The Last three days have been some what of a long ride for me ,lately the sleepless nights have been the worst i am sure you all know how hard it is to get some sleep when you’re sick but I have found that Meditation has been working good for me giving me more energy to fight this nasty sickness and also allowing me to get some much needed rest tea also has been very helpful lime tea seems to be working some of the teas you can get do not taste really good but they do the trick,so I just wanted to do a blog to let you all know that it has been hard battling this sickness but Meditation is something I would look into if you ever get really sick learning the body’s nature of its energy is real important to be able to heal from the inside out plus doing it this way you will not have to take 60 different pills to make you think you are getting better,so I should be back to writing more on my blog real soon but look into Meditation you can’t go wrong it is the best self healer you will ever find the more you look into it the more you find out all that it can help you in please do this you never know when you may need it ,plus it is best to do it now then suffer later this has been a blog just to update you all about the power in self healing aka Meditation study it there is nothing better then knowing you’re self..

Source:NewEurope

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction created an international treaty and legal mechanism in order to find children that have been abducted. This is just one treaty or law that has been enacted in order to recover children that have been taken away from their loved ones. However, it is really important to make sure that every state has a means to deal with and track down children that have gone missing. Children get abducted for a number of reasons: •Intent to raise the child as their own
•A parent takes the child from the other parent’s care
•For ransom

Despite the seriousness of child abductions it is not publicized enough. This may in part be because the statistics are not very clear. Data collection by different organizations can differ drastically from the definition of “abducted child” to a motivation explanation. Consequently, comparing the numbers is not very helpful or simple. The need for a transnational database is evident in that it will help ascertain the significance of the missing children problem.
Fortunately, in 2007 the European Commission declared the telephone number “116000” to be the single telephone number in the EU to make pressing calls about 3missing children. By securing a single hotline number, hopefully the “116000” number will help this lack of communication that can occur between the EU countries.
Despite this effort to create a line of communication across European borders there is still not a child alert system that would create a network to look for children who may have been taken into a different country.
The United States has a number of different laws that focus on this topic exclusively by engaging in actively preventing crimes against children as well as, similar methods to handle situations in which children go missing. With the ease of crossing borders in Europe it becomes apparent that it can be difficult to work with countries that follow different procedures to help children and this creates a complicated setting to recover and protect children efficiently and safely.
Missing Children Europe is one organization that is tirelessly working to improve and enact legislation that will improve the mechanisms to help children across the European Union while simultaneously working to improve the quality and communication of existing means of handling missing children cases.

Published by: ABP World Group International Child Recovery Service

Visit our web site at: www.abpworld.com

With the idea of men. They honestly believe they are special … different somehow than the rest. And I test them on it. And they fail … miserably. My friend said, “sexcapades.” And I laughed. Because when it comes down to it, I’m not having sex … at all. With anyone. But men don’t believe that.

I’ve perhaps become too jaded. Or hopefully it’s just more discerning. I go out. And I drink. And so one would assume … but be careful about those assumptions.

And don’t underestimate me.

I’m always paying attention … even when you believe I’m not. And at the end of the night, I still operate under my own terms. My own bizarre sense of logic.

And I wake up in the morning … alone. And I am soooo perfectly OK with that.

Were I not, hell, I could change it. But not today … not today.

I’ve not showered today. I’ve not eaten today. All I’ve really done is written, read, re-written and read more … just to put off the inevitability of writing about the one thing I don’t think I’m ready to write about yet.

But I write what I know. And even though I still don’t know all, I know my parts.

My next ex and I met the old fashioned way, over the internet .  I was full-fledged into the behavior I know now as, “I’m getting a divorce.” It consists mainly of 2 parts alcohol, 1 part denial, 1 part dating to forget the motherfucker.

And I was in full swing. My first ex and I were getting nasty – like him stealing the child nasty – and I wasn’t coping, at all.

I imagine most believe R was my rebound, but that’s not true either. I had my rebound during the end of the marriage and the beginning of the cycle.

R. We met. I used my meager “allowance” to sign up for a month on the service, so he and I could communicate.

And we communicated well. So well, in fact, that we had our first and last date a few weeks later.

