Posted by Dennis Sellers

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, in a note to clients, has reduced his revenue expectation for Apple by five percent—from US$41.2 billion from $43.4 billion in 2009. He says a rapid contraction in the economy will mean slower growth rates for Macs and iPods. Still, Munster maintains his Buy rating...

Japanese Formula One driver Takuma Sato will test again with the Toro Rosso team at Jerez in Spain next week, raising expectations that the 31-year-old will secure a drive for the 2009 championship.img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/edition_sport/~4/tqBxKZBiRVw" height="1" width="1"/

I’ve been following Opera’s new releases quite closely, and whether it’s one of the mobile versions of the browser or the desktop Opera, one cannot say they aren’t active. The numbers, unfortunately, just aren’t on their side: regardless of having a great feature set and being very fast, the desktop version of Opera just isn’t gaining significant traction.

Opera’s next big release, Opera 10, raises expectation merely by its round version number, and now there’s an alpha version for everyone to try out. The new Presto 2.2 engine should bring speedier browsing, and even better adherence to W3C standards. Furthermore, there’s an inline spelling checker and auto updating, but these features are hardly a novelty since Firefox already has them both. Finally, Opera Mail has been improved, as well as widget support for Linux.

Will these new features bring Opera to the web browser spotlight? I’m afraid not. Google Chrome has pleasantly surprised us, and it’s fast as hell; the new Opera could prove to be faster, but I doubt that the performance can be drastically better. As far as other improvements go, they’re either minor features, or catching up with the competition, and that won’t be enough to gain significant market share.

If you’re brave enough to try Opera 10 Alpha 1 yourself, you can download it here.

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divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/7527?ns=guardianpageName=Business%3A+US+retail+sales+figures+confirm+bleak+outlook+for+consumersch=Businessc3=guardian.co.ukc4=US+economy+%28Business%29%2CWal-Mart%2CBusiness%2CUS+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CUS+Economyc6=Dan+Milmoc7=2008_12_04c8=1129049c9=articlec10=GUc11=Businessc12=US+economyc13=c14=h2=GU%2FBusiness%2FUS+economy" width="1" height="1" //divpThe US consumer is in full-scale retreat, retailers confirmed today, as dire sales figures confirmed a bleak outlook for the peak shopping season./ppMajor retailers such as Macy's, Abercrombie Fitch and GAP reported sales declines of more than 10% in November. Retail figures are a bellwether for the US economy with consumer spending accounting for more than two-thirds of economic activity. Shops hoped that Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year, would jump-start consumer outlay but industry experts were downbeat./pp"The American consumer is a train wreck," said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz Associates, a New York-based retail consultancy. "We don't know when it is going to get good but I think the worst is yet to come. The results are terrible and will continue to be terrible."/ppShopperTrak, a retail monitoring firm, said total sales at US retailers rose 1% during the Black Friday weekend but analysts believe much of that gain will have been stoked by deep discounts and will hit profits. Black Friday earns it moniker from the fact that most retailers move into an annual profit in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas./ppA leading retail trade group said the decline in November sales hit every section of the industry, affecting performances at previously robust sectors such as bargain stores and drugs outlets. The International Council of Shopping Centers, which represents stores including GAP and JCPenney, said sales at 37 major retailers fell 2.7% over November ndash; the worst start to the holiday season in 35 years - and is forecasting an overall dip of 1% in the final two months of the year./ppRetailers said the late timing of the Thanksgiving holiday of this year had also dented November figures, with more sales pushed into December as a result. However, the ICSC said it added up to two percentage points to the sales decline, which still left sales in a deficit overall./pp "We have never seen anything as weak as this. It is simply the recession and it is really taking its toll on consumer spending. And it is not just discretionary spending. It is across the board, with every segment showing a decline," said Michael Niemira, chief economist at the ICSC./ppThe best performer today was Wal-Mart, which beat expectations with a 3.4% sales rise at stores that had been open more than a year. The world's largest retailer added some gloss to the ICSC's figures. Without Wal-Mart's contribution, November sales would have fallen 7.7%./ppThe worst performers among individual retailers included Limited Brands, owner of the Victoria's Secret lingerie stores, which saw a 12% fall in like-for-like sales. Target, a close Wal-Mart competitor, posted a 10.4% decline and Abercrombie Fitch, the clothing retailer, said sales fell 28% as it refused to join competitors in aggressive discounting./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/useconomy"US economy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/walmart"Wal-Mart/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/JpBtvUkQ5ZTESTmlfI-91Y9arD4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/JpBtvUkQ5ZTESTmlfI-91Y9arD4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

