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Kamis, 25 April 2013
How To Make Money From Short Stories
Richard Bausch wins $30,000 Rea Award for short stories
NEW YORK - One of the country's top short story writers has won a $30,000 prize.
Richard Bausch, author of eight story collections and winner of numerous other honors, is this year's recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story.
The prize, announced Thursday, is given for making a "significant contribution" to the art of short story writing. Bausch's books include "Something Is Out There" and "Someone to Watch Over Me." He also has written 11 novels and has been praised for his lyrical style and his insights into a wide a range of people and emotions.
The Rea Award was established in 1986. Previous winners include Eudora Welty, John Updike and Lorrie Moore.
NEW YORK - One of the country's top short story writers has won a $30,000 prize.
Richard Bausch, author of eight story collections and winner of numerous other honors, is this year's recipient of the Rea Award for the Short Story.
The prize, announced Thursday, is given for making a "significant contribution" to the art of short story writing. Bausch's books include "Something Is Out There" and "Someone to Watch Over Me." He also has written 11 novels and has been praised for his lyrical style and his insights into a wide a range of people and emotions.
The Rea Award was established in 1986. Previous winners include Eudora Welty, John Updike and Lorrie Moore.
Rabu, 24 April 2013
The Bulgarian Mystery
Belogradchik, Bulgaria - The Belogradchik Rocks and the Belogradchik Fortress
Danube River Cruise Shore Excursion from the Viking Neptune
The Belogradchik Rocks (Bulgarian: Белоградчишки скали, Belogradchishki skali) are a group of strange shaped sandstone and conglomerate rock formations located on the western slopes of the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina) near the town of Belogradchik in northwest Bulgaria. The rocks vary in color from primarily red to yellow; some of the rocks reach up to 200 m in height. Many rocks have fantastic shapes and are associated with interesting legends. They are often named for people or objects they are thought to resemble. The Belogradchik Rocks have been declared a Natural Landmark by the Bulgarian government and are a major tourist attraction in the region.
The Belogradchik Rocks (also spelled Belogradshick or Belogradschik) are one of the natural wonders of Bulgaria. These huge reddish limestone and sandstone rocks tower over the small town of Belogradchik and form part of the walls of the Belogradchik Fortress, which was first built by the Romans about 100 AD.
Danube River cruises in eastern Europe often include a half-day at Belogradchik from Vidin so that passengers can stroll the streets of the town and climb the numerous steps and ladders to the top of the Belogradchik Rock formations. The view from the top is spectacular, and knowing that many of the old steps date back to Roman times makes the walk even more interesting. Those who have mobility problems can still enjoy the Belogradchik rocks and fortress from very near where the coach parks at the entrance to the Belogradchik Fortress.
At first glance, one might think these photos were from the Southwestern part of the USA, until the Roman walls and Bulgarian signage are sighted!
Danube River Cruise Shore Excursion from the Viking Neptune
The Belogradchik Rocks (Bulgarian: Белоградчишки скали, Belogradchishki skali) are a group of strange shaped sandstone and conglomerate rock formations located on the western slopes of the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina) near the town of Belogradchik in northwest Bulgaria. The rocks vary in color from primarily red to yellow; some of the rocks reach up to 200 m in height. Many rocks have fantastic shapes and are associated with interesting legends. They are often named for people or objects they are thought to resemble. The Belogradchik Rocks have been declared a Natural Landmark by the Bulgarian government and are a major tourist attraction in the region.
The Belogradchik Rocks (also spelled Belogradshick or Belogradschik) are one of the natural wonders of Bulgaria. These huge reddish limestone and sandstone rocks tower over the small town of Belogradchik and form part of the walls of the Belogradchik Fortress, which was first built by the Romans about 100 AD.
Danube River cruises in eastern Europe often include a half-day at Belogradchik from Vidin so that passengers can stroll the streets of the town and climb the numerous steps and ladders to the top of the Belogradchik Rock formations. The view from the top is spectacular, and knowing that many of the old steps date back to Roman times makes the walk even more interesting. Those who have mobility problems can still enjoy the Belogradchik rocks and fortress from very near where the coach parks at the entrance to the Belogradchik Fortress.
At first glance, one might think these photos were from the Southwestern part of the USA, until the Roman walls and Bulgarian signage are sighted!
Selasa, 23 April 2013
Killed By Testicles
Woman Kills Man By Squeezing His Testicles
The man on the graphic photo below is a 42-year-old shop owner in the Meilan District of Haikou City, in Hainan, that big island south of mainland China. He is dead. A 41-year-old woman killed him. By squeezing his testicles.
Update: Yes, you can die from extreme testicular pain. Here's the scientific explanation, by urologist and San Diego Sexual Medicine's director Dr. Irwin Goldstein.
According to witnesses talking to China News 24, the woman was riding a scooter and tried to park it in front of the man's shop. She was going to pick up her son, who attends the elementary school in that neighborhood.
The man went out of the shop and told her that she couldn't park her scooter there. She protested and a the shouting match started. After a while they started to fight physically. The woman called her husband and brother, who came to the scene. But things got a lot worse than just a few smacks here and there: the woman grabbed the man's testicles and squeezed them so hard and long that the man shutdown. He collapsed on the ground out of the pain and, worse, he was dead. Yes, people. dead by ballsqueeze.
The paramedics tried to revive him on the spot to no avail. He was rushed to the hospitals, but doctors couldn't do anything for him. I really want to know what the death certificate says. And I really want to know how the hell one can die from ballsqueezing.
The man on the graphic photo below is a 42-year-old shop owner in the Meilan District of Haikou City, in Hainan, that big island south of mainland China. He is dead. A 41-year-old woman killed him. By squeezing his testicles.
Update: Yes, you can die from extreme testicular pain. Here's the scientific explanation, by urologist and San Diego Sexual Medicine's director Dr. Irwin Goldstein.
According to witnesses talking to China News 24, the woman was riding a scooter and tried to park it in front of the man's shop. She was going to pick up her son, who attends the elementary school in that neighborhood.
The man went out of the shop and told her that she couldn't park her scooter there. She protested and a the shouting match started. After a while they started to fight physically. The woman called her husband and brother, who came to the scene. But things got a lot worse than just a few smacks here and there: the woman grabbed the man's testicles and squeezed them so hard and long that the man shutdown. He collapsed on the ground out of the pain and, worse, he was dead. Yes, people. dead by ballsqueeze.
The paramedics tried to revive him on the spot to no avail. He was rushed to the hospitals, but doctors couldn't do anything for him. I really want to know what the death certificate says. And I really want to know how the hell one can die from ballsqueezing.
The World's Deadliest Prison
Locked Up Abroad Gulag Style! Inside The Unbelievably Harsh Conditions Of Russia’s Labor Camps
Going to the bathroom outside when it’s -4 degrees. Only seeing your children two to four times a year. Bathing just once a week. And vying with dozens of other prisoners one hour a week to use one of two phone booths to call home.
This is just a little insight into the harsh reality of life inside Russian’s modern day labor camps, known under Stalin as gulags.
And these are the conditions that two members of the band Pussy Riot will face when they arrive at two of Russia’s most notorious penal facilities.
In August, a judge convicted Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, of “hooliganism” for performing in a Moscow cathedral.
As the news previously reported, both received a two-year sentence and this week they were put on trains to separate camps in the remote areas of Mordovia and Perm.
Svetlana Bakhmina, a lawyer who spent four years in one such camp after being convicted of embezzlement, reveals the harsh realities of life as
an inmate.
“From the moment you stepped into the train, you were no longer recognized as an equal human being – the system treats you as a second-class person,” she tells the Daily Beast.
“They make you jump out of a prison vehicle into the train’s door. You fly with all your bags over about [a] 3 feet gap while guards with dogs stand on the ground watching you.”
Tolokonnikova will serve her time in the Mordovia colony FGU IK-14 that was once Bakhmina’s home. According to the lawyer, the train journey takes about two days and two nights.
