President Barack Obama will travel to the U.S. Capitol today to appeal to House Democrats to back sweeping changes in health care on the eve of a vote on legislation that will help define his presidency.

"Here come the inevitable Freudian references: the Solo Traveler lid is a substitute for a mother's breast – what we might call nature's original travel lid. The flat covers with the tear-back openings offer no such metaphoric representation. Instead, spout = nipple. Paper cup = warm skin. Coffee, tea or soy = mother's milk. Ergo the lid is a nurturing apparatus. It provides comfort and joy as well as nourishment." [via]
Designer (and design critic) Steven Heller isn't the only one to appreciate the modest coffee cup lid. Take architects Louise Harpman and Scott Specht, for example:

Our collection of independently-patented drink-through plastic cup lids is the largest in the United States. We are ever-vigilant, and make new additions to our collection in the most obvious of places—in convenience stores, gas stations, diners, and delis. Ours is a collection of the ordinary, not the esoteric. It has no monetary value, but rather operates as some modest form of intellectual capital. We have collected most of the lids ourselves, but have also, over the years, benefited from the bemused indulgences of both friends and acquaintances who send us their contributions. We have multiples of almost every lid, preparing ourselves for queries from fellow collectors, with whom we might fashion a trade to secure the elusive 1935 Stubblefield lid, the earliest patented drink-through lid, or the 1953 Delbert E. Phinney lid/cup combination.

Clements' Solo Traveler is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, and was featured in their 2004 exhibition Humble Masterpieces, curated by Paola Antonelli (companion book). On Studio 360, Antonelli explains why the plastic coffee cup lid is here to stay [RealAudio (I know, I know, I'm sorry)].

43 aliases, 4 kids, 89 phone lines. Among his associates are members of the Mafia, CIA, IRA and MI6. Marijuana connoisseur, school teacher, money launderer, gentleman, fugitive and spy; raconteur, travel agent, writer, philosopher of science, rock promoter, public speaker, board game appreciator and the biggest dope smuggler on the planet. He has his own website which is very ganja-friendly, and he wrote a sequel to the autobiographical book this film is based on called Senor Nice. He's also written Dope Stories, and the upcoming Tripping. He has a show on YouTube, and in the words of Rhys Ifans, "He's a folk hero in the UK, but in Wales, he's a hero."

So how do you turn a book about a (folk) hero into a film? Director Bernard Rose (Candyman, Immortal Beloved, ivansxtc) has attempted to do it with a mixture of different styles, archival stock footage, and performances from Rhys Ifans and Chloe Sevigny. Ifans might not be the first name that jumps to mind when you think historical figure, but just watch that YouTube footage above and you'll see why they went with Ifans. It would be either down to him or Geoffrey Rush. Since Ifans is Welsh, just like Marks, and had a history with the man, that casting made a lot more sense.

Gallery: SXSW: Mr. Nice

Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, SXSW, Theatrical Reviews, Festival Reports

Continue reading SXSW Review: Mr. Nice

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Ahead of the release of Shank, which was met by protests from locals during filming, a look at some other location shoots that went bad

Question: if you peaked out your window, and noticed a ragtag gang of knife-wielding teens storming past, what would you do? Call the police, of course. That's exactly what residents of the Heygate Estate in Elephant & Castle did, only to find their estate was actually the film set of dystopian thriller Shank, where knife-wielding gangs roam free, starring Kaya Scodelario (Effy from Skins), Kidulthood's Adam Deacon, and oddly, Tim Westwood. "I can see," offered the director Mo Ali, "how residents might get the wrong impression".

Long gone, of course, are the days of parking your entire film in the MGM lot and making do with a plastic tree and the contents of the fire bucket to make Elvis look like he's in Hawaii. But with the credit crunch, more places than ever are eager to take the film companies' dollar. David Boice – who runs BeforeTheTrailer.com, a fansite that tracks location shoots – points out that previously unlikely locations are now tripping over themselves to give generous tax breaks and entice film crews, with Michigan leading the way. The result? "In the past year the city of Detroit has filled in for Washington [for Red Dawn]. Rather than filming 'on location', they just film where there's the best incentives."

Last April, the LA Times reported that LA-based location shoots had fallen to their lowest level since records began. Put another way: everywhere is anywhere now. But with more locations, come more problems. The films that have been protested about because of the nature of the film are too numerous to mention – from Brick Lane due to perceived prejudice against the Bangladeshi community to Basic Instinct, which, well, take your pick – anti-woman and anti-gay were the main ones.

But, like Shank, what about the effect on the locals? And what, more importantly, about the house prices? You can forgive the residents of London's Kentish Town (Zone 2, tube, nice pubs), for instance, for being concerned when filming commenced on Nick Love's hooligan film The Firm, as they prepared for a brawl scene involving 140 actors, stuntmen, extras, and with dire warnings of "noise and swearing". That wouldn't do. That wouldn't do at all. With Timmy listening! The locals protested, and filming was soon moved to Hackney. "Residents of Hackney were happy for the fighting to take place on their streets," reported a London freesheet, who declined to mention if the residents actually noticed the difference.

Still, brawling in the UK is one thing. When location shoots go global, it can be far worse. Of course, we all know the foreign shoots that went south – Terry Gilliam's aborted crack at Don Quixote, Coppola going cuckoo during Apocalypse Now – but at least those two can say one thing: they didn't bar people from the Almighty. Last September, Julia Roberts was on location near Dehli filming the Brad Pitt-produced Eat, Pray, Love, in which she plays a woman who finds God via food and Hindu spirituality. All well and good. The only problem was, no one else could find God, as their temple was shut. Villagers hoping to celebrate the beginning of Navratri – a nine-day Hindu festival of worship and dance – found their temple sealed by Roberts's security team, which featured the small matter of 350 guards, bulletproof cars, and a chopper. It was a security detail that essentially said: We have your God now. He's shooting a movie. And he's not available for comment. One villager threatened a break in: "I am going to barge in for the evening aarti [ritual]. Let's see who stops me. What is it that they are shooting that we cannot even enter our own temple?"

Of course, upsetting the faithful is one thing. But won't someone, please, think of the dangerous criminals. Not, it seems, Mel Gibson. For his latest, How I Spent My Summer Vacation, in which he'll star as a career-criminal sent to a harsh Mexican prison, 300 real-life inmates were made to relocate from their prison in the Gulf coast city of Veracruz this January to make way for the film crew, causing not just demonstrations by relatives, angry at having to travel further to visit their incarcerated ones, but a full-scale prison riot. "Mel Gibson, it's your fault they want to take away our relatives," read a banner of one of protesters, who clearly wasn't big on irony.

Yet if you can't find it in your heart to feel for the muggers and murders crushed under Hollywood's unfeeling foot, at least spare a thought for the prostitutes. When Ed Harris-starring drama The Third Miracle was filming in Ontario, Canada, in 1998, they unwittingly became the third consecutive production to shoot in the red light districts of Sherborne and Carleton, causing out-of-pocket street workers to protest about lack of earnings.