New factory orders fell in October for the third straight month, the government announced Thursday, with the decline exceeding economists' expectations.img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~4/_NipSQWwIac" height="1" width="1"/

!-- [DocumentBodyStart:5d0015a4-5339-4a24-be15-869ace527def] --div class='jive-rendered-content'pAlex,/ppI'm definitely no expert here. IMHO any changes in a constructor should /ppbe picked up, but of course only if you create a new instance after the /pphotswap. But then again I can very well imagine that your field won't /ppget updated correctly, e.g. due to some optimization issues./pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppAlex Roytman wrote:/pblockquote class="jive-quote" level="1"pHello Martin,/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppWhat about case where I set value of a field in constructor? That is not /pppicked up as well. Do you think it is not possible to do as well?/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppThanks,/ppAlex/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppspan"Martin Fuhrer" lt;/spana class="jive-link-email-small" href="mailto:mf@fuhrer.com"mf@fuhrer.com/aspangt; wrote in message /span/ppspannews:/spana class="jive-link-email-small" href="mailto:gh8jhs$l9k$1@is.intellij.net"gh8jhs$l9k$1@is.intellij.net/aspan.../span/p/blockquotepgt;gt; Well, I suspect the problem is wrong expectations. In Alex' previous post /ppgt;gt; I see that he wants to change the initial value of some fields. IMHO this /ppgt;gt; isn't possible at all. You can only change how the JVM is EXECUTING some /ppgt;gt; piece of code, but any memory values already assigned will remain the same /ppgt;gt; regardless of the bytecode which originally was used to assign them./ppgt;gt;/ppgt;gt; Eugene Zhuravlev (JetBrains) wrote:/ppgt;gt;gt;gt; Yes I do see the message (12 classes reloaded some nested classes there)/ppgt;gt;gt; All the rest is done by jvm. The execution of the modified code as well /ppgt;gt;gt; as actual bytecode substitution is out of IDEA's control. I cannot say /ppgt;gt;gt; why in this particular example class reloading worked that way, I can /ppgt;gt;gt; only guess why it behaved so. Real answers could give developers of the /ppgt;gt;gt; jvm./ppgt;gt;gt;/ppgt;gt; -- /ppgt;gt; Martin Fuhrer/ppgt;gt; Fuhrer Engineering AG/ppspangt;gt; /spana class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://www.fuhrer.com"http://www.fuhrer.com/aspan /span/pblockquote class="jive-quote" level="1"p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/p/blockquotep style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pp-- /ppMartin Fuhrer/ppFuhrer Engineering AG/ppa class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://www.fuhrer.com"http://www.fuhrer.com/a/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/p/div!-- [DocumentBodyEnd:5d0015a4-5339-4a24-be15-869ace527def] --

