2015-09-22

Fwd: fast food app

'Starbucks says its mobile app that lets people order and pay in advance will be available nationally starting Tuesday. That means lattes, breakfast sandwiches and other items you want could theoretically be waiting for you by the time you arrive.

Mobile order-and-pay is still rare, but could become more common as fast-food chains look to keep up with changing expectations. Taco Bell also introduced a mobile app last year that lets people order and pay in advance, and Wendy's says it's testing the option. If it works well, companies see such services and mobile apps in general as a way to build customer loyalty.'

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/starbucks-mobile-order-and-pay-now-available-nationally/2015/09/22/b944b852-611d-11e5-8475-781cc9851652_story.html

 


2015-09-12

Fwd: Rising Star

'This Face Changes the Human Story. But How?

Scientists have discovered a new species of human ancestor deep in a South African cave, adding a baffling new branch to the family tree.'

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/


Robin Williams and Lewy body dementia

It was revealed following his death that Williams had been suffering from severe depression, and had been sleeping in a different room from his wife due to restlessness and anxiety caused by his Parkinson's.[136]

The final autopsy report, released in November 2014, affirmed that Williams had committed suicide as initially described;[136] neither alcohol nor illegal drugs were involved, while any prescription drugs present in Williams' body were at "therapeutic" levels. The report also noted that Williams had been suffering "a recent increase in paranoia".[137] An examination of his brain tissue revealed the presence of "diffuse Lewy body dementia".[138] Williams' doctors reportedly believe that Lewy body dementia "was the critical factor" that led to his suicide​.


2015-09-05

Fwd: un-"herd" of

'within four days, the entire herd — 60,000 saiga — had died...

Now, the researchers have found clues as to how more than half of the country's herd, counted at 257,000 as of 2014, died so rapidly. Bacteria clearly played a role in the saigas' demise. But exactly how these normally harmless microbes could take such a toll is still a mystery, Zuther said.

"The extent of this die-off, and the speed it had, by spreading throughout the whole calving herd and killing all the animals, this has not been observed for any other species," Zuther said. "It's really unheard of."'

http://news.discovery.com/animals/what-killed-60000-antelope-in-4-days-150904.htm


2015-09-04

Fwd: China

'In China, drivers who have injured pedestrians will sometimes then try to kill them. And yet not only is it true, it's fairly common; security cameras have regularly captured drivers driving back and forth on top of victims to make sure that they are dead. The Chinese language even has an adage for the phenomenon: "It is better to hit to kill than to hit and injure."'

 

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/09/why_drivers_in_china_intentionally_kill_the_pedestrians_they_hit_china_s.single.html

 

"Double-hit cases" have been around for decades. I first heard of the "hit-to-kill" phenomenon in Taiwan in the mid-1990s when I was working there as an English teacher. A fellow teacher would drive us to classes. After one near-miss of a motorcyclist, he said, "If I hit someone, I'll hit him again and make sure he's dead." Enjoying my shock, he explained that in Taiwan, if you cripple a man, you pay for the injured person's care for a lifetime. But if you kill the person, you "only have to pay once, like a burial fee." He insisted he was serious—and that this was common.

Most people agree that the hit-to-kill phenomenon stems at least in part from perverse laws on victim compensation. In China the compensation for killing a victim in a traffic accident is relatively small—amounts typically range from $30,000 to $50,000—and once payment is made, the matter is over. By contrast, paying for lifetime care for a disabled survivor can run into the millions. The Chinese press recently described how one disabled man received about $400,000 for the first 23 years of his care. Drivers who decide to hit-and-kill do so because killing is far more economical. Indeed, Zhao Xiao Cheng—the man caught on a security camera video driving over a grandmother five times—ended up paying only about $70,000 in compensation.

Security cameras have regularly captured drivers driving back and forth on top of victims to make sure that they are dead.

In 2010 in Xinyi, video captured a wealthy young man reversing his BMW X6 out of a parking spot. He hits a 3-year-old boy, knocking the child to the ground and rolling over his skull. The driver then shifts his BMW into drive and crushes the child again. Remarkably, the driver then gets out of the BMW, puts the vehicle in reverse, and guides it with his hand as he walks the vehicle backward over the boy's crumpled body. The man's foot is so close to the toddler's head that, if alive, the boy could have reached out and touched him. The driver then puts the BMW in drive again, running over the boy one last time as he drives away.

Here too, the driver was charged only with accidentally causing a person's death. (He claimed to have confused the boy with a cardboard box or trash bag.) Police rejected charges of murder and even of fleeing the scene of the crime, ignoring the fact that the driver ran over the boy's head as he sped away.'


2015-09-02

Fwd: Skylake

'first-ever Xeon processor family for laptops, the E3-1500M v5…

 

the mobile workstation market is one of the few areas where Windows PC sales are growing -- it only makes sense for Intel to court the increasing numbers of creatives and engineers that want to do their jobs away from the office.'

 

http://www.engadget.com/2015/08/08/intel-xeon-for-laptops/


Fwd: Skylake

I looked at just released 5th generation Broadwell chips, but in the next month or two we should have 6th generation skylake…

 

'Skylake ships with an integrated graphics core inside of it, which Intel had previously said would be optimized for low-power video decoding. What was surprising, however, was apparently how good it is – Skaugen showed off the chip decoding 15 4K videos using the chip's H.265 decoding engine, and compared it against to a machine with a pair of Nvidia Titan chips performing the same task. They struggled.'

 

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2979198/components-processors/intels-pint-sized-compute-stick-pc-powered-up-with-core-m-processor.html


Fwd: Japan

'More Japanese school pupils commit suicide on September 1 each year than on any other date, according to figures collated by Japan's suicide prevention office over a period of more than 40 years.

The grim spike in the statistics is linked to the typical start date of the new school term after the summer holiday has ended.

"The long break from school enables you to stay at home, so it's heaven for those who are bullied," Nanae said. "When summer ends, you have to go back. And once you start worrying about getting bullied, committing suicide might be possible."..

Nanae thinks the Japanese education system's focus on collective thinking is at the root cause of the problem.

"In Japan, you have to fall in line with other people. And if you cannot do that, you're either ignored or bullied," she said. "You are required to have a unified opinion, and it crushes the uniqueness every person has. But that uniqueness is not something to destroy."

Some experts agree. Child psychiatrist Dr. Ken Takaoka said the suicide rate increases when school restarts because schools "prioritize collective (action). Children who do not get along in a group will suffer."'

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/01/asia/japan-teen-suicides/