Archive for June, 2009
For Those Who Like to Kiss and Hug at Work
By Elizabeth Bernstein from the WSJ
Why are people at work always touching me?
I get bear hugs from men and unsolicited kisses on the cheek from women. Co-workers of both sexes grip my elbows, tap my knees and pat my back. An editor recently held my hand on deadline—literally. One work friend hugs me every time she sees me in the elevator, even if I’m furiously typing on my BlackBerry and juggling iced coffee and a salad.
I thought my colleagues were just being really friendly, until I turned a corner in the hallway one day and the cleaning woman flung her arms around me and stroked my hair. She told me she just wanted to say “Hi.”
That’s when I knew it was me. I am, for lack of a better word, a “touchee.” Figuring out when it’s foul and when it’s surprisingly welcome can be tricky.
Every workplace seems to have at least one “toucher”—someone constantly doling out hugs, shoulder rubs or high fives. Some people hate this attention and quickly put an end to it. For better or worse, that leaves a lot more love for the rest of us.
But is it ever really OK to put your hand on someone else in the office, even in friendship and support?
México caerá 8% en 2009 y crecerá 2.8% en 2010: OCDE
México, único país latinoamericano miembro de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos, sufrirá este año una grave recesión de 8%, aunque se recuperará en 2010 con un crecimiento del 2.8%, según las previsiones de la OCDE.
El informe atribuye buena parte de la caída del Producto Interno Bruto (PIB) mexicano a la dependencia de la economía estadounidense, hundida en la recesión, y señala que ‘tras la fuerte caída en la primera mitad del año, exacerbada por el brote de gripe porcina, lo peor debería haber terminado’.
Por ello prevé que el crecimiento mexicano se recupere ‘a partir de finales de 2009, alcanzando tasas de crecimiento trimestrales por encima del 4% interanual durante 2010′.
El Partido Social Demócrata Mexicano en Gizmodo
¿El Partido Social Demócrata tiene propaganda en Gizmodo?
Gizmodo – Hospital Confirms Steve Jobs’s Transplant, Denies He Received Preferential Treatment
With Steve Jobs’s consent, the Memphis hospital that conducted his liver transplant two months ago issued a statement denying he received any special treatment, classifying him as ‘the sickest person on the waiting list.’
Presumably in response to the New York Times’ speculation that Jobs’ wealth and influence helped him secure a liver sooner than he might otherwise have, the Methodist University Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee issued a statement with Jobs’s consent that denied any such thing happened.
‘He received a liver transplant because he was the patient with the highest MELD score (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) of his blood type and, therefore, the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available,’ the hospital said. In addition, Tennessee has a much smaller waiting list than a larger state, like California, which also expedited the process.
The statement does not go into any more detail on the subject, citing a respect for Jobs’s privacy, but does note that Jobs is ‘recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.’ So that should put any ugly speculation to rest.
(Via Gizmodo)
Liver Transplant for Steven Jobs of Apple Raises Questions – NYTimes.com
From the New York Times
Reports that Apple’s chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, traveled to Tennessee for a liver transplant about two months ago raise many questions — not just about his prognosis, but also about the system for allocating scarce organs to the many people who need them.
Whenever someone rich and famous receives a transplant, suspicions inevitably arise about whether that person managed to jump to the head of the waiting list and take an organ that might have saved the life of somebody just as desperate but less glamorous. The dark theories are a holdover from the case of Mickey Mantle, who waited all of one day for a liver in 1995, and then died from liver cancer anyway, just two months later.
In Mr. Jobs’s case, doctors say there was no need, and little opportunity, to cheat the system. Under current procedures, any transplant center ranks potential liver recipients on its waiting list, with the highest rankings based on how sick the patients are and how long they have been that sick. Jumping ahead of a sicker patient is not allowed.
And yet, there are ways to work the system to one’s advantage. Waiting times for a liver vary in different parts of the country, and people who can afford to travel are free to go to a city or state with the shortest wait and bide their time until they have reached the top of the list, a donor dies and an organ becomes available. Indeed, some patients rent apartments or stay in hotels near a hospital and wait for the phone to ring. It may not seem fair, but it is not illegal.