To say I never went home isn’t completely true, but it’s close. He took me to a nice place for dinner. We drank. A lot.

We went to his house afterward. His nephew was there, awake, waiting. And holy hell. He went to school with my daughter.

Smart, funny, acerbic, anti-establishment – those are the traits he put off. Those are the ones he cultivates.

We had sex, of course. And he insisted I stay. I had no car, so it wasn’t really a choice.

The next day he had a toothbrush (new) for me. He took his time. He didn’t want to take me to my car, but I insisted. I mean, I’m a girl. It’s bad enough to do the walk of shame, but to do it in his little gated, golf community … well … yeah.

But he made me promise to return that day. And I did. And I went home every other day after that to clean up, take care of the mail and the cats. And go back to his house.

It was refreshing. He was charming. And good looking. And he’d … yeah … never been married. So?

So, then he told me, when it was just the two of us …

“I’m into S&M and you need to know that,” he told me. Well, ok. I mean I had an understanding of it. At least I thought I did. Whips, chains, handcuffs, blindfolds, easy enough, right?

Yeah no.

How do you write about a childhood you don’t remember? My best friend, S, has memories dating back to four. I don’t.

I have stories – the ones told to me by my mother or my siblings – but they aren’t my memories.

I do remember a few things: riding my bike without training wheels, the neighbors in Houston who had the kitchen I always wanted, visiting my Dad at Johnson Space Center once when he worked there … bits and pieces, no rhyme or reason.

Then we moved. And I don’t remember much about that either. I was in first grade. We were reading Pug when I moved. They hadn’t caught up yet.

The shame I felt when my dad picked me up in his cab – he’d been laid off and we relocated to a town my mom used to live and they bought the cab company.

Standing at school one day, waiting for my sister to pick me up. She never showed.

How much I loved my dad. And how he used to love me, too. I think.

How he slapped me when I was six and back talked him. How he slapped me when I was 17 because I was outside talking to a guy.

And how I never realized until later on, our home was a facade. I realize everyone’s is … to an extent … but we perfected it to an art form.

No one talks about what goes on inside the family – even to one another. It’s just the rule.

And each of us, typically, has different memories – even of the others’ upbringing.

My brother – he’s unscathed – at least from all appearances. I wonder sometimes if he’s operating under the ignorance is bliss model.

My second eldest, my lesbian sister, who used to have “friends” spend holidays with us. Even at 10, I knew this was ludicrous. She was a lesbian. But not in our family. No way.

She was a gifted violist. I found this out later … when I grew up. Julliard was looking at her.

They told her they’d be back to see her the next year – in Houston. And we were gone. And she was angry. I think she still is, and I suppose I don’t blame her.

But my dad. My first love. He somehow, somewhere, one day just stopped liking me. And I never got it.

My friend and I were talking about this the other day. His dad is equally distant. Re-married to a controlling woman, he sits back and takes orders.

My dad, while not seemingly so, does to a degree. Mom hates – dad complies.

And, S said it … the same thing we’d talked about all week. Men are very simple. Fathers are men ergo; fathers must be simple, too.

So carrying it over psychologically, I know why I love the unavailable man. I’m not an idiot. I’ve just not done anything to change it.

But I thought my dad was superhuman.

He’s not.

But I know who is in our family – my eldest. My big sister. My idol turned nemesis. And the CEO of our little corporate family.

And she, by God, deserves a lot of space. And I’ll give it to her willingly. No strings, sis. Not like the ones you put on me. And my mother, her puppet. What a combination they make.

And if there were a hell, I would gladly see them burn. Gladly.

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I read this article today, and I too immediately understood what it was going to be about from the title. There are some interesting points in the comments as well, particularly from ‘New Yorker’ but I am also pleased to see the level headed response of ‘CalibriQuaker’.

I think there’s a touch of recovering Pharisee about me too, mainly due to the truths of God’s grace that I am seeing more vibrantly than ever before in my life, but I’ve touched on that before.

On a side note, and I realise that this publicly exposes me, but I’m a bit shocked that Lucie is out of the X-Factor, tragedy.

