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Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Hearing the World?s Tallest Building Creak in a Storm Is Terrifying
Monday, April 15, 2013
John Patrick Leary: All the Young Technocrats
The "White Entrepreneurial Detroit Guy" meme has touched a nerve, diagnosing exhaustion with a media infatuation with altruistic entrepreneurs. Many of the captions that have appeared thus far -- "Let them drink pourovers" -- are funny, but all of them are laced with much more bitterness than your average Internet joke. (Bitter, like an Ethiopian pourover gone cold?) It's worth considering what is actually behind the venom: It's not just mockery of "hipsters," or business owners, or non-native Detroiters, or God forbid, a case of "reverse racism."
The unfortunate subject of the meme, Jason Lorimer, set it all off with a tone-deaf article, "Detroit is the Opportunity of a Generation," in Model D, a local booster publication. Lorimer's article had big ambitions: to lay out a generational vision for Detroit while promoting his consulting company, Dandelion. "Cities advertise they are open for business," Lorimer writes, "but Detroit is open for changemakers. Cities advertise tax incentives, but Detroit is an opportunity to iterate alongside a community of doers and define the model for the post-industrial American city."
The article is so ridden with jargon that it reads like it was written by someone who has learned English entirely by watching TEDTalks. The lack of self-awareness was striking -- the absent sense that a little humility and dues-paying go a long way, especially for a white person of means in this city -- and the audacity of misappropriating the anti-colonial revolutionary Frantz Fanon as a consulting guru didn't help. Consider this befuddling description from Dandelion's homepage, in a poster unhelpfully titled "Dandelion Does," promising as it does to explain what Dandelion, in fact, does:
"A civic or social-issue investor comes to Dandelion with systemic issues that need measurable solutions. For example, homelessness in the community, truancy in the schools or a lack of a vibrant main street. Out entire tactical team studies the issue from all angles, for as long as it takes to make your problem our own."
Note the grand ambitions here: A little consulting firm will address homelessness or truancy "for as long as it takes to make your problem our own" (shouldn't homelessness already be "our" problem?). There's the recognition that such problems are "systemic" -- that is, they are symptoms of deeper societal failings with complex structures. Yet the solution to such systemic problems not in political activism but individual "innovation," not in social change but rather in heroic "changemakers."
But it would be unfair to pick on Dandelion exclusively. I, too, feel implicated by the meme, since I move easily in these same gentrifying precincts around Wayne State and downtown. The city's profound racial and neighborhood segregation, as persistent as ever, is in some ways the biggest problem signaled by the " entrepreneurial guy." But what the meme also mocks is a way of thinking about social change as an individual, technocratic, and even profitable affair. The Silicon Valley critic Evgeny Morozov, in his excellent new book To Save Everything, Click Here has a term for this way of thinking:
"Recasting all complex social situations either as neatly defined problems with definite, computable solutions or as transparent and self-evident processes that can be easily optimized -- if only the right algorithms are in place!...I call the ideology that legitimizes and sanctions such aspirations 'solutionism.'"
Solutionism, in the context of the media-friendly Detroit of Midtown, Corktown, and the Dan Gilbert-controlled area of downtown, combines a utopian idealism with the technocratic fantasy that systemic problems can be managed away with the right experts and right digital tools. You can see why this appeals to austerity-minded politicians -- "turnkeying" (this is apparently now a transitive verb) truancy is cheaper and gets better press than the apparently impossible task of funding urban public schools. Perpetually summoning "doers" to "innovate" "solutions" to urban unemployment is easier than actually doing so. If only we could mass-produce buzzwords in one of our vacant factories.
Another example of solutionism is a recent project of Corktown's Imagination Station. As reported by Michigan Radio, the group has developed a tool in response to Detroit failure to collect taxes on 50 percent of properties held in the city: a website that makes it easier to pay property taxes. A cynic might point out that of all the reasons that the city fails to collect property taxes, the technical difficulty of paying them surely ranks far, far down the list. Alas, there's no iPhone app that can rehire laid-off city tax assessors or battle speculators, like the notorious Grosse Pointe Woods investor Mike Kelly, the largest private landowner in Detroit. According to a 2007 University of Michigan study cited by the Detroit News, Kelly's company failed to pay taxes on one-third of its Detroit purchases over a two-year period.
The lure of technocratic solutionism also lends itself easily to defenses of Kevyn Orr, the city's Emergency Manager charged with settling the city's debts to Wall Street bondholders. In his case, a systemic problem, the city's impoverishment and indebtedness, is redefined as "fiscal instability" or "financial mismanagement" -- an elegant reframing of a structural problem as a management problem. See? All we need are new people, presumably with some better calculators and faster Internet connection.
