A 24-year-old man will face court over a one-punch attack in Sydney's CBD that left a man fighting for life.

Shortly before 1am on Sunday a 31-year-old man was walking along George Street in Haymarket when he was punched by another man.

The 31-year-old was taken to St Vincent's hospital and placed in an induced coma where he remains in critical condition.

A 24-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday afternoon on the same street and police have charged him with grievous bodily harm.

He's also been charged with two counts of common assault relating to two different men in early November that also occurred on George Street.

He was refused bail and is set face Central Local Court on Thursday.

Summary: A man who left another man in an induced coma after an alleged one-punch attack in Sydney's CBD will face court on Thursday.


Before you go, we thought you'd like these...

A few weeks ago we were shooting at a studio downtown and decided to go for a little lunch break walk to

. After enjoying one of the best burgers of my life there, we strolled through the flower district I did my best to withstand the temptation, but ultimately I caved, took the last of the cash in my wallet (a whopping $8!), and bought what I could. (Turns out I used up all of my willpower on the chocolate croissant that was sitting on the counter at lunch.) I left the flower mart with armfuls of greenery and one small bouquet of pretty red flowers with a name so complicated that I can't recall it, but the product that resulted was this deconstructed garland and I must say it made for a pretty

for the weekend! (And a fun project with my favorite toddler!) You can find this DIY at the intersection pretty, cheap, and easy which is exactly where you want to find a DIY. (And not necessarily where you want to find other things.)

Measure the length of the string you will need by holding it up to the wall or mantel will you will hang it, then cut where needed. Lay the string flat on the ground and begin arranging and snipping flowers to your desired size. You can string them as close together or far apart as you like. Just have fun with it!

Secure each bloom, fern, or greenery with a mini clothespin. If needed you can add floral wire for extra support. You can tie the ends of the string up onto something or just secure to the wall with washi tape.

More from the Effortless Chic:

Summary: You can find this DIY at the intersection pretty, cheap, and easy which is exactly where you want to find a DIY to create your own garland!


Steve Kagan for The New York Times

Jazmin Jones, left, wrestles Joe Hanson, 22, for a video short on Current TV. Many young adults, prized by advertisers, are moving to such experimental or interactive media outlets.

JOE HANSON, 22, of Chicago likes to watch television, but rarely on his TV. A folder on his computer lists an inventory of downloaded cable and network programming - the kind of thing that makes traditional media executives shudder.

"I've got 'Ali G,' 'Arrested Development,' 'Scrubs,' 'The Sopranos,' " Mr. Hanson told a visitor recently at his apartment on the city's Southwest Side. " 'South Park,' 'The Office,' some 'Family Guy.' "

From the avalanche of Nintendo games alongside his TV to his very roommate - acquired through the online classified site Craigslist - Mr. Hanson channels the characteristics of a generation weaned on digital technology and media convergence.

He is an avid gamer. He tinkers comfortably with digital media - from creating Web sites and blogs to mixing his own hip-hop music files - and like most people his age, he has nearly constant access to his friends through instant messaging.

In addition to thumbing his nose at notions of "prime time" by downloading his favorite shows (without commercials), Mr. Hanson almost never buys newspapers or magazines, getting nearly all of his information from the Internet, or from his network of electronic contacts.

"Papers are so clunky and big," he says. If those words are alarming to old media, they are only the beginning of a larger puzzle for today's marketers: how to make digital technology their ally as they try to understand and reach an emerging generation.

The eldest of the millennials, as those born between 1980 and 2000 are sometimes called, are now in their early to mid-20's. By 2010, they will outnumber both baby boomers and Gen-X'ers among those 18 to 49 - the crucial consumers for all kinds of businesses, from automakers and clothing companies to Hollywood, record labels and the news media.

The number of vehicles through which young people find entertainment and information (and one another) makes them a moving target for anyone hoping to capture their attention.

Advertisers and media and technology companies, mindful that young consumers have migrated away from the traditional carriers of their messages, have begun to find new ways to reach them. They are creating advertising and short videos for mobile phones, for instance, cell networks with dedicated game channels, and $1.99 TV programs to download to iPods and PC's.

And while the emerging generation's deftness with technology is a given, researchers say the most potent byproduct may be the feedback factor, which only accelerates the cycles of what's hot and what's over.

"We think that the single largest differentiator in this generation from previous generations is the social network that is people's lives, the part of it that technology enables," said Jack McKenzie, a senior vice president at Frank N. Magid Associates, a market research and consulting firm specializing in the news media and entertainment industries.

"What's hard to measure, and what we're trying to measure," Mr. McKenzie continued, "is the impact of groupthink, of group mentality, and the tendency of what we might call the democratization of social interaction and how that changes this generation's relationship with almost everything they come in contact with."

For Mr. Hanson, even his new job is an Internet-based, media-intensive labor informed by feedback.

Mr. Hanson, who earlier took time off before earning his English degree at the University of Chicago to appear as a contestant in a reality TV show ("Beauty and the Geek"), left his ad agency internship last month to become a writer and producer at Current TV, Al Gore's media-converging experiment.

Before being hired, Mr. Hanson and Hassan Ali, a 20-year-old junior studying economics at the University of Chicago, were already submitting their own digital video shorts to Current TV, which allows Web audiences to vote content up the ranks at www.current.tv and, if it becomes popular enough, onto its cable television rotation.

Their signature series of jittery "Joe Gets" films, in which the white, diminutive and blond Mr. Hanson might, for instance, get a haircut in a predominantly black Chicago barbershop ("Joe Gets Cut"), were voted regularly into the TV rotation - so often that both Mr. Hanson and Mr. Ali were offered jobs.

"This was great!" wrote one visitor to their Current TV Web page. "I deff. feel you on this one, being a white guy who also gets his hair cut at a black barber shop. Convos are way more entertaining. ... Plus you can't beat the crispy fades!" Mr. Hanson and Mr. Ali had reached out to their peers, and their peers had spoken.

David Bernstein and Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting for this article.Correction: Jan 29, 2006, Sunday: An article last Sunday about the challenges for marketers in adapting to the media habits of young adults misspelled the surname of a senior vice president at Frank N. Magid Associates, who is studying the issue. He is Jack MacKenzie, not McKenzie.Correction: Feb. 5, 2006, Sunday: An article on Jan. 22 about the media habits of young adults misstated two survey results on the creation and use of blogs. Among teenagers and adults under 29 surveyed for the Pew Internet and American Life Project, about 20 percent, not 40 percent, said they had created blogs; about 40 percent, not 80 percent, said they regularly read blogs

Summary: Many people in their 20's are abandoning traditional media channels, posing a challenge to marketers trying to reach them.


When you use the Internet today, your browser glides from one Web site to another, accessing all destinations with equal ease. That could change dramatically, however, if Internet service providers are allowed to tilt the playing field, giving preference to sites that pay them extra and penalizing those that don't.

The Senate held hearings last week on "network neutrality," the principle that I.S.P.'s  the businesses like Verizon or Roadrunner that deliver the Internet to your computer  should not be able to stack the deck in this way. If the Internet is to remain free, and freely evolving, it is important that neutrality legislation be passed.

In its current form, Internet service operates in the same nondiscriminatory way as phone service. When someone calls your home, the telephone company puts through the call without regard to who is calling. In the same way, Internet service providers let Web sites operated by eBay, CNN or any other company send information to you on an equal footing. But perhaps not for long. It has occurred to the service providers that the Web sites their users visit could be a rich new revenue source. Why not charge eBay a fee for using the Internet connection to conduct its commerce, or ask Google to pay when customers download a video? A Verizon Communications executive recently sent a scare through cyberspace when he said at a telecommunications conference, as The Washington Post reported, that Google "is enjoying a free lunch" that ought to be going to providers like Verizon.

The solution, as far as the I.S.P.'s are concerned, could be what some critics are calling "access tiering," different levels of access for different sites, based on ability and willingness to pay. Giants like Walmart.com could get very fast connections, while little-guy sites might have to settle for the information superhighway equivalent of a one-lane, pothole-strewn road. Since many companies that own I.S.P.'s, like Time Warner, are also in the business of selling online content, they could give themselves an unfair advantage over their competition.

