Feb 28
The Pacif-i can monitor your child’s health, keep track of your
tot’s location and can also help you find it if your precious little decides to stash it away in a secret location.
Feb 28
Japanese automakers have been shoving all sorts of devices into vehicles, especially kei cars, for years now. We’ve seen many a wacky concept come out of design studios, and a surprising number of them have actually made it into production. Well, Nissan may have just taken it to a whole ‘nother level with their new “Ultimate Smart BBQ Vehicle.”
Feb 28
(Refiled for wider distribution)
CARACAS, Feb 28 (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Saturday his government had captured American citizens involved in “espionage activities,” and said U.S. citizens in the future will have to seek visas to come to the OPEC nation.
Speaking during a rally, he said his government will prohibit some U.S. officials from entering Venezuela in retaliation for a similar measure by the government of President Barack Obama against a group of Venezuelan public officials.
“We have captured some U.S. citizens in undercover activities, espionage, trying to win over people in towns along the Venezuelan coast,” he said, adding a U.S. citizen of Latin descent was captured in the convulsed border city of Tachira.
A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Caracas said he was unable to comment, citing a lack of any official diplomatic communication with the Venezuelan government.
The head of a Venezuelan evangelical organization on Friday said a group of four missionaries had been called in for questioning after participating in a medical assistance campaign in the coastal town of Ocumare de la Costa.
That pastor, Abdy Pereira, on Saturday said in a telephone interview that the four had left the country for Aruba after having been questioned for several days about alleged involvement in espionage. Pereira said the group had been coming to Venezuela 14 years and denied they were involved in espionage.
The United States and Venezuela have had tense diplomatic relations for more than a decade. Maduro recently accused Washington of helping stage a coup, a charge dismissed by the White House as ludicrous. (Reporting by Diego Ore, writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Bernard Orr)
Feb 28
The Leadership Paradox
Posted in: Today's ChiliPeter Drucker, who many consider the father of modern management, once said, “We know almost nothing about management, that is why we write so many books on the subject.” The same might be said for leadership. There are more than fifty thousand titles available and hundreds more being published almost every month. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually on countless workshops and courses to train leaders. The question is, with all of these writings, workshops and investments in leadership development why are there apparently so few leaders at the same moment the demand for leadership is increasing?
A cursory review of organizational and management theory and consulting industry offerings over the last 50 years will reveal a series of ideas, models and approaches for attempting to bring about changes in the ways people work: organizational culture, new ways of measuring performance, various systems for controlling people and processes, creating new ‘paradigms’, reducing costs, improving quality, reengineering, coaching and of course leadership. Most recently, the distinction ‘transformational’ leadership has become vogue along with various other ‘transformational’ approaches to change. There is a growing recognition of the need for breakthroughs, new ‘mindsets’ and the ever-popular call to ‘think outside of the box’.
It is easy to become cynical and relegate all of these conversations to being the ‘flavor of the month’ and explain them away as futile attempts to change human behavior or institutional ‘reality’. We might justify them as worth trying even if, in most cases, the investment falls short of the intended outcomes. The Wall Street Journal reported a number of years ago that in spite of billions of dollars invested, an estimated 70% of ‘reengineering’ projects fell short of expectations when implementing new designs, primarily because of ‘human and cultural’ resistance to change and/or a lack of leadership.
I have a radically different view. I believe and can make the case for most of these efforts having succeeded to one degree or another, and even those which failed having contributed to our understanding of what doesn’t work and more importantly beginning to show us the underlying paradigm that inherently blinds us to possibility and often thwarts change. True transformation occurs only when are able to create a new paradigm that includes but is not limited by the old. Doing so begins by calling into question the conventional wisdom we hold about leadership and challenging our existing assumptions about ‘causality’ in general and the source of leadership in particular.
In my experience a large part of the problem is that most of the books and models are attempting to describe or explain leadership and what leaders do after the fact. This would be analogous to attempting to understand coaching by looking at the score board. Very few academics and consultants have focused their inquiry on what was present before history and circumstance acknowledged a leader or created the ‘story’ of how an individual leader achieved success. Even though many leadership models will offer a list of qualities such as courage, charisma or perseverance as keys to being a leader they fail to show pathways for developing those qualities, which leaves the prevailing belief that at the end of the day, leaders are born differently than the rest of us or in one way or another are special or ‘gifted’.
