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Why Is The McFlurry Machine Always Broken?
As Florida representative calls for banning AR-15 rifles, others in his party look toward more moderate concessions In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, as American high school students stage walkouts to protest lawmakers’ lack of action on gun control, some Republicans are beginning to offer concessions. But most are still resisting the major demand from young advocates: a renewed ban on assault weapons. On Friday, Donald Trump repeated his preferred responses to Parkland: new emphasis on background checks and arming teachers to create “offensive capability” in schools. But Brian Mast, a Republican representing a closely contested swing district in Florida, broke with his party, announcing in a newspaper column that he believed AR-15 rifles and other military style weapons should be banned. Mast, an army veteran who lost both legs in Afghanistan and was awarded the Purple Heart, cited his military experience. “My rifle in the army was very similar to the AR-15-style semiautomatic weapon used to kill at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,” Mast wrote. “I cannot support the primary weapon I used to defend our people being used to kill children I swore to defend.” Seventeen people were killed in Parkland. Mast, who said he regularly carried a concealed handgun, wrote in the New York Times that the availability of tactical rifles made it less likely he would be able to defend himself or others with his handgun. His congressional district is one Democrats hope to flip in the November midterms. Outside money has been pouring into the race from donors to both parties, a sign of the district’s importance to the larger fight for the House of Representatives, the Treasure Coast Palm reported. Mast wrote that he did not support confiscating weapons Americans had already purchased but would support a ban on future purchases of certain weapons. More discussion was needed to determine how to define “assault weapon”, he wrote, and what firearms besides guns modeled on the AR-15 should be banned. The 1994 federal assault weapon ban, which expired in 2004, defined a list of banned guns according to certain military-style features, a choice gun rights advocates have long criticized as too focused on cosmetics. The way “assault weapon” was defined under the law allowed manufacturers to make small tweaks to existing weapons and continue to sell them. A justice department-funded evaluation of the ban concluded there was no clear evidence it had contributed to an overall reduction in violence, and suggested that the impact of a renewed ban would be “small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement”. Rifles of any kind are used in only about 3.6% of all gun murders, according to the best available data from the FBI. Handguns are used in the majority of gun murders in the US. But as military-style guns have become the weapon of choice for mass shootings, public outrage has created a new push to renew the ban. Many Republicans appear to be hoping that more moderate compromises may be enough. For a party that has blocked any substantive gun control legislation since the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting, in which 20 young children and six adults were killed, the support of any gun control measures at all marks a significant shift. The Florida governor, Rick Scott, a gun rights advocate, said on Friday he would endorse raising the legal age to buy a rifle to 21. The Florida gunman, who was 19, was able to legally buy a military style rifle before he could buy a beer. Earlier in the week, a National Rifle Association spokeswoman told the Hill the group did not support raising the legal age to buy a rifle. Scott also endorsed a law creating gun violence restraining orders, which would give families and law enforcement officials a way to petition a court to temporarily block an unstable person from buying or owning guns. That is a policy with strong support from both researchers and gun violence prevention groups. Scott also said Florida needed to tighten domestic violence gun laws and ban bump stocks. Scott’s limited concessions mirrored the compromises the Florida senator Marco Rubio offered in a televised town hall with Parkland shooting survivors on Wednesday night. Rubio also said he would consider supporting a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines, which experts call the most functionally important part of the 1994 ban. Parents and student survivors of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school made it clear they wanted a full assault weapon ban, a demand that received repeated cheers and standing ovations on Wednesday. Source: http://allofbeer.com/republicans-eye-compromise-on-guns-but-most-resist-assault-weapons-ban/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/25/republicans-eye-compromise-on-guns-but-most-resist-assault-weapons-ban/
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Regularly drinking above the UK alcohol guidelines can take years off your life, according to a major report. The study of 600,000 drinkers estimated that having 10 to 15 alcoholic drinks every week could shorten a person’s life by between one and two years. And they warned that people who drink more than 18 drinks a week could lose four to five years of their lives. The 2016 UK guidelines recommend no more than 14 units a week, which is six pints of beer or seven glasses of wine. Authors of the Lancet study said their findings backed up the new guidelines and also said they did not find an increased risk of death for light drinkers.
Scientists, who compared the health and drinking habits of alcohol drinkers in 19 countries, modelled how much life a person could expect to lose if they drank the same way for the rest of their lives from the age of 40. They found people who drank the equivalent of about five to 10 drinks a week could shorten their lives by up to six months. The study’s authors also found drinking increased the risk of cardiovascular illness, with every 12.5 units of alcohol people drank above the guidelines raising the risk of:
Drinking alcohol was linked with a reduced risk of non-fatal heart disease, but scientists said this benefit was wiped out by a higher risk of other forms of the illness. Previous studies have suggested that drinking red wine can be good for our hearts, although some scientists have suggested these benefits may be overhyped. Another Danish study found drinking three to four times a week was linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. “This study makes clear that on balance there are no health benefits from drinking alcohol, which is usually the case when things sound too good to be true,” said Tim Chico, professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Sheffield, who was not involved in the research. “Although non-fatal heart attacks are less likely in people who drink, this benefit is swamped by the increased risk of other forms of heart disease including fatal heart attacks and stroke.” Recommended limits in Italy, Portugal, and Spain are almost 50% higher than the UK guidelines, and in the USA the upper limit for men is nearly double this. But Victoria Taylor, senior dietician at the British Heart Foundation, which partly funded the study, said this did not mean the UK “should rest on its laurels”. “Many people in the UK regularly drink over what’s recommended” she said. “We should always remember that alcohol guidelines should act as a limit, not a target, and try to drink well below this threshold.” Dr Angela Wood, from the University of Cambridge, lead author of the study, said: “The key message of this research is that, if you already drink alcohol, drinking less may help you live longer and lower your risk of several cardiovascular conditions.” Related TopicsSource: http://allofbeer.com/excess-drinkers-can-lose-years-of-life/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/excess-drinkers-can-lose-years-of-life/ Ever had a weird, dumb question pop into your head for no reason? You know there’s an answer out there somewhere, but it’s not so important that you have to drop what you’re doing and research it right goddamn now. Well, I’m one of those weirdos who has to have these questions answered right goddamn now, or they will gnaw at my brain until it catches on fire from eat-friction. Unfortunately, I get those all the time. Fortunately, I can at least weave them into my career and educate the world in a way they never asked for in the process. For example … 5Why Is The McFlurry Machine Always Broken? A little over half of my attempts to get a McFlurry have been denied. If the McDonald’s employee had squeezed my love handles and made pig sounds, then this wouldn’t be such a mystery. But instead they give an explanation that perfectly tows the line between useless and substantive, forcing me to give up and screech away from the drive-thru in a huff. They say the McFlurry machine is “down.” The damn thing breaks more often than a former child actor with a heroin addiction. I guess McFlurry machines are planks of balsa wood barely held together by the faint hope of being able to actually dispense a McFlurry one day. They’re piles of substandard