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•••••Now Muslims demand full Sharia law••••A Senior’s Statement (via video) to Congress on Healthcare BillA new study from a researcher at Harvard University finds that gay men are most attracted to the most masculine-faced men, while straight men prefer the most feminine-faced women. The findings suggest that regardless of sexual orientation, men’s brains are wired for attraction to sexually dimorphic faces—those with facial features that are most synonymous with their gender.
The research is currently published online in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, and was led by Aaron Glassenberg, while completing his master’s degree in the Department of Psychology at Harvard. Glassenberg is currently a Ph.D. student in organizational behavior in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Business School. Glassenberg’s co-authors are David Feinberg of McMaster University, Benedict Jones and Lisa DeBruine of Aberdeen University, and Anthony Little of Stirling University.
“Our work showed that gay men found highly masculine male faces to be significantly more attractive than feminine male faces. Also, the types of male faces that gay men found attractive generally did not mirror the types of faces that straight women found attractive on average,” says Glassenberg. “Men, gay or straight, prefer high sexual dimorphism in the faces of the sex that they are attracted to. Gay men and straight men did not agree on the types of male faces they considered attractive.”
The study is the first to examine the facial feature preferences of gay men and lesbian women. Women’s preferences are more complex than men’s, as indicated by prior research demonstrating that ovulation, contraceptive use, self-perceived attractiveness, and sex drive all affect face preference. In this particular study, straight women preferred more masculine-faced men than lesbian women, while lesbians preferred slightly more masculine female faces than straight women or men.
Participants viewed images of faces that were digitally manipulated to be more masculine or feminine, and then indicated which face they considered more attractive. The study was conducted online, and included over 900 men and women.
Sexually dimorphic features in male faces include a broad jaw, broad forehead, and more pronounced brow ridge. A sexually dimorphic female face has a more tapered chin, larger lips, and a narrower forehead.
Prior research has also shown that women prefer more masculine male faces when ovulating, indicating an evolutionary function for facial attraction. Men who have faces that are higher in sexual dimorphism (masculinity) have been shown to have better health and dominance but lower investment in offspring.
Although it is difficult to make substantial evolutionary claims from this study, Glassenberg’s work supports the idea that male attraction operates differently from female attraction, regardless of sexual orientation.
Source: Harvard University
California First Lady Maria Shriver addresses the audience at the first annual Night at the Village, presented by The Women's Conference, Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008. Photo: AP
A new study released by the Center for American Progress reveals positive news regarding the role of women in the American workplace. Produced under the direction of Maria Shriver, a journalist, author and leader of The Women’s Conference, “The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything” finds that for the first time, women make up half our nation’s labor force and are the primary or co-equal breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of American families.
According to the Shriver report, the rise of women in the workplace has been accompanied by a significant shift in social attitudes, including acceptance by men of women’s professional roles and support for the idea that women should be entitled to equal pay for equal work. Men are also more likely to agree that the challenge of meeting both economic needs and child-care responsibilities is a joint one, requiring the time and energy of both partners.
This is what you can do when you approach coupons with focus and dedicate some time to organizing them. That, and extreme self-control. ~Zoom Zoom
October 29, 2009 / Psychology Today
Wednesday Martin
As I researched my book Stepmonster, I realized all the ways in which a remarriage with children is different from a first marriage or partnership. The list goes on and on, but privacy and boundaries tend to be big issues. Martin Babits, a couples therapist and author of The Power of the Middle Ground: a Couple’s Guide to Renewing Your Relationship, is my guest blogger today, and has this to say:
It’s been four years since the divorce that ended my 27 year marriage. How and why it happened is a story I’ll tell you some other time. My son, knowing that it is not even a remote possibility, is rooting for his mom and I to get back together. He has tried to persuade me to limit the length of my dating to six weeks per dating partner. “After that,” he counsels,” you’ve got to find someone else and start again., dad.”
So now that I am having a relationship with a woman, a woman I am crazy about, and have been seeing for well beyond the six week stint that he approves, I get considerable bristling and growling in response to mostly everything, mostly everyday.He avoids her at every turn. Before she’s been invited into the picture in any formal sense, he’s invited her out.
Up to now, I’ve had no privacy in my post-divorce living space. My bed is set down in a combination living and dining room area. It’s large enough to separate into two rooms but I haven’t built a divide. Why didn’t I put a wall up? Probably because I’ve felt guilty about not being able to shield my son from the pain of the divorce. So with no wall, I’m on 24/7 call. I’ve been focused on making him feel how important he is to me. Whenever I think of moving on, the following question dogs me: “How can you bring a new person into your living situation (my son lives with me) against his vehement opposition?” This is where I have been stuck.
