SEIU 32BJ Endorses Christine Quinn for Mayor

Council Speaker Christine Quinn scored the endorsement of 32BJ SEIU this afternoon, boosting her mayoral campaign with its biggest union nod to date.

The support, which was announced a little after 2 p.m. at a press conference at the union’s headquarters, will lend Ms. Quinn’s campaign a powerful and heavily-Latino union that represents tens of thousands of building services workers across the city.

“For quite some time, he’s taken my phone calls, given me advice, called me when I wasn’t smart enough to ask him for advice and gave me advice and always been a friend and a shoulder and an ear and that’s what we need to get things done,” Ms. Quinn said of her relationship with the union’s president, Hector Figueroa. “The way we are going to make this city a better place, a place for greater opportunity for working men and women, a place that really is a beacon for the middle class is if we’re united as a team. And that’s what we’re going to be when I’m mayor.”

One of the most coveted labor endorsements in the race, the union was also mulling endorsing Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, according to a source, but, as expected, ultimately chose Ms. Quinn at least partially because she worked closely with them while negotiating paid sick day legislation.

Clad in the union’s color of parking sensor, Ms. Quinn was lavished with praise by both Mr. Figueroa and various members who came forward to extol her at 32BJ’s headquarters in downtown Manhattan. Several times union members broke into “All in for Quinn!” chants.

Mr. Figueroa cited Ms. Quinn’s work passing the paid sick day legislation as a reason for the endorsement, but said the union’s executive board–which voted unanimously to back Ms. Quinn–was leaning toward backing her before she passed the bill. He promised, in addition to a robust door-knocking effort, to make independent expenditures on Ms. Quinn’s behalf.

“We were already considering Speaker Quinn prior to the passage of paid sick leave,” Mr. Figueroa said. “For us, the election is a process in which we look at the experience with the candidate. To us, the leadership she has demonstrated on prevailing wage, on stop-and-frisk, on a number of issues, this leadership we value. We do not necessarily need a mayor that will agree with everything we say.”

While Ms. Quinn had bottled up the paid sick leave bill for years, citing fears that a frail economy would be further harmed by forcing businesses to grant paid sick days to workers, 32BJ worked closely with her office to finally get a version passed. According to Crain’s New York Business, a member of Ms. Quinn’s mayoral campaign actually set up a meeting between Ms. Quinn’s government staff and members of 32BJ to cement a deal.

Overall, labor has split its might in the mayoral race as Mr. de Blasio and several other contenders have rolled out big endorsements of their own. Mr. de Blasio grabbed SEIU 1999, the powerful healthcare workers’ union, for example, while former Comptroller Bill Thompson received the blessing of the teachers’ union last week. And, although not as coveted as their better-organized rivals, Comptroller John Liu has the support of the sizable municipal workers’ union DC 37. But Mr. Figueora and Ms. Quinn, were undaunted by labor’s fracturing.

As Calgary crews make major progress on badly damaged LRT infrastructure and roads, there’s still a long way to go before many Calgary residents can live in their homes again and power is fully restored to downtown.

Just five days after the worst flooding to hit Calgary and southern Alberta, city officials predicted that parts of Macleod Trail could reopen as early as Tuesday and that LRT service through the downtown would also be restored Tuesday.

Nenshi encouraged residents to put signs outside their homes if they need services: “Need pumping.” “Need gas.” “Need electricity.” They can also make service requests on the 311 iPhone app.

Communities brought to a standstill by the deluge thrummed with activity Monday as homeowners set to the task of cleaning out their sodden residences.

“It’s been frustrating to not be able to do anything. In some ways to be able to get back and be able to actually remove the mud and garbage is more satisfying than that whole state of not knowing,” said Bowness resident Robin Yeast.

Some major buildings outside that area with direct feeds from Enmax also now have power, including the federal Harry Hays building, Bow Valley Square and the Telus building.

The remaining areas of downtown are open only to building owners and property managers, who must have inspectors give the structures the all-clear before power is restored and people are allowed back to work.

Bruce Burrell, director of the Calgary Emergency Management Agency, said power will gradually be restored to about 3,300 buildings in the core, with some buildings “relit” as early as Tuesday.

Campground, parks and trails flooded in Devon

Water has spilled into Voyageur Park, the Riverview Mountain Bike Skills Park, the Lion’s Campground and the river valley trail system. Road and trail access to the areas are closed until the water recedes to a safe level.

Devon Mayor Anita Fisher confirmed at a briefing Sunday afternoon that the water level in Devon has risen to six metres.

“The flow of the river is extremely fast and extremely treacherous,” Fisher said. “Even if you’re standing on the bank, we have extremely high cliffs in the Devon area and we want people to understand they can give way.”

The water level doesn’t have an impact on utilities until it reaches eight metres, giving the town breathing room, Fisher said.

On Saturday evening about 2,000 people were evacuated from 285 campsites at the Lion’s Campground within three hours of officials declaring the state of emergency.

The campsite flooded overnight after visitors had evacuated. Fisher said the extent of the damage won’t be known until the water recedes. No more evacuations are expected to take place.

Evacuees were relocated to the Baptist Church and parking lots at the Devon Community Centre, public library, RCMP office and Extra Foods grocery store. Officials, however, are working to move the evacuees at one central site, Fisher said.

Ron and Judy Babiuk were seated in front of their parked trailer at the Devon Community Centre on Sunday afternoon. The two said they were given two hours notice Saturday and described the evacuation as “smooth sailing.”