Kept in crowded cages, she says the women are only allowed to use the bathroom twice. The rest of the time they have to improvise.
Bakhmina told BBC News that the facility is like a “tough, Soviet-style camp.” She said: “The inmates were all housed in two big army-style barracks – there were anywhere between 50 and 100 people in each one.
“The barracks were built in the Soviet times – I guess in the 1920s.”
While each barrack is furnished with rows of bunk beds, a nightstand and a stool, the bathroom facilities are dire.
She says: “There is also a toilet but you cannot use it as there is no central sewage system. We used to go outside to the so-called ‘hole’, sometimes when it was -20C [-4 degrees] in the winter.”
Woken at 6 a.m. the women have to exercise outside – even in freezing conditions – before doing their daily chores.
Both Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova are moms of young children but communication with loved ones will be limited according to insiders. Inmates can only see their families two to four times a year during three-day visits.
Meanwhile each unit is only given an hour a week to call home. Bakhmina remembers vying with dozens of women to use one of two phone booths to talk to her young sons.
The picture the lawyer presents is a gloomy one – of being locked up with murderers and facing a constant threat of violence.
She says: “The administration was very strict with us – rumors of beatings circled around the colony, although I didn’t witness any personally.
“More often there were fights between the inmates themselves.”
Perhaps the biggest threat the inmates face is a psychological one.
Bakhmina says: “There was no torture…but anyone disobeying the prison rules would be punished by getting sent to ‘shiza’ [Russian abbreviation for ‘schizophrenia’] – a solitary cell.”
Going to the bathroom outside when it’s -4 degrees. Only seeing your children two to four times a year. Bathing just once a week. And vying with dozens of other prisoners one hour a week to use one of two phone booths to call home.
This is just a little insight into the harsh reality of life inside Russian’s modern day labor camps, known under Stalin as gulags.
And these are the conditions that two members of the band Pussy Riot will face when they arrive at two of Russia’s most notorious penal facilities.
In August, a judge convicted Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, of “hooliganism” for performing in a Moscow cathedral.
As the news previously reported, both received a two-year sentence and this week they were put on trains to separate camps in the remote areas of Mordovia and Perm.
Svetlana Bakhmina, a lawyer who spent four years in one such camp after being convicted of embezzlement, reveals the harsh realities of life as
an inmate.
“From the moment you stepped into the train, you were no longer recognized as an equal human being – the system treats you as a second-class person,” she tells the Daily Beast.
“They make you jump out of a prison vehicle into the train’s door. You fly with all your bags over about [a] 3 feet gap while guards with dogs stand on the ground watching you.”
Tolokonnikova will serve her time in the Mordovia colony FGU IK-14 that was once Bakhmina’s home. According to the lawyer, the train journey takes about two days and two nights.
Kept in crowded cages, she says the women are only allowed to use the bathroom twice. The rest of the time they have to improvise.
Bakhmina told BBC News that the facility is like a “tough, Soviet-style camp.” She said: “The inmates were all housed in two big army-style barracks – there were anywhere between 50 and 100 people in each one.
“The barracks were built in the Soviet times – I guess in the 1920s.”
While each barrack is furnished with rows of bunk beds, a nightstand and a stool, the bathroom facilities are dire.
She says: “There is also a toilet but you cannot use it as there is no central sewage system. We used to go outside to the so-called ‘hole’, sometimes when it was -20C [-4 degrees] in the winter.”
Woken at 6 a.m. the women have to exercise outside – even in freezing conditions – before doing their daily chores.
Both Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova are moms of young children but communication with loved ones will be limited according to insiders. Inmates can only see their families two to four times a year during three-day visits.
Meanwhile each unit is only given an hour a week to call home. Bakhmina remembers vying with dozens of women to use one of two phone booths to talk to her young sons.
The picture the lawyer presents is a gloomy one – of being locked up with murderers and facing a constant threat of violence.
She says: “The administration was very strict with us – rumors of beatings circled around the colony, although I didn’t witness any personally.
“More often there were fights between the inmates themselves.”
Perhaps the biggest threat the inmates face is a psychological one.
Bakhmina says: “There was no torture…but anyone disobeying the prison rules would be punished by getting sent to ‘shiza’ [Russian abbreviation for ‘schizophrenia’] – a solitary cell.”
Bollywood Sex And Nudity
India's censored kisses to be shown for the first time
A new film festival is to showcase for the first time scenes from Bollywood movies deemed too racy for Indian viewers, including the first attempt at an on-screen kiss, organisers say.
The "Cut-Uncut" festival in New Delhi will feature unedited versions of films which fell foul of the all-powerful Indian censor board that continues to vet movies before their release.
Portrayals of sex, nudity, social unrest and violence can still be kept out of movie halls under India's strict laws that were first drafted in 1952 and later amended in 1983.
In the year of Bollywood's 100-year anniversary, "Cut-Uncut" is being organised by the ministry of information and broadcasting to demonstrate its more open-minded approach, a ministry official said.
"We want to be more liberal, stop enforcing the old rules and instead recognise artistic endeavor," said an official in the ministry, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Until recently, "long kissing scenes, nudity and visuals depicting acts of rebellion against the government" were all censored, he explained.
"With changing times, we want to have a fresh approach. Our aim is to change the old set of censor laws soon."
The festival beginning April 25 will open with a screening of the 1933 classic "Karma" starring Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani, whose onscreen kiss was considered the first in a Bollywood film and was deleted at the time.
A 2004 documentary called the Final Solution, which looks at the highly sensitive subject of Hindu-Muslim religious rioting, will also be shown after it was banned for being "highly provocative."
These days Bollywood is awash with sexually suggestive material and scantily-clad leading ladies, but sex remains a taboo and films showing kissing scenes are given an "adult" certificate limiting them to viewers over 18.
The most popular films remain so-called "masala movies", a mix of violence, romance and comedy for mainstream audiences, but there are more and more filmmakers working to reproduce the gritty reality of India on celluloid.
Star director Dibakar Banerjee ran into trouble last year with the censor board over his film "Shanghai".
He had to delete two scenes depicting violence in the political thriller, including a high-caste character murdering a low-caste victim.
"I hated the idea of deleting the most powerful scenes from my movie but, well, I had to chop them otherwise the movie would have never seen the light of day," he said.
"Censorship has the power to kill the spirit of a film. It's high time the government stops dictating what Indians should be watching," he added.
A new film festival is to showcase for the first time scenes from Bollywood movies deemed too racy for Indian viewers, including the first attempt at an on-screen kiss, organisers say.
The "Cut-Uncut" festival in New Delhi will feature unedited versions of films which fell foul of the all-powerful Indian censor board that continues to vet movies before their release.
Portrayals of sex, nudity, social unrest and violence can still be kept out of movie halls under India's strict laws that were first drafted in 1952 and later amended in 1983.
In the year of Bollywood's 100-year anniversary, "Cut-Uncut" is being organised by the ministry of information and broadcasting to demonstrate its more open-minded approach, a ministry official said.
"We want to be more liberal, stop enforcing the old rules and instead recognise artistic endeavor," said an official in the ministry, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Until recently, "long kissing scenes, nudity and visuals depicting acts of rebellion against the government" were all censored, he explained.
"With changing times, we want to have a fresh approach. Our aim is to change the old set of censor laws soon."
The festival beginning April 25 will open with a screening of the 1933 classic "Karma" starring Himanshu Rai and Devika Rani, whose onscreen kiss was considered the first in a Bollywood film and was deleted at the time.
A 2004 documentary called the Final Solution, which looks at the highly sensitive subject of Hindu-Muslim religious rioting, will also be shown after it was banned for being "highly provocative."
These days Bollywood is awash with sexually suggestive material and scantily-clad leading ladies, but sex remains a taboo and films showing kissing scenes are given an "adult" certificate limiting them to viewers over 18.
The most popular films remain so-called "masala movies", a mix of violence, romance and comedy for mainstream audiences, but there are more and more filmmakers working to reproduce the gritty reality of India on celluloid.
