!--paging_filter--pSpace 1026’s neon-hued founder, a href="http://www.andrewjeffreywright.com/" target="_blank"Andrew Jeffrey Wright/a, celebrates the power of tight pants and green juice./p pbWho was the best artist of 2008?/b/p pNarwhalz Of Sound. Brian Blomerth is Narwhalz Of Sound. I saw him perform this past summer in the dusty basement of a north Philly warehouse. He plays a modified Gameboy that he muffs around with until it brings forth sound patterns and sequences that no Gameboy was ever intended to make and then people go super nuts./p pbWho was the worst artist of 2008?/b/p pa href="http://www.xlr8r.com/features/2008/12/best-2008-andrew-jeffrey-wright"read more/a/p

div style="FLOAT: right"img title="Dreamy Tina USB Flash Drive For The Missus" alt="Dreamy Tina USB Flash Drive For The Missus" hspace="5" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/dreamy-tina.jpg" vspace="5" border="0" //div pAre you in a tight spot of not knowing what to get the missus as a form of saying sorry? Well, let us help you out. If she's tech-savvy to a certain extent, it certainly won't hurt for you to pick up the Dreamy Tina USB flash drive. This lilac USB stick will feature a smiling girl with a shiny silver skipping rope. On the downside, Dreamy Tina will set you back by a whopping pound;102 for a mere 2GB, which is nothing short of online robbery, but if bling is what you're after without regard to price, then Dreamy Tina really is your girl when Swarovski releases her to the adoring masses next March./p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/dreamy_tina_usb_flash_drive_for_the_missus.html"Dreamy Tina USB Flash Drive For The Missus/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081202175530" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081202175530?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081202175530" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081202175530amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fdreamy_tina_usb_flash_drive_for_the_missus.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/VKXrY5Yl2DkjVhV4UYt8s6fEX8I/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/VKXrY5Yl2DkjVhV4UYt8s6fEX8I/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=zW3Ar64s"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=I87bAAT7"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=I87bAAT7" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=xsnJdHUD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=dzkNtrzZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=dzkNtrzZ" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=gEahc0gv"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=gEahc0gv" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/QXsJAJOoPAE" height="1" width="1"/

We hit embellish a commonwealth of fast gratification. We poverty what we poverty when we poverty it. But in today’s tight, scheme situation, the importance of action is critical. It is the only genuine means to business solvency. That existence said, however, trying to save money in a tough business status is difficult, at best. [...]

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/cleft_unto_the_suck.jpg" width="220" height="211" align="right" hspace="4" vspace="2" align="right"/Merlin Mann doesn't crank out posts on software, focus, time-savers, and the other realms of "productivity pr0n" anymore, but he's still got a razor-sharp focus on the kinds of thinking that move things forward. He writes at 43 Folders about trying to get better at his personal photographs, and fighting off the mental nags that try to pull him off-path:br / blockquote... Even if a given shot is sh*t — and, most certainly, the vast majority of all my photos are varying degrees of sh*t — you still learn from the bad ones and no damage is done. Truth is, at the level I’m playing, there’s no real cost associated with failure. Unless, you count the damage of working with unrealistic expectations or the paralyzing joylessness of the conventional wisdom that only some are “Blessed with Creativity...” [insert Tinkerbell glissando]/p/blockquote pThe full post gives a tight, clear view on what it takes to learn, and learn honestly, from mistakes and making improvement a real goal. Similar in topic to a href="http://lifehacker.com/398068/ira-glass-on-getting-creative-work-done"Ira Glass' advice on working past the awful/a, and pretty funny, to boot. emPhoto by a href="http://flickr.com/photos/craigmdennis/3027962567/"craigmdennis/a./em div class="related"a href="http://www.43folders.com/2008/12/01/courageous-sucking"Photography, and the Tolerance for Courageous Sucking/a [43 Folders]/div /p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=58414250afd4e13d348bd42cffd5ebc6p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=58414250afd4e13d348bd42cffd5ebc6p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=58414250afd4e13d348bd42cffd5ebc6" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=rS51ZRpv"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=aHefealH"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=H1ashTGD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=H1ashTGD" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=5a46J7H1"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=5a46J7H1" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/EQ45V987gV8" height="1" width="1"/