If access tiering takes hold, the Internet providers, rather than consumers, could become the driving force in how the Internet evolves. Those corporations' profit-driven choices, rather than users' choices, would determine which sites and methodologies succeed and fail. They also might be able to stifle promising innovations, like Internet telephony, that compete with their own business interests.

Most Americans have little or no choice of broadband I.S.P.'s, so they would have few options if those providers shifted away from neutrality. Congress should protect access to the Internet in its current form. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, says he intends to introduce an Internet neutrality bill, which would prohibit I.S.P.'s from favoring content providers that paid them fees, or from giving priority to their own content.

Some I.S.P.'s are phone and cable companies that make large campaign contributions, and are used to getting their way in Washington. But Americans feel strongly about an open and free Internet. Net neutrality is an issue where the public interest can and should trump the special interests.

Summary: If the Internet is to remain free, and freely evolving, it is important that network neutrality legislation be passed.


BY GEORGE RUSH AND JOANNA MOLLOY with Baird Jones

Wednesday, July 9th 1997, 2:02AM

Settlement is a dirty word to Donald Trump, particularly when he's been accused of breach of contract and sexual harassment. But the developer has decided that writing a check is the cleanest way out of an ugly trial.

Last week, Trump settled a long-standing lawsuit with the American Dream Festival company, which claimed Trump had backed out of a deal to let it stage a beauty pageant in one of his Atlantic City hotels.

The suit was also peppered with allegations that, in 1993, Trump made unwanted advances toward Jill Harth, a pageant exec who is now the wife of American Dream Festival head George Houraney.

The case was due to go to trial on July 17 in Manhattan Federal Court, but yesterday sources familiar with the deal said Trump had agreed to a six-figure payout. One source described the settlement as "peanuts. Just their legal fees. Donald is very happy."

Another source said that Trump made the settlement partly to keep Harth from reviving a $125 million suit that set out in lurid detail her claims about Trump's "Svengali-type acts to control and subjugate" her.

Arguing that "justice" has not been done, Houraney says he and Harth may still cooperate with "a publishing group" at work on a book about their four-year Trump imbroglio.

Fortunately, none of this has dampened Trump's ability to enjoy himself. The rebounding Donald had no trouble meeting a bevy of beauties at the East Hampton bash thrown by Interscope Records co-owner Ted Field on Saturday. Three of them piled into Trump's limo to make their way to the Jet East club.

Along the way, Trump and company stopped at the Bridgehampton 7-Eleven for refreshment.

"He just stopped for a Soupy or a Snoopy one of those 7-11 things," said Anka Birgu, a real-estate agent of Romanian descent who says she met Trump in the aisles about 2 a.m. Birgu, a fetching blond who was wearing a tiny baby-blue dress, was invited to join the rolling party. (Says Trump: "I didn't invite her. Maybe somebody else did.")

In any case, Birgu says Trump was "very excited" to learn she was also a member of the 1976 Romanian fencing team.

The group hung out at Jet East for a couple of hours. Trump then made it over to the home of Barry Josephson, the studio exec who briefly dated Sharon Stone. As the dawn approched, Trump boarded a helicopter back to New York. He was very nice, reflected Birgu. Did he mention estranged wife Marla? "No," she said, "I think that's so much over."

Score two more major departures from Esquire magazine: Top writer John Taylor and gossip columnist Jeannette Walls have left the metamorphosing men's monthly.

New Esquire editor David Granger, apparently expressing an aversion to gossip, axed the 6-foot-in-stilettos redhead's widely praised pages as soon as he arrived. Then he fired Taylor, the author of "Storming the Magic Kingdom" and "Circus of Ambition."

"Granger told me my writing is 'too detached' for him," Taylor told us. "I always thought you weren't supposed to slather all over your subject. Like that great line on Yeats' tombstone, 'Cast a cold eye on life, on death . . . ' "

Ironically, Granger's assessment comes on the heels of Taylor's wide-open piece on his own divorce (his ex-wife wrote an accompanying article), which Random House scooped up for a book. A previous Taylor piece about his personal odyssey up the Congo River has been optioned by Sam Waterston.

"I think Granger's going to make another GQ, and I don't know if the world needs a paler version of GQ," mused Taylor.

Taylor said he found Granger to be "intuitive" but not "the most generally sophisticated person in the world."

"The first time he came over to meet the staff, he made a speech in which he quoted Bono of U2," sniffed Taylor.

Walls refused to comment, and Granger was out of town.

Residents of that tony building off Park Ave. have had to get used to burly bodyguards in the lobby. They're the shadows of Ronald Perelman's estranged wife, Patricia Duff, who is said to be shelling out $18,000 a month for the temporary quarters... Sharon Stone is looking for a temporary place to perch in the city... Dan Aykroyd has found himself a townhouse...Bette Midler, who abandoned her Tribeca loft for a Fifth Ave. penthouse, now needs a place to crash... while her new pad is being renovated...

Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger will move full-time to a mansion in Amagansett after Labor Day, Cinemania Online's Roger Friedman reports.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yesterday settled with erstwhile friend Mary Wallace Anderson, who had sued her former pal for $1 million. Anderson claimed she was injured in 1992 when Kennedy inadvertently drove off as she was getting into his car...

Keanu Reeves, searching for a pen to take down a new friend's number Monday at Spy Bar, where he hung out till last call with rocker Marilyn Manson...

Add designers Nicole Miller and Tommy Hilfiger to the credits of "Kima's Song," the film effort by Brooklyn producer Roger Dick French. They'll dress actors in the flick, about Amerasian kids of black Vietnamese vets...

Mr. USA International is gay, according to this week's Advocate. Gene Kuffel, a 6-foot-2 sixth-grade teacher in New Jersey who proudly wears the pageant's sash, came out of the closet because "I know that there are kids out there, whether they're in my classroom or not, who need to be told and shown that it's okay to be who they are."

Marla Prather, the wife of Daily News co-publisher and chairman Mortimer Zuckerman, was resting comfortably yesterday in Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center after giving birth to Abigail on Monday.

"Happily, she looks like her mother," the proud father said.

Prather, the curator and head of the 20th-Century Art Department at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., graduated from the University of Kansas, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received a master's degree in art history. Prather's further graduate studies have been at Columbia University, but she has not yet completed her doctorate.


DAVE EISENSTADT and WILLIAM GOLDSCHLAG Daily News Washington Bureau

Saturday, June 10th 1995, 1:16AM

Flashing a boyish grin and jabbing the air with a triumphant fist, Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady yesterday thanked his buddies and God for seeing him through six harrowing days dodging Bosnian Serb soldiers and gunfire.

"When I was out there I knew you were all there behind me. I could hear you and I knew it," the 29-year-old pilot told hundreds of flag-waving military and civilian well-wishers gathered in a hangar at Aviano Air Base in Italy.

"I knew that everything that could be possibly done was being done. I had no doubt in my mind about that," he said.

A week earlier, he had flown his F-16C from Aviano on a routine patrol over Bosnian skies. A missile fired by Serb forces destroyed his plane and forced him to eject.

He praised his Marine rescuers. "If you want to find some heroes, that's where you should look, because those are the biggest heroes in the world."

Speaking with emotion tears streaming down a red burn mark on his left cheek he added: "If it wasn't for God's love for me and my love for God, I would never have gotten through it."

He did not detail how he was shot down or how he survived the six days hiding in woods teeming with Bosnian Serb gunmen.

But in Washington, a military survival expert said O'Grady "had a lot of close calls," with the enemy coming within feet of him.

"He was not that far from civilization," Bob Dussault of the Pentagon survival training office said. "He had a lot of traffic around him so he could not go out and hunt for food."

As a result, O'Grady lived on ants and other bugs, grass and rainwater, Dussault said. He stayed completely still during the day, moving only at night to get higher in the hills to a more secluded area, where a rescue would be possible.

CNN, quoting military officials, said O'Grady saw Serb soldiers and heard gunfire on several occasions.

Once, he feared he had been spotted. But showing faith in his training, he stayed put and out of sight rather than running away, which could have given away his whereabouts.

He felt that if the Serbs had used search dogs, he would have been caught. But the only animal encounter was benign a cow grazed at his feet.

Air Force debriefers will question O'Grady at length on the shootdown. They will focus on the radar jammer of his F-16C, which should have warned him that he was being tracked by hostile radar.