Star director Dibakar Banerjee ran into trouble last year with the censor board over his film "Shanghai".
He had to delete two scenes depicting violence in the political thriller, including a high-caste character murdering a low-caste victim.
"I hated the idea of deleting the most powerful scenes from my movie but, well, I had to chop them otherwise the movie would have never seen the light of day," he said.
"Censorship has the power to kill the spirit of a film. It's high time the government stops dictating what Indians should be watching," he added.
The Sex Secrets How To Become Vivid Stars
Farrah Abraham Brings Her Dad & Daughter to Sex Tape Negotiation
Question: Where is the last place on Earth you should bring your dad and your kid?
Answer: Your sex tape negotiation. Ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!!
But that's exactly what "Teen Mom" star Farrah Abraham did on Sunday when she hit up the offices of Vivid Entertainment to negotiate a possible deal for her sex tape.
Farrah told our photog she is negotiating with two other companies and that she is considering Vivid's offer. She said she only brought her father along "for support" ... but when you check out the video, you can tell how uncomfortable he is about the whole thing.
Our photog also spoke to Vivid honcho Steve Hirsch after the meeting ... and even he thought bringing a young child to a porn office was a bad idea.
At least someone is the voice of reason.
Answer: Your sex tape negotiation. Ewwwwwwwwwww!!!!!
But that's exactly what "Teen Mom" star Farrah Abraham did on Sunday when she hit up the offices of Vivid Entertainment to negotiate a possible deal for her sex tape.
Farrah told our photog she is negotiating with two other companies and that she is considering Vivid's offer. She said she only brought her father along "for support" ... but when you check out the video, you can tell how uncomfortable he is about the whole thing.
Our photog also spoke to Vivid honcho Steve Hirsch after the meeting ... and even he thought bringing a young child to a porn office was a bad idea.
At least someone is the voice of reason.
The Secrets How To Do Cinnamon Challenge Safely!
Doctors warn teens about taking the 'cinnamon challenge' in new report
CHICAGO – Don't take the cinnamon challenge. That's the advice from doctors in a new report about a dangerous prank depicted in popular YouTube videos but which has led to hospitalizations and a surge in calls to U.S. poison centers.
The fad involves daring someone to swallow a spoonful of ground cinnamon in 60 seconds without water. But the spice is caustic, and trying to gulp it down can cause choking, throat irritation, breathing trouble and even collapsed lungs, the report said.
Published online Monday in Pediatrics, the report said at least 30 teens nationwide needed medical attention after taking the challenge last year.
'Orange burst of dragon breath'
The number of poison control center calls about teens doing the prank "has increased dramatically," from 51 in 2011 to 222 last year, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
"People with asthma or other respiratory conditions are at greater risk of having this result in shortness of breath and trouble breathing," according to an alert posted on the association's website.
Thousands of YouTube videos depict kids attempting the challenge, resulting in an "orange burst of dragon breath" spewing out of their mouths and sometimes hysterical laughter from friends watching the stunt, said report co-author Dr. Steven E. Lipshultz, a pediatrics professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Cinnamon is made from tree bark and contains cellulose fibers that don't easily break down. Animal research suggests that when cinnamon gets into the lungs, it can cause scarring, Lipshultz said.
'It's not cool, and it's dangerous'
Dr. Stephen Pont, a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics and an Austin, Texas pediatrician, said the report is "a call to arms to parents and doctors to be aware of things like the cinnamon challenge" and to pay attention to what their kids are viewing online.
Related: Michigan teen hospitalized after attempting 'cinnamon challenge'
An Ypsilanti, Mich., teen who was hospitalized for a collapsed lung after trying the cinnamon challenge heartily supports the new advice and started her own website -- http://nocinnamonchallenge.com -- telling teens to "just say no" to the fad.
Dejah Reed, 16, said she took the challenge four times -- the final time was in February last year with a friend who didn't want to try it alone.
"I was laughing very hard, and I coughed it out, and I inhaled it into my lungs," she said. "I couldn't breathe."
Her father, Fred Reed, said he arrived home soon after to find Dejah "a pale bluish color. It was very terrifying. I threw her over my shoulder" and drove to a nearby emergency room.
Dejah was hospitalized for four days and went home with an inhaler and said she still has to use it when she gets short of breath from running or talking too fast. Her dad said she'd never had asthma or breathing problems before.
Dejah said she'd read about the challenge on Facebook and other social networking sites and "thought it would be cool" to try.
Now she knows "it's not cool and it's dangerous."
CHICAGO – Don't take the cinnamon challenge. That's the advice from doctors in a new report about a dangerous prank depicted in popular YouTube videos but which has led to hospitalizations and a surge in calls to U.S. poison centers.
The fad involves daring someone to swallow a spoonful of ground cinnamon in 60 seconds without water. But the spice is caustic, and trying to gulp it down can cause choking, throat irritation, breathing trouble and even collapsed lungs, the report said.
Published online Monday in Pediatrics, the report said at least 30 teens nationwide needed medical attention after taking the challenge last year.
'Orange burst of dragon breath'
The number of poison control center calls about teens doing the prank "has increased dramatically," from 51 in 2011 to 222 last year, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.
"People with asthma or other respiratory conditions are at greater risk of having this result in shortness of breath and trouble breathing," according to an alert posted on the association's website.
Thousands of YouTube videos depict kids attempting the challenge, resulting in an "orange burst of dragon breath" spewing out of their mouths and sometimes hysterical laughter from friends watching the stunt, said report co-author Dr. Steven E. Lipshultz, a pediatrics professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Cinnamon is made from tree bark and contains cellulose fibers that don't easily break down. Animal research suggests that when cinnamon gets into the lungs, it can cause scarring, Lipshultz said.
'It's not cool, and it's dangerous'
Dr. Stephen Pont, a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics and an Austin, Texas pediatrician, said the report is "a call to arms to parents and doctors to be aware of things like the cinnamon challenge" and to pay attention to what their kids are viewing online.
Related: Michigan teen hospitalized after attempting 'cinnamon challenge'
An Ypsilanti, Mich., teen who was hospitalized for a collapsed lung after trying the cinnamon challenge heartily supports the new advice and started her own website -- http://nocinnamonchallenge.com -- telling teens to "just say no" to the fad.
Dejah Reed, 16, said she took the challenge four times -- the final time was in February last year with a friend who didn't want to try it alone.
"I was laughing very hard, and I coughed it out, and I inhaled it into my lungs," she said. "I couldn't breathe."
Her father, Fred Reed, said he arrived home soon after to find Dejah "a pale bluish color. It was very terrifying. I threw her over my shoulder" and drove to a nearby emergency room.
Dejah was hospitalized for four days and went home with an inhaler and said she still has to use it when she gets short of breath from running or talking too fast. Her dad said she'd never had asthma or breathing problems before.
Dejah said she'd read about the challenge on Facebook and other social networking sites and "thought it would be cool" to try.
Now she knows "it's not cool and it's dangerous."
The Top Secrets How To Slim Down Forever
Dead student's family call for clampdown on slimming drug
Sarah Houston, 23, died after taking banned dinitrophenol (DNP), which she ordered online, alongside antidepressants
Sarah Houston was studying medicine at the University of Leeds at the time of her death last September. Photograph: Christopher Thomond
A coroner and the family of a medical student suffering from bulimia who died after taking a banned weight-loss drug bought online have called for a change in the law to further tighten the distribution of the substance, which has been blamed for other deaths.
Dr Graham Mould, a forensic toxicologist, told an inquest into the death of Sarah Houston, 23, that a combination of dinitrophenol (DNP), which is banned from human consumption but is used as a chemical pesticide, and antidepressants may have been fatal.
DNP, which was first used to treat obesity in the 1930s but was banned as a food substance due to its dangerous side effects, continues to be used as a slimming aid by bodybuilders around the world. It was linked to 62 deaths in a study published last year in the Journal of Medical Toxicity.
