The New York Times. In Search of the Anti-Uber: The Companies Redefining the Sharing Economy. Business Some say the so-called sharing economy has gotten away from its central premise—sharing. Please consider disabling it for our site, or supporting our work in one of these ways Subscribe Now > This past March, in an up-and-coming neighborhood of Portland, Maine, a group of residents rented a warehouse and opened a tool-lending library.
The idea was to give locals access to everyday but expensive garage, kitchen, and landscaping tools—such as chainsaws, lawnmowers, wheelbarrows, a giant cider press, and soap molds—to save unnecessary expense as well as clutter in closets and tool sheds. The residents had been inspired by similar tool-lending libraries across the country—in Columbus, Ohio; in Seattle, Washington; in Portland, Oregon. So, the founding group started an online donation campaign and raised roughly $13,000, mostly at $20 or $25 a pop. So far, about 50 people have joined the Maine Tool Library, after showing proof of Maine residency and paying $50 for a year’s membership. Robot depending on kindness of strangers meets its demise in Philadelphia.
On July 17, a smiling and seemingly harmless robot named HitchBOT set out to accomplish its dream—roadtripping across America through the kindness of strangers. The little fellow comes from a Canadian research team made up of students and professors at McMaster, Ryerson, and the University of Toronto, and in 2014 it managed to make a similar trek across Canada and parts of Europe. The whole goal, according to the team, was simple: "to see whether robots could trust humans. " Tragically, about two weeks later, little HitchBOT learned a rough life lesson. According to the Associated Press, the bot met its demise in Philadelphia, home of sports fans who notoriously have thrown batteries at opposing players or snowballs at Santa Claus. At the time of this article, the specifics of what happened to HitchBOT remain unknown. Its creators are attempting to investigate, and HitchBOT's official site states details should be made available on August 5.
Amazon Prime Will Now Only Allow Sharing Between Two Adults, Four Kids. The reality of a smartphone camera. The Agony of Community: An Introverted Writer’s Lament on How Social the Books World Has Become. I imagine that the persistence of that question irritated Harry Truman above all other things. The atomic bombs that destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki fifty years ago were followed in a matter of days by the complete surrender of the Japanese empire and military forces, with only the barest fig leaf of a condition—an American promise not to molest the Emperor. What more could one ask from an act of war? But the two bombs each killed at least 50,000 people and perhaps as many as 100,000. Numerous attempts have been made to estimate the death toll, counting not only those who died on the first day and over the following week or two but also the thousands who died later of cancers thought to have been caused by radiation.
This fiction could not stand for long. These detailed instructions were the result of careful committee work by Oppenheimer and his colleagues. On the night of August 6 Oppenheimer was thrilled by the bomb's success. Was it right? Was it right? Uk.businessinsider. History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places. Visualizing Occupation. Analysis News Visit our Hebrew site, "Local Call" , in partnership with Just Vision. Visualizing Occupation Do Palestinians have autonomy in the West Bank?
What’s the difference between areas A, B, and C? Can Palestinian civilians protest? Go to the beach? Who profits from the occupation? Special coverage other special coverages +972 Magazine Depends On Your Support. Mycvbzf.jpg (JPEG Image, 2560 × 1709 pixels) - Scaled (40%) A Western student went to North Korea to study and he describes what it was like. Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan—the most interesting recent release in what is already a special year for Indian cinema—begins with a lovers’ assignation in a rent-by-the-hour hotel. A police raid, supposedly cracking down on prostitution, but actually focused on humiliation, blackmail and extortion, interrupts the couple.
Watching the opening scenes, my thoughts turned to a poem by Philip Larkin, whose birth anniversary falls this week. It is among Larkin’s most popular poems though by no means his best. The first stanza reads: Sexual intercourse beganIn nineteen sixty-three(which was rather late for me)—Between the end of the Chatterley banAnd the Beatles’ first LP. The ‘Chatterley ban’ refers to DH Lawrence’s controversial hymn to sex, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which was proscribed in the UK soon after its publication in 1928, and stayed that way until a well-publicised trial in 1960 vindicated the novel’s supporters.