Lt. Gen. Michael Ryan, who commands Allied Air Forces Southern Europe, said the pilot is eager to fly again, "but we must consider he had six days in extreme conditions. Now he's going to take a few weeks off."

He was expected at his father's home in Alexandria, Va., tomorrow for a reunion with family and friends.

"It's gonna be one big party," said his brother, Paul.

On Monday, O'Grady will see President Clinton at the White House.

Paul, his sister Stacy and their dad, Dr. William O'Grady, gathered around a TV yesterday to watch Scott's return to Aviano.

Impressed by his son's apparent vigor and good health, William O'Grady told him in a phone call yesterday: "You look fabulous."

Summary: Flashing a boyish grin and jabbing the air with a triumphant fist, Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady yesterday thanked his buddies and God for seeing him through six harrowing days dodging Bosnian Serb soldiers and gunfire. "When I was out there I knew you were all there behind me. I could hear you and I knew it,"the 29-year-old pilot told hundreds of flag-waving military and civilian well-wishers gathered in a hangar at Aviano


Feb 1st 2011, 20:48 by H.J. | RIO DE JANEIRO

I’M IN Rio de Janeiro to find out more about Petrobras, the world’s third-largest oil company by market capitalisation and a giant of Brazilian technology. First stop, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s Institute for Graduate Studies in Engineering (COPPE), where research is focused on extracting Brazil’s “sub-salt” oil—huge reserves recently discovered 200-300km off the coast, and lying 7,000 metres below the surface, under a layer of salt around two kilometres thick. “There are logistical challenges,” says Segen Estefen, the institute’s director for technology and innovation. “How to transport personnel? Should there be intermediate bases?” Getting this oil to the surface will require innovative submarine equipment, which means developing robotics and new materials that can survive the great pressures and corrosive action of the sub-salt oil. And bringing it to the surface will require underwater energy grids that must not get blocked and can be maintained at extreme depths.

Petrobras has paid for a laboratory dedicated to non-destructive testing, corrosion and welding. The pressure at the sub-salt deposits is 400-600 bars—double that of a conventional oil field. New kinds of materials are required to operate at this depth, mainly to withstand the highly corrosive conditions. Since cracks propagate faster at higher pressure, even slight corrosion can quickly become catastrophic.

Pride of place in the institute goes to the world’s deepest pool used to simulate conditions for offshore drilling. At 15 metres, plus a well in the middle that adds another ten, it easily surpasses rivals in China, the Netherlands and Norway, which do not exceed ten metres. A wave generator is already in action, and a pump-and-pipe system that will be able to simulate currents is under construction. It can make waves up to half a metre high—which doesn’t sound like much, until you remember that it’s used on scaled models, which means it can simulate even the most colossal tempests. A motion platform, like the rigs underneath flight simulators that are used to make them bounce around, is used to study the “sloshing problem”—what goes on inside a partially filled oil container, like a tanker, when the sea is rough. Waves get generated inside too, and these can exert a very large force on the vessel, to add to the bashing it’s getting from outside.

Brazil’s politicians have a bad habit of talking about the sub-salt oil as a kind of pot of gold at the bottom of the sea. Its very existence is deemed to have made the country rich, and the state’s share is supposed to solve all Brazil’s problems, from poor education and health care, to inadequate electricity grids and, in much of the country, nonexistent sanitation. It makes me nervous for the country when I hear such talk. The sheer difficulty of turning these potential riches into actual money is bad enough. Worse, oil often—maybe almost always—brings corruption in its wake, and Brazil has plenty of that already. The idea of hundreds of billions of dollars of what politicians will see as “free” money, available to spend on such necessities as vote-buying, turns my stomach.

But people close to the sub-salt projects have an alternative, far more attractive view, and as I look around I find myself increasingly willing to believe in it. COPPE is part of a cluster of sub-salt-related research activity in Rio, and Mr Estefen sees the future of that cluster as going far beyond oil, changing Brazil profoundly for the better. “It would be a mistake just to measure and extract the oil,” he says, “because these are finite resources. Brazil must seize the moment to lead in technology, not just in extracting and exporting raw materials.” From this point of view, the vast technological challenges are an opportunity, not a burden. He draws a parallel with the space race, which spurred the development of a host of new industries in the United States.

Next stop, a short drive away, is Petrobras’s own research centre. Carlos Fraga has been at Petrobras one week short of 30 years in various roles, and has been executive manager of research and development since 2003. No sooner does he start his presentation than the power gets cut off. It seems incongruous inside the high-tech centre, but apparently the whole of Ilha do Fundão, the island just off the coast of Rio de Janeiro where the centre is located, has suffered repeated blackouts this summer. It’s almost 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) outside, and the state is struggling to keep up with the demand for energy, as cariocas (Rio residents) turn their air conditioners to full blast.

Mr Fraga ploughs on with a battery-driven laptop. The company has more than 1,600 people employed in research and development, he says, but for every one of those there are another ten Brazilian researchers at outside institutes and universities, working full-time on the company’s projects. They are all connected via a secure network that gives them access to 110 teraflops (trillions of floating-point calculations per second) of computing power.

The conversation moves on to the difficulties of finding out just how much sub-salt oil there is. Geologists study oil formations by beaming sound waves at them—but the salt layer is folded and shifting, and also absorbs energy very effectively, meaning that varying and small amounts bounce back. Apparently Petrobras reckons it has cracked these problems—and that this is a major source of competitive advantage. “The industry fight is our engineers against their engineers,” he says. “It’s knowledge that makes the difference.”

He is gung-ho about the scale of the technological development required to pump the oil. “When I look at pre-salt, I have to tell you, it doesn’t scare me at all,” he says. When I ask why Petrobras’s share price has been suffering so much since the sub-salt oil was discovered, he just laughs, and says, “I keep buying Petrobras. Existing technology already allows us to extract oil from these fields, because we already have experience of deep and ultra-deep drilling.”

Other big oil companies, too, work with outside partners, pay for students and laboratories at universities and develop distributed computer networks. What makes Petrobras different is that it is doing all these things in Brazil, a country that spends little generally on research and development, educates few students to graduate level and lags in most areas of technology and development. Given the relative sizes of Petrobras and Brazil’s high-tech industry, that means the company could potentially change the entire culture of the country. In the areas it touches, says Mr Fraga, the company is “bringing Brazil to the same level as developed countries.”

Summary: I’M IN Rio de Janeiro to find out more about Petrobras, the world’s third-largest oil company by market capitalisation and a giant of Brazilian technology. Fir  st stop, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s Institute for Graduate Studies in Engineering (COPPE), where research is focused on extracting Brazil’s “sub-salt” oil—huge reserves recently discovered 200-300km off the coast, and lying 7,000 metres below the surface, under a layer of salt around two kilometres thick. “There ar


Sep 30th 2011, 12:33 by N.V. | LOS ANGELES

IT ALL happened so fast and without the slightest apprehension. Queuing for a railway ticket at Waterloo station in London one quiet Sunday morning some years ago, your correspondent put his laptop blissfully down by his feet to get money out of his pocket. After taking his ticket from the window, he reached down for his laptop case, only to find it gone. There was nobody lurking behind him; indeed, no-one within 20 feet or more. And certainly no thief was to be seen scurrying across the half-empty concourse with a bulky laptop bag slung over a shoulder. The shock, tinged with awe of such brazen behaviour, taught your correspondent one valuable thing: never, even for a few seconds, lose physical contact with your digital belongings—especially when their contents are worth more to you than the merchandise.Today, if he must put a laptop or tablet down while fishing for change in a crowded place, it gets trapped between his knees or ankles. And he never, ever places a mobile phone on a counter or table in a restaurant, bar or coffee shop—as so many others seem to do the instant they sit down. Until needed, phones stay where they belong: out-of-sight and less of a distraction in a pocket. Apart from being part of basic courtesy, it is the smartest thing to do security-wise.Left in the open, smart-phones and tablets, even more than laptops, are tempting targets for unscrupulous bystanders with sticky fingers. That was how last year the world got its first glimpse of the upcoming iPhone 4, when an Apple engineer left a prototype on the bar of a Redwood City beer garden. The two men who acquired it (later charged with theft) promptly sold the prototype of Apple’s latest must-have gadget to “Gizmodo”, a tech-blog in Silicon Valley, which instantly published the secret details for all and sundry to see.Having been embarrassed once by such a gaffe, you might have thought that Apple would have cracked down hard on such careless behaviour. But no, a couple of months ago, another Apple employee managed to lose an unreleased iPhone 5 (due to be revealed on October 4th) in a tequila bar in San Francisco’s Mission District. Clearly, such headline cases are merely the well-publicised tip of an iceberg of pricey portables that disappear. In America, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reckons some 600,000 laptops are stolen annually, with only 3% ever being recovered. A further 26m mobile phones go missing each year. Airports, hotels and parked cars are where most laptops vanish. Mobile phones tend to get lost in taxis, and be swiped in bars, restaurants and other public places where their owners are easily distracted. The Federal Trade Commission urges people to treat such gadgets “like cash” and keep them securely about their person or hidden out-of-sight.Tales of stolen phones and laptops being successfully retrieved are the exception to the rule. One widely publicised case (perhaps because it was so rare) concerned a Canadian web consultant, who had a bag containing his laptop, mobile phone, health card and copies of his birth certificate lifted while on a business trip to New York. Fortunately, the owner had taken the precaution of installing an open-source tracking tool called Prey on his MacBook Pro beforehand.