The two, who live at the campsite during the summer, originally relocated to the parking lot near the library but were swarmed by mosquitoes. They settled on the community centre because it has access to power outlets.

“Everyone’s been so helpful,” Judy added. “The fire department, police and peace officers were absolutely extraordinary. There was no panic and everything was well organized.”

The flood, meanwhile, coincided with the Special Olympics Alberta summer games in town over the weekend. Fisher said athletes were forced to leave the golf course early on Saturday, but were able to finish competing Sunday.

The Devon golf course, situated near the Lion’s Campground, will remain open. Officials have no timetable on when they will lift the state of local emergency.

Fire chief Robert Main said an individual was pulled upstream from the river on Saturday afternoon. No injuries were reported. Main said police have also spotted canoeists on the river. He urged the public to avoid the river valley parks and trails.

In yet another significant stride in this regard, the MoL has launched  the Wages Protection System (WPS) to safeguard payment of workers’ wages via transfers through selected financial institutions. These transfers will be regulated by the government.

Furthermore, foreign workers are guaranteed the right to send their savings to their home nation  and in 2012, approximately Dh70.46 billion was remitted overseas for the benefit of workers’ families.

The UAE MoL has introduced a comprehensive range of protection measures covering both pre- and post-departure needs of workers, beginning in their country of origin (for instance, protecting workers from illegal recruiters and setting up a contract validation system), continuing after their arrival in the country (through measures like curbing abuse and non-payment of wages), and on their return and re-integration to their home country.

The UAE Labour Minister, Saqr Ghobash, has discussed a number of issues related to the regulation of the labour market in the UAE in separate meetings with Brent Wilton, Deputy Secretary-General, International Organisation of Employers, and William Lacy Swing, Director-General of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

Discussions covered the measures applied by the Ministry in terms of controlling and regulating the work of private employment agencies in order to minimise any negative practices that might be carried out by them.

The officials hailed the role played by the UAE and its initiatives to improve the management of temporary contractual work cycles, particularly the ‘Abu Dhabi Dialogue’ initiative and the subsequent meetings of the countries which are sending and receiving labourers.

The second Ministerial Consultations of ‘Abu Dhabi Dialogue   2″ was held in Manila from 17th  to 19th  April, 2012.
Representatives from 20 countries took part in the meeting, six of them being the labour-receiving countries of UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, in addition to eleven labour-sending countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, as well as representatives from Malaysia, Singapore and Korea as observers.

The meeting concluded with the Manila Communique, which adopted the Framework of Regional Collaboration, 2012 for the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, and supported its guidelines for voluntary initiatives, and increased collaboration and partnerships to ensure the welfare and protection of contract workers.

Read the full story at www.parkeasy-pgs.com!

Twitter and the life of the mind

“Almost everybody who is a writer these days,” he observes, “gets, at some point, a lecture on the necessity of being ‘on’ Twitter and Facebook. It’s a tool of selling and career building. It is, for writers of all ages and stages, not so much required reading as required writing. The whole thing seems stupid at first: you ignore whoever is giving you this lecture, until one day you decide, O.K., let’s try it out, and then discover that it’s kind of fun. And, as long as it’s done in moderation, it is kind of interesting. But could Twitter possibly be productive, beyond the basic act of publicizing what you have written and/or proving that you still exist?”

As a new (and somewhat skeptical) Twitter user, I find all this particularly resonant. Have we really hit the cultural tipping point where we need to prove our existence, in bursts of 140-character inspiration, two, three, 10, 12, 15 times a day?

Beller’s account charts my own Twitter experience with uncanny accuracy: resistance, capitulation, the discovery that, perhaps, there might be something to the enterprise and yet a kind of lingering confusion about what it means. Is it possible to do something interesting on Twitter? Or is it just an elaborate way of saying, “Look at me”?

“Most great writers,” Beller notes, “could, if they wanted to, be very good at Twitter, because it is a medium of words and also of form. Its built-in limitation corresponds to the sense of rhythm and proportion that writers apply to each line.” That reminds me of the poet David Trinidad, who once told me that he liked writing in traditional formats (the sonnet, especially) because of the stylistic boundaries: The challenge was to be creative while coloring within the lines.

I haven’t been on Twitter long, but I find myself gravitating to the feeds of writers such as Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates, whom Beller calls “a prolific and often ingenious tweeter,” citing one recent example: “If an action is not recorded on a smart phone, does it, did it, exist?”

What Oates is doing here is neither self-promoting nor time-wasting nor navel-gazing but, rather,  taking a more ontological approach. Hers is a highly self-conscious feed, often reflecting on the mechanics of the medium; “Development in human consciousness,” she tweeted a few weeks ago, “people speak into the (social media) void as a way of speaking to themselves, like keeping a journal?”

That’s a vivid observation, but what I admire most about it is that it requires us to be engaged. Oates is asking, in other words, for us to think about what we’re doing on Twitter, what we’re reading and what we’re writing, which is, of course, the whole point of literary (or any) culture, to encourage consciousness.

For Beller, Oates provokes a series of significant, and troubling, questions: “Does a thought need to be shared to exist? What happens to the stray thought that drifts into view, is pondered, and then drifts away? Perhaps you jot it down in a note before it vanishes, so that you can mull it over in the future. It’s like a seed that, when you return to it, may have grown into something visible. Or perhaps you put it in a tweet, making the note public. But does the fact that it is public diminish the chances that it will grow into something sturdy and lasting? Does articulating a thought in public freeze it in place somehow, making it not part of a thought process but rather a tiny little finished sculpture?”