When I am done with the flu kicking my ass.

I saw MM today for the first time since the last time … when we were “together.” Fairly apropos … as my divorce was final Friday.
But, no, we didn’t fool around … really, that’s the thing about he and I. We fell back naturally into the friendship.
I call that a success. I even convinced him to meet some of my new friends … in public … at my place (where I hang out). And surprisingly he both went and had fun doing so.
He brought me a gift … lol … an amateur video. We watched it together. He did a lot of editing on it, and I was friggin impressed.
And when he walked in, I was finishing my makeup, my hair was still wet and he told me he liked it.
I’d forgotten he’d not seen it since I cut it all of in a fit of anger in June.
But … sans any expectations … we fell back in the same routine … we talked … a lot. And he challenged me on my marriage and subsequent divorce.
MM always prefaces with … “I hope this doesn’t make you angry.” It doesn’t. Never has. He is honest, and it’s one of the things I’ve always appreciated about our friendship. He challenges me. Makes me think.
And we went back to the home where I stay and he played the guitar — mostly for himself — he saw an instrument and picked it up. But it was cool.
And I walked him out and hugged him goodbye.
But I know that we will still always be friends. He’s one of the few I am honest with. And that is a big deal.
Plus, by watching the video, I told him that I felt more inspired to write more about what we had and did.
So that’s what I am going to work on. But not tonight. Tonight … well … I think I’ve slept two hours in the past two days.

Painting by James Gurney, Dinotopia.

Retailers are warned to approach the Christmas rush with caution, despite signs consumer confidence in Scotland is improving…. From BBC News. Full story

This site may contain information about: stop shopping. The blog is also related to: shopping guides.

I have a deadline. A, non-paid assignment, coupled with a challenge if you will. So A, I won’t disappoint you. But I want it to be natural, as well.

The clock is ticking, and I have other things to write. Those are the ones that make me smile.

I don’t suppose there’s a lonelier feeling for me lately than having nothing in my e-mail in box. Three days ago, it was all I could do to cull through garbage, mix the metaphors and mine for the gems.

But it’s been deadly still. Eerily quiet. And while it’s always had highs and lows, there’s never been such a vacancy. But again, it doesn’t surprise me. I force these things. And that vacancy mirrors my own.

What I do is force them out. Everyone. Always. Because, in the recesses of my mind (notice I never said soul), that’s where I believe I belong. Put out, put aside, put away where no one can see.

JM, who I described so glibly in the opening, is somewhere around. I got a (mass) text last night. We’ve not fought, we are just busy.

But others? I push them away. And, of course, recognizing it is so simple. It’s acting that takes … courage? desire? I don’t know.

At this point I believe it might be best just to hide this blog. Because there’s nothing I hate more than self-loathing/aggrandizing drivel, which is where I seem headed right now.

Some kind of Olympian feat in the most pitiful categories. But the truth is few see that part. If you asked someone who knows me, who sees me casually, they don’t have any idea. It’s most definitely a cultivated mask.

The problem, I think, lies in the fact that I never learned — and I’m not blaming anyone — how to be alone and be content with being alone.

My best friend and I were talking Saturday night, late into the night. He’s the one who knows me above all and I believe it’s reciprocal. I was talking about my dad. My father, the stoic. My father who I adored more than anyone in the world, until one day, he didn’t like me anymore.

“Dads are very simple,” my friend said. Fuckin’ aye. Of course they are. They are, after all, first and foremost … men.

And when I had to make that call Saturday … the one I dreaded. The one I never wanted to make … to ask them for help … I had to face both he and my mother in that parent/child way I’ve not had to do for a VERY long time.

They were the only ones I knew to call, and it was both difficult and really natural. The natural part being that I wanted to compound the punishment.

I left a message on their answering machine about 11 a.m. Saturday morning. I think it went something like: “Yes, it’s me. Yes, I need something. Please call (the bail bondsman). He has the details and the cost. I have the money. I will pay you back … And YES, I was drinking.”

It was nearing 8 p.m. when they arrived. And I was shocked. Really. I thought they wouldn’t show. But again, how would it look if they left their daughter there? Appearances and all.