CEO Use of Private Jets Rose in 2008
Flying a private jet became taboo in 2008–at least that is what the headlines lead you to believe.
After the outcry over the General Motors jetting to D.C., and related headlines like J.P. Morgan Chase’s new jet hangar, CEOs were supposedly grounded. Private jets = excess. And excess was bad.
As it turns out, companies actually increased the amount they spent on private jets last year. According to a study released this week by executive pay consultant Equilar, most corporate jet perks remain strong, and there is no sign they are fading.
The report showed the value of CEO airplane perks in 2008 increased 29%, to $141,477 from $109,743 a year earlier. It is the highest level in five years.
Wealth Advisers vs. the Wealthy: A Failure to Communicate
By Robert Frank
There has always been a cultural divide between the wealthy and their financial advisers.
Wealth advisers think the wealthy are short-termist, overly demanding cheap-skates who refuse to pay for or follow quality advice. The wealthy view financial advisers as fee-sucking predators who are just out to sell product.
The cultural divide has widened with the economic crisis. According to an article (subscription required) in Financial News, citing U.K. research by the Wealth Bulletin and Bruce Weatherill, the wealthy and their advisers have vastly different views of how advisers have performed of late.
The research shows that 80% of wealth managers thought their performance was good or very good amid the financial crisis. Only 30% of clients agreed; a further 30% thought it was poor or very poor.
The Rise of the Poorgeoisie
By Robert Frank
David Brooks dubbed them ‘BoBos,’ the ‘bourgeois bohemians’ who created a new antiestablishment establishment. They were the specialty-cheese-eating, sport-utility vehicle driving environmentalists who railed against the elite even as they became one themselves.
They were, in a sense, the antirich rich.
Now, the media is calling them the ‘Poorgeoise,’ affluent entrepreneurs and executives who prefer to look like starving artists. An article in the Guardian says the financial crisis has made the Poorgeoise more common than ever.
‘They’re rich and they love to spend – but they like to pretend they’re having as hard a time as the rest of us,’ the article says.
What Would You Pay to Lunch With Buffett?
Auctioning off the rights to have lunch with Warren Buffet has become an annual rite of summer.
Every year for the past decade, a lucky (and wealthy) bidder has won the privilege of breaking bread and scooping up morsels of wisdom from the Oracle of Omaha. The winner can bring as many as seven friends, and lunch is served at a New York steakhouse.
Proceeds go to the Glide Foundation, a San Francisco charity that provides meals to the needy and was a favorite cause of his late wife, Susan.
This year’s Buffett lunch auction just kicked off eBay and closes Friday at 10 p.m.
Last year’s auction set a record, with a Hong Kong hedge-fund manager paying more than $2.1 million. The buyer, Zhao Danyang of Pureheart China Growth Investment Fund, is scheduled to have his lunch with Mr. Buffett on Wednesday, according to Bloomberg News.
Will Mr. Buffett be able to top last year’s record?
Logic says it is unlikely. First, that record was more than three times the previous record. And financial markets are still in turmoil and investors are more focused on making their money back rather than giving it away. The latest bid for the Buffett lunch on eBay was $31,100.
Buzzword Bingo
- Synergistic
- Mission critical
- Facetime
- The U.S.P.
- 2.0
- Private beta
- Paradigm shift
- Monetize!
- Actionable
- Blue sky
- Maximise potential
- Next steps
German pensioners ‘kidnap and torture their investment adviser’
A group of well-to-do pensioners who lost their savings in the credit crunch staged an arthritic revenge attack and held their terrified financial adviser to ransom, prosecutors said yesterday.
The alleged kidnapping is the latest example of what is being dubbed ‘silver crime’ — the violent backlash of pensioners who feel cheated by the world.
‘As I was letting myself into my front door I was assaulted from behind and hit hard,’ the financial adviser James Amburn, a 56-year-old German-American, said. ‘Then they bound me with masking tape until I looked like a mummy. I thought I was a dead man.’
He was freed by 40 heavily armed policemen from the counter-terrorist unit last Saturday. The frightened consultant was in his underwear, his body lacerated by wounds allegedly inflicted by angry pensioners.
