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No Matter How Fast They Run, Pamplona's Bulls Are Doomed  
It's cruelty masquerading as celebration. Terrorized animals, thrust into a world of screaming, slick surfaces, physical torment, and, in the end, serial, protracted stabbing.

It's the annual eight-day running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, as four dozen animals are chased down narrow cobblestone streets among thick, taunting crowds. They are funneled toward the bullring in town and later finished off by the picadors and matadors with their cutting swords and knives. It's only by suspending any empathy for the animals that any participant or spectator to this carnage can deem this a joyful experience.

In the run-up to this year's spectacle -- after assembling investigative footage from 2015 -- Animal Guardians and other groups (including Humane Society International) have released a video that tells the real story, stripped bare of the senseless reverie and phony thrill-seeking that accompanies it. You'll see how the whole thing culminates for the animals -- with open-air, unpunished acts of malicious cruelty.

Besides the running of the bulls, thousands of bull fiestas are held across Spain each year where, once again, the animals are tortured and killed. At fire bull fiestas, for instance, bulls' horns are set alight and the animals teased by onlookers while firecrackers explode all around. This week, HSI and its partners won a long battle when we succeeded in putting a stop to this year's Toro de la Vega, which takes place annually in Tordesillas, Castile and in the León region of Spain. The event involves hordes of spear-wielding men on horseback chasing and stabbing a bull to death.

We are zeroing in on the world's most appalling spectacles of malice to animals, including bullfighting. And there's growing worldwide disfavor with this gratuitous violence toward innocent animals. Between 2011 and 2015, there was a 25 percent decline in the number of bull fiestas. A poll commissioned by HSI last year found that 74 percent of Spaniards opposed the Toro de la Vega event. Many of the bull fiestas are partly or wholly funded by public subsidies, and the poll showed that most citizens did not think public funds should be used to support them. Some Spanish cities, such as Calonge, Tossa de Mar, Vilamacolum, and La Vajol, have independently outlawed the practice of bullfighting and, in 2012, historic legislation came into force after politicians voted to ban the outdated tradition in the Spanish region of Catalonia.

Taking on battles to end animal cruelty in foreign cultures can be difficult, as we often find ourselves aligned against apologists who invoke tradition and culture as a defense for cruelty. But with persistence, we can pull back this cloak of culture with the result that sensible people will recognize naked cruelty when they see it. HSI has, over the years, won some pretty impressive battles, like ending the world's largest animal sacrifice at the Gadhimai festival in Nepal, where half a million animals were slaughtered. In Spain, and in other countries, we will continue our fight against outmoded and cruel blood sports, including those that masquerade as tradition.

This article first appeared on Wayne Pacelle's blog, A Humane Nation.

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Interdependence, Sustainability, and a Sense of Place  
The global economy, global trade, global tourism, and immigration are here to stay. The technology of inexpensive communication, GPS, bar codes, cheap computing, containerized shipping, and a host of other innovations guarantee that supply chains will remain global. Global supply chains ensure that the food and other manufactured goods we need are made as efficiently and effectively as possible. We are part of a global economy, and if you want to see the economic impact of isolation all you need to do is look at North Korea and Iran. The market forces that push the global economy have more political potency than the nostalgic nativists pushing in the other direction. That could change, but I doubt it.

That's because in addition to the economic power of the global economy, young people have grown up with inexpensive, instantaneous communication and access to global travel. They find exposure to foreign cultures, foods, and people to be interesting and exciting. Here in America, we also have people like me who are attracted to diversity and immigration. I am delighted to live in a city where 40% of those who live here were born in other countries. If the future belongs to those that are creative, smart and entrepreneurial, drawing on the entire globe for talent seems to be the way to go. The master's programs I direct at Columbia enroll students from all over the country and all over the world, and it is an exciting and successful learning experience for almost everyone.

When I traveled to Europe for a month after I graduated college in 1974, phone calls cost as much as a night in a hotel (and more than the hostels we stayed in) and we communicated with our families with something called post cards and aerograms (lightweight air mail letters). Today, young people use FaceTime, Skype, text, and phone to stay in touch with folks everywhere at any time, and the price of communication is virtually zero. The foreign becomes familiar. Xenophobia can't gain traction when you have friends on every continent. That is a growing reality for many--but not for all, as the Republican presidential race demonstrates. There is little question that the images of foreign people and places can be manipulated for propaganda and political purposes. Many Americans can see the world on the web, but do not have the resources to touch it and experience foreign travel for themselves. But when I weigh the political clout of those who want to build walls against the power of those who benefit from globalization, I believe globalism wins. In addition, the appeal of global interaction for those who can afford it, and the American self-image as a nation of immigrants, is stronger than the tendency toward isolation.

But globalization brings costs along with benefits. Protecting labor from businesses that are highly mobile and multinational is one issue. Another is that with the creation of a global culture, how does one maintain a sense of place, community, and nation against the forces of homogenization? Some of the pushback against global forces derives from appropriate fear of a loss of control and some from a sense that those attributes that made us distinctive can no longer survive. These are real concerns as local culture competes against the shiny new global culture. Food, art, music, and media can reflect distinct local forms of expression. But the forces of homogenization are everywhere. Your Starbucks latte can be purchased in Hong Kong and Hawaii, and it will look and taste the same.

As important as global economic and cultural forces may be, I see the push for distinctive identity and a sense of place ensuring that communities and nation states will maintain their power in a more globally interconnected world. Part of it is expressed in Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY) local politics that resists development by local or global forces. This desire for community control of local land uses is powerful and growing. While part of the force behind the Brexit and Trump movements is racist xenophobia, an element of these movements is caused by a sense of lost control due to foreign forces beyond our reach. Trump, a primary beneficiary of the global economy with his global brand and real estate holdings, is cynically and effectively manipulating this anger and frustration to generate support for his inconsistent and incomprehensible policy positions. His success is in part due to his message that globalization results in loss of control.

It is true that globalization and our modern urban economy reduces independence and increases interdependence. When a rural family moves off a self-sufficient farm to a cosmopolitan city they lose control of their supply of food and shelter. They gain access to higher income, intellectual stimulation, health care and other resources, but they are not as self-sufficient as they were before. Nostalgia is a funny thing, though. When you think of the agrarian past, you might forget about the droughts, storms, pestilence, and other sources of crop failures experienced over the years; the good old days weren't always all that good. Nevertheless, the new global economy presents challenges to those who benefited from America's industrial economy. It is not simply trade and immigration that is reducing the market for labor, however, but also automation. Go to a construction site and watch the number of prefabricated pieces being hoisted by crane into place. Where once skilled construction tradesmen would appear in great numbers, today we see a few people operating machinery. Many modern factories also show the growth of automation. Workers sit in control booths operating machines and workers on the assembly line are often checking that the machines are performing as designed. Not all factories look like this, but the trend line is obvious.

