternal line. The data gave a hint that maternal grandfathers influence their grandchildren?s telomere length, but the link didn?t pass statistical muster.
?One of the mysteries of the study is why it doesn?t come from the maternal grandfather,? says Northwestern biological anthropologist Dan Eisenberg.
The team did not study the relationship between telomere length and health. The researchers hope to replicate the findings in other groups of people.
Meet Andrew McCulloch, 25, one of the up-and-coming physicists attending this year's Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting
June 11, 2012?|
Image: Courtesy Andrew McCulloch
The annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting brings a wealth of scientific minds to the shores of Germany?s Lake Constance. Every summer at Lindau, dozens of Nobel Prize winners exchange ideas with hundreds of young researchers from around the world. Whereas the Nobelists are the marquee names, the younger contingent is an accomplished group in its own right. In advance of this year?s meeting, which focuses on physics, we are profiling several promising attendees under the age of 30. The profile below is the second in a series of 30.
Name: Andrew McCulloch Age: 25 Born: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Nationality: Australian
Current position: Completing Ph.D. student at the University of Melbourne Education: Bachelor?s degree, Honours degree from the University of Melbourne
What is your field of research?
I work at the intersection of cold atom physics and electron optics. Our work aims to develop a tabletop electron source capable of performing ultrafast electron diffraction on biological samples.
What drew you to physics, and to that research area in particular?
Application-based physics is so exciting because it sits on the forefront of technology; the objective is to exploit physics to produce new technologies. What drew me to physics as a whole were the people. Physicists are notoriously eccentric, and in general this is due to the love they have for their research, and their desire to communicate it. It is a really positive work environment.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
My current area of research is still in its infancy, and the outlook is really positive. As such, I am planning to continue working in this field. The ultimate aim is to realize ultrafast diffraction from biological nanocrystals. These small crystals are usually discarded by crystallographers, as typical microscopes are not bright enough to extract information from them. However, new sources provide a way to spatially image these samples and, in addition, provide temporal information on the femtosecond timescale.
Who are your scientific heroes?
The understated heroes of the science world. People that do amazing work, not for the recognition, but for the love of science. From days past: Nikola Tesla and Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi. In current-day research, I find the work of Tim Flannery truly inspiring.
If you had unlimited resources, what kind of research would you conduct?
As corny as it sounds, I would continue in the field I am in. I see such tangible outcomes that it is hard not to be excited about the potential applications of the research.
What activities outside of physics do you most enjoy?
I am an avid music lover?both playing instruments and listening to music. I enjoy the outdoors, hiking and just exploring. I am also a keen photographer.
What do you hope to gain from this year?s Lindau meeting?
As I fast approach the end of my Ph.D. research, my knowledge in both experimental and theoretical atom and electron optics should allow for meaningful discussions, both on key areas of the field in the past, but more importantly, on the direction for the progression of the field. Additionally, I look forward to discussing physics outside my research area, which is important for both providing increased awareness of other research that is out there, but also for firmly establishing the context of my own research within the community. The networking aspect of the meeting also provides an excellent opportunity to meet with like-minded peers from around the world and to form collaborations; current peers are future colleagues.
Are there any Nobelists whom you are particularly excited to meet or learn from at Lindau?
Theodor H?nsch, John Hall and Roy Glauber, because of their work in precision spectroscopy and the development of the frequency comb. This work is a great example of good ideas and good work that have had a huge impact on research and commercial applications, few of which could have been predicted.
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President Obama at his press conference on Friday said that ?the private sector is doing fine? when discussing US economic prospects. Republicans quickly slammed him for underplaying the nation?s job woes.
Skip to next paragraph Peter Grier
Washington Editor
Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.
?Did he see the job numbers that came out last week?? said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia. ?The private sector is not doing fine.?
Later in the day, Mr. Obama qualified his statement, saying "it is absolutely clear the economy is not doing fine." But as to his narrower point about the private sector, who is right? This happens to be a data-rich subject. Is the private sector OK or is it not?
Two points: 1) it depends what the meaning of the word ?fine? is, and 2) it depends on how you judge the remark in its full context, which included Obama asserting that the real problem is a downturn in public sector, not private sector, employment.
As to the first point, Obama found few defenders on Friday who agreed that the private sector was fine, if by "fine" one means as healthy and vibrant as it ought to be. The numbers here are obvious. A bleak employment report last week showed that the US added 69,000 jobs in May, which was not enough to keep the unemployment rate from rising to 8.2 percent.
?Yes, the private sector is creating jobs ? but not nearly enough to get back to normal unemployment,? wrote political scientist Jonathan Bernstein Friday on his A Plain Blog About Politics.
But if by ?fine? you mean moving in the right direction, that?s a different story. The private sector is in positive jobs territory, having created an average of 160,000 jobs per month in 2012. It?s in positive territory for Obama?s time in office, as well. The US has created on net 780,000 private sector jobs since February of 2009, points out Ezra Klein on the Washington Post?s Wonkblog.
?The private sector?s job creation machine is basically working, even if it would be nice to see it working faster,? Klein wrote on Friday.
The overall job numbers remain weak because public sector employment ? federal, state, and local jobs ? has actually been shrinking. Obama?s stimulus package contained $54 billion in aid to states to help them keep teachers, police, firefighters, and other less popular government bureaucrats in their posts. That money has now been spent and lay-offs due to government belt-tightening have accelerated.
?In the Bush era, the public sector had added nearly 1 million jobs. In the Obama era, it?s down 600,000 jobs and counting,? wrote Slate political blogger David Weigel Friday.
