The iPhone 5c is not a cheap phone. In fact, it costs $549 without a contract. Apple has 0% share of the sub-$400 “budget” smartphone market by sole dint of the fact it doesn’t sell a budget iPhone.
But hey, don’t let that get in the way of Microsoft trying to claim they are outselling the iPhone in the under-$400 market, which is sort of like saying that Louis Vuitton is outselling Apple in designer clothes.
In an interview with Tech Radar, Microsoft’s director of communications Christopher Flores said that Windows Phone was outselling Apple’s iPhone line-up in 24 markets globally. When Techradar appeared skeptical, Flores admitted these were “emerging markets”… in other words, markets where a phone needs to be super-cheap to succeed, and which Apple is not even targeting.
It’s dumb, but that’s just how low-on-the-totem Microsoft is when it comes to the smartphone market these days: the only places it can declare victory are areas in which Apple is concertedly not competing.
The Snooze Button was invented some time shortly after the invention of the alarm clock itself, and
I remember the day I discovered it as a young boy. It was early in the morning, and my alarm clock was going off. I didn’t want to get up so I wondered if there was a way that I could silence the alarm for about nine minutes so that I could get a little more rest. This would allow me just enough time to toss and turn for 8 and 1 / 2 minutes, and sleep for the remaining 30 seconds, before starting the cycle all over again.
Although I had prayed for a snow day, I was forced from my slumber on this cold western New York morning by my alarm clock, which began emitting a heinous noise at the pre-agreed upon time of precisely 6am, Eastern Standard Time. I rolled…
Getting lost in a good book can actually change your brain, with neural paths forming in the same way as if you were actually living the experience, scientists have found.
Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird
originally published on June 8, 2013, by Michael Snyder, Guest Post
This article, entitled “A Little Known Reality” though aimed at a US audience, gives a scary insight into China’s growing economic power.
In future, China will employ millions of American workers and dominate thousands of small communities all over the United States.
Chinese acquisition of U.S. Businesses set a new all-time record last year, and it is on pace to shatter that record this year.
The Smithfield Foods acquisition is an example.
Smithfield Foods is the largest pork producer and processor in the world.
It has facilities in 26 U.S. States and it employs tens of thousands of Americans.
It directly owns 460 farms and has contracts with approximately 2,100 others.
But now a Chinese company has bought it for $4.7 billion, and that means that the Chinese will now be the most important employer in dozens of rural
Communities all over America.
Thanks in part to the U.S.A.’s massively bloated trade deficit with China, the Chinese have trillions of dollars to spend.
They are only just starting to exercise their economic muscle.
It is important to keep in mind that there is often not much of a difference between “the Chinese government”
and “Chinese corporations”. In 2011, 43 percent of all profits in China were produced by companies where the
Chinese government had a controlling interest.
Last year a Chinese company spent $2.6 billion to purchase AMC entertainment – one of the largest movie theater
Chains in the United States. Now that Chinese company controls more movie ticket sales than anyone else in the world.
But China is not just relying on acquisitions to expand its economic power. “Economic beachheads” are being
established all over America. For example, Golden Dragon Precise Copper Tube Group, Inc. recently broke ground
on a $100 million plant in Thomasville, Alabama. Many of the residents of Thomasville, Alabama will be glad to have
jobs, but it will also become yet another community that will now be heavily dependent on communist China.
And guess where else Chinese companies are putting down roots? Detroit.
Chinese-owned companies are investing in American businesses and new vehicle technology,
selling everything from seat belts to shock absorbers in retail stores, and hiring experienced engineers and designers
in an effort to soak up the talent and expertise of domestic automakers and their suppliers.
If you recently purchased an “American-made” vehicle, there is a really good chance that it has a number of Chinese parts in it.
Industry analysts are hard-pressed to put a number on the Chinese suppliers operating in the United States.
China seems particularly interested in acquiring energy resources in the United States. For example, China is actually
mining for coal in the mountains of Tennessee. Guizhou Gouchuang Energy Holdings Group spent 616 million dollars
to acquire Triple H Coal Co. in Jacksboro, Tennessee. At the time, that acquisition really didn’t make much news, but now
a group of conservatives in Tennessee is trying to stop the Chinese from blowing up their mountains and taking their coal.
And pretty soon China may want to build entire cities in the United States just like they have been doing in other countries.