Several days later, back in Ottawa, the owner got a message from his stolen laptop, saying it was being used in a restaurant in the Soho district of Manhattan. The tracking software not only sent the location details, but also transmitted screen-shots of what was running on the laptop at the time. It even turned on the user-facing camera and transmitted video of the user to the owner 500 miles away.In this case, the owner was luckier than most. He had some 12,000 followers on Twitter to call upon for help. Meanwhile, the thief made the mistake of logging onto Skype with his real name. The laptop owner saw all this happening before his eyes and tweeted the details to his followers. He also called the New York police and asked, to no avail, for help. The missing laptop and other items were recovered only when a friend, aided by a Twitter follower in New York, rushed to the restaurant and confronted the staff with the evidence. The stolen laptop was handed over without a struggle.

In another case, three friends visiting Chicago, who lost an iPhone in an uptown bar, were able to track the pilferer first to an apartment building, and then to a bus-stop—thanks to a free app called Find My iPhone (which also works on iPads and later iPods). The app can even be installed on a second gizmo, after the first one has gone astray, and used to locate it. The only requirement is that the original device’s Apple ID be known. With a 14-year-old having just entered high school, your correspondent has been checking out various tracking tools to locate her iPhone and MacBook Pro should they ever go AWOL—as regrettably seems to happen all too often in libraries and locker-rooms. He has long used Prey on his own laptops, but finds the open-source software a little rough around the edges and the installation process a hit-and-miss affair. He has persisted over the years only because the software works equally well on Mac, Linux and Windows machines. Moreover, being free, it saves a chunk of change, and spares him from having to master a bunch of different tracking tools.No question that, were he to have lots of confidential corporate data on his laptop, he would cough up $50 a year for the premium edition of LoJack for Laptops (a standard version can be had for $25 a year). Once installed, the software, which works on Macs as well as Windows machines, is passive and undetectable—and goes into action once a theft has been reported. Thereafter, the developer, Absolute Software of Austin, Texas, locates the missing laptop, erases any sensitive files on the hard-drive if that is what the owner wishes, freezes the computer's innards, and displays a message on its screen to encourage the culprit to return the missing machine voluntarily. Working with the police, Absolute Software’s investigators retrieve the device and deliver it to its owner.The smartest thing about LoJack for Laptops (the name is licensed from the retrieval service for stolen vehicles) is that not only is it undetectable, but it is pretty near indestructible. If its “persistence module” is installed in the computer’s firmware (the basic input-output system, or BIOS) in the factory, it can reactivate itself even if the hard-drive is reformatted or actually replaced. Numerous computer manufacturers—including Acer, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Toshiba and others—build LoJack’s persistence module into their BIOS chips. For those that do not, software methods exist to help prevent LoJack from being purged from the system. One way is to install the persistence module in a gap between partitions on the hard-drive. Unfortunately, though this will survive a reformat, replacing the hard-drive defeats the tracking software. Few thieves, though, have the inclination or the know-how to go to such lengths. The cybersecurity firm Sophos of Abingdon in Britain reckons computers are stolen nowadays mostly by “opportunistic thieves rather than tech-savvy criminals”.The only other piece of tracking software that comes close is Laptop Cop (currently on offer for $50 a year) from Awareness Technologies of Marina del Rey, California. Like LoJack, Laptop Cop works strictly in stealth mode, leaving no visible trace of its presence. The user has to file a police report before the company’s Threat Response Team will spring into action. Thereafter, the program will retrieve any specified files from the stolen laptop, or even delete them, while continuing to gather information about the unsuspecting thief. Like LoJack, Laptop Cop is almost impossible to disable or defeat.As for his high-school daughter’s mobile devices, your correspondent has secured her phone with Find My iPhone (free) and her laptop with a British tracking tool called Hidden ($15 a year). The couple of free trackers he has tried for his own Android phone are nowhere near as polished as the Apple equivalent (all suggestions greatly appreciated). Meanwhile, the open-source Prey stands sentry on his portables. He hopes he never has to use it.


Thu Feb 25, 2010 9:52am EST

* Mills convicted of taking bribe in 1997

* Berlusconi charged with paying the bribe

* Prosecutor says time for trial has run out

By Stephen Brown and Roberto Landucci

ROME, Feb 25 (Reuters) - An Italian prosecutor asked the top appeals court to drop a case against a British lawyer convicted of taking a bribe from Silvio Berlusconi, a surprise development that could kill charges against the prime minister.

If the request is granted by the Cassation Court, which was meeting for a final ruling on the 4-1/2 year sentence against David Mills for the 1997 bribe, it is very likely the related corruption case against Berlusconi would also be dropped.

Mills, the estranged husband of a British minister, was sentenced a year ago for taking a bribe to give false testimony in court and withhold incriminating details about Berlusconi's business dealings. Both men deny any wrongdoing.

The trial against Berlusconi had been suspended thanks to his immunity from prosecution, which was ruled unconstitutional last October, meaning trials against him could resume.

The 73-year-old conservative media magnate faces two cases -- for bribing Mills and for tax fraud -- which he is trying to avoid via three bills that would further cut the maximum time trials can take, grant the premier "legitimate impediment" to attend trials because of his duties, and restore his immunity.

In technical arguments that did not touch on whether money changed hands, but on the complexities of when a case elapses under the statute of limitations, prosecutor Gianfranco Ciani said there was "no doubt" the date of the crime was when Mills heard from a manager of Berlusconi's Fininvest holding company in 1999 "that there were funds worth $600,000 at his disposal".

A lower appeals court in Milan, which in October upheld the original sentence, considered the crime was committed when Mills withdrew the money in 2000 meaning the trial would expire later.

Ciani said the "golden rule" when there was a doubt over the date of a crime was to choose "the moment most favourable to the accused" -- the earlier date -- and that since bribery carried a maximum sentence of eight years, the crime had clearly expired.

If the Cassation Court in Rome confirms Mills' sentence, he would probably have to start his jail term, strengthening the case against Berlusconi, whose own next hearing is on Saturday.

The premier, owner of AC Milan soccer club and the Mediaset broadcasting empire, says he has been hounded by "communist" magistrates since entering politics in 1994.

The ruling comes at a delicate juncture for Berlusconi, who faces regional elections next month which are widely seen as a national test for his centre-right government.

His popularity has been slipping in the wake of a separate corruption scandal involving the head of the civil protection agency, Guido Bertolaso, a trusted aide and national hero for his handling of last year's deadly earthquake in Abruzzo.

Summary: * Mills convicted of taking bribe in 1997 * Berlusconi charged with paying the bribe * Prosecutor says time for trial has run out  (Adds further details) By Stephen Brown and Roberto Landucci


SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has approved a $22.5 million fine to penalize Google for an alleged privacy breach, rejecting a consumer rights group’s plea for tougher punishment. The blessing from US District Judge Susan Illston came late Friday. She made her ruling a few hours after a hearing in San Francisco for final arguments about a fine that is the cornerstone of a settlement reached three months ago between the Federal Trade Commission and Google Inc. The rebuke revolves around allegations that Google duped millions of Web surfers using the Safari browser into believing their online activities could not be …

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Summary: A federal judge has approved a $22.5 million fine to penalize Google for an alleged privacy breach, rejecting a consumer-rights group’s plea for tougher punishment. The blessing from U.S. District Judge Susan Illston came late Friday. She made her ruling a few hours after a hearing in San Francisco for final arguments about a fine that’s the cornerstone a settlement reached three months ago between the Federal Trade Commission and Google Inc.