The issue for workers everywhere is how do we protect ourselves from the unseen and unaccountable force of the global economy? Unions and government regulation won't work, because businesses are highly mobile and multinational. The latest trade agreements are built on the premise that in return for free trade, nations must enforce environmental and occupational health and safety regulations along with some form of living wage. It is far too early to see if these mechanisms work. The other forms of protection that younger workers are adopting are to accommodate the brain-based economy and constantly obtain the new knowledge that businesses seek from their employees. This is an insecure existence and, when coupled with the crushing level of educational debt incurred by some of our young people, is a prescription for political instability.

There are no easy answers to the issues generated by the global economy. Ensuring that the planet doesn't get used up and discarded by economic growth is a fundamental challenge. National regulation can control localized environmental problems, but are less effective in regulating climate and global marine impacts. Human labor faces the same challenges. Still, the global economy is constrained by national and local forces. The planet's environment is a precondition for human life, and so there are physical constraints on the global economy. Political stability is required for trade, as are consumers with resources to buy goods and services, and so national employment policy is necessary to ensure the healthy economy needed by global corporations. Finally, local control over the use of land constrains where global corporations can locate. While most localities compete for companies to site facilities, in addition to tax breaks they do so by demonstrating the quality of their community: its natural environment, infrastructure, schools, and political stability. Nations and communities can influence the global economy if they act strategically to defend their interests.

We have entered into a more interdependent global economy with many benefits, but despite its appeal and power, there are political and physical forces that will constrain its power. The need for a sustainable environment requires care in production, consumption, and waste management. The need for stable and growing markets requires a labor force that has meaningful work and is motivated. The human need for community and a sense of place will constrain the tendency toward a mindless homogenization of economic and social trends.

Transitions are painful. New York City's transformation was not easy. We changed from an industrial and commercial city to a global capital of ideas, communication, health care, education, business and tourism. After World War II, the garment industry was our largest business. Today, all those factories are long gone. The transition was so difficult that the city nearly went bankrupt in the mid-1970s. Drugs, crime, grime and decay were everywhere and the city lost a million people. Today, the city glistens; new buildings and parks are everywhere (along with ubiquitous tour buses). But income inequality is growing, and without subsidized housing the working and middle class would already be gone. The problems we face are new and are created by technologies and organizational dynamics new to the world. The old solutions will not work, Trump's nostalgia and racist ranting won't work, and we need to experiment with new solutions to these new problems.

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Meatless Monday: Cheap Eats for Tough Times  
These are challenging days for those of us who eat. Food's expensive. The climate change we're experiencing is killing our crops and is going to make things even worse. The House Agriculture Committee's proposed Farm Bill takes a $16 billion chunk out of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps progam). These are "near draconian cuts," as Wholesome Wave CEO Michel Nischan says. "In its current form the proposal would deny food-assistance to millions of people, many of them children."

"I normally don't consider the price when it comes to food. I buy what I want," says Rory Freedman , author of the mega-bestselling Skinny Bitch. Working with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, Freedman took the SNAP challenge, spending $33 for a week's worth of food for her family.

The organic produce she usually gets wasn't an option. Likewise, sweet treats like organic fair-trade chocolate. On a $33 food budget, "there's nothing extra for indulgences." Standing in the checkout line, "holding my breath, wondering, am I going to have enough money for this, or do the walk of shame and put something back on the shelf -- that was an entirely new experience."

According to a new Oxfam America study, eight out of ten American women -- most often the family decision-makers when it comes to meals -- are willing to make changes when they understand the broader impact of what they eat. That includes going meatless once a week. Meat production sucks up 8% of our global water supply. Even a single meal where you swap beans for beef saves gallons upon gallons of water.

Going meatless saves money, too. It's why Freedman was able to meet the SNAP challenge. Her grocery bill came in at a tight $32.55. "I eat a lot of whole foods," she says. Her week's worth of groceries consisted of "fruits and vegetables, whole grains like brown rice, whole wheat pasta, beans."

Every culture has a beloved beany dish that feeds people in lean times, be it Cuban black beans and rice or Middle Eastern mjeddrah, lentil and rice pilaf. The processed food that makes up the majority of what Americans eat, the boxes and cans that clutter our shelves and our diets, the food Tracie McMillan writes about in The American Way of Eating, was not around three and four generations back. Poverty was, whether it was the Great Depression of the 1930s, the recession of the 1970s or the economic collapse of 2008.

When I put my husband through grad school, our weekly food budget was less than you'd pay for a single restaurant meal -- under $25. We did not see many -- or maybe any -- restaurant meals, but a homemade summer corn and tomato stew stands out in fond memory -- cheap, seasonal and local. Otherwise, it was a lot of rice and beans. I still have a real love for them. They're comfort foods that come from the earth, not out of a box. They're filling, nourishing, shelf-stable and cheap. They've sustained mankind for eons. They'll come through for us now.

As Freedman says, "We can eat healthy plant-based food on a very limited budget." Being vegan makes things a little easier. So do initiatives like Wholesome Wave's Double Value Coupon Program, doubling the SNAP dollars at local farmers markets so people can get twice as much fresh, local produce. The program is all the more precious now, with potential SNAP cuts looming.

Nischan and Freedman both believe consumer advocacy can help drive policy change and create a healthy, sustainable food system. I hope they're right. But we can't wait for the government's help. "We all need to take personal responsibility," says Freedman. It begins with what we eat.

Mjeddrah

1 cup brown rice
1 cup lentils
4 cups water or vegetable broth
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion or two small, sliced thin
1 teaspoon cumin, optional
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Pour lentils into a small bowl. Pick out discard any stems or stones. Cover with cold water. Do the same with the rice, in a separate bowl. Leave 'em to soak for 30 minutes at a minimum, for 2 hours, if you've got the time.

The lentils and rice don't need any fussing with, just let them sit.

Bring water or vegetable broth to boil into a large saucepan. Strain lentils into a sieve. Rinse in cold water. Add to broth. Do the same with the brown rice. Toss in bay leaf. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, for 30 to 40 minutes, until lentils and rice are soft and fluffy and have soaked up all the liquid. Remove cover, remove from heat and set aside.

Just before serving, heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add sliced onion and cook, stirring, for 3 to 5 minutes, until onions start to soften and turn golden and fragrant. Reduce heat to medium, and cook, stirring, another 10 minutes or so, until onions are brown and tender. Season with sea salt and fresh ground pepper.

Stir lentils and rice together gently. Remove bay leaf and season generously with sea salt, fresh ground pepper and optional cumin.

Serve pilaf lavishly topped with onions.

Serves 6 to 8.

This post originally ran on July 23, 2012,
More at soulfulvegan.com

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John Quincy Adams Scientist of the Day

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There's no gain without pain.
Just ask Eddie Hall, who on Saturday set a new world record by deadlifting 1,102 pounds ― and then promptly passed o...

Read more: Viral Video, Gif, England, Strongman, Eddie Hall, World Deadlift Championships, Leeds, The Beast, Deadlift, Sports News

 
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Crab Finds Lost A GoPro And Takes An Awesome Underwater Selfie  
It's a shellfish selfie.
A family fishing in England last week caught a GoPro that was lost for nearly a year. While the camera itself no longer wo...