This brings us to point No. 2, context. The fuller text of Obama?s quote was this: ?The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we?ve created 4.3 million jobs over the last ... 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we?re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government, oftentimes cuts initiated by ... governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government.?
Replace ?doing fine? with ?growing,? and Obama?s quote becomes less controversial. But ?fine? is in there, and Republicans pounced on the misstep, as Democrats have on some Romney statements that look worse when shorn of surrounding words. (Remember ?I like firing people??)
On the blog of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, editor James Pethokoukis wrote that job growth remains much lower than the 1983-84 Ronald Reagan economic recovery from recession. Private sector GDP rose just 2.6 percent in the first quarter of this year, and only 1.2 percent last year.
The stock market is down 7 percent since early April and real take-home pay is down over the past year.
?No, Mr. President, the private sector isn?t doing fine at all,? wrote Pethokoukis in response to Obama?s press conference remark.
First time business owners who form an LLC or corporation have to face various legal concepts and one of them is registered agent. A Registered agent is a person assigned to receive service of process for your LLC or corporation. A De registered agent serves on behalf of a Delaware corporation in receiving legal documents including service of process, tax correspondence, annual reports and other correspondence from government and regulatory agencies.
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Image: T. Popmintchev & B. Baxley/JILA/Univ. Colorado
From Nature magazine
The pressurized, cylindrical chamber fits in the palm of Margaret Murnane?s hand. Yet out of one end of the device comes an X-ray beam that packs almost as much punch as the light generated by massive particle accelerators.
Murnane and Henry Kapteyn, both physicists at JILA in Boulder, Colorado, a joint institute of the University of Colorado and the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, have reported the first tabletop source of ultra-short, laser-like pulses of low energy, or ?soft?, X-rays. The light, capable of probing the structure and dynamics of molecules, was previously available only at large, billion-dollar national facilities such as synchrotrons or free-electron lasers, where competition for use of the equipment is fierce. But the report by Murnane, Kapteyn and their colleagues, published in the 8 June issue of Science (T.?Popmintchev et al. Science 336, 1287?1291; 2012), suggests that the devices might soon lie within the grasp of a university laboratory budget. ?For us, it?s incredible that we can do this at all in a tabletop system,? says Murnane. ?Three years ago, people would have said ?only large facilities can do that?.?
Murnane and Kapteyn, a husband-and-wife team who also head the Boulder-based company KMLabs, already sell a similar tabletop source of extreme-ultraviolet light. Murnane thinks that a future soft X-ray source should cost about US$1 million, and hopes that its relatively low cost and small size will open up X-ray studies for materials scientists, biologists and others. The beams generated by the device could, for instance, help materials scientists to make better solar materials by tracking the paths of electrons through solar cells, and might allow chemists to trace the ultrafast dynamics of photo?synthesis and catalysis. ?This is something people have been waiting for for a very long time,? says Oleg Shpyrko, a physicist at the University of California, San Diego. Shpyrko often waits months to get his experiments accepted at the Advanced Photon Source, a synchrotron at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, and must then fly his students halfway across the country to do the work.
The tabletop sources rely on a technique called high-harmonic generation, in which laser light is passed through a medium that converts it to light of shorter wavelengths and higher frequencies. Shine a ruby laser into a quartz crystal, for example, and a beam of ultraviolet light comes out ? albeit dimmer, but still focused like a laser beam.
Murnane and Kapteyn have pushed high-harmonic generation to its limits, with a system that uses an infrared laser as the source and pressurized helium gas as the medium. The laser creates a strong electric field, which draws electrons away from the helium atoms, allowing the electrons to absorb energy from the electric field. When they slam back in to the helium atoms, they release that absorbed energy as shorter-wavelength photons ? but only about one photon comes out for every 5,000 infrared photons that are put in.
The result is light at wavelengths almost as short as those delivered by synchrotrons. By increasing the pressure in the gas ? something theorists thought might defocus the light beam ? Murnane and Kapteyn can produce light with a wavelength of 0.8 nanometres. Around these wavelengths, many of the chemical elements used in magnets and superconductors absorb a characteristic band of light. Kapteyn says that this could be used by chemists to discern the spin states of nickel atoms that make up the bits of information in magnetic computer hard drives, for example.
The tabletop systems have already surpassed the larger light-source facilities in terms of laser pulse speed. Murnane and Kapteyn?s device produces very fast pulses, as short as 2.5 attoseconds (10?18 seconds) ? faster than the picosecond (10?12) pulses of synchrotrons and the femto?second (10?15) pulses of free-electron lasers. That timescale is even quicker than the making and breaking of chemical bonds. ?At this timescale, we can start using these light sources to address questions where we have no idea what the answers will be,? says Ferenc Krausz, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, and co-founder of Femtolasers, a company that sells ultrafast light sources.
A year ago, Volkswagen in China launched a marketing campaign called The People?s Car Project (PCP), which invited Chinese customers to submit ideas for cars of the future. Participants were able to tinker with designs on a Web site that Volkswagen set up for that purpose, or they could upload their own designs. Wang Jia, a student and resident of Chengdu in the country?s Sichuan province, chose the latter, envisioning a two-person environmentally-friendly hover car.
Below?s an excerpt from a Charleston magazine article, ?Asheville by the forkful,? ?a ?gastronomic trek through Western North Carolina?s new culinary star.?
Name: Andrew McCulloch
Ezine ready view