But I had no shoes. They were in the car. And no sweater either, it was there, too. Yeah … and my bra, too.

So, in a skirt, and a white tank top, at 40 years old, I faced them.

My dad. He was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. It’s my standard image of him. It was him.

And my mother … my mother, my foil, my enemy, the bane of my existence and vice versa. And she was the same as well.

She was hunched over. I get that from her when I’m not trying very hard not to … as if ashamed of her height … or perhaps trying not to be noticed. Her hands were … again, as usual … in her pockets.

And she and I share the same mouth. The mouth I’ve always hated. The one where I have to smile or else it looks as if I’m always scowling.

And as I stepped outside, myself hunched over, with my arms across my chest … there was the sigh … from her … although we can all do a fair imitation of it. And silence.

I was dying for a cigarette. Absolutely dying. But it wasn’t time yet. I had to wait.  I was waiting for her to speak. And she took her time.

“Why are you doing this?” she said. “Why are you intent on self-destructing?”

And I answered her the only way I could. “Good question.”

Then I asked my dad for a cigarette. And he gave me one … and then I asked for a lighter.  And I walked away when they dropped me to get my car. And I didn’t look back.

Because I don’t have the answer. Or maybe I do. There is no middle ground for any of us — our family of competitors. It’s either win big or lose big.

So, damn, if I’m going to lose, it’s going to be spectacular. So far, so good.

After the Vista debacle, Microsoft changed the way it makes software. The result – Windows 7 – is winning raves. Can a new operating system (and a new attitude) help the company take on Google?

Microsoft

The company’s web forays, such as MSN, have only highlighted the dominance of Google and Yahoo. In software for smartphones, there is Apple, RIM (RIMM), and everybody else. MP3 players? Microsoft’s Zune hardly merits a mention. And even the core franchise has suffered. In the face of slowing PC sales and the economic pall, Microsoft’s fiscal 2009 revenue actually contracted, to $58.4 billion from more than $60 billion in fiscal 2008 — and the company missed its earnings estimate by more than $1 billion.

But the biggest failure under Ballmer’s tenure was self-inflicted. Vista was meant to be a wholesale reimagining of Windows, the brand name for Microsoft’s operating systems dating back to the early 1980s. Every so often the company unveils a new OS, blandly named for the year of the release (Windows 95, Windows 98) or a geeky abbreviation (Windows XP is short for Windows Experience). Vista had a marketing-friendly moniker, a fancy user interface, new security architecture, a better file-storage system, and much more.

After a protracted six-year development process, much internal squabbling, false starts, blown deadlines, and broken promises to partners, the engineering team mopped up 50 million lines of code, wrung it all out into a shrink-wrapped box, and heaved it onto the world in early 2007.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Vista required top-end hardware to operate even while users were downgrading from desktops to notebooks. The bloated OS was incompatible with printers, web cams, and device drivers of all sorts. Early adopters scurried back to Windows XP; many corporations skipped the upgrade altogether. Worst of all, Vista energized the cloud computing chorus, led by Google (GOOG), whose vision of the future involves ubiquitous broadband, a good web browser, and everything else hosted on the Internet. No sophisticated operating system necessary. “Vista was the biggest debacle in the history of the company,” says one former senior executive. “People were ashamed to say they worked on it.”

But here’s some good news: On Oct. 22 Vista will be safely behind Microsoft (MSFT). On that day, the company will introduce a successor, Windows 7, and guess what? It doesn’t suck. In fact, it’s really pretty good. For all the pomp around each new version of the iPhone, the latest Kindle, or Google’s next beta, Wave, Windows 7 is sure to go down as the technology launch of the year. Critics love it, and IT managers are ready to buy. A recent Credit Suisse survey says that a quarter of corporate customers plan to upgrade within two years. Analysts estimate that the new OS could boost Microsoft’s revenue by more than $3 billion over that time and ignite the entire ecosystem built on Windows — from computer makers like Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) to third-party software vendors, resellers, and system supporters. It could be the shot in the arm the entire tech sector has been looking for.