Wednesday Martin, like the good friend that she is to all her readers, helped me reason this through. Reason, not as in Archimedes’ principle; I’m talking about heart-reason, emotional logic. Stepmonster helped me understand that by living without a private space for myself, I was sending my son a confusing and essentially untrue message: that time was standing still. Also, he had a room with a door. Was I telling him–by my actions–that his needs trumped mine? That’s not how I want him to understand me; it benefits neither of us. We both have to learn to take care of ourselves.
Children of divorce, probably universally, harbor fantasies of their parents reuniting. Having no wall invites him to misinterpret what I am doing and feeling. It is of form of colluding with him by allowing the fantasy of parental reunification to comfortably flourish. As his dad, I realize that he needs to accept that the ending of my romantic relationship with his mother has already occurred; it is a fact rooted in the past and not to be revisited. The inevitability of my son’s need to grieve the losses he has experienced as a result of the divorce – and the fact that the divorce marked the finale of his childhood – amount to a double assault on his sense of security; two tough blows, two rough psychological truths that he must learn to come to terms with.
Maturation is dotted with traumatic interludes. Failure to grieve brings on failure to thrive. So the wall that marks my readiness to move forward in my life, to re-establish my need for privacy and the prospect of a life – or at least a significant portion of a life that is uninterrupted by my son and intentionally kept separate from his experience–is now appropriate. Maybe the wall is a way of walling out the past from the present; or at least walling out the predominance of the past in the present.
Stalling on the wall registers as a vote of no-confidence in his (and my) learning to handle the changes in our lives. Seeing it from this vantage, I am tempted to erect a series of walls, one for each developmental juncture–in my son’s and my own past–that needs resolving. But, of course, I know the bulk of this work gets done internally. So, it’s one wall to represent them all.
resources:
The Power of the Middle Ground: A Couple’s guide to Renewing Your Relationship by Martin Babits, LCSW, BCD
By Fiona Macrae / Daily Mail Online
Last updated at 2:46 AM on 29th October 2009
But it raises a number of moral and ethical concerns. These include the possibility of children being born through entirely artificial means, and men and women being sidelined from the process of making babies.
Forever fertile? Infertile men and women could have their own biological children using the breakthrough sperm and eggs
Opponents argue that it is wrong to meddle with the building blocks of life and warn that the advances taking place to tackle infertility risk distorting and damaging relations between family members.
The U.S. government-funded research also offers the prospect of a ‘miracle pill’ which staves off the menopause, allowing women to wait longer to have a child.
It centres on stem cells, widely seen as a repair kit for the body.
Scientists at Stanford University in California found the right cocktail of chemicals and vitamins to coax the cells into becoming eggs and sperm.
Controversial: Britain’s oldest mother Elizabeth Adeney, 67, who went abroad for IVF, is pictured here with her newborn son in June this yearThe sperm had heads and short tails and are thought to have been mature enough to fertilise an egg.
The eggs were at a much earlier stage but were still much more developed than any created so far by other scientists.
The double success, published in the journal Nature, raises the prospect of men and women one day ‘growing’ their own sperm and eggs for use in IVF treatments.
The American team used stem cells taken from embryos in the first days of life but
hope to repeat the process with slivers of skin.
The skin cells would first be exposed to a mixture which wound back their biological clocks to embryonic stem cell state, before being transformed into sperm or eggs.
Starting with a person’s own skin would also mean the lab-grown sperm or eggs would not be rejected by the body.
The science also raises the possibility of ‘male eggs’ made from men’s skin and ‘female sperm’ from women’s skin.
This would allow gay couples to have children genetically their own, although many scientists are sceptical about whether it is possible to create sperm from female cells, which lack the male Y chromosome.
The U.S. breakthrough could unlock many of the secrets of egg and sperm production, leading to new drug treatments for infertility.
Defects in sperm and egg development are the biggest cause of infertility but, because many of the key stages occur in the womb, scientists have struggled to study the process in detail.
Researcher Rita Reijo Pera, of Stanford’s Centre for Human Embryonic Stem Cell
Research, believes new fertility drugs are just five years away.
However, safety and ethical concerns mean that artificial sperm and eggs are much further away from use.
Dr Reijo Pera said any future use of artificial eggs and sperm would have to be subject to guidelines.
‘Whether one builds the boundaries on religion or just on an internal sense or of right and wrong, these are important. In this field, it is not “anything goes”.’
Scientists at Newcastle University claimed to have made sperm from embryonic stem cells earlier this year but the research paper has been retracted.