The University of Leeds medical student, who comes from a family of doctors, is believed to have been taking the drug secretly alongside a prescribed antidepressant Fluoxetine. Houston was found dead in her bedroom by a flatmate.
The inquest in Wakefield heard she had complained of feeling hot and unwell and had been breathing heavily on the evening before she died in September last year.
Mould said there was no evidence of an overdose. "We don't know how long Sarah had been taking DNP but it may have accumulated in her system," he said. "It increases the body's metabolic rate. The side effects can be overheating and breathlessness caused by an increased heart rate and this seems to be consistent with how Sarah was feeling that evening.
"The side effects of DNP were clearly present and it's possible that Fluoxetine may have exacerbated the affect of DNP. At a very high dose, Fluoxetine can have a similar affect to DNP and so one can speculate that the two drugs together might have speeded up the affect."
Mould pointed out that the Food Standards Agency had previously issued a report warning the public not to take DNP.
Coroner David Hinchliff said: "The only way to combat the use of DNP is to bring to the attention of the public how dangerous a substance it is.
"This is not a one-off case and it needs bringing to the public's attention."
Outside court, Houston's family said she was not depressed at the time she died and her health had improved leading up to her death. In a statement, they said that it was incomprehensible that DNP could be purchased over the internet and called on the government to take steps to ensure that no other family suffered in the same way in future.
"It's going to be a slow process, but hopefully approaching the Home Office to begin with will be the right step and hopefully it will be made illegal," said Sarah's father, Geoff Houston. "For those who are selling it, if you have any ounce of decency you must stop."
The coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.
Sarah Houston, 23, died after taking banned dinitrophenol (DNP), which she ordered online, alongside antidepressants
A coroner and the family of a medical student suffering from bulimia who died after taking a banned weight-loss drug bought online have called for a change in the law to further tighten the distribution of the substance, which has been blamed for other deaths.
Dr Graham Mould, a forensic toxicologist, told an inquest into the death of Sarah Houston, 23, that a combination of dinitrophenol (DNP), which is banned from human consumption but is used as a chemical pesticide, and antidepressants may have been fatal.
DNP, which was first used to treat obesity in the 1930s but was banned as a food substance due to its dangerous side effects, continues to be used as a slimming aid by bodybuilders around the world. It was linked to 62 deaths in a study published last year in the Journal of Medical Toxicity.
The University of Leeds medical student, who comes from a family of doctors, is believed to have been taking the drug secretly alongside a prescribed antidepressant Fluoxetine. Houston was found dead in her bedroom by a flatmate.
The inquest in Wakefield heard she had complained of feeling hot and unwell and had been breathing heavily on the evening before she died in September last year.
Mould said there was no evidence of an overdose. "We don't know how long Sarah had been taking DNP but it may have accumulated in her system," he said. "It increases the body's metabolic rate. The side effects can be overheating and breathlessness caused by an increased heart rate and this seems to be consistent with how Sarah was feeling that evening.
"The side effects of DNP were clearly present and it's possible that Fluoxetine may have exacerbated the affect of DNP. At a very high dose, Fluoxetine can have a similar affect to DNP and so one can speculate that the two drugs together might have speeded up the affect."
Mould pointed out that the Food Standards Agency had previously issued a report warning the public not to take DNP.
Coroner David Hinchliff said: "The only way to combat the use of DNP is to bring to the attention of the public how dangerous a substance it is.
"This is not a one-off case and it needs bringing to the public's attention."
Outside court, Houston's family said she was not depressed at the time she died and her health had improved leading up to her death. In a statement, they said that it was incomprehensible that DNP could be purchased over the internet and called on the government to take steps to ensure that no other family suffered in the same way in future.
"It's going to be a slow process, but hopefully approaching the Home Office to begin with will be the right step and hopefully it will be made illegal," said Sarah's father, Geoff Houston. "For those who are selling it, if you have any ounce of decency you must stop."
The coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure.
Minggu, 21 April 2013
Naked Rollercoaster - The Bumper Crowd of Nudes
Naked rollercoaster 'record broken' in Essex
102 naked people on Adventure Island in Essex broke the previous world record for the most naked people to ride a roller-coaster (previously held by 32 people at Alton towers).
"The rollercoaster ran three times to accommodate the bumper crowd of nudes"
Though this wasn't some kind of random nude happenstance, but a event to raise money for Southend Hospital Charitable Foundation to buy cancer screening equipment.
"More than £22,000 was raised for charity."
102 naked people on Adventure Island in Essex broke the previous world record for the most naked people to ride a roller-coaster (previously held by 32 people at Alton towers).
"The rollercoaster ran three times to accommodate the bumper crowd of nudes"
Though this wasn't some kind of random nude happenstance, but a event to raise money for Southend Hospital Charitable Foundation to buy cancer screening equipment.
"More than £22,000 was raised for charity."
Helsinki Naked Run
The Most Handsome Beggar Becomes Famous Online
Fashionable beggar becomes famous online, encounters human flesh search
“Those sad eyes/that sad expression, the sad mustache, the miraculous godly hair, and that messy hair, all of it has deeply captivated me.” …Recently, a very hot/popular beggar post has become famous on the internet, the post narrating what netizens have hailed as “The Ultimate Gorgeous #1 Passerby Handsome Guy” beggar. Owing to his unconventional, nondescript appearance as well as his original “mashup”, netizens have begun following him, even “human flesh searching” him.
Ningbo’s Handsome Guy Beggar is just a poor/pitiful guy
Many netizens have sent me messages asking me to verify whether that latest famous handsome guy begger is really a beggar. Here I will testify that it can be said that he is.
Long ago in 2008 I encountered him. Most people who see him will avoid him, treating him as a beggar and the link, but actually this is not accurate. 乞丐 [qǐgài "beggar"] in our country’s ancient words first appeared as a monosyllabic word. The meaning of 乞 [qǐ] in the golden texts was “to beg”. But he does not beg, nor does he know how to beg, because he has psychological problems (in Ningbo they call it “great fog sickness”). They do not have an identity, they do not have family, they’ve even forgotten who they are. They are a group of people abandoned by society, and their final outcome is to die without anyone inquiring about them. They wander in the space between humans and animals. Help them a bit and they become humans, ignore them and they are animals.
He once said this to me: “Find a girl to love me.”
“Those sad eyes/that sad expression, the sad mustache, the miraculous godly hair, and that messy hair, all of it has deeply captivated me.” …Recently, a very hot/popular beggar post has become famous on the internet, the post narrating what netizens have hailed as “The Ultimate Gorgeous #1 Passerby Handsome Guy” beggar. Owing to his unconventional, nondescript appearance as well as his original “mashup”, netizens have begun following him, even “human flesh searching” him.
Ningbo’s Handsome Guy Beggar is just a poor/pitiful guy
Many netizens have sent me messages asking me to verify whether that latest famous handsome guy begger is really a beggar. Here I will testify that it can be said that he is.
Long ago in 2008 I encountered him. Most people who see him will avoid him, treating him as a beggar and the link, but actually this is not accurate. 乞丐 [qǐgài "beggar"] in our country’s ancient words first appeared as a monosyllabic word. The meaning of 乞 [qǐ] in the golden texts was “to beg”. But he does not beg, nor does he know how to beg, because he has psychological problems (in Ningbo they call it “great fog sickness”). They do not have an identity, they do not have family, they’ve even forgotten who they are. They are a group of people abandoned by society, and their final outcome is to die without anyone inquiring about them. They wander in the space between humans and animals. Help them a bit and they become humans, ignore them and they are animals.
He once said this to me: “Find a girl to love me.”
Sabtu, 20 April 2013
Naked Mermaid Found at The Beach !