Right now China is actually building a city larger than Manhattan just outside Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
Starting to get the picture? China is on the rise. If in doubt, just read the following:
– When you total up all imports and exports, China is now the number one trading nation on the entire planet.
– Overall, the U.S. has run a trade deficit with China over the past decade that comes to more than 2.3 trillion dollars.
– China has more foreign currency reserves than any other country on the planet.
– China now has the largest new car market in the entire world.
– China now produces more than twice as many automobiles as the United States does. After being bailed out by
U.S. taxpayers, GM is involved in 11 joint ventures with Chinese companies.
– China is the number one gold producer in the world.
– The uniforms for the U.S. Olympic team were made in China.
– 85% of all artificial Christmas trees the world over are made in China.
– The new World Trade Center tower in New York is going to include glass imported from China.
– China now consumes more energy than the United States does.
– China is now in aggregate the leading manufacturer of goods in the entire world.
– China uses more cement than the rest of the world combined.
– China is now the number one producer of wind and solar power on the entire globe.
– China produces 3 times as much coal and 11 times as much steel as the United States does.
– China produces more than 90 percent of the global supply of rare earth elements.
– China is now the number one supplier of components that are critical to the operation of any national defense system.
– In published scientific research articles China is expected to become number one in the world very shortly.
And what we have seen so far may just be the tip of the iceberg.
For now, I’ll just leave you with one piece of advice – learn to speak Chinese. You’re going to need it
During 2013, the Italian producer and composer was brought out of semi-retirement for a Daft Punk collaboration, and since then a swell of interest in his work has led to Moroder taking up DJing.
Watch edited highlights from disco legend GIORGIO MORODER’S headline set at Electronic Beats Festival Vienna, which took place on 23rd November 2013. a living legend; the Munich Machine himself, Giorgio Moroder. At seventy-odd years of age he looks like a benevolent grandpa but don’t be fooled.
His late period revival, thanks to Daft Punk, is shot through with vitality made apparent in the way he mouths along and conducts his way through his set, the odd gesture and flourish supported with a flash of strobe. And while his DJ set is essentially a comprehensive megamix of his most loved work, the heady blend of pioneering and populism leaves the venue reeling.
From “Love to Love You Baby”, which is thrown in early, to Sparks’ “Beat the Clock”, via a disco-fied “Tony’s Theme” from Scarface, arguably Moroder’s best soundtrack work, then straight on through into “Together In Electric Dreams”all the big hitters are here, often slammed together with lashings of flanger effect. It’s quite the ride with just a couple of minutes from each before the next world-famous record is introduced and we’re ripping off our clothes with excitement because, oh God, it’s “What a Feeling” from Flashdance.
This is disco writ large in the stars: if you’ve got a handbag, dance around it, if you’ve got a podium, dance on it, hell, if you’ve got a white horse, get on it, give it a ride. But for all the outrageous, chart monstering megahits, it’s “I Feel Love” that gets the biggest response. And rightly so, those carnal arpeggios, the cold, steely throb and Donna Summer’s cyborg vixen schtick feels ageless in a way that say, Limahl’s “Neverending Story” doesn’t (but that one gets a big cheer, too).
It seems that Moroder enjoys it as much as us too, playing, naturally, “Giorgio By Moroder”, Blondie’s “Call Me” and, um, Lady Gaga‘s “Applause” as an encore before begrudgingly leaving the stage amidst chants of, “Giorgio! Giorgio!”
With thoughts and feelings still preciously vivid of a seven-month long tour of work duty in Rome earlier this year, and right now whilst back in the Citta’ Eterna for a brief family holiday, I came across this list through my colleague Josephine McKenna of Seven Network tv (Australia) which for us expats here sums up humourously really well what the Eyeties are all about! Have a happy new year y’all
Just for a laugh!
You know you’ve been in Italy too long when…
1) You consider accepting the dinner invitation at the house of someone you just met.
2) You can have a conversation with a stranger comprised entirely of facial expressions, hand gestures, and no words.
3) You can’t imagine not wearing a black down jacket and black sunglasses most of the year.
4) You keep honking at the traffic, not at anyone in particular, just to keep the flow moving…
5) You have become an expert in parking your car in the narrowest space and driving while talking on the phone and having a conversation with other passengers at the same time.
6) You don’t hesitate to overtake a car blocking the street through the pavement/sidewalk.
7) You automatically ask for the vino della casa (house wine) when you have a casual lunch out.