Dr Allan Pacey, a Sheffield University expert in male fertility said: ‘Ultimately this may help us find a cure for male infertility. Not necessarily by making sperm in the laboratory, I personally think that is unlikely, but by identifying new targets for drugs or genes that may stimulate sperm production to occur naturally.
‘This is a long way off, but it is a laudable dream.’
Dr Peter Saunders, of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said that IVF should be the preserve of married couples.
‘The question is, why are we creating artificial gametes (eggs and sperm) and aborting 200,000 babies a year when there are many, many couples willing to adopt?’
Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, warned that any flaws in the artificial sperm or eggs could be passed on to future generations.
Anthony Ozimic, of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: ‘The use of artificial gametes in reproduction would distort and damage relations between family members.
‘There are no instances of any major medical advance achieved by abandoning basic ethical principles such as safeguarding the right to life.’
Oct. 28, ‘09 / Psychology Today
By Susan Newman
Most parents who introduce their first born to a new brother or sister are well aware of, if not totally versed in, the difficulties that may arise. Parents read one or more of the books categorized as “how to introduce your child to a new sibling.” They talk to their child and to other parents to avoid initial and future sibling backlash. Apparently much of this good intention and preparation goes unheeded.
Sibling abuse
Siblings abuse each other: As many as 74 percent push or shove their brothers and sisters according to Murray Straus, Ph.D., author of Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family. Dr. Straus also found that 42 percent go further-they kick, punch and bit their siblings. If we add verbal abuse, the number climbs to 85 percent who “engage in verbal aggression against siblings on a regular basis.”
There are few studies of sibling abuse and compounding the limited data is fact that abuse among siblings is a well-kept secret. It can remain ongoing and undetected for years. The victim is usually younger and not as strong and, thus helpless to fight back. In my family the story was a slightly different. I, the much younger sister, tormented my brother with little repercussion from our parents. They, like many parents, didn’t want to believe that a child they treasure could be such an aggressor.
Sibling abuse is far more common in families than spousal and parent-child abuse combined. John Caffaro and Allison Conn-Caffaro, authors of Sibling Abuse Trauma, call sibling assault “pandemic.” There is more of it among male children than between sisters and its intensity varies by age.
When Dick or Jane cries foul, parents tend to ignore the situation or rationalize it by telling themselves that kids will be kids, s/he didn’t mean it, or they’ll outgrow the fighting. Physical assault is often accompanied by verbal abuse with lifelong detriment to the recipient, report the Caffaro’s.
Some children warm to a new sibling without incident, without displays of regression or aggression. Others spend a lifetime believing they are not as good as the newcomer. Early feelings of inadequacy can grow into sibling abuse: a family’s dirty secret that unlike spousal abuse, rarely makes headlines, but leaves indelible scars. The key for parents is to distinguish between what is sibling rivalry and what is sibling assault, be it physical or verbal and intervene when necessary.
Were you abused by a sibling? Were your parents aware of the abuse? Do you feel as if you were damaged by your sibling’s hostile treatment?
For more information:
What Parents Need to Know About Sibling Abuse: Breaking the Cycle of Violence by Vernon Wiehe
Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family by Murray Straus, Richard J. Gelles, and Suzanne K. Steinmetz
Sibling Abuse Trauma: Assessment and Intervention Strategies for Children, Families, and Adults by John Caffaro and Allison Conn-Caffaro
Anger, not love, makes the world go ’round.
October 23, 2009, Self-Help
Love may make the world go ‘round, but anger is the key. Why is that? It’s because we are all wish-soaked creatures and we all know that wishes don’t usually get met. And then we get angry. And if sometimes wishes do get met, they usually don’t get met exactly when we want them met. And if they do sometimes get met when we want them met, it’s usually not to the fullest measure.
Therefore, because most of the time wishes are thwarted, we’re always trying to manage our dissatisfactions, frustrations, and downright disappointments. Sure, here and there we’re also happy with things, but as far as wishes are concerned, sorry, we’re all full of disappointments.
And so here’s the problem:
The emotion of anger was apparently highly selected in evolution because it addressed these various disappointments that were happening to people all the time. And why is this so that anger was hooked up to disappointment? The answer is because disappointment (as occurs when wishes are thwarted) always and without exception, leads to a sense of lack of power, or a sense of impotence, or a sense simply of disempowerment. And here it comes – whenever there is disempowerment, we get angry – always. We may not know it, but we do. And this is true of each and every person on this little dot in the cosmos we call earth.
Now, why is this true that anger is the universal response to disempowerment? The answer is that when a person feels disempowered, frequently the only way to feel re-empowered is to be angry. And we all want to be empowered. Yes, anger is a re-empowerment, because like any other primary emotion, anger has a personality, and it is this personality that tells the story. What? An emotion such as anger can have a personality? Yes, basic emotions each have a distinct personality – including anger.
