It's our pleasure
Tags
Bethlehem Steel North Office
Buffalo
Lackawanna
NY
Urban Exploration
UrbEx
2011年12月31日 星期六
2011年12月30日 星期五
transamerica-2011c.jpg
2011年12月29日 星期四
Red Coats and Escalators
Monument Mall shopping centre, Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England, UK.
Tags
Canon
7D
EOS
DSLR
CWhatPhotos
Opteka
6.5mm
f3.5
aspherical
fisheye
fish
eye
lens
wide
angle
view
Newcastle
Upon
Tyne
monument
mall
escalator
escalators
stairs
shop
shops
adobe
lightroom
Paint
pro
photox2
BW
photos
pictures
taken
by
with
using
manual
picture
photo
that
have
Fisheye view
opteka 6.5mm
fisheye lens
manual focus
f
3.5
foto
black and white
black White
photography
monochrome
monochromed
red
coat
partial
selective
colour
looking
down
Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England, Red Coats, Mall shopping centre
2011年12月28日 星期三
Dolphins without Long against Jets
DAVIE, Fla. -- Miami Dolphins left tackle Jake Long has been placed on injured reserve with a torn right biceps, meaning he’ll miss the team’s final game Sunday against the Jets.
The move Wednesday came one day after Long was chosen a Pro Bowl starter for the third consecutive year. He endured an injury-plagued season, including a back ailment that forced him to miss two games after he started the first 61 games of his career.
Long suffered the arm injury in the first quarter of Saturday’s loss at New England.
To fill Long’s spot on the roster, the Dolphins signed running back Richard Medlin from the practice squad. He signed with New England as a rookie free agent in August and was released at the end of training camp.
Miami Dolphins, Dolphins, DAVIE, Fla., injured reserve, final game, Richard Medlin, Jake Long, New England
2011年12月27日 星期二
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene...
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene...
Canon EOS 7d + Tamron 10-24
Tags
Canon
EOS
7d
long
exposure
wide
angle
landscape
manfrotto
2011年12月26日 星期一
2011-12-26_Elouera_7D-1414
2011-12-26_Elouera_7D-1414
Elouera Beach Cronulla NSW Australia
Tags
2011
Beach
Canon EOS 7D
Cloudy
Elouera Beach
Sigma 120-400mm f/4.5-5.6 DG APO OS HSM
Summer
Surf
Cronulla
New South Wales
2011年12月24日 星期六
C7270E - 2011 DB Lighted Boat Parade Milne Dark Vert
C7270E - 2011 DB Lighted Boat Parade Milne Dark Vert
A bunch of neighbors spent most of November decorating this boat to become a giant Pirate Ship. This ship won the Discovery Bay Yacht Club Lighted Boat Parade on Dec 10, 2011.
Tags
Discovery Bay
Lighted Boat
Parade
2011
California
boat
lights
water
priate
ship
night
cruise
after
This
was
lot
work
Discovery Bay Yacht Club, Lighted Boat Parade Milne Dark VertA, Lighted Boat Parade
2011年12月23日 星期五
Villages de Balagne
Villages de Balagne
Feliceto : Centre du village
Tags
Nikon
Corsica
Photos
Corse
Ile De Beaut
Paysages
Kalliste
Bastia
Ile
Porto Vecchio
Calvi
Tete De Maure
Mediterrane
Sud
Ile Rousse
soleil
mer
nature
D7000
Balagne
Libert
Fleurs
Phare
Pictures
Sun
Sunset
Sunrise
Bateaux
Bleu
Fenetre
Mditerrane
Serra
Vert
Pigna
Transparence
Beaut
Arbres
Barque
Dame
Beach
Blue
Color
Europe
Flowers
France
Graffiti
Green
Island
Landscape
Light
Night
Photo
Photographie
Photography
Rouge
Red
Sea
Et
Printemps
Summer
Spring
Eau
Water
Arbre
Tree
Pierres
rocks
rock
Pierre
2011年12月22日 星期四
Snow At The Beak
Snow At The Beak
Chaffinch in my mini garden;
Buchfink-Weibchen
Tags
Germany
Deutschland
Darmstadt
mini garden
Buchfink
Weibchen
Fringilla coelebs
Vogel
bird
Schnee
snow
nature
chaffinch
Christkindelmrik - Merry Christmas to all my Flickr friends and visitors
Christkindelmrik - Merry Christmas to all my Flickr friends and visitors
Traditional Christmas market of Alsace and Lorraine in France
March de Nol traditionnel de l'Alsace et de la Lorraine
Tags
europe
france
christkindelmrik
march de nol
christmas market
christmas
nol
metz
moselle
lorraine
fte
fest
hiver
winter
yo from paris
yolanda miel
canon
eos 450d
Alsace and Lorraine, Alsace, Christmas market, Flickr online
2011年12月21日 星期三
Photograph me!
