For those who like their kitchen to look like something Willy Wonka might cook in, here’s another adorable alternative to the boring spoon you’ve been using to serve soups and sauces. Designed by OTOTO to look eerily reminiscent of what we assume the Loch Ness monster looks like, this adorable Nessie Ladle is far less intimidating.
Netflix will add controversial Sony Pictures movie The Interview to its virtual shelves on January 24th, it’s confirmed, while the streaming media firm’s first original feature film will debut on August 26th. The Seth Rogen and James Franco movie made a sudden appearance on pay-per-view at Christmas, but will be bundled in with an active Netflix subscription for US and … Continue reading
SpaceX has confirmed its new funding round, with Google and Fidelity splashing $1bn to grab a chunk of Elon Musk’s rocket company. Rumors of the planned investment began yesterday, with Google said to be particularly keen on working on satellite internet services after its own project to blanket the planet with broadband in a similar fashion fell through in 2014. … Continue reading
In a few short months, we’ve seen Microsoft go in a new direction with Windows. Possibly in an attempt to distance themselves from the aspirational (but ultimately confusing and misguided) Windows 8, we’re now getting Windows 10. Though Microsoft probably isn’t quite ready to bring Windows 10 to the consumer space, tomorrow will likely give us a better idea of … Continue reading
Welcome to the Jungle
And so the right to govern is upon the Republican Party, which has bitched for six years that it was the minority, throwing stones at the systemic glass house, but now finds itself at the forefront of legislation. Or, in other words, it is easy to be the outsider carping about how things could be different if someone else, namely you, had access to the gears. Now we’ll see how this goes.
There is little question that the Barack Obama administration took a beating in both the 2010 and 2014 mid-terms. This is what happens to most presidents, some worse than others, and these were significant thrashings. The 2010 Tea Party movement following the completely partisan and highly questionable passing of the Affordable Care Act was monumental if not brief. In other words, this is what happens when a preponderance of people, many of those with no governing experience in the least, whose sole purpose for being elected is to stop the very thing to which they were elected to steer, can be troubling. Beyond Mitt Romney, a party-power moderate, being a total disaster as a presidential candidate, look no further as to why the Tea Party experiment lasted about 18 months and helped re-elect an anemic Obama.
The 2014 round was different because many moderates, or those who claimed so, took the point, and especially in the case of the GOP takeover of the national scene a la the Senate, there was a fundamental shift in the RNC that took much of the groundswell of both Obama campaigns and funneled it strategically into winning back the game. It is important to note that by all indications the Republicans should have taken the Senate in 2010 if not for the Tea Party muse of amateur candidates going sideways and scaring many voters who came in wanting a sea change.
One thing the 114th Congress has achieved in its victory is the continued perception that Obama is an abject failure as a president. His November low-40s approval rating, the spate of scandals vaguely attached to him at the beginning of the always dangerous second term, and his obvious lame-duck demeanor of “going it alone” on domestic (immigration) and foreign (ISIS) policies put him on very shaky ground.
However, much of the “scandals” attached to the president were wildly overblown (Benghazi) and some, while being indefensible, commenced completely outside the White House (IRS), but are hard to escape since the buck, as stated in song and story, must land at the executive’s feet. Having affirmed this, the Republican surge of 2014 is also different from 2010, because while being two years removed from a seismic financial collapse in ’08, the economic trends have been pointing upwards for well over a calendar year, and have recently spiked for the first time since before the 21st century into the category of solid. (2013 marked largest private sector job increase since 1999). Therefore, using the method for which the 114th congress wrested power from the Democratic power base — the fault of all things falls to the president — it would seem that some plaudits are due Mr. Obama.
Perception has quickly shifted since November — remember this is perception, not reality, a game usually played by the party out of power — now that the economic outlook has improved greatly. The reasons for which are many — some global, some policy-driven, mostly the pendulum swing of natural order, as many economists predicted during the 2012 presidential campaign that the candidate lucky enough to be around would benefit from the trend pointing upward. Had Romney prevailed he could claim, “I told you so” and if Obama won, which happened, he could claim a six-year plan reaping the benefits.
For the record, these include the unemployment rate down to 5.6 percent currently from 9.6 when Obama took office. Many rightfully cite that it is partly due to a preponderance of the workforce failing to even continue looking for a gig, which, we are reminded, was also the case in 1986 during conservative economic stalwart, Ronald Reagan’s sixth year in office when the number was a steady 7.1 percent. And this was, as we all remember fondly, “Morning in America.” It is also important to note that candidate Romney promised to get the number down to under six percent by his apocryphal second term in 2016. It is two weeks into 2015.