8) You can convey all your feelings with a single “maa…” or “boh”.
9) You refuse to go out if it is raining, even a bit, and wear a scarf whenever it’s not over 25°C.
10) You don’t raise an eyebrow when you are asked to apply for your application at a government office.
11) You don’t even check for opening hours and schedules anymore as you know they don’t mean anything.
12) You only have coffee for breakfast, then if you feel a bit peckish get a pastry at 10 am with more coffee, in between two other morning coffees.
13) You don’t cringe at the idea of having offals for lunch.
14) You can’t imagine having lunch before 1 pm.
15) You dip your bread in olive oil – even at home.
16) You know that a true espresso shouldn’t contain more than a few drops of extremely concentrated coffee, which can be diluted with sugar.
17) You know that Starbucks isn’t real coffee but you go anyway because of it’s trendy and American, and they have free Wi-Fi.
18) You start calling your mother every day, sometimes several times a day, although you never did before.
19) In a queue, you constantly keep an eye for line jumpers – unless it’s you !
20) You have twenty favourite flavours of ice cream, because you have to be selective.
21) People back home think you speak too loudly.
22) You understand that when someone tells you that it’s impossible, he is just asking for you to negotiate.
23) You stick your index finger against your cheek to say that something tastes good.
24) Back home, you say that you dropped a spaghetto (and not a spaghetti) when taking them out of the package.
In a two-minute video recorded in Moscow, where Former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum, he spoke of concerns over surveillance and appeared to draw comparison with the dystopian tale 1984 which described a fictional state which operates widespread surveillance of its citizens.
“Great Britain’s George Orwell warned us of the danger of this kind of information. The types of collection in the book – microphones and video cameras, TVs that watch us are nothing compared to what we have available today.”
In the run up to Christmas Day, and right up to Boxing Day today, have found myself once again captivated by the wit and humour of the North american sit-com on CBS, THE BIG BANG THEORY. Am now up to speed, having finished viewing the last episode aired earlier in December from ongoing season 7, which is Episode 11 entitled “The Cooper Extraction”.
For those unfamiliar with the central plot of the series, the show is centered on five characters living in Pasadena, California: roommates Doctors Leonard Hofstadter and Sheldon Cooper, who are both brilliant physicists working at Cal Tech in Pasadena, California. They are colleagues, best friends, and roommates, although in all capacities their relationship is always tested primarily by Sheldon’s regimented, deeply eccentric, and non-conventional ways. I guess that Sheldon has some form of Aspergers Syndrome, or other on the Autism Spectrum, that gives such folks their beautiful minds.
Leonard and Sheldon (occasionally called affectionately Lenny and Shelly) are also friends with their equally geeky and socially awkward friends and Cal Tech co-workers colleagues mechanical engineer Howard Wolowitz and astrophysicist Dr. Raj Koothrappali. The foursome spend their time working on their individual work projects, playing video games, watching science-fiction movies, or reading comic books. As they are self-professed nerds, all have little or no luck with popular women.
When Penny, a pretty waitress and an aspiring actress originally from Omaha, moves into the apartment across the hall and next to Leonard and Sheldon’s, Leonard has another aspiration in life, namely to get Penny to be his girlfriend (which he does as the series develops over the ensuing sit-com seasons).
The geekiness and intellect of the four guys is contrasted for comic effect with Penny’s social skills and common sense.
Over time, supporting characters have been promoted to starring roles: Leslie Winkle, a physicist colleague at Caltech and, at different times, a lover of both Leonard and Howard; Bernadette Rostenkowski, Howard’s girlfriend (later his wife), a microbiologist and former part-time waitress alongside Penny; neuroscientist Amy Farrah Fowler, who joins the group after being matched to Sheldon on a dating website (and later becomes Sheldon’s girlfriend), and Stuart Bloom, the cash-strapped owner of the comic book store the characters often visit.
Well, can’t restrain myself from sharing the plot summary: Sheldon goes to Texas for his sister (Missy) since she is having a baby. While Sheldon is gone, the gang imagines their lives without Sheldon in it. At first, I thought I was going to see yet another producers’ mishmash of cuts and edits from past episodes’ instances of highlighted relevant incidents, to merely create a Christmas themed special, but luckily it turned out not to be the case!