Let’s examine the emotion of anger so that we can see its personality.
Anger’s personality consists of the following inclinations, or instincts, or desires:
1. Anger has an aggressive drive. It’s inborn.
2. Anger is expansive. It wants to get bigger.
3. Anger has explosive potential. It wants to burst forth.
4. Anger has an attack inclination. It wants to attack.
5. Anger has a confrontational inclination. It wants to get tough.
6. Anger has an entitled frame of mind. It feels it has the right to get tough.
7. Anger sees itself as an empowerment. It eliminates feelings of helplessness.
So, there you have it. Anger like any other basic emotion has a personality based upon a single command. In the case of anger, this command is to: ATTACK! Why? Because none of the basic or primary emotions cares a hoot about civilization.
By BRYAN WALSH / Time.com Online
Los Angeles
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Tokyo
Roughly the same size as California, Japan shares the Golden State’s precarious plate tectonics. The nation’s four main islands get hit regularly with earthquakes of varying strength. But while California has about 36 million people, Japan’s population is nearly 4.5 times as large, and most Japanese live in extraordinarily dense cities. That puts more people squarely in a danger zone — nowhere more so than in the capital of Tokyo, which has a population of 13 million. A major quake struck the city and its surroundings in 1923, killing as many as 150,000 people. Although Japan has vastly improved its infrastructure since then and has the strictest building codes in the world, a similar temblor — which seismologists believe is almost inevitable — could kill more than 10,000 people and cause more than $1 trillion in damages.
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Tehran
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Pacific Northwest
The rain-drenched residents of the Cascadia region — roughly from Oregon to southern British Columbia — probably assume that earthquakes are something for their neighbors in California to worry about. But Cascadia sits on top of major faults, and although it doesn’t get hit very often, the region has been seen massive quakes before. The most recent one was in 1700, when a megathrust earthquake that may have been as severe as 9.2 on the Richter scale struck the region. The geological record indicates that a catastrophic quake hits Cascadia only about every 500 years, but the cities of the Pacific Northwest, like Seattle and Vancouver, are far less prepared than San Francisco and Los Angeles for a major earthquake, so when the next powerful temblor comes around, the Pac Northwest could suffer.
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Indonesia
The company decided to publicize the policy because of a backlash caused by a new version of the site’s homepage that was rolled out on Oct. 23, which includes automatically generated “suggestions” of people to “reconnect” with. Within days of the launch, Twitter users and bloggers from across the Web complained that some of these suggestions were for friends who had died. “Would that I could,” complained a user on Twitter before ending her tweet with the hash tag #MassiveFacebookFail.
“We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it’s important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized,” Kelly said in the post. To discourage pranksters, Facebook does require proof before sending a profile down the digital river Styx.
25 October 2009 by Andrew Robinson / New Scientist
EVERY year, 25 languages die out, on average. The world has perhaps 5000 living languages – though estimates vary – so by the end of this century there will be only half this number. In North America alone, there were between 600 and 700 languages when Columbus landed in 1492. This number had fallen to 213 by 1962, of which only 89 languages had speakers ranging from children to the elderly. Since then at least 50 more have gone extinct. For example, the last native speaker of Cupeño died in 1987 in Pala, California, aged 94.
Claude Hagège, a professor of linguistics at the Collège de France in Paris, has studied this decline for more than three decades. His academic book, On the Death and Life of Languages, which was first published in French in 2000 and has now been translated into English, is a wake-up call, covering languages across the globe, from Cornish to the polyglot brew of Papua New Guinea. Hagège has no doubt that linguistic imperialism is largely responsible for the problem: “The death threat that weighs upon languages today takes the guise of English,” he concludes glumly. “And I wager that the wisest anglophones would not, in fact, wish for a world with only one language.”
However, he also focuses on how a few dying languages, such as Welsh, have been saved by their native-speakers, assisted by governments. The rebirth of Hebrew in Israel receives detailed treatment. Uniquely, Hebrew is a spoken language fabricated from a written language; it has been used by Jewish scholars since biblical times. Modern Hebrew’s messianic proponent, the Zionist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, faced stiff opposition to the plan. A fellow Jew sarcastically told him: “If you only speak a dead language to your children, you will make them idiots!”
Still, it’s amazing to consider that in the early 20th century, German almost supplanted Hebrew among Jews in Palestine, because of its use in technical schools. Einstein, inaugurating the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1923, managed just one sentence in Hebrew, then switched to his native German.
By Sara Clemence ⋅ 1:42 pm October 28, 2009 ⋅ / Recessionwire
Sure, he jacks up your rent, ignores your calls about vermin and takes two days to get the toilet fixed. But your landlord (or lady) is really nice.