Tying the knot Fallen women Evidence in stone. Four Happy Places. Courtney Helgoe · For as little as these locations have in common, they share one delightful trait: Their residents rate among the happiest in the world. Find out what they know, and what they can teach the rest of us, about living well. When National Geographic sent explorer and journalist Dan Buettner abroad in 2007 to research the secrets of the world’s longest-lived societies, he interviewed one scrappy centenarian from the seat of her exercise bike. Another beat him at arm wrestling. The citizens of what Buettner subsequently called the globe’s “Blue Zones” not only demonstrated an unusual capacity for longevity, they also displayed an extraordinarily positive outlook and zest for life.
In his first best-selling book, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest (National Geographic, 2008), Buettner touched on the intrinsic role this sort of joie de vivre seemed to have on longevity. 1. Hammer takes pride in his profession. 2. 3. 4. Be kind and understanding to the genius in your life. “Be Normal At Dinner:” On Geniuses, Lovers, and The Asks We Make of Both “It is very painful, I think, to be told: ‘You enchanted the world for me, you made me feel things I never knew I could, now please be normal at dinner.’
We are always saying this to people in one way or another, of course; maybe we have to.” - Brian Phillips, “Run to the Devil: The Ghosts and Grace of Nina Simone” Ever since running across this line, I’ve been repeating it over and over in my head, kneading it back and forth the way a hand kneads a tight muscle. In a piece full of sharp and insightful observations, this particular line haunted me because it captures something of the way we tangle up love, fascination and entitlement — an act that is at once inherently human, terribly relatable, and supremely fucked up and tragic.
And it is a theme that runs through so many different facets of our lives. We say to musicians: “You articulated the feelings I thought were only mine. We know it’s not a fair ask. Obama to unveil tougher climate change plan. Birthright. The Planned Parenthood health center in Brooklyn occupies ten thousand square feet on the sixth floor of an office building across the street from a courthouse.
After you get off the elevator, you have to go through a metal detector. A guard behind bulletproof glass inspects your bags. The day I was there, in June, the waiting room was full; the line at the registration desk was ten deep. A bowl on the counter was filled with condoms, giveaways. A sign on the wall explained Plan B, the morning-after pill. Aside from its proximity to the site of the United States’ first birth-control clinic—opened in Brooklyn in 1916—the place is a typical Planned Parenthood clinic.
Nearly every woman there looked to be in her twenties, and everyone was wearing flip-flops and jeans and T-shirts or halter tops; outside, it was sultry. Nellie Santiago-Rivera has been the director of the Brooklyn health center for the past eleven years. The campaign against Planned Parenthood has been unrelenting. Trans-Pacific Partnership delegates fail to reach final deal; pharmaceuticals, cars, dairy key sticking points. Updated Delegates negotiating a Pacific free trade agreement have failed to reach a final deal after several days of intense talks in Hawaii.
The talks were halted after a dispute flared between Japan and North America over autos, New Zealand dug in over dairy trade and no agreement was reached on monopoly periods for next-generation drugs. Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb had earlier said the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) was 98 per cent complete. Mr Robb is in Maui with trade ministers from the 12 nations negotiating the TPP, which would stretch from Japan to Chile and cover 40 per cent of the world economy.
The minister said the problem lay with the "big four" economies of the United States, Canada, Japan and Mexico. "We have made progress on sugar and dairy but we haven't concluded," he said. "You have to make concessions over an agreement but in many cases when you reach an agreement, it's to both parties' benefit.
" Elusive deal on pharmaceuticals a key sticking point ABC/wires. Feeling tired? Do more. — Higher Thoughts. (But differently) Life is exhausting. No joke. All we do is work. Or think of work. Work, work, work. It wears on us after awhile. Want to know what the best remedy I’ve found to battle burnout? Do more. (One of my favorite artists has this tattooed on his arm.) The reason we burn out isn’t because of this thing called ‘activity’. Life is action. Stillness is an illusion. We see the proof in nature itself… The glassy pond, under a microscope, is anything but still. Even as we sleep, our hearts beat, our hair grows, and our brain zooms full-speed ahead. Life never complains. The problem we have is alignment. Whether we’re just-not-that-into-it or we outright hate it, our intentions are somewhere else while our bodies, brains, and egos are trudging along with a slowly dying battery.