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/cleft_unto_the_suck.jpg" width="220" height="211" align="right" hspace="4" vspace="2" align="right"/Merlin Mann doesn't crank out posts on software, focus, time-savers, and the other realms of "productivity pr0n" anymore, but he's still got a razor-sharp focus on the kinds of thinking that move things forward. He writes at 43 Folders about trying to get better at his personal photographs, and fighting off the mental nags that try to pull him off-path:br / blockquote... Even if a given shot is sh*t — and, most certainly, the vast majority of all my photos are varying degrees of sh*t — you still learn from the bad ones and no damage is done. Truth is, at the level I’m playing, there’s no real cost associated with failure. Unless, you count the damage of working with unrealistic expectations or the paralyzing joylessness of the conventional wisdom that only some are “Blessed with Creativity...” [insert Tinkerbell glissando]/p/blockquote pThe full post gives a tight, clear view on what it takes to learn, and learn honestly, from mistakes and making improvement a real goal. Similar in topic to a href="http://lifehacker.com/398068/ira-glass-on-getting-creative-work-done"Ira Glass' advice on working past the awful/a, and pretty funny, to boot. emPhoto by a href="http://flickr.com/photos/craigmdennis/3027962567/"craigmdennis/a./em div class="related"a href="http://www.43folders.com/2008/12/01/courageous-sucking"Photography, and the Tolerance for Courageous Sucking/a [43 Folders]/div /p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=58414250afd4e13d348bd42cffd5ebc6p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=58414250afd4e13d348bd42cffd5ebc6p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=58414250afd4e13d348bd42cffd5ebc6" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=rS51ZRpv"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=aHefealH"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=H1ashTGD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=H1ashTGD" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=5a46J7H1"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=5a46J7H1" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/EQ45V987gV8" height="1" width="1"/

pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/etc/" rel="tag"Etc./a, a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/saab/" rel="tag"Saab/a/pa href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/saab-ice-scraper/1195727/"img vspace="4" hspace="4" border="0" alt="" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/12/saab-ice-001s.jpg" //abr / div align="center"emstrongClick the above image for a high res photo of the Funk-Is/strong/embr //div br /Scraping the ice off windshields is anything but fun. But just because it's a chore, doesn't mean it can't also be swathed in simple Swedish luxury. Saab is looking to make ice scraping easier with the introduction of the Funk-Is, which combines plexiglass, sheepskin, and leather to create a simple Swedish solution to a problem that is as old as the automobile itself. The compact scraper has an angled plexiglass surface that makes getting to tight spots easier, yet its blade is rounded to limit damage to window seals. br /br /The Funk-Is isn't very big, yet it brakes the bank with a suggested retail price of $72.50. We appreciate the comfort of a sheep-skin grip as much as the next blogger, but we could think of more pressing items we'd rather have in our stocking. But if you live and breath all things Trollhattan, the Funk-Is could be a dream come true.br /br /div class="postgallery"pstrongGallery: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/saab-ice-scraper/"Saab ice scraper/a/strong/pa href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/saab-ice-scraper/1195727/"img src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/12/saab-ice-001_thumbnail.jpg" alt="" title="" //a/divbr /[Source: a href="http://www.luxist.com/2008/11/30/saabs-funk-is-ice-scraper/"Luxist/a]p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/02/saab-gets-into-ice-scraping-business-with-funk-is-ice-scraper/"Saab gets into ice-scraping business with Funk-Is Ice Scraper/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:28:00 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://www.luxist.com/2008/11/30/saabs-funk-is-ice-scraper/Read/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/02/saab-gets-into-ice-scraping-business-with-funk-is-ice-scraper/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1387597/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/02/saab-gets-into-ice-scraping-business-with-funk-is-ice-scraper/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8XLJHt0N8O7pGs2uLjhA-JAPQ6k/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/8XLJHt0N8O7pGs2uLjhA-JAPQ6k/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=7PrAdQOT"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=7PrAdQOT" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=RdJjEp5z"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=RdJjEp5z" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/PtT_iDggEj4" height="1" width="1"/