Jun 22nd 2012, 16:46 by S.S. | ISLAMABAD

The temperature in Pakistan's hyper-activist Supreme Court must have reached boiling point after Raja Pervez Ashraf was chosen on June 22nd as the candidate of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) for prime minister. His predecessor, Yousaf Raza Gilani, was thrown out of the job this week by their Lordships.

The PPP had initially chosen Makhdoom Shahabuddin, an aristocratic former health minister, as the next prime minister, on June 20th. But by the following day it had to hurriedly ditch him, after a warrant was issued for his arrest. While he was health minister, the ministry approved the import of a huge quantity of a chemical that can be used to manufacture ecstasy pills and other narcotics. By Friday, instead of walking into Prime Minister's House, Mr Shahabuddin was in court, seeking pre-arrest bail.

The choice of Mr Ashraf is deeply problematic. He is known to all Pakistan as “Raja Rental”, for presiding over deals which involved the government paying cronies to set up temporary or “rental” power plants, to plug the crippling shortfall in electricity supply, while he was energy minister.

The rental plants were often established with ageing equipment, though the government was charged for new gear, and the blackouts only grew. Rental power was deemed a “total failure” according to a Supreme Court judgment on the issue earlier this year, for producing high cost and insufficient electricity.

That verdict found that officials involved, including Mr Ashraf, had “violated the principle of transparency” and must be investigated by the anti-corruption watchdog, the National Accountability Bureau, to see if they were “getting financial benefits” out of the “scam”.

But more than the courts, the people of Pakistan will feel aggrieved at the appointment of a man whose ministry oversaw over a national disaster, pursuing questionable schemes while simply watching the problem grow. Mr Ashraf, 61, became known for continually predicting the imminent end of the electricity shortage, only to have to eat his words before unabashedly issuing a new rosy prediction.

In recent days, the relentless summer heat has triggered violent protests across Punjab, the province that houses over half the population, over the electricity shortages, which means that fans and refrigerators don't work. There is misery for households while industry is being shut down.

Some in Pakistan see even darker clouds ahead. The appointment of Mr Ashraf will also not impress the military, which is the ultimate arbiter of Pakistan's political process. The timing of the move on Mr Shahabuddin was seen as highly suspicious, not least by him. The Anti-Narcotics Force, which is headed by an army general, is pursuing Mr Shahabuddin.

Conspiracy theorists—which includes most people here—think the object is to force early elections or even create such chaos that an excuse will be found to impose an unelected government of technocrats, by the military and courts working together. Elections have to be called by March 2013 anyway.

The legal-political circus is set to continue, so Mr Ashraf's tenure could be very short lived. Mr Gilani was disqualified from office by the Supreme Court for refusing to write a letter to the Swiss authorities to request the re-opening of dormant money-laundering cases against the president, Asif Ali Zardari, who also heads the PPP.

Mr Ashraf is expected by his boss, the president, to resist court orders. As the legal arguments now having already been exhausted with Mr Gilani, the court will probably give Mr Ashraf little time to comply before also dispensing with him. Then yet another prime minister will be needed. Pakistan can forget about any actual business of government getting done.

Summary: The temperature in Pakistan's hyper-activist Supreme Court must have reached boiling point after Raja Pervez Ashraf was chosen on June 22nd as the candidate of...


LOS ANGELES | Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:34am EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - George Michael has a lot of "Faith" in his North American fans. The British pop singer on Monday unveiled plans for his first tour of the United States and Canada in 17 years, beginning June 17 at San Diego Sports Arena.

The 22-date arena trek runs through August 3 at the BankAtlantic Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Tickets for the "25 Live" tour go on sale to the general public on April 6th, a week after fan club members get first dibs. Ticketmaster currently lists one show, the July 7 gig at Saint Paul, MN., where the top price is $175.

While his international appeal remains strong, Michael's profile in the United States has waned over the past decade, although his last album, 2004's "Patience," managed to peak at No. 12 thanks to an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Michael, 44, rose to fame in the early 1980s as one-half of the singing duo Wham! and enhanced his popularity with his solo debut, 1987's "Faith," which has been certified for U.S. shipments in excess of 10 million copies. It included the hit singles "Father Figure," "I Want Your Sex Parts 1 & 2" and the title track.

Subsequent efforts did not sell nearly as well, and Michael's career ground to a halt in the early 1990s when he unsuccessfully sued Sony to get out of his contract. In 1998, he was arrested for lewd conduct in Beverly Hills, and subsequently disclosed his homosexuality.

The European leg of his "25 Live" tour took him to 12 countries where he performed 80 shows for some 1.3 million fans, according to a statement.

The North American tour will promote a double-disc hits set, the second of his career. "Twenty-Five" is scheduled for U.S. release on April 1, a decade after Michael issued the retrospective "Ladies & Gentlemen: The Best of George Michael."

Summary: LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - George Michael has a lot of Faith in his North American fans.  The British pop singer on Monday unveiled plans for his first tour of the United States and Canada in 17 years, beginning


Ablack-and-white psychological horror drama, set during Britain’s 17th-century Civil Wars and involving buried treasure and trippy hallucinations?

Hi-ho, director Ben Wheatley and his co-writer wife, Amy Jump, are back in town.

“A Field in England” is the latest and most fiercely strange film from Wheatley, who is himself the most fiercely strange filmmaker currently working in Britain. “Kill List” (2011) was a scuzzy little hit-man movie that turned surreal with paranoia; last year’s “Sightseers” was a cheerfully bleak comedy about a serial-killing tourist couple. “A Field in England,” like the others scripted with Jump, pushes into areas both avant-garde and bizarrely funny. The movie’s definitely something, although I’d be hard pressed to say what. Maybe Samuel Beckett’s idea of a period film.

Shot in crisp wide-screen monochrome by Laurie Rose — oddly, I was put in mind of the classic Oscar-winning short “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” — “A Field in England” opens on the fringes of an anonymous raging battle, from which the dandyish Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) is fleeing in terror. Joining up with two grizzled mercenaries, Cutler (Ryan Pope) and Jacob (Peter Ferdinando), and a gentle conscripted peasant known simply as Friend (Richard Glover), he high-tails it over the hedgerows. “We’re not running away, we’re going for beer,” insists Cutler.

In fact, Cutler is bringing them to O’Neil (Michael Smiley), a lordly malefactor encamped in a field he believes has buried treasure in it. Using the prissy, appalled Whitehead — who has skills in divination — as a human truffle hound and the soldiers as muscle, he intends to dig until the treasure, whatever it is, is found.

That’s the setup, which is just as quickly set aside for a series of shifting power games among the men. O’Neil is the alpha male and whatever he does to Whitehead inside that tent to get him to comply, the latter’s screams are much more horrible than if we’d seen it. “It does not surprise me that the devil is an Irishman,” says Jacob, “but I thought he’d be a little taller.”

The ingestion of magic mushrooms leads to some psychedelic sequences.

Did I mention the magic mushrooms? Finding them growing nearby, Cutler uses them to break down his captives’ defenses, and the filmmaker uses them to break down ours. “A Field in England” has an agreeable 1970s B-movie attitude toward recreational pharmaceuticals and gonzo psychedelic sequences, and toward the end — just as tensions are coming to a head — Wheatley uncorks a lulu, the film threatening to buckle under the assault of audiovisual wackness. Here might be the place to call attention to Martin Pavey, who has done the sound design for all Wheatley’s films and who creates frightening aural moonscapes that tilt the movie further off its axis.

At certain points in “A Field in England,” the action stops dead as the characters pose in tableaux. Why? Who knows, but like many of this director’s visions, it gets under your skin. In the movies of Ben Wheatley, there’s a larger, more cosmic nightmare just beyond the sight of both characters and audience, and maybe he’s treating us kindly by only giving us glimpses. Says Friend — who like all peasants appears to be both cannon-fodder and unkillable — “I think I have worked out what God is punishing us for. Everything.”