San Francisco Cop Suspended for His Photo Hobby
When off duty, Officer Gared Hansen enjoys shooting (photographing, that is) nude models as mermaids and other magical beings. But when his department found out about the extracurriculars, they suspended him — Internal Affairs even looked into him after that. Naturally, Hansen sees it as a fun hobby. But the SFPD says that it reflects poorly and in bad taste upon the department…
I’m inclined to think, “So what? He can do what he wants in his free time as long as he’s not representing the actions as department-sanctioned.” What do you guys think? At this point, after being suspended on two separate occasions, Hansen has supposedly been getting the ‘bad’ jobs, like transporting prisoners.
I’m inclined to think, “So what? He can do what he wants in his free time as long as he’s not representing the actions as department-sanctioned.” What do you guys think? At this point, after being suspended on two separate occasions, Hansen has supposedly been getting the ‘bad’ jobs, like transporting prisoners.
Chief Pornography Officer - Wanted !!!
Chief pornography officer wanted in Beijing, who are interested in this job?
The Chief Pornography Officer will need to keep abreast of all types of obscene material.
An alliance of Chinese companies intent on cleaning up the internet is seeking a Chief Pornography Officer to research websites for obscene material and "manage and rate" the results of their findings.
Anquan Lianmeng ( 安全联盟literally "Safety Alliance") describes itself as a "neutral and impartial third-party organisation" looking to establish industry standards for internet safety and to monitor Chinese users' access to obscene material. It was jointly organized by 800 Internet companies including Baidu, Tencent and Kingsoft.
Candidates have overwhelmed the human resources department of the newly-formed alliance, lured by the 200,000 yuan (£21,000) annual salary and the hope of bringing moral fortitude to their nation while consuming endless hours of pornography.
Yang Jilong, the group's human resources chief, said that they have received over 5,000 CVs for the Chief Pornography Appraiser position since publicizing the job ad on Weibo last week.
He explained the purpose of the job was one of sifting true smut from merely naughty material for Chinese users, and admitted that some websites might require further inspection from a higher authority.
"As we find vulgar information and safety risks on websites, we'll remind Web users with an online label, while for those that we're not sure about, we'll ask law school professors and government administrators for help," he said.
Skills in foreign languages are essential for the job, as much of the material the officer will assess will originate from Europe, the US and Japan, and good teamwork skills and a strong "sense of responsibility" are a plus.
Free fruit and yoghurt on week days are an added bonus for the successful applicant.
The production and distribution of pornography are officially banned in China, but the government has struggled to keep such material behind what was once described as the "great firewall of China" in an age of mobile phones and tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow users to appear to be in different countries when they log on.
Cai Yifan, a 23-year-old applicant from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, said he heard about the job through Tencent Weibo and had already sent his resume.
The graduate, who majored in English and is proficient in Japanese, took part in an online test for the job, but claimed it was too difficult.
"The questions covered many fields, such as translation, legal knowledge and psychology. I'm interested in the job, but my chances of success are slim, as the standards were too high," he added.
Job Responsibilities: Quickly and accurately identifying pornographic and obscene websites.
Job Description:
1. Research and study pornographic videos and images, formulate criteria for determining obscenity.
2. Deploy courseware on the standards of obscenity determination, and study materials such as educational videos on pornography.
3. Manage and rate pornographic resources (including BT seeds, images, and online videos).
Job Requirements:
1. Familiarity with the different standards of determination of pornographic content of different countries;
2. Familiarity with the standards of determination and express regulations concerning pornography in China’s law;
3. Familiarity with the standards of pornography identification used by CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) and various major internet providers;
4. A bachelor’s degree or above; age between 20-35; all genders;
5. Possesses good teamwork skills, and a strong sense of responsibility.
Benefits:
1. National standard insurances and additional allowance for meals, transportation and phone.
2. Expenses on relevant books can be reimbursed. Free fruits and yogurt each week day.
3. Free physical examination once every year, and gift for birthday, wedding and child birth.
Interview questions:
An alliance of Chinese companies intent on cleaning up the internet is seeking a Chief Pornography Officer to research websites for obscene material and "manage and rate" the results of their findings.
Anquan Lianmeng ( 安全联盟literally "Safety Alliance") describes itself as a "neutral and impartial third-party organisation" looking to establish industry standards for internet safety and to monitor Chinese users' access to obscene material. It was jointly organized by 800 Internet companies including Baidu, Tencent and Kingsoft.
Candidates have overwhelmed the human resources department of the newly-formed alliance, lured by the 200,000 yuan (£21,000) annual salary and the hope of bringing moral fortitude to their nation while consuming endless hours of pornography.
Yang Jilong, the group's human resources chief, said that they have received over 5,000 CVs for the Chief Pornography Appraiser position since publicizing the job ad on Weibo last week.
He explained the purpose of the job was one of sifting true smut from merely naughty material for Chinese users, and admitted that some websites might require further inspection from a higher authority.
"As we find vulgar information and safety risks on websites, we'll remind Web users with an online label, while for those that we're not sure about, we'll ask law school professors and government administrators for help," he said.
Skills in foreign languages are essential for the job, as much of the material the officer will assess will originate from Europe, the US and Japan, and good teamwork skills and a strong "sense of responsibility" are a plus.
Free fruit and yoghurt on week days are an added bonus for the successful applicant.
The production and distribution of pornography are officially banned in China, but the government has struggled to keep such material behind what was once described as the "great firewall of China" in an age of mobile phones and tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs), which allow users to appear to be in different countries when they log on.
Cai Yifan, a 23-year-old applicant from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, said he heard about the job through Tencent Weibo and had already sent his resume.
The graduate, who majored in English and is proficient in Japanese, took part in an online test for the job, but claimed it was too difficult.
"The questions covered many fields, such as translation, legal knowledge and psychology. I'm interested in the job, but my chances of success are slim, as the standards were too high," he added.
Job Responsibilities: Quickly and accurately identifying pornographic and obscene websites.
Job Description:
1. Research and study pornographic videos and images, formulate criteria for determining obscenity.
2. Deploy courseware on the standards of obscenity determination, and study materials such as educational videos on pornography.
3. Manage and rate pornographic resources (including BT seeds, images, and online videos).
Job Requirements:
1. Familiarity with the different standards of determination of pornographic content of different countries;
2. Familiarity with the standards of determination and express regulations concerning pornography in China’s law;
3. Familiarity with the standards of pornography identification used by CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) and various major internet providers;
4. A bachelor’s degree or above; age between 20-35; all genders;
5. Possesses good teamwork skills, and a strong sense of responsibility.
Benefits:
1. National standard insurances and additional allowance for meals, transportation and phone.
2. Expenses on relevant books can be reimbursed. Free fruits and yogurt each week day.
3. Free physical examination once every year, and gift for birthday, wedding and child birth.
Interview questions:
The World's Best Haircut
David Davis Arrested For Stabbing Man While Getting Haircut: Cops
STAMFORD, Conn. -- Police say a man was getting a haircut at an apartment in Stamford, Conn., when he grabbed scissors and slashed another man in the back.
The Stamford Advocate reports that 21-year-old David Davis was arrested soon afterward when officers with a police dog found him in a nearby apartment. A police mug shot shows Davis with thick hair sticking up from only one side of his head.
Authorities say the victim approached Davis during his haircut Tuesday in what he called "an aggressive manner." Davis told investigators he picked up the scissors in self-defense.
Davis, who lives in New Haven, was being held on $5,000 bond.
The 21-year-old victim was taken to Stamford Hospital to receive treatment for the wound in his back.
STAMFORD, Conn. -- Police say a man was getting a haircut at an apartment in Stamford, Conn., when he grabbed scissors and slashed another man in the back.
The Stamford Advocate reports that 21-year-old David Davis was arrested soon afterward when officers with a police dog found him in a nearby apartment. A police mug shot shows Davis with thick hair sticking up from only one side of his head.
Authorities say the victim approached Davis during his haircut Tuesday in what he called "an aggressive manner." Davis told investigators he picked up the scissors in self-defense.
Davis, who lives in New Haven, was being held on $5,000 bond.
The 21-year-old victim was taken to Stamford Hospital to receive treatment for the wound in his back.
