Worthy of pasting upon your desktop or your cellular phone without a doubt, a small set of shots from the upcoming Star Wars film have been distributed today by Disney. These are from the same Star Wars: The Force Awakens collection we reported earlier today for the IMAX vs Standard Release of the film, here showing the Millennium Falcon and … Continue reading
Here we go again — iPad Pro rumors! This time, we’re hearing the biggest iPad will be called an iPad Air Pro, keeping with a naming scheme Apple introduced with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. As you might have guessed, it’s still rumored to sport a 12-inch screen, basically making it a screen pinched from your MacBook Air (just, … Continue reading
While Amazon continues to offer a pair of 2-game PS4 bundles for $399, they just dropped the price of the white Destiny bundle to $400 as well. Of course, you’ll only get the one game, but if you really want a white console, this is your only option, and a savings of $50 over the usual price. [Amazon]
We all know that desperate feeling of standing alone, motionless, and confused in a bottle shop. You need to take a decent bottle to a dinner party but have no idea what to get. Wouldn’t it be magical if a could just read the labels and tell you what’s good? Well, yes it would be, and thanks to a new app called Next Glass it is.
Did Black Friday catch you off guard by starting on Sunday? Were you doing something silly on Thanksgiving like enjoying dinner with your families? The middle-of-the-night limited quantity deals are gone, but there’s a ton of great stuff left. We’re rounding the best of it up for you right here.
Just because you’re handy with a hammer doesn’t mean you have to look fashionably-challenged while plying your trade. So leave it to Restoration Hardware to stock a pair of retro-styled horn-rimmed safety glasses to keep you looking chic while working on a construction site.
No one can choose what they look like, where they’re born, or where they’re raised. All you can try to do is educate yourself as best you can and try to improve yourself on a daily basis. However, not everyone is given the same privilege in all parts of the world. The Internet has given us the ability to learn a myriad of new things every day, but not every has access to it.
If you wish you could help the world become more connected, then why not take an active role in helping that happen? The Lantern receives radio waves broadcast by Outernet from space. This device turns these signals into files such as videos, pictures, news articles, and much more. It’s like having a library in your pocket. Whenever you want to use it, activate the Wi-Fi hotspot, and connect with any Wi-Fi enabled device. It’s free to use, and not only has a ton of information, but is updated constantly.
This isn’t something you’ll need to worry about plugging in, as it has solar panels to help it stay juiced up. Seeing that this essentially gives you access to the internet offline, this could mean great things to all the people in the world who are willing to learn but don’t have the means. You’ll be able to download information for free without censorship (aside from parental controls for your kids), which is kind of a big deal. Getting the Lantern will cost you $99, but the company that came up with this idea has their eyes set on a much larger goal.
More information and crowdfunding on Indiegogo
[ The Lantern wants information to be available for everyone copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
We all want better quality speakers, and it always helps if the sound-boosting device we get is cute. There are more options than can be counted out there which have different shapes, sizes and features. While I understand that coffee is a mainstay for most human beings at this point, it’s probably not the wisest decision to make a speaker that looks like a coffee mug.
The Cup of Mojo Speaker is a portable speaker that looks like a mug for your morning brew. Its handle is a carabiner clip, and it has a rubber bottom to make sure it stays in place. Streaming from a Bluetooth device is possible from a maximum distance of 32.8 feet, and it can keep playing tunes for up to 4 hours. While it does have rechargeable batteries, this is one more item to plug into your computer a few times throughout the day.
The biggest mistake I can see with this is having what looks like a mug sitting next to your computer, and pouring hot coffee into it. They go so far as to state it’s not dishwasher or microwave safe in a joking way, but I think it’s safe to say we all would fear groggily making an accident that can’t be reversed. This will cost you $29.99 (49.99 regularly), which isn’t an exorbitant amount of money, but it’s certainly not cheap for only four hours or play time.
