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Melissa McGill's illustration for "Will You Survive?" may well be the finest illustration I have ever seen in a magazine. I can't say much for the article, however. It's a little heavy on the psychobabble ("auto-pilot," "auto-response," "wired," "perceptual distortion" and so on). And it is a little light on the truth ...
I am curious to know whose (rich) bank account you were thinking about when you described the Jan. 27 Take Two article as "A kitchen that didn't break the bank." It's frightening that a $70,000 kitchen remodel would be described in such terms. A $70,000 kitchen remodel would certainly break a lot of regular people's ba...
Zero-turn lawn mowers are the fastest and most nimble riding mowers around. Don't let the steering sticks turn you away from these effective machines.
Zero-turn riding mowers are commonplace at parks, golf courses, and athletic fields, as they excel in trimming expansive flat areas of grass. If your lawn resembles a football field and you rue the hours it takes to mow, then consider a zero-turn mower to get the job done faster.
There are distinct differences between a zero-turn mower and a typical lawn tractor. The first thing you'll notice is the steering and riding position. A lawn tractor is setup like a car: You're seated behind the engine and steering wheel, with pedals for acceleration and braking. On a zero-turn mower, the engine is lo...
A lawn tractor like the one shown above is rear-wheel drive and can turn 30 to 60 degrees. Zero-turn mowers are also rear wheel drive, but the left and right wheels are independently controlled, which allow for precise steering and maneuverability—and that zero-turn radius. Military tanks turn in a similar manner, with...
In the video below, a Husqvarna product manager demonstrates how to set up the mower and likens the steering to how you would push a shopping cart.
With the steering levers pulled together and over your lap, the mower will be in neutral. Pushing both levers forward will move the tractor forward and in a straight line. Pulling the levers back will slow you down and pulling them past neutral will put the power into reverse. Move the levers in opposing directions to ...
Zero-turn mowers can have deck sizes up to 60 inches and top speeds of 9 miles per hour, where a lawn tractor rumbles along at 3 to 8 miles per hour. The zero-turning radius ensures you don't waste time cutting over areas you've already mowed.
Still prefer using a steering wheel? Then check out models from Cub Cadet, Toro, and Troy-Bilt, which offer zero-turn capabilities using a traditional steering method.
Foreign ministers at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum say they want to discourage trade protectionism. Business leaders at the gathering endorsed that idea and urged more open trade and investment to sustain the global economic recovery.
Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo says during informal discussions, APEC foreign ministers touched on the financial crisis, economic coordination, and financial reforms. But he says the most important topic on the table was resisting trade protectionism.
"There's creeping protectionism now," he said. "That is very dangerous. It is a slippery slope. And, [if] we're not careful, before we know it all of us will be in a much more dire situation."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said the foreign ministers also discussed the importance of expanding trade and making it more sustainable and inclusive.
Representatives from the Asia-Pacific business community called on APEC economies to further open trade and investment and resist the urge to erect trade barriers.
The APEC Business Advisory Council says the greatest concerns are that rising unemployment and weak demand could lead some governments to introduce protectionist measures and subsidies that distort trade.
Teng Theng Dar is the council's chairman. He says Asia-Pacific businesses want to see a conclusion next year to the Doha round of world trade negotiations, which have been stalled for more than seven years.
"This is a time where [the] business community looks for specific concrete moves by the government so that we are able to build confidence and bring confidence back to the system and at the same time we'll be able to help promote more trade and investment," Teng said. "Trade and investment are key to the recovery of th...
The business council says it is also time for start work on setting a timeline for establishing an APEC free trade agreement.
Secretary Clinton says foreign ministers also talked about security issues, including North Korea's nuclear program and the new U.S. policy of dialogue with Burma's military government.
APEC national leaders, including President Barack Obama, will be in Singapore for their annual summit on Sunday.
Mr. Obama is on his first trip to Asia as president and will hold the first U.S. summit with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on the sidelines of the APEC meetings.
APEC is made up of 21 Pacific Rim economies, which account for about half of world trade.
What Are The Implications For Our Kids When A Is For Aiden, Everywhere He Looks?
A quick search on the Pottery Barn Kids Web site reveals just how far we've come as consumers. We are living in age of abundance, and so finding the perfect baseball nightlight isn't enough.
Now it is special because for no additional fee your child's name will be printed just below the baseball stitching. There was no risk this nightlight would be lost at the playground. The custom name placement isn't for any usefulness, instead it just makes the nightlight unique and thereby more desirable.
