laptops and coffee shops ? think | architect

26 April 2012

Where do architects ?work? these days?

Should coffee shops limit the amount of time that laptop users can occupy tables? The answer to this question is no. I like to think of them as my second office. I pay ?rent? by buying food and drink. The cool thing about technology today is we can work anywhere. No longer are we relegated to work in an ?office?. Work can take place anywhere that allows one to be productive. Being a sole-proprietor allows a degree of flexibility not afforded some others.

What do you think? Do you like to work in places other than your office? Does it help your design process or thinking if you get a change of environment sometimes? What is a fair way to treat these shops without taking advantage of them?

Do clients care where we work as long as we are productive, efficient and provide excellent service? From the point of view of the coffee shop, what should their policy be? How can they enforce it without insulting customers? Is it frustrating to other customers if they merely wish to eat and drink in the coffee shop without being surrounded by laptop hobos?

Can design solve this? What if the tables were laid out with more two-seaters (with electrical plugs) and other areas with four-tops and booths?

If you enjoy working on a laptop in a coffee shop, be respectful. Don?t abuse their policies and don?t be a booth hog. Don?t ruin it for the rest of us. See you at the coffee shop. If you see me, say hi.

photo is from samantha?celera?s?photostream on Flickr (used under the Creative Common License)

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Syria derides UN chief as peace plan in crisis

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syria derided U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon as biased and called his comments "outrageous" Saturday after he blamed the regime for widespread cease-fire violations ? the latest sign of trouble for an international peace plan many expect to fail.

In new fighting Saturday, activists said regime forces battled army defectors near President Bashar Assad's summer palace in a coastal village and shelled a Damascus suburb in pursuit of gunmen. State media said government troops foiled an attempt by armed men in rubber boats to land on Syria's coast, the first reported attempt by rebels to infiltrate from the sea.

The regime's verbal attack on the U.N. secretary general raised new concerns that Assad is playing for time to avoid compliance with a plan that could eventually force him out of office.

Under special envoy Kofi Annan's six-point road map, a cease-fire is to be followed by the deployment of as many as 300 U.N. truce monitors and talks between Assad and the opposition on Syria's political future. The head of the observer team, Norwegian Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, is to arrive in Damascus on Sunday to assume command, said spokesman Neeraj Singh.

Annan's April 12 cease-fire deadline has been widely ignored. The regime continues to attack opposition strongholds, while rebel fighters keep targeting security forces with roadside bombs and shooting ambushes. Defying a major truce provision, the Syrian military failed to withdraw tanks and soldiers from the streets.

Ban and Annan have cited violations by both sides, but generally portrayed the regime as the main aggressor. On Friday, Ban said Syria's repression of civilians reached an "intolerable stage" and demanded that the regime "live up to its promises to the world." His comments came just hours after a suicide bombing the regime blamed on anti-government "terrorists" killed 10 people in Damascus.

An editorial Saturday in the state-run Tishrin newspaper said Ban has avoided discussing rebel violence in favor of "outrageous" statements against the Syrian government. The editorial said the international community has applied a double standard, ignoring "crimes and terrorist acts" against Syria and thus encouraging more violence, according to excerpts carried by the state-run news agency SANA.

Mass protests against Assad erupted in March 2011, but gradually turned into an insurgency in response to a violent regime crackdown. Assad's regime denies it faces a popular uprising, claiming it is being targeted by a foreign-led terrorist conspiracy.

Saturday's comments were the regime's harshest against the U.N. since Syria announced last month it would abide by the Annan plan. The Syrian opposition and its Western backers argue Assad is not sincere and just buying time to consolidate his hold on Syria.

The regime "wants to make the U.N. a party to the conflict, rather than a mediator, and to stretch out the process to prevent any kind of serious change," Rami Khoury, an analyst at the American University of Beirut, said of Saturday's editorial.

However, the regime and its supporters argue that the world intentionally ignores rebel cease-fire violations, such as targeted killings of security officials, said Peter Harling of the International Crisis Group think tank who has traveled in Syria.

"In the regime's narrative, its use of force is only a reaction to such assaults," he said. "Officials and sympathizers cling to the idea that they are fighting a legitimate struggle against a fifth column of extremists."

Russia, Syria's main ally, repeatedly has demanded that more attention be paid to rebel violations of the Annan plan.

In fighting Saturday, government troops exchanged fire with about 30 soldiers after they defected at a military base near Assad's summer palace in the coastal village of Burj Islam, according to Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group.