On a warm September day in Redmond, Wash., sitting in a conference room in Building 34, the economic epicenter of the Northwest, Ballmer is not ready to declare the doldrums over. A stock market turnaround means little in the face of staggering unemployment. But he remains hopeful because he thinks this version of Windows is a winner. “It’s a great product. We did our best. Is that going to cause huge increases in spending by the world’s businesses? I can’t make that promise,” he says, “although I think things are becoming slightly less cautious. There’s some hope that says, ‘Hey, look, maybe this is part of the turnaround.’”

Back from the abyss

It’s just a hint of optimism from an executive who has been bearish on the economy of late, an indication that the mood is shifting at one of the most self-loathing, hypercritical corporate cultures you’re ever likely to encounter. As bad as the Vista years have been, Microsoft seems to be getting its act together. The Wall Street collapse stunned the company, and management reacted with uncharacteristic alacrity. “There was a week or two where everything seemed to come to a stop,” says CFO Chris Liddell, “and we said, ‘We’re going to have to operate in a different way.’ “The company laid off 5,000 employees and instituted a “10-point plan” to cut wasteful spending, from vendor allotments to travel and entertainment.

Meanwhile, executives ramped up development cycles. This past summer the company kicked off, in its words, “a year of product launches unlike any other in Microsoft history.” Since then, Ballmer et al. have revamped Windows Server and unveiled the Zune HD line of MP3 players. On the way: overhauls of Windows Mobile, Office, Internet Explorer, Xbox Live, Bing (its new search engine), and the introduction of Azure, a plunge into the enemy territory of cloud computing. Microsoft is also about to venture into retailing, an area conquered by longtime nemesis Apple (AAPL).

All this, says Bob Muglia, president of the server and tools division, is part of what he calls Microsoft v.3 — a play on the old saw that it takes the company three releases to get a product right. “In the Vista era, we lost track of a bunch of things,” he says. “Now Windows 7 has shipped, and it’s the official start of [a time of] mature leadership, competitive focus, aggressive competition — and I think you see the results. You could say it’s us getting our mojo back.”

If Steve Ballmer has one attribute of a great leader, it’s an ability to inspire the troops — which is what he’s about to do standing onstage in July at a convention center in downtown New Orleans. The Big Easy is broiling in a midsummer haze. The locals have cleared out, making way for the 5,000 Microsoft partners — resellers, builders, software developers — who have gathered at a conference organized in their honor. Ballmer is, naturally, the headline act. He’s peeled off some pretty outlandish keynotes over the years, including “Steve Ballmer Going Crazy” (2 million views on You- Tube) — in which he huffs, “Come on, give it up for me!” — and the much-remixed “Developers” (1 million-plus views), where a heavier Ballmer performs a sweaty, arrhythmic stomp dance.

Today job one is to inject some optimism into the crowd. Ballmer had a tough year. He took a modest (for a man worth $11 billion) pay cut. But his small-business partners are reeling from the downturn. “This is the most phenomenal year we’ve ever had for technology releases,” he rumbles, ticking off reasons to be hopeful about 2010. Microsoft vows to keep investing $9 billion-plus in R&D, it’ll increase spending on partner support, and most of all it will keep fighting competitors — because, well, that’s what the company does best. “We don’t go home,” he says. “We just keep coming and coming and coming. We’re tenacious, tenacious, tenacious. Boom!”

That’s not entirely true. Over the years the company has cowered at least a few times. It bailed on Microsoft Money (a personal finance product designed to oust Quicken), would-be YouTube killer Soapbox, the long-forgotten BOB operating system for kids, tablet PCs, web-enabled TVs, etc. But the company has surely disrupted many markets — from web browsers to console games — by offering a fresh perspective. “Novell said, ‘The world is about single purpose operating systems,’ ” explains Ballmer, back at Building 34.”We had to say, ‘No, the world is really about multiple-purpose operating systems.’ Lotus and WordPerfect said, ‘The world is character-based,’ and we said, ‘No, let’s try some graphics.’ Apple said, ‘The world is a proprietary software-hardware combination,’ and we said, ‘No, the world needs to be open to choice.’”