Photograph me!
DSC05318
Tags
action
beach
california
ocean
oceanside
seaside
spray
surf
surfer
surfing
usa
water
waves
wet
boy
grom
young
youth
male
Rear view with kundu drum
Celebrating the Bargam New Testament dedication
Tags
Papua New Guinea
PNG
Madang
Province
Niugini
Bargam
Bible
dedication
Testament
Bargam New Testament dedicationTagsPapua, Rear view
2011年12月20日 星期二
Project365 : 354/365
Project365 : 354/365
For Tonight's Project365 photo I wanted to take a shot of the Christmas lights out the front of a local church, however the wind was blowing them around and the pics looked terrible when I looked at them on the computer.
Lucky for me I was worried that the movement would ruin the photos, so I took a photo of the stained glass windows with some rope light in front of them.
Tags
Project
365
Project365
Church
Stained
Glass
Windows
St
Saint
Peters
Ballarat
Christmas
Lights
photo, local church
Norway - Reine
Norway - Reine
When I arrived to Reine, the weather was very bad: it was raining and there were clouds everywhere blocking any possibility to have a good light for a photo. My plan was to rest a night in the town and the next morning the sun was shining with some beautiful clouds in the sky and the air was fresh and crisp: the perfect light! I spotted a good place to take some picture the day before: so I went directly there without wasting any time. The green water was gorgeous and I used a polarizer to saturate colors and remove some reflections giving me a quite nice image.
Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II
LensCanon 24-105 F4 L
Focal Length 32 mm
Shutter Speed 1/640 sec.
Aperture 8
ISO/Film 400
Tags
norway
norvegia
reine
lofoten
mare
sea
riflessi
reflections
weather, clouds in the sky, perfect light
2011年12月19日 星期一
Is It Irrational to Give Holiday Gifts?
Many of my economist friends have a problem with gift-giving. They view the holidays not as an occasion for joy but as a festival of irrationality, an orgy of wealth-destruction.
Giving comes in many forms, including lending a hand, donating to charities or buying gifts. WSJ's Christina Tsuei looks into their health benefits in the latest installment of the "Is It True?" series.
Rational economists fixate on a situation in which, say, your Aunt Bertha spends $50 on a shirt for you, and you end up wearing it just once (when she visits). Her hard-earned cash has evaporated, and you don't even like the present! One much-cited study estimated that as much as a third of the money spent on Christmas is wasted, because recipients assign a value lower than the retail price to the gifts they receive. Rational economists thus make a simple suggestion: Give cash or give nothing.
But behavioral economics, which draws on psychology as well as on economic theory, is much more appreciative of gift giving. Behavioral economics better understands why people (rightly, in my view) don't want to give up the mystery, excitement and joy of gift giving.
In this view, gifts aren't irrational. It's just that rational economists have failed to account for their genuine social utility. So let's examine the rational and irrational reasons to give gifts.
Enlarge Image
Close
Ben Wiseman
If your goal is to maximize a social connection, don't give a perishable gift like flowers or chocolates.