The shooting, described as intense, lasted for 15 to 30 minutes, the activists said.

Syrian troops also intercepted armed men trying to land on the Syrian coast in rubber boats, the Syrian news agency said. The agency said the navy forced the boats to flee, but some Syrian service members were killed or wounded. The battle took place 30 to 35 kilometers (about 20 miles) from the Turkish border, SANA said.

Syrian authorities have said in the past that they clashed with rebels trying to cross from neighboring Lebanon or Turkey.

In Lebanon, authorities confiscated weapons found aboard a ship intercepted off the Lebanese coast and detained 11 crew members.

The ship reportedly sailed from Libya and stopped in Egypt and the port of Tripoli, Lebanon, en route to Syria. Lebanese media reported that the weapons were intended for Syrian rebels.

The Lebanese army said the "Lutfallah II" carried a Sierra Leone flag and had three containers filled with "large amounts of weapons and ammunition" on board. The vessel was taken to the port of Selaata, north of Beirut, where the three containers were placed on Lebanese army flatbed trucks and taken away Saturday morning.

Later Saturday, Syrian troops bombarded the Damascus suburb of Bakhaa with tank shells after a group of army defectors fled to the area from a nearby region, according to local activist Omar Hamza and the Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots activist group. The shelling killed at least 10 people, the activists said.

Activists also reported shelling in the central rebel-held town of Rastan and in Hama province. The Observatory reported intense clashes between troops and defectors in the northwestern province of Idlib and said five people were killed.

Fifteen U.N. truce monitors have been deployed in Syria, with the team to grow to 100 by mid-May. However, the regime continues to restrict access to most outsiders, including journalists, and reports by the regime and the opposition cannot be verified independently.

___

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Albert Aji in Damascus contributed reporting.

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Game of the Week: Gotham City Impostors | Video Games, Reviews ...

Gotham City Impostors Logo

Gotham City Impostors is the madcap fps recently released by Monolith. It arrived on XBLA, PSN and PC in February, and none of these formats knew what in God?s name had hit them. It instantly became one of my favourite games this year, which is a feat indeed for someone whose distaste for the genre borders on actual phobia.

Part of this title?s appeal, to myself and many others, is the sheer madness. Impostors doesn?t just have a zany streak, it revels in the weird. There?s the Shredder, a homemade gun firing a relentless barrage of ball bearings. There?s the inflatable boots, offering greater mobility and surprise-attack potential. There?s the bank robber with delusions of grandeur-esque grappling hook. The oddity of the weaponry and gadgets, combined with the game?s delightful cartoon art style, results in an experience unlike any other. The depressing collage of brown and grey we?re so frequently assaulted by in the genre is a world away. Fps titles often seem completely po-faced to me, which is why I was so attracted to what Impostors offers.

There?s an astonishing level of customization. Quite apart from simply choosing your weapons, you loadout also includes your choice of a gadget and separate support item. A health-restoring energy drink, a ninja smoke bomb, rollerskates, a glider for airborne attacking and a Jack in the box proximity mine are all among your choices. After this, you have to create your character. There are five ?sizes? of body to pick from, with speed, strength and health all considerations to keep in mind. You then apply two additional fun facts, abilities giving extra power or a myriad of other advantages. What is most astounding about Impostors is how balanced it is. Even with such a great deal of choices on offer, everything can be countered by something else. It?s plain how much fine-tuning has gone into each inclusion.

Gotham City Impostors Screenshot

Another fantastic aspect of the title is the verging on OCD record keeping. Feats of Prowess is the name for the range of achievements you can earn while playing. These encompass the mundane likes of accruing kills with a particular gun, which you?re sure to find in any shooter. There?s also the more bizarre, such as taking someone down with the grapple tool and jumping a colossal amount of skate ramps. I?ve always been one of those with an inordinate interest in stats pages and the like in games, so I was in my element here. Each feat you complete grants you a hefty boost to your experience meter, which in turn gives you more unlocks. (Every item in the game is listed from the start, and you can unlock it for use in the order you please.) As with Monster Hunter, there?s always a goal to aim for so there?s always a reason to keep at it. Your progress towards particular ones is displayed intermittently on-screen, which is a tidy way to help you keep track.