So we do things out of obligation. We just go through the motions. No wonder we’re burned out. Want to turn the ship around? Get into it. Move through your day with purpose. Soon, things will shift. Family's Pantry Has Become Neighbor Kids' Favorite Buffet | Dear Abby | Columns. DEAR ABBY: We recently moved to a new neighborhood. Soon thereafter, some kids who were at our house playing with our kids began rooting through my pantry for snacks. A few days later, kids from another family did the same thing. (I would die of embarrassment if I found out mine ever behaved that way.) I began stocking the pantry with snacks and juices I knew the kids enjoyed. Except now, the available snacks are in a special bin to keep everyone from rummaging around in our pantry. I spend $30 a week in extra goodies for the handful of kids in my neighborhood who don't always wait until they are offered a snack.
Should I continue my generosity? DEAR PANTRY POLICE: You may, indeed, be being taken advantage of. Talk to their parents and tell them what has been happening. DEAR ABBY: My husband is a pessimist. He has been this way for the last six or seven years. Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Quora.
I went to India, and all you got were these lousy cartoons. One year ago, I spent two weeks traveling around India. I had been selected by the global communications firm I work for to be a kind of goodwill ambassador from our main corporate office in New York: connecting with colleagues; learning about their work and culture; and doing my best not to cause an international diplomatic incident between the world’s two largest democracies.
I’ve spent the past couple of years picking up the pencil that I put down after high school and making up for lost time in my life-long goal of being a fair-to-middling cartoonist. As such, I saw this trip—the first time I’d ever be traveling internationally all by my lonesome—as the perfect opportunity to set myself a personal challenge: I resolved to draw a cartoon about my experience each day. Because, if I was going to be pushed out of my comfort zone anyway, why not turn up the pressure? In the end, I managed 14 full-colour cartoons, with a few extras that I finished when I got home. Here we go! The moral imperative for bioethics. A POWERFUL NEW technique for editing genomes, CRISPR-Cas9, is the latest in a series of advances in biotechnology that have raised concerns about the ethics of biomedical research and inspired calls for moratoria and new regulations.
Indeed, biotechnology has moral implications that are nothing short of stupendous. But they are not the ones that worry the worriers. Have you had a friend or relative who died prematurely or endured years of suffering from a physical or psychiatric disease, such as cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, or schizophrenia? Of course you have: the cost of disease is felt by every living human. The Global Burden of Disease Project has tried to quantify it by estimating the number of years lost to premature death or compromised by disability. In 2010 it was 2.5 billion, which means that about a third of potential human life and flourishing goes to waste.
The toll from crime, wars, and genocides does not come anywhere close. Related: HitchBOT destroyed in Philadelphia, ending U.S. tour. A hitchhiking robot that captured the hearts of fans worldwide met its demise in the U.S. The Canadian researchers who created hitchBOT as a social experiment say someone in Philadelphia damaged the robot beyond repair on Saturday, ending its brief American tour. The robot was trying to travel cross-country after successfully hitchhiking across Canada last year and parts of Europe. It set out from Marblehead, Massachusetts, two weeks ago in July with the goal of reaching San Francisco, but never made it off the East Coast.
The creators were sent an image of the vandalized robot but cannot track its location because the battery is dead. They say they don't know who destroyed it or why. But co-creator Frauke Zeller says many children who adored the robot are now heartbroken. Susiya: Palestinian village receiving Australian aid money facing demolition by Israeli authorities.
Updated An entire Palestinian village that has received Australian aid money to help improve living conditions is facing demolition by Israeli authorities. Australian NGO Action Aid has been working in Susiya, about 50 kilometres south of Jerusalem in the Palestinian occupied territories, for the past four years. It has established programs supporting women, including buying sheep and beehives, and has constructed two buildings that are used as a clinic and a kindergarten. Village elder Abu Mohamad Nawaja was born and raised in Susiya village. "Allow me to say thank you to the Australian Government, thanks to the Australian Action Aid," he told the ABC's 7.30 program. But it may all be for nothing after Israeli authorities determined that planning permission was never given for the village to be built, and have granted a demolition order for the whole of Susiya.