He is leaving immediately. Leonard inquires if someone is sick. It seems that Sheldon‘s sister is about to have a baby. Penny brightens up and is happy for the new Uncle Sheldon. Sheldon tells everyone that he is going to be Uncle Dr. Cooper. Amy wonders why nobody knew that his sister was pregnant. Sheldon also didn’t mentions his brother‘s kidney stones. Did people want to know everything that was coming out of his family‘s genitals? Sheldon is going to fill in for his brother-in-law that was in a horrible motorcycleaccident. Sheldon feels that the is lucky since he doesn’t have to be there for the blessed event. His sister Missy is due the next day, but since it took her six years to get through high school, Sheldon doesn’t know how long it’s going to take. Amy offers to give him a ride to the airport, but he doesn’t want to inconvenient his girlfriend. He does turn to Leonard and tells him that they have to leave in ten minutes.
Everybody minus Sheldon are together for a tree decorating Christmasparty. Since Sheldon is absent, so are all of his tree decorating rules including the required spacing of the ornaments. Both Star Trek and Star Wars ornaments can now be on the same branches. The fact that Howard is enjoying trimming the Christmas tree might cause his mother to have a heart attack. Bernadette then takes the opportunity to photograph Howard trimming the tree. Penny is a little short of funds this year so her Christmas present is going to be giving him herself, which is what Leonard got last year and last night. Stuart then joins them as Amy’s computer notifies her of an incoming video chat from Sheldon. He thinks that they are so thoughtful that they have a Christmas party after he left since he isn’t into Christmas. His sister has been in labour for an hour and is having a home birth. Raj points out that many women want to give birth at home in a warm comfortable environment. Sheldon feels that she will also turn her bedroom into an amnioticSlip and Slide. Sheldon then gets called away to have a family picture taken because his sister is fully dilated and there is no blood yet.
Early Christmas present.
Raj wants to know if Amy would want Sheldon there if she was having a baby. Penny breaks in that she doesn’t think Sheldon will be there when they make the baby. Bernadette brought over the holiday film “It’s a Wonderful Life,” to watch. Neither Raj nor Stuart have seen it. Amy describes the movie as being at Christmas time, Jimmy Stewart is really depressed and wants to jump off a bridge and kill himself which is pretty much Stuart’s life story. Bernadette then adds that he gets to see what life would be like if he never was born. Penny wonders if anyone ever considered life without someone. Leonard asks, “Knock..knock..knock…What do you think?…knock..knock..knock… What do you think?…knock..knock..knock… What do you think?” doing Sheldon’s knock. Amy points out that despite the jokes they make about Sheldon, none of them would be there if it wasn’t for Sheldon. None of them would know Amy. Bernadette would never have met Howard. Leonard would not have beendating Penny. Leonard disagrees because he has been going to The Cheesecake Factory for years and he could have still {picked her up causing everybody to laugh. Penny then explains what would have happened. Howard, Raj and Leonard are having a meal and Leonard tells them that he is going to finally ask her out. Penny comes over to ask what
Flashback: Leonard asking Penny out at the Cheesecake Factory.
they want to eat and Leonard can’t even speak to her. He then walks over to her, introduces himself and tells her that there is something he has wanted to ask her for a long time. If she is not too busy he wants to know if she could tell him…where the restroom is. Penny remarks that he is too late looking strangely at him. Back in Apartment 4A, Leonard objects that he would not have wet himself though Raj and Howard think that she got the story right. Leonard did ask Penny out, but that could not have happened if he hadn’t moved in with Sheldon. Of course, Penny would never have been introduced Howard to Bernadette. Howard replies that he could have also met her when she was a waitress. Bernadette explains her version where she tells Penny that she finds Howard cute. Then she sees Raj feeding Howard a bite of his dessert and then cleaning off his mouth with a napkin and Bernadette changes her mind. Leonard then confronts Penny that she wouldn’t have done so great herself due to the type of guys she had been dating. In Penny’s apartment she is preparing food and in walks Zack Johnson who calls her babe. She asks if he paid the rent and instead Zack bought some magic beans. Then Leonard makes them both pee on themselves since Penny did the same thing to him. Sheldon calls back claiming that he has seen lady things that he shouldn’t. According to Amy, they don’t normally look like that. That is not the way to make people since its like some dirty magic show, describes Sheldon. People should not becoming out of people. Sheldon‘s mom calls him to bring a mop. Sheldon is distraught that he has two PhD‘s and is reduced to being the janitor of his sister’s birth canal.