I?ve found Impostors to be ludicrously compulsive. I was surprised myself by how much I?ve continued to enjoy the game, considering it took a while to decide to take the plunge in the first place. As such, this cheap download puts many big name releases to shame in terms of the hours of fun on offer for the budget price. The free bundles of extra dlc content (although a paid pack has just been released) further shows the dedication of the developers in my view. This is marvellous to see, because Gotham City Impostors is one title that deserves the support.

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Murray pumped to be with Team Canada

RFMRyan Murray, shown during practice for the 2012 IIHF World Junior Championships in January, has joined Team Canada as a non-roster player for the upcoming World Championship event in Europe. Darren Makowichuk/QMI Agency

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ZURICH?-?

Five months ago it was Banff in the Canadian Rockies, not here in the Swiss Alps.

?

Five months ago, Ryan Murray was at his first world championship pre-tournament camp with Team Canada. The one for the juniors.

All the other guys were draft picks; 12 of them were first rounders.

The kid from White City, Sask., was an 18-year-old among 19-year-olds, the only player heading to the world junior championships in Edmonton and Calgary who wasn?t draft eligible, the only one who didn?t have an NHL team listed by his name on the roster.

Now he?s here, surrounded by high-profile NHL stars whose teams made early exits from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

He?s here as something of an extra, filling a spot in the lineup as Team Canada prepares for the real world hockey championship, the IIHF tournament ? for the men, not the one for the boys.

Sunday, 130 kms south of here in Fribourg, the Everett Silvertips defenceman will be on the ice with the likes of Corey Perry, John Tavares, Duncan Keith, Patrick Sharp, Dion Phaneuf, Jordan Eberle, Jeff Skinner and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, playing against Switzerland.

Watching will be Team Canada GM Kevin Lowe, president of hockey operations for the Edmonton Oilers and owner of the first pick in the upcoming NHL draft.

He?s here to get an up close and personal chance to evaluate Murray. Behind the bench will be the rumoured next coach of the Oilers, Brent Sutter.

?Did you see him?? Lowe said of Murray?s workout with Team Canada on Saturday.

?Just from one practice, it was obvious he doesn?t look at all out of place. He was very composed out there.

?I think we need to think of taking him to Helsinki. We wouldn?t have to put him on the roster, but we?d have him right with us if we needed him. His agent says he can stay as long as we want him.?

First things first, and that?s watching him play Sunday with P.K. Subban of the Montreal Canadiens as his defence partner.

?It?s pretty unreal,? Murray said after practice, talking about being asked to fill a pre-tournament spot for late-arriving players.

?It?s pretty fantastic to be on the same ice, on the same bus, staying in the same hotel with them ... everything.

?And I?m not expecting anything,? he said of possibly being held over for Helsinki like Jordan Eberle was for Canada in the same situation at the 2010 tournament in Germany ? before he?d played his first NHL game.

Heck, it was all positive before Murray even got here.

?I spent a week in Vancouver on the ice with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins,? he said of the Oilers rookie who isn?t that much younger, both having been born in 1993 (RNH on April 19 and Murray on Sept. 27).

?I think he?s really excited,? Murray said of The Nuge. ?And I think he?s going to do very well.?

Murray said having this experience after the one with the world junior team is mind-boggling.

?In Banff, I was with guys who were all a little more experienced because they?d been through NHL training camps. But I wasn?t intimidated by that. I took the approach of looking to show them that I belonged.?

And how are the 1,113 citizens of White City taking all of this?

?My friends keep me sort of posted,? said Murray. ?I know my dad and my whole family are pretty excited by this and everything that?s been happening to me.

?I?m not even thinking about the draft; that?s out of my control.

?The world juniors was a great experience. It was pretty cool and incredible to play in that at home. It was disappointing not to win, but what an amazing event to have been able to be part of.?

This one isn?t too shabby, either.

?I was pretty nervous coming in. It?s just so cool being around these guys. It?s been a pretty amazing year.?

tery.jones@sunmedia.ca

Twitter @sunterryjones

?

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Attorney: Shooter had $200K from web donations

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RIM turnaround could take up to 5 years, Watsa says

TORONTO (Reuters) - Research in Motion Ltd may take up to five years to regain its stride after its recent stumbles, but the BlackBerry maker's stock is a good value at current levels, investor Prem Watsa said on Thursday.

Speaking at the annual shareholder meeting of Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd , the Canadian insurer he heads, Watsa said he believed RIM's recent troubles were mere hurdles for a company he called a "Canadian success story."