Yet sometimes, it's not even that their home has been disrupted, trampled on and destroyed. It's that they're not getting enough credit for it. When filming A Quantum Of Solace in the small town of Baquedano, Bolivia, local mayor Carlos Lopez took matters into his own hands by jumping in his car, nearly hitting two police officers as he sped through the barricades, storming the set, and coming to a skidding halt between Daniel Craig and the cameras. The reason? Bolivia was being used to represent local rivals Chile, and that wouldn't do at all. He was swiftly taken into police custody. But as for Bond himself? Not just shaken or stirred it seems, but, according to Lopez, a full-scale pants disaster. "He fled in terror!" he said after being released. "When he saw me, James Bond ran off!" 007, really ...

Still, protests from the locals are what you expect. While filming Australia – the Baz Luhrmann multimillion pound movie/tourist board infomercial – the protests came from closer to home. Extras were appalled when actors climbed upon a first world war memorial in the tiny town of Bowden during a cattle stampede scene, and lobbied to ensure the actors stood their ground and took the marauding 2,000lb beasts like men. Rumours that another memorial was needed for the fallen thesps are, as yet, unconfirmed.

There's even been the odd occasion where it wasn't the filming itself that caused the disruption, but what those filming asked the locals to do. When a crew was about to film aerial scenes for The Dark Knight in Hong Kong, they sent letters to building residents requesting they keep their lights on to present the city in its full illuminated glory. For six days. From 7am to 11pm. Unsurprisingly, they declined. "Producers are able to create the same effects through post-production," argued Gabrielle Ho at Green Sense, "but instead they are asking us to turn on so many lights, wasting so much energy."

Though there is one thing to be said about all these disruptions: they ended once the filming did. The crew of The Beach not only got permission to film in what was part of a protected national park in Thailand – Maya Bay on Phi Phi Le island – in 1998, but also to make it even "more" of a paradise, uprooting trees, removing natural vegetation that held the sand formations together, levelling sand dunes, and adding 100 non-native coconut palms. Fox promised to put everything back the way it was, but there was erosion, and in 2006 Thailand's Supreme Court upheld an appeal court ruling that the environment had been harmed. Still, Leo had had a look, and it seemed OK to him. "From what I see with my own eyes, everything is OK," the self-described environmentalist said in a statement. "I have seen nothing that has been destroyed or damaged in any way – I cannot tell you the reasons why people have been saying the opposite. It is beyond me." It's beyond us too, Leo. Those inconsiderate, unfeeling bastards.

Shank is out on Friday

• Julia Roberts
• James Bond
• Terry Gilliam
• Skins
• Mel Gibson
• Baz Luhrmann

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Musicians, DJs and authors to reveal their favourite hangouts

Have your say on the Travel blog

HiFi, New York

HiFi is the best rock'n'roll bar in NYC.The room is covered with empty album sleeves and the juke box is hands-down the best in the city – I believe there are about 3,000 albums on it, so you can't complain about them not having your song. There is a fantastically affordable happy hour and a great local crowd. Like the rest of the East Village, it can get a bit much on weekend nights, but most of the time it's my favourite bar in town.
· 169 Avenue A, +1 212 420 8392.
Craig Finn, lead singer of the Hold Steady

Pegu Club, New York

The entrance to the Pegu is an unassuming doorway on the south side of West Houston Street. It's only when you are up the stairs that the glory of this place hits you. It is like going back to the great clubs of the 20s, when the staff were pretty and jazz and cocktails ruled. On a recent visit, two amazing Django Reinhardt-style guitarists were swinging through 30s classics. Cocktails are taken seriously here – the art of proper, classy drinking is almost a motto. At the weekend it can get pretty busy as it is becoming the "in" place.
· 77 West Houston Street, +1 212 473 7348.
James Pearson, artistic director, Ronnie Scott's, London

Po' Monkey's, Mississippi

It was a balmy night in September when I visited Po' Monkey's juke joint. It's a ramshackle hut powered by a single cable in the tiny town of Merigold, deep in the Mississippi delta. A poster on the door warned: "Bring your liquor inside but not your beer." The walls were cluttered with posters and age-old postcards, while toy monkeys swung from the rafters. It was low lit – smoky but inviting, with beer and whiskey flowing freely. Terry "Harmonica" Bean took to the tiny stage, elbow to elbow with the crowd, and delivered a mind-blowing, foot-stamping performance that will stay with me forever. Delicately soulful cries came from his ageing gruff voice, while stupendous bluegrass melodies oozed effortlessly from his antique steel guitar. This was raw blues at its authentic and spine-shivering best.
· +1 662 514 7488, 15km from Cleveland.
Dan Hipgrave, co-founder of Original Music Company (originalmusictravel.com), which launched this month and specialises in music-themed holidays

The Spirit Store, Ireland

The Spirit Store in Dundalk, County Louth, is on the edge of town beside a small harbour. There's a small, friendly bar downstairs which opens around 4pm, but it is the live music upstairs that is the main draw. You would be hard-pressed to find anywhere as welcoming to an artist and more genuinely music-driven in its programming of events. That's why I keep going back there to play, and why many other artists who have outgrown the 120- or so capacity venue keep returning. So many venues and promoters are about the money but Derek Turner, who books the music, is driven by something much more.
· +353 42 9352697.
Duke Special, musician. His DVD box set, The Stage, A Book & the Silver Screen is out now

The Hideout, London

Not exactly a venue, not exactly a bar, entrance to Trishas/The Hideout/that door on Greek St (as it is variously known), is obtained by boldly knocking on what appears to be the entrance to a flat above a shop, striding through a starkly lit corridor and down a flight of stairs, before mumbling an explanation to the owner as to why you don't appear to be in possession of a membership card – having accidentally put it through the washing machine normally does the trick. Inside, you'll find a cupboard-sized, candle-lit cavern which can be hired out for private music showcases. But stumble in unannounced after hours on a weekend and you might also find a doo wop or jazz band sandwiched into the corner between the usual crowd of transvestites, metropolitan hipsters and veteran Italian locals.
57 Greek Street, Soho, London.
Krissi Murison, editor, NME

The Shed North Yorkshire

I first played at this blink-and-you'll-miss-it shed in the tiny village of Brawby back in 1998. It only held 64 people and we scraped our legs on the front row's knees. It has since moved to Hovingham village hall, though it retains its name. The man behind The Shed, Simon Thackray, has presented events from the Fish and Chip Van Tour with a trombonist, to mixed media knitting installations – saxophonist Lol Coxhill playing free jazz in a skip to coach trips for folks in knitted Elvis wigs touring sites of Elvisian interest in Ryedale. My own band, Hank Wangford and the Lost Cowboys, started a tradition of Christmas gigs at The Shed, where we play morose songs and have a riotously miserable time. The Shed was the inspiration for my village hall tour around Britain, which I am currently writing up as a book. And, after 235 villages, The Shed is still the loony best.
· 01653 668494.
Hank Wangford, writer and musician. His CD, Whistling in the Dark, is out now

