News X5：五份報紙

• 原價＄0.99，降價至免費
• NYTimes, USA Today, Boston Globe, Time, & WSJ.（未來會增加12個）
• 可以經由twitter分享（有待更新功能）。

Broad and Informative

Skin Care Made Simple: Tips for Wrinkles, Blemishes, and Redness -Elle

Leading Dermatologist Discusses Chemical Peels in a New Online Video -dBusinessNews New York

People Hear With Their Skin as Well as Their Ears -NY Times

How To Care For Your Nails Come Winter -Allure Magazine

A Death by Suntan at Age 26 -Cosmopolitan

For Those Who Want Some More Details…

Stem Cells Could Offer New Source for Skin Grafts -Scientific American

A Cancer Vaccine — That Works? -Scientist

Melanoma Staging and Classification System Revised -Modern Medicine

Discovery Leads to Effective Treatment of Painful Skin Condition -Science Daily

Ronen over at BerryReview spotted the new NY Times BlackBerry application is now available for download for free from their site. Previously the NY Times had only offered a home screen launcher which led to their web site. The new application allows for offline reading, but sadly it’s only supported on the BlackBerry Tour, Storm 1, Bold, and Curve 8900. Go check it out

Via:crackberry

The NYTimes reports on The Urban Deerslayer.

Best line:

“They eat my garden, so I thought maybe I should eat them,” he said.

And I’m of mixed emotions.

Great that people are getting in touch with where their food comes from, how it is killed and what it takes to eat meat.

But I think I preferred hunting before it was fashionable.

And it’s no coincidence that the two main species profiled in the article — white-tail deer and wild boars — mingle well with people, aren’t threatening and don’t require large tracks of land to survive.

The club may be called The Bull Moose Hunting Society but no one’s hunting moose. These are easy hunts, close to the city, not too spicy.

So young! From the NY Times Obit: “Daniel Rowen, a highly regarded architect whose modernist designs for houses, apartments and commercial spaces attracted a number of prominent clients, died on Nov. 17 in Manhattan. He was 56.”

I can’t decide what category to put him under. I think ‘Artists’ is the proper place, yes?

Full link to his Obit.

AOL will launch a new brand identity next month when the brand will become a separate entity from Time Warner. The NYTimes has stated, AOL has ditched the odd-looking triangle that has long served as the brand symbol and replaces the letters AOL with “Aol.” — complete with a period.

“To re-establish AOL as relevant today requires a massive shift in what it stands for to be effective,” Mr. Allen Adamson, managing director of the New York office of Landor Associates said, “Being around a long time in technology is already one strike against you.”

(Except without that whole being executed for treason under the guillotine thing.  I bet that kinda sucked.)

Wow.  Amazing.  That is all I can say to describe this past weekend in Paris.  Paris is a city which affects me more than any other city that I have been to and I could never really articulate why… It is just a feeling and each time I come here (this was my 3rd visit) I have a completely new experience, regardless of whether it is my first or my third visit to the sight.  This weekend was a very special weekend because I was able to meet up with one of my best friends Alison, currently studying abroad in Barcelona, and introduce her to this wonderful city.  Sadly, as I write this post she is already on her way to the airport (I still have an hour wait or so before I jet back off to “reality”).  As I sit here I can feel my body giving into the exhaustion of a weekend of non-stop walking, eating, gawking, and just pure glee and excitement.  I hope that I can make it on and off the plane… (However, if I don’t I would be happy to eat beans and live in a cardboard box here.  I am sure even their beans are doused in butter!)

Yesterday was really our only full day together to sight-see so we decided to make the most of it even if it killed us, our joints, and our shoes.  Started our morning at the Louvre, made a bee-line for the Mona Lisa, wandered around a bit but decided that as guilty as we felt the Louvre, with it’s sheer gargantuan size was overwhelming and we would just have to come to Paris to do it justice!  St. Chapelle and Notre Dame were just as hauntingly beautiful as I remembered with the stained glass and dark stone that takes me right back to the middle ages.  (Yes, of course I remember it.)  We even got to sit in on a Mass!  Lunch was delectable with pumpkin soup, salmon, and ratatouille in a little café with low ceilings off of the Seine and then we started our biggest trek of the day through the Tuilleries, down the Champs-Elysée and up to the Arc de Triomphe.  Apparently driving there is so dangerous that if you get in an accident your insurance is void!  Our last stop of the day was the Eiffel tower, which while impressive during the day was a million times more amazing at night all lit up and sparkly.