I suggest we need to step back and consider leadership as a phenomenon, and ask what we mean when we use the term. For example, it is almost impossible to imagine a leader as a solitary entity — there are always others to follow. If this is so, then perhaps leadership is more of a social phenomena than the product of an individual’s vision or some set of competencies. Perhaps leadership is a product of relationship and shared commitments and concerns — the group calls forth its leader. Perhaps leadership is inherently paradoxical in that it is inclusive of both the individual and the group or team or community. If this is so, then leadership is a context, a powerful opening for innovation and something new to emerge. From this perspective, leadership isn’t about process, or technique, or some set of skills beyond the capacity to be authentic and committed to a possibility larger than oneself. Leadership from this perspective is about BEING a leader while surrendering to the power and possibility of those we lead.
Feb 28
While orbiting around Earth on the International Space Station, American astronaut Terry Virts took a minute to pay fitting tribute to Leonard Nimoy, who died on Friday at 83. The late actor’s home state of Massachusetts can be seen just to the right of Virts’ Vulcan salute.
— Terry W. Virts (@AstroTerry) February 28, 2015
Nimoy, of course, will forever be known as Mr. Spock from the original “Star Trek” series. On Friday, NASA acknowledged how influential that show had been for generations of astronauts:
RIP Leonard Nimoy. So many of us at NASA were inspired by Star Trek. Boldly go… http://t.co/qpeH5BTzQc pic.twitter.com/nMmFMKYv1L
— NASA (@NASA) February 27, 2015
Feb 28
How deep is the hole the oil industry is currently stuck inside? To figure that out, you only need to look as far back as last week, which saw another two trainloads full of oil derail and storage numbers that put U.S. crude stocks at record highs
Every new pipeline leak or train derailment puts the environmental risk of moving ever greater amounts of oil into even sharper relief. At the same time, storage tanks that are bursting at the seams say everything you need to know about the troubled economic returns currently plaguing the energy business.
Despite a falling rig count, U.S. oil production is now running at more than 9 million barrels a day, its highest level since the early 1970s. In Canada, where companies are also slashing spending plans, total output this year is still slated to increase by hundreds of thousands of barrels a day.
Not long ago, hearing about those types of production gains would be music to the ears of investors. Today, the tune is decidedly more bearish. Increased crude production from shale plays and Alberta’s oil sands is only compounding the problems of an already glutted world oil market.
By most estimates, producers are pumping around 2 million barrels a day more than is needed to meet global demand. According to a recent analysis by Bloomberg, more oil is now being held in U.S. storage tanks than at any point during the last eighty years. The refusal of high cost marginal suppliers to put the brakes on production growth, let alone actually shut-in any output, suggests that oil prices, already cut in half since last year, could have even further to fall.
The dismal outlook for North American producers is once again being reflected in the price differential between benchmark U.S. crude and world oil prices. The spread between West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude, which was narrowing, is now beginning to open back up. The gap is particularly challenging for Canada’s oil sands producers, who can charge even less for every barrel of hard-to-refine bitumen
The more output that oil sands producers manage to churn out these days, the less their bitumen is worth. It’s clearly not a business model the market finds too attractive. The cool reception to a $1.5 billion share offering just announced by Cenovus is hardly bullish for the prospects of future financings. The way falling commodity prices are putting a hurt on balance sheets that’s grim news for the other companies that will surely need to tap the public markets before this current downturn shows any signs of turning around.
Further production growth also means more hundred-car tanker trains will be rolling through suburban neighbourhoods across the continent. With each one comes a growing risk of derailment, as well as the accompanying explosions like those that happened last week in northern Ontario and West Virginia.
Among the more disturbing aspects of those accidents is the involvement of new-and-improved tanker cars that are scheduled to replace the aging DOT-111 models. While Ottawa has just announced new regulations to make rail operators more accountable for spills by raising minimum insurance levels and requiring the bulking up of a compensation fund, such initiatives still won’t do anything to prevent more derailments from occurring. Indeed, rail shipments of crude, which have already quadrupled in Canada in the last few years, are expected to more than triple to 700,000 barrels a day by the end of 2016.