"They will confiscate this land for the settlers, so they can expand their settlements and live comfortably," Abu Mohamad said. The God quest: why humans long for immortality. How Far Can the Human Eye See a Candle Flame? How to confuse your friends when they wake up from a hangover. Can a politically strong middle class finally decide India’s future? CjjKudg.gif (GIF Image, 300 × 304 pixels) Colleges Cutting Lectures, and Costs. What Colors Can You Actually See. Bernie Sanders, Jeb Bush, and the End of American Exceptionalism. Furniture moving in the Netherlands. The Browser - Let’s Do Lunch: The Dabbawalas Of Mumbai. Bill Murray Is Ready To See You Now | GQ. Europe’s Waiting Room. Just moved to the Netherlands... Seems like place to be. The Secrets of America's Best Rest Stop: Free Ice Water, Donuts, the Cutest Jackalopes in Town.
TPP a threat to knowledge and innovation. Dog-Sitting in the On-Demand Age. The Unsettling, Anti-Science Certitude on Global Warming. What It's Like to Have the Oldest Phone in San Francisco. This Video Explains All the Ways You're Sleeping Wrong. Women’s immune system genes operate differently from men’s. HfvWzxI. U.S. to Defend New Syria Force From Assad Regime. How Vacation Broke From National Lampoon -- Vulture. This Is What Controversies Look Like in the Twittersphere. Tesla Presses Its Case on Fuel Standards. ‘I drank the water and ate the fish. We all did. The acid has damaged me permanently’ | Global development.
China freezes Citadel unit's account in war on stock speculation. Scientists Make The Case For A 6th Taste — But It's Less Than Tasty. Uk.businessinsider. John Kerry: Vietnam war was result of 'profound failure of diplomatic insight' | US news. How Intelligent Are You. How Being Non-Confrontational Has Held Me Back in Life. I Got Fired Two Days Ago. Record 93,770,000 Americans Not in Labor Force. The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here. The Back Story: A Photo Trend From The 1890s : NPR History Dept. See-Through Solar Could Turn Windows, Phones Into Power Sources. Why China won’t listen to Western scientists about genetically modifying the human embryo. Saudi Prince Pledges $32 Billion to Good Causes, With Women’s Rights a Focus. The Most Common Embarrassing Social Blunders and How to Bounce Back. 11 things about the Greek crisis you need to know.
About Your Skin: What Nina Jablonski thinks you should know about your body’s biggest organ. What the hell has happened to the price of ground beef? Adaptive robot gripper. Ex dishes on sex life with Steve Jobs. The-dark-side-of-leading-a-startup. Images from immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Kr7324n. True Detective’s big cliffhanger is majorly flawed, no matter what happens. Saudi prince to donate $32bn fortune to charity - BBC News. Xi Jinping has run into the one thing in China he can’t control. The IMF says that Greece's debt is unsustainable. Maria Leaves Sesame Street After 44 Years On The Block : The Two-Way : NPR. New Rules Could Create A New Class Of Overtime Workers. Top 10 Tips for Hosting the Perfect Get-Together. E.D. Hirsch Jr.'s 'Cultural Literacy' in the 21st Century. The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Map: The Most Common* Job In Every State : Planet Money.
Top 10 Ways to Teach Yourself to Code. How to Be More Assertive and Hold Your Ground in a Conversation. Rich School, Poor School : NPR Ed. Six ways your tech is spying on you – and how to turn it off | Alex Hern. Why Learning to Code Is So Hard (and What You Can Do About It) 26 Pictures That Will Give You Some Peace For Once In Your Life. Government wonders: What’s in your old emails? | National Security & Defense. This is the textbook definition of parenthood. I'm a marriage counselor. Here's how I can tell a couple is heading for divorce. Are We Smart Enough to Control Artificial Intelligence? Three Small Things You Can Do for Your Partner to Make Love Last. Mihaela Noroc's 'The Atlas of Beauty'
Uk.businessinsider. History, Travel, Arts, Science, People, Places. How I Learned To Be OK With Feeling Sad. 5 Disputed Numbers That Explain Geopolitics | TIME. How I requested my photographs from the Department of Homeland Security. Sophie Heawood: want to get ahead? Do these five things before you go to bed.