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Reflections  

andre adams posted a photo:

 
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One Small Step  

ShutterJack posted a photo:

My macro shot from our LA Photowalk
#‎FlickrPhotowalk #‎FlickrLAphotowalk

 
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Morning Swim by Tobias Hägg  

Morning Swim by Tobias Hägg

www.instagram.com/airpixels Out on a photo session in my hometown i came across this fine old man. He told me he enjoys to swim the lake early in the mornings and has been doing so ever since he was young.

Tobias Hägg: Photos

 
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Zaha by trashhand  

Zaha by trashhand

Artist: Zaha Hadid

trashhand: Photos

 
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r0B0t: Robots Replacing Developers? This Startup Uses Artificial Intelligence To Build Smart Software - Forbes  

Forbes

Robots Replacing Developers? This Startup Uses Artificial Intelligence To Build Smart Software Forbes Building software solutions based on Continuous Delivery, a set of principles and practices using Lean and heavy automation, Dev9 assembles teams that use artificial intelligence to develop custom software, eliminating strenuous processes and ...

 
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New Scientist Live tickets are on sale now  
Secure your place at our festival this September packed with debates, exhibits, demos and lots more  
gaia  

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http://twitter.com/jesz12/status/752488011036758016 
There are #Endangered #sea #life! Stepping up for #Shark #Species at CITES https://t.co/IAjHxoHtJV 
https://t.co/IAjHxoHtJV 

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Cycling paramedics in epic rush to save patient who ate stale sandwich  

Adrenaline-soaked exploits worthy of Hollywood

Cancel Independence 3 and put Episode VIII on hold. Hollywood need look no further than the London Ambulance Service's Cycle Response Team for next year's summer blockbuster, after its Twitter feed revealed the gritty reality of saving East London while balanced on two wheels.…

 
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Kotkin on who made Trump and Brexit: Look in the mirror, it's you  

How Hipsters and Silicon Valley's tech plutocrats cast the poor aside

Interview Two American writers have attempted to grapple with the rise of “populism” exemplified by Donald Trump and Brexit, with both starting (if not finishing) from the Left.…

 
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Canary Wharf at sunset  

Andrew H-W posted a photo:

Olympus digital camera

 
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/europeanspaceagency/28132236802/  
CAVES2016 - Exploration Day 6  

europeanspaceagency posted a photo:

Cavenauts with support and ground teams after exiting the cave. Mission complete!

Astronauts from five space agencies around the world are taking part in ESA's CAVES training course Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills.

The two-week course prepares astronauts to work safely and effectively in multicultural teams in an environment where safety is critical.

As they explore the caves of Sardinia they will encounter caverns, underground lakes and strange microscopic life. They are testing new technology and conducting science just as if they were living on the International Space Station. The six astronauts relying on their own skills, teamwork and ground control to achieve their mission goals the course is designed to foster effective communication, decision-making, problem-solving, leadership and team dynamics.

This year is the first international space cooperation to involve astronauts from China, Russia, Japan, ESA and America, with cosmonaut Sergei Vladimirovich, ESA astronaut Pedro Duque, taikonaut Ye Guangfu, Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide and NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Jessica Muir taking part.

Follow CAVES via twitter @ESA_CAVES or with #CAVES2016 or on the CAVES blog.

Credits: ESA-V.Crobu

 
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NASA: Moon's Ice is a Time Capsule --"Answer to a Deep Mystery" (Weekend Feature)  
 
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"Worlds in Collision" --Why Northern Mars Is Lower in Altitude Than Southern Mars  
 
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The Lincoln Memorial  
The Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC (© Dennis K. Johnson/Getty images) 2016-07-10 [www.bing.com/search]  
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http://twitter.com/el_bonga/status/752469659975376896 
@MurtalaIbin CITES: Convention on Int'l Trade in Endangered Species of Wildlife of Fauna and Flora of which we're signatory in 1973... 1/2 
http://ifttt.com/missing_link?1468238838 

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NBC Universal patents a method for hunting BitTorrent pirates in real-time  

In an effort to curb piracy of copyrighted content, entertainment giant NBC Universal has patented a way to detect files being shared by large groups of people on peer-to-peer networks in real-time. The idea is that the system, which could be deployed by an internet service provider, will be able to identify files, like a movie or music album being distributed on a network (such as a BitTorrent network) by a swarm of users. When there are several users engaged in sharing the verified file, it'll raise an alarm so appropriate action, like alerting the ISP or filing a lawsuit,…

This story continues at The Next Web  
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KOSKI by Studio deForm is a board game that connects the...  

KOSKI by Studio deForm is a board game that connects the physical and digital gaming worlds together in a new, unusual and playful way. It is a combination of real toy blocks and a virtual app that evokes digital interactive game play. The Player uses an iPad as a “magical mirror” which looks onto wooden blocks. By using an augmented reality and object recognition, as the player interacts and builds with the blocks, the game soon begins to reveal it's hidden worlds, characters and stories. It unlocks new and imaginative ways to play.

 
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We're on the edge of a new frontier in art and creativity...  

We're on the edge of a new frontier in art and creativity — and it's not human. Blaise Agüera y Arcas, principal scientist at Google, works with deep neural networks for machine perception and distributed learning. In this captivating demo, he shows how neural nets trained to recognize images can be run in reverse, to generate them. The results: spectacular, hallucinatory collages (and poems!) that defy categorization. “Perception and creativity are very intimately connected,” Agüera y Arcas says. “Any creature, any being that is able to do perceptual acts is also able to create.”

 
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http://journal.benbashford.com/post/147203624413  
Pokemon Go is an online ios and android app that lets your...  

Pokemon Go is an online ios and android app that lets your discover Pokemon in the real world

 
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http://journal.benbashford.com/post/147203291453  
Meet Vi, an AI personal trainer who lives in biosensing...  

Meet Vi, an AI personal trainer who lives in biosensing earphones. She finds your ideal path to fitness and coaches you in real time.

 
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http://journal.benbashford.com/post/147202369398  
Just ask your Smart Bluetooth® Speaker BSP60 a range of...  

Just ask your Smart Bluetooth® Speaker BSP60 a range of questions, from weather information to your daily schedule and it will answer right back. You can also ask it to perform tasks like setting an alarm or timer. The voice control app supports English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish language. So get on with your day and let the Smart Bluetooth® Speaker BSP60 assist you.

 
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http://journal.benbashford.com/post/147202242658  
Aido is an interactive personal home robot. He's an all in one...  

Aido is an interactive personal home robot. He's an all in one package that comes with the best of home automation, security, assistance, entertainment and much more!

 
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http://journal.benbashford.com/post/147202100878  
Tapia will warm your heart with jokes and laughter after a long...  

Tapia will warm your heart with jokes and laughter after a long day at the office. She will also help keep you that much closer to loved ones who are miles away by taking photos of your happy times together. Additionally, Tapia gives you helpful updates on weather conditions when you are headed out, and can play music when asked to set the mood or help you relax. As a roommate, friend, and daily partner, this robot will stay faithfully by your side and evolve right along with you on life's journey.