Today, mindful of our time constraints we headed off to Musée d’Orsay, enjoyed the beautiful architecture of the former train station, the Van Gogh, Rodin, and Impressionists inside (among many others!).  Our last stop was the Garnier Opera house, which I had never been inside before and it made me wish that we had had more time to actually go and experience an opera or ballet production there…Oh well!  We have already started planning our next visit so it will definitely have to be on the list!

For those of you planning on visiting Paris here is a helpful article written by a traveler looking through the eyes of the 18-19th century:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/travel/22Grimod.html?pagewanted=3&sq=paris%20travel&st=cse&scp=1

I knew there was a reason I’ve studied the French Revolution four times…

p.s.  We should all thank Miss Alison for commandeering my camera and providing the pictures to accompany this post!

A fascinating story about the decline of the University of California system, especially Berkeley. Thanks to Trip Jennings of the New Mexico Independent for sharing.

Check out this particularly relevant part of the article.

The state’s higher education budget has been slashed by $2.8 billion this year, including $813 million from the university system — about the equivalent of New Mexico’s entire higher education budget.

The Minimalist – Things to Prepare Before the Turkey Goes in the Oven – NYTimes.com.

Trucks, Trains, and Trees

November 11, 2009

According to Thomas L. Friedman, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by all the cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships in the world is actually less than the yearly carbon emissions that result from the chopping down and clearing of tropical forests in places like Brazil, Indonesia and the Congo: we are now losing a tropical forest the size of New York State every year! However, if we could eliminate 17% of global CO₂ emissions, we could halt rainforest destruction. Friedman adds on that to do this requires implementing a whole new economic system that can sustain people’s profitable capital- which mostly comes from logging, furniture manufacturing, and agriculture- while protecting the rainforests from over-logging.

The good news is that Brazil has put in place all the elements of a system to compensate its forest-dwellers for maintaining the forests. Brazil has already set aside 43 percent of the Amazon rainforest for conservation and for indigenous peoples. Another 19 percent of the Amazon, though, has already been deforested by farmers and ranchers. So the big question is what will happen to the other 38 percent. The more we get the Brazilian system to work, the more of that 38 percent will be preserved and the less carbon reductions the whole world would have to make. But it takes money.

Click on the link to read more about this issue!

-WooJung Kim

by: Keith Bedford | NYTimes

via The New York Times

101 Head Starts on the Day

This list may be more daunting than Thanksgiving itself! Luckily co-cooking with friends-who-happen-to-live-25′-away has the added benefit of two available ovens.

What are your Thanksgiving favorites? Last year while we were menu planning, we were all torn between cooking beloved family staples and trying out some new dishes. In the end, I think we had a balance of both. We also have a lot to live up to turkeywise- it was hands down the best turkey I’ve had (and mama p can make a mean turkey). We’re pretty sure that brining it was the secret (thanks Alton Brown, you never disappoint).

According to the NYTimes, Many in the fashion business remain wary of the Internet, partly because of continuing legal battles over online sales of counterfeit goods and concerns about diluting carefully honed brand images. Many companies also have failed to execute online storefronts successfully. But executives say that attitudes are softening as brands realize that the Web provides one of the last untapped sources of potential growth. The move to capitalize on the Web has become a financial imperative. Analysts at Bain & Company estimate that the sales of luxury goods will fall to 154 billion euros this year ($229 billion), from 170 billion euros in 2008. It is unlikely that online revenue, still only a tiny fraction of the total, will make up the difference soon.

“One of the most successful ventures on the Web has been Net-à-Porter, a site based in London that sells high-end fashion and accessories, delivering them to homes or offices in black boxes. Though sales in the United States slowed during the depth of the recession, they have since recovered and have continued to rise at double-digit rates in other markets, the company said. It expects sales this year to top £100 million ($168 million), up from £82 million last year.”

Last Sunday featured an interesting article in the New York Times by Winnie Hu, “Selling Lessons Online Raises Cash and Questions,” in which she unveiled, at least to me, that the sale of finished lessons by teachers is a booming business.  I knew it was possible to purchase lesson plans online, but I had no idea that is was actually a profitable endeavor.  Some of the teachers profiled are making a killing.