One could ignore the "White Detroit entrepreneurial guy" as a harmless joke, or a mean one. But the "good intentions" the joke mocks are not just harmless delusions, but pernicious distractions that waste the idealistic energy of many young people in Detroit.
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Follow John Patrick Leary on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnPatLeary
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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-patrick-leary/all-the-young-technocrats_b_3082414.html
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Expectant women are sharing pregnancy plans before first trimester ...
Melanie Townsend with her daughter Poppy. Picture: Bradley Hunter Source: The Daily Telegraph
THE practice of staying mum on pregnancy hopes until the first trimester passes has fallen away with many parents now sharing baby plans earlier with family and friends.
In stark contrast to previous generations, women aged 25 to 44 are now twice as likely (67 per cent) to share their conception plans, compared to their own mothers.
A national study by pregnancy and fertility test company Clearblue found NSW women were most likely to share their baby-making plans with their mothers (19 per cent), other family members (18 per cent) and their partner's family (14 per cent).
Girlfriends and other friends were also close confidantes, with 12 per cent told of the pregnancy news.
University of NSW head of obstetrics and gynaecology, Professor William Ledger, said the community was now more open about what was discussed than before.
But he warned one in five pregnancies was at risk of miscarriage and said sharing conception attempt news could put pressure on couples.
"People often don't realise the average (time to become pregnant) is between three and nine months, even for young couples," Prof. Ledger said. "So if you announce to the world you are trying and then if it doesn't happen quickly, you could be announcing there is a fertility problem, which not everyone wants to share."
Sharing pregnancy news on Facebook is now a popular move, with a new status update for "expectant child".
Dr Alison Gee, a fertility expert with Genea, said couples may open up to people they feel comfortable with and who they feel will support them during the pregnancy.
"Part of the reason too is we can have earlier imaging of pregnancy now - we have a scan at seven weeks and they see a foetus and a fetal heart (beat) and that is very encouraging," she said.
"Some pregnancies are still lost between having a positive scan at seven or 12 weeks, but we have more information about pregnancies earlier on and that gives patients a bit more confidence to share pregnancy information."
Melanie Townsend opted to keep her pregnancy secret until she had passed the 12-week danger period.
The future grandparents were the first to learn the happy news, she said.
Her precious daughter, Poppy, was born on Christmas Day last year. "We waited until we got the 12-week all clear and knew it was a happy, healthy baby and then we shouted it from the rooftops," Mrs Townsend said.
"I know plenty of people who have told us earlier - it is quite common now at eight weeks. But going forward if we became pregnant again I wouldn't change that. I would wait until the three months.
Clearblue said its newest test is over 99 per cent accurate at detecting pregnancy from the day a period is due.
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Gold slumps to two-year low below $1,400 per ounce
By Clara Denina
LONDON (Reuters) - Gold dropped as much as 6.3 percent on Monday to below $1,400 per ounce for the first time since March 2011 as the market's downward momentum gained speed after more than four months of investor selling.
Investors ditched gold along with other commodities from oil to copper after a less-than-forecast growth in China's gross domestic product in the first quarter stoked doubts about the health of the global economy.
This added to last week's fears of central bank sales from Europe, prompted by a proposed sale of Cyprus bullion holdings, and concerns about a reduction in monetary stimulus. Adding to selling pressure, exchange-traded funds hit their lowest in more than a year on Friday.
Spot gold dropped as low as $1,384.69 an ounce and was at $1,409.26 by 1048 GMT, still down 4.7 percent.
U.S. futures for June delivery extended losses to fall more than 5 percent as Tokyo gold futures tumbled around 8 percent, marking Japanese futures biggest daily fall since September 2011.
"We are entering a phase of additional long liquidation by ETF investors and short-selling from hedge funds, which will continue in the foreseeable future," Saxo Bank senior manager Ole Hansen said.
"Purely looking at the charts, support would now be at $1,300, which would equate the 50 percent retracement from the rally from the Lehman crack in 2008 to the September 2011 record high."
Other precious metals were also hit by heavy selling, with silver falling to its lowest since October 2010, platinum at its weakest since August last year, and palladium hitting a three-month low.
By contrast, hedge funds and money managers raised their net longs in gold futures and options in the week to April 9, a report by Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed on Friday.
Gold slipped into a bear market last week, plunging more than 5 percent on Friday to below $1,500 for the first time since July 2011.
Investors cut exposure to gold, with total holdings at the world's major bullion gold-backed exchange-traded-funds falling to their lowest since early 2012.