materials and glue and dreams. Turns out McFlurry machines aren’t so much poorly built hunks of shit as they are filthy, disgusting vats of bacteria which require daily cleanings so vigorous and time-consuming that it probably isn’t even worth keeping them on the menu. We should’ve known that coming into this, though. Of course the machine that distributes the tastiest things in the world would be literal swamps. Every day, the machines have to go through a four-hour heat-cleaning cycle that’s broken down into 11 parts. The process involves, among many other steps, “combining a sanitizing mix with warm water, removing and rinsing seven parts, brushing clean two fixed parts for 60 seconds and wiping down the machine with a sanitized towel.” When your entire business is based around “We get you your food before you’re even done saying your order,” this is definitely a McFlurry wrench in the Value Meal gears. They have to strip the entire machine down to its atoms, scrub each nucleus with a fine sasquatch-hair brush, then jigsaw puzzle that shit back together like a soldier reassembling a rifle to rebuild a device nearly as deadly. The cleaning process is usually triggered during off-peak hours, or whenever the drive-thru employee sees me pull in. But none of this is to say that McFlurry machines aren’t poorly built hunks of shit, because they are. One McDonald’s franchise consultant conducted a study which showed that there’s a 25 percent chance that if a McDonald’s isn’t serving ice cream or ice-cream-related menu items, it’s because the machines just stopped working like they’re also getting paid minimum wage. There is some good news: McDonald’s has heard the complaints, and they’re finally going to replace the old, busted-ass McFlurry machines with ones that don’t come with self-destruct buttons. 4Can Insects Get Fat? I’ve seen mosquitoes get fat off my blood and then had it turn into a crime scene when my delicious juices exploded everywhere with a smack. I can see their asses get plump with every gulp. But that’s not the mosquito technically getting “fat” — it’s the equivalent of having a distended belly after a big meal. But are there flies out there having trouble dragging their saggy bug tits and double chins around after munching on discarded pastries? Are there ants feeling shame as they look at their expanding thorax in the mirror after eating a dropped French fry? Where are the fat insects? Can they even get fat? Depends on the insect. Diamondback moth caterpillars can alter their metabolism over generations to adjust to high-carb diets, turning their bodies into fat-burning furnaces. If a dragonfly is infected with a certain type of parasite, it’ll start storing more fat around the muscles they use to fly. Struggling to fly means they can’t defend themselves using their deadly “bumping enemies with their eyes” attack. Researchers also found that fat male dragonflies have less dragonfly sex, just in case you were super-duper curious about that. And I was wrong, mosquitoes can get fat. They suck blood when they need protein to produce eggs. They normally eat plant nectar. One scientist / bored suburban nine-year-old hand-fed mosquitoes ’til half their dry weight was made up of fat. And then he made them dance. The weight gain on some insects is hidden by their tough chitin exoskeletons. The fatter they get, the more their insides squeeze up against their own outsides. Imagine you get so fat that your pants don’t fit anymore, but you can’t take them off. You’re forever stuck feeling like the Hulk’s ten-foot-around thighs squeezed into Bruce Banners’ size-32 jeans. 3Do The Blind Need Ad Blockers? At first, you’d think that blind people wouldn’t use ad blockers, because they don’t see the ads in the first place. But it turns out they have the exact opposite problem. If you saw the rough drafts of my columns, you could tell which ones I’ve run through text-to-speech software by counting the lack of egregious grammatical errors. Hearing my writing out loud lets me catch those errors, because if I just try to proofread them, I become word-blind. Sometimes I’ll copy the text off the preview page set up to look exactly like the text on the page you’re reading now, ads and all. I’ll inelegantly CRTL+A the whole thing and have the software read all the whales and seals that get caught in the fishing net of my highlight. So in the middle of my own writing, I’ll hear about “17 Actors You Didn’t Know Were Loaves of Wheat Bread — #8 Will Get A Rise Out of You” or “She Had No Idea Why Men Kept Cheering Her On (Her Vagina Was Out).” What isn’t that big a deal for me must be a nightmare for the blind. Text-to-speech programs are one of the tools blind people use to peruse the internet. But what happens when there’s an ad? Does the program indiscriminately read everything, ads included? Can it distinguish between an ad and article text? Nope. They read everything. Here’s a video of a vision-impaired woman demoing a screen reader program called JAWS: Not everyone with a vision impairment likes the reader’s voice to be speaking in tongues while dancing with venomous snakes. But even at normal speeds, reading The New York Times can be a pain in the ass: Auto-playing videos are also a problem. You try listing to one voice at Formula One speeds and have a loud video cut in without shitting your pants. Sighted people can ignore the text of an ad, to the point where it might as well not even be there at all. But the visually impaired have to sit through it all, even random web trash like “Sign Up / Log in” and “Join Our Mailing List.” So it makes sense that the guy who created AdBlock has blind people thanking him for making their internet surfing experience less cacophonous. 2Why Are Donut Boxes In Movies Always Pink? I’m always disappointed that I haven’t eaten donuts out of a bright pink box like in every movie and show that I’ve ever seen a box of donuts in. I just assumed the box was a generic Hollywood prop that was used all the time, like those fake newspapers or bottles of Heisler Beer, the favorite beer of every TV character. Some stingy producer who blew the last of his production expenses on a tall nonfat latte with a caramel drizzle enema didn’t want to pay Dunkin’ Donuts the licensing fee to show their logo on an empty box of donuts. He used a pink box once, it did its job of portraying the role of a tough-as-nails but big-hearted donut box, and every producer in history followed suit. GaryAlvis/iStock Pink donut boxes are a regional trend in Southern California, the birth canal from which most movies and shows slide, and they wouldn’t exist if not for the Khmer Rouge, the regime responsible for orchestrating the Cambodian genocide in the mid-1970s. Oh. Oh my. I thought it was just going to be a “They showed up once in Godfather Part II and people just liked how they looked” kind of thing. That is … umm … oh my. When the Khmer Rouge was exterminating everyone in sight, Cambodians hauled ass out of there. Many made Los Angeles their new home, where they opened donut shops, of all things. One of them was named Ted Ngoy. He was an immigrant, an astoundingly good businessman, and a gambling addict who lost a bunch of his donut stores in bad bets. And holy shit, did he own a lot of donut shops. He had shops all over Los Angeles County, each staffed with fellow Cambodian immigrants. Before Ted, donuts in LA came in standard white, no-frills boxes. When he decided to save some money without getting skimping on ingredients, he asked his supplier, Westco, if they had cheaper boxes. They had a bunch of cheap pink card stock lying around that could perfectly house a dozen donuts. Word of how cheap the bright pink boxes were quickly spread from one Cambodian-owned donut shop to another throughout LA, and then into Texas and Arizona. So whenever a film production needed their characters to be from New York but they’re filming in LA, to hold a box of donuts, Prop Masters would hand actors the bright pink boxes Ted popularized, not realizing New Yorkers don’t eat donuts from pink boxes. They have to wrestle them away from big rats off of taxi cab floors, because everything’s tougher in New Yaw’k. 1How Do Movies And Shows Get Newborn Babies For Delivery Scenes? There’s a very specific shriveled and red newborn baby look. Wailing infant chic, if you will. When a woman in a movie gives birth and the kid doesn’t look like a dried chili, you know it’s a one-month-old unconvincingly playing a one-second-old. But how does getting a newborn on screen even happen? What parents are going directly from the hospital to set? “I know that we just had this thing, like, 30 minutes ago, but could someone make it a star real quick?” Putting newborns in entertainment is surreal. The baby has to be no younger than 15 days old to be in a movie. That’s when doctors say babies have developed enough to not be floppy lumps of flesh that can fall apart at any second. If that authentic newborn look is absolutely required, they’ll use twins or triplets, which aren’t just useful because child labor laws in Californian only allow a baby onset for four hours and to only work for 20 minutes at a time. Twins and triplets are often born premature, which keeps them looking like newborns even after the 15-day barrier. Filming with premature