As the title suggests, there are a lot of issues that this brings up for society as a whole.  There are the usual:

“To the extent that school district resources are used, then I think it’s fair to ask whether the district should share in the proceeds,” said Robert N. Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

regarding the intellectual property of teachers in which they use the resources that taxpayers provide them with to turn a personal profit.  And there are the professional, brought up by Joseph McDonald, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University:

“Teachers swapping ideas with one another, that’s a great thing,” he said. “But somebody asking 75 cents for a word puzzle reduces the power of the learning community and is ultimately destructive to the profession.”

This one hits at home a little for me, which after my initial shock at the dollar amounts that could be made subsided, was the next gut reaction.  Does the fact that we are no longer just sharing through our networks cloud the nature of collaboration?  Or does the minimal dollar amount automatically take that off the table?  Some may not see the harm in paying an iTunes-equivalent fee for a great stock lesson on Beowulf, but the cumulative effect could be much greater.

Where I am with this as I right this in a wholly new direction, however.  Could this be the beginning of freelance teaching?  a return to the time when a teacher found a good spot in the center of town and hung up a sign that said “Great knowledge here.  Be enlightened for small fee?”  This sounds odd, yes, but think of how easy it is to set up an online portal that tracks student progress, provides immediate feedback, exposes their work to a global audience, and allows for real-time collaboration and communication.  It’s something we all might be able to create with a web server, a good friend who can code and will work for food and beer, and a little marketing savvy.  Is this the future of learning as we know it?

We are still in the infancy of online learning and virtual schools, but as we see more teachers and schools embrace it, the shift may be for teachers to gather together and form their own schools this way, because, let’s face it, it’s not rocket science to set up these portals.  Also, how many teachers that you know truly believe there is a better way to do things than is being done in the schools they work in?  This might just be the way to create the schools they want to create, or at least one in which they have the locus of control.

Seth Godin has been quoted as saying the following:

If you think the fallout from the newspaper industry was dramatic, wait until you see what happens in education.

Could this be what he was talking about?

Late edit to this post:  Larry Cuban has an excellent view on the call for technology to change schools that fits nicely with this post here.

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/i-lego-ny/

I work here!

BUY TICKETS at Ticket Central SOLD OUT  first 2 Weekends!!

Glowing NYTimes Review!!Review NY Theatre!

Come to the next NEC Rep meeting at Riverside Church every first Saturday 10am-1pm  91 Claremont Ave. Multi-purpose Room Sat Dec 5 10am-1pm

SAVANNAH Black & Blue Nov 5-22 Shetler Studio Theatre

MORE EVENTS..

NEC Rep: Lost Plays of the NEC Archives December 10 & 11 8pm at Where Eagles Dare Theatre 347 W 36St

Thunderbird American Indian Dancers Auction at The American Indian  Community House Nov 21  Silent Auction 6pm Live Auction  7-10pm torquoise, bead work, regalia, pottery …more

Amer Indian Comm. House Holiday Party Dec 19, 2009 11 Broadway 2nd fl www.aich.org  212 598 0100 register at cgullo@aich.org

Thunderbird American Indian Dancers Annual Concert at Theatre for the New City Fri-Sun Jan 29-Feb 7

Next Thunderbird Social st NMAI

April 17 7-10pm

Diker Pavilion 1 Bowling Green

Free

#4 or 5 to Bowling Green, R or W to Whitehall nr Battery Park

Dancing, Singing, Dance Demonstrations Heyna Second Sons Host Drum

www.nmai.org

www.necartz.com/events/

Looking to Blog Readers for Good Ideas to Reduce Teen Shootings – Freakonomics Blog – NYTimes.com

Editorial – A Powerful Idea on Youth Violence – NYTimes.com

Alright, it’s been two months since my last post and I’ve been a slacker. Good thing blogging frequency has no bearing on my paycheck. But I digress.

As a decent journalist I think sharing my opinion with the public makes for an entertaining and thoughtful read on a good day and on a bad day well, you need something to get the kindling to catch on fire. I also think it’s important to weigh in on the impending death of the newspaper, or at least the newspaper as we have known it up to this point in history.

Rupert Murdoch is an idiot. That being said he is also brilliant because very few dummies got paid in excess of $30 million in 2008 to be CEO of News Corp which owns the esteemed Wall Street Journal and 20th Century Fox, among other media holdings.