"Is it going to turn around in three months, six months, nine months? No," Watsa told reporters after the meeting in Toronto. "But if you're looking four, five years ... We make investments over four or five years."

RIM's once high-flying shares have dropped 70 percent during the past 12 months as it has bled market share to smartphone rivals such as Apple Inc while demand for its Playbook tablet device has floundered.

RIM's Toronto-listed shares rose nearly 4 percent Thursday afternoon to C$13.90, likely helped by reports on a Blackbery-focused blog that RIM plans to announce its first BlackBerry 10 device in August for an October launch.

RIM declined to comment on the report, citing its standard policy not to talk about rumors and speculation. The company said in late March the first BlackBerry 10 device remained on track for a launch in the latter part of the year.

VALUE INVESTOR

Watsa, a value investor whose approach and acumen is sometimes compared to Warren Buffett's, joined RIM's board in January as part of a front-office shuffle in which Thorsten Heins replaced longtime co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis.

Watsa also boosted Fairfax's stake in RIM to 5.1 percent at the time, making it one of the company's largest shareholders.

Asked what he saw in the struggling company, Watsa pointed to his close friendship and admiration for Lazaridis, who remains on the company's board, and suggested shareholders have been totoo quick to give up on the company.

"Mike Lazaridis is a technical genius. Some of you might forget that this is a company in Canada that invented the (mobile) email service that we all use. It's not like Apple wasn't there, and Google wasn't there," he said, stressing that he was speaking as an investor, rather than as a board member.

Once the dominant player in the smartphone sector, RIM's Blackberry has withered from competition from Apple's iPhone and Google's Android system, prompting Lazaridis and Balsillie, the men who had engineered RIM"s rise, to step down in favor of former Siemens executive Heins.

More recently, RIM has hired lawyers to work out a restructuring plan that could include selling assets, seeking joint ventures or licensing patents, according to people briefed on the matter.

Watsa would not comment on how RIM should move forward, stressing that his investment was based primarily on his belief the stock was undervalued.

"The stock price is down 90 percent (from its all-time high in 2008). That overrides everything else," he said.

"People think that ... when things are going down it's over, and when things are going up, it will never stop. The reality is it's different," he said, noting the company's strong cash position and lack of long-term debt.

"But there's no guarantees," he said.

GOOD MACRO CALLS

Watsa has built a reputation as a shrewd investor by correctly calling major market disruptions like the 2008 and 1987 stock market crashes, and making billions for Fairfax as a result.

Speaking at the meeting, he said he would maintain the company's hedges on its equity holdings, as he believed the equity market would retrench over the next few years.\

Further out, however, he said the days of bonds outperforming stocks were likely over.

"If you take a 10-year view, stocks are going to be a terrific place," he said. "For us, caution is the best way forward."

(Additional reporting by Alastair Sharp; Editing by Frank McGurty)

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Killer Chimps and Funny Feet: Report from the AAPA Conference

Science TalkScience Talk | Evolution

Scientific American editor Kate Wong talks about the recent conference of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Portland, Oregon, where subjects included killer chimps, unprecented fossil sharing among researchers and divergent hominid foot forms.

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Scientific American editor Kate Wong talks about the recent conference of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Portland, Oregon, where subjects included killer chimps, unprecented fossil sharing among researchers and divergent hominid foot forms.??


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Rough first quarter GDP shows 2.08 percent growth

The first estimate of the first quarter Gross Domestic Product shows that on a year-over-year basis, real GDP increased 2.08 percent while the quarter-to-quarter non-annualized percent change was 0.55 percent.

Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released their first?"estimate" of the Q1 2012 GDP report showing that the economy continued to expand with real GDP increasing at an annualized rate of 2.2% from Q4 2011.

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Writer, The PaperEconomy Blog

'SoldAtTheTop' is not a pessimist by nature but a true skeptic and realist who prefers solid and sustained evidence of fundamental economic recovery to 'Goldilocks,' 'Green Shoots,' 'Mustard Seeds,' and wholesale speculation.

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On a year-over-year basis real GDP increased 2.08% while the quarter-to-quarter non-annualized percent change was 0.55%.

The latest quarterly results indicate that the most notable source of weakness in the economy came from government defense spending which declined at a rate of 8.1% from Q4 2011 while other categories such as non-residential structures also saw notable weakness declining at a rate of 12% from Q4 2011 shaving 0.35% from real GDP.?