babies is illegal in California, but it’s cool in 18 other states. Parents, I know you’ve just experienced the trauma of wondering if your babes will survive their stint in incubators, but if by the grace of God they survive, they can be movie stars before their fontanelles fully harden. Ka-ching. That’s the sound of your preemie payday. In the movie Knocked Up, they wanted to film a real woman giving birth to a real baby during the delivery scene, but legally couldn’t for the best reason for anything I’ve ever heard: Since the baby would be in the process of being born at the time of filming, it wouldn’t be a member of the Screen Actors Guild. People can’t get their SAG cards in utero. Not to mention it violates the “must be at least 15 days old” rule. And then there’s the matter of all that vaginal slime newborns are coated in during birthing scenes, which I’m sure has a more delicate, technical name, but “vaginal slime” is more colorful, so I’m going with that. I imagined it would be a special goop whipped up by visual effects masters in a fit of creative inspiration, like chefs in a kitchen going with the flow to create an exemplary new dish. It’s not. Vaginal slime is sometimes a combination of grape jelly and cream cheese. Instead of going to makeup, they hand the baby over to the craft services people so that they can prepare the baby like a bagel. Luis is hard at work getting his preemie casting agency off the ground. In the meantime, you can find him on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. Love Cracked? Want exclusive content? Prefer an ad-free experience? We’ve got you covered. Sign up for our Subscription Service for all that and more. For more, check out 5 Helpful Answers To Society’s Most Uncomfortable Questions and 5 Stupid Questions You Won’t Believe Scientists Answered. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, and find out why we’re lost in a sea of confusion in 6 Easy Questions (That Science Has A Hard Time Answering), and watch other videos you won’t see on the site! Also follow our new Pictofacts Facebook page. Because why not? Source: http://allofbeer.com/5-weird-questions-with-surprisingly-interesting-answers/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/5-weird-questions-with-surprisingly-interesting-answers/ Israeli PM appears in court in defamation case over claims his wife expelled him from official motorcade during furious argument Israels prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has appeared in court to deny a claim that his wife, Sara, expelled him from an official motorcade during a furious argument in 2015, endangering his security arrangements. The claims and counterclaims emerged during a high-profile defamation case that has brought together two of Israels longest-running political soap operas the battle between the countrys prime minister and its media, and claims about his wifes allegedly volatile behaviour. The libel case, in which the couple are claiming $76,000 (66,500) in damages, concerns a gossipy Facebook post by Igal Sarna, a prominent journalist at the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper. The post purported to describe a row between the Netanyahus that allegedly took place in a night-time motorcade of four cars between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The Netanyahus deny the events described occurred. The case, and the Netanyahus appearance in court, comes as the prime minister is embroiled in several police investigations that have led to a slew of allegations being published in the Israeli media, including reports of gifts such as champagne, jewellery and cigars the couple are said to have received from wealthy benefactors. Netanyahu, who strongly denies any wrongdoing, insists the investigations will all come to nothing, because there is nothing. Meanwhile, he has taken to launching broadsides against the journalists behind some of the stories. Sarnas Facebook post appears small beer in comparison with some of the recent allegations against Netanyahu, but the couple have forged ahead with the case, accusing their long-time critic of a disgusting, cynical, low, mean-spirited attack intended to embarrass them publicly by means of ugly and false reports. Sarna told the court he had made the allegations in good faith based on several sources, adding that the incident bore features similar or identical to known episodes in the Netanyahus family life. Taking the stand on Tuesday, Netanyahu insisted the fight was fiction that never occurred and never could have happened. The hearing, which had been postponed several times at Netanyahus request, dramatised the bad blood between Netanyahu and many Israeli journalists. Referring to that theme in her evidence on Tuesday, Sara Netanyahu accused the media of fighting a 20-year crusade against her husband through her. To her knowledge, she had never in those years argued with her husband in an official car in the presence of a security detail, she said. Taking aim at Sarna in particular, she accused him of being inhuman in his treatment of her family. Sarna conceded in court that there were aspects of the story of which he was not entirely sure. I hadnt known whether Sara threw Bibi out of car, he told the court to laughter, using Netanyahus nickname. Or if he left of his own accord. Asked why he had posted on Facebook rather than offering the story to his paper, Sarna said it was because he believed it was small. For his part, the prime minister accused Sarna of throwing a biblical size flood of lies at me. Anyone who knows anything about convoy security knows that something like [the fight described] could not happen, Netanyahu told the court. In response, Sarnas lawyer accused the Netanyahus of suing not because the details in the Facebook post were false, but because they had been stung by a series of critical columns by the journalist. Netanyahu replied that they had sued over the post because this was super false. Asked whether he followed Sarnas Facebook posts, Netanyahu shot back: Its hard to follow so much crazy, surreal slander. I have other business to attend to. I cant even dedicate a moment of my time to this deluge. Sarnas claims appear to have touched a particular nerve in the Netanyahus, not least Sara, who has been buffeted by allegations of her behaviour in the prime ministers official residence. Last year a former housekeeper was awarded damages after a court found she had abused him and subjected him to irrational demands. Summing up the verdict in that case the judge ruled: The court had before it many testimonies indicating that the conditions of employment in the residence were harmful due to the behaviour of Mrs Netanyahu and her attitude to the employees. Those included exaggerated demands, insults, humiliation and outbursts of anger. The case continues. Source: http://allofbeer.com/netanyahu-hits-out-at-libellous-report-his-wife-threw-him-out-of-car/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/netanyahu-hits-out-at-libellous-report-his-wife-threw-him-out-of-car/ Foreign correspondents know how to get under the skin of a country. But where do they go when they want to get away from it all? Here, well-travelled journalists reveal their ultimate holiday escapes Afua Hirsch on São Tomé e Principe, AfricaAt first I felt critical of the many Africans I spoke to who had never heard of São Tomé e Principe. It is after all an African country, albeit one of the smallest (population 194,000) and remotest an archipelago of tiny islands nestled in the watery armpit of west and central Africa, deep in the Atlantic, with Gabon to the east and Nigeria to the north. Then I realised how difficult it was to get there. Back then, in 2002, there was one flight a week from Gabon, and one from Lisbon which ferried the children of Portuguese aristocrats to secretive resorts in pristine bays at the foot of volcanos carpeted in the countrys endless virgin rainforest. I had graduated from university just months before and in my shiny new NGO job chose São Tomé as the location for an international conference I was organising. But getting hundreds of dignitaries there meant chartering planes, training hotel staff and even having new phone cables laid. I arrived exhausted. My VIP guests were in a strop, not because the plane Id chartered looked ripe for the scrap heap, but because it had no business class seats. I was not in the mood to fall in love. But I did. Id never seen volcanoes so alive with forest or the Atlantic such a seductive, sleepy blue. Ive never felt so close to a history I thought much older no African language is spoken in São Tomé, but, rather a creole version of Portuguese. The inhabitants are all descended from slaves, Portuguese outcasts and Jewish children dumped on the islands hundreds of years ago. People lived in the ruins of decayed colonial palaces as if the plantation had collapsed the day before. It felt separated at birth from another part of the world the Caribbean or South America with its palatial palms and crumbling façades, ridgeback mountains and Portuguese towns. But its Africa all right. Billions of barrels of oil have achieved what natural beauty and human charm never did and placed it firmly on the map. The oil workers have been streaming in since São Tomé and I had our first