 
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http://journal.benbashford.com/post/147201925403  
VYO SOCIAL ROBOT FOR THE SMART HOMEVyo is a personal assistant...  

VYO SOCIAL ROBOT FOR THE SMART HOME

Vyo is a personal assistant serving as a centralized interface for smart home devices. With both social robotics and smart homes on the brink of market feasibility, Vyo offers an alternative to the more common touch-screen and voice-control interfaces. Vyo's design is that of a peripheral robot, straddling the boundary between home appliance and social presence. Users interact with the device using physical icons and quiet gestures, promoting the domestic sense of home technology.

 
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316  

316

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/4-10-july-2016/design-ind/  
Design industry performing well despite shrinking profit margins  

Design has performed favourably against other sectors in a new piece of research which looks at the state of the marketing and creative industries.

Accountant Kingston Smith's Marketing Monitor report which looks at the strength of all sectors from the last year finds that across the marketing services industries consultancies are “delicately poised”, as they enter post-Brexit economic uncertainty.

The general state of play for all sectors is that there have been modest increases in fee income, which are becoming increasingly overshadowed by worsening margins.

Despite this there were also broad trends showing that the industry had recovered from the financial crisis.

Top 30 design consultancies increase gross income

Branding and design is performing well according to the report, which finds that its “top 30” (unnamed) design consultancies generated an additional £13.5 million in gross income year-on-year compared to last year's report.

However the gross income wasn't turned into operating profit and therefore profit margins are down one percentage point to 10.3%.

Kingston Smith recommends that a well run design consultancy should be generating operating profits of at least 15% of fee income and ideally 20%. While 11 of the top 30 hit 15% only five were in excess of 20%.

Talent shortages

One metric for looking at the health of the health of a consultancy is by comparing employment costs and fee income.

The average ratio of employment cost to fee income is on the rise, creeping up by two percentage points to hit 61% this year. When freelancers are considered this figure is even higher.

Talent shortages are cited as a reason for driving up staff costs and the recommended target ratio of employment cost to fee income is 60%.

Independent's catch group owned

There are 17 independent consultancies in Kingston Smith's top 30. The profitability gap is closing between independent and group owned consultancies.

Operating profit margins are now 11% for group-owned consultancies and 10% for independents. This is four percentage points closer than last year.

Average fee income per head in the design sector has worsened and now stands just under the benchmark target of 100,000. This averages out from group-owned consultancies earning £108,000 per head and independents earning £94,000.

However the group-owned consultancies spend more on staff costs and overheads, which is why their profit margins are not much better in the end.

How to be more efficient

As design work is by it's nature project driven and freelancers are often brought in to manage peaks and troughs, getting the balance right between permanent and temporary staff is “absolutely vital to protect those slim margins” advises Kingston Smith.

Another tip it gives is to have someone to oversee capacity management and sign off additional resource.

Design consultancies need to regularly challenge whether they are using staff in the most efficient way and come up with “new and innovative ways of working” that keep up with client demands, finds Kingston Smith.

The report looked at key performance indicators across other sectors, revealing that PR had performed the best, advertising had not performed as well as the year before, while in digital gross income per head has increased although margins are being squeezed.

Meanwhile in marketing and sales productivity remains steady but spiraling operating costs have hit profit margin.

You can read the full report here.

The post Design industry performing well despite shrinking profit margins appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/4-10-july-2016/well-know-design-business/  
How well do you know your design business?  

I recently sat down with Jack O'Hern, partner at accountancy firm Wright Vigar and an accredited DBA Expert. The starting point of our discussion was personal finances for business owners not usually a subject we broach at the DBA with our focus on the success of “the business” rather than the individuals who own it. But Jack's message is clear: unless a business owner understands their personal needs and desires with regards to their business, then it will never truly be a success.

Although business and personal success are intertwined, when you boil it down, your business success can be judged on financial metrics, whereas for yourself you need a different set of metrics that don't focus so much on money, but instead focus on the quality of your life.

“A financial advisor for a business owner shouldn't look at the business first, they should look at the person,” says O'Hern. “The business should work for the person, not the other way round.”

The business owner (or owners) need to work out what they want from their business by answering three questions:

1. Why did you set up your business in the first place?
For design consultancy owners the words “independence” and “freedom” tend to feature heavily, both creatively and financially. Do you want double-digit growth every year, or do you just want to keep a roof over your head?

2. What do you want out of your business?
You should look at whether you are getting what you want out of the business both emotionally and financially. Does it give you security? A certain standard of living? Are you happy with what you do at work on a day-to-day basis; is it what you expected you would be doing when you set up the business?

3. What is the end game?
It's important to know what you want to leave behind and how you want to leave. Are you interested in leaving a creative legacy, a thriving business that you have passed on in some form? Do you want early retirement and a life on the golf course, or do you want the opportunity to never retire but not have to deal with the stress of running a business?

Without truthful answers to these personal questions by all owners of the business it is difficult to successfully manage the business itself. They all impact on the financial decisions taken within the company.

In O'Hern's experience, the most common reaction to these questions is a realisation that the owner's original intentions on setting up a business have become lost under the morass of actually running it. That's why you need to remember what you are trying to do and then, more importantly, do something about it. This could mean firing that awkward client, investing in a big hire by bringing someone in to run the business thereby freeing up your time, or scaling back to a more manageable size so you can remain in control.

Life can impact on your work in so many ways, especially as we get older. From coping with poorly parents to putting kids through university you need to make sure that work works for you, and that starts with financial management.

The post How well do you know your design business? appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/4-10-july-2016/aiga-get-vote-poster-campaign-looks-activate-u-s-voters/  
AIGA Get Out The Vote poster campaign looks to activate U.S. voters  

“These political posters should be looked at as tools,” says Laetitia Wolff, curator for Get Out The Vote. “Design has a real power to change behaviour.”

Get Out The Vote is the U.S. election poster campaign from the AIGA, North America's professional association for design. Through an online gallery, the campaign which happens every four years to coincide with a presidential election uses the power of design and illustration to “activate” the public and get them interested in American politics, says Wolff.

Non-partisan campaign

While the campaign hopes to encourage engagement, it also aims to be non-partisan, and so the posters do not advocate for either the Republicans or Democrats, but simply inspire people to use their vote.

“Voting demonstrates that you belong to a nation, not just a party,” says Wolff. “Though we would still love to see the likes of Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump use the posters as part of the campaigns.”

The AIGA's Get Out The Vote campaign was first launched in 2004, and looks to both high and low profile designers to create posters that can be included within its online gallery.

Milton Glaser and Paula Scher

The initiative receives submissions from the likes of Milton Glaser and Paula Scher, and a number of other designers, the only specification being that they need to be a member of the AIGA to submit a design. The AIGA has 26,000 members across the continent, spread across 70 different hubs in the U.S.

Exhibition spaces of curated work

Alongside an online gallery of all submissions, which at the moment totals around 150 for this year, there are also exhibitions held in conjunction with the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention, which are both taking place later this month. An exhibition of select design works is also held at the AIGA Design Conference in Las Vegas in October.

