Gogoro made an impact at CES this year, with their electric scooter concept taking shape. But what is Gogoro? Is it a simple plug-in scooter you’ll be able to slip around the neighborhood in, or is it more? Attempting to set a precedent for what’s next for scooters, Gogoro follows the lad of auto manufacturers like Tesla, who are aiming … Continue reading
CES 2015 brought us two pretty cool things in webOS for LG TVs and Sling TV. Sling TV is a cord cutter’s dream come true. Rather than having to sign up for a cable subscription, Sling TV users can sign up for packages of TV content that streams to them via the Internet. If you’re taking a hard look at … Continue reading
Daniel Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney who failed to convince a grand jury to bring charges against the police officer who killed Eric Garner, said on Sunday that he felt bad for the jurors who had to make the decision and urged respect for Garner’s family in his upcoming congressional race.
In his first interview after earning the backing of the Staten Island GOP, Donovan said the grand jury’s decision should be respected.
“No one likes to serve on juries, but they upheld their civic duty and they sat for nine weeks, and they’re the only people that heard all the evidence, and they’re the only people that deliberated,” he said in an interview on John Catsimatidis’ radio show, according to the New York Daily News. “I think we should respect their decision. You may not agree with it, but you ought to respect it.”
Donovan announced Friday that he was running for the seat vacated by Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.). Grimm, who was re-elected to his seat in November, announced that he would resign last month after pleading guilty to tax fraud.
Donovan said in the radio interview that he isn’t sure if his opponents will attack him over the way he handled the case, but said they should be respectful of Garner’s family. He called Garner’s family his “first priority.”
“I would hope that they would respect the fact that there was a man who died, and a mother who lost her son, and there’s a wife who lost her husband, and some children who lost their dad,” he said.
Police officer Daniel Pantaleo killed Garner in July by placing him in a chokehold and wrestling him to the ground. A bystander captured the unarmed Garner saying, “I can’t breathe,” as he was wrestled to the ground, but a grand jury decided not to bring charges against Pantaleo last month. The decision sparked a wave of protests across the country.
After the grand jury decision, Garner’s widow, Esaw, said ”there was no sincerity from day one” from Donovan or the Staten Island police.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) recently told The Huffington Post that Donovan’s handling of the case should be raised as an issue in his campaign.
“I certainly think that his entire public record, including what happened and did not happen in the context of the grand jury investigation into Eric Garner’s death, is something that should be heavily scrutinized,” he said.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has yet to call a special election for Grimm’s seat, and it’s not clear which Democrat will challenge Donovan.
When it comes to intellectual property like the Transformers series, it is nigh impossible to run out of ideas to make a brand new story arc, or perhaps to come up with a new comic book plot. Having said that, some Transformers like Soundwave failed to make the cut in the Transformers movie a fair number of years back, but this does not mean that such Transformers are any lesser than those featured on the silver screen. Enter the $54.99 Shockwave 8″ Transformers Vinyl Figure.
As its name suggests, this is a stylized Shockwave that has been made out of vinyl, and boy does it look cute like all get out. It will come with a translucent hand and energy blaster, and will boast of 8 points of articulation (shoulders, hands, head, waist, and legs) so that you will have a great time posing him in a variety of stances, presumably to keep away unwanted people from your desk at work. Being a new breed known as Action Vinyls, this can be said to be the perfect combination of art and action figure. Best of all is, it will boast of interchangeable parts with other Action Vinyl figures, and is an officially-licensed Transformers collectible.
[ Shockwave 8″ Transformers Vinyl Figure oozes with cuteness copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Microsoft introduced Windows 10 back in September 2014, and though we won’t be seeing it arrive until the end of this year, the company has dropped some details about it. Never one to be content, the Internet has fished around and procured its own details, usually in the form of rumors and speculation, and that trend holds true now that … Continue reading
Having a clock or a timepiece is one thing, but being able to have that very timepiece complement the rest of your home’s decoration is another. It will require a mind of art that not too many people possess, and if you would want something that can spruce up your home, then might we suggest the $56 Hourglass Desk Clock. The name of this particular timepiece gives the game away, where it will merge both modern style alongside traditional utility. Definitely one of the more unique desk clock designs that we have come across so far, and we do have our fair share of special candidates which we have seen in the past.
As a result, you end up with an entirely new twist on the classic hourglass. Your eyes will not miss the hours as well as minutes that are displayed clearly on this particularly unique plastic and metal clock. At the bottom would see the hours being shown off, while minutes and seconds will be displayed on top. As for the red line, it will point out the current hour (bottom) and minute (top). It will work even in the event of a zombie apocalypse, since it will not run on AC power, but rather, would “survive” on a sole AA battery.
[ Hourglass Desk Clock tells the time in style copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Friday’s jobs report was generally pretty good news. The jobless rate dropped to a six-year low of 5.6 percent. And the December hiring data capped off the best year for the job market in 15 years.
But unfortunately, it’s still nowhere near where it needs to be.
According to recent analysis from the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. economy is missing about 5.6 million jobs. That’s the number of additional jobs there would be if the economy regained all jobs lost in the recession and the job market kept pace with the natural increase in job seekers.
“Each year, the population keeps growing, and along with it, the number of people who could be working,” Elise Gould, a senior economist at EPI, wrote in a blog post. “To get back to the same labor market we had before the recession, we need to not only make up the jobs we lost, but gain enough jobs to account for this growth.”
The chart below illustrates where we are today (the red line) versus where we should be (the dark blue line).
As the chart above shows, we are still years away from a fully recovered job market.