Fixed residential investment, on the other hand, expanded notably (supposedly) increasing at a rate of 19.1% while over the same period.
Keep in mind that these results are likely very poorly estimated and are sure to be revised notably in following quarters and even years to come.

The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here.To add or view a comment on a guest blog, please go to the blogger's own site by clicking on paper-money.blogspot.com.

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Joel Judd: Gaylord v. the Kids

Aurora wants to give the Gaylord hotel company a big subsidy to build a hotel next to Denver International Airport. On Monday, the State had a hearing to talk about it. This is how I used my five minutes.

I will address two points:

1. High Point development does not depend on a $950 million public subsidy.
2. Gaylord will cost Colorado school kids $240 million over 30 years, at $10 per kid, per year.

There is essentially no chance prime development property in the shadow of DIA will remain empty for the next 30 years.

This is not our first rodeo. We've been through this before. In 1929 we built Stapleton, an unimaginable distance out from Denver. Forty years later it was landlocked -- engulfed by (tax paying) development. Sixteen-year-old DIA won't be any different. Well before Gaylord's thirty year bonds are paid off, by age forty, DIA's neighborhood will be as fully developed as Stapleton's. Look at Kansas City International Airport -- built in the middle of no place and now surrounded by (tax paying) development.

That means Gaylord's subsidy really does divert around $240 million from Brighton 27J School District -- of Gaylord's $401 million total property tax capture, 60 percent, around $240 million comes from the School District. The School District loss is back-filled by money taken from the State's other 177 school districts.

This is how it works. Every year the legislature decides how much we'll spend on each of Colorado's 817,000 school kids. With the recession, it's now frozen at about $6,000 per kid. Each of Colorado's 178 school districts figures how much it can raise from its local property tax base. It uses its constitutionally mandated mill levy -- a maximum of 27 mills. A few extremely wealthy districts (e.g., Aspen) can cover the whole $6,000. Typically a local district only manages around 40 percent. The State pays the rest -- by far the State's largest General Fund line item. Gaylord will grab the property taxes a non-subsidized development would have paid to the School District -- $240 million over thirty years or $8 million per year.

If the legislature had the revenue, it could make up that $8 million to the schools. But it doesn't. Since the recession started in 2008, it has balanced the budget by cutting school funding every year. That's why we're now $1 billion under the level mandated by 2000's Amendment 23 and we've frozen funding from at $6 thousand per kid. Diverting another $8 million means all 178 districts suck it up and each of Colorado's 817,000 school kids kicks in $10 per year to subsidize Gaylord.

So this is the question you get to answer: Is Colorado better off using this money for the kids or giving it to Gaylord?

?

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Transfer of US Troops Out of Japan Hardly a Withdrawal

The U.S. and Japan?have come to an agreement?on the relocation of about 9,000 U.S. Marines that will leave their bases in Okinawa, with about 5,000 transferred to Guam and the rest spread among other locations in the region.

US military bases in Japan, Wiki

Contrary to the narrative in the media, the closure of five bases and transfer of 9,000 troops off the Japanese island of Okinawa is not anything like a withdrawal or a drastic pullout. There will still be 9 bases and 17,000 marines remaining on the island and over 30,000 U.S. troops in Japan overall.

Up to?85% of the Okinawan population wants U.S. troops out. Not only do they not want to be occupied by a foreign military, but they?re fed up with the outrageous behavior of the American Marines.?Between 1972 and 2009, there were 5,634 criminal offenses committed by US servicemen, including 25 murders, 385 burglaries, 25 arsons, 127 rapes, 306 assaults and 2,827 thefts.

The newly announced plan is part of an agreement from 2006, when the U.S. and Japan agreed to transfer 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to the island of Guam and to relocate the Futenma Air Station to another part of Okinawa. The plan stalled for years due to resistance from Okinawans who would not agree to the new location of the airbase.

The 2006 plan was stalled also due to?resistance from the people of Guam. ?U.S. military base expansion in Guam,? Brown University Professor Catherine Lutz?said, ?has faced much local resistance including lawsuits and protests largely because of land taking, disruption of sacred sites and concerns about environmental damage.?

Washington?s renewed focus on Asia is part of the Obama administration?s ?strategic pivot? to the surge America?s military and naval presence in Pacific region in a misguided effort to contain China?s rising influence.?This includes?not only Japan and Guam, but South Korea,?the Philippines, Singapore,?Australia, et al.

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