While the online gallery includes all submissions, the exhibitions are more selective, including a curated selection of 45 posters to correlate with this year being the 45th presidential election from “design influencers” and a hand-picked selection of others.

Making “beautiful imagery” a political tool

Wolff says the campaign aims to make issues that affect everybody more “visible, legible and accessible”, through using “beautiful imagery” to interest and activate people into starting a conversation about politics.

“Good design makes choices clear,” says Wolff. “Designers have an important responsibility to use their work as a communication tool and to engage citizens including themselves.”

The campaign has also partnered with the League of Women Voters this year, a non-partisan organisation which aims to mobilise and educate the public, both male and female, about voting. Together, the organisations host events throughout the year to encourage more people to vote by engaging them with design.

Posters can be submitted until 8 November

All AIGA members can contribute posters through the Get Out The Vote submission form until 8 November, the date of the U.S. presidential election.

The organisation also encourages site viewers to download and share the posters, using hashtags #AIGAvote and #GetOutTheVote, with the hope of activating more voters.

These are some of the posters submitted so far this year:

The post AIGA Get Out The Vote poster campaign looks to activate U.S. voters appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/11/london-mayor-sadiq-khan-blocks-extra-funds-garden-bridge  
London mayor Sadiq Khan blocks extra funds for garden bridge  

Further doubt cast on future of proposed bridge after preparatory work halted over fears about public funding

The future of London's proposed garden bridge has been called into further question after the city's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, halted preparatory work on the structure over fears this could involve more public money being spent.

Continue reading...  
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2016/jul/11/steve-bells-if-dark-lord-osborne-bigs-up-the-space-pound  
Steve Bell's If ... Dark Lord Osborne bigs up the space pound  
Continue reading...  
culture  

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Why Partnership is Essential When Solving Global Challenges  


This article has been submitted as part of the Natural Capital Coalition's series of blogs on natural capital by Camilla Toulmin, British economist, former Director and senior fellow of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

While philosophers can create progress in their fields with nothing more than brain, pencil and paper, an objective understanding of complex natural and social systems necessitates more than can be achieved by any single person. What is needed to advance our knowledge and to refine our policy in this field, is collaboration, and partnership.

First, between disciplines, so that the different tools, ideas and perspectives of the social and natural sciences can be more broadly focused on practical problems, much in need of solutions.

Second, between scales, as our world is an inter-locking system; so much so that changes to the troposphere, 12 miles above the Earth's surface, rebound on the prospects of micro-organisms nestled deep in the soil.

Third, between different actors and agencies. While it's true that government sets the wider direction and policy framework, our resources are used and managed by people, individually and collectively - on farms, across hillsides, in the oceans, in fact, on most of the planet's surface.

And, lastly, over generations of thought. You cannot hope to understand a system today, or predict where it might be tomorrow, if you haven't understood where it has travelled from.

My own work neatly illustrates these points. I am currently re-surveying a small village in the Sahel, the place where I first embarked on my doctoral fieldwork 35 years ago. In my work, I combine many different methods and disciplines, and rely on support from people all over the world. Researchers generally like to exchange ideas and new evidence, building a culture of sharing spanning the globe. I rely on this in my own work, as it helps me analyse what can be seen from aerial photos, compare trends in rainfall and crop yields, and learn how similar communities elsewhere have taken their own development in hand.



I have to work at multiple scales, understanding not only how the environment changes people, but also how people change the environment. National decentralisation policy has led to shifts in who exercises power and decision-making locally, while global market forces have turned these wide open sandy plains into a commodity to be bought and sold. For us to succeed in supporting local development, we need this extensive multifaceted understanding, from which to offer partnership to local people.

Gaining a livelihood in these drought-prone regions is uncertain, but people have survived and prospered here for many generations. Local farmers talk knowledgeably about how they play-off risks; by sowing millet with different growing cycles, and diversifying into sesame, maize and groundnuts for instance. I am talking with them about how they see the future, and ways to build greater resilience into their natural resource and farming systems. We apply our shared understanding of the changes they've witnessed over the last 35 years as the backdrop to aid reflections on the future. They're enjoying working with old aerial photos, and taking the black-and-white images in hand. The older men and women can point out who was farming each field as far back as the early 1950s.



The farmers and herders of this region face serious challenges ahead, as fertile land becomes scarcer, and rain falls in evermore intense storms. Even in the face of this, they can do much to manage their land, and diversify how they live in order to cope with this uncertainty. Some families continue to live in enormous domestic groups, made up of 100+ relatives, as a means to gain economies of scale, and share both assets and risks.

Many families here rely on the earnings of young men who migrate away for many months at a time. While a short-term solution, in order to prosper in the long term, people need sensible and supportive government. Government must provide stability though laws and institutions which secure rights for people and for the environment, and by investing in the public infrastructure needed to get goods to market.

I am engaging with people in local and national government, promoting the work that we do, and relaying the voices of villagers; facilitating conversations where they are able to tell their own stories.

This work is particularly important now, as the current government is handing out big areas of land to large scale agricultural enterprise; 20,000 hectares to a Chinese company for sugar-cane cultivation most recently.

However, new legislation is currently being introduced through parliament, bills that offer more secure rights to local people, as well as for local bodies which can both handle disputes, and register land. I am hoping that as farmers mobilise themselves and find common cause with neighbouring communities, they can press for ever-fairer deals when big investors loom large.

I hope to further understand these interlocked systems of natural and social capital, and believe this is possible; by combining disciplines, working at many scales, forging partnerships, and looking back in order to understand future options.

A global approach to learning and sharing is central to all such research enquiry. As we see unfold before us the extraordinary and troubling fall-out from the U.K. EU referendum result, I have ever greater concern for our natural environment, its care and conservation. While political intrigue and jostling for power offer short-lived rhetoric about how to generate jobs and livelihoods, we must keep sight of the longer term assets, on which our ultimate prosperity lies.

Collaboration across boundaries of all forms is vital to our shared understanding of the planet's complexity, where its thresholds and tipping points might lie, and how to manage and monitor change. It's therefore vital to unite and work together, regardless of the regulatory landscape, to solve the challenges that we all collectively face.

Disclaimer: Articles in this series are submitted by people who work in organizations who are part of the Natural Capital Coalition, or people who are involved in the natural capital space more generally, the views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of The Natural Capital Coalition, other Coalition organizations, or the organization that employs the author.

Follow Camilla on Twitter: @camillatoulmin
Follow the IIED on Twitter: @IIED


Camilla Toulmin is a British economist and former Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Her career has focused on policy research about agriculture, land, climate and livelihoods in dryland regions of Africa. She became a senior fellow of IIED in late June 2015, and is Professor of Practice at the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University.

On 13th July 2016, The Natural Capital Coalition will launch a standardized framework for business to identify, measure and value their impacts and dependencies on natural capital. This 'Natural Capital Protocol' has been developed through a unique collaborative process; a World Business Council for Sustainable Development consortium led on the technical development and an IUCN consortium led on business engagement and piloting. The Protocol is supported by practically focused 'Sector Guides' on Apparel and Food & Beverage produced by Trucost on behalf of Coalition.