Some gifts, of course, are basically straightforward economic exchanges. This is the case when we buy a nephew a package of socks because his mother says he needs them. It is the least exciting kind of gift but also the one that any economist can understand.
A second important kind of gift is one that tries to create or strengthen a social connection. The classic example is when somebody invites us for dinner and we bring something for the host. It's not about economic efficiency. It's a way to express our gratitude and to create a social bond with the host.
Another category of gift, which I like a lot, is what I call "paternalistic" gifts—things you think somebody else should have. I like a certain Green Day album or Julian Barnes novel or the book "Predictably Irrational," and I think that you should like it, too. Or I think that singing lessons or yoga classes will expand your horizons—and so I buy them for you.
A paternalistic gift ignores the preferences of the person getting the gift, which tends to drive economists crazy, but it may actually change those preferences for the better. Of course, you might mess up by giving a paternalistic gift that someone hates, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.
A holiday gift can straddle these categories. Instead of picking a book from your sister's Amazon wish list, or giving her what you think she should read, go to a bookstore and try to think like her. It's a serious social investment.
The great challenge lies in making the leap into someone else's mind. Psychological research affirms that we are all partial prisoners of our own preferences and have a hard time seeing the world from a different perspective. But whether or not your sister likes the book, it may give her joy to think about you thinking of her.
My final category of gift is one that somebody really wants but would feel guilty buying for themselves. This category shouldn't exist, according to standard economic theory: If you really liked it and could afford it, you'd buy it.
For me, fancy pens meet this description. I don't use pens that much, but I'd be pleased to get a really nifty one (a Porsche 911 would be OK, too). When my students defend their dissertations, I ask everyone on the Ph.D. committee to sign the required forms with an expensive pen, and then I give the pen to the student. It's a prototypical good gift, because it's something that they would probably feel guilty about buying for themselves, plus it has positive associations as a memento of the day.
Behavioral economics has one more lesson for gift givers: If your goal is to maximize a social connection, don't give a perishable gift like flowers or chocolates. True, people enjoy them, and you don't want to impose by giving something more permanent. But what are you trying to maximize? Is your goal to avoid imposing on them or for them to remember you?
For a durable impression, better to give a vase or a painting. Even if your friends don't like it that much, they'll think about you more often (though maybe not in the most positive terms).
Better yet, give a gift that gets used intermittently. A painting often just fades into the attentional background. An electric mixer, when used, gets noticed.
I like to buy people high-end headphones. They get used intermittently, so I can imagine that every time you put them on, you will think of me. Also, they're a luxury—the kind of thing that people have a hard time buying for themselves. Best of all perhaps, they're intimate: When I give someone headphones, I can think of myself whispering in their ears.
And maybe, when they use the headphones, they'll remember you whispering to them or even kissing their ears. Has anyone ever thought of a kiss after you hand them cash?
—Mr. Ariely teaches at Duke University and is the author of "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions."
behavioral economics, social connection, social connection, economists, economists, Aunt Bertha, economic theory, economic theory, Christina Tsuei, Predictably Irrational, economist, joy, joy
2011年12月18日 星期日
It's been nice, but now it's time to take off...
It's been nice, but now it's time to take off...
Tags
canada geese
goose
wildlife
waterfowl
flying
fly
wings
flapping
lake
pond
water
angle
nebraska
december
tamron 100-400
2011年12月17日 星期六
Felt Something
Felt Something
Tags
Clark County
Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan Hotel
Las Vegas
Nevada
The Cosmopolitan
The Cosmopolitan Hotel
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas
USA
United States
United States of America
Vegas
#parrot #sydney #harbour #operahouse #bridge #sky #clouds #nofilter
2011年12月16日 星期五
Down the Road to Pine
2011年12月12日 星期一
12 | fir sprigs
12 | fir sprigs
Twelfth picture of my Advent calendar which was made for you...every day a new picture!
Ive seen this unique R8 GT during my one-day trip to the Ring.
I hope you like the car/shot/colour!