!-- [DocumentBodyStart:ab1de1bd-6131-45bd-af3d-c162b07ed787] --div class='jive-rendered-content'pHello Martin,/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppWhat about case where I set value of a field in constructor? That is not /pppicked up as well. Do you think it is not possible to do as well?/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppThanks,/ppAlex/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/ppspan"Martin Fuhrer" lt;/spana class="jive-link-email-small" href="mailto:mf@fuhrer.com"mf@fuhrer.com/aspangt; wrote in message /span/ppspannews:/spana class="jive-link-email-small" href="mailto:gh8jhs$l9k$1@is.intellij.net"gh8jhs$l9k$1@is.intellij.net/aspan.../span/pblockquote class="jive-quote" level="1"pWell, I suspect the problem is wrong expectations. In Alex' previous post /ppI see that he wants to change the initial value of some fields. IMHO this /ppisn't possible at all. You can only change how the JVM is EXECUTING some /pppiece of code, but any memory values already assigned will remain the same /ppregardless of the bytecode which originally was used to assign them./p/blockquotepgt;/pblockquote class="jive-quote" level="1"pEugene Zhuravlev (JetBrains) wrote:/p/blockquotepgt;gt;gt; Yes I do see the message (12 classes reloaded some nested classes there)/ppgt;gt;/ppgt;gt; All the rest is done by jvm. The execution of the modified code as well /ppgt;gt; as actual bytecode substitution is out of IDEA's control. I cannot say /ppgt;gt; why in this particular example class reloading worked that way, I can /ppgt;gt; only guess why it behaved so. Real answers could give developers of the /ppgt;gt; jvm./ppgt;gt;/ppgt;/pblockquote class="jive-quote" level="1"p-- /ppMartin Fuhrer/ppFuhrer Engineering AG/ppa class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://www.fuhrer.com"http://www.fuhrer.com/aspan /span/p/blockquotep style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/pp style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"nbsp;/p/div!-- [DocumentBodyEnd:ab1de1bd-6131-45bd-af3d-c162b07ed787] --

Gerber Scientific Inc., which manufactures equipment used in making signs, specialty graphics, apparel and optical lenses, cut its fiscal 2009 forecasts Thursday because the economic slump is leading to delayed orders and decreased demand.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=pGV8O"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=pGV8O" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=fBOUo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=fBOUo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?a=UFQAo"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ibtimes/tech?i=UFQAo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ibtimes/tech/~4/474767773" height="1" width="1"/

New factory orders fell in October for the third straight month, the government announced Thursday, with the decline exceeded economists' expectations.img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~4/_NipSQWwIac" height="1" width="1"/

h4Palm to cut costs by 20%/h4 pNokia has cut expectations of the mobile-phone market for the third time in as many months, while Palm is planning to cut costs by 20 per cent following a halving of sales..../p

Wal-Mart Stores reported November sales that trounced expectations Thursday as the discounter continues to gain market share from its rivals in a worsening economy.img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/rss/money_latest/~4/EB6nrrOuYJ8" height="1" width="1"/

Six months ago, biofuels start-up Mascoma had the wind in its sails, as did the rest of the clean-tech sector. Now, the company is treading carefully and scaling back.

Six months ago, biofuels start-up Mascoma had the wind in its sails, as did the rest of the clean-tech sector. Now, the company is treading carefully and scaling back.