Keep up to date with the Natural Capital Coalition on Twitter: @NatCapCoalition


Keep up to date with our series on natural capital here.

www.naturalcapitalcoalition.org

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Astronomers detect new worlds unlike any detected thus far  

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Graduate students supported by the National Science Foundation helped helm two separate exoplanet discoveries that could expand researchers' understanding of how planets form and orbit stars. K2-33b, shown in this illustration, is one of the youngest exoplanets detected to date and makes a complete orbit around its star in about five days. These two characteristics combined provide exciting new directions for planet-formation theories. K2-33b could have formed on a farther out orbit and quickly migrated inward. Alternatively, it could have formed in situ, or in place.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt

 
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Sun Setting Over London  

ben.beedell1 posted a photo:

I took this shot yesterday evening just as the sun was going down ?☀️

 
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Sunset from the South Bank  

Jeppe Toustrup posted a photo:

 
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r0B0t: Froma Harrop: Surprise: U.S. factory jobs growing - Omaha World-Herald  

Froma Harrop: Surprise: U.S. factory jobs growing Omaha World-Herald What's happening is automation. Robots enable manufacturers to make lots of stuff with relatively few workers. The ability to do the job with far fewer humans goes far in canceling the advantage of low-wage countries. (Lower U.S. energy costs have ... and more »

 
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r0B0t: The Adtagonist: You're fired — love the future x - MarkLives.com  

MarkLives.com

The Adtagonist: You're fired — love the future x MarkLives.com From the advertising executive to the humble bartender, everything we do is either influenced by or fully vested in technology and its consistent 'tomorrowness'. Hold up, did you say bartender? Here's the thing. There's even a robot programmed to pour ...

 
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r0B0t: Merced reacts with sadness, anger, fear to violence in Dallas - Merced Sun-Star  

Merced Sun-Star

Merced reacts with sadness, anger, fear to violence in Dallas Merced Sun-Star Authorities initially said there were three suspects in custody and a fourth killed by a robot-delivered bomb in a parking garage after a long standoff. However, on Friday afternoon, ... Back in Texas, Flowers worried for the future. “I'm just hoping ... Micah X Johnson, the Dallas police shooter, was taken out with a robot delivered bombBlasting News all 9,015 news articles »

 
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Ultrashort cell-free DNA reveals health of organ transplants  

Full Text:

When cells die, whether through apoptosis or necrosis, the DNA and other molecules found in those cells don't just disappear. They wind up in the bloodstream, where degraded bits and pieces can be extracted. This cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is degraded due to its exposure to enzymes in the blood but is nonetheless a powerful monitoring tool in cancer, pregnancy and organ transplantation. One fairly recent breakthrough is prenatal testing for conditions such as Down syndrome, as fragments of fetal cfDNA can be detected in a mother's bloodstream. Now, borrowing a genomics technique used in the study of the ancient past, a Cornell graduate student has come up with a diagnostic tool that can open a window into a transplant recipient's immediate future through the analysis of cfDNA.

Image credit: Sarah Nickerson/Biomedical Engineering

 
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How Was Your Day … Real-Life Indiana Jones?  
"Once we got attacked by a walrus. He hammered his tusks into one of our kayaks."  
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Thames Barrier - High Tide  

Aleem Yousaf posted a photo:

 
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FlickrPhotowalk - Los Angeles  

ShutterJack posted a photo:

This is an installment in Tongva Park in Santa Monica, California. These weather vanes move with the wind. One of the photos from the Flickr LA Photowalk.
#‎FlickrPhotowalk #‎FlickrLAphotowalk

 
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Thousand Points of Light  

ShutterJack posted a photo:

Had a great time at the photowalk today. Discovered this under the Santa Monica Pier. The light shone down through the slats in the pier.
#‎FlickrPhotowalk #‎FlickrLAphotowalk

 
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r0B0t: Watch the 'Mr Robot' season two premiere episode right now  
Can't wait until Wednesday for the season two premiere of Mr. Robot? No problem -- the show's official Twitter account just posted the first episode. Watching it on Twitter might not give the full home theater experience, but we suspect fans will be...  
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SETI mulls reboot: believing the strangest things, loving the alien  

Radio? Just because we like it doesn't mean ET phones home

SETI (the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is both exciting and disappointing: exciting because of peoples' eternal wish for someone else to be out there; and disappointing because life proves so hard to find.…

 
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Cormorants watch for trout beneath the mirror surface of the lake  

Watendlath Tarn, Borrowdale At my approach the soot-black, long-necked bird opens its hook-tipped bill, and utters a harsh croak

Watendlath Tarn shines like a burnished mirror. Perfect reflections of the surrounding hills and a Chelsea blue sky are disrupted only by the occasional splash of mallards and greylag geese and jumping trout. Black buzzer flies (chironomids or non-biting midges) on the surface are hatching from the tarn bed.

I think of Judith Paris, the historical novel by Hugh Walpole, which was a bestseller in the 1930s, though little read these days. It is partly set in revolutionary Paris and partly in Watendlath, with tales of passion and murder played out against vivid descriptions of the Cumbrian countryside.

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Life-Hacks Of The Poor And Aimless  
The more frightening the economic outlook and the more floodwaters rise, the more the public conversation is turning toward individual fulfillment as if in a desperate attempt to make us feel like we still have some control over our lives.  
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Sunset across the Thames at Greenwich  

anne@wood posted a photo:

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Sunset across the Thames at Greenwich 2  

anne@wood posted a photo:

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r0B0t: Mr. Robot Season 2 premieres on Twitter  
More about Mr. Robot, Tv, Twitter, Mr Robot, and Entertainment  
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r0B0t: Merced reacts with sadness, anger, fear to violence in Dallas - Merced Sun-Star  

Merced Sun-Star

Merced reacts with sadness, anger, fear to violence in Dallas Merced Sun-Star Authorities initially said there were three suspects in custody and a fourth killed by a robot-delivered bomb in a parking garage after a long standoff. However, on Friday afternoon, ... Back in Texas, Flowers worried for the future. “I'm just hoping ... Micah X Johnson, the Dallas police shooter, was taken out with a robot delivered bombBlasting News all 8,357 news articles »

 
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Apricots by Alena Gusakova  

Apricots by Alena Gusakova

Apricots

Alena Gusakova: Photos

 
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nybooks/~3/K2TGOzebY_0/  
Can the Candidates Change?  
The week that began with our annual national celebration ended in a cacophony of charges and misdirected attacks and the prospect of more ugliness as the two most disliked candidates in our history seek an acceptance that keeps eluding them. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both came face to face with their deepest and possibly fatal flaws.  
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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jul/10/the-neon-demon-review-nicholas-winding-refn  
The Neon Demon review beauty as the beast  
Nicolas Winding Refn's provocative modern fable follows a young model into the dark, dangerous woods of the LA fashion world

“Am I staring…?” This neon-noir fantasia from Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish director of Drive, Bronson and the Pusher trilogy, is a modern fairytale of beauty as a beast, a horror-inflected, high-fashion fable replete with wicked witches and big bad wolves ready to devour a flaxen-haired youth in the wild woods of Los Angeles. Less Prêt-à-Porter with teeth than The Company of Wolves from hell and in heels, it offers a bloody chamber of symbolic provocations (lunar cycles, occultist trappings) cooked up by a film-maker taking weekly tarot readings from the Chilean surrealist Alejandro Jodorowsky and driven by an intoxication with the superficiality of the photographic image.