Tags
gt
r8
supercar
v10
v8
green
christmas
fir springs
nrburg
hanseat
ring
nordschleife
scuderia
carspotting
race
car
fast
speed
power
sound
hp
ps
gallambo
olympus
shot
In Brooklyn, G Marks the Spot for Abe Lincoln Bust
NEW YORK—Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky in 1809 and became president of the U.S. Alexander Skene was born in Scotland in 1838 and became a gynecologist. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Dr. Skene discovered Skene's glands.
Enlarge Image
Close
Barry Newman/The Wall Street Journal
The statue of Abraham Lincoln in Brooklyn's Prospect Park.
Lincoln, by most accounts, set foot in Brooklyn a couple of times. Brooklyn is where Dr. Skene spent his whole career. In fact, he is the only doctor in Brooklyn history to have a body part named after him.
And it's some body part: Recent research postulates that Skene's glands might be vital to the functioning of the elusive G spot.
What on earth could Abraham Lincoln have to do with the G spot? Just this: After a 116-year exile deep in Prospect Park, a statue of Lincoln is soon to be carted out into Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn's monument to the North's victory in the Civil War.
But the site selected for the Lincoln statue has been occupied, since 1906, by a bust of the bald and bearded Dr. Skene.
"It was felt that bringing Lincoln back was very important," says Crystal Gaudio, who has been planning the presidential trip for Prospect Park. "If we have to move Skene, Skene has to move."
Still, the relative historical stature of great emancipators and Brooklyn gynecologists may not be set in stone.
"Our strong stance was that Dr. Skene should stay where he is," says Kathleen Powderly, an ethicist at Downstate Medical Center, east of the park. Downstate's roots are in the hospital Dr. Skene once headed. Dr. Powderly wrote her doctoral thesis about him. She has a T-shirt with his face on it draped over her office chair.
Enlarge Image
Close
Barry Newman/The Wall Street Journal
The Abraham Lincoln statue should be moved to nearby Grand Army Plaza, pictured, says Richard Kessler.
"Monuments shouldn't all be for generals and politicians," she says. "Skene was a champion for women's health. Those glands weren't prominent. You didn't even notice them unless they were inflamed."
Some students of the Civil War see things her way. Tony Horwitz, whose new book, "Midnight Rising," carves a warts-and-all Lincoln figure, puts it like this: "He's on the penny, he's on the Mall. Enough Lincoln, already. It's time gynecologists get their due."
In the president's defense, it should be noted that it isn't easy for a statue to find a place to park in Brooklyn, and this one of Lincoln has been circling the block since 1869.
That's when it was put up in the plaza—the first time—by Calvert Vaux and his partner Frederick Law Olmsted, the Lincoln partisan and landscaper of Prospect Park. It was the nation's very first monument to Lincoln, 20 feet tall and paid for by donations of $1 apiece from 13,000 Brooklynites. Olmsted placed it on the commanding northern edge of his plaza's ellipse.
"Let it stand, not for one year, or for 10 years," the Rev. Dr. R.S. Storrs orated at the unveiling, "but while the hills remain on their ancient foundations!"
Make that 26 years. A grandiose triumphal arch went up in the plaza in 1892, trolley tracks were laid. "The boys," said the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, began making Lincoln "a target for every kind of missile." The dour president was out of place. In 1895, he was hauled to a Prospect Park lakeside, joining a bust of Beethoven.
Olmsted would have hated that. Another park impresario made it worse: In 1959, Robert Moses filled in the lake, and left Lincoln to gaze at the rear fence of a skating rink for 52 years.
Now Prospect Park is spending $70 million to dig out the lake and bring back Olmsted's layout. Lincoln will ruin the view, so the park has raised $465,000 to dislodge him again. But where to?
The obvious place is facing north at the plaza's tip, where he was before. "It was the focal point of the original plan," says Charles Beveridge, who has edited Olmsted's papers for 30 years. That space has been grabbed, however, by a bust of John F. Kennedy.