pFiled under: a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/ps3/" rel="tag"Sony PlayStation 3/a, a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/firstpersonshooters/" rel="tag"First Person Shooters/a/pdiv style="text-align: center;"img hspace="0" border="1" vspace="4" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/12/helgast490om.jpg" alt="" /br //div The cynic inside of me didn't want to believe the hype. How could I forget that the original emKillzone/em on PS2 was backed by an overwhelming hype machine, powered by vocal drones declaring it a "emHalo/em-killer?" When it released in 2004, critics were impressed by the technical presentation but found very little substance in the gameplay. Four years later with an early version of the single player game, I wondered if emKillzone 2/em would repeat history.br /br /Let me be as clear as I can. emKillzone 2/em is a fantastic game, easily deserving the hype its earned so far. Considering the expectations surrounding emKillzone 2/em, that means quite a lot. From what I've played so far, emKillzone 2/em delivers on all fronts. The gameplay is incredibly visceral and nuanced; the graphics are unparalleled.br /br /Obviously, a lot must be said about the visuals in emKillzone 2/em. The debut CG trailer was supposed to be representative of what the PS3 could possibly do. While perhaps not as flawless as the original trailer, emKillzone 2/em is without a doubt one of the most beautiful games ever created. The attention to detail is quite impeccable: textures are crisp; character models move with complex, lifelike animation.br /div class="postgallery"pstrongGallery: a href="/photos/killzone-2/"Killzone 2/a/strong/pa href="/photos/killzone-2/989299/" class="gallerythumbnail"img src="http://www.blogcdn.comwww.joystiq.com/media/2008/08/killzone-2-kz2_mp.08_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="/photos/killzone-2/989298/" class="gallerythumbnail"img src="http://www.blogcdn.comwww.joystiq.com/media/2008/08/killzone-2-kz2_mp.06_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="/photos/killzone-2/989297/" class="gallerythumbnail"img src="http://www.blogcdn.comwww.joystiq.com/media/2008/08/killzone-2-kz2_mp.03_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="/photos/killzone-2/989296/" class="gallerythumbnail"img src="http://www.blogcdn.comwww.joystiq.com/media/2008/08/killzone-2-kz2_mp.10_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //aa href="/photos/killzone-2/989295/" class="gallerythumbnail"img src="http://www.blogcdn.comwww.joystiq.com/media/2008/08/killzone-2-kz2_mp.09_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //a/divpa href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/04/hands-on-with-killzone-2s-single-player-campaign/" rel="bookmark"Continue reading emHands on with Killzone 2's single player campaign/em/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/04/hands-on-with-killzone-2s-single-player-campaign/"Hands on with Killzone 2's single player campaign/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.joystiq.com"Joystiq/a on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 02:00:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./pp style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"nbsp;/ppa href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/04/hands-on-with-killzone-2s-single-player-campaign/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/forward/1390616/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/04/hands-on-with-killzone-2s-single-player-campaign/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/i1hJc6X9AwvnlIfnItC60sSswws/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/i1hJc6X9AwvnlIfnItC60sSswws/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=bkmkczKc"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=bkmkczKc" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=BaKZKCff"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=BaKZKCff" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/joystiq/~4/hAN0G1GpcHs" height="1" width="1"/

Indicators this month point to a potential decline of more than 5% in U.S. IT spending growth over the next 12 months, according to an IDC research report.