Es ‘Andrés’ huracán categoría 1
El fenómeno meteorológico “Andrés” ya es huracán categoría uno en la escala Saffir-Simpson, ya que se desplaza con vientos sostenidos de 120 kilómetros por hora con rachas de hasta 140.
La tormenta tropical se convirtió en el primer huracán de la temporada frente a las costas mexicanas del Pacífico.
El último reporte de la dirección General de Protección Civil de la Secretaría de Gobernación indicó que el fenómeno se desplaza peligrosamente a costas nacionales del Pacífico Central, aunque no se prevé que toque tierra.
“‘Andrés’ podría perder intensidad durante la noche de hoy al desplazarse hacia aguas menos cálidas del Océano Pacífico y al aproximarse a una masa de aire muy estable.
Nuevo León: Elizondo admite empate técnico con Medina
El candidato del PAN al gobierno de Nuevo León, Fernando Elizondo Barragán, admitió que predomina un ‘empate técnico’ en las preferencias electorales frente al aspirante de la coalición Juntos por Nuevo León, Rodrigo Medina de la Cruz.
Durante un evento masivo celebrado anoche en el municipio conurbado de Escobedo, el abanderado del Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) consideró ‘ridículas’ las encuestas que ubican a Medina de la Cruz con una ventaja de 10 puntos, a sólo 13 días de los comicios.
‘El panorama es de mucha intensidad en la campaña, con gran entusiasmo y con gran energía, mucho trabajo de aquí al miércoles de la semana próxima, que va a terminar la actividad de campaña y esperamos llevarnos el triunfo el 5 de julio’, indicó.
Precisó que ‘las encuestas que nosotros hemos tenido indican un empate técnico, algunas para arriba otras para abajo’.
Va ex-embajador Tony Garza a iniciativa privada
Tony Garza, ex Embajador de Estados Unidos en México y esposo de María Asunción Aramburuzabala, se integró este martes como socio y presidente del consejo de ViaNovo Ventures y como asesor de la firma legal White & Case.
ViaNovo, una empresa consultora, anunció este martes que Garza se unió a la compañía en calidad de socio y como presidente del Consejo de ViaNovo Ventures, una nueva división de la compañía.
James S. Taylor, socio fundador de ViaNovo, dijo mediante un comunicado que el ex Embajador cuenta con la confianza de directores generales y ejecutivos de empresas, inversionistas y líderes de gobierno de Estados Unidos y México, por lo que su conocimiento y experiencia serán invaluables para los clientes y socios estratégicos de negocios.
Además de ofrecer servicios de consejería a sus clientes en materia de comunicaciones estratégicas, asuntos públicos y negocios, Garza tendrá como meta el crecimiento de ViaNovo Ventures, que busca asociarse con compañías, fondos de inversión privada e inversionistas para ayudarles a alcanzar sus metas de negocio.
Obama ‘outraged’ by Iranian violence as street protests are quashed – Times Online
President Obama condemned Iran’s ‘iron fist’ last night after the regime flooded Tehran with armed security to quash street demonstrations.
In his strongest language yet on the post-election crackdown, Mr Obama said that America had been ‘appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments’ of recent days.
He also invoked the death of Neda Salehi Agha Soltan, the 26-year-old student shot dead on Saturday, saying: ‘Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history.’
His comments came on a day when Tehran tightened its grip on power and the West hardened its position.
— The highest legislative body in Iran, the Guardian Council, ruled out a rerun of the election and parliament set a date for the inauguration of President Ahmadinejad.
— The regime arrested Alireza Beheshti Shirazi, a close aide of the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi who ran his newspaper and website.
— Britain expelled two Iranian diplomats after Tehran ordered two British diplomats out of Iran on Monday.
— Iranian envoys in at least five European capitals were summoned to be told that the oppression of peaceful demonstrators was unacceptable.
Swine Flu Might Have Come From Asia – NYTimes.com
Contrary to the popular assumption that the new swine flu pandemic arose on factory farms in Mexico, federal agriculture officials now believe that it most likely emerged in pigs in Asia, but then traveled to North America in a human.
But they emphasized that there was no way to prove their theory and only sketchy data underpinning it.
There is no evidence that this new virus, which combines Eurasian and North American genes, has ever circulated in North American pigs, while there is tantalizing evidence that a closely related ‘sister virus’ has circulated in Asia.