Instead of loading more surplus oil onto rail cars to be hauled to already over-stuffed storage tanks, both investors and communities across North America would be better off seeing the industry cut back on production. For companies that have already sunk a lot of money into drilling programs, however, cutting production will put their cash flow position into an ugly place. Although they may realize that less production would be good for everyone in the long run, getting out of their own way is proving tough to do. For the industry as a whole that will only serve to draw out the time before prices start to firm up. For the rest of us it means more oil trains will continue to roll through our back yards.
Feb 28
Gary Johnson At CPAC: ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Posted in: Today's ChiliNATIONAL HARBOR, MARYLAND — Typically, when a politician meets a reporter for an interview, decorum dictates that said politician offer up a bland pleasantry to break the ice. “Thanks for spending time with us!” or “Try to keep up!” are standard.
When I meet former New Mexico governor and 2012 Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), he takes a different tack.
“So you drew the short straw? Some reporter always does.”
Johnson is a friendly, kinetic presence, but he isn’t exactly the brightest star in the political universe right now, a fact he’ll readily concede and even point out. Like much of the Libertarian Party, he finds himself in a precarious position heading into 2016. On the one hand, his laissez-faire platform has never been more popular, with the public increasingly skeptical about developments like the war on drugs, the militarization of America’s police departments and an increasingly intrusive regime of government surveillance.
On the other hand, his policy agenda is being partially appropriated by both of America’s dominant political parties, and the popularity and likely presidential campaign of libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) has only served to further diminish the Libertarians’ standing.
I encounter Johnson as he’s manning the booth of his advocacy organization, Our America Initiative, talking with supporters and catching knowing glances from passers-by. Where most prominent politicians would never deign to be seen very long in the deepest, most zoo-like bowels of CPAC, Johnson is happily holding court. Indeed, it feels at times that Johnson is no more a sideshow than The Weekly Standard’s photo booth or the gentleman nearby dressed as Captain America.
When an aide tries to interject some optimism by pointing out that Johnson finished third place in CPAC’s 2011 straw poll of presidential candidates, Johnson, who governed New Mexico from 1995 to 2003 and turned 61 this year, offers a characteristic retort.
“Yeah, you can see where that got me.”
Despite his less-than-hopeful outlook on his own political standing, Johnson remains cautiously optimistic about the effects of Paul’s success.
“If Rand Paul wins the nomination, that’d be terrific,” he tells me. “If he were to prevail he’d be the best Republican nominee in a long time.” His enthusiasm for the GOP field, however, ends at Paul. “Based on the current crop, I’d vote for the Libertarian candidate,” he says.
But Johnson still sees a lot of daylight between him and Paul on issues like marriage equality, reproductive rights, drug reform, foreign policy and immigration reform, and makes no attempt to hide it.
“He’s a social conservative and I’m not,” Johnson says. “I think he’s towing a fine line on the whole military intervention thing” — a reference to Paul’s efforts to soften his image as an isolationist.
“I call it punting. His dad [former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas)] punted, too. They punt on drug policy, they punt on marriage equality.”
That said, Johnson, who says he is still hasn’t decided whether to seek the Libertarian Party’s nomination in 2016, is somewhat agnostic about the daunting prospect of another nationwide campaign. He hates it. I mean, he really hates it.
“When I ran in 2012, 90 percent of what I did ended up being wasted time. I must have spent three months on Internet radio talking to people who I envision were guys in their mid-40s and the only people listening were their parents in the room upstairs.”
He adds that not all Internet radio hosts live in their parents’ basement, before continuing, “I’m a horrible fundraiser and I must have spent months on the phone talking to people. I like talking to people but I never get around to raising any money. I just can’t ask for money. It’s not in my marrow.”
“You can’t meet everybody,” he says. “You can’t stand somewhere for hours on end because it’s just draining.”
But it’s not all that bad. Events like CPAC offer Johnson the opportunity to mingle with a largely receptive audience. Even supporters of other candidates come and pay Johnson respect — seeking a sort of absolution from the current high priest of libertarianism. A woman wearing a Ted Cruz sticker asks Johnson about his views on disability policy. She tells him about her condition, which causes her to experience seizures regularly.
“Are you doing CBD?” he asks. “It’s marijuana based.”