Swooningly filmed by Natasha Braier, The Neon Demon puts overtly ludicrous flesh on a satirical script co-written with the playwrights Mary Laws and Polly Stenham, bringing a Jacobean Ab Fab edge (“sweetie, plastics is just good grooming”) to the poisoned apple proceedings on which Refn feeds as hungrily as any spellbound princess.

Related: Nicolas Winding Refn: 'I bring the singular, the narcissistic, the high art'

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hamster-powered drawing machine by neil mendoza & joji  

a combination of mechanics and coding, the hamster-powered machine creates a drawing by running along a set path dictated by two large, circular cams.

The post hamster-powered drawing machine by neil mendoza & joji appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jul/10/on-my-radar-paul-nurse-noise-time-julian-barnes-follow-money-andras-schiff-simon-mcburney  
On my radar: Paul Nurse's cultural highlights  

The geneticist on the joys of Alexander Calder and Nordic noir, plus virtuoso performances from Simon McBurney and András Schiff

The new Francis Crick Institute in London's King's Cross opens this summer, and by the time it reaches its full capacity later in the year will house 1,400 researchers and 400 support staff. Sir Paul Nurse, director and chief executive, describes it as “probably the biggest biomedical research laboratory building in the world”; others have affectionately dubbed it “Sir Paul's Cathedral”. Nurse, who was president of the Royal Society until last year, has become one of the most celebrated scientists in Britain. Born to a working-class family in Norfolk, his career has led him from a Harrow grammar school to some of the world's most prestigious biology and genetics laboratories and, in 2001, to the Nobel prize for medicine, for his work discovering “key regulators in the cell cycle”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jul/10/on-my-radar-paul-nurse-noise-time-julian-barnes-follow-money-andras-schiff-simon-mcburney  
On my radar: Paul Nurse's cultural highlights  

The geneticist on the joys of Alexander Calder and Nordic noir, plus virtuoso performances from Simon McBurney and András Schiff

The new Francis Crick Institute in London's King's Cross opens this summer, and by the time it reaches its full capacity later in the year will house 1,400 researchers and 400 support staff. Sir Paul Nurse, director and chief executive, describes it as “probably the biggest biomedical research laboratory building in the world”; others have affectionately dubbed it “Sir Paul's Cathedral”. Nurse, who was president of the Royal Society until last year, has become one of the most celebrated scientists in Britain. Born to a working-class family in Norfolk, his career has led him from a Harrow grammar school to some of the world's most prestigious biology and genetics laboratories and, in 2001, to the Nobel prize for medicine, for his work discovering “key regulators in the cell cycle”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jul/10/georgia-okeefe-review-tate-modern-retrospective  
Georgia O'Keeffe at Tate Modern review the sensuous and the dust-dead  

Tate Modern, London
Big skies, big stamens, big box-office… yet there are longueurs in this blockbuster retrospective

Daybreak over Texas, and Georgia O'Keeffe is out in the landscape, mesmerised by the vast skies above her. She paints everything her eyes can take in. The dawn becomes a luminous glow beneath the blue arches of her marvellous watercolour, a rising dome that hovers between the real and the abstract. The painting is small but it holds infinity.

Light Coming on the Plains III (1917) is one of the purest and most radical images O'Keeffe ever made. But it is not in this exhibition. I mention it as an image to hold in mind when walking around the blockbuster at Tate Modern, something to weigh against all the kitsch skull and flower pictures and mechanically abstracted mesas that have made her the most famous and most oversold female painter in American art.

O'Keeffe's oil paintings turn out to be dull, matte, evenly layered. They have no touch, no relish for paint

Related: The wild beauty of Georgia O'Keeffe

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/09/dr-seuss-will-see-you-now-children-books-exhibition-discover-centre-stratford  
Dr Seuss will see you now  
Interactive exhibition explores the world of the children's author

Wordplay games and interactive exhibits that recreate the worlds inside the playful mind of Dr Seuss, one of the most popular of all children's writers, are to be unveiled later this month in east London.

A year-long exhibition celebrating the work of the American creator of The Cat in the Hat and The Lorax will form the entire basement floor of the revamped venue, Discover in Stratford, from 23 July.

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DJA designs bat-centric concert hall in latvia  

composed of 10,000 laminated paper bats, the gradated installation serves as art piece and screen for video and light installations.

The post DJA designs bat-centric concert hall in latvia appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/10/starwatch-teapot-in-sagittarius  
Starwatch: Teapot in Sagittarius  

The Teapot appears to be pouring to the right, its spout represented by the stars Alnasl and Kaus Australis

Mars remains the most conspicuous object low in Britain's S sky at nightfall where it stands below the Moon on Thursday. Saturn, 17° to Mars's left and fainter, is 6° above Antares in Scorpius.

By midnight BST it is the quaintly named Teapot that hovers just above our S horizon. The Teapot is an asterism, being the most prominent part of the constellation of Sagittarius the Archer which is also identified as a Centaur a human/horse hybrid.

Related: The Large Sagittarius Star Cloud - picture of the day

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astronomy  

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https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jul/10/bluedot-festival-frontier-jodrell-bank-jean-michel-jarre-brian-cox-underworld  
Bluedot: exploring the festival frontier  

This month, a new festival will boldly go beyond the same old weekend lineups with a boundary-breaking blend of science, music, technology and comedy

With the vast Lovell telescope as its backdrop, the first ever Bluedot festival will take place later this month, in and around the Jodrell Bank observatory in Cheshire. The three-day event will combine a weekend music festival with an interdisciplinary scientific symposium, scheduling big-name musicians alongside prominent scientists and technologists. Taking its name from the Pale Blue Dot photograph of Earth made famous by Carl Sagan, Bluedot's unusual programme hopes to inspire the sense of curiosity and wonderment suggested by its surroundings. “Bluedot offers an experience unlike any other,” says festival director Ben Robinson, “with over 300 cutting-edge artists pushing the boundaries of live performance.”

The festival will be divided into several different areas, each one programmed according to different themes. The Nebula stage, “where new stars are born”, is the arena for up-and-coming musicians; the Roots stage, situated in nearby woodland, covers folky and acoustic acts; and the Lovell stage, directly behind the famous telescope, will host the headliners, all of whom have a certain scientific flavour. These include French electro-pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre, famed for his majestic, hi-tech concerts; the shape-shifting Canadian innovator Caribou; and the brainy, maths-flecked Manchester rockers Everything Everything.