A Leonard spoof of his imagination: Penny living with Zack. He bought magic beans!!
Sheldon sends everyone a holidayemail including a picture from the birthing room that disgusts Leonard, Penny and Raj. Back to the “It’s a Wonderful Life” discussion, Penny would still have met Sheldon. Amy describes how without Leonard there, Penny would try and seduce Sheldon. Penny stalks Sheldon in the laundry room wearing her short shorts. She sunders over to him and asks if he is doing his laundry. Of course, because Saturday night is laundry night and he is in a laundry room. Sheldon tells her that her interference is justified which Penny thinks is so funny. Penny is going to do her dirty laundry as the dirty girl wearing them starts to undress. The real Penny wants her to stop, but the guys disagree. Now in her bra, Penny asks Sheldon what does he think. He finds her a tad asymmetrical, but nothing to worry about. Penny tells him that they are going to do it in the laundry room right now. Sheldon reminds her that he is saving himself for a bespectacled neurobiologist who has hair the color of mud as Amy tells the story.
Sheldon calls back from Texas saying that things are going better. His mother asked him to get some towels, so he left and went to “Bed, Bath and Beyond“. Missy then screams while Sheldon is on the phonewhich he finds very rude. Amy has now diagrammed the absent Sheldon premise and tells Penny that she would never have met comic book legend Stan Lee. Howard would have always known Raj and Leonard. Leonard never got an apartment with Howard because of his serious relationship with his mother. Bernadette again mentions that if they had not met, he would still be living with his mother. Howard tells his version, first he is taking his mother her lunch in her bedroom and
An Amy spoof of her imagination: Penny seducing the guy across the hall – Sheldon.
that she didn’t get enough food. Later he is seen feeding her, but she is still in the bedroom dead reminiscent of the mother in the movie “Psycho” with Howard now doing her voice. Howard is neutral on whether she starved to death or if he actually killed her. Leonard and Raj did not move in together because Raj thought he was going to be a ladies’ man. In Raj’s scenario, Leonard is living with him as Raj cooksdinner for a very heavy Leonard. Since he had no girlfriend, he compensated by overeating and Raj deep fried food. Then Leonard also makes Raj fat in the living together scenario. Then Stuart shows up fat have dinner with them and to be in someone’s story.
In Amy’s case, without Sheldon she is alone in her apartmentcrying over a cupcake and singing “Happy Birthday” to herself. Stuart shows up and blows a party favor in her face to be in another story. Sheldon is back reports that his sister had a baby boy. Sheldon was not sure he was going to make it, however his mother gave him some ice chips and his sister (in labor) kept giving him encouragement. He’s not going to go back because he finds the baby irritating since he has been crying his entire life. Howard tells him that the baby is already taking after Uncle Shelly. Amy tells him to return to be an intelligentrole model for his nephew which Sheldon agrees with. They were amazed that Sheldon did exactly what Amy asked him to do. Even though Amy kept telling the gang the impact Sheldon had on them, he has had an impact on Amy too. Amy felt if that we’re really true she wouldn’t still be living alone. Leonard tells her that Sheldon cares for her more than she really thinks. Amy doesn’t believe him so he shows that her picture is on Sheldon’s screen saver along with Swamp Thing, Madame Curie, Stephen Hawking, etc. Amy gets excited that Sheldon is really into her. And she doesn’t mind Madame Curie being there because she is already dead.
Howard imagines he eventually went “Psycho”, and did his mother in.
After Sheldon returns, Amy is walking up the stairs and staring at Sheldon. She tells Sheldon that she missed him to which he quotes Han Solo, “I know.” After Amy asks if he missed her, he replies that he would have liked her to be with him or had gone in his place. Amy also wonders how he felt holding his nephew hoping that he might want one with her someday. He looked into the blank innocenteyes of someone who didn’t comprehend anything he said which was like another day at he office for him.
Finally a fat Raj and Leonard are eating at the Cheesecake factory and again Leonard asks Penny out. She already has a boyfriend, a very suave looking Stuart. Of course, this was Stuart’s Christmas fantasy.
Video grab taken from Channel 4 of Edward Snowden warning about the global threat to privacy as he delivered the Channel 4 Alternative Christmas Message. Photo: Channel 4/PA Wire
The Cons's Nook: www.ivanmconsiglio.com 