div class="rxbodyfield"p class="ArticleBody" page="1"Server shipments grew in the third quarter this year, though server revenue declined as companies lowered spending to meet budgetary constraints, according to a study released by Gartner on Monday./pp align="right"a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" target="_blank" /img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/idg.us.info.rss/news;pos=imu;tile=6;sz=336x280;skey=patch_management;pkey=security;ord=123456789?" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="" align="right"//a/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Purchase of more expensive systems, like Unix servers, were put on hold as buyers tried to keep spending in check during the quarter, said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice president at Gartner./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"strong[ What technologies can you not afford to cut in the current recession? InfoWorld reveals a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/11/19/47FE-five-recession-proof-technologies_1.html?source=fssr"the top 5 spending priorities you can#39;t compromise on/a. ]/strong/pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Buyers instead opted to buy lower priced x86 systems, which saw a growth in shipments during the third quarter. However, vendors saw revenues on x86 systems drop on lower average selling prices, Hewitt said./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Server markers shipped more lower priced x86 servers with two and four processor sockets, which led to more aggressive pricing on servers, Hewitt said./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Coupled with lower-end server purchases, companies are also investing in new server technologies like virtualization, where server workloads are consolidated into virtual environments, Hewitt said. That helped reduce spending on server technologies as companies try to meet budgetary constraints./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Blade servers with x86-based chips also witnessed healthy growth during the quarter, Hewitt said. Companies are taking advantage of the flexibility provided by blade servers to work in different environments, from performing basic applications to being scalable enough to handle heavier workloads in data centers, he said./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Total server shipments in the third quarter this year were 2.3 million units, a 4.4 percent increase compared to the third quarter of 2007. Hewlett-Packard was the world#39;s top server vendor, shipping 724,024 units, a 11.4 percent increase over last year, giving the company a 31.2 percent market share. Dell was second, shipping 500,470 units, a 3.3 percent increase. IBM was third, shipping 308,524 units, a 3.5 drop compared to last year./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"HP was the top x86 server vendor, shipping 708,977 units, taking 31.9 percent of the market and growing 12.3 percent year-over-year. Dell was second, shipping 500,470 units, followed by IBM, which saw shipments drop by 1.8 percent to 278,721 units./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Worldwide server revenue dropped by 5.4 percent to $12.7 billion compared to last year#39;s third quarter. All major server vendors, including IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Dell saw server revenues drop during the quarter, with top Unix server vendor Sun Microsystems recording the highest drop of 13.7 percent./pp class="ArticleBody" page="1"Unix shipments totaled 86,646 units during the third quarter, a 16.1 percent year-over-year decline./p/divbr style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=camp;i=4b186d2269f8b1d6ada196f85f61f537amp;p=1img style=border:0; src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/ht.php?t=vamp;i=4b186d2269f8b1d6ada196f85f61f537amp;p=1 border=0 //a

I've browsed the forums, but found no definitive answer. A list of maybe's or 'stetch to fit."

Has any company released a Sleeve tailored to fit the Late (Unibody) MacBook Pro?

The closest I've found is Booq, which the website says it will fit both. After reading a personal review, It seems that this option is a tight fit as well (on the width), while there is too much height (an not as snug). I prefer this design, but wish that it would fit.

http://www.booqbags.com/All-Products...n-skin-M-black

Suggestions for the tailored fit, of similar style to the Booq?

Thank you.

centerimg title="Asus Releases its N10JC Notebook in Japan this Saturday" style="MARGIN: 0px" alt="Asus Releases its N10JC Notebook in Japan this Saturday" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/asus-n10jc.jpg" border="0" //centerbr / pThe Asus N10JC is small like a Netbook but packs a lot more punch. It might have an Atom 1.6Ghz CPU, but it comes with a GeForce 9300M GS GPU, 160GB and only 1GB of memory. It has a 10.2" display that has a resolution of 1024x600, which is a bit tight, especially vertically. /P PIt's interesting to see how a Netbook CPU (Atom) a small computer with a decent GPU. I wonder what the pricing will be. I hope that the RAM is expandable to at least 2GB and hopefully 4GB. (via A href="http://aving.net/usa/news/default.asp?mode="readamp;c_num=108412amp;C_Code=02amp;SP_Num=0amp;mn_name=""Aving/a)/p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/asus_releases_its_n10jc_notebook_in_japan_this_saturday.html"Asus Releases its N10JC Notebook in Japan this Saturday/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081201182627" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081201182627?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081201182627" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081201182627amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fasus_releases_its_n10jc_notebook_in_japan_this_saturday.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/uV4HvhLGWLgXb9Ww09WH_M2GIEU/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/uV4HvhLGWLgXb9Ww09WH_M2GIEU/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=9v7wcVR9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=0ifAc1c8"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=0ifAc1c8" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=aaOvFBAZ"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=Xk5Fv3YT"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=Xk5Fv3YT" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=5swDC0hh"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=5swDC0hh" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/X8TBbwzLejE" height="1" width="1"/