Available for purchase on ThinkGeek
[ The Cup of Mojo Speaker is an accident waiting to happen copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
In my work I help companies and teams get the culture that they want in their workplace. Sadly, sometimes there is a big gap between the culture that they have and the one they want. I work with teams to assist in assessing this gap and then using values definition and measurement to close this gap so they have the culture they want.
There are many definitions of culture in the workplace, mine is simply “the way things are done here”, that is the collection of behaviors of the team. To explain this I often say to the team, “imagine if I were to set up CCTV in the workplace, what would I observe in the behaviors of the team, what would I hear people say to each other?” This is the culture, the way things are done. If I could I would go deeper and monitor what was going on in people’s minds: what are they saying to themselves, what are they thinking, what are they feeling, etc. This would give even more insight.
I should define what I mean by values as well. To me values are the things that sit somewhere in our minds that help to filter the world for us and help us choose the most appropriate behavior. Values help us choose right from wrong, they help us make decisions. We know when our values have been violated as it usually causes a trigger of intense emotion. Values alignment is important to any team or company.
When I explain the concept of values to people I usually start by asking them about their own values, what is important to them. Next I ask if they are in a relationship with someone and ask about the values of the other person and how different or similar they are. Interestingly most people tell me that they are looking for about a 70% match with the other person which is also the answer I hear from people when I ask about what is the match you are looking for in a team or company. This alignment of values will lead to a common culture within the company and if you define your values well and you hire people that have alignment with those values and then you ensure everyone in the company understands them you will have a much better chance of achieving the culture you want. They assist the people in the team to understand how they should behave in certain situations and in doing so drive the culture.
So I could start off with the culture that I want and work back to see what appropriate values I need or the other way and identify the values I want and see how this would manifest into the culture. Either way, values are important and also how you explain the values to people so they make sense and people can understand how they can best live them.
When I was working with the team at wagamama in 2006 we came up with a way to allow the values to come to life and I have always used this everywhere I have worked since. The idea I had was to use an icon or a talisman for the values. This icon can be fictional/non-fictional, alive or dead but it is someone that you believe epitomizes the value that you are wanting to bring to life.
As an example I am currently working with ROCeteer and there are four high level values that the team have agreed to have as core values. The values are Bold, Inspire, Love and Truth (BILT by ROCeteer). What we have done is selected an icon/talisman for each, I wanted to share each, why we picked them, how we use them and inspire you to do the same if you like this approach.
BOLD: We want to be bold, courageous, follow our own path. We selected Captain Kirk to be our icon for this value because he was very bold and courageous and acted with passion.
INSPIRE: We want to inspire people and also be open to be inspired by others. We selected Oprah Winfrey to be our icon for this value because she is an inspiration to so many people and her life story is incredibly inspirational.
LOVE: We want to be playful and love our customers, team, our family and the community we serve. We selected Elmo to be our icon for this value because Elmo is fun and playful and wants the world to love more.
TRUTH: We want to search for truth and speak the truth. We selected Neo (The Matrix) to be our icon for this value because he was a force of truth in helping people see reality instead of the Matrix
Now that we have the icons for each of our values there is a lot we can do with this, here are some examples:
I have found that creating value icons is a great way of bringing values to life and helping the team understand the essence of their values and live them consistently. Most importantly, it provides the team a better chance of achieving the culture that they want.
Mark Rowland is the Co-founder and CEO of ROCeteer working with entrepreneurial ecosystems to unleash their potential. He also works with Delivering Happiness and is passionate about unleashing the potential of people, companies and communities. At the moment he is based in Las Vegas and has previously lived in Asia, Australia, Europe and the UK. He has had a career spanning 25 years with large corporations and startups such as PwC Consulting, Coles Myer and then as CEO of wagamama Australia, Co-founder and CEO of Styletread. He is a chartered accountant, trained in NLP and is a qualified meta-coach.
Outraged, but not surprised.
