Carbon Footprint of Typical Google Search

The BBC and the Sunday Times Of London said : Two search requests on the internet website Google produce "as much carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle", according to a Harvard University academic.

The Harvard academic argues that theses carbon emissions come from electricity used by the computer terminal and by large data centers that Google operates around the world.

But

Alex Wissner-Gross says : “Our work has nothing to do with Google. Our focus was exclusively on the Web overall, and we found that it takes on average about 20 milligrams of CO2 per second to visit a Web site.”

The contented baby book

For those with an 8 week old child, this is what Gina Ford prescribes you should do:

7.00am Baby should be awake, nappy changed and feeding no later than 7am
8.00am You should have cereal, toast and a drink no later than 8am
8.50am Check nappy and close curtains
9.00am Settle drowsy baby, half swaddled and in the dark no later than 9am. Wash and sterilise all bottles.
9.45am Open curtains and unswaddle baby
10.45am Give 20 minutes on the first breast and 10-15 minutes from the second. Do not feed after 11.30am as this will put him off next feed
11.55am Put baby down for sleep in darkened room, half swaddled
12.00pm Baby needs nap of no longer than 2 hours
2.15pm Open curtains to allow baby to wake naturally. Change nappy. Give 20 minutes from the breast he was last fed on, then 10-15 minutes on the other breast while you drink a large glass of water. It is very important that he is fully awake now until 4.45am so that he goes down well at 7pm
4.15pm Offer baby cool boiled water or diluted juice and put down for a nap at 4.45pm
5.00pm Baby must be fully awake if you want him to sleep at 7pm
5.30pm Baby should be allowed to kick without a nappy while you prepare for a bath and bedtime
Must start bath no later than 5.45pm and be massaged and dressed by 6.15pm
6.15pm Feed in nursery with dim lights and no talking or eye contact
7.00pm Settle drowsy baby
8.00pm Rest and have a good meal before the next feed or expressing
10.30pm Switch on lights and give baby 20 minutes on first breast and change nappy. Dim lights and give 20 minutes on second breast or remainder of bottle feed.

Would you use it?

Plane crash at Narita

A cargo plane has crash-landed in high winds at Japan's largest airport, killing both crew members on board.

The crash and its aftermath



Most exciting to show Nathan were the fire engines used to put out the fire. He has the Tomica version of this truck. Also, the use of foam and not water to put the fire out. Unfortunately, he does not realise how unusual the use of foam is. We've told him about it for a while.

Beautiful Australia

I love the country side that looks like this. No beasts to hurt you, dry, beautiful weather, sunny, clear crisp images all around you.

Boss: canned coffee ad

Why would anyone allow themselves to be photographed like this?

And allow this photo to be so unphotoshopped And pasted in every corner and Suntory vending machine in Tokyo?

I would cringe.

Click the photo: It is linked to a bunch of television commercials Tommy Lee Jones appears in. The ads highlight what Japan likes its image of their culture to be. They are marginally funny, but it does catch my attention, I'm passing it on, aren't I?

Lessons for the west

.....from Asian capitalism
By Kishore Mahbubani

Recent history has taught Asians a valuable lesson: more trade leads to greater prosperity.

Despite this,...After their experiences of the past 100 years, Asians are wary of ideology. They prefer the simple, commonsense approach of learning from experience and they will heed the advice of Adam Smith, who said that prudence is “of all virtues that which is most useful to the individual”. It may also be helpful to nations.

Book of revelation

Aha! - as parents, now what shall we do?

All children should be taught the Bible at school, says Andrew Motion. Without the great stories, they cannot hope to understand history and literature

Janet Murray
Tuesday 17 February 2009

Terrorism

A professor’s bold thinking on terrorism

By Jennie Erdal

Published: March 6 2009 17:06 | Last updated: March 6 2009 17:06

Which is not to say it was uncontentious. Richardson holds that despite the dreadfulness of their deeds, most terrorists are neither “crazy” nor even “amoral”. On the contrary, most terrorists see themselves as altruistic and noble – Davids against Goliaths – and their objectives are rationally calculated. “Terrorism is a tactic,” Richardson says, “and terror is an emotion. It makes no sense to declare war on either.” While arguing that terrorism cannot be defeated, Richardson believes passionately that it can be contained. The first step is to understand its appeal to those who practise it, and on the basis of this understanding to devise effective counter-terrorist policies

Travel to Kyushu

There are so many places to see around here.