Holdings of the largest fund, New York's SPDR Gold Trust GLD fell a further 22 metric tons on Friday.
Investors have recently been dumping gold for the past three straight weeks. Even escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula have failed to burnish its safe-haven appeal.
Cyprus's plan to sell gold reserves to raise around 400 million euros ($525 million) has raised concerns other indebted euro zone countries could follow suit, while signs of a tentative recovery in the United States could further dent gold's appeal.
"What we now see is panic selling, perhaps triggered by the Fed's stimulus view. The Fed has given the signal that there's a possibility to reduce QE, and that took a lot of trust out of gold," said Dominic Schnider, an analyst at UBS Wealth Management.
"As the Fed becomes less reflationary and the ECB not willing to end its deflationary policy, the balance towards inflation is shifting dramatically. And people recognize that in an environment where you have no inflation is a powerful driver to get out of the metal."
While policy doves currently hold sway over Chairman Ben Bernanke and the majority of Fed policymakers, minutes from last month's policy meeting suggested the quantitative easing program could draw to a close by year-end, earlier than some economists had expected.
Premiums for gold bars ticked up to $1.50 to the spot London prices in Singapore, versus $1.20 last week.
Although jewelers could snatch the opportunity to stock up, a meager increase in premiums for gold bars suggested that consumers were staying on the sidelines.
Silver was down 10 percent to $23.27 an ounce, having fallen to its lowest since October 2010 at $22.97.
Spot palladium dropped 6 percent to its lowest since January 8 at $665.75 and was then seen at $678.72, down 4.1 percent, while spot platinum was down 3 percent at $1,439.99 an ounce.
(Additional report by Lewa Pardomuan and Manolo Serapio Jn in Singapore; Editing by Jane Baird)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/gold-slumps-two-low-below-1-400-per-111102711--sector.html
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Sunday, April 14, 2013
'Catfish' At The MTV Movie Awards: Watch Now!
Mark Wahlberg, Anna Kendrick and Joe Manganiello get caught in a celebrity 'Catfish' during Movie Awards.
By Amy Wilkinson
Anna Kendrick talks with Max and Nev during the MTV Movie Awards "Catfish"
Photo: MTV News
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1705630/celebrity-catfish-movie-awards-2013.jhtml
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Analysis: Beijing to US on North Korea _ talk
BEIJING (AP) ? Embedded within Chinese leaders' convoluted, yet vague statements to Washington about North Korea is a simple message: Talk with Pyongyang.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's weekend discussions with officials in Beijing offered up the usual encouraging but familiarly noncommittal language on North Korea, emphasizing Beijing's desire to strike a balance between easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula while not appearing to side against its prickly communist ally Pyongyang.
But while neither side offered details of their exchanges, Beijing is communicating its strong desire for some form of direct contact between the U.S. and North Korea as a means of defusing the ongoing crisis over North Korea's nuclear threats that have prompted a massive show of force by the U.S. and South Korea.
"North Korea wants to talk, so why not talk?" said Shen Dingli, a regional security expert and director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University. The question for China, Shen said, is how to make such discussions come about, adding that China is unlikely to make such calls too explicit for fear of putting either side in an embarrassing quandary.
Highlighting the difficulties of getting North Korea to talk with the U.S., the North rebuffed last week's proposal by Seoul to resolve the tensions through dialogue. North Korea dismissed the proposal as a "crafty trick" to disguise what Pyongyang calls the South's hostility, and said it won't talk unless Seoul abandons its confrontational posture.
Chinese media reports on Kerry's Saturday talks largely downplayed North Korea, and the Foreign Ministry's official statements were predictably blurry. In its account of his meeting with Kerry, the ministry quoted Premier Li Keqiang as referring only to "those who stir up trouble on the peninsula only harm their own interests, like moving a stone only to drop it on one's own foot."
That was a near echo of President Xi Jinping's own comment in a speech earlier this month that "no one should be allowed to throw the region, or even the whole world, into chaos for selfish gains" ? seen as much as a rebuke to the U.S. and its allies as to North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un. The ministry's account of Kerry's meeting with Xi didn't mention the Korean Peninsula even obliquely.
While China has grown more critical of North Korea since the latter's third nuclear test in February, Beijing remains highly wary of pushing the hardline communist regime too far. China says it wants a Korean Peninsula free from nuclear weapons, but that all sides must play a role in that.
The stakes are high for China, with a potential conflict threatening its economic development and stability in the northeast along its long, meandering border with North Korea. Beijing abhors the prospect of a pro-U.S. unified Korean state on its border as well as internal North Korean conflict that could spark an outflow of refugees.