A38, Budapest

For me, the greatest gig of 2009 was at A38, a huge old ship that used to lug coal up and down the Danube. The lower deck is now a state-of-the-art live music venue, but bits of engine room equipment are still there. Even though the boat is held down in dry dock by 100 tonnes of concrete, the bottles still jingle on the shelves of the bar when the parties get wild. The booking policy is great – they've had cutting-edge electronic artists such as Ikonika, Dorian Concept and Foreign Beggars play recently. And nothing compares with the signature dish of the restaurant on the upper deck: rooster stew, complete with the crest and testicles of the bird.
· +36 1 464 39 40.
Mary Anne Hobbs, Radio 1 DJ. Her show is broadcast on Thursdays 2-4am

Wild At Heart, Berlin

Wild At Heart is a whisky-soaked, no-nonsense rock'n'roll joint in Berlin's old anarchist district, Kreuzberg: a seven-nights-a-week venue painted blood red, crammed with Elvis memorabilia, Hawaiian gods and a lifetime's supply of hard liquor. For 15 years it has presented bands from all over the world – mostly punk, rockabilly, psychobilly, 60s garage and surf. I spent a memorable evening there talking to TV Smith from the Adverts and another with Wreckless Eric, both of whom started out with punk label Stiff Records in 1977, and I've played there with my band, the Flaming Stars. The music's loud, but the welcome is friendly, and the club also runs the Tiki Heart cafe and clothes shop next door, where you can eat, drink and kit yourself out in a spectacular variety of rock'n'roll clobber.
· Wienerstrasse 20, +49 30 610 747 01.
Max Décharné, singer in the Flaming Stars and author of A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster's Guide to Rockabilly, to be published by Serpent's Tail in June

Mesa de Frades, Lisbon

Mesa de Frades in Alfama, the oldest district of Lisbon, is the sort of place you dream of hearing fado, the traditional soulful Portuguese music. A tiny converted chapel with tiled walls, it is full of locals and quality performers booked by owner Pedro Castro, a great guitar player. You can come for the music, which starts late – around 11pm – or book a table and come for an excellent dinner beforehand. A couple of years ago I sat here watching Carminho, the amazing young fado singer who is now the talk of Lisbon. When the music starts, the doors are shut to enclose the tiny performing space. It's what fado in Lisbon should be, but so rarely is.
· Rua dos Remedios 139A, +351 91 702 9436, mesadefrades.com. Booking is essential.
Simon Broughton, editor of Songlines magazine (songlines.co.uk/musictravel)

Il Folk Club, Turin

In the heart of Turin, off Piazza Statuto, you'll find the best of all worlds: from Wednesday to Saturday Il Folk Club plays host to Italian and international jazz, folk and world musicians. How this Italian institution – legendary in Turin for over 20 years – has remained generally unknown to travellers and music junkies outside Italy is a mystery. Alongside its regular programme, Il Folk Club is also the launching point for Radio Londra, a monthly mini-festival which fuses British musicians such as Jim Mullen, Kit Downes, Brandon Allen and Quentin Collins Quartet, with local stars such as Mario Pozza, Enzo Zirilli and Dado Moroni. The bar is simple – one central room with space for about 150 people, exposed brick walls, and a stage – so the focus is always on the incredible music.
Via Ettore Perrone 3, Turin.
Sam Sollai, buyer and events coordinator, Ray's Jazz at Foyles

Gerbard, Barcelona

This little neighbourhood bar used to have a green door with panes that rattled when you opened it, but it has now been replaced with something more solid, partly to keep the sound in. It's run by Mar and Nacho, both dyed-in-the-wool culés (Barcelona supporters), and nights there are long and loud. You can hear Sam Lardner, an American resident who plays his own fusion of flamenco and bossa nova, or wonderful classical and flamenco guitarists like Daniel Figueras and Pedro Javier Hermosilla, or the Covers Project, with frontman Philip Stanton. The eating and drinking are delicious too – Galician-style octopus, traditional meatballs, pimientos de padron (small green peppers), and wine for not much more than a euro a glass. A great night out in the Alta Zona.
· C/ Ivorra 24, Sarria, Barcelona, +93 203 4988.
Rupert Thomson, author living in Barcelona. His latest book, This Party's Got to Stop, will be published on 8 April

La Casona del Molino, Salta, Argentina

Salta, in north-west Argentina, is well-known for its folk music heritage. This has given rise to the creation of pena, which roughly translates as a place where musicians and music lovers come together. Seven nights a week you can experience this at La Casona. The venue's five colonial rooms are filled to the brim with musicians, professional and amateur, folk, jazz and others, locals who come down from the Andes bearing pan pipes and drums, and some foreign visitors, all coming together to jam the local tunes. As a musician, I found great comfort in the fact that this kind of place exists in the world. And of course, many people come simply for the music.
· La Casona del Molino, Caseros.
Lizzie Ball, violinist and singer. She will be performing – and launching her album – with Machaca at La Linea Festival in the Purcell Room on London's South Bank on 27 April

Salón Rosado de la Tropical, Havana

The first time I asked a taxi driver to take me to Havana's Salón Rosado de la Tropical back in 1989 he said it was a place for Cubans, not foreign tourists – and certainly not lone women – and I'd better watch out as it could be rough. He'd obviously never been inside this mecca of Cuban dance music, where all the top bands play regularly, testing their latest material in front of the sexiest dancers on the island. In Cuba, most music venues are geared to tourists and too expensive for ordinary Cubans, who are often not allowed in anyway. Not so the Salón Rosado. This is the closest you can get to hanging out with a Cuban clientele. Dedicated to the memory of Beny Moré, Cuba's touchstone band leader of the 1950s, it started out life a Spanish cultural centre at the beginning of the 20th century. These days there's a balcony reserved for tourists overlooking the dance floor where, if you're lucky, you may rub shoulders with the musicians as they gather for the gig. Although today reggaeton and hip-hop dominate street tastes, Salon Rosado continues to offer a window on to the latest music scene and is a dancer's dream.
· Avenida 41 esq. 46, Nicanor del Campo, Marianao, +53 7 203 5322.
Jan Fairley has been travelling to Cuba since 1978 and is writing a book on women and music in Cuba

Liquid Room, Tokyo

Leading Japanese venue Liquid Room has been going for about 15 years and hosts weekly bands and DJs from Japan and around the world. The website may say it closes at 12, but the last time I played there, as The Orb, they didn't let us out till 6am. There's a beautiful cafe upstairs and the friendly enthusiasm of Tokyo clubbers has to be experienced to be believed. The last time I played there I took a bag of Space Dust (the sweet!) which made me very popular.
· Higashi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, +81 3 5464 0800, liquidroom.net.
Alex Paterson, co-founder of The Orb and HFB, his new project. HFB's first three EPs are available from 12 April on Malicious Damage Records