The result of Romania's parliamentary election was too close to call yesterday evening with the two main parties of the centre-left and centre-right running...

centerimg title="Apple Offers No-fee Mini DisplayPort Licenses " style="MARGIN: 0px" alt="Apple Offers No-fee Mini DisplayPort Licenses " src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/apple-minidisplayport.jpg" border="0" //centerbr / pApple has loosened their tight turtlenecks abit, offering no-fee Mini DisplayPort licenses to parties who are interested in designing products around the new specification. It is hoped that this move will bring the fledgling display connector to mainstream consciousness. After all, they're pretty confident that most people would need resolutions of up to 2,560 x 1,600 on their desks, a resolution that is commonly used on 30" displays. Do you think third parties will pick up this license? Well, it would be interesting to see Apple's train get derailed for a while to A href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/apple_hits_new_record_with_internet_share.html"give Microsoft a breather/A, whether it is a hardware or software aspect, but then again, we shouldn't have such nefarious thoughts about companies, right?/P pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/apple_offers_nofee_mini_displayport_licenses.html"Apple Offers No-fee Mini DisplayPort Licenses/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081201174217" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081201174217?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081201174217" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081201174217amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fapple_offers_nofee_mini_displayport_licenses.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/RyJaUwXcUmw7JJ9c10pX6HjQ1Nc/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/RyJaUwXcUmw7JJ9c10pX6HjQ1Nc/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=19QsbDri"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=oEI8MV0T"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=oEI8MV0T" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=2udWf4LY"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=BExaVPAX"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=BExaVPAX" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=bAFlMpu6"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=bAFlMpu6" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/0LuLYX6WBnQ" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/26248?ns=guardianpageName=Comment+is+free%3A+A+late+calling+to+accountch=Comment+is+freec3=The+Guardianc4=Banking+sector+%28Business%29%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29%2CEconomics+%28Business%29%2CMortgages+%28Money%29%2CBorrowing+and+debt%2CMoney%2CBusinessc5=Personal+Finance%2CInvestments%2CCredit+Crunch%2CBusiness+Markets%2CProperty+Mortgages+and+Interest+Ratesc6=Will+Huttonc7=2008_12_02c8=1127135c9=articlec10=GUc11=Comment+is+freec12=blogc13=c14=Comment+is+freeh2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" //divpA rare silver lining in this recession is that a veil of mystery is being lifted from the longstanding lending practices of British banks. Suddenly they are understood as not necessarily always in the best national economic interest./ppMortgage and business borrowers alike are newly empowered by the pound;37bn bank bail-out, and change is afoot. Yesterday the Royal Bank of Scotland, now 58% owned by the taxpayer, promised it would give distressed homeowners six months' grace before it moved to repossess their property. Last week it said it would guarantee the level and price of its overdraft commitments to small business until the end of 2009 - providing, it qualified, the risks of their situation did not substantially change./ppThese are concessions of the sort that have not been made in any postwar recession. They make it impossible for Lloyds-TSB/HBOS not to follow suit. HSBC will not want to be outdone. Only Barclays, suffering the burden of the bail-out terms from its sovereign wealth fund investors, is likely to cling to the banking tradition of being providers of umbrellas except when it is raining. It will no longer be politically acceptable./ppBankers, in fairness, are the custodians of other people's money. They have to provide cash to their depositors whenever they want it, even as they tie it up in loans to homebuyers and business. This confidence trick requires careful managing. British banks' approach has been to keep their lending as short-term as possible, to have it collateralised against bricks and mortar, to keep tight control at headquarters and to recall loans at the first sign of trouble./ppIt works, but it is brutal. It does not favour long-term investment. It biases lending towards property rather than business innovation. It does not favour manufacturing industry that needs most support in downturns. It makes home ownership high risk for working-class families. And it exacerbates recessions./ppThere is another approach, more widely used in mainland Europe and Japan. It is best illustrated by a story from yesterday's Financial Times about the Reading-based Magal Group. Owner Gamil Magal wants a pound;1.5m loan from RBS to tide over his engineering firm during the recession, collateralised against pound;12m of assets. The company is solid but now losing money; properly supported it might survive. In Europe and Japan, banks tend to be supportive of their Magals, with whom they have long-term relationships. They certainly demand restructuring and redundancy, but they shepherd the scaled-back firms to recovery, offering not just finance but advice and business knowledge./ppIn Britain banks do not support such relationships. But they do know British financial protocols. RBS, says Magal, responded to his request by sending him an insolvency expert. When RBS was privately owned, he would not have dared complain and tempt such awesome power of life and death. In today's climate, he feels he can go public./ppIf the banks together support all the firms in the manufacturing value chain then each individual firm is more likely to pull through. Magal needs supporting, but so do his customers. RBS cannot have an open chequebook, but unless it and other banks are more collectively accommodating to firms' requests, they create the very risks RBS is alert to./ppUK banks have never been properly accountable for their actions, hiding behind the myth that, as their decisions are taken in markets, they are necessarily efficient. They are not. If more businessmen speak out, and the government has some guts, the next 18 months could see a transformation in British finance. It is long overdue./pp· Will Hutton is executive vice-chair of the Work Foundation a href="mailto:will.hutton@observer.co.uk"will.hutton@observer.co.uk/a/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/banking"UK banking sector/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/economics"Economics/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/mortgages"Mortgages/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/debt"Borrowing debt/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/n9llmbmU7O2cqsuftgw_d1pg-Qw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/n9llmbmU7O2cqsuftgw_d1pg-Qw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