encounter: I hope people seeking Africas greatest beauty will, too. Fly to São Tomé e Principe from London via Lisbon with TAP Portugal from £457 (flytap.com). Stay at Omali Lodge, doubles from £106 (omalilodge.com) Lyse Doucet on New Brunswick, CanadaIve heard it time and time again. New Brunswick? Oh, I drove through it to get to Nova Scotia. Acadians? Hmm Cajuns? Oh Cajun cooking Music Louisiana! But New Brunswick in eastern Canada is much more than a place to drive through. And its northeastern coast will not just delight but enlighten you about a people who survived a British colonial expulsion from here in 1755 and returned to establish a vibrant culture and proud sense of self. The Acadians are the descendants of the French who colonised the region from the 17th century, and if you visit on 15 August, Acadian national day, youll be loudly reminded of that by the tintamarre. At 17.55, on the dot, people dance in the streets, beating pans and blowing horns, to make as much noise as possible to let the world know theyre still here. A dark day in imperial history, when thousands were forced to flee south including to Louisiana, where the term Acadian became Cajun is now a vibrant celebration of survival. A drive along the winding shore takes you through a picturesque landscape of simple cottages hugging the coastline and rambling farmhouses set back on rolling green fields (except in the freezing depths of winter, when all is snowy white). Lobster traps and the Acadian flag are ubiquitous a tricolour to honour French ancestry, with a bright yellow star, representing the Stella Maris, the star of the sea, that guides sailors in storms. To know even more about this charming corner on the sea, visit the Acadian village, a functioning replica of life through the late 18th to the mid-20th centuries. Inside the original wooden houses of the first Acadian families they are carrying on with daily chores, but are never too busy to warmly welcome visitors. History comes alive in the evening at the elegant LHôtel Château Albert, where you can tuck into an old- fashioned meal while being entertained by a trio of traditional fiddlers. On my last visit there, a female fiddler recounted how she had to practise in secret as a young girl. Fiddling was only for men then. And do drop by the Doucet farm in the historical village, where you may find them baking bread. Fly to Moncton from London via Toronto or Montreal with Air Canada from £532 (aircanada.com). Stay at LHôtel Château Albert, doubles from £70 (villagehistoriqueacadien.com) Ed Vulliamy on Sfântu Gheorghe, RomaniaThe Sfântu Gheorghe arm of the Danube Delta is gratifyingly hard to reach: by ferry from the river port of Mahmudia, which departs between two and five hours late, laden with essential goods that folk in Sfântu Gheorghe on the Black Sea shore cannot buy in their village shop. The boat navigates bends in Europes mightiest river, past oxbow lakes and through newly dug channels. A small crowd makes its way through the mud to the jetty with donkeys to collect the shopping. There are two cars in Sfântu Gheorghe: one belongs to the policeman, the other to the government environmental officer. During my first visit in 1995, they had crashed and were being repaired. I frequent Sfântu Gheorghe thanks to an ornithologist friend from Bucharest. His metier along with caviar from local sturgeon is the ostensible reason to be there: a wonder of eagles, egrets, vultures, cranes, ibises, cormorants and pelicans. Fishermen weigh their wares on iron scales in a market that has not changed for centuries. They say that when the sea howls it means a life lost in revenge for mans abuse of the oceans. Sure enough, last time it howled, the bodies of a father and son washed ashore. One day the ornithologist took me out on the river in his little boat. And there it was: the howl, a heart-stopping scream, and the river heaved. The ornithologists jovial face was suddenly terrified and intense as he gripped the outboard motor to carve a way through the current and driving rain. After 50 minutes of thinking that any of them could be my last, we made it to the bank. On the night they return, the fishermen gather, after a brief visit home, at the only bar in town: a window cut into a brickwork house. Outside which they sit to drink vodka that comes in bottles the size of a standard beer thats the unit per round, and I confess its tough going. In keeping with the vulgarisation and invasion by tourism of anything authentic in Romania (as everywhere else), there is now a Green Village Resort in Sfântu Gheorghe: some people on TripAdvisor seem to have had horrendous experiences there, which can only be a good thing. On one final night in Sfântu Gheorghe, the ornithologist and I were supposed to have gone to bed early, to catch the dawn boat back to Mahmudia, but the captain was dancing on the table, drinking vodka, so there didnt seem to be much hurry. When the ferry did leave, I was as ever sad to leave with it, into the quickening eastern sky and the brave dawn of newly capitalist, tourist-friendly Romania. Fly to Bucharest from London with Ryanair from £22.99 (ryanair.com). Mahmudia port is roughly four hours drive, then take the ferry to Sfântu Gheorghe. Stay at the Green Village, doubles from £40 (greenvillage.ro) Kate Connolly on Hiddensee, GermanyAs a hideaway it could hardly be better named. The island of Hiddensee sits on Germanys north-eastern tip and is one of the countrys sunniest, windiest locations. Despite being just under 11 miles long and, at its broadest point, only two miles wide, even in the height of summer it is surprisingly easy to find a spot in the dunes or in its expansive heathland to escape the daytrippers who arrive en masse from neighbouring Rügen. While to English ears at least its name sounds like a clever reference to its remoteness, it is in fact a nod to the legendary Norwegian king, Hedin, who is believed to have fought here. Whether for a love interest or for gold, opinions are divided, but in any case Hedins Oe or Hedins Island as it was named while under Danish rule has more or less stuck. In the 1920s the Baltic island was a magnet for intellects and artists. The families of writers Thomas and Heinrich Mann, Günter Grass (whose wife was a Hiddenseer), sculptor Käthe Kollwitz and the Freuds were among the regulars, as was Danish film star Asta Nielsen, who had a playful circular holiday home, the karusel. The Freud connection endures to this day thanks to Esther Freuds 2003 novel The Sea House, which recalls the holidays her great-grandfather Sigmund and his family enjoyed on the island before they and many Hiddensee residents were banned by the Nazis. The family found some sort of solace in the village of Walberswick on the Suffolk coast which, with its grassy sand dunes, large skies and a home they called Hidden House, reminded them of the beloved Baltic island they were forced to forsake. Ive been coming here regularly for more than a decade, and it has never lost its appeal as an ideal place for escape. It is car-free, with no golf courses and, at around six hours by train and ferry from Berlin, close enough for a long weekend. Aside from swimming, walking and biking, there are three bookshops, a theatre, some pubs and a tent cinema. Otherwise theres little more to do than ask locals to teach you how to fish for pieces of amber after a storm, or literally milk the bright-orange buckthorn berries for their vitamin C-rich juice. It continues to be a draw for writers and artists, too. Lutz Seilers 2014 novel Kruso, which won the German Book Prize (out in English this year), is set in Hiddensee during the heady days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its a poetic tribute to the island as well as offering an insight into life here during the East German dictatorship for those wanting to flee to the west (Denmark is hardly more than an energetic swim away) as well as those who simply sought internal exile amid the wind and the waves from the every day strains of the GDR. Hiddensee has never lost its appeal as an ideal place for escape. Fly to Berlin from London with EasyJet from £29.49 (easyjet.com). Regular trains are 44 from Berlin (bahn.com) to Stralsund, from there take a ferry to Hiddensee (reederei-hiddensee.de). Stay at Hotel Godewind, doubles from £92 (hotelgodewind.de) Peter Beaumont on Hosh Jasmin, West BankThe hills just beyond the outskirts of the Palestinian town of Beit Jala Bethlehems other half, though never say that to a native are a special place. Ancient limestone terraces descend towards Battir and the cool valley of Wadi Refaim, with its fig trees and gazelles. Small apricot orchards hem in the old stone farms that dot the slopes. Just outside the town is where you find Hosh Jasmin, an organic farm and restaurant opened in 2012 by filmmaker, sculptor and restaurateur Mazen Saadeh. Fifteen minutes drive from the western edge of Jerusalem, Hosh Jasmin is both circumscribed by and defies Israels continuing occupation of the West Bank. Located in Area C, under Israeli security and administrative control, it is reached for us at least through the Walajah checkpoint, passing the Israeli settlement of Har Gilo. The Israeli separation wall is visible from Hosh Jasmin in the distance, a snaking line of grey