China was already displeased by Kim's lack of outreach and lack of concern for Beijing's interests, and signed on to tighter U.N. sanctions following the North's latest nuclear test in February. It's also stepped up customs checks along their border, slowed some deliveries of equipment to the North and cracked down on suspect financial transactions by North Korean banks.
That's had little apparent effect on Kim's behavior, and he seems emboldened by China's lack of a forceful response to past crises and Pyongyang's perceptions of China's fear of a collapse of the regime. While North Korea's population is starving and impoverished, the leadership gets by on Chinese food and fuel, along with growing investment, and imports of North Korean iron ore and other raw materials.
Despite that, it's not clear what, if any, further pressure China is willing to exert, and if Xi, Li or others offered any further commitments, neither side was saying.
"Theoretically, there is more that China can do, but we're very worried that doing so could stimulate Kim to do even more dangerous things," said Shi Yinhong, an international relations expert at Renmin University in Beijing.
"Be prudent, don't go too far" is China's message to Washington and South Korea, Shi said.
While direct Washington-Pyongyang communication may offer a start, the ultimate key to easing tensions long-term lies in involving the other regional players, said Zhang Liangui, a researcher with the ruling Communist Party's main research and training institute in Beijing.
That would mark a return to Beijing's preferred format of six-nation talks involving the two Koreas, China, the U.S., Japan and Russia, a process stalemated since 2009 over how to ensure North Korean compliance with denuclearization measures. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi again communicated Beijing's preference for the Chinese-hosted talks in his Saturday meeting with Kerry.
"This is not an issue for the two sides only," said Zhang, who is close to the Chinese leadership but said he had no direct knowledge of Kerry's meetings. "It concerns the entire region, so all the countries involved should take part."
China is not the only one suggesting a phone conversation between the sides. Flamboyant former NBA player Dennis Rodman made the same point following a bizarre trip to Pyongyang and meetings with Kim in March.
Both Kim and President Barack Obama love basketball "and there is even more they could talk about if Obama would just pick up the phone and call him," Rodman said following the trip.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-beijing-us-north-korea-talk-090502853.html
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Gillmor Gang: Speculation, Music, Death | TechCrunch
The Gillmor Gang ? Kevin Marks, John Taschek, Keith Teare, and Steve Gillmor ? spared no expense to bring you the finest in up-to-date tech commentary. In other words, we tore into Twitter Music, ignored Facebook Home, dissected the internals of AirPlay, and cashed our Bitcoin checks.
Our attention is a zero sum game, and whether it?s West Wing or Twitter pointers into the musicsphere, how we make our streaming choices will determine who the big winners are. What we?re really waiting for is the tipping point when the streamer artists crossover and recapture the idea that the creators are the real coin of the realm.
@stevegillmor, @kteare, @kevinmarks, @jtaschek
Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor
Steve Gillmor is a technology commentator, editor, and producer in the enterprise technology space. He is Head of Technical Media Strategy at salesforce.com and a TechCrunch contributing editor. Gillmor previously worked with leading musical artists including Paul Butterfield, David Sanborn, and members of The Band after an early career as a record producer and filmmaker with Columbia Records? Firesign Theatre. As personal computers emerged in video and music production tools, Gillmor started contributing to various publications, most notably Byte Magazine,...
? Learn moreKeith Teare is the CEO and founder of just.me Inc and a Founder at the Palo Alto incubator, Archimedes Labs. Teare has a track record as a serial entrepreneur with big ideas and has achieved significant returns for investors. History (a) The EasyNet Group: Founded in 1994 as one of the first ISP?s in Europe, Teare was CTO and co-founder. It went public on the AIM exchange in London in 1996 and was trading at a valuation of more than $1...
? Learn moreKevin Marks is a software engineer. Kevin served as an evangelist for OpenSocial and as a software engineer at Google. In June 2009 he announced his resignation. From September 2003 to January 2007 he was Principal Engineer at Technorati responsible for the spiders that make sense of the web and track millions of blogs daily. He has been inventing and innovating for over 17 years in emerging technologies where people, media and computers meet. Before joining Technorati,...
? Learn moreJohn Taschek is vice president of strategy at salesforce.com. He is responsible for corporate product strategy, corporate intelligence and market influence. Taschek came to company in 2003, bringing over 20 years of technology evaluation experience. Taschek currently is also the editorial director for CloudBlog - an independent blog run as an adjunct to salesforce.com?s web properties. He occasionally is on Steve Gillmor?s The Gillmor Gang enterprise web video-cast. Previously, Taschek ran the testing labs at eWEEK (formerly PC Week) magazine....
? Learn moreSource: http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/13/gillmor-gang-speculation-music-death/
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