New Africa Shrine, Lagos, Nigeria

Lagos is not your classic tourist destination; it's a prohibitively expensive city of 14 million people and a crime record to frighten even the toughest traveller. But Nigeria's notorious capital does have one musical landmark worth going the extra mile for: the New Africa Shrine. It's named after the legendary club run by the late musical activist Fela Kuti, which was razed by soldiers. Fela's daughter Yeni and her musician brother Femi have built up a nightclub that can hold thousands and has live music throughout the week. It's not for the faint-hearted, but the Shrine is probably the safest place in Lagos: it has its own police force. You'll get a warm welcome, and hear some of the best live music in the region.
· Pepple Street, Ikeja.
Rose Skelton, music and travel journalist specialising in West Africa

• Bars and clubs
• United States
• New York
• Ireland
• World music
• Budapest
• Hungary
• Berlin
• Germany
• Lisbon
• Portugal
• Yorkshire
• Argentina
• Havana
• Cuba

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Let’s say it’s 2005 and online video is in its infancy. If you’re a Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, how much would it cost to start up and run a video sharing site with the hopes of flipping it for more than $1.6 billion? As of this week we know, thanks to confidential Profit and loss information released as part of filings that have been made public in the copyright infringement case between Viacom and YouTube.

Based on those filings, we were able to put together some numbers about how much it cost to run YouTube leading up to the Google acquisition. During the first 18 months of YouTube’s operations, from February 2005 when the domain was first purchased through August 2006 when it was desperately seeking acquirers, the fledgling video company spent more than $11.5 million to grow its user base big enough to become attractive to Google.

Most of that money — about $8 million or so — went to paying for infrastructure needed to run the site, with a vast majority of that money going toward the site’s web hosting costs. In the three months from June 2006 through August 2006, the company was spending about $1 million each month on hosting costs alone, and that wasn’t even taking into account data center costs that YouTube was also paying for or ad serving costs as the firm began selling its own advertising.

In addition to web infrastructure costs, YouTube had other operating expenses and personnel costs to contend with. In the first 18 months of its existence, YouTube spent about $3.6 million on employee compensation, travel, facilities, costs and the like. By November 2005, its regular operating expenses were about even with infrastructure costs — at a little more than $130,000 per month, but not long after that, the company’s web hosting bills really started to take off as the video sharing site gained traction.

It wasn’t until December 2005 that YouTube started clocking revenue — a meager $15,000 during that month — and by that point, the company had spent more than $400,000 on operating and infrastructure expenses. But costs began to increase rapidly after that, and topped out at about $2.6 million during August 2006 — just two months before Google’s purchase of the company was made public.

YouTube was never profitable before the Google acquisition — in fact, it pulled in just $5 million in revenues during its first 18 months — but it came close in August 2006, which might have been one reason that Google had an interest in the firm. That month, it posted revenues of $2.5 million. The site did post a gross profit of more than $575,000 during the month if you don’t take into account its monthly operating expenses. Otherwise, with total opex of about $2.6 million, the site fell about $100,000 shy of hitting profitability.

The site raised about $11.5 million in two rounds of financing before being bought by Google in a deal valued in excess of $1.65 billion in October 2006 — which wasn’t a bad return on investment for YouTube’s investors or founders. Famously, though, YouTube has yet to reach profitability, in part because Google had remained committed to growing its user base after its acquisition.

As reported in Viacom’s filings, Google CEO Eric Schmidt mandated for the company to focus on aggressively growing the site, aiming “to grow playbacks to 1b/day [one billion per day].” That mandate remained in place until early 2008, when Schmidt decided the site should shift its focus to monetization of its video assets. Since then, the company has been increasingly focused on bringing more premium content to the site and increasing the number of videos it can place ads against. That focus means that the online video site might finally become profitable this year, according to some analyst projections.

Related content on GigaOM Pro:

Will Automated Rights Management Take Down Fair Use? (subscription required)

Boeing is betting on a pick up in air travel, and so are investors.

Tens of thousands of British Airways passengers whose travel plans this weekend have been thwarted are only the first victims of industrial unrest threatening to disrupt air, rail and road travel this Easter.

Tens of thousands of British Airways passengers whose travel plans this weekend have been thwarted are only the first victims of industrial unrest threatening to disrupt air, rail and road travel this Easter.

After years of infighting, the East Lothian MP is deselected after a vote by local party members

A sitting Labour MP has been deselected by her local party members after tensions over her style erupted into a public feud with senior constituency officials.

With only weeks to go before the general election, Anne Moffat has been sacked as Labour's candidate for East Lothian, a seat she has held for nine years, after a special meeting of her local constituency party tonight.

Nearly 200 members, approximately half the local party, took part and voted for a special resolution to deselect her by 130 to 59 – a heavier margin than her supporters expected. The meeting heard her pleas to be kept on in silence.

Moffat, a former president of the trade union Unison and granddaughter of a famous Scottish miners leader, has until 5pm on Monday to appeal to Labour's ruling national executive committee.

If she accepts the result, an all-women shortlist will be drawn up urgently to contest the seat. There is speculation she may now retire on health grounds.

The vote comes after four years of infighting between Moffat and senior party activists in East Lothian – a constituency shared by the current Labour leader in the Scottish parliament, Iain Gray. He has repeatedly refused to back her.

Complaints about her track record and her style as MP has twice led to four out of the area's six Labour party branches asking her to stand down. Moffat has relied heavily on a union block vote for her survival, and the feuding led to the formal suspension of the constituency party by the NEC in 2008.

Harry Cairney, one of her leading critics and the chairman of Prestonpans Labour club, one of the largest in Scotland, said that despite the deep split within the party the meeting had been "conciliatory and business-like."

Cairney said: "People have waited three years to get this vote and people said three years ago when she couldn't carry a majority of the branches they should have their say."

Moffat left without speaking to the media. She had accused senior party officials of "bullying and intimidation", while her critics claim she has failed to do her job adequately, failed to attend party meetings and neglected her duties.

Moffat was involved in the first controversy over the suppression of information about MPs expenses by the Commons authorities.

In 2007, a two-year battle by a Green party activist under freedom of information legislation finally led to the release of Moffat's £40,000 travel claims from 2004 – then the highest of any MP at Westminster.

A former nurse, she has countered by claiming the party has ignored her medical condition after she had a brain haemorrhage last year. She wrote to the party to say doctors had advised her not "to engage in any activity which would cause stress and anxiety."

In an earlier interview with the BBC, she attacked her critics, claiming her recovery "has been hampered by their bad feelings, and viciousness and vindictiveness of those people who even when I was seriously ill, didn't let up."