concrete. Despite the reminders, it is a place to escape for a while from the continuing violence and tensions, popular with Palestinians from the neighbouring town, Jerusalemites and internationals. Visiting on a blue moon last year, a group of musicians had been assembled. The waiters, encouraging us to stay, suggested if everyone was drunk enough a midnight walk would be initiated. Named for the Syrian-style hosh compounds, tables are set on rough-hewn wooden platforms under the trees, areas designed for sprawling on cushions, although there is a small indoor area for when it rains and a fire pit for the winter chill of the Jerusalem hills. Elsewhere there are hammocks and swing seats. Below is Saadehs farm, including olives that Hosh Jasmin presses for oil, fruit trees, hives and rabbit runs and the restaurants arak distillery. Its location is a double-edged sword. The lack of building permits for Palestinians in Area C has preserved the areas rustic feel, and it also means that the accommodation Saadeh provides for those who stay beyond when the fire burns down is a treehouse and several tents. This Christmas those of us in the press corps celebrated lunch outdoors with turkey and Palestinian starters and Taybeh, the Palestinian beer. On other days the food is dictated by the seasons, although there are no actual menus. Specialities include rabbit zarb, a tagine-like dish cooked in an underground oven, Palestinian dumplings and chicken musakhan with flatbread in its rich sauce of onions and sumac served on a flat bread. For me, the best time is the late afternoon and evening, watching the hills bruise purple into night as the fire starts. Then, Hosh Jasmin is a place to forget for a while at least all of the areas troubles. Fly to Tel Aviv from London with British Airways from £304 return (ba.com). Eat and camp at Hosh Jasmin organic farm (facebook.com/HoshJas; +972(0)599 868 914), which can be reached from Jerusalem by taxi or hire car (europcar.co.uk). You will need your passport to cross the Walajah checkpoint Emma Graham-Harrison on the Jalori Pass, IndiaThe sound of cymbals, drums and song followed us the whole morning, across hillsides of wild iris and through deodar forests, the musicians hidden and the music sometimes thinning to silence but always returning again when mountain paths brought us and the mysterious band back within earshot. We met them at last outside a tea shack on the Jalori Pass, more than 3,000m high, villagers escorting a goddess swathed in gold and scarlet to the Dussehra festival in Kullu town, two days walk away. She would be jostled and photographed there by thousands of tourists, but we met her almost alone, our paths crossing at just the right moment. It seemed like serendipity but our guide, Prem Singh Bodh, had known more or less when the group would arrive, after decades hiking trails in this corner of north India. Friends got to know him while living in Delhi, and had invited me to join them on a 10-day trip to an area that is little visited by tourists, but full of life and natural beauty. We met pilgrims at ruined hilltop forts that have become windswept temples. Kids raced up to one campsite from the nearest village and convinced us to lose a game of cricket on an impossible slope. Their teacher was a postgraduate with a taste for Victorian literature Thackeray, Kipling, Dickens who grew up the other side of a nearby peak. We asked why he turned down the chance of a more lucrative city life after graduating. I missed these mountains, he said simply. Between those meetings, we had the forests, fields and temples to ourselves for hours at a time. We slept in tents on high meadows beside a woodland lake and spent a couple of nights in spartan but charming lodges built for colonial administrators more than a century ago. We were camping, but it felt luxurious, with air mattresses, ponies to carry gear so we travelled with just a small day pack, and even a cook. A few bars of coverage would occasionally appear on the phones of people trying to keep in touch with home. But most of us were happy to be out of contact and suspended in time. It was often surprising, always beautiful and entirely special, and because we arranged the trip directly with Bodhs company, Zingaro, it was a relatively affordable £50 per person per day including tents and lodges, food and guides. We spent nothing else because there was nothing we needed and nothing to buy. Zingaro also arranges trips to higher altitude areas, for those seeking an even more remote getaway. Fly to Dharamsala (aka Kangra or Gaggal) from London via Delhi with Air India from £495 (airindia.in). Zingaro treks can organise treks across northern India (zingarotreks.com). Ask Zingaro for advice, but they will usually meet you with a 4×4 or minibus at the edge of the mountains Matilda Temperley on Kaokoland, NamibiaFive hundred miles north-east of Windhoek, the dusty town of Opuwo is nestled into the edge of Kaokolands arid hills. The local inhabitants are bare-breasted, clad in goatskin and covered in ochre. These are the Himba. They live alongside Herero women wearing dresses reminiscent of 19th-century German colonialists with hats shaped to resemble cow horns. Unusual characters arrive in this small trading hub to replenish their supplies at the areas only garage and supermarket before disappearing back into the surrounding desert. Opuwo is the entrance to the remarkable Kaokoland that lies to the east. This is an area so empty and vast you can drive for days without seeing another soul. I picked up a local guide in Opuwo and set off in the 4×4 (complete with camping gear and roof tents) I had rented in Windhoek. Within an hour, a sandy riverbed stalled our progress and throughout the day the roads became ever more dubious. It doesnt take long until you are obliged to stop being precious about your vehicle and surrender to the inevitable punctures, scrapes and scratches and the hundreds of kilometres of unknown terrain that stretch before you. As you drive, red rocks give way to white deserts, plains become mountains and colours evolve with the day. After two days of driving, we came across the first sign of human habitation and were surprised to see a rusty petrol drum on a rocky outcrop with signs advertising cold drinks and fuel. It turned out the attendant Himba women had nothing to sell and were rather hoping we could give them some food. It was undoubtedly the oddest petrol station Ive ever seen. The occasional villages we then passed were welcoming, perhaps because the Himbas ancestral land rights and autonomy are well recognised and the increasing cultural tourism in the area is largely on their terms. When I visited last February, the villages were mainly populated with women and children as the men were with the herds looking for pasture. The villages were full of laughter, most of which was at my expense. The fact that I was childless at 33 never failed to cause mirth. In the first village I camped in, I was given a live chicken that they insisted I leave with. At the next village, I was made to dance out stories. There was something magical in being innocently teased in this matriarchal society. Kaokoland stretches for many hundreds of kilometres from the Hoanib river north to the Kunene river, which is the border with Angola, and one of the least-populated places on earth. In Kaokoland, you cannot fail to marvel at your insignificance. Kaokoland stole my heart on my first foray and I have been looking for an excuse to return ever since. Fly to Windhoek from London with South African Airways from £615 (flysaa.com). Car rentals from Camping Car Hire (camping-carhire.com). A 4×4 with full camping equipment is available from £45 a day Helena Smith on Koufonisia, GreeceGreece has always been about the light. The shadows lie in its luminosity. For years I have tried to swim into the sun, a days fading rays made sweeter still by waters brush. The quest for light can take you places that you might otherwise never know; beaches you might never see. In the summer of 1984, on a whim propelled by adventure, I holidayed on Naxos, crossed it by bike and got into a little cargo ship that took me to a place that at the time seemed so ethereal, so elemental, so remote, it has remained with me ever since. That place was Koufonisia, an isle made up of parts upper Koufonisi and lower Koufonisi and over the course of a spring and summer I would come to know both. Before the internet, before mass travel, before Greeks got fat on EU funds, upper Koufonisi had a smattering of white, flat-roofed houses, one fish tavern, one meat tavern, one tourist (a French painter), one road and a girdle of virgin beaches, ornamented by turquoise sea. In the spring its was carpeted with poppies just as Naxos to its west and Amorgos to its east; and in summer covered by herbs carried on a breeze. But although perfect, it was to be trumped by the discovery of lower Koufonisi: uninhabited (bar the odd shepherd), with even bluer seas, better shorelines and a pure light that I swam into with the passing of each day. Several years later I returned to upper Koufonisi, this time making my home a rented villa looking out to sea on the isles southern extremity. The water was aquamarine, as seductively translucent as it had been all those