In fact, two-thirds of small, independent landlords say that they would reduce rents to help tenants stay in their homes, according to a new survey by the National Association of Independent Landlords. And a third say they already have.
Well, that’s more than we can say for Freddie Mac and mortgage lenders.
So remember that it never hurts to ask. Alternatively, you can always offer up free labor or even better, try to win your rent.
Disgust.
A British study of 250,000 people using public restrooms showed that men washed their hands half as often (32 percent of the time) as women (64 percent) did.
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When the Brits displayed messages outside lavatories encouraging people to wash up, they found that women responded to sensible and informative reminders such as “Water doesn’t kill germs, soap does.”
Women were also persuaded by information about risk. And the idea that they could have positive control.
Men were a harder sell.
They generally ignored hectoring such as “Don’t be a dope, wash with soap.” They were largely unmoved by peer pressure such as “Is the person next to you washing with soap?” What worked best with guys was disgust. “Soap it off or eat it later.”
Ick. Can you believe that women weren’t persuaded by that? I can’t. I plan to use that warning the next time I excuse myself at a restaurant to wash my hands. My plan may sound rude to those of you with finer sensibilities and less good sense. We don’t think that way in my family. We appreciate helpful vigilance.
I dined out for weeks on what I learned in driver’s safety class. Never carry a bowling ball inside the car. What it would do to your head when bouncing around the auto during an accident doesn’t bear thinking about. Ditto heavy books. And any glass object. Also, never drive behind any truck carrying lumber or pipes. A sudden stop and those pipes are spears crashing through the windshield, rearranging your face.
Just last month, I mesmerized an after-church luncheon with advice on proper tooth care. My comments on flossing were so compelling people put their forks down to listen.
The hand-washing study, which took place July through September, when everybody on earth was already thinking pandemic flu, was pretty scary. Only 62 percent of women washed their hands? Have women completely abandoned the role of exemplars?
But here’s the saddest part: Even the most effective messages persuaded fewer than 10 percent more people to wash up.
Clearly my family is among the few who heed timely warnings.
This study should serve as a rallying call for those of us who take hand-washing seriously. We must be extra careful about our own hygiene. Always at the ready, I will now share my favorite tips:
1. Anti-bacterial soaps are no better than regular soap. You ought to know that by now. And, please, remember your biology lessons: Anti-bacteria means “against bacteria.” Viruses are not bacteria. Flu is a virus.
2. Hand sanitizers do work, but keep them away from small children, gluttons or any other humans who frequently put fingers in their mouths. The alcohol is toxic. Washing is always better. You could also try rubbing in some vinegar or lemon if you’ve got nothing better. Bleach would also do the trick, but that’s perhaps a bit more desperate than we need to be at this point.
3. If there’s no soap, give your skin a rest. Splashing about won’t impress anybody and it won’t kill the creepies.
4. Suit yourself on water temperature. Hot water isn’t any better than cold, according to a recent study. Mildness is the least irritating choice in so many areas of life and, now we are happy to realize, in cleanliness as well.
5. Don’t neglect the backs of your hands and between your fingers. The dank shelter underneath fingernails has received little attention from health officials. I wonder if that’s wise. But since carrying a nail brush might seem onerous to the general public, I’d advise a good soaping of finger tips.
6. How much washing does it take? Sing “Happy Birthday” twice as you scrub. (Under your breath will do fine.)
7. Dry with paper towels instead of cloth that is being re-used. A good idea even at home. Think damp, warm towels incubating in the darkness.
8. In a public restroom, I’m sure you already use a paper towel to open the door as you leave. But have you thought about germs lurking on a faucet handle? One germ-counting study showed that faucet handles had more noxious micro-organisms than any other surface in the lavatory. Toilet seats came out surprisingly clean, if I’m remembering correctly. Not that you’d want to lick them or anything.
That’s it for the tips. Feel free to share at your next dinner party.
Meanwhile, writing this has me feeling slightly OCD. I’m going to get out the alcohol to swab down the phones, keyboards and door handles in my house. You might want to do the same.
Modern Homo sapiens is still evolving. Despite the long-held view that natural selection has ceased to affect humans because almost everybody now lives long enough to have children, a new study of a contemporary Massachusetts population offers evidence of evolution still in action.