Labour is defending a nominally strong 7,600-vote majority in East Lothian but that has been halved since the previous sitting MP John Home Robertson stood down before the 2001 general election to focus on his career in the Scottish parliament.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats are pressing hard to take the seat and their candidate, Stuart Ritchie, said after the vote: "Labour are going to parachute in a candidate, who probably won't know or understand the issues the people of East Lothian face every day.

They'll just parrot Labour's tired old lines.

"It doesn't matter to the people of East Lothian who the Labour candidate is. Because whoever they end up with, Labour are falling apart here."

Moffat's period as MP has been dogged by controversy. She quickly fell out with Home Robertson after allegedly interfering in his constituency concerns; fought off allegations of an affair with a fellow Labour MP; came bottom of a table of MPs ranked by the number of their Commons speeches; and endured a sacking row with a senior member of her constituency staff.

• Labour
• Scotland
• MPs' expenses

Severin Carrellguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Dramatic escalation of dispute as three-day strike begins tomorrow morning

British Airways tonight threatened to suspend co-operation with Britain's largest trade union after last-ditch talks failed to prevent a three-day strike by cabin crew starting today.

In a dramatic escalation of the bitter industrial dispute with Unite, BA warned that it will scrap an agreement that gives shop stewards the use of company offices and time off to represent members – unless a new framework is drawn up.

One industrial relations expert said that ending the arrangement, which stipulates how much work BA employees can do for Unite and what facilities they use, would reduce co-operation to the "bare minimum".

The failure of the peace talks is a bitter blow to Gordon Brown, who was desperate to banish the spectre of large-scale industrial action 46 days before the likely election date.

Tonight an extensive strike-breaking plan moved into gear at BA as the airline prepared to move 65% of its passengers over the next three days with a workforce of 1,000 volunteer cabin crew and 22 chartered jets, including three Ryanair planes complete with no-frills flight attendants.

Millions of Britons face transport disruption in the run-up to Easter, after signallers at Network Rail voted to strike in a move that could see them join a walkout with thousands of maintenance workers over the bank holiday.

BA cabin crew have also called a further, four-day strike from 27 March if there is still no agreement by the end of next week. The first BA cabin crew strike since 1997 begins tomorrow morning after talks between Willie Walsh, BA chief executive, and Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, collapsed in acrimony this afternoon. The dispute centres on BA's decision to unilaterally cut staffing levels on every flight by at least one crew member.

Citing Walsh's request for a "radical, far-reaching review" of BA's relationship with Unite, Woodley warned that BA was bent on breaking trade unionism's grip on the airline. "BA does not want to negotiate and ultimately wants to go to war with this union," he said. And in a letter to Woodley outlining a formal peace offer, Walsh stepped up the pressure by saying he would scrap the facilities agreement that regulates BA's relationship with Unite if the union does not renegotiate its relationship with the carrier by 18 June.

Marc Meryon, industrial relations partner at Bircham Dyson Bell, said: "It is effectively holding a gun to the union's head and saying, unless you reach a deal on reworking this relationship we are going to walk away from it."

Meryon said BA would struggle to derecognise Unite, which represents 12,000 BA cabin crew, because of its size.

Walsh said: "It is deeply regrettable that a proposal I have tabled to Unite, which I believe is fair and sensible and addresses all the concerns of cabin crew, has not been accepted.The offer remains available, but it will be withdrawn once industrial action commences. Tens of thousands of BA people now stand ready to serve our customers. BA will be flying tomorrow and will continue to fly through these periods of industrial action."

A No 10 spokesman said: "The prime minister believes that this strike is in no one's interest and will cause unacceptable inconvenience to passengers. He urges the strike be called off immediately. He also urges BA's management and workforce to get together without delay to resolve what is a dispute about jobs and wages."

The talks breakdown was pounced on by the Conservative party, which has sought to make political capital out of the funding links between Labour and Unite, one of the party's biggest donors.

"Labour's union paymasters at Unite are determined to inflict travel misery on thousands of families," said Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary.

Preparations were under way tonight to have picket lines at seven points around Heathrow. Under an agreement with BAA, the airport's owner, striking cabin crew will not be allowed to protest directly outside airport terminals.

A BA spokeswoman said the 30,000 daily passengers unable to travel due to the strike – around 45,000 will be able to travel – were almost certain to have made alternative plans. "We don't expect vast numbers of disgruntled people because we put our revised schedule out on Monday. We have also been contacting them proactively through email."

• British Airways
• Trade unions
• Airline industry
• Air transport

Dan Milmoguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Once upon a time, you had to bring travel guides, maps and paper tickets on every trip. Today, you can just take your smartphone and get access to all of this information without having to lug a couple of books and magazines around with you. Today, according to a new study by analytics firm Compete, 38% of smartphone users conduct travel research on their devices and 28% use their phones to book at least some of their trips and travel activities.

Sponsor

Compete found that the most popular travel-related activity for smartphone owners is finding more information about a destination while they are already traveling (34%). Close to a third of smartphone owners who responded to Compete's survey also use their phones to check up on the status of their lodging and transportation reservations. For most smartphone owners, this probably means checking up on the status of their flights. A quarter of smartphone owners also use their phones to research lodging, destination and transportation options. Marketers will be happy to hear that 22% of users look for a specific transportation company's or hotel's website and 21% use their devices to do research on a specific travel agency's site.

Interestingly, though, while about a third of smartphone owners use their devices for travel-related activities, only one-fifth of all smartphone owners have installed travel apps on their devices yet. Those who haven't installed travel apps yet are looking for comprehensive services that can notify their users of unplanned schedule changes (52%), notify users of rate changes (48%) and consolidate all travel reservations into one itinerary. While there are already numerous apps like WorldMate and TripIt that solve these problems, there is clearly an opportunity for these companies to market their apps to a wider audience that isn't aware of them yet.

Discuss

Today I am pleased to announce two fantastic opportunities for two enthusiastic, motivated and energetic folks to come and join my team for a six month internship. You will join Daniel Holbach, Jorge Castro, and David Planella as team-mates and report to myself as honorary horse-folk, working on awesome solutions to help make Ubuntu an ever more compelling community to be a part of.

This is a fantastic opportunity to work inside a fast-paced, collaborative environment, solving important problems, working with awesome colleagues and adding Canonical as a rocking reference to your resume.

Before we get to the details about the roles, I want to be clear on a few general elements:

• These are internships: they are are not normal full roles.
• Like most internships, these roles are unpaid.
• Each role lasts for six months.
• Working hours are Mon – Fri from 9am – 6pm.

I want to be clear that my team is a fast-paced, hard-working, hectic environment. I am going to work you hard, and you should expect that, but my goal here is to help you squeeze every ounce of opportunity out of your internship. We will have 1-on-1 weekly calls, I will help guide you on what to work on, help you manage your work, solve problems, and be effective in your projects. In other words: when you sign up for your internship, expect a solid six month adventure, but an adventure that will sow the seeds for many great opportunities in the future.