summers ago, but it was a world away a world discovered by Greeks who had built second homes, Italians who went for the tourist season and beach bars that served cocktails to the dulcet tones of Icelandic composers. Lower Koufonisi had changed, too: its cave no more (thanks to a landslide), its beaches the preserve of the droves who descended from fishing boats now busily crossing the 200m channel that separated the isle from upper Koufonisi. But the light was still there, the sky and sea co-joined by a brilliance that was unbeatable and blue. And, as I had done all those years before, I swam into the sun at the end of the day, backstroking through the flat blue, eyes fixed on the brilliant skies and the rocks they framed, knowing I had arrived where I had begun, in the magic of Greece. Fly to Athens from London with British Airways from £104 (ba.com). Blue Star Ferries on the (Athens) Piraeus Amorgos route stop at Koufonisia three times a week (euroferries.com). Sea jets also makes the trip in summer (seajets.gr). Travellers passing through Athens can also book tickets through Grecian travel (grecian.gr) Stephen Gibbs on Playa Bacunayagua, CubaGo to that bar that serves the piña coladas, cross the bridge, then the road to Bacunayagua is on the left. Those were typical driving directions in Cuba in the early 2000s. Then, it was a country without road signs. The reason was never clear. One theory was that every time a sign was put up it was stolen so that its metal could be turned into car parts. Another was that Fidel Castro, determined that the nation remain on a constant military footing, was convinced that road signage would help invaders. It made travelling a challenge. And arriving especially rewarding. The directions were good enough the first time I went to Bacunayagua in 2005. There were three of us: two Cuban friends, one of whom was a scuba dive instructor, and me. The piña colada stop was memorable. Alongside the road Marco, in a crisp white guayabera shirt, prepared cocktails for thirsty motorists from palm-fresh coconuts, cream and pineapple. He agreed, reluctantly, to go easy on the rum. After that we crossed the spectacular Puente de Bacunayagua, the tallest bridge in Cuba, completed in 1959. A couple of kilometres later, almost hidden by trees, there on the left was an unmarked, steep concrete road. It dived through a forest towards the sea, bringing us to a complex of run-down 1970s bungalows. In front was the clearest water, framed by an elegant peninsula, and a perfect little hidden beach. This particular stretch of coastline was also a notorious pick-up point for the cigarette boats that come from Florida and smuggle Cubans back to the US. A few bored young soldiers were there on watch; they were surprised to see us. The offer of a cold drink turned their frowns into smiles. They kept an eye on the car while we explored the pristine waters below. I returned to Bacunayagua a few weeks ago. A gleaming blue sign now clearly marks that turnoff to the bay. It is as beautiful as ever, but a little noisier. A Cuban family, complete with relatives from Miami, had rented the house the military once occupied. Silence has been replaced by reggaeton. On the way back to Havana, I stopped at the roadside bar. Marco was still there. Estás perdido, he said to me. That delightful Cuban greeting perhaps best translated as: Where have you been?, offered with equal feeling whether someone hasnt been seen for a few days or a few years. Cuba may be changing, but it still moves at its own pace. Fly to Havana from London with Virgin Atlantic from £559 (virginatlantic.com). Hire a car using the concierge at one of the bigger hotels, or contact Cuba Diving Now (cubadivingnow.com) to be guided Source: http://allofbeer.com/my-secret-hideaway-foreign-correspondents-reveal-all/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/23/my-secret-hideaway-foreign-correspondents-reveal-all/
Image: Matt Rourke/AP
You may have seen a headline pinging about the World Wide Web on Friday, lauding the time sportscaster Bob Costas is said to have “chugged” a beer thrown to him by a fan while he was working the 2011 Belmont Stakes. Costas, as usual, will anchor NBC’s Olympics coverage for the next two-plus weeks. The beer-chugging anecdote has been a bit of sports-fan lore for years, but it just got thrust back into the news cycle with the 2016 Olympics about to begin. But is it true? An examination of the evidence produces controversial results. Costas’ mysterious beer chug is in the news now because The Washington Post ran a pre-Olympics profile of him this week, in which the bit of lore is referenced. “He is also a bit rebellious, self-deprecating and obnoxiously unflappable,” reads part of that article. “At the Belmont Stakes in 2011, someone threw a can of beer at him, and he caught it one-handed, opened it, chugged some, lobbed it back from the victory stand, and proceeded with his interview of the winning jockey and trainer.” Bad-ass! This tidbit, of course, got picked up by other web outlets, which hyped Costas as a beer-chugging man’s man. But wait! Did Costas really “chug” that beer, as the legend goes? Tweets from 2011 present conflicting reports.
Thankfully, Deadspin dove into the YouTube archives and dug up some footage of the supposed chug. Let’s take a look. Here’s Costas catching the beer. Here’s Costas opening the sudsy brew. And here’s Costas drinking the beer or drinking from the beer, at least, before handing it to the women on his left. That sip lasts for about as long as it takes me to say “one one-thousand.” Verdict: That’s no chug, bro; that’s a sip. Now, remember: The Olympics will be running pretty much nonstop for the next two weeks. Costas will again be the face of American TV coverage. Thus, it’s not inconceivable you’ll soon find yourself in the presence of a very self-serious sports fan who drops a knowing reference to the time Costas chugged a beer at the Belmont. But now you, dear reader, are armed with the perfect #wellactually. Don’t say we never did anything for you. Costas really did drink vodka on air once, though. Source: http://allofbeer.com/the-curious-case-of-bob-costas-shrinking-belmont-beer-chug/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/22/the-curious-case-of-bob-costas-shrinking-belmont-beer-chug/
Tyler Edell Crunch Network Contributor
Tyler Edell is a technical marketing manager at Oppkey, a developer relations company in San Francisco. He holds degrees in writing and literature from Emerson College and San Francisco State University. Songdo, South Korea began its life as tidal marshland. Now its leading the charge into the future of smart cities. Once home to small-scale fishing operations, Songdo comprises massive, LEED-certified buildings, an efficient garbage collection system and even an island for rabbits. The project began in 2000, when 500 tons of sand were poured into the marshland, laying the foundation for architectural achievements like the Northeast Asian Trade Tower, a 68-story building that is now the tallest in South Korea. While Songdo is nearing completion and the flashy, meticulously designed buildings certainly suggest an eye on the future, much of what makes Songdo impressive lies under the surface. For example, the entire city is connected by an underground network of pipes that serve to funnel garbage directly from residents apartments into the highly automated waste collection plant. The garbage is automatically sorted and then recycled, buried or burned for fuel. This might be Songdos most avant-garde integration, and only seven employees are needed to handle the entire citys garbage. Songdo has the benefit of being a greenfield deployment, meaning that the citys infrastructure could be designed beforehand, based on the predicted needs of the architecture and residents, instead of being integrated reactively, as is the case with most smart city deployments. Integrating Songdos garbage collection system with cities like San Francisco or New York would take years of legislation and astronomical amounts of money. Not all of Songdos future-focused initiatives are out of reach for established cities, though. Songdo has sensors everywhere to monitor temperature, energy use, traffic flow and the salt water canal that runs through the city. Sensor prices have dropped drastically over the past few years, allowing an unprecedented degree of connection even to established cities. Still, most cities have been reluctant to roll out full-fledged initiatives for smart city deployments. Theres great optimism surrounding the smart city discussion, but that optimism seems to wilt whenever someone asks Whos going to fund this? The city certainly isnt going to, at least in the case of San Francisco. While SF does have an outrageous $9.6 billion budget for the 2016-2017 fiscal year, most of that will be funneled toward the mismanagement of the citys disastrous infrastructure. Its a fair question to ask why they cant dedicate a portion of that budget to smart city initiatives, but maybe they were relying on the $50 million Smart City Challenge award from the federal government, for which they were a contender. If they had won the award, private contributions would have been added to the federal award, bringing the total for the initiative to $200 million.