I wonder much the same thing. Is Twitter the problem or the solution? How do we use it in compelling ways? Beller closes his piece by describing two essays he first “assembled” as a set of Tweets, a process he regards as akin to “being a juggler or a three-card-monte dealer: I drew a little crowd.” Is this “talking it out before you write it,” he considers, “or part of a process?” And what does it mean for our writing if we are now expected to take our notes in public, to play out in full view the very private life of the mind?

“We live in a transparent age,” Beller concludes, “and yet there is much of value that happens in the opaque quarters of our own ambivalent minds, seen by no one else, and seen by us only after a long period of concentration and looking.”

It is clear that Edward Snowden, who leaked United States National Security Agency files to The Guardian, had access to an enormous amount of information that he could download without being noticed – just as Bradley Manning did in the Wikileaks case. There are at least two controls failures in play here: a preventive controls failure, and a detective controls failure. Preventive controls, as you might guess, prevent bad things from happening. Detective controls – surprise, surprise – detect things you have not been able to prevent.

Firstly, on preventive controls, or broken authorisation. In a June 16 New York Times article, Scott Shane and Ravi Somaiya wrote: “American intelligence officials have expressed alarm at the variety of highly classified material Snowden obtained, suggesting that his actions revealed a shocking breach in the fundamental principle that intelligence officers should have access only to the material they need to do their jobs.”

The fundamental principal they are referring to is called the ‘principle of least privilege’, or ‘need to know’. It is not just for intelligence officers. It applies to any business or organisation with confidential or sensitive information – which means everyone. The idea is simple: if you do not need to have access to something, you should not have access. Does a bank give every employee keys or the combination to its vault? Of course not. If too many people have access to the vault, the risk that one of them will walk off with a stack of cash increases. By restricting vault access to only those who require it, a bank limits access to only authorised individuals.

It is the same with data, but instead of physical controls like locks and keys, there are logical controls. Logical controls, like passwords, smart cards and RSA tokens, make sure users are who they claim to be. This is called authentication. Other logical controls, such as permissions, allow you to ensure that authenticated users have access to only the data they require – known as authorisation. Snowden clearly had access to a lot of data, probably much more than he should have had. He is not alone: according to our data protection survey, only 37 per cent of organisations regularly revoke access to data, meaning a lot of employees have access to far more data than they require to do their jobs. This is mistake one: poor or broken authorisation.

Moving on to detective controls failure, or inadequate activity auditing and analysis. Even if a bank restricts access to its vault as tightly as possible, someone will need to have access to it. So how do we make sure those trusted few use their powers only for good? We watch what they are doing with detective controls. Banks have security cameras to record people going in and out of the vault, and security guards looking on. These days the banks and credit card companies routinely monitor transactions for fraud. These are examples of detective controls. Like currency, information only realises its true value when it is shared. Well-configured preventive controls limit access to only those who need access, but those trusted few need to be monitored with logical detective controls.

Click on their website www.parkeasy-pgs.com for more information.

Smart sales go online

Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific has announced what it claims is the nation’s first online vehicle purchasing platform, allowing customers to purchase smart cars entirely on the internet.

Although Subaru’s BRZ sports coupe was available to order online, smart says it is the first automotive brand to enable buyers to purchase vehicles completely online.

“Whilst there have been opportunities for customers with other brands to secure a vehicle online with a deposit, the difference with this platform is that every single detail including calculation of on-road and delivery costs, the amount of the payment in full, service packages and dealer delivery point can be completed via the platform, and won’t be restricted to a specific time period,” said Mercedes-Benz Cars Australia/Pacific Managing Director, Horst von Sanden.

LOOKING DOWN FROM 500 MILES above Earth’s surface, you could watch the FedEx Custom Critical Delivery truck move across the country along 3,140 miles of highway in 47 and a half hours of nonstop driving. Starting off in Wilmington, Massachusetts, the truck merges south onto I-95 and keeps right at the fork for I-90. Then it winds its way across the width of New York State, charging past the airport in Toledo, through the flatlands of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Wyoming, snaking down the mountain passes and switchbacks above Salt Lake City, across the Nevada deserts and over to Sacramento, then down the highway toward San Jose and off at the California 237 exit, headed for Mountain View.

Neither Jim nor Carla Cline, a married couple who take turns at the wheel, has the slightest inkling that the large wooden crate in the back of their truck might radically change how we see our world. When they finally pull into the parking lot of a low warehouse-like structure around the corner from a Taco Bell, more than a hundred engineers, parking guidance, and other geeks who work for a startup called Skybox Imaging are there to cheer the Clines’ arrival. He and Carla delivered some dinosaur bones once, Jim tells me, leaning out the window as he idles by the curb. Elvis’ Harley too. “Never saw anything get the attention this got,” he says.

Dan Berkenstock, executive VP and chief product officer of Skybox, is in the cheering crowd, fidgeting with his half-filled coffee mug. In worn Converse sneakers, short-sleeved blue oxford shirt, jeans, and glasses, he looks younger than most of the employees at the company he founded, which has been his passion ever since he dropped out of Stanford’s engineering school in 2009. Berkenstock’s idea for a startup was far outside the mainstream of venture capital investment in the Valley, with its penchant for “lean” software plays and quick-hit social apps. But his company got funded nevertheless, and now Skybox has designed and built something unprecedented—the kind of once-in-a-lifetime something that makes the hearts of both engineers and venture capitalists beat faster. The Clines have just delivered the final piece: a set of high-end custom optics, which will be inserted into an unassuming metal box the size of a dorm-room minifridge.