The Dead Body in The Van Mystery
NHS slammed as mechanics fixing mortuary van discover dead body in the back
"What were the drivers doing? Surely they must have known that they weren't just on a day out and that they actually had a body in the back of the van."
The patient died at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
An inquiry is underway after an NHS van arrived at a garage for repairs - with a body in the back.
Horrified mechanics discovered the corpse as the specialist mortuary vehicle was taken in for a broken tail light.
An NHS employee has been suspended and health chiefs have apologised to the distressed family of the deceased.
Patients' campaigner Margaret Watt said the body blunder was 'absolutely horrendous'.
She stormed: "Who would have ever thought that someone's body could just be left in the back of a van? It's disgraceful.
"What were the drivers doing? Surely they must have known that they weren't just on a day out and that they actually had a body in the back of the van.
"The corpse could have been there for days if the mechanics hadn't found it.
"This is totally unacceptable and it should never have happened."
The van belonged to NHS Grampian and was used to transport bodies to the city mortuary in Aberdeen.
The body was found on Wednesday when it arrived at the AM Phillip garage in the city.
Mrs. Watts, of the Scottish Patients Association, added: "My heart goes out to the family and a simple apology from NHS Grampian isn't enough.
"They need to go and face up to the family and someone's head should roll for this and I don't care who it is."
NHS Grampian said: "This is a very serious incident and we are dealing with it as a matter of urgency.
"We have been in touch with the family of the deceased person and have apologised unreservedly for the distress that this incident has caused them.
"We have also been in touch with the garage and have apologised for the distress that may have been caused to their staff.
"We have very strict processes in place to ensure that we deal sensitively and respectfully with deceased patients. Clearly these did not work on this occasion.
"We have taken immediate action to commission an independent investigation to understand what has gone wrong.
"Pending this investigation a member of staff has been suspended.
"We are deeply sorry for this regrettable incident and we are absolutely committed to taking whatever action is required to ensure that this situation can never happen again".
The patient died at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary earlier this week.
NHS Grampian refused to say whether the deceased was an adult or a child.
Lewis Macdonald, the Member of the Scottish Parliament for North East Scotland, said: "This incident is extraordinary and unacceptable.
"It is bound to cause concern and NHS Grampian are looking into it which is the right thing to do.
Staff at the garage refused to comment.
"What were the drivers doing? Surely they must have known that they weren't just on a day out and that they actually had a body in the back of the van."
The patient died at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
An inquiry is underway after an NHS van arrived at a garage for repairs - with a body in the back.
Horrified mechanics discovered the corpse as the specialist mortuary vehicle was taken in for a broken tail light.
An NHS employee has been suspended and health chiefs have apologised to the distressed family of the deceased.
Patients' campaigner Margaret Watt said the body blunder was 'absolutely horrendous'.
She stormed: "Who would have ever thought that someone's body could just be left in the back of a van? It's disgraceful.
"What were the drivers doing? Surely they must have known that they weren't just on a day out and that they actually had a body in the back of the van.
"The corpse could have been there for days if the mechanics hadn't found it.
"This is totally unacceptable and it should never have happened."
The van belonged to NHS Grampian and was used to transport bodies to the city mortuary in Aberdeen.
The body was found on Wednesday when it arrived at the AM Phillip garage in the city.
Mrs. Watts, of the Scottish Patients Association, added: "My heart goes out to the family and a simple apology from NHS Grampian isn't enough.
"They need to go and face up to the family and someone's head should roll for this and I don't care who it is."
NHS Grampian said: "This is a very serious incident and we are dealing with it as a matter of urgency.
"We have been in touch with the family of the deceased person and have apologised unreservedly for the distress that this incident has caused them.
"We have also been in touch with the garage and have apologised for the distress that may have been caused to their staff.
"We have very strict processes in place to ensure that we deal sensitively and respectfully with deceased patients. Clearly these did not work on this occasion.
"We have taken immediate action to commission an independent investigation to understand what has gone wrong.
"Pending this investigation a member of staff has been suspended.
"We are deeply sorry for this regrettable incident and we are absolutely committed to taking whatever action is required to ensure that this situation can never happen again".
The patient died at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary earlier this week.
NHS Grampian refused to say whether the deceased was an adult or a child.
Lewis Macdonald, the Member of the Scottish Parliament for North East Scotland, said: "This incident is extraordinary and unacceptable.
"It is bound to cause concern and NHS Grampian are looking into it which is the right thing to do.
Staff at the garage refused to comment.
The World's Rudest Countries for Travelers
World's 10 rudest countries for travelers
Travelers aren't always welcome, and some people let you know it
Travelers love Paris, but do Parisians love them back?
Travel search site Skyscanner recently released a list of the world’s rudest nations for visitors, naming the countries whose smiley and friendly natives are apparently confined to their promotional videos.
The result, which lists 34 countries, is based on Skyscanner’s online poll, which received more than 1,200 responses from Europe, North America and Australia.
France, the champion of impoliteness
La Belle France was declared the champion of impoliteness, garnering nearly 20 percent of the total votes.
French people are known for “their abrupt and curt nature,” especially while facing foreign tourists, Edinburgh-based Skyscanner told International Business Times.
Russia took second place with 16.6 percent of the votes, followed by the United Kingdom (10.4 percent), Germany (9.93 percent) and a puzzingly labeled “Others” (miscellaneous countries).
China (4.3 percent) ranked sixth on the list, leading Asia.
Language barriers and cultural differences are the main causes
China-based etiquette expert Lawrence Lo (卢浩研) pointed out that language barriers and cultural differences are the two major players behind the ranking.
“The French are very protective of their language, and customers can get different responses for ordering in French or in another language,” said Lo.
Yi Bao, Skyscanner marketing manager for China, gave an example to back the "culture difference" theory.
According to Yi, though queuing is a social norm in the West, it’s not a common behavior for Chinese people, “so [it] could be interpreted as being rude [by international travelers.]”
The personality of hospitality staff is another contributing factor.
Lo said many restaurants’ waiting staff in Chinese cities are usually young women from rural areas, and that the Chinese are naturally more shy than Westerners.
“[These waitresses] don’t have the confidence or language skill to handle foreign travelers. Sometimes, they’d rather avoid them,” said Lo.
“On the other hand, a lot of French waiters have worked in this position their whole life, so they have a superiority complex in front of travelers.”
Lo also said the result of the survey depended on what type of travelers were voting.
"For many backpackers, challenges in language and culture actually form part of the fun of traveling," said Lo.
Here are the 10 rudest countries on Skyscanner’s list:
1. France
2. Russia
3. United Kingdom
4. Germany
5. Others
6. China
7. United States
8. Spain
9. Italy
10. Poland
The countries voted least rude were:
25. Japan
26. Denmark
27. Canada
28. New Zealand
29. Indonesia
30. Portugal
31. Thailand
32. The Philippines
33. Caribbean region
34. Brazil
Travelers aren't always welcome, and some people let you know it
Travel search site Skyscanner recently released a list of the world’s rudest nations for visitors, naming the countries whose smiley and friendly natives are apparently confined to their promotional videos.
The result, which lists 34 countries, is based on Skyscanner’s online poll, which received more than 1,200 responses from Europe, North America and Australia.
France, the champion of impoliteness
La Belle France was declared the champion of impoliteness, garnering nearly 20 percent of the total votes.
French people are known for “their abrupt and curt nature,” especially while facing foreign tourists, Edinburgh-based Skyscanner told International Business Times.
Russia took second place with 16.6 percent of the votes, followed by the United Kingdom (10.4 percent), Germany (9.93 percent) and a puzzingly labeled “Others” (miscellaneous countries).
China (4.3 percent) ranked sixth on the list, leading Asia.
Language barriers and cultural differences are the main causes
China-based etiquette expert Lawrence Lo (卢浩研) pointed out that language barriers and cultural differences are the two major players behind the ranking.