Additional numbers compiled by Forbes magazine (hardly the font of Keynesian economics) from graphs presented in the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2014 report, reveal the result of 58 consecutive months of private-sector job growth (most in the history of the republic). This has slowly, if not painfully, produced an increase of 5 percent in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the most in over a decade. This is not factoring in the tripling of the stock market since 2009 and the recent dip in gas prices to under two dollars, which seemed so much a pipe dream also-ran Republican candidate, Newt Gingrich was laughed off the stage by a conservative audience when he promised to personally get prices under $2.50.
As stated, much of this spectacularly fantastic economic news when compared to the financial horrors of the Western hemisphere hanging from a thread in the autumn of 2008, are due to many factors well above and beyond the White House — not the least of which being the dreaded 2013 budget sequestration, which both parties warned would destroy the entire concept of the American economic system, can be seen as a very positive effect on this recovery, including the “congress of no,” which has substantially subtracted to the national deficit — $486 billion down from $680 billion in 2013. But if the perception of a corrupt administration was a determining factor for bashing the president then it stands to reason the perception of the recovery is his to gloat.
Thus the president’s approval rating has spiked to a modest, but hardly egregious, 47 percent. To contrast, George W. Bush, whose pathetic two-terms are unfairly compared to this president, left office with an amazingly sad 22 percent.
OK, so where does this leave our 114th Congress, already cranking out bills to get the Keystone Pipeline going (57 percent approved by American public), hits on the existing Dodd-Frank law, and a legislative response to Obama’s controversial executive action on immigration laws?
Unlike, say, the 1994 Republican Revolution led by Newt Gingrich, which assisted in making Bill Clinton’s late-90s’ economy by far the best war-free run ever, this is not a stable crew. First off, House Speaker John Boehner is mostly despised by his base and his trust factor with the president is nil, as is Obama’s record to deal with political adversity, (he sucks at it), while consequently Clinton thrived better under pressure than when things went fairly smoothly.
The good news for all of us is that this congress shows no signs of spending or even recognizing the final two years of this presidency, and most of the executive orders Obama has promised will do little to shift economic trends. The question, which now must be asked (some 22 months out) is who will take the White House in 2016 and what effect that might have in shifting power in the senate back to the Democrats, or if by then, as was the case with the swing from last summer to now, the numbers begin to lag on the perception of both parties.
On City Cisco Island, Aunt Suzy saw funny men.
That sentence is a mnemonic that Mr. Jaeger taught us. The first letter of each word stands for a molecule in the Krebs citric acid cycle, the pathway that converts food to energy. The O in “On” stands for Oxaloacetate; the C in “City” is Citrate; the next C is cis-Aconitate — all the way to “men” and Malate, which circles back to Oxaloacetate.
Why do we need to know? Mr. Jaeger taught us that, too. Actually, he taught it twice. Once was in class, Advanced Biology, where I was one of a couple dozen Union (N.J.) High School seniors. The second time was before dawn. It was cold and dark out, but we made it to school, Mr. Jaeger drove in from Staten Island, where he lived, and for an hour before homeroom, every morning from winter to spring, he did everything humanly possible to prep us for the Advanced Placement test in biology.
He did it year after year, decade after decade, for one generation of students after another. And he didn’t just teach biology. He modeled what it means to love your work, what passion for truth looks like, what dedication can accomplish. When we graduated, he wrote in each of our yearbooks: “Excelsior — never be content with mediocrity.” And “Scientia est potentia.” Knowledge is power. And he signed it, Irwin Norman Jaeger.
Mr. Jaeger died last week at 81. I was fortunate to have had other fine teachers in high school, and I had some awesome professors in college and graduate school, too, but Mr. Jaeger was the life-changer, the best teacher I ever had, and from the tributes to him I’m reading on Facebook, it’s clear I’m not the only one who feels that way. I wouldn’t have had the education I had after him if he hadn’t coached me to apply to the best colleges in the country and patiently told me, a higher education greenhorn, which ones they were.