The enemy within

Such conquests, while dated, have earned the company a reputation for being obsessed with competitors — a characterization Ballmer does little to diminish. Unlike most executives of his ilk, he says what’s on his mind, which can include calling Google a “house of cards” or referring to Linux as a “cancer that … attaches itself to everything it touches.” He once laughed derisively on camera at the prospect of the iPhone ever succeeding. But in Microsoft’s core business, there is no real competition. Various versions of Windows run more than 95% of all PCs. So when it came to preventing another Vista, Ballmer had to find the enemy within.

Windows 7 is a departure from Vista in many ways. It will be unveiled on time after a three-year development cycle. It’s compatible with previous versions and has excised all the security-permissions protocols that were lampooned in Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ad campaign. It’s sharp-looking, almost as sleek as the Mac OS, and has a few cool new features, like support for multitouch monitors and Aero Shake, which allows users to clear the desktop with a jiggle of the mouse. Perhaps most impressively, it requires less computing horsepower than Vista. That just never happens with a new OS. But the biggest departure comes in scope and ambition. Ballmer claims to have learned something from Vista: It’s no longer advisable to try a “big bang” rollout — i.e., completely reimagine a product as sophisticated and interconnected as Windows.

So he hit control-alt-delete. He brought in a new taskmaster, Steven Sinofsky, to oversee the engineering. Sinofsky became known for hitting deadlines while overseeing the Office group from 2000–07. An executive close to the Windows team characterizes his changes as such: “Reset — or reboot — is something that we hear a lot about the transition,” he says. “What we did was [give] the development team a clarity that was probably missing.” With Vista, teams worked on features simultaneously without an awareness of other schedules. When separate features came together, they were often incompatible. “The goal was to produce a plan for features, but not just a plan — also the motivation, the business rationale,” the executive says.

Sinofsky oversaw the largest beta test in history — more than 8 million users — blogged tirelessly about every little tweak, and kept lines open with partners. The team scrubbed inefficiencies and ushered out a fully functional, backward-compatible OS on time, earning Sinofsky a promotion to president of the Windows division. The new openness has resonated in the marketplace. According to Credit Suisse, 58% of corporate customers were either dissatisfied or extremely dissatisfied with Vista. With Windows 7, it’s 21% dissatisfied and none extremely dissatisfied. The PC makers seem happy too. “With Vista, the expectations were very high, and the customer reaction was not so positive,” says Satjiv Chahil, senior VP of global marketing for HP’s Personal Systems Group. “This time the response has been very positive. It’s what the market has been waiting for.” In the end Windows 7 is what Vista should have been the first time.

Software fades

With its house in order, Microsoft can safely get back to its imperialistic ways. And there’s no bigger land grab than web search. Ballmer has pledged to fund his new search engine, Bing, with as much as 10% of operating income over the next five years (potentially $11 billion). Why do something so risky when he’s lost so much online already? Because the opportunity is simply too big to ignore. Microsoft considers the global search market to be worth as much as $80 billion. And Ballmer recognizes that there’s even more power than money in being the leader. Google.com is what Windows used to be: leverage. Controlling the on-ramp to the web allows a company to distribute a broad array of products, which is what Google does so effectively. “They promote YouTube, they promote Chrome,” he says, referring to Google’s web browser. “If it was us, people would call it an unfair advantage.”

As the importance of client software diminishes, so too does Microsoft as we know it. Bing represents the company’s best hope yet of maintaining its own unfair advantage. And Ballmer thinks that Google, despite its enormous market share, is vulnerable. “There are a lot of negative views right now of what’s going on — Google Books, monopolization, blah, blah, blah,” he says, simultaneously highlighting and waving away a growing anti- Google sentiment. “Put all that aside and you have to ask, ‘Has the experience really changed much? Is it easier to find what you’re looking for? Is there a chance to do a better job?’ I think there’s a real opportunity to do that, and somebody had better seize it. Who’s got the best shot?”