“The French are very protective of their language, and customers can get different responses for ordering in French or in another language,” said Lo.
Yi Bao, Skyscanner marketing manager for China, gave an example to back the "culture difference" theory.
According to Yi, though queuing is a social norm in the West, it’s not a common behavior for Chinese people, “so [it] could be interpreted as being rude [by international travelers.]”
The personality of hospitality staff is another contributing factor.
Lo said many restaurants’ waiting staff in Chinese cities are usually young women from rural areas, and that the Chinese are naturally more shy than Westerners.
“[These waitresses] don’t have the confidence or language skill to handle foreign travelers. Sometimes, they’d rather avoid them,” said Lo.
“On the other hand, a lot of French waiters have worked in this position their whole life, so they have a superiority complex in front of travelers.”
Lo also said the result of the survey depended on what type of travelers were voting.
"For many backpackers, challenges in language and culture actually form part of the fun of traveling," said Lo.
Here are the 10 rudest countries on Skyscanner’s list:
1. France
2. Russia
3. United Kingdom
4. Germany
5. Others
6. China
7. United States
8. Spain
9. Italy
10. Poland
The countries voted least rude were:
25. Japan
26. Denmark
27. Canada
28. New Zealand
29. Indonesia
30. Portugal
31. Thailand
32. The Philippines
33. Caribbean region
34. Brazil
Rabu, 17 April 2013
Dinosaurs in Tech World
Don't Be the Office Tech Dinosaur
As Younger Colleagues Speak Fluent Twitter, How Old Pros Find Ways to Upgrade Their Skills, Fight Insecurity
For many people, being on the far side of 40 in the workplace brings the confidence of experience, of having hit a certain professional stride.
It can also bring a nagging insecure feeling that younger colleagues—the ones with 5,000 Twitter followers, who designed their first website in middle school—are fast becoming the new office stars.
Doug Gould, a 50-year-old advertising veteran, says some of that anxiety arose when co-workers called him by nicknames like "Uncle Doug" and "Coach."
"I think those were terms of endearment," says Mr. Gould, a creative director for the Boston ad agency Allen & Gerritsen, who started his career back in 1984 using tracing paper and markers to design newspaper ads. "But if you read between the lines, it also meant 'old guy.' I get nervous about what that means."
For many people in the back half of their careers, the meaning is becoming all too clear: To keep from drifting, or being nudged, into an early retirement, it's time to add more high-tech arrows to their professional quiver—to refresh their skills with, say, some social-media or mobile-app expertise. As Mr. Gould has learned, competing with younger colleagues who grew up texting, tweeting, using Facebook (FB) and playing videogames requires constant work to stay up-to-date.
Even with an impressive résumé filled with more than a dozen industry awards—and two memorable Super Bowl ads—Mr. Gould knows he can't rest on his laurels. "Fifteen years ago, I thought I knew everything," says the husband and father of two teenagers who says he intends to work another 15 years or so. Now, "there is new technology out there I don't know the first thing about, that could easily turn me into a dinosaur if I don't continue to adapt."
In the past few years, he has taken more than 10 new-technology courses, both online and at a professional training center—from a seminar in the location-based social network Foursquare to a recent class in Adobe (ADBE) Muse, which lets him design and publish HTML websites without writing code. He now also tweets and blogs.
Rather than leaving hands-on work to underlings, as many executives do at his stage, he continues to use new design and animation programs to generate creative products like print, digital and broadcast ads and websites. "If I become a manager and nobody wants a manager, how am I going to thrive in my later years?" he says. "The lifeboat for me is to be able to still do the work."
He also looks for new challenges. He worked for a decade at a big agency, Hill Holliday, and was comfortable there. But he left two years ago to take a similar title at Allen & Gerritsen because he wanted a chance to help a midsize agency grow. "That was something I hadn't done before. I saw this as a challenge," he says.
Older workers have accumulated knowledge that is hard to replace, research shows. But lagging tech skills are one reason job-loss rates for experienced older workers 55 and over have exceeded those for younger workers by a growing margin for the past decade, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show.
Mr. Gould worries about surviving in a field where most of his counterparts are in their 30s or 40s. While he was quick in his late 20s to embrace new computer graphics programs that made hand drawings obsolete, he saw many older colleagues fall by the wayside. "Some of them didn't want to learn, or were afraid to learn," he says. "I thought, 'I hope this will never happen to me.'"
When social media and digital technology turned advertising upside down again many years later, Mr. Gould says, "I looked in the mirror and said, 'Oh my god, it's possible that I could become that person who fails to keep up.' "
Mr. Gould resisted using Twitter at first. "I said, 'You're kidding me—140 characters? That's it? The whole world is moving to phrases?' "
But after coming to see it as an efficient way to share information—instead of a truncated form of personal communication—he made Twitter the basis last fall of a campaign for the nonprofit City Year, #makebetterhappen, which has drawn more than 20,000 tweets from volunteers telling upbeat stories from the classroom.
Gillian Smith, City Year's chief marketing officer, says Mr. Gould's "great creative work" sparked a 37% year-over-year increase in City Year's website traffic.
Mr. Gould also tries to learn from younger colleagues. Ben Daly, 33, an associate creative director at Allen & Gerritsen who specializes in digital art and design, says Mr. Gould sat with him about two years ago and asked him to explain changes he was making in the agency's website so it would function well on tablets and phones as well as on computers. Mr. Daly says Mr. Gould quickly saw the technology's potential for their clients' sites as well. Allen & Gerritsen has a reverse-mentoring policy to encourage such exchanges.
Of course, the help can go both ways. According to Mr. Gould, "somebody like me can teach people who are so ridiculously tech savvy how to handle themselves in a meeting when things go wrong." Mr. Daly says Mr. Gould sometimes coaches younger co-workers during client presentations, stepping in to help them over rough patches, without stealing the show.
While he has successfully leveraged social media in specific projects, he isn't as immersed in it as many younger professionals. Mr. Gould follows 158 feeds on Twitter, from the Harvard Business Review to the Onion, but only tweets occasionally to his 180 followers. "I tweet when I feel like I have something to say," he says. He blogs occasionally on Tumblr about politics, sports or personal topics. Twice a day he checks Facebook, where he has 517 friends.
He is selective in his social-media use, bypassing Foursquare and the social-network Google (GOOG) Plus, for example. "There's pressure these days to get into everything, but you have to stop yourself," he says.
In the evening, he turns everything off when he goes home. "I don't believe you can listen to your kids when you're staring at a screen," he says. He always tries to have dinner with his family, and he has breakfast with 17-year-old daughter Abby, a high-school senior. His wife of 22 years, Julie, 49, runs a custom window-treatment business from home. He talks by phone weekly with their 19-year-old son, Davis, a sophomore at West Virginia University.
Those boundaries come with a cost. Mr. Gould worries when he sees new hires walk in the door knowing technology he hasn't learned. "You're working 50 hours a week, through lunch, and when you go home you're trying to raise a family. And you see the company hiring these new people who just spent four years in college learning to do what you can't do, that you have no time for," he says.
"The speed of change makes you uncomfortable on a regular basis," he says. "That's so difficult for people who are paying mortgages, buying cars, trying to give their kids the things they had, to get them through school. You want to feel confident in the last 15 years of your career that after 25 or 30 years of effort, it's just going to work," he says. "But it isn't so. And I don't think you ever get over the fear of not knowing."
As Younger Colleagues Speak Fluent Twitter, How Old Pros Find Ways to Upgrade Their Skills, Fight Insecurity
It can also bring a nagging insecure feeling that younger colleagues—the ones with 5,000 Twitter followers, who designed their first website in middle school—are fast becoming the new office stars.
Doug Gould, a 50-year-old advertising veteran, says some of that anxiety arose when co-workers called him by nicknames like "Uncle Doug" and "Coach."
"I think those were terms of endearment," says Mr. Gould, a creative director for the Boston ad agency Allen & Gerritsen, who started his career back in 1984 using tracing paper and markers to design newspaper ads. "But if you read between the lines, it also meant 'old guy.' I get nervous about what that means."