Summary: “A Field in England” is the latest and most fiercely strange film from Ben Wheatley (“Kill List,” “Sightseers”), who is himself the most fiercely strange filmmaker currently working in England. A black-and-white psychological horror drama, set during Britain’s 17th century Civil Wars and involving buried treasure and hallucinogenic mushrooms? All in a days work for Wheatley and his co-scripter wife Amy Jump. Four men flee from battle to a rural meadow where a lordly malefactor (Michael Smiley) forces them to dig for gold. It’s about shifting power games, mostly, and suggests a period film made by Samuel Beckett in one of his more playful moods. At times the film threatens to buckle at the seams under the assault of audiovisual wackness. With Reece Shearsmith.


Rod Picott has been a singer-songwriter in a professional sense — that is, making (or trying to make) enough of a living not to have a day job — for a little over a decade. In that time, he has made seven records that have been increasingly remarked upon for their gritty eloquence and the striking, unblinking way in which they detail the characters and situations that inhabit them.

But Picott, who comes to Atwood’s Tavern on Saturday night, didn’t start making those records — and quit what he’d been doing since high school, putting up drywall and doing other construction work — until he was 36. That’s a world of long days and hard physical work, and one, you might expect, that he would have been happy, if not eager, to escape. Instead, he bade his time, and, he says, consciously waited to make a change in the way he spent his days.

“I was a guy that was looking at what I was writing, and I knew where I wanted to go with it, but I didn’t know how to get there,” Picott explains, speaking from his Nashville base during a brief respite between tour runs. “I wanted to be writing a certain kind of song that worked in a certain kind of way. I was looking at having a sense of language, and it took me a long time to figure it out.”

He was working toward it — “I took a lot of side roads and detours, and had to back up and start over a few times” — but he consciously did not turn to recording and making a living as a singer-songwriter until he felt like he could do it in a way that satisfied him.

Looking back, Picott feels that his comparatively late start and the delay behind it was the right way to go. “As a body of work, the group of songs that I’ve written tells me that I was right to wait. I understood what it was that I was trying to do, and that my instinct that I wasn’t ready until I was 36 years old was right.” He matter-of-factly observes that “I have an unusual voice; it’s not a pretty voice, it’s a little rough, it’s a little bit ragged. So I knew that with the tools that I had, I wasn’t going to be able to get up there and wow people with the tools that were natural to me. It had to be about the songs. It had to be.”

His assessment of that body of work is one that is echoed by Slaid Cleaves, a fine songwriter in his own right who shares a long-running friendship with Picott that began on a grade-school bus in Maine.

In a brief phone conversation, Cleaves is unreserved in his admiration for his longtime friend’s songs and for the craft at songwriting that he’s honed.

“He’s one of the very few people that I can take a song fragment and trust him to do the right thing with it, or take a broken song and have him help me fix it and send it in a better direction,” Cleaves offers. “The way he approaches songwriting — and this is why I enjoy co-writing with him so much — is really analytical, once we get the bones and the soul of a song. He’s very precise about how he evaluates the language in a song, and makes sure the language fits the protagonist, and is consistent.”

Picott’s latest record, “Hang Your Hopes on a Crooked Nail,” was released in February. Its songs coalesce around a theme, one that the singer-songwriter identifies as resilience, as not giving up, as finding your place in the world: “Whatever hope you have left, however fragile it is, you’ve got to hang on to it. You’ve got to move forward, take steps forward, keep walking forward.” The album’s title announces the theme; Picott chose it because he thought it was a phrase that spoke to what this group of songs is about. And what the title announces, the songs beautifully distill — perseverance in the face of romantic dissolution (“Dreams,” “I Might Be Broken Now”), socio-economic circumstance (“Where No One Knows My Name”), death (“Milkweed,” a song that finds Picott imagining the loss of his father) and what comes after (“Nobody Knows,” the album's hymn-like coda).

In having some loose thematic coherence, “Hang Your Hopes” is no different than its predecessors, Picott notes. “As I look back and analyze it,” he says, “with each record there’s been a theme or a couple of themes that have come up and played across it. They tell me that this is the group of songs that makes a record, that this song will fit, but this one won’t.”

“Once I get down to a group of 12 or 15 songs,” he continues, “I’m looking for songs that hit the different parts of those themes. I’m looking for the corners. I don’t want all the bottom left-hand corner; I don’t want to repeat the same exact view of that theme. I’m looking for different angles, so it feels kind of wide, it feels like life.”

“There are lots of ways to make a great record, but to me, a record should feel kind of like life feels.”

Summary: Rod Picott has been a singer-songwriter in a professional sense — that is, making (or trying to make) enough of a living not to have a day job — for a little over a decade. In that time, he has made seven records that have been increasingly remarked upon for their gritty eloquence and the striking, unblinking way in which they detail the characters and situations that inhabit them. But he didn’t start making those records — and quit what he’d been doing since high school, putting up drywall and doing other construction work — until he was 36. That’s a world of long days and hard physical work, and one, you might expect, that he would have been happy, if not eager, to escape. Instead, he bade his time, and, he says, consciously waited to make a change in the way he spent his days.


THE REGATTA MARCH BETWEEN ENGLAND AND AMERICA--THE ENGLISH CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.--There was a meeting of the Empire City Regatta Club at the St. Mark's-place Restaurant, last evening, to consider the challenge issued through Bell's Life, some six weeks ago, from ROBERT CHAMBERS, the champion of the Thames, to the champion of America, to row a match for $2,500 a side, single pair of sculls. STEPHEN ROBERTS, President of the Empire City Club, read, to the meeting a letter from the Secretary of the Regatta Association of Newburgh, where JOSHUA WARD, the champion of America, resides, stating that they had accepted the English challenge, on condition that the race Should come off in Newburgh Bay, the Newburgh Association agreeing, according to the terms of the Challenge, to pay the English champion $500, for his expenses to this country. The meeting then voted to cooperate with, the Newburgh Association in rendering any assistance they might require, and, in case their conditions were declined by the English champion, that the challenge should be accepted by the Empire City Club. It is expected that the match will come off some time in June.

BOILER EXPLOSION. -- About 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, one of the boilers used at the Balance Dry Dock, at the foot of Pike-street, East River, exploded, and one of the fragments struck a carman who was passing, fortunately not injuring him seriously. No other person was hurt, although there were a number of workmen in the immediate vicinity. The house in which the boiler was situated was nearly torn to pieces, thus causing a loss of nearly $1,000. About three years since the boiler on the other side of the Dock exploded, and a number of persons were injured. The cause of the explosion has not yet transpired.

Mr. CARSON FOR CHIEF ENGINEER OF THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. -- The friends of Mr. ALFRED CARSON, who have devoted themselves to the promotion of his interests as a candidate for the office of Chief Engineer of the Fire Department, held a large meeting last night in Brooke's Hall, in Broome-street. Mr. DAVID MURRAY was elected Chairman, and Mr. EDWARD JOLLIE Secretary. The assemblage was not constituted alone of Mr. CARSON's supporters, though a great majority expressed themselves as in his favor. The rumor that his withdrawal was either contemplated or designed, was denied by his friends, who declare their intention to support him to the last, and their confidence in the success of their efforts in his behalf.

LECTURE BY REV. MOSES BALLOU. -- A pleasant conversational lecture upon "Our Homes" was delivered last evening by Rev. MOSES BRLLOU, under the auspices of the New-York City Library Association. The lecturer held that the outward appearance and the inner arrangements of a man's home were a true criterion of his character. Passing to the influence of home upon the future development of its occupants, Mr. BALLOU indulged in a sketch of a New-England homestead, such as it was twenty-five years ago. He closed with a brief poem upon the iron dinner-pot of MILES STANDISH, which is now in the possession of the Connecticut Historical Society.

RETURN OF THE ICE. -- The severe cold of yesterday sent another crop of ice down the North River, which was drifted by the strong westerly wind into he docks on the west side, offering serious obstruction to the movements of vessels. A continuance of cold weather, it was thought, would soon close up the river above Poughkeepsie. As it is, it postpones the opening of navigation, which it has been hoped would occur at an earlier period than usual. The strong gale interfered with the arrival of the Sound boats at their usual hour. No wrecks on the coast have, as yet, been reported.