The federal government has dedicated $80 million in new investments toward its smart city program, but that money will be spread out over 70+ cities, bringing the average to a whopping $1.1 million per city. That might sound like a lot of money (it is), but when you compare it to, for example, the average price of repaving one mile of a four-lane road ($1.25 million), it isnt exactly breathtaking. And even if you think the SF municipal government could do great things with more money, keep in mind that its the same government that allows somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 people to sleep on the streets, while dedicating $224 million to keeping them off of them. Current funding for smart city initiatives is only good enough for proof-of-concept trials, which would lead, at best, to a piecemeal approach to smart city construction. The reluctance is understandable Songdo cost roughly $35 billion to build from scratch but without genuine investment in changing the infrastructure of a city to fit smart city needs, widespread deployment will be riddled with integration and adoption issues. Maybe the biggest obstacle to its full deployment is one question: Are smart cities profitable? There have been compelling waste-reduction efforts based on smart city sensor technology, like using sensors in the water supply to mitigate waste. While these efforts have resulted in corking budget leaks, they havent appeared to bleed over into other aspects of smart city deployments. Cities can use smart meters to make street parking easier, but that might actually work against them. If a driver finds a spot, they pay $2. If they get a ticket, they pay $72. Thats why some companies are offering cities analytics to optimize a police officers ability to hand out tickets its all about profit. Another example: Lets say a city opens its streets to autonomous vehicle rideshares, and that those rideshares catch on. And that they catch on to the point that it eats into the Department of Transportations revenue, so they have to slash public transportation frequency to a point where its no longer viable to maintain a robust public transportation system. They end up having to subsidize rides for low-income commuters, as well as lay off a slew of public transportation workers. In this scenario, the government not only doesnt make a profit, but it has to deal with the headache of transitioning its transportation system and the social upheaval that comes with massive layoffs. The social factors of smart cities might be the most difficult to measure or engage with, which is probably why we havent heard very much about them. Smart cities seem abstracted from the cities themselves, as evidenced by the unwanted consequences of LinkNYCs free Wi-Fi program. If you arent familiar with LinkNYC, the goal is to replace payphones around NYC with free Wi-Fi kiosks. These kiosks come equipped with tablet-like touchscreens that allow anyone to browse the web. At least they used to. A few weeks after the program went live, LinkNYC had to disable web browsing on all of its public tablets, for obvious reasons. If it doesnt seem obvious to you, let me list some of the ingredients in this debacle: homeless people, substance abuse, free video streaming and a public space. One of my favorite headlines about this misuse of the project is, Wi-Fi kiosks have become living rooms for vagrants, which was in the NY Post. My favorite excerpt, though, is from the Chicago Tribune: Its free. Thats the best part about it, said a tall man drinking a beer out of a paper bag as he watched an R. Kelly video at a terminal in Manhattans Chelsea neighborhood. That pretty much says it all. The unintended social consequences of smart city projects are a real concern, and a technological imbalance is at the heart of it. Smart cities are clearly not intended for the homeless, but homeless people are a reality of cities you cant just ignore them. Smart cities seem to be taking hold most effectively in areas where theres significantly less income inequality and crime. For example, the United States ranks 63rd on a list of nations by largest income inequalities, while South Korea, where Songdo is located, ranks 129th. The United States intentional homicide rate is also more than five times greater than South Koreas. Every smart city deployment affects different groups of people in different ways. While some drivers might appreciate the traffic flow optimization that comes with cameras on traffic lights, others will bemoan the surveillance state. A major question to grapple with is how to assuage (usually reasonable) fears while improving efficiency and standard of living. When the Songdo project broke ground, plenty of fishermen lost their way of life, but instead of giving them a bus ticket and wishing them good luck, the South Korean government handed them urban farm plots as a way to keep them going. This is the level of understanding and foresight thats needed for successful deployments. A common complaint about greenfield smart city deployments is that theyre antiseptic they lack character. When cities are designed and deployed as a single unit, they dont carry the cultural vibrancy of a city built organically in response to the needs and desires of its denizens. As someone who moved to San Francisco because of its cultural fabric, the piecemeal approach to integrating smart city technology is more appealing than the built-from-scratch approach, even though its less efficient and more expensive. Its the only way to preserve the character of the city. We just have to hope the people who compose the city arent forgotten. Source: http://allofbeer.com/are-smart-cities-just-a-utopian-fantasy/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/22/are-smart-cities-just-a-utopian-fantasy/ Babies basically live the life of luxury. People wait on them hand and foot, cook for them, clean them, and let them sleep for a majority of the day. Plus, they get to be pushed around outside while just chilling in a stroller. But how do parents know if that stroller is really all that it’s cracked up to be? They take a giant replica out for a spin, despite how ridiculous it might look.
via: Contours Baby
via: Contours Baby
via: Contours Baby
via: Contours Baby
Via: Bored Panda Source: http://allofbeer.com/would-you-test-drive-one-of-these-giant-strollers/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/22/would-you-test-drive-one-of-these-giant-strollers/
Image: Barry King/Getty images
When Johnny Strange was 4 years old, he told his father he could fly. Little Johnny jumped off the back of a couch and smashed his head, Brian Strange recalled recently, requiring a trip to the hospital. But Johnny couldn’t sit still even at the hospital, racing around until he collided with a gurney and banged his head again. That thirst for movement, activity and adventure continued for Johnny’s entire life, right up until he died on Oct. 1, 2015, at age 23 in a wing-suit flying accident in the Swiss Alps. He skated, jumped out of helicopters, climbed mountains you name it, he probably did it. In 2009, Johnny gained fame at age 17 for becoming the youngest person to climb the highest peak on each continent, known together as the “Seven Summits.” As social media proliferated, Johnny gained an online following while trying to leverage his thrill-seeking pursuits to promote social causes close to his heart. When he successfully climbed Mount Everest in 2009, Johnny used the attention he received to promote an activism group called the Genocide Intervention Network and funding for the fight against Parkinsons disease. Now, on the one-year anniversary of his son Johnny’s death, Brian Strange plans to honor the extreme athlete’s memory by helping fund two skateparks in his name, one in their hometown of Malibu, California, and one in Bhutan. “I’d struggled for a long time with what to do to honor Johnny’s legacy in a way that also honored youth and the outdoors,” Brian Strange, who works as an attorney, said in a phone interview. “Helping people and helping the underdog was always his passion,” Brian said. “He wanted to do adventure sports with a purpose. It wasn’t always about him, it was about trying to bring attention to causes he was passionate about.” A couple years after climbing Everest, Johnny and Brian traveled to Bhutan to investigate summiting Gangkhar Puensumq, the world’s highest unclimbed mountain. They didn’t end up climbing the mountain, but did strike up a relationship with the Himalayan nation’s royal family, according to Brian. They were invited back for the king’s wedding, and Johnny spent six months living in Bhutan working with the government to help get young people interested in outdoor sports. That’s why, Brian said, it felt like a “natural fit” to a establish skateparks in Johnny’s memory in both Malibu and Bhutan. Johnny enjoyed skating down mountain roads in Bhutan, sometimes slapping hands with red-robed kids as he whizzed by. “The kids were fascinated,” Brian said, “They’d never seen a skateboard before.” Johnny’s Instagram still contains windows into a thrill-seeking life as well as comments from friends and fans shocked by his death. After a friend named Dean Potter died in a wing-suit flying accident in Yosemite National Park in May 2015, Johnny posted a tribute Instagram that is haunting in retrospect. “Thanks for your wingsuit advice,” Johnny wrote in the accompanying caption. “I’m sorry to hear you died flying. See you on the other side ;)” Less than six months later, Johnny died in a wing-suit accident of his own in the Swiss Alps. This time it was the model Gigi Hadid, an old friend of Johnny’s, posting her own remembrance on social media.