Forty years after humans first saw pictures of a blue and white marble taken from space, it’s remarkable how few new images of Earth we get to lay eyes on. Of the 1,000 or more satellites orbiting the planet at any given time, there are perhaps 100 that send back visual data. Only 12 of those send back high-resolution pictures (defined as an image in which each pixel represents a square meter or less of ground), and only nine of the 12 sell into the commercial space-based imaging market, currently estimated at $2.3 billion a year. Worse still, some 80 percent of that market is controlled by the US government, which maintains priority over all other buyers: If certain government agencies decide they want satellite time for themselves, they can simply demand it. Earlier this year, after the government cut its imaging budget, the market’s two biggest companies—DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, which between them operate five of the nine commercial geoimaging satellites—were forced to merge. Due to the paucity of satellites and to the government’s claim on their operations, ordering an image of a specific place on Earth can take days, weeks, even months.

Because so few images make their way down from space every day, and even fewer reach the eyes of the public—remember how dazzled we were when Google Earth first let us explore one high-definition image of the planet?—we can fool ourselves into thinking that the view from space barely changes. But even with the resolutions allowed by the government for commercial purposes, an orbiting satellite can clearly show individual cars and other objects that are just a few feet across. It can spot a FedEx truck crossing America or a white van driving through Beirut or Shanghai. Many of the most economically and environmentally significant actions that individuals and businesses carry out every day, from shipping goods to shopping at big-box retail outlets to cutting down trees to turning out our lights at night, register in one way or another on images taken from space. So, while Big Data companies scour the Internet and transaction records and other online sources to glean insight into consumer behavior and economic production around the world, an almost entirely untapped source of data—information that companies and governments sometimes try to keep secret—is hanging in the air right above us.

New smoking rules for public housing are a slap in face

On May 19, the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. posted a notice on its public housing bulletin boards that it was stopping all smoking in its apartments.

The following day, residents received a letter revealing that Alaska’s huge financial arm had arbitrarily decided to follow smoking rules resembling those of North Korea, China, Russia, etc. The notice was bent on forcing the aged, sick and poor who smoke to leave or quit or suffer the winter by smoking outside their homes in a designated area.

Golden Towers’ tenants, who voiced loud opposition to the plan, point out that the unlit, unheated, unshielded designated area in that part of the parking lot is an area that attracts drug peddlers, drunks, girls selling their wares and, last year, a couple copulating. While interesting, most mature adults would prefer HBO. Another problem is the wheeling of your wheelchair or carrying your gurney through the snow and the cold to the designated area, a difficult if not impossible feat five months of the year.

The new rules were applauded by a few, but most residents found it to be intruding on their freedoms, pocketbook and lifestyle; just another state-authorized nanny attack so to speak. AHFC said it had support from the residents; I found none, and I live here.

The no-smoking ultimatum is aimed right at the old, the low income and disabled Alaskan. These people do not have the resources to move their households, and, to make matters worse, there appears to be a six-month waiting list for Fairbanks apartments that allow smoking. Based on that, we can assume the state wishes to rid itself of smokers or cure those who would smoke the evil weed.

A major error in that thought is that smoking cessation programs work, when, in fact, taken as a whole, they are successful only 44 percent to 78 percent of the time for longer than 12 months, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The saddest fact of all is that folks older than 75 who have smoked heavily for more than 60 years and have a damaged heart can die from nicotine withdrawal (2.6 percent, according to an American Medical Association bulletin). I am one of those who started at age nine and now count 78 winters under my belt. I am not proud of it, because my momma warned me early on about sticking fingers in electric sockets and cigarettes in my mouth.

As a former Alaska landlord and a veteran who has bled and laid his life on the line for these United States to be free, I find the rule change to be a slap in the face, not only to free Americans, but to the most fragile of all Americans, the older generation as a whole.

When did we start playing by China’s and North Korea rules? Remember Chairman Mao’s comment at his 1975 membership meeting: “What is best for the majority of population is not always the best for the minority. What is best is respect and allowance for each other under any and all conditions, if they produce … The old and the infirm serve no purpose, produce nothing and should only be remembered …” (Paraphrased from U.S. News and World Report, international edition, 1976).

Mao smoked cigars all his life, but would not allow others to smoke in his presence, in homes, in state-owned apartments or even on the streets. The theory is that he died from smoking poison cigars, according to a 1979 CIA report.

The AFHC’s ultimatum stinks of idealist political logic, but the management says no, that their concern is the health of their tenants. AFHC’s spokesmen claimed secondary smoke complaints drove them into making the rule change. This is pure unadulterated balderdash. The only way secondhand smoke can escape the apartments is through the venting system or if the system fails.

Failure could be the problem. One tenant has kept score and photographic evidence of the pollution pumped into the building; yet another can point to the stream of dirt running down his wall from the fresh-air vent discharge outlet. Quite a few of the tenants have installed electronic air cleaners in their home and filters over the building’s air ventilation outlets. This has proven to be only a short-term fix. In my case, I installed two expensive, well-rated units and the filters were expected to last 12 months; they lasted three. The filter over the ventilator lasted less than a month and filled with black soot and gray ash like dust. The smells of diesel smoke drifts through the apartment every time a truck passes.