For many people in the back half of their careers, the meaning is becoming all too clear: To keep from drifting, or being nudged, into an early retirement, it's time to add more high-tech arrows to their professional quiver—to refresh their skills with, say, some social-media or mobile-app expertise. As Mr. Gould has learned, competing with younger colleagues who grew up texting, tweeting, using Facebook (FB) and playing videogames requires constant work to stay up-to-date.
Even with an impressive résumé filled with more than a dozen industry awards—and two memorable Super Bowl ads—Mr. Gould knows he can't rest on his laurels. "Fifteen years ago, I thought I knew everything," says the husband and father of two teenagers who says he intends to work another 15 years or so. Now, "there is new technology out there I don't know the first thing about, that could easily turn me into a dinosaur if I don't continue to adapt."
In the past few years, he has taken more than 10 new-technology courses, both online and at a professional training center—from a seminar in the location-based social network Foursquare to a recent class in Adobe (ADBE) Muse, which lets him design and publish HTML websites without writing code. He now also tweets and blogs.
Rather than leaving hands-on work to underlings, as many executives do at his stage, he continues to use new design and animation programs to generate creative products like print, digital and broadcast ads and websites. "If I become a manager and nobody wants a manager, how am I going to thrive in my later years?" he says. "The lifeboat for me is to be able to still do the work."
He also looks for new challenges. He worked for a decade at a big agency, Hill Holliday, and was comfortable there. But he left two years ago to take a similar title at Allen & Gerritsen because he wanted a chance to help a midsize agency grow. "That was something I hadn't done before. I saw this as a challenge," he says.
Older workers have accumulated knowledge that is hard to replace, research shows. But lagging tech skills are one reason job-loss rates for experienced older workers 55 and over have exceeded those for younger workers by a growing margin for the past decade, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show.
Mr. Gould worries about surviving in a field where most of his counterparts are in their 30s or 40s. While he was quick in his late 20s to embrace new computer graphics programs that made hand drawings obsolete, he saw many older colleagues fall by the wayside. "Some of them didn't want to learn, or were afraid to learn," he says. "I thought, 'I hope this will never happen to me.'"
When social media and digital technology turned advertising upside down again many years later, Mr. Gould says, "I looked in the mirror and said, 'Oh my god, it's possible that I could become that person who fails to keep up.' "
Mr. Gould resisted using Twitter at first. "I said, 'You're kidding me—140 characters? That's it? The whole world is moving to phrases?' "
But after coming to see it as an efficient way to share information—instead of a truncated form of personal communication—he made Twitter the basis last fall of a campaign for the nonprofit City Year, #makebetterhappen, which has drawn more than 20,000 tweets from volunteers telling upbeat stories from the classroom.
Gillian Smith, City Year's chief marketing officer, says Mr. Gould's "great creative work" sparked a 37% year-over-year increase in City Year's website traffic.
Mr. Gould also tries to learn from younger colleagues. Ben Daly, 33, an associate creative director at Allen & Gerritsen who specializes in digital art and design, says Mr. Gould sat with him about two years ago and asked him to explain changes he was making in the agency's website so it would function well on tablets and phones as well as on computers. Mr. Daly says Mr. Gould quickly saw the technology's potential for their clients' sites as well. Allen & Gerritsen has a reverse-mentoring policy to encourage such exchanges.
Of course, the help can go both ways. According to Mr. Gould, "somebody like me can teach people who are so ridiculously tech savvy how to handle themselves in a meeting when things go wrong." Mr. Daly says Mr. Gould sometimes coaches younger co-workers during client presentations, stepping in to help them over rough patches, without stealing the show.
While he has successfully leveraged social media in specific projects, he isn't as immersed in it as many younger professionals. Mr. Gould follows 158 feeds on Twitter, from the Harvard Business Review to the Onion, but only tweets occasionally to his 180 followers. "I tweet when I feel like I have something to say," he says. He blogs occasionally on Tumblr about politics, sports or personal topics. Twice a day he checks Facebook, where he has 517 friends.
He is selective in his social-media use, bypassing Foursquare and the social-network Google (GOOG) Plus, for example. "There's pressure these days to get into everything, but you have to stop yourself," he says.
In the evening, he turns everything off when he goes home. "I don't believe you can listen to your kids when you're staring at a screen," he says. He always tries to have dinner with his family, and he has breakfast with 17-year-old daughter Abby, a high-school senior. His wife of 22 years, Julie, 49, runs a custom window-treatment business from home. He talks by phone weekly with their 19-year-old son, Davis, a sophomore at West Virginia University.
Those boundaries come with a cost. Mr. Gould worries when he sees new hires walk in the door knowing technology he hasn't learned. "You're working 50 hours a week, through lunch, and when you go home you're trying to raise a family. And you see the company hiring these new people who just spent four years in college learning to do what you can't do, that you have no time for," he says.
"The speed of change makes you uncomfortable on a regular basis," he says. "That's so difficult for people who are paying mortgages, buying cars, trying to give their kids the things they had, to get them through school. You want to feel confident in the last 15 years of your career that after 25 or 30 years of effort, it's just going to work," he says. "But it isn't so. And I don't think you ever get over the fear of not knowing."
How To Force A Kiss to A Girl
A Singaporean navy officer currently training in an Australia academy was found guilty of forcing a kiss out of a fellow female cadet.
However, Benedict Ang Yong Chuean, a trainee at the Australian Defence Force Academy, was cleared on Friday of a second charge of undoing her bra and touching her breast while she slept, according to a report on The Canberra Times.
The Australian news outlet reported that Ang, 22, had entered the female cadet's room in the wee hours of May 6 last year.
He proceeded to lay down on a bed next to the 18-year-old cadet after a night out in town where she had 18 drinks.
Ang, who had five drinks on the same night, was said to have then rubbed her back, before holding her by the jaw and repeatedly trying to kiss her.
The female cadet said she used her teeth to force him to stop before falling back asleep, while Ang said that the kiss was consensual.
He also said that he stopped kissing her after she said: "I can't do this, you're like my bro."
The prosecution team claimed that Ang had an "unrequited love" for the cadet he reportedly refers to as "sis", and also told the court that he admitted to fellow cadets that he "f**ked up" and pleaded with them not to make a report for fear of ruining his career.
Ang maintained his innocence throughout the trial, and refuted the latter suggestion, saying that he was fearful of the ADFA's rules on non-fraternisation instead.
The Straits Times reported that Ang is a Singapore Armed Forces scholar who is studying at the ADFA to study for a degree awarded by the University of New South Wales.
Ang will be sentenced in late May, and is currently out on bail.
However, Benedict Ang Yong Chuean, a trainee at the Australian Defence Force Academy, was cleared on Friday of a second charge of undoing her bra and touching her breast while she slept, according to a report on The Canberra Times.
The Australian news outlet reported that Ang, 22, had entered the female cadet's room in the wee hours of May 6 last year.
He proceeded to lay down on a bed next to the 18-year-old cadet after a night out in town where she had 18 drinks.
Ang, who had five drinks on the same night, was said to have then rubbed her back, before holding her by the jaw and repeatedly trying to kiss her.
The female cadet said she used her teeth to force him to stop before falling back asleep, while Ang said that the kiss was consensual.
He also said that he stopped kissing her after she said: "I can't do this, you're like my bro."
The prosecution team claimed that Ang had an "unrequited love" for the cadet he reportedly refers to as "sis", and also told the court that he admitted to fellow cadets that he "f**ked up" and pleaded with them not to make a report for fear of ruining his career.
Ang maintained his innocence throughout the trial, and refuted the latter suggestion, saying that he was fearful of the ADFA's rules on non-fraternisation instead.
The Straits Times reported that Ang is a Singapore Armed Forces scholar who is studying at the ADFA to study for a degree awarded by the University of New South Wales.
Ang will be sentenced in late May, and is currently out on bail.
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