And if nightlights aren't what you're in the market for, no problem. Pottery Barn will put your kids names on just about anything they sell: plates, pillows, bed sheets, towels, step stools, backpacks, toy chests, canvas art, growth charts, chairs, bean bags, piggy banks, travel bags, even books will arrive within two ...
Don't get me wrong, these are often adorable things made even more so when you see the name you picked for your child embroidered or stamped across them. And Pottery Barn is doing what many other retailers are also doing: giving us what we want in customized products.
This a new, technology-enabled phenomenon that we are devouring. So what might it mean, psychologically and socially?
I can remember coveting a plastic California license plate key chain with my name printed on it, misspelled. I must have been 12, and this odd object was uniquely mine because it at a derivation of my name on it. Nothing else I owned had my name on it, unless I scribbled it on with a Sharpie pen.
Since then technology has made custom design wonderfully fast, cheap, and scalable. A startup in Silicon Valley spotted this earlier than most, back in 1999. Two brothers, with the help of their Dad launched Zazzle out of their garage. Their product line back then was limited to t-shirts because they'd developed a spec...
Today Zazzle is a custom anything shop. It sells all sorts of clothing, skateboards, and custom pacifiers. Yes, that's right. A Romney-Ryan sucker anyone? Yours for $11.95.
I wrote about Zazzle in 2006. The custom trend was still nascent back then. Now it is in everything we consume: ladies handbags, holiday cards, even our news has become custom. We read what our friends are telling us to read, or what we've chosen to follow one way or another.
Alain Morin, a psychologist at Mount Royal University, in Canada, who studies self-awareness see this sparking a broader societal shift. "People are much more self-aware than they used to be," he says. For our kids, this could have a wide range of implications.
Morain cites a study done in the late 1970s that tracked "transgression" as measured by kids taking more than one Halloween candy from a bowl after being instructed to take a single treat. The kids who followed the instructions most, and took just one candy, were in a group that cited their names (identity awareness) a...
Keying off this study, Morain suggests that custom labels combined with seeing our images so frequently (we snap photos of our kids eating bagels, after all) could lead to more rule-abiding behavior. That doesn't sound awful. Then again, he cautions: "We know that the immediate effect of self-focus is also self-evaluat...
Morain isn't actually suggesting that Pottery Barn toy chest for "Jack" will make Jack an alcoholic in twenty years. But rather that too many items custom to Jack combined with other influences that make him look inward could have negative implications.
Maureen Healy, author of "Growing Happy Kids" describes this in a slightly different way. "The more you focus on others, the happier you are. We risk sending a me, me, me message to kids. Of course kids should feel good about their names. But ultimately their self-esteem and confidence is going to come from lots of oth...
Then there's the question of whether kids even notice this stuff. Morain posits that if they do, they could become habituated to seeing their name on everything. And so unlike my once-coveted key chain, today's super customized items have no more meaning than those without their names. Gabrielle Principe, Chair of the ...
Readers, I'm curious. What do you think mass customization risks, or doesn't risk doing to our kids? Will they be more self-aware and thereby follow rules? Will they be overly self-centered? Or does this simply not matter compared to the other, perhaps greater ways we influence our kids?
When it comes to government IT-based programs, the technology itself rarely seems to be a stumbling block. Agency culture — mainly the various parts of an agency simply talking to each other — is most often the culprit. The push to boost the performance of agency contact centers is a prime example of that.
The problem was noted several years ago. In a March 2009 white paper written for the then-new Obama Administration, the Government Contact Center Council (G3C) said that nearly 60 percent of contact centers had call volumes that increased year-on-year.
The council also noted that the Obama administration’s plan to make government more transparent would entail increasing the volume of communications – “of all types and styles” – between government and citizens.
However, the council’s report identified a significant barrier to better communications: The lack of intra-agency collaboration and coordination. Agency contact centers “need to have an agency-wide system in place to push information to all relevant points of citizen contact” so that agencies can respond to inquiries, ...
The pressure on contact centers has only increased since then. A survey conducted by the CFI Group, which was used to compile the 2012 Government Contact Satisfaction Index, found it was a contact center agent’s knowledge about their agency that was the most critical feature in terms of impact on a citizen’s satisfacti...
And that’s only increasing the expectation of contact centers and the agents who work in them. Those agents “are being required to become more facile, to know a lot more information and to find it quickly, and handle multiple channels of access,” said MaryAnn Moore, director of GSA’s contact center services.
With that in mind, many agencies are looking to consolidate the various dispersed points of information across their systems, so that contact center agents can have it all at their fingertips in one location.
That’s critical to the future performance of government contact centers, said Ron Woody, senior solution architect for Xerox Federal Services, and more agencies seem to be realizing that.