pThanksgiving may be history, but stargazers will find theres another bountiful feast to be had in tonights sky. Just after sundown, those in pockets with clear skies should see a tight clustering of the crescent moon and the two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter. a href=http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=the-moon-jupiter-and-venus-night-sk-2008-12-01[More]/a

Quarterback Derek Anderson and tight end Kellen Winslow underwent further medical tests on potential season-ending injuries.

pFiled under: a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/pc/" rel="tag"PC/a, a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/interviews/" rel="tag"Interviews/a, a href="http://www.joystiq.com/category/mmo/" rel="tag"MMO/a/pdiv align="center"img vspace="4" border="1" src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2008/12/iss13.jpg" alt="" //div It's been more than four years since MMO faithful were asked to put on skin-tight suits and defend the bustling metropolis of Paragon City in emCity of Heroes/em. Since that time, however, numerous other titles have emerged with their bid for players' massively multiplayer affections, from recent efforts like ema href="http://www.joystiq.com/tag/warhammer-online"Warhammer Online/a/em to the juggernaut that is Blizzard's ema href="http://www.joystiq.com/tag/wow"World of Warcraft/a/em. br /br /Of course, the now a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2007/11/06/city-of-heroes-city-of-villains-ips-sold-to-ncsoft/"wholly NCsoft-owned/a super powered MMO has released updates of its own to keep from becoming stale, including everything from the libertine emCity of Villains/em to this week's latest addition, dubbed Issue 13. We recently caged Matt "Positron" Miller, and spoke to the senior designer for NCsoft NorCal at length about the unluckily numbered update, as well as a number of other topics, including the availability of emCity of Heroes/em on the Mac and the superhero MMO's relevancy in today's overcrowded market.pa href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/01/joystiq-interview-ncsoft-talks-about-updating-city-of-heroes-ke/" rel="bookmark"Continue reading emJoystiq interview: NCsoft talks about updating City of Heroes, keeping it relevant/em/a/pp style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px solid #ccc;clear:both;"a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/01/joystiq-interview-ncsoft-talks-about-updating-city-of-heroes-ke/"Joystiq interview: NCsoft talks about updating City of Heroes, keeping it relevant/a originally appeared on a href="http://www.joystiq.com"Joystiq/a on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 14:30:00 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/2008/12/01/joystiq-interview-ncsoft-talks-about-updating-city-of-heroes-ke/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/forward/1387364/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email this/anbsp;|nbsp;a href="http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/01/joystiq-interview-ncsoft-talks-about-updating-city-of-heroes-ke/#comments" title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lCyaIR2Bn_cKOWDyVrMEmItmK50/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/lCyaIR2Bn_cKOWDyVrMEmItmK50/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=8JtblZzi"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=8JtblZzi" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?a=iuMF3ZwD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/joystiq?i=iuMF3ZwD" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/joystiq/~4/0GcihkfYDdo" height="1" width="1"/

Man that’s some nice shit … Hey - you just need an email to join this free porn paysite.