If the economy continues to expand at a rate of 353,000 jobs per month — that’s the number of jobs added in November 2014, which was the best month for job growth last year — the job market will be fully recovered in August 2016, as the purple line shows.
If the job market improves at the same rate it did last year, adding an average of 246,000 jobs per month, the labor market won’t be fully recovered until August 2017, as the light blue line shows.
Of course, even if the economy gets to full employment, that still doesn’t account for weak wage growth. In December, average hourly wages fell 5 cents.
Sitting at a desk for eight hours is rough on your body. Our posture can’t be perfect for that long, we don’t get up to stretch enough, and we spend most of the day craning our necks and putting our wrists at harsh angles trying to get comfortable. Even if you are lucky enough to move your work from place to place, there’s still a good chance you’re not going to sit the way you should.
Standing desks are becoming more and more popular, but they’re rather stationary. You can’t just pick up your whole setup and carry it with you. Unless of course, you have the Zest Desk. This is portable, adjustable, and can turn any table into a standing desk. Made of a high-quality aluminum, this can take everything from a laptop to a mega-monitor and more. The top shelf can hold up to 24 pounds, while the bottom table can support 44 in total.
Of course, you will have to deal with carrying around a 12 pound desk with you at all times, but it does come with a carrying case. However, supporting that much weight if you move around frequently may provide different aches and pains. This is a $386 purchase that will hop up closer to $663 when the pre-ordering phase has run out. It seems as though your specific situation will weigh greatly on whether or not this is a solid option for you.
Available for pre-order on zestdesk
[ The Zest Desk changes the way you work, wherever you are copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
With CES winding down, the SlashGear crew now has some time to take a step back and consider what just happened. We learned a lot, saw a lot, and walked away mostly excited for the future. The Internet of Things is still alive and well, but there’s another topic we’d like to discuss today: wearables. the darling of CES 2014 … Continue reading
The decision of Taiwan’s Ma administration to release former President Chen Shui Bian brought joy and relief to many of Mr. Chen’s followers. But joy quickly turned to grief when the public learned the release was for 30 days only. After that time, health officials will determine whether Chen’s health has improved enough for him to return to prison. In other words, if Mr. Chen starts seriously making progress, he will be returned to prison, so that he can be ill again. Is it a joke or a continuing vengeance?
This 30-day limit on medical parole has never been applied before; it was tailor made for Mr. Chen only. Can he survive a return trip to prison or will he be willing to surrender himself without an attempt on his own life? Will his 85 years old mother survive a second loss of her son?
This kind of release is not a humanitarian gesture but an embarrassment. The Ma administration should hope the outside world pays no attention to it. Sending a prisoner home to recover from prison induced illnesses is contradictory at best. A patient on the mend needs time, space and care to recover fully; one who knows that getting healthy means a return to jail does not have that care. One is condemned for getting better. Doctors treating him may also fear they will be condemning him to death by curing him as well.
Is this the wisdom of President Ma? Is it his justice department? If it is the latter, Ma should fire them. If this is President Ma himself, then he needs to recover himself from his self inflicted mental wound. If people in Taiwan allow this to happen, the joke is on Taiwan.
Mr. Chen’s medical recovery will take time. His decline is the result of six years of brutality in prison. The first four years were filled with flash visits to hospitals at 4:00 in the morning; a perpetually burning bright light in his cell so a surveillance camera could monitor his every move; time out of his cell was limited to 30 minutes at most; his cell mate and Mr. Chen had to sleep on the floor, unable to stretch fully, among the defense files stacking up to waist high; and little attention to Mr. Chen’s quickly declining health issues. Now he is being told he gets 30 days to get better only to land back to jail. I have written that the pursuit of Mr. Chen has been vengeance. It is cruel and unusual treatment for sure, and this kind of nonsense proves it once more.
Whether in life or death, all presidents, unless they committed treason, remain symbols of their nation. It is the respect not only to the person but also to the presidency. The responsibility of the presidency provides the person with unique perspective, experience, and wisdom, which a country should treasure. Mr. Chen, the former President of Taiwan, was severely hurt and nearly killed in inhuman imprisonment conditions. This blot on the history of Taiwan is barely cleansed with his release, but do we want even more shame by a second attempt on his life? Will the people in Taiwan have the wisdom, if their vengeful government has none, to treasure their national symbol?
Mr. Chen has served six hard years in jail. An American governor of Virginia, Bob McDonnell, just got sentenced to two years for corruption. If and when Mr. McDonnell goes to jail, the jail system won’t be designed to kill him or to inflict serious mental and physical wounds to him. It will be a minimal security prison and in truth will be an easy stay with lots of benefits to the prisoner. Compare this to Taiwan. Many of the corruption charges against Mr. Chen have been tossed. More may or may not be thrown out, but the original charges that many Taiwanese once believed are no longer defensible. Thus, given the time served and that the controversial charges against Mr. Chen might still be thrown out, is it not time to simply release the man? My advice is this: leave him alone to live as he sees fit in a democracy that has respect for medical recovery as well as legal propriety.
Doctors know that incontinence and shaking of hands, as well as mental trauma, are not corrected quickly, if ever. Do not Mr. Ma and his advisers know this? Surely they do. It seems that Ma’s government does not give a damn that the man is ill and needs time to recover fully.
People in Taiwan must rally to this broken man. During the two-hour ride home, Mr. Chen revealed to his son that he had endured six years of darkness for the sunshine to be with his mother, his wife, his children and grandchildren as a free man. People in Taiwan must keep this light of hope shining by dispersing the dark cloud of a 30-day limit imposed by the KMT/Ma government of vengeance.
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.