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/75372?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Millions+of+Chinese+graduates+out+of+work+after+fivefold+rise+in+university+placesch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=China+%28News%29%2CInternational+education+news%2CEducation%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CEducation+Weekly+Education%2CStudents+Educationc6=Tania+Braniganc7=2008_12_04c8=1128381c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Chinac13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FChina" width="1" height="1" //divpSu Yinyin's family were thrilled when she won a place at university. As impoverished farmers, they knew it promised a comfortable middle-class life and a giant step up the social ladder for their daughter./ppBut now Su, 21, is wondering whether she can reach the next rung. As she looked around the heaving employment fair in Beijing, where 10,000 job-seekers vied for the attention of recruiters, she acknowledged that her parents' pride was increasingly tinged with anxiety. "When I became a student, it was both happy and worrying for my family," she said. "We are not rich. I took loans for university. I just hope I can get a stable job after graduation and repay them."/ppMore than 6 million Chinese students left university this year and up to a quarter are still struggling to find work. As the global slowdown bites, students such as Su know it can only get worse./pp"The grim economic situation poses an unprecedented challenge for college graduates to get a proper job," the ministry of education warned yesterday./ppBut the problems predate the crisis and mark both a success and failure on China's part. "The number of graduates increased too quickly - by 2006 there were already five times more than in 1999. The labour market can't take that big an increase in such a short time," said Professor Yang Dongping of the Beijing Institute of Technology, the author of a report on graduate employment./ppThe expansion of higher education reflects China's aspirations: the world's factory needs more skilled workers to move up the chain, away from cheap mass production. Yet there are not yet enough higher-end jobs. Four million graduates in recent years have yet to find their first job, according to officials. However, the true figure is probably higher as the current system relies on reporting by universities, who have a vested interest in showing that graduates can find work./ppGraduates are now competing with people made redundant. "I've had interviews, but they want people with experience," said Liu Jing, who has been job-hunting for six months. "There are more graduates, so there are more competitors for every post."/ppLike Su, she hails from a farming family; she had hoped to earn 2,000-3,000 yuan (pound;200-pound;300) a month to pay off her 20,000 yuan education bill. Now the 21-year-old will settle for 1,000 yuan./ppHigher expectations are clashing with the deteriorating economic reality./ppUntil 1981, the government assigned jobs, with those who dreamed of becoming engineers sometimes ending up as cooks or clerks. But while their parents took the work they were given, these students grew up in an age of personal choice. They expect fulfilling jobs and good remuneration; few want to leave the big cities or take up underpaid teaching work./ppGuo Qing, 22, should not have been at the fair at all: he found a design job after graduating this summer. But he admitted he packed it in not long afterwards. "I was very picky when looking for jobs before. I felt this or that didn't fit me. Later I realised it was my problem, psychologically," he said. "Our education was idealistic. But you realise the gulf between realism and idealism once you reach the real world. When you're job hunting you have to be practical."/ppYang thinks China needs to change, too. "Only 6% of the labour force has higher education, much lower than in most developed countries. There have to be structural problems," he said./ppSpending per student has slumped by almost two-thirds and most investment has gone into new buildings. Yang said that meant a drop in teaching quality and an explosion in liberal arts courses, while resource-hungry subjects such as engineering have lagged behind./ppThe government is reining back expansion and promising more help with job-hunting. But many of this year's graduates are hoping for more direct support. On Sunday, a record 775,000 applicants sat civil service exams - 130,000 more than last year - for only 13,500 jobs./pp"I didn't think of beating so many candidates," one graduate told the state media. "But I have to - because I've submitted my reacute;sumeacute; to about 60 firms and got only 10 replies, and no offers." /pp· Additional research by Chen Shi/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/china"China/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/internationaleducationnews"International education news/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8T8vZCh3c7tqIl2s6KGZHfJL3n0/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8T8vZCh3c7tqIl2s6KGZHfJL3n0/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/24131?ns=guardianpageName=Comment+is+free%3A+Mayor+Boris%2C+the+liberalch=Comment+is+freec3=The+Guardianc4=Boris+Johnson%2CLondon+%28News%29%2CLocal+government+%28Society%29%2CSociety%2CPolitics%2CConservatives%2CUK+newsc5=Society+Weekly%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CLocal+Government+Societyc6=Dave+Hillc7=2008_12_04c8=1128302c9=articlec10=GUc11=Comment+is+freec12=blogc13=c14=Comment+is+freeh2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" //divpNovember was a big month for Boris Johnson. Policy initiatives flowed, on transport, on culture, on youth crime; some were still at the consultative stage but all have given shape and substance to a regime initially defined by its haplessness. For months, the Mayor Boris story was one of drift and departing advisers. Now, at last, true political battle can be joined. A year ago, candidate Johnson seemed too posh, too daft and too much of the cartoon right to become London's mayor. Today, his opponents may find him a more elusive target than they'd hoped./ppThere was widespread expectation that the Blond's ambition was to be Ken Livingstone's antithesis. Reality is proving more complex. In keeping with his mandate and spurred by the downturn, Johnson has cut jobs and spending across the Greater London Authority bureaucracies, yet has talked up the virtues of public spending on Crossrail, the Underground and an Olympics legacy. Public transport fares will