One man wearing a Rand Paul sticker approaches and urges Johnson to get in the race to keep things competitive. A group of college-aged men profess their admiration. “You were such an inspiration to me!” says one. Another man, in a cowboy hat and a shirt that reads “COPS SAY LEGALIZE POT ASK ME WHY” is an old acquaintance who briefly catches up with Johnson.
“For me right now, this does not suck,” Johnson says. “So this go around, if I end up doing it, it’s not going to suck!”
“Although I might discover new kinds of suck,” he adds with a laugh. “But I won’t relive the old kinds of suck.”
One of the biggest obstacles Johnson sees is being admitted to the presidential debates — he was excluded from most of the GOP primary debates in 2012 before he switched to run as a Libertarian, and even then was excluded from the general election debates. In his view, a feedback loop emerges when pollsters and debate organizers exclude third-party candidates, thereby diminishing their stature with the electorate.
Although being in the debates would have its pitfalls, too.
“Even if I were to appear in the presidential debates, holy shit! Can you imagine the anxiety of appearing in a presidential debate?”
But far from being bummed about his semi-obscure place in the political zeitgeist — or his .9 percent showing in the 2012 presidential election — Johnson couldn’t be enjoying life more. That’s not surprising, as his life is almost certainly better than yours or mine.
He engages himself in a number of different passion projects. In addition to the Our America Initiative, he’s the CEO of Cannabis Sativa, a $100 million market cap marijuana company (ticker symbol HI — get it?), which he insists on numerous occasions will “survive 100 years from now.” The Coca-Cola of weed, if you will.
But easily the most envy-inducing parts of Johnson’s existence are his outdoor hobbies, which he pursues with great relish from his home in Taos, New Mexico. He recently ascended the “Seven Summits” — the highest points on each continent — when he climbed Mount Vinson in Antarctica. More recently, he competed in a race on Al’s Run, a notoriously treacherous slope in Taos Ski Valley, finishing third behind a 31- and 21-year-old.
But mostly, as the governor puts it, he just “skis and hangs out.”
And while most serious politicians would spend the rest of their lives chasing after more favorable election results, Johnson’s joie de vivre helps him have the perspective to be content with the fact that 1 million people wanted him to be the most powerful person in the world.
“There’s no itch,” Johnson says flat-out when asked if he ever misses elected office. “I don’t feel an itch.”
“It’s the right thing to do [running for president]. If anyone else were doing this, I’d be back home. I love my life.”
Later, during a debate over drug legalization between Johnson and former Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle, Johnson fakes a heart attack and falls over on the stage to illustrate his opinion of Buerkle’s anti-drug arguments.
“You know, I think the governor has had great fun with his humor,” Buerkle, now a commissioner on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, says. “It’s not funny. It is something that we as Americans have to pay attention to.”
Johnson is having great fun, which begs the question: Why on earth would he want to be president?
Feb 28
After lots of perseverance from smartphone makers, wireless charging is finally starting to make an impact. Many big name phones now support the technology and companies like Starbucks are helping to bring it a wider audience. Now, it’s set to receiv…
Feb 28
As we age, our bodies start to fail us in different ways. For instance, our eyesight does get a little bit more dim, our hearing starts to be a wee bit harder as we fail to comprehend what others are saying, while we begin to ache and experience sore joints in all sorts of different places. Not only that, our memory also starts to go, which is not a good thing at all. It is nice to know, then, that there are various aids out there which will be able to help us out in our golden years, and the $129.95 Large View Telephones happens to be one of them.
The Large View Telephones will be different from the lesser telephones out there that have hard-to-read caller ID displays, where these will instead come with a large display and an audible feature that is capable of even announcing the names of each caller. There is also a built-in equalizer that will enable you to adjust the phone’s HD audio in order to best suit your hearing, while flashing LEDs will deliver a visual alert to users for incoming calls and new voice messages. The oversized buttons are also backlit, and a generously sized LCD display with numbers 1 1/2 times larger than standard telephones clearly shows the name and number of incoming calls (base and handset). Both base and telephone will boast of a 50-number memory, and just in case there is a power failure, the base will retain emergency and speed dialing functions, at the same time allow incoming and outgoing calls.
[ Large View Telephones ensure you do not make a mistake copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
Feb 28
You’d think quantum computers exist in heavily-guarded labs, with many men in white suits manning control stations filled with unfathomable screens and charts. Actually, they exist in a small cupboard in England’s West Country.
Who's in charge here?
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.