Charles Darwin
A team of scientists led by Yale University evolutionary biologist Stephen Stearns suggests that if the natural selection of fitter traits is no longer driven by survival, perhaps it owes to differences in women’s fertility. “Variations in reproductive success still exist among humans, and therefore some traits related to fertility continue to be shaped by natural selection,” Stearns says. That is, women who have more children are more likely to pass on certain traits to their progeny. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)
Stearns’ team examined the vital statistics of 2,238 postmenopausal women participating in the Framingham Heart Study, which has tracked the medical histories of some 14,000 residents of Framingham, Mass., since 1948. Investigators searched for correlations between women’s physical characteristics — including height, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels — and the number of offspring they produced. According to their findings, it was stout, slightly plump (but not obese) women who tended to have more children — “Women with very low body fat don’t ovulate,” Stearns explains — as did women with lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Using a sophisticated statistical analysis that controlled for any social or cultural factors that could impact childbearing, researchers determined that these characteristics were passed on genetically from mothers to daughters and granddaughters.
Mark Zuckerberg is the young lad who created Facebook and became a billionaire. Short bio at bottom of this article. ~5700
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October 24, 2009 | Kim-Mai Cutler | Digital Beat
Mark Zuckerberg
(I’m live-blogging from Startup School, a daylong program from startup incubator YCombinator held at Berkeley today. Mark Zuckerberg is on-stage for a question-and-answer session and I’ve embedded a short clip from the talk below. This is paraphrased.)
Jessica Livingston: First I want to go way, way back. I know you built a few things in high school. What did you learn from those experiences?
Zuckerberg: I mostly built stuff I liked. I built games and I built AIs (artificial intelligence programs) to play the games against me. My friends would build AIs to play against my AIs. In college, I built a bunch of programs that required other people to use them. In the reading period before finals of my sophomore year, there was a lit and arts class I took. I didn’t go to class all semester. I was supposed to be studying. But instead, I was building Facebook. Before the exam, I was screwed. So I went to the course web site and downloaded all the images that we had to learn the significance of. I made a site that would randomly take you to the image, and then you could write a caption in a bubble. Then it would show you what other people did.
Later the professor told me that was the final where people had done the best ever.
It was my first social hack….
Livingston: Who were the first people using it?
Zuckerberg: At first it was very simple. Just 10,000 lines of code maybe. There were profiles. And you could poke people. That was important. The idea is launch early and iterate. Early on, I didn’t just start Facebook as a company. It was a project that I wanted to exist. It’s amazing how much stuff we messed up.
The Best Dress For Your Body
James Devaney/WireImage; Time Inc. Digital Studio
If You’re Curvy
LOOK FOR…
Semifitted styles that softly follow your curves and show off your waistline, like Beyonce’s wrap dress. Other flattering silhouettes include sheaths, belted shirtdresses and full skirts.
AVOID…
Anything either too loose or too fitted (including styles that cinch the waist too tightly) and high necklines.
DON’T FORGET…
• Choose medium-weight knits and soft fabrics that drape well.
• Opt for lower necklines found in wrap, off-the-shoulder or strapless styles.
• For a slimming effect, show some skin: Expose legs or cleavage.
Jim Smeal/BEImages; Time Inc. Digital Studio
If You Have a Full Bust
LOOK FOR…
Semifitted shapes that have open necklines and nipped-in waists. Shirtdresses, wraps and shifts like Salma Hayek’s fit the bill.
AVOID…
High, off-the-shoulder and boatneck lines; formless A-lines and tunics; full, gathered sleeves; and styles with wide belts.
DON’T FORGET…
• Draw the eye up with V-necks, scoop-necks and sweetheart necklines.
• Keep detailing on the top to a minimum.
• Try skirts with a slight flare to balance your bust and create motion.
• Choose soft fabrics with movement.
Dave M. Benett/Getty; Time Inc. Digital Studio
If You Have a Small Bust
LOOK FOR…
Empire, fitted-sheath and strapless styles like Keira Knightley’s that can add definition to the bust. A-line, shift and shirtdress options show off a trim silhouette.
AVOID…
Anything with built-in boning or darts you can’t fill out.
DON’T FORGET…
• Shirring and ruching over the bust will help create fullness.
• Shapes with defined and/or belted waists will create the illusion of a bigger bustline.
Jeff Vespa/WireImage; Time Inc. Digital Studio
If You’re Short
LOOK FOR…
Simple silhouettes, such as Reese Witherspoon’s fitted sheath, or wrap, shirtdress or Empire styles that will accentuate your petite figure without overwhelming it.
AVOID…
Too much embellishment and full skirts.
DON’T FORGET…
• The hem length is critical: Keep it just above or below the knee.
• Choose looks with vertical details, such as buttons, seams and piping.
• Monochromatic styles have a lengthening effect.
Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty; Time Inc. Digital Studio
If You Have a Long Waist and Short Legs
LOOK FOR…
Empire styles, semifitted sheaths and A-line dresses like that worn by Selena Gomez.