He was the first teacher to show me the frontiers of knowledge. I didn’t know it at the time, but when I was in the eighth grade, J.D. Watson and Francis Crick won the Nobel Prize for figuring out the structure of DNA, which they (and Rosalind Franklin, who had died and so was ineligible) had unraveled only nine years before. The genetic code, the mechanism of heredity, the molecular basis of life: most of modern biology is a consequence of their discovery. When Mr. Jaeger taught us about DNA’s double helix, it was the biggest, most mind-blowing news I’d ever heard, and I couldn’t wait to tell everyone I knew. And when Mr. Jaeger pointed out that J.D. Watson was an actual living person on the Harvard faculty, I knew exactly where I wanted to go to college and what I wanted to do there. Ten months later, I was working in Watson’s lab.
It then took me three years to go from being what I thought was Mr. Jaeger’s biggest success story to being what I was sure was his biggest failure.
Like almost everyone else in his Advanced Bio class, I got a 5 on the AP test; combined with decent showings in AP physics and math, I took advantage of Harvard’s offer to skip my freshman year and plunge right into molecular biology. It was an amazing era for the field, and I was lucky to be assigned as a tutee to a post-doc in the Watson group whose research was so productive that it spun off other projects, one of which I was invited to grab on to as my own. In the summer, I worked at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory of Quantitative Biology, which Watson ran, and my senior thesis — “Transcription Specificity Conferred by the RNA Polymerase Sigma Factor” — clinched a summa cum laude degree. But by then, there was one thing I was sure of: I had to get off the path Mr. Jaeger had opened to me.
Until I faced up to that, I loved visiting Mr. Jaeger when I went home for holidays. His face lit up when I told him about goings-on in the lab. The pride he took in me made me soar; I was thrilled to have something to show for what he’d given me, and to express my gratitude to him. So in my senior year, when I realized that I was never going to be a molecular biologist, cure cancer or win the Nobel, what scared me even more than my cluelessness about what path to take instead of science was telling Mr. Jaeger.
Even today, I barely understand what made me want to leave the lab. Part of it must have been the times. I hadn’t paid much attention to politics when my eyes were on the Prize, but the war in Vietnam, the war on campus, the collapsing legitimacy of values and institutions: I finally couldn’t ignore the revolution going on, and I felt compelled to be at the barricades. (Okay, there was the sex, drugs and rock and roll part, too.) But what most threw me off course was realizing that I was a kid committing myself to one particular life before I knew much of life at all. It was a glorious accident that I had Mr. Jaeger, that my huge public high school was where he spent his career. What if my favorite teacher had taught U.S. History or English? Would it have made any more sense to take a vow at 20 to a career in government or literary criticism? I didn’t have a better idea than molecular biology, but I also didn’t want to wake up in a cold sweat at 30 or 40, stranded, and think I’d made a terrible mistake because I’d decided too soon.
I needn’t have feared Mr. Jaeger’s reaction. He was as supportive of my confusion as he’d been of my commitment. What I didn’t understand then was that he’d already had plenty of students who’d changed direction, and what I’ve only realized this past week, reading what people have been saying about him on Facebook, is how many students he inspired to lead successful, meaningful careers not only in all the sciences and medicine but also anywhere where knowledge truly is power and mediocrity is always unacceptable.
Maybe not everyone had a Mr. Jaeger to open their minds to wonders they never knew existed, and to find gifts in their head, stamina in their gut and hopes in their heart they didn’t know they had. But if you were lucky enough to have at least one teacher like that, I hope you were able to tell him or her how grateful you are before it turned out to be too late.
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This is my column from the Jewish Journal, where you can reach me at martyk@jewishjournal.com.
There’s help! High five! … Shoot, sorry.
According to the “Center For People With Things For Hands,” one in 10 million people is born with things for hands every year. People with things for hands have previously had nowhere to turn for help. And sometimes they couldn’t turn at all, because their hands were knives or scissors or something sharp, and if they turned too quick, they might hurt someone.
But now, thanks to comedy web series “Things For Hands,” people with things for hands are getting the attention they deserve. So whether your hands are spatulas, teddy bears, or boxes of Eggo waffles, finally there’s help.
Yeah, put ‘er there! … Ah, again, sorry.
People must really despise me. Yesterday I went to my P.O. Box and opened 144 envelopes and gasped to find them graced with gobs of glamorous, glinting Glitter. If this was heaven, it sure glistened. In fact, there were enough sparkles for me to make these centerpieces for a big bash I recently threw. 
With enemies like this, who needs friends?
Now if only the rest of the hateful population (the ones I’ve rubbed the wrong way) would send me some sequins, some swatches of velvet and a few glue sticks — I’ll be able to make some “thank you for coming” party favors as well.