So, I am looking for two roles:

• Ubuntu Community Documentation Author (Internship)
• Ubuntu Community Web Developer (Internship)

Let’s take a look at the job descriptions:

Ubuntu Community Documentation Author (Internship)

Job Title: Ubuntu Community Documentation Author (Internship)

Reports to: Ubuntu Community Manager

Job Location: Home with some travel engagements.

Job Summary: To produce documentation and online materials for the Ubuntu community and new contributors.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities:

• Produce a series of well-written and clear materials about a range of different topics in the Ubuntu community surrounding how to participate.
• Make these materials available on line and ensuring they follow style and quality guidelines.
• Work with the Ubuntu Documentation Team, Learning Team and Ubuntu Manual project to liaise around collaboration and best practise for materials production.
• Promote and raise awareness of this documentation inside and outside the Ubuntu community.
• Identify common needs and requirements for materials, prioritize them and build them into your workflow.
• REQUIREMENTS

Specific Job Skills: Excellent writing skills, strong networking and social networking skills, good relationship building abilities, process driven, able to manage multiple work streams, good prioritisation, independent, willing to travel potentially 25% of their work time, and able to resolve conflict.

Experience: Experience of working with community in Ubuntu and Open Source projects, experience of the upstream/distributor relationship, technical experience.

Key Qualities: Have strong social skills, a good networker and a good technical knowledge of Ubuntu and the Open Source and upstream/downstream development process. Candidates should be process driven, strategically minded and committed. Competent visual design and artistic talent is highly desirable. Other: Candidates should provide evidence of existing experience and work in the Open Source community and suitable references.

Ubuntu Community Web Developer (Internship)

Job Title: Ubuntu Community Web Developer (Internship)

Reports to: Ubuntu Community Manager

Job Location: Home with some travel engagements.

Job Summary: To design and develop web functionality across a range of Ubuntu community infrastructure web properties.

Key responsibilities and accountabilities:

• In conjunction with the team and the community, design new features and solutions for specific needs in our key web properties.
• Develop and implement such features and solutions using a range of appropriate tools.
• Provide solid testing and quality assurance over your work during the development phase and before deployment.
• Triage, fix and deploy bug fixes.
• Work with the community to collaborate together on projects and solutions.
• Report your progress to the team and the wider community.
• Be responsive to changing needs, emergency fixes and feature requests and be reactive to a range of different customers.
• Requirements

Specific Job Skills: Excellent web development skills (Python, Django, PHP, HTML, CSS and Database experience are a must), good experience of Launchpad, Bazaar and Ubuntu community infrastructure, strong networking and social networking skills, process driven, able to manage multiple work streams, good prioritisation, independent, willing to travel potentially 25% of their work time, and able to resolve conflict.

Experience: Experience of working on collaborative web development projects in Python, Django and PHP, strong development experience over a range of projects, experience of working with community in Ubuntu and Open Source projects. Key Qualities: Excellent developer, strong social skills, a good networker and a good technical knowledge of Ubuntu and the Open Source and upstream/downstream development process. Candidates should be process driven, strategically minded and committed. Competent visual design and artistic talent is highly desirable.

Other: Candidates should provide evidence of existing experience and work in the Open Source community and suitable references.

How To Apply

If you are interested in applying for these roles do not contact me directly, you should follow these steps:

• Ensure you have a recent, up to date resume (in PDF or OpenOffice.org format) that outlines your experience, education, your community achievements, technical background and information about your interests and ambitions.
• Send an email to alice.paul AT canonical DOT com with the subject Community Team Internship Application and the following details:

• Specify which role you are interested in.
• Your resume attached.
• A few paragraphs about why you would like to have the role.

Good luck and I will speak to some of you soon in an interview!

[Ben's] father was a metalworker and the combination of being around metal fabrication for most of his life and getting a couple of art degrees brought together a satisfying combination of hacking skills. Above you can see a Graffiti Machine that he built, which we’ll look at in-depth after the break.. This isn’t the first CNC machine he’s worked on. [Ben] became interested in rapid prototyping but was put off by the cost of commercial cutters, which led him to build his own CNC plasma cutter.

[Ben's] creation consists of a vertical gantry that houses the motors as well as a carriage for the spray paint ‘rattle can’. He’s using stepper motors and belts to move the carriage and gantry with a controller that he picked up from HobbyCNC. Let’s look at how he put it all together.

This is the can carriage. On the right, above the can, you can see the motor used to start and stop the flow of paint. To the left you can see the timing belt used to move the carriage up and down. Its ends are secured with C-clamps.

[Ben] uses the head of a machine screw to depress the valve of the rattle can.

The top of the gantry houses motors to move the gantry itself as well as the can carriage.

The full gantry is one piece with the can carriage traveling along its length. You can see the timing belt that the gears use to move the can.

The two images above show the belts used to move the gantry along the top and bottom horizontal tracks. A rod travels the length of the gantry, driven by a stepper motor on one end to move the gears of both the top and bottom belts.

This image shows the angle-bracket that is used as a track. This gives the machine horizontal scalability.

This closeup shows a skateboard wheel with a slot cut in it. This keeps the gantry firmly seated in the track as it moves.

[Ben] ties the system together with a Linux box running the Enhanced Machine Controller. He’s hoping to pit man against machine some day in a graffiti showdown. This is a great build [Ben], thanks for sharing the details with us.

YikeBike is a statement about using smart technology to solve the problems of our increasingly congested, polluted, stressful cities. It is the first commercial expression of the mini-farthing concept, created up by a bunch of successful entrepreneurs, engineers and dreamers. (Pics)   The result was the mini-farthing concept and its first expression, the YikeBike. It employs state-of-the-art [...]

People gather at the Exit-Entry Administration Office of Nanjing public security bureau  to apply for overseas trips. More mainland tourists are expected to spend money on overseas travel this year, said a report by a think tank to the national tourism authority. The Annual Report of China Outbound Tourism Development 2009-2010, released by the China Tourism Academy [...]

The threat of crippling travel chaos on the railway and at airports intensified today when rail signallers announced that they had voted in favour of a strike that would stall trains across the country.

People who love to travel, thrive on fun and adventure, and enjoy a top class road trip now have a new way to experience the extraordinary with Tourism Western Australia’s latest campaign. Australian and international passengers are now being recruited to be part of The Extraordinary Taxi Ride – an epic nine-week journey by taxi across Western Australia (WA) visiting extraordinary locations – many exclusive to WA. (PRWeb Mar 19, 2010)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/03/prweb3665374.htm

Welcome to the two-hundred and fifty-second in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the previous two hundred and fifty.

Comic Book Legends Revealed is part of the larger Legends Revealed series, where I look into legends about the worlds of entertainment and sports, which you can check out here, at legendsrevealed.com. I'd especially recommend you check out this installment of TV Legends Revealed to find out the story of how Michael J. Fox got "revenge" on Brandon Tartikoff!