If AHFC wishes to not repair the air exchange system but demands the removal of its smoking tenants, it should find a place for them to go, pay for the move and make the deposit on the new apartment/home — as long as our monthly rental cost is the same as it is now; no harm done and less stressful than being thrown out on the street by state troopers. Click on their website www.parkeasy-pgs.com for more information.

Mursi and Erdogan – a thorn in each other’s side

What Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan was able to keep under wraps for more than 10 years has eluded Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi to cover up for less than a year. Hence, the link between growing tensions in Cairo and the unprecedented anti-government protests in Istanbul. Oddly enough, Egyptians may be the closest observers– outside Turkey—in following up the Turkish turmoil.

Few weeks after Mursi took office last summer, many people in the traditionally diverse Egyptian society saw through the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood from which the president hails.

It became increasingly clear that Mursi, who had portrayed himself during the election campaign as a “president for all Egyptians”, is only the president of his clan. His successive decisions and biased political discourse have exposed him as being manipulated by his group to impose a prejudicial cultural agenda.

In contrast, Erdogan was smart and shrewd enough to spend long years to carry out his ideological project during which he surmounted numerous obstacles, including a military coup bid in 2007. Thus, he was able to lead Turks into believing that he followed a secular ruling system and that his key objective was to achieve economic development, which has shown steady success in recent years.

Erodgan also demonstrated commitment to the Western-style democracy. On his re-election in 2007, he pledged to advocate freedom, justice, welfare and democracy for all Turks, confirming respect for those who did not vote for parking guidance.

In July last year when the Brotherhood followers were celebrating Mursi’s win of the presidential post, Mohamed Al Beltagui, a leading official in the group’s Freedom and Justice Party, went on the record as saying that the 48.5 per cent of the Egyptians who had not voted for Mursi are “mere ghosts.”

Pathetically, around five months into office, Mursi’s decisions and addresses as well as his group’s actions sharply divided Egyptians into backers and opponents. Each side espouses an identity and an agenda alien to the country’s age-old features. This division has been repeatedly reflected in massive rallies staged by the Brotherhood and its allies aimed at flexing muscles against opponents.

Last week, Erdogan said he could mobilize millions of his supporters in response to the massive anti-government protests held in several Turkish cities.

Years into a rule often termed as wise, Turkey now figures prominently among countries infringing freedom of the press. Weeks after Mursi took office, his backers encircled the state-run Media Production City and filed a flurry of lawsuits and even made threats against media figures.

Contrary to his calls on the Egyptian regime to observe secular rules, Erdogan has recently enforced anti-freedom codes including monitoring the people’s public conduct.
Such laws are not yet in place in Egypt. Yet, artists in Egypt have recently become the target of Islamist radicals on religious TV stations. The militant TV clerics have also accused their critics of defaming religion, a charge on which several Egyptian politicians and media personalities have recently been quizzed.

Both Egypt and Turkey are facing an identity crisis. The rulers in the two countries seek to impose contentious cultural projects.

However, the ruling systems in the two countries are different on one score. It took Erdogan many years before trying to do this. For its part, the Mursi regime has been unwise enough to rush into carrying out its project at cultural, political, social and legal levels.

Egyptians and Turks share the possibility of confronting their own rulers to block the controversial ideological project, regardless of whether it has already fulfilled achievement as in Turkey, or proved a fiasco as in Egypt.

Coincidently, the Egyptian and Turkish rulers have come to be a burden for each other. The matter is not limited to the similarity in the names of the ruling parties in both countries. It’s the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt; Erdogan’s party is called Justice and Development.

Egypt’s Islamist rulers have often portrayed Erdogan’s ruling system as their ideal example. Erdogan, meanwhile, has presented himself in the past two years as the regional sponsor of the new rulers in Tunisia and Egypt. Erdogan’s Turkey has also been involved in triggering changes in Libya and the war in Syria.

With Egypt’s economy in the doldrums, Turkey has repeatedly unveiled economic support for Cairo, showing Ankara as a staunch backer of Egypt’s Brotherhood rule. The Brotherhood’s opponents have come to view Ankara as throwing its weight behind bids to change Egypt’s cultural identity.

In a Facebook comment, Erdogan described Mursi as “an example that should be followed by youths”. During a visit to Cairo last September, Erdogan called the situation in Egypt “an awakening that spreads like waves in the world”.

In the meantime, Brotherhood officials, mainly the deputy supreme guide Khayrat Al Shater, have made a series of trips to Turkey in recent months. Mursi himself attended a recent congress of Erodgan’s Justice and Development Party.

New Study Says That Smart Cameras Are the Future

The concept of the Smart Camera started years ago but was only really taken seriously by Samsung when they started to integrate the technology into their cameras for easier sharing of photos and videos to their smart televisions–which are also WiFi enabled. Sony later on started pushing it further and at Canon Expo in NYC a couple of years back, the company demonstrated a platform to wirelessly send content from their cameras to a device via an Alpha version of NFC technology. The main thing differentiating a smart phone and smart camera in terms of image taking is an optical zoom and usually larger sensors–if there is one.

The reason for the need to be connected comes from the growth of smartphone use combined with the increase of image quality that they can deliver. And for what it’s worth, there have been multiple reports that it has eaten into the point and shoot camera market. Indeed, both Olympus and Fujifilm are cutting down their stocks.

Indeed, there is lots of hype behind these cameras with many major manufacturers having the Smart feature built in. Some of the most popular are the Canon 6D, Panasonic GH3, Samsung NX300, Samsung Galaxy Cam, and the Sony NEX 6.