rise above the rate of inflation in January, but discounts for the poorest will be retained. Most intriguing of all, Johnson's gut economic liberalism is being complemented by his own version of its social counterpart./ppThere is more to this than his broad adherence to David Cameron's "caring Conservatism" agenda. Johnson has gone strikingly further, in supporting the London Living Wage and in commissioning a study into the effects of granting earned amnesties to long-term illegal immigrants./ppBoth moves have had Tory top brass leaping to safe political distances, but they pose a greater threat to Johnson's challengers. There are cases to be made that his housekeeping will hurt the vulnerable most and that his housing policy favours those on middle incomes. But it's harder to depict him as a Thatcherite xenophobe when he's bumping up working-class incomes and lobbying for 400,000 rule-breaking foreigners to be freed from the underground economy./ppOpponents will have to respond imaginatively to his line on inclusion and opportunity. Though he is wearingly persuaded by the rightwing whine about so-called political correctness, he has acknowledged that the agitation for minority rights Ken Livingstone fostered in the 80s had good reasons for existing./ppJohnson still often recoils from such stuff. Endorsing Barack Obama in his Telegraph column he wrote that a benefit of the US electing its first black president would be the end of "race-based politics" and the associated "grievance culture". With typical Tory dimness, he seems to imagine that Obama's victory could still have happened had "race-base politics" not prepared the ground./ppHis strategies on culture and equalities are similar in disdaining the identity politics that emerged from those civil rights campaigns. Yet they emphasise widening access and encouraging participation. Johnson's approach highlights important questions. Identity politics are often defensive, a reaction to hostility. In the city London has now become, is such defensiveness necessary? Is targeting grants at minority groups the best way to tackle discrimination, or does it sometimes institutionalise a limiting introversion? If the goal is to break down barriers against full participation in society, what is the best way for the mayor to help achieve it?/ppJohnson is feeling his way towards a formula that works for him, a blend of can-do, moral intervention and an old-fashioned Tory pragmatism that recognises that the capital is the loser if hundreds of thousands of people are marooned in its social margins. At the same time, it seeks to address Johnson's image problem. Yet paradoxically, it's also one that could build on some of the finest achievements of the left. If it does, how will the left respond?/pp· Dave Hill blogs about London at a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/davehillblog"Guardian.co.uk/Dave Hill's blog/a/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/boris"Boris Johnson/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/london"London/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/localgovernment"Local government/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/conservatives"Conservatives/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/5FM4wtdEvJWmfIwvIVgKGCrVN38/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/5FM4wtdEvJWmfIwvIVgKGCrVN38/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/etc/" rel="tag"Etc./a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/green/" rel="tag"Green/a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/tech/" rel="tag"Tech/a/pa href="http://ecomodder.com/blog/a-672-electric-car/"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/forkenswift_spark.jpg" //abr /br /Don't want to wait for the Chevrolet Volt? Don't feel like spending tens of thousands of dollars on a new green car? Combine your thrift, environmental consciousness and affinity for wrench turning by building your own electric car. Canadians Darin Cosgrove and Ivan Limburg have electrified a Geo Metro for less than $1,000 and you can too! Starting with a Metro helps set expectations, as the converted car is not fast and suitable only for low speed in-town tripping, but the original was no paragon of performance anyway. a href="http://www.autobloggreen.com/tag/forkenswift/"AutoblogGreen covered some of the ForkenSwift's construction/a, but we thought it'd be a good thing to revisit. The winter months are upon us, and building an EV in the garage is a nice way to stay out of the snow. br /br /After stripping out the gas engine and its associated plumbing, the duo sold the engine and fuel tank; we're amazed that there's a market for Metro engines. A $500 used forklift provided the DC motors and control systems, and the carcass provided good scrap value once the vital organs were harvested, helping offset costs. A used bank of batteries were donated by another EV owner, though new batteries would boost performance and range. But hey, nothing's as cheap as free. Finding a Metro for cheap might be a neat trick now that prices have a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/05/16/geo-metros-going-for-big-money-on-high-gas-prices/"been inflated/a, but any old light thing will work. For a total tally of $672, who can complain with the results? emThanks for the tip, Maxim. /embr /br /[Source: a href="http://ecomodder.com/blog/a-672-electric-car/"Ecomodder/a]p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/03/cheapskate-greenies-canadians-build-sub-1k-diy-electric-car/"Cheapskate Greenies! Canadians build sub-$1K DIY electric car/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our a href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both; padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a href=http://ecomodder.com/blog/a-672-electric-car/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/03/cheapskate-greenies-canadians-build-sub-1k-diy-electric-car/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1386671/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/03/cheapskate-greenies-canadians-build-sub-1k-diy-electric-car/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/IdVH6drY6x-YEVAjlseYc99FthA/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/IdVH6drY6x-YEVAjlseYc99FthA/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=QIkqojKy"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=QIkqojKy" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=lRZwTieC"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=lRZwTieC" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/kTOlOFTVQ2s" height="1" width="1"/