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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jul/10/south-kilburn-estate-brent-council-alison-brooks-architects  
South Kilburn estate review homes that are streets ahead  

Thanks to the enlightened thinking of Brent council and Alison Brooks Architects, a notorious London estate that featured in Zadie Smith's White Teeth is now the site of some of the best housing in the neighbourhood

Once upon a time, goes a well-worn story, cities were made of streets. People were happy. They loved their neighbours and looked out for each other. Kids played outside. You knew where you stood: a house looked like a house and a street looked like a street. You could put out flags and tea kettles for a royal jubilee. Then ideological modern architects, in league with control-freak local councils, ripped it all up. Streets were insanitary, they said. Their residents (they thought but didn't say) were too unruly. So they had to be corralled into soulless blocks, human battery farms, gulags, surrounded by open spaces that no one wanted or owned and so became colonised by gangs and drugs.

The story is oversimplified. You don't have to look far into the literature of the past to find that alienation, dystopia and misery could flourish in good old streets. There are several ways to create successful shared spaces courts and communal gardens, for example as well as streets. Not everyone wants a house and private garden. One of the strengths of Britain's big cities is the multiplicity of ways to live that they offer, including that reviled modernist housing, some of which turns out to have qualities of its own.

Brent council's Richard Barrett remembers both ‘camaraderie' and the fact that taxi drivers would refuse to go there

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https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/jul/09/suburbs-architecture-stagnation  
With the Good Life over, how can suburbia regain its place in the sun?  
It was where the interwar generation aspired to, but suburbs today are a tale of dying high streets and creeping poverty

“Try to own a suburban home,” said an advertisement by the British Freehold Land Company in the 1920s, “it will make you a better citizen and help your family. The suburbs have fresh air, sunlight, roomy houses, green lawns and social advantages.” It perfectly summarises the ideal behind suburbia, which is where most people in Britain live today.

Related: Metroland, 100 years on: what's become of England's original vision of suburbia?

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r0B0t: Killings and history challenge us to value all lives equally - Detroit Free Press  

Merced Sun-Star

Killings and history challenge us to value all lives equally Detroit Free Press Micah Johnson, the killer, did not act with the weight of history, because there is none of mass police killings by angered African Americans. And even the extreme bigotry and hatred he allegedly ... The perpetrator in Dallas was killed, blown up by a ... Merced reacts with sadness, anger, fear to violence in DallasMerced Sun-Star Micah X Johnson, the Dallas police shooter, was taken out with a robot delivered bombBlasting News all 9,127 news articles »

 
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Photos of the Day: July 10, 2016  

Bull running in Spain, Olympics trials and more in Photos of the Day.  
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Long Buried By Bad Reputation, Philistines Get New Life With Archaeological Find  

They're one of the Hebrew Bible's greatest villains, but not much is known about the ancient Philistines. An uncovered cemetery, which researchers say is the first of its kind, could change all that.

 
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r0B0t: Dallas Shooter Had Plans for Larger Attack, Says Police Chief  

The sniper who killed five police officers in Dallas planned larger attacks, probably on law enforcement, the city's police chief said Sunday as he provided new details about how the suspect taunted authorities for two hours during negotiations. "We're convinced that this suspect had other plans and thought that what he was doing was righteous and believed that he was going to target law enforcement—make us pay for what he sees as law enforcement's efforts to punish people of color,” David Brown said in an interview with CNN's State of the Union.

The shooter, Micah Xavier Johnson, was “determined to hurt more officers” and bomb-making materials as well as a journal that were found in his home seem to suggest he had been practicing detonations. If he had been successfulit could have caused “devastating effects on our city,” he said.

The Army veteran who served in Afghanistan “obviously had some delusion,” Brown said, giving new details about how he scrawled the letters “RB” on a wall with his blood before he was killed with a robot bomb. Authorities are currently looking through Johnson's writings and possessions to try to figure out what those apparent initials mean. But at the very least it suggests that he was injured during the shootout with police.

Johnson specifically asked to speak with a black negotiator, but didn't seem to have any desire to actually end the standoff. "We had negotiated with him for about two hours, and he just basically lied to us—playing games, laughing at us, singing, asking how many [police officers] did he get and that he wanted to kill some more and that there were bombs there," Brown said.

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said he fully supported the decision to kill Johnson with a robot-delivered bomb. "We talked to this man a long time, and he threatened to blow up our police officers, we went to his home we saw that there was bomb-making equipment later," Rawlings said on CBS' Face the Nation. "So it was very important that we realize that he may not be bluffing. So we ask him, 'Do you want to come out safely or do you want to stay there and we're going to take you down?' And he chose the latter."

 
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Matt Lewis: Smartphone Era Challenges Americans' Established Perceptions On Race And Policing  

What does it take to change your perception of people or an institution? NPR's Rachel Martin talks with columnist Matt Lewis about how the smartphone era has altered how he now views the police.

 
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Wharncliffe Viaduct Revisited  

JB_1984 posted a photo:

A shot of the Wharncliffe Viaduct from Brent Meadow in Southall. It's almost a year since I was last here with my camera, despite it being only five minutes down the road from my house.

When I set out tonight, it looked like things were shaping up for a fantastic dusk shot at this location. This was as good as it got. A couple of minutes after I took this, a thick band of dark, grey cloud rolled in, leaving me facing a particularly gloomy scene. On a positive note, I didn't get caught out in the rain.

 
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r0B0t: Dallas is the latest battlefield in the United States - Deutsche Welle  

Deutsche Welle

Dallas is the latest battlefield in the United States Deutsche Welle Officers claim that, just before they killed the man with a bomb delivered by a robot, he had said his intent was to kill white people, though he had specifically targeted police with his fire. It was later reported that the shooting suspect was an ... Killings and history challenge us to value all lives equallyDetroit Free Press all 1,349 news articles »

 
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r0B0t: Merced reacts with sadness, anger, fear to violence in Dallas - Merced Sun-Star  

Merced Sun-Star

Merced reacts with sadness, anger, fear to violence in Dallas Merced Sun-Star Authorities initially said there were three suspects in custody and a fourth killed by a robot-delivered bomb in a parking garage after a long standoff. However, on Friday afternoon, ... Back in Texas, Flowers worried for the future. “I'm just hoping ... Micah X Johnson, the Dallas police shooter, was taken out with a robot delivered bombBlasting News all 8,719 news articles »

 
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Ecological context of mosquito-borne infectious disease  
The resurgence of Zika virus has raised anxieties about the spread of infectious disease by mosquitoes; climate change and species invasions are strong themes on the minds of infectious disease experts.  
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Till the Next Weekend...  

P. Damer posted a photo:

These are the last rays of sunshine that London will have seen this beautiful Sunday...

 
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my name is bobba by Christian Vieler  

my name is bobba by Christian Vieler

if you like one of my photographs, i would be delighted if you follow me on my facebook page for better discussions & comments :-)

Christian Vieler: Photos

 
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peaches by Alena Gusakova  

peaches by Alena Gusakova

peaches

Alena Gusakova: Photos

 
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Men in Patton by Nabeen Adhikari  

Men in Patton by Nabeen Adhikari

Nabeen Adhikari: Photos

 
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