Microsoft launched Bing in May, and it confirms Muglia’s assertion that the company has become more focused on customers. Rather than Google’s minimalist homepage, Bing rotates stunning photos embedded with interesting snippets about various parts of the globe. Like Google, the site acts as a jumping-off point, but has just enough flair to make you want to linger. Visitors see more information than they do in Google results and can even play videos without clicking away. Bing is organized more intuitively, and it outperforms in real-time search — a big plus for the Twitter set.

Early returns have been promising. Before Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, Live Search, had 8% of the market, according to ComScore. After three months Bing stands at 9.3%; meanwhile, Google’s share has dropped 0.4%. Over the summer Microsoft struck a deal for Bing to power the search function across many Yahoo (YHOO) properties. Once the arrangement kicks in, Bing’s share could jump to around 30%. “It’s a pretty good start,” says Yusuf Mehdi, SVP of Microsoft’s online audience group. “Best of all, it’s really hot with certain demographics, like elementary school children and women, because of the aesthetic design and feel.”

Of course the hope is that greater traffic will lure advertisers. Craig Macdonald is the chief marketing officer at media-buying firm Covario. He spends $250 million a year on search ads for clients like McAfee, Intel (INTC), and Procter & Gamble. Impressed with Bing’s aesthetic and buzz, he initially increased spending, but has been disappointed. “We saw a 15% to 20% increase in impressions but a 39% spike in the cost of acquisition,” he says. Compared with Live Search traffic, driven primarily from the MSN homepage, Bing users are younger, more web-savvy, and frugal. “They did a nice job creating buzz, but we said, ‘We’re pulling back.’ “

Microsoft may yet benefit from the anti-Google sentiment that Ballmer calls out. No one likes a monopoly, and everyone’s favorite web brand has become a freeloader in the eyes of the telecom, book, and media industries. Some of Google’s partners have grown disenchanted as well. “With Google, everything’s a black box, completely opaque. You have no idea why things go up or down. They’re impossible to deal with,” says the president of a website that each year generates more than $10 million hosting Google AdSense ads. “Everyone who’s not Google is rooting for someone to be a counterweight.”

It’s not obvious from walking around the company’s sprawling campus that Microsoft is locked in combat with some of the business world’s most ferocious competitors. There’s little resemblance here to the 24/7 sleep-under-the-desk startup culture that permeates Silicon Valley. Many executives are tanned and fit from weekend sails on Puget Sound, hiking up Mount Rainier, golfing, or exploring Machu Picchu. People arrive promptly to meetings, smile broadly, and are exceedingly polite. If quality of life were the most important metric for a recent grad deciding between Redmond and Redwood City, there really would be no choice.

Alguém que cresce ouvindo Felipe Dylon está exposto a vários perigos. A prova disso é o próprio Dylon, que surtou!

Há algumas semanas, ele apareceu com novo visual e filosofia reggae. Dias atrás, postaram um vídeo dele no Youtube ainda com dreads, mas tocando Iron Maiden. A música é “The Evil That Man Do”.

via @andrechaos

Conseguiu digerir?

Seja lá, quem estiver no comando da cabeça desse muleque, pode ficar com ele, não precisa devolver. Maldades de lado, parece que ele está tentando medidas desesperadas para se livrar da imagem “garoto-de-praia” + “filinho-de-papai” que levou ele à grande mídia brasileira e os sucesso com as garotinhas. E agora ele quer parecer sujo? Qual será a próxima bomba?

I dunno about anyone else, but I’ve been having a rough time these past couple weeks.  Over the summer, my aunt was killed and it’s been easy not to think about it with the craziness of school, but now that things are calming down I’ve had time to think.  That’s, by far, the last thing I need.  Time to think, for me, has never, ever been a good thing.  Because thinking goes from thinking to considering, to doing, and then I fuck shit up for me.

And, it’s like, when you say “aunt”, automatically it’s not a big deal.  As if no one is close to their aunts, ever.  I was, I mean, I always was.  She raised my sister.  And I talked to her /a lot/.  Depression runs in my family, and she was always the biggest victim of it, so whenever we were said we’d talk to her.  Because she always managed to stay so upbeat and everything, and it just really helped us– in fact, it helped everyone, really.