If you’re feeling a bit lost right about now-you haven’t paid enough attention to the big news lately. This past week, a man started a company where (for $9.99) he will ship glitter to your worst enemies and… well you can just read about it here. But please return to this post and see what I’m planning to send people in the mail.
Yes, messy craft supplies may put some of us in our place, but I’m going back to the old fashioned art of actually sending letters through the mail. Imagine that! Because…
The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword
Therefore here are the letters I plan to write and send:
To My Publisher:
“Thank you for submitting your recent rejection letter regarding my novel. However, I am returning it to you for revisions. It’s just not what I’m looking for at this time. It contains cliches, lacks originality and is entirely unsuitable for framing. Therefore I reject your rejection letter. Best of luck in your future writing endeavors. “
To My Creepy, Inappropriate Male Gynecologist:
“In light of your conduct during my recent Pap Smear Leer, I’ve spoken with your wife so she can schedule your upcoming “Lap Spear.” You are long overdue.”
To My Female Tenant:
“You are not only behind on your rent but it seems you rent your behind! Check today’s Craig’s list. ‘Your’ ad is prominently displayed. Butt don’t be too bummed out about that even though it appears you’ve hit bottom — I’m sending you some ‘good luck glitter’ to sprinkle on that newly backed venture of yours. You’ll surely be bedASSled.”
To My Child’s 4th Grade Teacher:
“Do you remember the parent conference we had long ago, during which you stated my son would never amount to anything because a) getting him to do assignments was like pulling teeth and b) he was a smart mouth? Well, to show we have no hurt feelings fillings, please visit him at his new dental practice. You know the drill.”
To the Beautician Who Insisted I Dye My Hair:
“Check the back of your car. You have a new bumper sticker. “Gray is the new Brunette!” You’re welcome!”
To the Department of Motor Vehicles:
“It’s very flattering you read my blogs, but I politely decline the license plate you “randomly” issued me… ‘PMS 247.’ Also because I no longer do dishes, you might appreciate my new license on my Mazda now.” 
And to my friends that I haven’t caught up with in the new year yet:
I apologize. But let’s trade Glitter for Twitter! Follow me @MissMenopause
and I will follow you. To the glitter err, the bitter end!
There is a lot of “yoga” happening in the world today that has very little to do with what yoga really is. Several myths about this ancient practice have long been masquerading as facts. It is time we demystify yoga.
Myth 1: Yoga comes from Hinduism
Just because the law of gravity was propounded by Isaac Newton, who lived in a Christian culture, does it make gravity Christian?
The yogic sciences have been labeled Hindu only because this technology grew and prospered in this culture, so naturally it has been associated with the Hindu way of life. Yoga is a technology. Anyone who is willing to make use of it can make use of it. If you have any interest in your inner wellbeing, the technology of yoga is a must.
Myth 2: Why be a human when you can be a pretzel? Yoga is all about impossible postures.
When we utter the word “yoga,” most people on the planet only think of asanas (yoga postures). The science of yoga explores just about every aspect of life, but today’s world has chosen to represent yoga with only the physical aspect. In the yogic system, there is very little significance given to physical postures.
Yoga means that which allows you to attain to your higher nature. The yogic system is a subtle manipulation of your system. Every mudra (hand gesture to direct prana through the body), karma or kriya, the very way of breathing, every asana is focused towards this.
If hatha yoga is taught in a proper atmosphere, it is a fantastic process of shaping your system into a fantastic vessel, a fabulous device to receive the Divine.
Myth 3: Find your groove. Yoga and music go well.
There should never be music or a mirror when you practice asanas. Hatha yoga demands a certain involvement of your body, mind, energy and the innermost core. If you want the involvement of that which is the source of creation within you, your body, mind and energy must be absolutely involved. You should approach it with a certain reverence and focus.
One of the biggest problems in yoga studios is that the teacher is doing asanas and speaking. This is a sure way to cause damage to yourself! You never, ever speak in postures. The breath, mental focus and stability of energy are most important when you are in an asana. If you speak, you will destroy all of that.
A lot of people who have done improper yoga have lost their mental balance. This is not because yoga is dangerous, but if you do something stupid, it will cause damage to you.
Myth 4: Need a yoga study guide? You can learn yoga from a book.
Today, if you enter any major bookstore, you will find a minimum of 15 to 20 different yoga books. How to learn yoga in seven days, how to become a yogi in 21 days... Many people have caused immense damage to themselves by learning yoga through books. Yoga seems to be very simple, but there is a very subtle aspect to it. It has to be done with perfect understanding and proper guidance. Without this, one can get into deep trouble. A book can inspire you, but it is not meant to teach a practice.