AVOID…
Anything that accentuates your natural waistline.
DON’T FORGET…
• Direct the eye upward and away from the waist with detailing on the top.
• Keep hemlines right around or above the knee.
Victor Chavez/WireImage; Time Inc. Digital Studio
Victor Chavez/WireImage; Time Inc. Digital Studio
If You Have a Tummy
LOOK FOR…
Dresses that do not accent the waistline, such as shifts, subtle A-lines, and Empire styles (such as the maternity style worn by a very pregnant Halle Berry), and dresses with matching jackets or coats.
AVOID…
Anything that accentuates the waist and dresses that are too tight, stiff or bulky.
DON’T FORGET…
• Draw attention away from your middle with open necklines.
• Monochromatic looks are the most slimming.
• Blouson shapes can be flattering.
Axelle Woussen/Bauer-Griffin; Time Inc. Digital Studio
If You Have a Short Waist and Long Legs
LOOK FOR…
Empire styles, semifitted sheaths, A-line dresses and bias-cut dresses with a torso-lengthening draped neckline (like that worn by Miley Cyrus).
AVOID…
Anything that accentuates your natural waistline.
DON’T FORGET…
• Direct the eye upward and away from the waist with detailing on the top.
• Keep hemlines right around or above the knee.
Richard Young/Startraks; Time Inc. Digital Studio
If You Have a Boyish Frame
LOOK FOR…
Belted styles, like Emma Watson’s shirtdress, that add curves. Not concerned with curves? A-lines and shifts are equally chic options.
AVOID…
Voluminous styles, T-shirt and tank dresses.
DON’T FORGET…
• Create curves with bias cuts, draping and ruching.
• A-line skirts produce a feminine silhouette.
• Slim shifts that skim the knee highlight a trim figure.
French elites lobby to “Free Polanski.” American and French students pick sides in a French debate over the rape case.
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer 09.29.09 / CS Monitor
File photo of film Director Roman Polanski attending a news conference to present his musical 'Tanz der Vampire' ('Dance of the Vampires') in Berlin in 2006. (ARND WIEGMANN / REUTERS / FILE)
PARIS – In Europe, the detention of director Roman Polanski in a Swiss jail on a 31-year-old US warrant is unfolding as a transatlantic cultural and legal clash.
In France, and in influential circles across Europe, the main position might be described as “Free Polanski!” But among ordinary Europeans, there’s an emerging outrage over what is seen as the elite classes defense of a man who fled justice.
The detention and possible extradition of the director of “Chinatown” and “The Pianist” – for fleeing the US in 1978 after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting a 13-year old – has stoked animosities here about a perceived American petit bourgeoisie mentality. It also plays into a French cultural sensibility about “the artist” as a creature deserving special status and refuge.
By Molly McDermott ⋅ 11:45 am October 23, 2009 / Recessionwire
I only started realizing how out-of-whack the luxury industry had gotten back in October, while chatting with the well-respected publisher of a now-dead magazine at a charity event.
“You don’t watch Gossip Girl?” he said, incredulous. “But you’re in luxury!”
(That, of course, was when I still was In Luxury).
The next Monday I settled in to learn about my industry from a CW television drama about New York private school kids. After five minutes, I flipped it off, rattled. How was it luxury to watch 16-year-olds sporting handbags that even I couldn’t justify spending $10,000 on? How were they supposed to have acquired said bags? Is that what luxury had come to? Glee in watching people with expensive purses, and hoping that one day we might be able to own something similar?
How did this happen?
My career has been in jewelry, diamonds and watches. I did not grow up surrounded by these things, so it was kind of thrilling to interact with these beautiful things—if only to market and promote them and then put them back in the safe. Working in that world of appearance and brand worship, I learned a lot about how people think about luxury. But my first and most important lessons came from my parents.
The didn’t have such extravagances when they were young, either. Not in Brooklyn or Staten Island. The way they see it, you work hard all your life and live frugally. And then—maybe one day—you splurge. On a Rolex. A mink coat. A fine bottle of wine or whiskey. But only when you’ve earned it.
A 16-year-old does not deserve such things, not just because they haven’t earned it. They also have no idea what they’re holding.
Real luxury is about knowing what you are holding. Not how much something costs, but understanding the time, passion, materials, research, development and dreaming that went into it. This is the lesson we should all take away from this financial mess–the ability to see things not just for their monetary value, but for their worth.
That especially hits home now, as I sit on my front porch in suburban New Jersey, watching the weeks of Unemployment Insurance slip by. Yes, I lost my job in luxury. But I’m not sad about it. In fact, I had expected it. It was a smart financial decision for the brand. People obviously weren’t spending $25,000 on watches with as much abandon. Some of them probably shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place.