That would be a fair way to sum up the response of many to the grand jury’s decision not to bring criminal charges against Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson for killing Michael Brown. As protests continue across the nation, it is worth asking what, if anything, can be done to address the perception that citizens (and let us be frank — especially black citizens) cannot expect help from the courts when police officers are accused of unjustifiably depriving them of their liberty, property or even their lives.
For that perception is justified. As law professor Erwin Chemerinsky explained in an important piece some months ago, the Supreme Court has made it very difficult to hold cops accountable for wrongdoing. But there is still room for engaged judges to ensure that badges cannot be used as a license to violate rights.
1.) Don’t Rubber-Stamp Warrants
In his essential book on police militarization, Rise of the Warrior Cop, Radley Balko describes a 1984 study of the warrant process in seven US cities, conducted by the National Center of State Courts. The study revealed that magistrates spend an average of two minutes and forty-eight seconds reviewing affidavits — sworn statements — before approving warrants, and that “most police officers interviewed could not remember having a search warrant turned down.” Often enough, it is a rubber-stamp process, not a thorough review. Given the consequences of signing off on a warrant — including forced-entry raids that can destroy, deafen and kill — judges have no excuse for failing to so much as ask questions of officers. In one particularly horrific recent case, a Georgia SWAT team threw a flash-bang grenade into a playpen, blowing a hole in the chest of a one-year-old child.
2.) Don’t Take Cops at Their Word
Simply put, police officers lie in court, and they get away with it. Balko reports that in 1992, a University of Minnesota law professor sent a questionnaire to Chicago judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys. 92 percent of judges said that police lie “at least some of the time” when questioned about searches and seizures. In 2011, former San Francisco Police commissioner Peter Keane wrote an article in The San Francisco Chronicle in which he stated, “Police officer perjury in court to justify illegal dope searches is commonplace… it is the routine way of doing business in courtrooms everywhere in America.”
3.) Make Prosecutors Obey the Rules
The Supreme Court has said that because prosecutors are representatives “of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all,” their ultimate interest should not be in winning a case but ensuring “that justice shall be done.” But they do not always fulfill their obligation to seek justice. In 2010, USA Today conducted a comprehensive study that surveyed federal criminal cases since 1998 and identified more than 200 cases in which courts threw out convictions or publicly rebuked prosecutors for misconduct. As former prosecutor turned private practitioner Sidney Powell recounts in her shattering book, Licensed to Lie, prosecutors do in fact deliberately withhold potentially exculpatory evidence that they are constitutionally required to disclose under the rule of Brady v. Maryland (1963). Judges should not assume that they will get complete and candid disclosure the first time they ask.
4.) Make Cops Pay When They Violate Our Rights
The judicially-invented doctrine of qualified immunity protects cops from paying out of their own pockets for their violations of citizens’ constitutional rights — so long as those rights are not “clearly established.” There is no constitutional basis for this doctrine — the Supreme Court made it up for the sake of making life easier for law enforcement. All too often, it is an excuse for judicial abdication, with “clearly established” being read extremely narrowly. But it does not completely insulate cops from liability.
In a recent case, the 11th Circuit held it was not reasonable for officers to believe that they could descend on a barbershop in tactical gear with guns drawn just to check barbers’ licenses, without violating the (duly licensed) barbers’ Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. The court determined that the unconstitutionality of such actions was “clearly established” because the 11th Circuit had held not once but twice that conducting criminal raids under the pretext of an “administrative inspection” is constitutionally unreasonable — and one case even involved the same sheriff’s office that conducted the barbershop raid!
There is no quick-fix solution to the problems with our criminal justice system that Ferguson has thrown into sharp relief, nor is there a simple formula that judges can use to figure out whether the government is misleading them or not. But Americans expect and deserve a level playing field when they seek justice in our courts of law. And the security of our rights depends on judges carefully scrutinizing claims by those who, all too often, are less interested in justice than in seeking their own advancement and avoiding accountability for injustice.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