Let's begin!

COMIC LEGEND: Frank Frazetta turned down the opportunity to play professional baseball to draw comic books.

STATUS: I'm Going With True.

Amazingly enough, the world might have missed out on the artistic talents of Frank Frazetta! Instead, it is the world of baseball that missed out on the athletic skills of Frank Frazetta!

A few months back, reader Ed wrote in to ask:

I read somewhere, don't remember where or when, that Frank Frazetta turned down a "bonus-baby" contract to play for the New York Giants baseball team. I think this was from an interview, so came from his own mouth. I can't find any information about this online. Could it be true, and would there be any way to verify that the Giants actually offered him a contract, or did he just have scouts looking at him. This would have been right after WWII.

This story appears to basically be true, although I'm sure there's a little puffery involved.

For instance, on the Frazetta Art Gallery site a few years back, it was said...

Frank did not start playing baseball until he was 15 years old, but within just a few short years of playing sandlot ball in Brooklyn, he was offered a contract to play center field for the New York Giants.

That's stretching the truth of the matter a bit, as in the biography section, there is a more realistic take on the situation...

In this spot on the Frazetta Art Gallery web site, his baseball almost-career is discussed:

Through his teens, he continued drawing and painting, however he began to slack off due to his discovery of girls and baseball. In school he set several high school records, and eventually caught the attention of a scout for the New York Giants professional baseball team. Frank was offered a position on their farm squad with a good prospect of moving up to the major league within a season, but he turned them down. " I was involved with a girl at the time," Frazetta says a little sorrowfully. "And going down to Texas and sweating it out in the minors for a year didn't seem very appealing. You have to remember that at that time athletes weren't making the money they do today. They bussed you back and forth and it was just a big disgusting hassle. I remember that traveling to another state seemed like going to the end of the world, so I told them, maybe next year. Time went by and before I knew it I was too old. It was just my way of letting time make the decision for me. If I have any regrets it's that I didn't turn pro. If I was in my twenties and had it to do over - today, at today's salaries - you better bet I'd do it. "

And yeah, that's basically the "rub" of the story - while yes, Frazetta most likely WAS offered a baseball contract (he was a very skilled baseball player in high school)...

what a "baseball contract" was in 1946 is very different than what you would think of a baseball contract today.

In 1946, the New York Giants had a whopping SEVENTEEN minor league baseball affiliates!

They were all over the country, in cities big and small!

Minneapolis
Danville
Trenton
Manchester
Hickory
Springfield
Anderson
Oshkosh
Jacksonville
Bristol
Jersey City
Erie
Peekskill
St. Cloud
San Francisco
Fort Smith
Richmond Colts

With that many affiliates, the amount of players who were offered "professional baseball contracts" was a lot higher than it it is now (not to mention the fact that pro ballplayers were chosen almost entirely from white people at the time) and with that many affiliates, your average player was not exactly making a lot of money.

And while Frazetta was a great physical specimen...

there was no guarantee that he would actually make the majors (he wasn't a prospect along the level of, say, a Whitey Ford - just to name a major prospect signed around the same time).

And even if he were to buck the odds and MAKE the majors, even THEN he would not be guaranteed a hefty salary!

So when you add in very little upfront money and a lot of travel, all with the promise of MAYBE making the Majors, it was not exactly a great job offer if you had steady work at the time.

And comic books in the late 1940s/early 1950s had a lot more definitive work for a guy like Frazetta, so it's not surprising at all to see him choose drawing comics over playing minor league baseball. So, coupled with the many accounts of his baseball acumen from the people who knew him as a youth, plus the fact that Frazetta has consistently told the story over the years (with just the specifics moving a bit as time goes by), I'm willing to say that yes, Frazetta did, indeed, turn down a professional baseball job to draw comics.

And from his perspective at the time, it surely seemed to pay off...

By the end of the decade and the beginning of the next, Frazetta was all over comics...

And when comics stopped paying, Frazetta moved on to comic strips, and then to book covers, which is where his real worldwide fame began, as his science fiction and fantasy paintings are famous the world over.

And it all could have gone very differently if he had said yes to baseball as a teen.

Thanks to Ed for the question!

COMIC LEGEND: A black and white EC Comics reprint uncovered a decades-old X-rated prank.

STATUS: True

Late last year I did a Comic Book Legends Revealed installment on how an issue of X-Men, when reprinted in black and white for Marvel's Essentials format, had some slight nudity where nudity was never meant to be shown (inker Terry Austin added some female anatomy for the sake of definition - it was intended to be covered up when the book was colored).

Well, a similar situation occurred in 1979 when Russ Cochran did the EC Archives Edition of Tales From the Crypt, with black and white reprints of the original series.

Here's a page from Tales From the Crypt #29....

Here's a panel from the issue...

Nothing weird, right?

Well, here's that same panel in black and white (you can click to enlarge it a bit more)...

And here is a detail of that panel....

Of course, in this instance, it was an intentional joke by original artist Joe Orlando that was intended to be colored over so that it would never be visible.

The best part about this story is that a few years after the collection came out , someone noticed the prank and informed Bill Gaines, who then wrote to Orlando to "complain" about the prank (Gaines was a noted prankster himself, so it's highly unlikely that he actually cared, almost certainly he was writing to acknowledge the decades-old prank).

And Orlando replied to him feigning outrage at the suggestion.

The great Bhob Stewart featured the prank on his great web site here. Stewart has a copy of Orlando's full letter to Gaines (written on DC Comics stationery) at that above link. It's a great read - well worth reading. Heck, Stewart's whole site, Potzrebie, is a great read as a whole and well worth reading.

COMIC LEGEND: Dreadknight was originally going to be the mysterious Masters of Evil member in Amazing Spider-Man #283.

STATUS: I'm Going With False

In the other week's Comic Book Legends Revealed, I discussed how Tom DeFalco was planning to introduce a brand-new Spider-Man villain during his run on Amazing Spider-Man in Amazing Spider-Man #283, but since he left the book soon after, he brought the character to his run on Thor.

Well, apparently there is some matter of debate over whether that was the ORIGINAL intent for that character in #283.

Readers Omar Karindu and trajan23 both wrote (respectively)...

The rumor I always heard was that the MoE-to-be was supposed to be Dreadknight.

Dreadknight was listed as a Master of Evil in the Marvel Handbook a few months before the Under Siege story began, and I think Roger Stern said somewhere that he wanted the evil Black Knight's successor in there somewhere.

and

The Marvel Appendix also goes with the Dreadknight as the intended MoE-to-be as well.

As to the first point, here is the page from the Handbook...

Note the circled part.

And here is the quote from the great Unofficial Marvel Appendix site on the Masters of Evil...