"Why not move JFK?" asks Laurie Olin, a noted landscape architect who has described Prospect Park as "a meditation on post-Civil War America." But a presidential swap, says the park's Ms. Gaudio, would be too much of "a political challenge."
One living park fixture, Richard Kessler, is convinced Olmsted had Lincoln face north to defy proslavery tycoons in Manhattan. Mr. Kessler, 65, hands out tracts to that effect in the plaza.
"People nod their heads until I'm done talking and walk away," he said while crusading there one autumn day.
If JFK won't be budged, Mr. Kessler thinks Lincoln could fit in well between the arch of triumph and a fountain adorned by Neptune, Tritons, and a boy grasping a cornucopia. Ms. Gaudio rejects the idea because it would make the president "look kind of puny."
The only spot for Lincoln, the park has ruled, is Dr. Skene's. It's at the top of the plaza directly across from JFK, facing south. But a new spot for Dr. Skene has required some effort to locate.
There is no question of sending him to Scotland. In any case, the chief of Clan Skene, Danus George Moncrieff Skene, who is 67 and retired, has no room for "the glands man," as he calls him. "I'm sitting in a small house in Shetland," he says. Nor will he land in Skene Manor on Skene Mountain in upstate New York, named for a Skene who was declared an enemy of the state in the Revolutionary War.
The park did offer Dr. Skene to Long Island College Hospital, his original institution. But LICH only has room for his head, not the marble slab behind it, which also has memorable value: Its 38-year-old designer married Dr. Skene's 60-year-old widow in 1903.
A last possibility, Downstate Medical Center's backyard, is unacceptable, says the center's Dr. Powderly, because Dr. Skene would lose his "public presence." So a compromise has been struck: Once Lincoln takes over Dr. Skene's spot, Dr. Skene will cross traffic to a new spot, less grand, on Grand Army Plaza.
The park will clear the bushes for him, but it has no money for a plaque to explain who he was. Passersby may wonder, as many have before, what brings a bust of a Scottish gynecologist to a Civil War memorial in Brooklyn. They will find no mention of his glands.
Write to Barry Newman at barry.newman@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
Abraham Lincoln visited Brooklyn in 1860, before he was elected president. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said he had never been there.
Alexander Skene, Skene, Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln, NEW YORK—Abraham Lincoln, Prospect Park, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Danus George Moncrieff Skene, Clan Skene, Enough Lincoln, Frederick Law Olmsted, Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, Grand Army Plaza
2011年12月11日 星期日
Home school time in Bulal Village
Home school time in Bulal Village
Nate, Ben, and Evan doing their school work on our front porch in Bulal Village, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea, in 2002. Don't laugh too hard: all three of these graduate from college in May: one with a Master's degree, one with a Bachelor's, and one with an Associates.
Tags
Papua New Guinea
PNG
Niugini
Madang
Province
bush
house
Nate
Ben
Evan
Johnson
home
school
Papua New Guinea, Bulal Village, Madang Province, front porch
2011年12月9日 星期五
The Fortress Of Solitude
The Fortress Of Solitude
Crater Lake National Park
Tags
Klamath county
crater lake
national park
cross country
skiing
nordic
winter
snow
forest
klamath falls
oregon
moik
photo
photos
picture
pictures
image
lightroom
adobe
adobe lightroom
canon
powershot
2011年12月8日 星期四
Calvi
Calvi
Le phare vert et la baie de Calvi
Tags
Nikon
Corsica
Photos
Corse
Ile De Beaut
Paysages
Kalliste
Bastia
Ile
Porto Vecchio
Calvi
Tete De Maure
Mediterrane
Sud
Ile Rousse
soleil
mer
nature
D7000
Balagne
Libert
Fleurs
Phare
Pictures
Sun
Sunset
Sunrise
Bateaux
Bleu
Fenetre
Mditerrane
Serra
Vert
Pigna
Transparence
Beaut
Arbres
Barque
Dame
Beach
Blue
Color
Europe
Flowers
France
Graffiti
Green
Island
Landscape
Light
Night
Photo
Photographie
Photography
Rouge
Red
Sea
Et
Printemps
Summer
Spring
Eau
Water
Arbre
Tree
Pierres
rocks
rock
Pierre
2011年12月7日 星期三
Slumping St. John's defeated by Detroit
Detroit — St. John’s is waiting on the return of coach Steve Lavin. The Red Storm are waiting on the arrival of forward Amir Garrett. They are waiting to master the matchup zone defense and waiting to fine tune the second gear on offense.