Now, with the one-year anniversary of Johnny’s death approaching this Saturday, Brian has committed to making a $1 million matching donation to the city of Malibu to build a skatepark in his son’s memory there, pending final approval by city authorities. In Bhutan, Brian said, the royal family has already donated land to build another skatepark in Johnny’s memory, and he’ll put up $300,000. “I’m hoping kids see Johnny Strange’s name and they see he had this passion for accomplishing things and getting outdoors and having a purpose,” Brian said. “I’m hoping that will motivate others to pursue those same things.” Source: http://allofbeer.com/johnny-strange-to-be-remembered-with-skateparks-in-malibu-and-bhutan/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/21/johnny-strange-to-be-remembered-with-skateparks-in-malibu-and-bhutan/
Ross Baird Crunch Network Contributor
Ross Baird is the founder and executive director of Village Capital.
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I started to realize that Demo Days might be getting stale when an investor at one of our events told me to share the highlights after the pitches were done he would be out in the hallway with a beer. Another time, an investor said he wanted to quit his job and build a startup that goes to pitch events on behalf of other startups. Id make a killing taking a percentage of the prize money! he told me. These things are rigged! Think of a startup pitching for funding. What comes to mind? Its likely the Demo Day. A startup stands onstage, going through slides in front of a packed room, with expert judges onstage ready to give feedback. Maybe theres some prize money. Its an entrepreneurs best shot at getting the funding they need or at least some attention. Except, as we at Village Capital have learned, Demo Days are not the best way to help most entrepreneurs get the funding they need. And in the long run, they are not helpful for investors, or the broader ecosystem in fact, they aggravate blind spots that investors already face. Thats why we made the decision to ditch the Demo Day and why I encourage others to rethink how they support innovation. Not to rain on the paradeThe Demo Day first became popular in the late-2000s when a nascent group of entrepreneur support organizations, most notably Y Combinator, Techstars and 500 Startups, started to run structured programs with batches of startup companies: accelerators. An accelerator typically works with a fixed number of companies over a fixed period of time, usually around three months. At the very end, the accelerator will usually run a Demo Day or Pitch Day. They announce an open-to-the-public, or at least open-to-investors, event. They gather key investors in the room and parade entrepreneurs onstage, with each founder pitching their companys concept with slide decks. Sometimes there is a grand prize for the company selected by a panel of judges. Nearly every entrepreneur support program I know has adopted this format including our own. My firm has run more than 75 Demo Days over the last seven years. Weve held Demo Days in concert halls in southwest Virginia, on college campuses in Miami, in wedding halls in Northern India and in co-working spaces in Accra. Were usually able to draw a crowd, and most everyone has a great time. But over time, weve learned that Demo Days arent actually accomplishing what theyre supposed to: helping entrepreneurs raise money and meetinvestors. When we surveyed our companies and asked them where theymet investors, it was rarely at an actual pitch event.And the format privileges the ones who pitch well, rather than the ones who have the highest potential. Recognizing the habit of pattern recognitionInvestors, facing an onslaught of knowledge, often result to quick heuristics to make decisions. These heuristics can be helpful. From dont take candy from strangers to big animals = dangerous, heuristics have helped us as a society for thousands of years. But as Whartons Laura Huang writes, in a pitch event format, these heuristics may bias against the best entrepreneurs. In her work, Whos the Most Attractive Investment Opportunity of All? Good-looking Men, she found, for example, that among businesses with similar fundamentals and markets, attractive people got funded more than unattractive people, and men were funded more than women. Overall, less than 10 percent of startup investment goes to women and less than 1 percent goes to people of color. And 78 percent goes to founders from three U.S. states.
Huang found that pitch formats exacerbated this bias: The same business pitched with a mans voice got considerably more interest than when it was pitched with a womans voice. For entrepreneurs who dont pitch well or who dont fit investors mental image of a successful entrepreneur Demo Days may hurt more than they help. The preparation teaches entrepreneurs to focus on transactions more than relationships (when, in reality, an in-depth conversation after the pitch matters a lot more than the pitch itself). The Demo Day format is not ideal for investors, either. If youre picking who pitches best, not who runs the best business, youre not getting the best results. You often have to sit and listen to a bunch of companies that dontfit your investment thesis in order to hear a few that do.And if youre caught up in the theater of it, you may not be making the best decisions on who to follow up with after the event. Moving past pitchesSo what can we do instead? The best investments happen because of relationships, not pitches in fact, Ive never seen an investor make an investment decision, ever, as a result of seeing a pitch. We realized that if were going to organize a day-long event with entrepreneurs and investors, and we have limited time and space, were better off creating space for investors to build relationships. We didnt come to this realization alone. Emory University and the Global Accelerator Learning Initiative conducted an independent evaluation of our acceleration programs over the past seven years, and we learned the single activity that had the best results for entrepreneurs was building one-on-one relationships between entrepreneurs and investors.
So instead of Demo Days, we changed the signature activity at the end of programs to something we call Investor Forums in order to provide initial diligence for investors, help startups improve their business and provide anenvironment for investors and startups to get to know each other. First, we invite investors to meet with each company in the cohort for 20 minutes and ask initial questions. Next, we host mock board meetingswith investors and potential strategic partners, in which the entrepreneursdiscuss and receive feedback on one strategic challenge. Finally, we host adinner where the investors and entrepreneurs get to know each otherbetter a form of soft diligence. This process is better for entrepreneurs, becauseit flips the power dynamic: Instead of standing onstage, racing through slides and beingpeppered with hardball questions, the entrepreneur and investor are sittingat the same table, the entrepreneur is leading the meeting and they aretalking through the business as equals. And they get to show skills likecritical thinking, relationship management and the ability to take and deliver on feedback: all more closely related to success than a slide deck. Its better for investors, because instead of sitting in an auditorium, half-bored and half-interested, they can take a deep dive and add value. Ultimately, were seeing this format yield more funds raised for companies: a better outcome for the region. Improving the odds of successIm not saying that entrepreneur support organizations should stop pitch events entirely. We continue to do public events to promote and celebrate startups; entrepreneurship is hard work, and most days are not that fun if youre the CEO of a startup having a community around you watching what you do can be fun. But at these events, the entrepreneurs talk for a minute, rather than five or 10, and dont need to prepare for weeks. When were dealing with our most limited resource and time is always a limited resource we see other ways to be helpful to entrepreneurs and investors. Our mock board solution is just one idea; Ive seen other good ones, ranging from investor office hours to full-group design sessions. Overall, if we want to improve the odds of entrepreneur success, we can innovate not just in the products and services we support, but also how we discover, develop and invest in companies. Getting rid of Demo Days is just one way to start. Source: http://allofbeer.com/why-were-ditching-demo-days/ from https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/why-were-ditching-demo-days/ |
AuthorHi my name is Samantha Roberts I am 23 years old and I just graduated with my BSN degree I love to enjoy going out with friends on my spare time and enjoying the Bachelor life. Archives
April 2019
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