LECTURES THIS EVENING. -- Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER, Mrs. LUCY STONE, and Hon. ROBERT DALE OWEN, will deliver addresses at the Cooper Institute. The general topic of the discussion will be the claims of women to legal protection....Rev. E.G. HOLLAND's fourth leeture at Clinton Hall will be given at 7 1/2 o'clock -- topic, "THOMAS CARLYLE"....Dr. FOY, the noted Professor of Physiology, will lecture at Cooper Institute on "Dietetics."

PROPOSED ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL GARDEN IN CENTRAL PARK. -- A number of gentlemen, among whom are Messrs. W.H. ASPINWALL, HAMILTON FISH, AUGUST BELMONT, R.L. STUART, and GEORGE FOLSOM, have formed an association for the establishment of an extensive Zoological and Botanical Garden in Central Park. A preliminary meeting, to appoint a Committee to prepare a charter, was held on Monday afternoon.

SAILING OF THE AFRICA. -- The steamship Africa sailed at noon yesterday, for Liverpool, with 31 passengers and $335,000 in specie.


The promise of a $150 million federal loan guarantee for Cape Wind keeps the controversial offshore wind project on a path to start construction in Nantucket Sound as soon as early next year, a spokesman said.

Once finalized, the loan guarantee should give Cape Wind the boost it needs to line up the final pieces of financing for the estimated $2.5 billion project by the end of the year, said Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers.

“Things will happen very quickly after that,” Rodgers said. “We would begin construction early next year, in 2015, putting in foundations.”

The US Department of Energy announced the federal backing Tuesday, five years after Cape Wind first applied for a loan guarantee to help finance the construction of a 130-turbine wind farm off of Cape Cod. Supporters of Cape Wind called the loan guarantee a vote of confidence for the project, while opponents criticized it as a misuse of taxpayer money.

“This loan guarantee means that not only will the ratepayers of Massachusetts be liable for billions of dollars in costs, but the US taxpayer will also be on the hook for this ill-advised project,” said Robert Rio, a spokesman for the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, a business group that believes Cape Wind is overpriced.

Longtime Cape Wind opponent Audra Parker, president of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, agreed. The project’s high costs and poor location, she said in a statement, “guarantee that its power will become some of the most expensive in New England and the nation.”

NStar and National Grid, the state’s largest utilities, have agreed to buy 77.5 percent of the power generated by Cape Wind at a starting price of 18.7 cents per kilowatt hour, well above typical wholesale prices.

The proposed offshore wind farm, which would be the nation’s first, has spent more than a decade gathering the necessary permits, fighting numerous legal challenges, and arranging customers and financing.

Several large equipment contracts and financing deals were announced this year, with funding commitments totaling more than half Cape Wind’s estimated costs.

Those commitments are one reason federal energy officials said that they decided to move forward with the loan guarantee.

Sue Reid, director of the nonprofit Conservation Law Foundation in Massachusetts, said in a statement that the promised award shows “how close the nation’s first offshore wind project is to being built, at long last.”

Reid and other environmentalists say the loan guarantee signals the government’s commitment not only to building Cape Wind, but also a new industry. The United States lags far behind Europe and China in developing offshore windpower. European nations have already permitted or built many offshore energy projects.

Kit Kennedy, director of the energy and transportation program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group in New York, said in a statement that “Cape Wind can finally kick-start the nation’s offshore wind industry” and allow the United States to capture “the enormous clean energy potential blowing off our shores.”

• 6/17: Auction for wind energy leases off Massachusetts is one step closer

• 5/04: Federal judge dismisses lawsuit to block Cape Wind project

• 03/15: Judge clears way for Cape Wind, but calls for wildlife review

• 01/22: Cape Wind project opponents file new lawsuit

• 12/23/13: Cape Wind signs agreement for turbines

• 8/11/13:Wind farms creating an environmental divide

Summary: The promise of a $150 million federal loan guarantee keeps the offshore wind project on a path to start construction as soon as early next year, a spokesman said.


Experts inspect the wreckage of the Malaysia Airlines plane that crashed in Ukraine last week. (AFP/Getty Images)

An Australian team led by former defence force chief Angus Houston is poised to access the MH17 crash site, as Russia warms to a United Nations resolution calling for an international investigation.

Australia is taking the lead on seeking a UN Security Council resolution demanding from pro-Russian separatists "full and unrestricted access" to the crash site of the downed jet in Ukraine.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott told reporters after speaking with Vladimir Putin that the Russian president had "said all the right things" in regard to access to the site and would be held to his word.

Mr Putin has told Russia Today he is committed to providing security for a "fully representative team" to investigate the crash.

"In the meantime, nobody should and has no right to use this tragedy to achieve their narrowly selfish political goals," he said. Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 is believed to have been blown out of the sky on Thursday by pro-Russian separatists firing a surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 passengers and crew.

Mr Houston is stationed in Kiev with a team of 45 officials to help recover, identify and repatriate up to 39 Australian citizens and permanent residents killed in the crash.

The draft resolution, to be voted on at 5am (AEST) on Tuesday, demands that all military activities, including by armed groups, be "immediately ceased in the immediate area surrounding the crash site to allow for security and safety of the international investigation".

It also "condemns in the strongest terms" the actions that caused the plane to crash.

Russia, as a permanent member of the Security Council, has the right to veto the resolution but diplomats are talking up the prospects of success.

"There is no reason why everybody in the council could not support this resolution," Australian UN ambassador Gary Quinlan said.

Mr Abbott, who as well as phoning world leaders, has also been in touch with some of the families of the Australian victims.

They were "numb with grief and only beginning to come to terms with their loss", he said.

There was no doubt the plane was shot down in a "criminal act" and could even be seen as an terrorist act, which would open the way for compensation payments for victims.

In a second phone call with US President Barack Obama, the two leaders agreed that Russia had a responsibility to use its influence to compel the separatists to co-operate with international investigators in a prompt, full, unimpeded and transparent way.

The Ukraine has delegated leadership of the investigation to Dutch officials.

Mr Abbott also has spoken with the Dutch, British, Malaysian, Ukraine, German, French and New Zealand leaders in a round of calls.

The mood of world leaders had become "firmer and sterner" than it was on Friday, because of mounting evidence MH17 was shot down by pro-Russian rebels "quite possibly supplied by the backer", he said.

The situation at the crash site was still "shambolic", and urgent action was needed to secure the site.

"Having those people in control of the site is a little like leaving criminals in control of a crime scene," Mr Abbott said.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is at the UN to prosecute Australia's case.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief Martin Dolan dampened expectations of a speedy result and expressed concern about evidence tampering.

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Summary: A frustrated Tony Abbott says Russia must show genuine remorse and regret over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17.


China handed down its biggest-ever antitrust fine to 10 Japanese car parts makers as a nationwide crackdown on price gouging by foreign companies gathers pace.

The National Development and Reform Commission said it had fined the companies a total of 1.24 billion yuan ($201 million), over a quarter of the fine falling on Sumitomo Electric.

Most of the companies involved operate joint ventures in China with locally-owned companies, something that the Financial Times said suggested that the NDRC wasn’t afraid to attack domestic vested interests in the interest of consumers.

“China is a country ruled by law, everyone should be equal before the law,” Li Pumin, NDRC’s secretary general, was quoted by Reuters as saying.

Reuters noted that some of the companies fined have also been fined by U.S. and European regulators.

Two other companies, Hitachi and Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp, were spared punishment after providing evidence of price-fixing to the investigators. The NDRC said the suppliers conspired to raised prices to carmakers such as Honda Motor, Toyota and Ford over 10 years from 2000 to 2010.

The news is the latest, and so far most dramatic, in a sweep of foreign companies working in the auto sector, which has enjoyed over a decade of stellar sales and profit growth in China as living standards have risen. The authorities have also fined Chrysler and German carmakers such as Volkswagen AG’s Audi over price gouging on spare parts, and local regulators added Mercedes-Benz to the guilty list earlier this week.

Summary: Fine of $201 million handed down to 10 companies is the biggest so far in nationwide crackdown on price-fixing.


Income inequality in America has exploded over the past few decades. But there’s considerable disagreement about the cause of the shift: are impersonal forces like globalization and technological development to blame, or policies designed to disproportionately benefit the rich?

A recently published study from Israeli sociologist Tali Kristal says that labor’s share of overall income is declining because workers are losing the power to fight for their own interests.