Here is why Murdoch is an idiot. He wants to block Google (good luck with that) from providing search results for content generated by his news conglomerate and charge for access to news sites (better luck with that). His justification is something along the lines of content integrity and repossessing a sustainable revenue stream he claims Google enjoys as a result of his company’s news channels.

But, as the bard would say, therein lies the rub. I don’t think Mr. Murdoch fully grasps the volume of traffic Google drives to his various sites and therefore, substantial consumer dollars. If he wants to charge for content, go ahead. That will only serve to drive the average web surfer in search of news to the competition (CNN anyone?).

Now while I think Rupert is a dolt for reasons stated above I understand his concern. The challenges faced today by newspapers are unique and complex in ways William Hearst never imagined. The question of the day is how to reach the broadest audience while remaining relevant and profitable. However, the answer isn’t to charge for online content.

The majority of revenue for newspapers is generated by advertisements. Companies want to take advantage of a newspaper’s popular circulation to reach a target audience and promote their service or product. Giants of the industry like the New York Times have integrated technology into their business model and successfully established a online presence other newspapers would do well to emulate.

If Murdoch wants to capture more quality consumer traffic he should instead focus on beating Google at it’s own game and create a “news hub” where casual perusers and power users can browse from a central portal on the computer or even via a mobile device (iPhone apps are all the rage). While not a newspaper CNN did an amazing job at this and while not charging a subscription fee, the initial $1.99 charge for the app is totally worth it and creates a nice supplemental income in the process.

So Rupert ol’ buddy, don’t alienate consumers by forgetting that you don’t own the news, you just report it. And they have a right to be informed via any medium available. If Google can do it better than you, blame the man in the mirror.

Let’s do some journalism, as my colleauge and co-worker Don Patterson would say.

This morning I consumed journalism like a regular person, scanning headlines, looking at news online with my  copy of the News & Record (buy one, will ya?) next to me on the sofa.

I see a headline on my Yahoo! rss feed that talks of pirates, guns and attack. Well, I just gotta read this, I think. So I go to the link, and get this sentence:

Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama on Wednesday for the second time in seven months, though private guards on board the U.S.-flagged ship repelled the attack with gunfire and a high-decibel noise device.

A high-decibel nose device? What the hell is that? This makes no sense at all. What are we talking about here, a house alram-type thing, a siren, some kind of roach and vermin alarm? Who knows? You know why? Because the device, whatever it is, is poorly described. Yes, the news is there, and it’s interesting, but as soon as the reader has a question (my editors say), said reader is lost. And I gave up.

And then I found this, from the NYTimes:

The United States Navy Central Command said four suspected pirates in a skiff came within 300 yards of the Maersk Alabama at 6.30 a.m. Wednesday about 600 miles off the northeast coast of Somalia as it headed for the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

But a security team on board the Maersk Alabama responded with small-arms fire, long-range acoustical devices painful to the human ear and evasive maneuvers to thwart the attack, the navy said in a statement.

OK. There’s a substantial  difference beteeen the NYTimes and the AP. The AP has thousands of staff to tell breaking news. The story was even updated while I wrote this post to say that the pirate captain had died.

But a little thing, like the description of some deterrent tool, made a big difference in what the  story meant.

Detail, description. Show, don’t tell. I had that beaten into my head as an undergrad, and as I think about writing more and more, it’s coming back.

Just like basketball, or pretty much anything else requiring some parts of talent and skill, a solid base of fundamentals will carry you far.

If you want to go one further with the whole difference-between-two-news-outlets thing, here’s my story on mammograms in today’s paper, and the NYTimes piece.

I just finished my holiday shopping! You can too – U.S.A. Residents get your tickets, but they are going fast at http://www.cosport.com. Select from the drop down menu USA, then I suggest you go to Individual Ticket sales and start looking. I’m so excited we will be seeing a couple of quarter final hockey games, freestyle skiing and some curling matches. American site still has sporting events available that are sold out on the Canadian site! I’m not happy that I won’t get to see any figure skating, and that was one of my main sports growing up! So, if you have an extra ticket for that….(they are sold out for Canada and USA). 87 more days and Olympic Fever has hit Vancouver! The snow is covering the mountains – so beautiful!