pa href=http://ffffound.com/image/34f3b154069c6bcccb2efc022d126e6157d904f9img src=http://img.ffffound.com/static-data/assets/6/34f3b154069c6bcccb2efc022d126e6157d904f9_m.jpg alt= border=0 width=480 height=360/a/ppvia a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/rodel-la/1034602557/in/set-72157601272263987/http://www.flickr.com/photos/rodel-la/1034602557/in/set-72157601272263987//a/p

pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=47e08c87796c7a6000163eecmaxX=148maxY=164" border="0" alt="ipod silo.jpg" title="ipod silo.jpg" width="148" height="164" /Will a slowing economy and cannibalization from the iPhone ruin holiday sales for Apple's (AAPL) iPods? Nope, says Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu./p pWu says the iPod is doing so well that retail outlets like Amazon (AMZN), Best Buy (BBY), Target (TGT) and Wal-Mart (WMT) are running out of current models. Unfortunately, he offers no details on how he arrives at this conclusion -- or at least Reuters doesn't. (Only two of a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/3221551/ref=pd_ts_zbw_e_3221551_more?pf_rd_p=366127201pf_rd_s=right-3pf_rd_t=101pf_rd_i=13660271pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DERpf_rd_r=1Y5FTPEAXFZCNN2P60GA"Amazon's top 20 iPods aren't in stock/a: The 8 GB and 16 GB iPod touch. Both of those models ship within 24 hours from Apple.com.)/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2008/12/03/ipods-scarcity-points-to-popularity-analyst-says/"Reuters/a: Wu said stocks of certain iPod models have been harder to come by at Amazon.com, Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart. [/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"Wu says: 'Frankly, we find these sell-outs on iPods surprising given how difficult the macroeconomic environment is, putting a crimp on consumer spending. From our assessment, we believe iPod is holding up better than most, due to its relatively low ASP (average selling price) and strong consumer understanding of the value it provides.'/p pWu is predicting iPod sales to reach 21 million this quarter. That's below last year's sales of 22.1 million iPods sold (and Wu's own a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/new-apple-ipods-nice-but-wall-street-in-no-hurry-to-jack-sales-forecasts"September prediction of 24 million/a) but above a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/apple-mac-sales-on-track-ipod-looking-better-than-expected-aapl-"the Street's prediction of 18.6 million/a. /p pIn other words: Q4 iPod sales are going to be horrible relative to Wu's expectations only three months ago. But maybe not disastrous./p pstrongSee Also:/strongbr /a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/have-ipod-sales-peaked-aapl-"Have Apple's iPod Sales Peaked?/abr /a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/11/apple-mac-sales-on-track-ipod-looking-better-than-expected-aapl-"Apple Mac Sales On Track, iPod Looking Better Than Expected/abr /a href="http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/9/new-apple-ipods-nice-but-wall-street-in-no-hurry-to-jack-sales-forecasts"New Apple iPods Nice, But Wall Street In No Hurry To Jack Sales Forecasts/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/I2naDJZfAtI_0jGa4QPsQJ7gG34/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/I2naDJZfAtI_0jGa4QPsQJ7gG34/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=1HD7hmcd"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=1HD7hmcd" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=szuMp0wf"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=JXWGu2l9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=ev8mfoNQ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=ev8mfoNQ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=eAZgCqCj"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=7dEX40B9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=IClELbxP"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=9ju3AZRh"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/8dT0ElGx4hw" height="1" width="1"/