“Many of the requests for information I’ve seen in the past 18 months have been from agencies looking for strategies on how to consolidate their numerous call centers or service desks,” he said.
The Veterans Administration has already taken the leap. The CFI Group’s survey found that, of all the agencies it looked at, VA centers had the highest percentage of “frequent contractors,” that is, individuals who need to make repeated calls.
That’s not surprising, given the VA’s constituency. Yet, just two years earlier, the VA’s inspector general found that just 49 percent of callers to the Veterans Benefits Administration — probably the most politically sensitive part of the VA — had a chance of reaching an agent and getting accurate information.
Under heavy fire from Congress and other critics to get its act in order, the VA in 2011 began a program called the Veterans Relationship Management (VRM) Unified Desktop, a multi-year project to integrate 13 VA benefit databases onto one server, with all the information accessible on a single screen.
Technology from vendors such as Xerox can help make this happen, but technology is not enough, Woody says.
Until you can identify the champion within the agency who is going to work across all of those various lines of responsibility, he said, the only thing contact center managers can do is work to improve their own areas.
Thomas Schofield, Power-Walking to Slay Behemoth with Law and Passion, 44 Buff. L. Rev. 632 (1996).
Microsoft today made a play to boost usage of Edge with an awards program that gives users points for browsing with the Windows 10 application.
"Earn points for every hour of active browsing ... up to 30 hours a month," Microsoft announced on a promotional page.
To qualify for points in the new program -- formerly Bing Rewards, rebranded as Microsoft Rewards -- Edge users must have the Bing search engine as the browser's default. Microsoft defined "active browsing" as meeting two conditions: Edge had to be the highlighted icon in the taskbar -- meaning it was the only app in f...
Microsoft did not say how many points will be awarded for each hour of Edge usage.
Users must also have Windows 10's diagnostic and telemetry technology enabled to be awarded browsing points. Enterprises and other large organizations may set that technology to its least intrusive level -- dubbed "Security" -- on Windows 10 PCs. Those systems won't be able to track Edge usage: No tracking, no Edge rew...
By giving points for running Edge, Microsoft signaled that it realizes the browser needs help, and that it hopes gift cards and discounts on company products would be enough to entice users to either stick with Edge or return to it after running a rival.
Edge usage -- the browser only runs in Windows 10 -- has eroded since its mid-2015 debut. According to analytics vendor Net Applications, Edge ran on 24% of all Windows 10 PCs in July, down from 27% in June and 29% in May.
Growing Edge's share is more than a matter of prestige or bragging rights; it puts dollars in Microsoft's pocket. The more users run Edge, the more search with Bing -- set as the default in the browser -- and the more that search Bing, the more Microsoft reaps from sales of search ads. In fact, Microsoft has long banke...
Microsoft said that the Edge awards -- and the overarching Microsoft Rewards program -- would launch "soon," and be limited to the U.S.
The return of Rebekah Brooks to run Rupert Murdoch’s UK newspaper operation has been described as “two fingers up to the British public” by the shadow culture secretary, in a strikingly aggressive intervention.
Chris Bryant, who has personally clashed with Brooks in the past, condemned the apparent reappointment of Brooks as chief executive of News Corp’s UK operations – a year after she was cleared of all charges related to the phone-hacking scandal.
He claimed it was evidence Murdoch had only feigned remorse over the scandal that rocked his empire and suggested the controversial news had been leaked ahead of the bank holiday weekend to limit its impact.
Bryant, who was compensated with £30,000 by the newspaper company after it was revealed he was a victim of phone hacking by the News of the World, said he also believed the move was premature given the Crown Prosecution Service is said to be still considering corporate charges against News Corp.
The MP said: “Rupert Murdoch has just stuck two fingers up to the British public and the thousands of people whose phones were hacked by News International.
“However you cut it, his newspapers hacked thousands of phones and made money out of the private lives of ordinary members of the public who only came into the limelight because they were victims of crime.
Bryant continued: “This decision is ludicrously premature when the CPS is still considering corporate charges against News Corp, when the House of Commons privileges committee has still to rule on whether three News Corp executives lied to Parliament, as claimed by the select committee when it was chaired by John Whitt...
Brooks edited both the Sun and the News of the World in a long career at Rupert Murdoch’s company.
She resigned as UK chief executive in July 2011 in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, which eventually closed the paper, walking away with £10.8m as “compensation for loss of office”.
Brooks denied any involvement in hacking and was cleared of charges in June last year. Andy Coulson, another former News of the World editor and David Cameron’s former director of communications, was jailed after being convicted of conspiracy to hack phones.