So how popular are these cameras? At the time of publishing this article, many of these cameras rank amongst Amazon’s most popular DSLRs and Mirrorless Camera lists. To be fair, WiFi isn’t the only reason why they’re so popular. They also have some damned good technology built into them.

According to a report by Samsung focused website, SamMobile, the Korean smartphone giant has started rolling out a new software update to Galaxy S4 users in Germany that brings new improvements and fixes to the phone. The most notable feature that the update brings is the ability to move apps to the phone’s microSD card. This will allow users to utilise the phone’s external storage not just for storing multimedia content but for also installing apps. Previously, there was a lot of outrage over the phone’s limited internal storage as the 16GB variant of the phone offered only 8.82GB to the user. While Samsung had said that it was not really an issue as the phone came with a microSD card slot, it was not possible to install or move apps to the card. Samsung had later accepted that it was indeed a problem and that the company was working on a solution. It’s now being reported that the new update also increases the available internal storage space to 9.23GB.

The update, which is currently available for Galaxy S4 phones powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, also brings a new camera firmware. The phone can now record HDR video as well. It also fixes a smearing issue which led to users seeing a purple effect while scrolling a list on the phone. The update brings a toggle for Smart Pause, a semi-transparent status bar on the home screen, new icons in the Settings menu, secure boot status in the About phone menu option and a new option to increase legibility in the Display settings menu.

Once you’ve buckled up and are ready to pull away, kick-start your vacation mood with an energizing playlist. Songza, a free app for iOS, Android, and Kindle Fire, functions as a “music concierge,” offering song collections organized by mood, genre, and activity. The Road Trip category offers mood-attuned playlists like Hamptons Beach Traffic, Sing-Along, and ’90s Crowd Pleasing Hits.

For a more intellectually stimulating ride, listen to a podcast. Stuff You Should Know will get the conversation flowing — the massive archive of single-topic episodes includes shows on volcanoes, the digestive system, the Bermuda Triangle, and the history of the Barbie doll.

If you’ve got kids in the car, it’s tempting to hand them an iPad filled with games and videos to keep them occupied. But part of the fun of road trips is the opportunity to bond and learn more about the people you’re with. PBS has a great list of creative games to play with kids, such as The License Plate Game and “I wonder where that car is going?”

Make the most of your gas station stops with one of the many free apps designed to save you money at the pump. GasBuddy and Gas Guru, available for iOS and Android, both display the locations of nearby gas stations and their current prices.

With a bit of preparation, you can even get gas for free. If you have a Citi ThankYou? Rewards credit card you can redeem reward points for Sunoco gas cards before you go — gift cards are valid at any of the 4,600 stations in the United States.

Refueling the car gives you an opportunity to rest, have a bite to eat, and get re-energized for the journey ahead. When you’re on the highway and wishing for an exit that has your preferred food stop, reach for the free RoadAhead iOS app. It lists eateries by exit, as well as showing nearby parks where you can stretch your legs and breathe some fresh air.

To discover diversions along the way to your main destination, check out Roadtrippers. Sign up and plug in your start and end locations on the website and you’ll get a list of quirky places to visit along the way–from ’50s diners to abandoned amusement parks. Once you’ve created a Bucket List on the site, download the free iOS app, sync your account, and you’ll have an itinerary of interesting pit stops in the palm of your hand.

Other web resources for finding offbeat attractions include Roadside America and Atlas Obscura. On these sites you’ll encounter such places as the National Mustard Museum, the World’s Largest Pistachio Nut, and the Cockroach Hall of Fame — certainly ingredients for an unforgettable vacation .Click on their website www.parkeasy-pgs.com for more information.

Millennials Unhappy With Businessweek Campaign Mocking

Bloomberg Businessweek took an interesting approach in its effort to court millennials when it shamed them for still living at home with mom and dad and then invited them to subscribe, and the backlash has begun.

Many of the reactions to the campaign have focused on its insensitivity to the economic challenges facing millennials and the implication that they’re lazy. (Businessweek acknowledges in small type at the bottom of the campaign home page that “the woeful state of the economy is not their fault” and that the intent is “not to blame them,” but that message apparently was overshadowed by the rest of the campaign.)

“There no jobs to get,” wrote mje. “There are three adults to one job open. That is typical for a recessionary period. However, the economy has been expanding for at least 47 months.”

Others took issue with the implication that Gen Yers are just freeloaders. “My friends have plans to move out in the months/year; many have been able to make moves in the past few months. Many of them pay money to their parents to help with utilities and parking guidance,” wrote Shelby. “Their parents know their kids are being responsible by living at home and planning for their futures in the best way possible (while trying to save for a place of their own AND pay off student loans at the same time).”

The “Gets You Ahead” campaign offers e-gift cards that parents can send to their Gen Y kids with 12 free issues of Businessweek. The cards have messages encouraging the deadbeats to find their own place, like “Our American dream is for you to move out” and “You’re a drain on this country’s economy, sweetie pie.” It’s not been a good time for millennials; the campaign comes on the heels of a Time magazine cover story that accused millennials of being lazy narcissists.

Bloomberg contended that the campaign has gotten a big positive reaction, although it didn’t provide numbers. “We have been very pleased that tens of thousands of people have responded positively to ‘BBW Gets You Ahead,’ showing their appreciation for the campaign by their shares on social media and actively taking the offer to sample Bloomberg Businessweek,” emailed president Paul Bascobert.