It’s just, like, now that she’s gone– I’m not entirely sure what to do.  No one in my family’s ever died before.  It’s like, even after a couple months, I’m still in denial.  And all of her stuff is in our house, and I hate it.  I mean, it all has sentimental value– we don’t want to get rid of it, but having it all here is like a slap in the face, a reminder that she’s gone.

No major holidays have happened since she died, but the difference is that I haven’t talked to her in a while.  Hell, sometimes I didn’t talk to her for months, but I’d get random chainmail from her with pictures of kittens, or whatever.  I really even miss that.

Surprisingly enough, the thing I’m afraid of most– even as a lot of months have passed, I’m scared that I’m going to forget what her voice sounded like.  Because there’s no way for me to hang on to it.  I don’t have a recording of it, and the only one I did, I deleted it before she died because it was her calling my grandmother a string of curses because they were gambling away their money– and my darling grandmother was /definitely/ winning.  And she was being deviously sweet about it.

It’s like, can you still remember a person if you don’t remember what their voice is like?  I mean, we have pictures, I’ll never forget what she looked like.  But I feel like she wasn’t important enough for me to remember, if I forget anything about her just because my mind couldn’t hold onto it for whatever reason.

I just, I d’nno, just a ramble, I guess.

Esse nome pode remeter a Mozart ou ao último disco do Phoenix, prestes a ganhar remixes.

A nova versão de Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix vai ser lançada no dia 20 de outubro. Conta com a participação de Passion Pit, Friendly Fires, Devendra Banhart e Animal Collective, cada um recriando uma faixa. Sendo que “Liztomania”, “1901″, “Fences” e “Love Like a Sunset” terão mais uma versão, enquanto “Roma” e “Countdown (Sick For The Big Sun)” não reaparecerão.

Serão 15 faixas no total. O remix de “1901″ por L’aiglon já pode ser ouvido no MySpace do Phoenix. Se você não conhece ainda o som dos franceses, aproveite a audição. Se quiser uma boa resenha sobre, Bruno Natal revela sua obsessão no URBe, blog super-indicado.

Tracklist:
1. Lisztomania (Alex Metric)
2. Fences (The Soft Pack)
3. 1901 Bo Flex’d (Passion Pit)
4. Lasso (2 Door Cinema Club)
5. Fences (25 Hrs A Day)
6. 1901 (L’aiglon)
7. Love Like a Sunset (Turzi)
8. Fences (Boombass)
9. Lisztomania (A Fight For Love) (25 Hrs A Day)
10. Fences (Friendly Fires)
11. Armistice (YACHT)
12. Girlfriend (Young Fathers)
13. Fences (Chairlift)
14. Rome (Neighbors with Devendra Banhart)
15. Love Like a Sunset (Animal Collective)

Fonte: Paste Magazine

EDITED TO ADD: I NEVER DID THIS. I ENTERTAINED THE NOTION … BUT I COULDN’T. EVER. PERIOD.

How do you reach the point in your life where a perfect storm crushes your life? I wish I knew. Because if I knew then I wouldn’t be doing things right now — things to make money. (Yeah I thought about it.)

It’s almost to the point I can’t look at myself in the mirror. I feel like I have no soul.But it happens. Not in a day, or a week but again, sometimes all at once.
Craigslist. Interesting place. And that’s where I found my demons and they wanted my soul. (AND NO MORE). My soul, if I have one, is the one thing I refuse to give up. Ever.
I just wish I understood how people have the strength to face adversity: homelessness, joblessness, divorce, custody battles … all at once.
Because I’m not doing any of it very well.
Instead, I tried (read failed) using the oldest trick in the book. The first profession. Because if you don’t have a soul you have nothing left to give away. But it turns out, when it comes down to it, I can’t do it. I just can’t. I have ones to answer to. And ones I have disappointed over and over and over again. And they don’t deserve it.
So … there’s that. But it doesn’t keep me warm at night. And it doesn’t allow me to sleep.
Every time I wake up I want to believe it was a bad, bad dream — all of it. And yes, I take responsibility for my actions.
But honestly, when does the punishment end? How can I atone when I have to survive. And that’s all I am trying to do now.