Evan Harris, the joint executive director of Hacked Off, the media reform campaign group, also spoke of his anger at Murdoch’s decision, which was revealed in the Financial Times.
“This could only happen in a dynastic company where normal rules of corporate governance simply do not apply,” he said.
“Mrs Brooks’s successful defence at trial was that she was such an incompetent executive that she was unaware of industrial-scale criminal wrongdoing in intercepting voicemails and bribing public officials, and unaware of the vast conspiracy to cover it up, despite her admitting to destroying millions of emails and put...
However Roger Alton, a former editor of the Observer and the Independent, who recently retired as executive editor of the Times, accused critics of the news of “fighting interminable old battles” and argued the phone hacking scandal was “in the past”.
Alton told BBC Radio 4’s Today that Brooks was “an extremely effective, talented person, most likeable, extremely good with people. He [Murdoch] values loyalty, she was very loyal and he has been very loyal to her.
Brooks was cleared of all charges following a 138-day trial at the Old Bailey, as was Stuart Kuttner, the former managing editor of the News of the World. The former News of the World journalists Greg Miskiw, Neville Thurlbeck, James Weatherup and Ian Edmondson pleaded guilty to their role in the hacking, along with th...
What has happened to the 27 arrested Sun journalists?
Most celebrities want to make a statement on the red carpet, but Suzy Amis Cameron wants to make a statement statement. About green design and long-term sustainability, specifically. But the Academy Awards, a night of $20,000 gowns and mega-bling, don't exactly scream eco-fashion. That could change, says Cameron.
Enter: Red Carpet, Green Dress.
As the wife of director James Cameron, Suzy had attended her fair share of Hollywood events, and wanted to see her values as an environmentalist reflected in what she wore on the red carpet. But while organic cotton T-shirts might be on the racks at H&M (unethically produced as they may be), natural dyes and sustainabl...
Which is precisely the problem that Cameron ran up against with the "Red Carpet, Green Dress" design contest she started to raise money for MUSE school, which she founded with sister Rebecca Amis in 2006. "Deborah Lynn Scott was our mentor designer that year, and she came to me and told me she couldn't find [eco-friend...
"We were trying to source something called 'peace silk' because a lot of the people who had sent in their entries wanted to use it. So we started researching and found that they were using children to harvest the silk. They were also giving them slingshots to kill the birds who were trying to eat the worms. So, all of ...
It's not an uncommon problem. Environmental sustainability and ethical labor are all too often viewed as separate issues, so you tend to get one without the other. Even when the objective is to be ethical, designers can still fall short, as we saw this summer with the labor abuses involved in producing the Stella McCar...
But even in couture, where highly skilled and often well-paid ateliers produce the gowns, the fabrics they're using can be toxic.
"The dyes that they're using -- a majority of them -- are toxic and they go into the waterways," Cameron said. "It was then that I realized that it was much, much bigger than a pretty dress to wear on the red carpet."
So what's the solution? Getting innovative, for one thing. Since its first challenging year, Cameron has continued the "Red Carpet, Green Dress" contest in partnership with sustainability institute Cradle to Cradle, where each year they give a young designer an opportunity to dress an A-list celebrity in eco-haute cout...
"It's challenging. There's not a huge demand for sustainable fabric yet." But, in the meantime, designers can get creative to meet the contest's eco imperative. "It doesn't have to be this virgin fabric," Cameron says. "I know quite a few eco designers who build dresses out of old couture gowns. They disassemble, 'upcy...
And Cameron has hope that the niche origins of her green design competition will make a broader impact in how stars, and regular folks, dress -- on the carpet and off. "I think there is more demand. I've been able to see the trajectory over the last four years. I think it's in the forefront of a lot of people's minds r...
"The first year I was the only person on the red carpet wearing an environmentally friendly dress. Two years ago, there were two. Last year, there were five dresses at the Oscars."
This year, "Red Carpet, Green Dress" has Vivienne Westwood mentoring British up-and-comer Michael Badger to outfit "Skyfall" actress Naomie Harris. And while the winning design has to remain a secret until Sunday, Cameron did reveal one detail about the gown: It's going to be yellow.
"It's just seeds! They're seeds!"
Karlie Kloss will walk the runway in the 2017 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show.
The 25-year-old model and former Victoria's Secret Angel confirmed in an Instagram post Wednesday that she will return for this year's show in Shanghai, China.
"See you in Shanghai @VictoriasSecret," she captioned a photo of herself from the 2014 show.
Kloss served as a Victoria's Secret Angel from 2011 to 2014.
People reported in 2015 that the model was leaving the lingerie company to focus on her other modeling work and attend college at New York University.

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