Jake Katz, general manager of youth market research firm YPulse, said the campaign didn’t entirely miss the mark. He said Businessweek was smart to use word-of-mouth marketing in this case, given that today’s twenty-somethings actually will take advice from their parents. But while more college grads have moved back in with their parents, they’re not necessarily unwelcome guests.

“Where they missed the mark is pitching it as, you guys are annoying mom and dad by being at home,” he told Adweek. “That’s not the case. Mom and dad are not pushing them out of the nest. Mom and dad may not have been planning to financially support their kids … but that separation is not there.”

Closely watch your credit card balance relative to your credit limit, called your “debt-to-credit ratio.” Experts differ about the ideal ratio, but all agree that keeping your debt below 30 percent of your available credit line is key to ensuring your credit score isn’t negatively impacted. Check your statement regularly to make sure that your credit line hasn’t been reduced by your card company, thus raising your debt-to-credit ratio.

If you’re trying to pay down your balance, explore the option of a balance transfer. A balance transfer at a low rate makes it easier to pay down your balance, improving your debt-to-credit ratio as your balance decreases. Keep an eye out for balance transfers with no fees, 0 percent interest during the introductory period and a low rate after the intro period expires. Know that the APR on these offers can jump to above 20 percent after the introductory window — though all credit union interest rates are capped at 18 percent.

Make all your payments on time: Timely payments establish a track record of reliability and boost credit. If possible, set up automatic monthly payments along with text and email alerts to remind you of your due date.For controlled spending and easy qualification, go with a secured card: If you’re wary that a new credit card may make it more difficult to control spending, secured cards may be a great solution for you. They’re also a good option if you have little to no credit or your credit standing is below average. Secured cards require that you provide an up-front deposit, which then equals your credit line. Because secured card limits cannot exceed what you have deposited and tend to be lower than other cards, they help you control your spending. Secured cards also aid you in establishing a track record of on-time payments. Navy Federal is one of several lenders in the market with a secured card that can help you stay within budget and build credit.

Be smart about opening and closing accounts: As a general rule, avoid closing any card accounts. Having a higher average age on your credit accounts positively impacts your credit score. Beware not to open a large number of credit cards in a short span of time — doing so can indicate to lenders that you are overly eager for credit.

Pay down your balance as much as possible each month: Fully paying your balance helps you maintain a healthy debt to credit ratio. If it’s not possible to pay down your entire balance, try to at least pay down some portion to manage your debt and minimize interest payments.

Micropross ICTK lab secures EMVCo contactless validation

Sangseon Park, Director of the Technical Convergence Department said : “We have been working with Micropross test equipment for more than 10 years until now, for other contact and contactless projects. The performance of their tools, as well as their support has always been outstanding. It was therefore natural that we continued the collaboration for our EMVCoL1 contactless analog project, especially given the highly automated nature of their test tool and the possibility to upgrade it easily to support NFC Forum test specification”.

Indeed, the Micropross automated EMVCo L1 PICC analog test tool is part of the Contactless Test Station, a revolutionary concept concentrating in one box which contains all elements necessary to perform ISO 10373-6, ISO 10373-7, ICAO, EMVCo, and NFC Forum analog, digital and applicative tests. This unique tool therefore satisfies the customer’s needs. Micropross is the only test tool provider on the market with such a wide coverage, so many validated solutions (EMVCo, NFC Forum, ICAO) and with the ability to provide all hardware and software elements from the same source.

Jerome Vanhoucke, Sales Manager of Micropross added : “South Korea has always been a very strong market for Micropross, given its unique concentration on innovative companies, in the fields of smartcard, RFID and NFC. ICTK is one of our historical customers over there, and we are delighted that we have the opportunity to continue supporting them, and thus reinforcing our presence in this country.”

ICTK is one of the numerous validation laboratories which chose to work with Micropross test benches to provide service to their customers. Today, the majority of NFC Forum authorized validation laboratories are using Micropross test equipment, and on the banking side, the list of Micropross equipped test laboratories keeps on expanding, all around the world.

“Indeed, for sheer mind-numbing, soul-destroying aggravation, traffic in our largest cities can compete with any in the developed world,” says Coyne. According to a Toronto Board of Trade study Toronto’s rank in commuting times compared to 19 major cities was dead last. Other Canadian cities didn’t do so hot either: Montreal was 18th, Vancouver 14th, Calgary 13th, Halifax 10th.

And congestion isn’t just aggravating. It’s bad for your economic health. A 2006 Transport Canada study put a number on the cost of congestion – $6.7 billion. A 2008 estimate from Toronto’s regional transportation authority Metrolinx pegged the cost of congestion at $6 billion just for the region alone. All of that wasted time stuck in traffic means a ton of wasted energy and unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions.

A single car sharing vehicle can take anywhere from four to 30 cars off the road according to an American study sponsored by the U.S. federal and California departments of transportation.

Car sharing can liberate people from owning a car altogether or stop them from buying a second car. And some smaller studies have even shown that car sharing can spark a change in behaviour.

Car sharing is also a more effective use of all of the steel and energy needed to manufacture the car in the first place. The less time it sits in a garage and the more time it’s being used for its actual purpose the better.

Worried about your budget? The average cost of car ownership in Canada comes to $7,500 according to the Canadian Automobile Association. That’s enough money to drive a Car2Go smart car 54 minutes a day, every day of the year. And that’s at the most expensive, per minute rate.