Wakayama
Koyasan

Sri Lanka

About Sri Lanka

Places to Visit: Trapobane Isle

Stay Villa Sielen Diva

Trapobane : the jungly garden

By the time we arrived at the landing and clambered on to solid ground and went in past the white door to a jungly garden, I felt like a trespasser on Robinson Crusoe’s island.

On the way to Tyler Brulee, I found this article. All things Sri Lankan are of interest, so I had to read it. I mean, Sri Lanka in the weekend section, and not the world terror section?

Trapobane: What a tropical paradise! I want to go there - yesterday. Thank you Pico Iyer for finding it – I love the way he just stopped the car and walked over to it – and writing about it. He reveals his descent into the native by his phrase: the “jungly garden”. How Sri Lankan is that?

In Australia, I say, everything as an ‘…ery’ at the end: Bakery, Butchery, Cattery, Grocery, Ice Creamery. In Sri Lanka, they make adjectives of everything. I can’t think of examples. ‘jungly garden’ Perhaps it’s an Indian thing?

Things to do in Canberra

I was talking to someone about what Canberra was like. We lived there for one year, when I became pregnant, and I should share the best parts about living there.

1. Mount Ainslie. It was great that this was part of our backyard. I walked the dogs there nearly everyday. It was incredibly dry and bare and it had lots of kangaroos.
2. Lake Burley Griffin and cycling. If I lived there again, I would use the bicycle more.
3. Farmers markets at Exhibition Centre, near Northbourne Ave.
4. The Markets at Kingston - but after going there three times it seemed like the same old same old.
5. Being able to go places every weekend. The countryside and surrounds are different and beautiful.
6. The air is clean.
7. Kingston / Manuka are nice places to hang out, Braddon has some nice shops, but are they better than Sydney?
8. No traffic.

That's it!

090302 Chinese man bids but won't pay for looted bronzes

Another incident. A Chinese auction house owner big $36 million for these two bronze heads which were originally stolen from Empress Qixi when the French and British looted the summer palace in Beijing. Read Stirling Seagrave's book about the reign of The Dragon Lady. This man recognising it is stolen goods will not pay for this. Why should he, when it should be there for all to see in a Beijing museum? It was an awful thing to do, and someone should pay.

Especially when you think the attitude of some people have to lost antiquities.

The Museum in Iraq - once one of the world's leading collections of artifacts spanning the Stone Age, biblical era and the heights of Islamic culture - was nearly gutted in the mayhem after the fall of Saddam Hussein. U.S. troops, the sole power in the city at the time, were intensely criticized for not protecting the museum's collection. In 2003, Eleanor Robson tells us what happened. Up to 7,000 pieces are still missing, including about 40 to 50 considered to be of great historical importance, according to the United Nations cultural body Unesco.

The museum's directors have twice before ostentatiously opened the doors. In July 2003, the American civilian administrator in Iraq at the time, L. Paul Bremer III, toured some displays only weeks after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld dismissed the looting by saying, "Stuff happens." In December 2007, the museum's director allowed a group of journalists and politicians inside for a few hours.

The museum remained shuttered, though, battened down against the violence swirling outside. Not until now has Iraq's government officially declared it a working institution again.

Monday's event itself proved controversial, provoking an unusually pointed dispute between ministries of Maliki's fractious government, each with its own agenda.

On the 23rd February, they reopened the museum.

090302 Vendors fight counterfeiting

Don't you love it. Finally people brings this issue to a discussion table!