American breeding pigs, possibly carrying North American swine flu, are frequently exported to Asia, where the flu could have combined with Asian strains. But because of disease quarantines that make it hard to import Asian pigs, experts said, it is unlikely that a pig brought the new strain back West.
You’re Always Online With Push IM for iPhone
Internet-addicted iPhone addicts, rejoice: Push instant messaging is here. That means you can constantly stay connected to your IM services (e.g., AOL Instant Messenger and Gchat) on your iPhone even when it’s asleep; you can receive IMs similar to the way text messages work.
BeeJive is one of the first IM clients to take advantage of push. I’ve tested the app for about seven hours, and I’m pleased to report push IM works quite nicely. On my iPhone 3GS, push IMs appeared almost immediately on my screen, even when I was using other apps. The IMs appear in a small rectangular box, giving you the option to close the message or view it in the BeeJive app.
During testing there were occasions where push IMing simply wasn’t working. However, some users are also reporting similar problems with the AOL Instant Messenger IM app, which is also supporting push. Kai Yu, developer of BeeJive, assures me this is likely a problem related to Apple’s push-notification server — new technology, so hopefully Apple will improve it over time.
AppleInsider | Apple COO Cook taking on more of Jobs’ responsibilities
Apple chief operating officer Tim Cook’s capacity to successfully manage the company for extended periods of time has recently seen him adopt more of the duties once reserved specifically for Steve Jobs, but it’s also made him an attractive target for other high-tech firms looking for a seasoned leader.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Cook was the subject of overtures from two of the industry’s biggest names over the past 24 months. Dell reportedly took a swipe at hiring him two years ago while Motorola attempted to lure the Alabama native away from his post at Apple as recently as last year.
This presents a challenge for Apple’s board of directors, who are reportedly well aware that Cook ‘is a very attractive property.’ As such, it’s possible he’ll soon be offered a seat on the board alongside Jobs, the financial paper said. He’s currently a director for Nike, where he’s served since late 2005.
Known for putting in long hours at Apple, Cook is single and devotes much of his time away from the office to sports and exercise. He’s an avid cyclist, runner, and hiker, who typically hits the gym by 5 a.m. every morning and has been known to quote Lance Armstrong in Apple meetings, the Journal previously reported.
“iPod3,1″ References in iPhone OS 3.0 Point to iPod Touch Refresh
A recent posting at iPod touch Fans has gained some publicity for the re-discovery of references to an ‘iPod3,1′ model in the public release of iPhone OS 3.0. The current iPod touch is termed ‘iPod2,1′, so the references suggest that Apple will be releasing a revised iPod touch model at some point in the relatively near future. The news is unsurprising, as Apple appears to be following a yearly cycle of product refreshes in recent years, and with both the first- and second-generation iPod touch models having seen September release dates, the release of a revised ‘iPod3,1′ iPod touch in September is a reasonable expectation.
The ‘iPod3,1′ reference was actually first discovered in the iPhone OS 3.0 beta back in March, along with entries for several other unreleased and/or unspecified products. Among those entries was one for ‘iPhone3,1′, which appears to represent yet another iPhone model that has not yet been publicly released. Similarly, the mysterious ‘iFPGA’, and ‘iProd0,1′ products referenced at that time remain unknown.
AP Issues Strict Facebook, Twitter Guidelines to Staff
The Associated Press is adopting a stringent social-networking policy for its employees, informing them to police their Facebook profiles ‘to make sure material posted by others doesn’t violate AP standards.’
The policy comes weeks after an AP reporter was reprimanded for posting a comment to his own Facebook profile criticizing the Sacramento-based newspaper chain McClatchy, whose stock has become nearly worthless after a string of costly acquisitions.
‘We all have a stake in upholding the AP’s reputation for fairness and impartiality, which has been one of our chief assets for more than 160 years,’ Kristin Gazlay, an AP vice president, wrote Thursday to the news agency’s 4,000 employees.
The AP’s social-networking policy comes as the media at large begins adopting Facebook and Twitter guidelines during a time of explosive growth in online social media. The News Media Guild, representing about 1,000 AP journalists, says the AP’s policy is perhaps the most restrictive the union has seen.