Most smart devices are powered by chips based on designs by the British firm ARM rather than the x86 architecture used by Intel.

Even so, Intel said Haswell would allow laptops and two-in-one devices – offering both a laptop and tablet experience – to become thinner and last longer between charges, increasing their appeal.

It added that one version of the new chips featured CPU (central processing unit) cores which used just six watts of scenario design power – its power usage during “regular” tasks.

The amount of heat given off by the previous generation, Ivy Bridge, had meant that two fans needed to be included in the design of Microsoft’s Surface Pro tablet.

The firm says the new design of the family’s CPU cores is capable of delivering a 15% boost in performance, a 50% improvement in active-use battery life, and up to three times the amount of standby battery life when compared to the performance of Ivy Bridge.

In addition, it says versions of the chip which include its new integrated GPU (graphics processing unit) – which it calls Iris – offer twice the performance when handling complex tasks such as generating 3D graphics or encoding high definition video.Read the full story at www.parkeasy-pgs.com!

Keane double in record-equalling outing

Robbie Keane marked his record-equalling 125th appearance for the Republic of Ireland with a double to see off 10-man Georgia 4-0.

The 32-year-old climbed off the bench to draw level with keeper Shay Given, and will go top of the list if, as expected, he leads Ireland into their World Cup qualifier with the Faroe Islands on Friday evening.

Keane claimed his 55th international goal from point-blank range with 13 minutes of the game remaining and then took his tally to 56 three minutes from time to seal a comfortable victory with the Georgians labouring after keeper Giorgi Loria’s 20th-minute dismissal. Richard Keogh had opened the scoring three minutes before the break, and Simon Cox extended the home side’s lead three minutes after the restart.

In the lowest of low-key friendlies, manager Giovanni Trapattoni will have been pleased with the efforts of his under-studies with midfielder Wes Hoolahan turning in an impressive individual display and full-back Marc Wilson proving his fitness after a niggling hamstring injury. There was even a 25-minute cameo from fit-again defender Richard Dunne.

Trapattoni’s team took control early on and never looked like surrendering it. They were aided and abetted in no small part by the premature departure of Loria, who trudged off the pitch with just 20 minutes gone after racing from his goal and upending striker Shane Long to prompt Romanian referee Sebastian Constantin Coltescu to produce a red card.

Loria had earlier kept the visitors in it with a fine save from skipper-for-the-day Long, who showed an impressive burst of pace to leave central defender Akaki Khubutia in his wake, only to be denied by a solid block.

James McClean almost broke the deadlock with 23 minutes gone. The Sunderland winger took charge of the free-kick awarded for Loria’s misdemeanour and curled the ball towards the top corner. However, as the Ireland fans behind the goal waited for the net to ripple, substitute keeper Omar Migineishvili threw out a hand and managed to claw his effort away.

Georgia’s resistance was finally broken three minutes before the break after Khubutia was penalised for a foul on Long wide on the right. McClean curled the resulting free-kick into the box and Keogh climbed highest to send a downward header past Migineishvili and into the net.

Trapattoni sent on Keane at the break, but it was Cox who made an impact within three minutes of the restart when, having been moved to the right wing to accommodate the LA Galaxy frontman, he turned up in the right place at the right time to side-foot home McClean’s driven cross.

Hoolahan split the Georgian defence wide open with 58 minutes gone as he slid Long in, but the striker was once again denied. Keane eventually got in on the act with 13 minutes remaining when substitute Conor Sammon’s low cross handed him a close-range tap-in, and he helped himself once again at the death when he made the most of Jeff Hendrick’s well-weighted pass.

“Interoperability” became a buzz word after 9/11, when it became clear that first-responders couldn’t communicate cross-agency during the biggest terrorist strike in the nation’s history.

Since then, several agencies have made strides to improve interoperability, including the Jersey City Office of Emergency Management, which will be honored Monday in Washington, D.C., with an international 2013 Computerworld Honors Laureate for implementation of a remarkable communication system.

“Interoperability has been a concern since 2001 because you have all these disparate agencies out there,” OEM Director Greg Kierce said Friday.

In 2006, the OEM signed on with Mutual Link, an Internet-based system that allows the users to communicate across various frequencies and types of communications, as well as allowing users to tap into video systems, Kierce explained.

At first, the system was used to access video links to all Level 1 trauma centers in the Newark/Jersey City Urban Area Security Initiative. But later additions included access to security cameras in the Newport Centre Mall, Saint Peter’s University, New Jersey City University, Jersey City Public Schools, Jersey City Police closed-circuit cameras and the Goldman Sachs Building.

The system can also be used to tap into security cameras operated by NJ Transit, the FBI, the Port Authority (such as at airports and the PATH), and many more systems. The system uses a “drag and drop” system on a computer to connect to cameras or access communication. Access can be accepted of denied.

If access was granted by numerous organizations, it would be possible to watch a man get off a flight at Liberty International Airport and follow him through the airport and to a parking deck using a series of the security cameras in the facility, Kierce said.

The person might then be spotted on NJ Transit cameras in Newark Penn Station and followed by Port Authority cameras as he got off a train at the Newport/Pavonia Station in Jersey City. From there, he could be followed around inside the Newport Mall as he shopped, Kierce said.

“This is a testament to the hard work of the OEM staff who often go unrecognized. We thank them for their dedication and excellent service for the residents of Jersey City,” Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy said.Read the full story at www.parkeasy-pgs.com!