Vendors from the Silk Market protested outside IntellecPro's office. (Du Bin for The New York Times)

Beijing vendors fight counterfeiting crackdown

By Sharon Lafraniere

Published: March 2, 2009

BEIJING: Any tourist who has stepped foot in this city's famous Silk Street Market can testify that it is home to some of the wiliest, most tenacious vendors who ever tried to palm off a fake handbag on a naïve foreigner.

So when the market managers temporarily shut down 29 stalls over the past month for selling counterfeit goods, no one expected the merchants to acquiesce quietly to the loss of business.

"We expected trouble," said Zhao Tianying, a legal consultant with IntellecPro, a Beijing firm specializing in intellectual property rights, who represents five foreign luxury-brand manufacturers that have sued the market for trademark violations. "But we never imagined this."

The vendors have responded with the same ferocity with which they nail down a sale. Dozens of them have staged weekly protests against IntellecPro lawyers who are pursuing the trademark case, mocking them as bourgeois puppets of foreigners. The vendors confronted witnesses who provided evidence of trademark violations and filed a countersuit asserting that only the government can shutter a business.

A few characters scrawled in pencil on the wall outside IntellecPro's office sums up the vendors' message: "We want to eat!"

The skirmish between the crafty but mostly uneducated hawkers and five of the world's best known producers of designer goods is part of a much bigger fight over China's vast counterfeit industry. American movie, music and software companies alone estimate that Chinese pirated goods cost them more than $2 billion a year in sales.

Any successful product is likely to be illegally copied in China, warns the Web site of the American Embassy here. China's government has pledged to crack down, and it faces increasing pressure to show progress. But some doubt much will change until China graduates from manufacturing goods to designing them, and has more to lose than gain.

The Silk Street Market case suggests that change is slow and painful.

It has been four years since Burberry, Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Prada first sued the market's operator, the Beijing Silk Street Company, and individual vendors for trademark violations. Only now has the legal pressure produced tangible results.

As part of a court-mediated agreement, the market's managers agreed to punish offending vendors, shutting down six to eight at a time for up to a week. George Wang, the market's general manager, said the manufacturers threatened to renew their suit if sales of counterfeits were not curtailed in six months.

In response, dozens of vendors descended on IntellecPro's office on Feb. 4, occupying the reception area for hours while the police tried to mediate, said Zhao, the legal consultant. The next day, she said, they stormed past the receptionist, banged on the walls and swore at the staff. The firm's senior partner, Hu Qi, was afraid to go home and slept in a hotel for three nights.

Last Monday, more than 50 vendors showed up for the sixth protest. They waved signs and chanted slogans outside the firm's building while IntellecPro lawyers, with 12 hired guards on hand, had their lunch delivered.

"We are trying to run businesses here," said one 37-year-old vendor in a red coat, a fake Dolce & Gabbana handbag on her arm. "They don't have any proof." She refused to give her name, saying she already faced enough scrutiny.

Asked about her handbag, she insisted: "We don't read English. We don't know what the letters mean. We just think it is pretty."

Another vendor, 24, who gave her last name as He, said: "We want to be compensated for our losses. And we want a public apology."

Wang, the market's amiable, 43-year-old manager, said he was "stuck in a terrible position."

"The five brands are saying, 'You are not doing a good enough job in protecting our intellectual property rights,' " he said. "And the vendors are saying, 'You are going overboard in protecting intellectual property rights.' But hey, what can we do? We would rather be known in the world as going overboard than for not."

There is little risk of that now. Tourist guidebooks call the Silk Street Market, a seven-story glass box near Beijing's diplomatic quarter, one of China's most popular spots to buy cheap, good-quality imitations. With some 1,200 stalls, it attracts 15 million shoppers a year, two-thirds of them foreigners, Wang said.

In the noisy basement, hawkers of leather goods buttonhole passing foreigners, cajoling until all hope of a sale is lost. They chat easily in broken English and can assess a copy's quality in seconds; the best, rated "super-A," are almost indistinguishable from genuine products.

JLIP mums night out

My first girls night out in Japan. Great restaurant! Great fun!
Here is Amisha, Becky, Ella, Naomi, Noriko and Michelle