Myth 5: Yoga is something you practice every morning and evening
Yoga is not something that you just do morning and evening. Yoga is a certain way of being. One must become yoga. If you are doing yoga in the morning and evening, but the rest of the time you are emotionally entangled with life, this is not yoga. This is only yoga practice.
There is no aspect of life that is excluded from the yogic process. If your life becomes yoga, then you can do everything. You can conduct your family or your business. You can use every aspect of life either to entangle yourself or liberate yourself. If you are using it to entangle yourself, we call it “karma.” If you are using it to liberate yourself, we call it “yoga.”
—
Isha Hatha Yoga School delivers classical Hatha Yoga in its full depth and dimension. It is Sadhguru’s vision to offer this ancient science in all its purity and make it available to every individual. In this program, Hatha Yoga will be taught as a living experience in the most beautiful ashram setting of the Isha Yoga Center, India under the grace of a living master. Upon completion of the program, trainees will have the privilege and fulfillment of bringing this knowledge to many more people.
To learn more about Sadhguru, visit Sadhguru.org
The German version of the advisory boutique proposal for major banks was first published in April 2013.
It may sound strange to some to imagine an independent advisory boutique company within a large bank. However, precisely in this proposal lies a future business model for major banks.
The new Advisory Boutique division within a major bank
The boutique approach presented here combines the advantages and attractiveness of an independent advisory boutique. The boutique benefits from the organization, strength, influence and reach of a major bank.
The new advisory boutique unit combines asset management boutiques and consulting boutiques under one roof. It creates a new division next to private banking and possible investment banking within a major bank.
There will be a clear difference of services between the asset management and consulting boutiques.
The task of the asset management boutiques is the management of assets. The task of the consulting boutiques is advising clients regarding the selection of the most suitable asset management boutiques or other service providers.
The Advisory Boutique ensures top-quality service
Boutiques enjoy a huge popularity among high net worth clients and family offices since this client segment always wants and demands the best services in the form of performance and client focus.
In order for boutiques to ensure continuous top-quality service, they allow their team of experts to participate in the fruits of their success. By the same token, the team must have ‘skin in the game’ by co-investing with their clients. In other words, they must align their own interests with those of their clients.
Naturally, what is considered the best service can be interpreted in various ways. For most clients, though, best service is management’s ability to achieve long-term, stable out-performance (alpha, the so-called risk-adjusted “excess return”) with respect to a benchmark and most competitors.
The Advisory Boutique helps retain top talent and reduce brain drain
As an obvious precondition for providing out-performance for clients, boutique teams are composed of experts with strong performance records, experience, and drive to generate positive alpha for their clients.
However, a big challenge for big banks or institutions lies exactly here. Managers and experts with increasing qualifications and expertise are often promoted to perform other management tasks or leave the bank to join or establish their own advisory boutique.
For most talented individuals who want to leave a large institution to be part of a boutique structure, the appeal lies in the high degree of independence and freedom of boutiques. Also, not of less importance, is to escape the internal politics of large institutions.
Banks benefit to set-up an advisory boutique environment
Boutique entrepreneurs benefit to be part of a large bank
The international “too big to fail” debate will continue to drive the trend further towards this boutique proposal.
It has long been recognized that the multi-boutiques (several units under one roof) approach is enjoying a growing popularity with large fund companies and clients.
The proposed approach is not yet implemented by most major banks, although, it has an enormous potential to rejuvenate their old business model to a more entrepreneurial business model.
The management of a major bank will say that it already offers customers specialists and funds that do exactly what the Advisory Division Boutique promises.
However, that is not so; the performance, the services, and the dependencies are as different as the business model of a major bank is different from an advisory boutique.
In order to implement this within a large bank, it needs structural changes, and it is those changes that will contribute to an innovative culture that will renew the existing business model and prepare the bank for the future.
Like any strategy, the advisory boutique also bears risks; however, well-defined structures and processes can reduce them significantly.
A parallel strategy within a bank also means the diversification and reduction of risks.
The boutiques are very popular among the ultra-rich and family offices. This fact should cause big banks that see the greatest growth potential in this client segment to listen up.
The unthinkable has to be made possible.
“Courage is the beginning of action, but Fortune is the arbiter of the goal”
Democritus (460-370 BC)
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.