The Red Storm are waiting on their season. And it is slipping by — quickly.
That upset loss to Northeastern is no longer an anomaly. Not after last night’s 69-63 loss at Detroit on the night the school dedicated the home court in Callahan Hall in honor of former coach Dick Vitale.
The Red Storm (4-5) have fallen below .500 for the first time this season with their third straight loss and fifth in the last six games.
AP
PASSING GRADE: D’Angelo Harrison makes a pass during St. John’s 69-63 loss to Detroit last night.
“Winning disguises a lot of things,’’ forward Moe Harkless said of Queens, who was spectacular with 19 points and 11 rebounds. “We’re realizing everything’s not as perfect as we thought it was.’’
No knowledgeable basketball fans would have predicted a perfect season for this young squad. There were flaws in the first three games as St. John’s opened 3-0. But the Storm were aggressive, confident early in the season.
Last night, St. John’s was hesitant. It seems as if they are waiting for a shot of confidence — straight up — which is ironic, because that is the one commodity they had so much of.
Remember guards Nurideen Lindsey and D’Angelo Harrison stating the goal was to win the national title?
“I’m not as aggressive as I was,’’ said Lindsey, who struggled with zero assists and six turnovers. “I’ll eventually get back to that point. I’ve just been trying to find different things, different ways of contributing to the team. But I’m definitely not as aggressive as I was at the beginning.’’
Detroit (4-6) had lost three straight and 5 of 6. But the Titans, led by Ray McCallum’s 21 points, were the attackers most of the night. They led 32-21 at halftime.
After the Red Storm cut it to 32-30, Detroit went on an 11-4 spurt to open a 43-34 lead. St. John’s never got closer than four points after that.
The Red Storm play host to Fordham on Dec. 17 at the Garden. It was a stunning loss to the Rams last season that proved the turning point for the team.
This season has a different feel. Lavin continues to recover from successful prostate cancer surgery. Garrett, a 6-foot-8 forward who might become academically eligible this month, will help, but he is not a savior.
“We have to help them with their confidence,’’ said assistant coach Mike Dunlap, hitting the nail on the head.
lenn.robbins@nypost.com
Red Storm, Red Storm, Detroit, Detroit, Angelo Harrison, Steve Lavin, D’Angelo Harrison, Amir Garrett, Moe Harkless
2011年12月4日 星期日
2011年12月3日 星期六
Never Too Old
Never Too Old
in 2009, when the local community decided that they wanted to build a school with the funds provided by Swire, they had 28 students, no teacher, no classroom.
They now have 135 students, 4 classrooms and 4 teachers.
For the majority, this is their first access to education.
Samson was 18 years old when he started primary school.
Tags
Papua
New
Guinea
Madang
conservation
rainforest
local community, Swire
2011年12月2日 星期五
PROFILING
PROFILING
HR
www.fluidr.com/photos/chiaralana/6442072835
Follow me in Facebook
www.facebook.com/Chiara.Lana.Photo
www.facebook.com/chiara.lana
and here
500px.com/ChiaraLana
Tags
instagram app
square
square format
iphoneography
Normal
iPhone4
©chiaralana
photo
people
occhi
light
italy
italia
girl
eyes
female
donna
bw
beauty
PROFILINGHRwww.fluidr.com/photos/chiaralana/6442072835Follow, Facebookwww.facebook.com/Chiara.Lana.Photowww.facebook.com/chiara.lanaand, here500px.com/ChiaraLanaTagsinstagram
訂閱：
文章 (Atom)