The mystery member of the Masters of Evil in Amazing Spider-Man I#283 was almost certainly supposed to be the Dreadknight, who was from Europe, was a good match-up for the Black Knight, and had been named as a member of the Masters of Evil in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition #4. However, Tom DeFalco decided to make it his newly-created villain the Mongoose instead. He was also intending to set up the Mongoose as a Spider-Man villain, but wound up establishing him in Thor after his abrupt departure from the Spider-Man titles.

Well, awhile back, someone asked Roger Stern about Amazing #283 on his web forum, and he replied:

No, Tom DeFalco wrote AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #283. The last issue of ASM that I scripted was #250.

However, Tom and I coordinated events between AVENGERS and ASM so that the Absorbing Man and Titania bounced back and forth between the comics and stayed consistent.

(Believe it or not, there was a time when this was common.)

I believe that Tom and Ron Frenz intended the mystery villain to be a new Spider-Man foe. But they ran into editorial problems and left the book shortly after that issue. I believe they later used the mystery villain during their run on THOR, but I don't remember who he was.

So it sure seems that the Mongoose was always intended to be the mystery character, as Stern does not even hint at anyone other than a new Spider-Man villain being the character in #283.

I think it's clear enough that I'm willing to go with a "false" here!

Thanks to Omar Karindu and trajan23 for the suggestion and thanks to Roger Stern for the info (and Dicky El for asking Roger the question)!

Be sure to check out the Unofficial Index to the Marvel Universe, while you're at it! It's a great site!

Okay, that's it for this week!

Thanks to the Grand Comics Database for this week's covers! And thanks to Brandon Hanvey for the Comic Book Legends Revealed logo!

Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is cronb01@aol.com.

As you likely know by now, last April my book finally came out!

Here is the cover by artist Mickey Duzyj. I think he did a very nice job (click to enlarge)...

If you'd like to order it, you can use the following code if you'd like to send me a bit of a referral fee...

Was Superman a Spy?: And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed

See you all next week!

Travel recommendation service Date Updated: 2010-03-18
Tags: mapping, recommendations, travel

Hello!

I am a Central European girl, never married, no kids, seroius, 32 y/o, educated.
Tall, with long brown hair, green eyes, attractive shape, pretty and lovely face - practice sports: gym, thai chi, dance.

I love to travel to abroad, see other cultures and languages, go to theatre, classical music concerts, museums.
I am romantic, with lots of soul, like kids, the nice furnitures, architecture, the classical things.

Seek a single or divorced gentleman, that is live in secture, over the adventures, tall, well educated, handsome, love the sports and would like a long term relationship with a meaningful and beautiful single female.
Important: the male is the man, and the female is the woman. I prefer the classical roles.

If you seek seriously, send me your letter and pic. Photo for photo!
Serious only, pls!

Today, Amazon announced the release of Kindle for Mac, a service designed to allow Mac users to purchase, as well as access, the content of the Kindle e-book library right from their Mac. Amazon is touting the following features of Kindle for Mac application:

• Purchase, download, and read hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store
• Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon’s servers for free
• Choose from 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
• Add and automatically synchronize bookmarks and last page read
• View notes and highlights marked on Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle for iPhone
• Read books in full color including children’s books, cookbooks, travel books and textbooks

Amazon seems to be feeling the proverbial heat as the release of Apple’s iPad, and accompanying e-book store, looms. As some of you may recall, just days after the announcement of the iPad, Amazon began to renegotiate pricing terms with its content publishers — something they had been unwilling to do for quite awhile. Not exactly earth shattering news, but another for Kindle-loving Mac users to play with. Hit the read link for the full press release.

Read

Amazon has just announced to the masses that they will be offering a new free application known as “Kindle for Mac”, where this piece of software is able to allow readers worldwide to enjoy books that were meant for the Kindle on their respective Mac computers. Just in case you were wondering whether there are enough tomes to get you interested, you would be well pleased to know that the U.S. Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore) holds more than 450,000 books at the moment, and these aren’t dusty digital versions since they comprise of New Releases and 102 of 111 New York Times Bestsellers, making it THE place to look for some of today’s most popular books in digital format. This means that Kindle books can now be read on the Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC and Mac, as well as the upcoming iPad.

Guess there is no longer any more need to purchase a Kindle since you can experience the joys of reading on your Mac alone, eh? Kindle for Mac will boast Amazon’s Whispersync technology which automatically saves and synchronizes bookmarks and last page read across devices. This means you can always be up to date with your reading without having to search where you last left off even if you were dabbling with a plethora of devices to fulfill your daily reading quota. In a nutshell, Kindle for Mac allows you to read some on your Mac, followed by some on your Kindle later on, always pick up where you left off without missing a beat.

Some features of Kindle for Mac that readers can take advantage of include :-

• Purchase, download, and read hundreds of thousands of books available in the Kindle Store
• Access their library of previously purchased Kindle books stored on Amazon’s servers for free
• Choose from 10 different font sizes and adjust words per line
• Add and automatically synchronize bookmarks and last page read
• View notes and highlights marked on Kindle, Kindle DX, and Kindle for iPhone
• Read books in full color including children’s books, cookbooks, travel books and textbooks

Additional features will be thrown into the mix sometime down the road, including full text search and the ability to create and edit notes and highlights. How has your experience been so far?

Press Release
Introducing Foolish Gadgets because not all gadgets are cool
[ Amazon announces Kindle for Mac copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Western Digital is extremely well known for its line of storage devices where backup is concerned, and this time round they have come up with something that targets folks who are running on the Mac platform – we’re talking about the Western Digital My Passport SE for Mac. Available in two capacities of 750GB and 1TB, the My Passport SE for Mac is a portable USB drive which has been specially formatted before leaving the factory to work in a Mac environment right out of the box, complete with Apple Time Machine software compatibility.

These ultra portable USB drives are a snap to tote around, and since they do not require any external power adapter as they derive juice by virtue of being plugged into your computer, it will certainly go a long way in reducing the amount of weight that you would have needed to carry on your travels. For those who are a bit concerned about security, fret not – these puppies are equipped with 256-bit hardware encryption with password protection for that added level of security, where a relatively small drive with such huge capacity should still let you sleep peacefully at night since you know that your data will protected from unauthorized access or theft.

Too bad this is still stuck in the USB 2.0 era, as we would have pretty much preferred to see something much faster along the lines of FireWire 800 or USB 3.0. Well, at least the Western Digital SmartWare software ought to deliver much needed calm whenever you make a backup since you can see it as it happens, making sure that no stone is left unturned. Apart from that, continuous backup ensures you will always have a second copy of whatever was just added or changed. Should the unthinkable happen, you can always retrieve valuable data to its original location, regardless of whether you have just lost the entire gamut of data or overwritten an important file. The 1TB model is going for $199.99 a pop, while those who opt for the slightly smaller 750GB model will have to fork out $179.99 for it.

Press Release
Check out the Coolest Gadgets 2008 Gift Guides, Christmas shopping made easy.
[ Western Digital My Passport SE for Mac copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]