The recession has changed the way we think about a lot of things. The question now is where do we go from here? (Instead of: What do we buy next?) Do we return to the old meaning of luxury—where things are appreciated for their craftsmanship, rarity, exclusivity? Or do we go back to tweenagers wearing Chanel bags? Or worse, sporting knock-offs just to fit in with their local Gossip Girl clique?
There are great products out there that enhance life. And especially in times of trouble, we can all use some pampering and pleasure. But those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to buy luxury goods should be evaluating each purchase for how it fits into our lives. Can we enjoy it with someone else? Share happiness with a friend or loved one? Use your enjoyment to encourage others? Celebrate something really meaningful?
Luxury should not die in the recession—just be redefined. We all need something to look forward to, after all.
By LARS BROWNWORTH / OCTOBER 24, 2009 / Wall Street Journal
This fall marks the 1,341st anniversary of a watershed moment in history—though not likely one you’ve heard about before. It began with an event that would have been comical if not for the fact that a murder was involved. Even to those living through it, it must have seemed more farcical than ground-breaking.
The unlikely instigator was a disgruntled chamberlain who was tired of paying outrageous taxes and had taken it into his head to address the situation in the most direct way possible. On the morning of Sept. 15, 668 he sneaked into the imperial bathhouse in Sicily and brought a heavy soap dish crashing down on the head of the drowsy emperor Constans II. It was hardly a dignified way to die, but the Roman Empire had seen inglorious deaths before, and this one turned out to be a conclusive turning point for much of Mediterranean history.
As the royal head disappeared beneath the lukewarm water of the imperial bath, the emperor could have been forgiven for being slightly relieved—had he been conscious—at his release from the heavy cares of office. His service as emperor had been a largely thankless task, a desperate scramble to stop a bewilderingly powerful enemy from swallowing up North Africa and the Middle East. At the start of his reign those provinces had been thoroughly Roman, full of Greek and Latin cities of colonnaded streets, civic buildings and public monuments, but the last chance to preserve their common culture was already slipping away.
View Full Image soap dish / Chris Wadden
In 641, at the tender age of 11, Constans II had been handed the crown of an empire with its economy in shambles, its morale plummeting and a ruinous war that was quickly becoming the most severe crisis of its existence. That such a state of affairs had been allowed to happen was a source of deep embarrassment to most citizens, who naturally had a good deal of pride in their history. The Eastern Roman Empire (derisively nicknamed “Byzantine” by later historians) had been the most powerful state in the Mediterranean for centuries, and considered itself the guardian of civilization amidst its rather benighted neighbors. The various peoples existing beyond its frontiers were pitied as barbarians, and the idea that they could threaten the empire’s very existence was somewhere between ridiculous and blasphemous.
But then in 636, without warning, an Islamic army had come surging out of the wastes of Arabia sweeping everything before it. Using the stars to navigate the featureless deserts, and slaughtering the camels they rode to consume the water, the Arabs would emerge behind imperial lines, inflicting humiliating defeats before melting back into the sands. Only once did an imperial army try to follow them. Pursuing their elusive foe to a tributary of the Jordan River, the unwieldy Roman army was cut to pieces, its survivors butchered as they tried to surrender.
By Ann Jones / The Nation.com
October 21, 2009
Women are made for homes or graves. –Afghan saying
Gen. Stanley McChrystal says he needs more American troops to salvage something like winning in Afghanistan and restore the country to “normal life.” Influential senators want to increase spending to train more soldiers for the Afghan National Army and Police. The Feminist Majority recently backed off a call for more troops, but it continues to warn against US withdrawal as an abandonment of Afghan women and girls. Nearly everyone assumes troops bring greater security; and whether your touchstone is military victory, national interest or the welfare of women and girls, “security” seems a good thing.
I confess that I agonize over competing proposals now commanding President Obama’s attention because I’ve spent years in Afghanistan working with women, and I’m on their side. When the Feminist Majority argues that withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan will return the Taliban to power and women to house arrest, I see in my mind’s eye the faces of women I know and care about. Yet an unsentimental look at the record reveals that for all the fine talk of women’s rights since the US invasion, equal rights for Afghan women have been illusory all along, a polite feel-good fiction that helped to sell the American enterprise at home and cloak in respectability the misbegotten government we installed in Kabul. That it is a fiction is borne out by recent developments in Afghanistan–President Karzai’s approving a new family law worthy of the Taliban, and American acquiescence in Karzai’s new law and, initially, his theft of the presidential election–and by the systematic intimidation, murder or exile of one Afghan woman after another who behaves as if her rights were real and worth fighting for.
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