Back in October, we heard about the large cast of unknowns that were assembling for the remake of Fame. Now we've got word of the instructors, and I'm happy to say -- Debbie Allen leads the pack!

Variety reports that Allen, Charles S. Dutton, Kelsey Grammer, Megan Mullally, and Bebe Neuwirth have signed on for "the roles of instructors and supervisors" in the upcoming remake. Don't worry -- Frasier won't be in tights, but sadly, Allen isn't either. Instead of teaching the kids to dance, Allen will be the school's principal (which makes sense), while Dutton plays an acting teacher, Grammer plays an orchestra maestro, Mullally plays a voice instructor, and Neuwirth plays a dance instructor.

Damn, these kids are lucky -- you can't much better than that for your intructors. But perhaps more importantly -- this means a reunion for Lilith and Frasier! Bebe played Dr. Lilith Sternin-Crane in Cheers, and popped up as the ex in a handful of Frasier episodes. Will the dance instructor canoodle the maestro once again?

Filed under: Music & Musicals, Casting, Remakes and Sequels

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Cuban-born and Frankfurt-based duo Arno Völker and Miguel Ayala use the Einzelkind moniker for more tight-belted house forays, s..

pimg src="http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/news2001/21303/081201_gamabox_experts.jpg" align="left" hspace="5"/In the latest advice column from Gamasutra sister website GameCareerGuide, a reader asks for advice for getting into the game development industry without having to work on independent game projects or study game development in a school program. Jill Duffy, editor of GameCareerGuide, shares the bad news first, but also has some ideas on how to make a career in game development work for someone who is tight on time. Gamasutra, which is affiliated with .../pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/GamasutraNews?a=fpEKO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/GamasutraNews?i=fpEKO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/GamasutraNews?a=KHasO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/GamasutraNews?i=KHasO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/GamasutraNews?a=oKfDO"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/GamasutraNews?i=oKfDO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/GamasutraNews/~4/471443623" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/21713?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Israeli+navy+blocks+Gaza+aid+shipch=World+newsc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territories+%28News%29%2CLibya+%28News%29%2CMiddle+East+%28News%29%2CAid+and+development+%28Society%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Policy+Society%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Rory+McCarthyc7=2008_12_01c8=1126877c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Israel+and+the+Palestinian+territoriesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FIsrael+and+the+Palestinian+territories" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Israeli navy today prevented a Libyan ship carrying 3,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid for Palestinians from docking in Gaza./ppThe al-Marwa, carrying food, blankets and powdered milk, attempted to challenge a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israelandthepalestinians"Israel/a's tight economic blockade on the Gaza Strip, which has worsened in recent weeks. /ppBut as the ship approached Gazan water at dawn, an Israeli naval ship ordered it to turn back. The al-Marwa headed south and has reportedly docked at al-Arish, an Egyptian port in the northern Sinai just south of Gaza./ppAn Israeli foreign ministry spokesman said there was no physical contact with the ship but it was ordered back by radio. "This is a policy we have had for a long time: if somebody wants to bring in humanitarian aid they can do it through the border with Egypt or the Israeli passages into Gaza," said the spokesman, Andy David./ppHowever, since the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas won parliamentary elections nearly three years ago, Israel has imposed a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/13/israel-gaza-blockade"ever tighter restrictions/a on Gaza. /ppWhen Hamas took full control of Gaza last summer those restrictions became an economic blockade, while Egypt has also kept its one crossing into Gaza at Rafah largely closed./ppAs a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza has unravelled in the past month, so the blockade has again been tightened. Deliveries of food, aid and fuel have been prevented on most days and a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/20/israelandthepalestinians-pressandpublishing"journalists/a have been barred from entering./ppThree smaller boats carrying activists and some aid successfully crossed into Gaza from Cyprus without being stopped by the Israeli navy. However, the Israelis moved quickly to prevent the Libyan ship, which carried a much larger cargo, from entering./ppA crowd of Palestinians had gathered at the Gaza City harbour from early in the morning ready to meet the ship. Five trucks waited to offload the aid. /pp"The civilian boat carrying only humanitarian supplies and food was turned away by an Israeli warship," said Jama