Kristal found that the biggest inequality spikes have occurred within industries where unions have traditionally held a lot of influence: manufacturing, transportation, and, to a lesser extent, construction. Partly that’s because the labor movement as a whole has seen its power sharply decline since the mid-twentieth century, but Kristal sees another culprit as well, which she calls “class-biased technological change.”

Technological development is not apolitical or self-directed, she says. New tools are always made by human beings, and those humans have their own politics and agendas. Institutions that fund technological development also tend to have a particular motive, whether it’s winning a war, curing a disease, or increasing corporate profits. Class-biased technological change simply means the sort of development which “[favors] capitalists and high-skilled workers while eroding most rank-and-file workers’ bargaining power,” in Kristal’s words.

A good example of class-biased technological change is various kinds of factory automation, which can render some manufacturing jobs obsolete. But Kristal also highlights new workplace monitoring tools and increasingly sophisticated workplace control strategies, which have given managers unprecedented power to “use more legal and illegal anti-union tactics, such as illegal discharge of union activists, surveillance of union leaders, captive-audience meetings with top management, and refusal to negotiate a collective agreement.”

Kristal does not mention Frederick Winslow Taylor in her paper, but his ghost haunts the margins. At the turn of the twentieth century, Taylor became one of history’s first professional management consultants, explicitly advising factory owners on how they could break the power of their employees’ craft unions. These days, Americans tend to regard Taylor’s most influential innovations, such as the assembly line and the role of the professional middle manager, as benign improvements to efficiency; few remember that the assembly line was designed in part to take control over the speed of production out of the hands of workers and put it into the hands of management.

If Kristal’s study is to be believed, Taylorism is alive and well in the United States. Fittingly, America is now experiencing levels of inequality last seen during the life of its inventor.


Hell’s Kitchen 8 p.m., Fox

All kinds of stuff happens in this episode, including a trip to Vegas and a contestant injury, and all kinds of mean things get yelled, and all kinds of food is cooked and served. Whatever. This hour features our very own Steven Tyler, who, along with Stewart Copeland, gets catered to by the teams. Perhaps Tyler will sing — maybe “Wok This Way,” “Snack in the Saddle,” “I Don’t Want to Miss a Wing,” or “Janie’s Got a Bun”? You’re welcome. Pictured: Chef Gordon Ramsay with contestants.

The Comeback 9:15 p.m., HBO

I’ve heaped praise on Lisa Kudrow for her work in this series return. She has invented one of TV’s best characters, Valerie Cherish, an actress who is a creature of the medium, from her shellacked hair on down. But I’d also like to hand it to Lance Barber (right, with Kudrow), whose work as Paulie G. has given us a great TV villain — passive aggressive, contemptuous, ruthless. In the new season, he is making a series based on his experience as a heroin addict, and in the process he is airbrushing his image by casting Seth Rogen as himself.

Kitchen Inferno 10 p.m., Food Network

In This Our Life 8 p.m., TCM

Weekend Fix 10 p.m., Esquire TV

“Days of Veins and Noses.”

Summary: All kinds of stuff happens in Wednesday’s episode of “Hell’s Kitchen,” including a trip to Vegas and a contestant injury, and all kinds of mean things get yelled, and all kinds of food is cooked and served.


If you’ve never heard of BlackLine Systems, that’s precisely the point.

The company’s cloud-hosted financial management software is intended to keep businesses out of the headlines. It automates balance sheet reconciliation, overhauling a process that relies heavily on mind-numbing, manual workflows at many companies large and small. “There are still many things that many people do in spreadsheets,” said BlackLine CEO and founder Therese Tucker, the former chief technology officer for SunGard Treasury Systems. “It’s a very uncontrolled process, which is not something that the market loves.”

As of October, Los Angeles-based BlackLine had signed up more than 900 companies as customers—100 from the Fortune 500, including AT&T, Boeing, Costco, eBay, Kimberly-Clark, Northrop Grumman, and United Airlines.

Aside from eliminating literally hours of work every month, BlackLine’s financial controls software lets controllers pay more attention to identifying patterns that deserve closer attention and that could be indicative of potential fraud. The software runs on servers in a secure, private data center. “You don’t have to send your auditors into the closet to make copies. It allows you to concentrate on the things that require accounting training,” Tucker said.

For the first nine years of its existence, BlackLine relied on self-funding and its own revenue to fund its strategy. In August 2013, however, it accepted a $200 million investment from Silver Lake Sumeru.

“We see an enormous opportunity to bring world-class transaction analytics and workflow technology financial process management,” said Hollie Moore Haynes, managing director of the private equity firm.

The investment is meant to position BlackLine for an eventual public offering. Even though the company’s sales have consistently grown more than 50% annually for the last six years, the backing lends more credibility as the category attracts more competitors. Among the other vendors vying for share are big names including Oracle and SAP, and smaller players such as Runbook and Trintech.

“You can only take a bootstrapped company so far,” Tucker said. “We’d like to get to the IPO.”

This item first appeared in the Dec. 3 edition of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily newsletter on the business of technology. Sign up here.

Summary: BlackLine Systems is one of several companies seeking to automate account reconciliation, letting finance teams focus on more strategic tasks.


They’re getting to the point, says an analyst, where Apple could miss Wall Street’s targets

Gene Munster’s team at Piper Jaffray called 50 Apple stores this week and found a “very limited” supply of iPads. Specifically:

This is no better — and in some respects, even worse — than what he found two days after the big iPad 3G launch, when at least one store still had the model in stock. (See here.)

With the international roll-out of the iPad scheduled to begin May 28 — a week from today — Munster believes that supply won’t catch up to demand until mid to late summer.

He acknowledges that his estimate for the June quarter of 1.3 million iPads is laughably low, given that Apple sold its 1 millionth iPad three weeks ago.

But in the note to clients issued Friday, he raises for the first time the possibility that Apple’s AAPL inability to meet demand could end up hurting investors. As he puts it:

“While we see upside to our 1.3m iPad estimate in the June quarter and believe in the iPad as a long-term investable theme, we believe near-term Street numbers are getting ahead of Apple’s supply.”

In other words, Apple’s shares could take a hit in July if the company doesn’t report the kinds of iPad sales in the June quarter that other analysts have been predicting.

[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]

Summary: They're getting to the point, says an analyst, where Apple could miss Wall Street's targets Gene Munster's team at Piper Jaffray called 50 Apple stores this week and found a "very limited" supply of iPads. Specifically: 37 (74%) of stores were completely sold out of all models All 50 (100%) were sold out of the…


Apple reportedly in highest-level talks with the world’s largest mobile operator

At a news conference following release of its first-half earnings, China Mobile CHL revealed Thursday that it has met several times with Steve Jobs to talk about Apple AAPL making an iPhone that would support its proprietary 3G standard, Reuters reports.

Officially, Apple sells iPhones in the world’s largest cell phone market only through China Unicom CHU , the country’s second largest carrier. But even without a contract with Apple, China Mobile — the world’s largest mobile phone operator with more than 600 million subscribers — says it already has 7.44 million iPhone users on its network.

The iPhone is in extremely high demand among China’s growing middle class, and China Mobile responded last year by offering its customers a microSIM card that fits the iPhone 4. But because Apple’s device doesn’t support China Mobile’s home-grown TD-SCDMA standard, those customers aren’t getting 3G speeds. According to a rumor widely circulated earlier this month, China Mobile has already signed a deal to carry a next-generation iPhone that would deliver high-speed Internet access to its network.

Although the report of Jobs’ direct involvement is new, Apple has been keeping a close eye on the Chinese market for some time. In July, COO Tim Cook reported that Apple’s sales in Greater China grew six-fold year over year in Q3 to $3.8 billion.

“This has been a substantial opportunity for Apple,” Cook told analysts. “I firmly believe we are just scratching the surface right now.”

Summary: Apple reportedly in highest-level talks with the world's largest mobile operator At a news conference following release of its first-half earnings, China Mobile revealed Thursday that it has met several times with Steve Jobs to talk about Apple making an iPhone that would support its proprietary 3G standard, Reuters reports. Officially, Apple sells iPhones in…


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Invuity Inc., a San Francisco-based developer of surgical visualization and illumination technology, has raised $36 million in Series E funding. HealthCare Royalty Partners led the round, and was joined by return backers Valence Life Sciences, InterWest Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers,www.invuity.com

Clinicient Inc., a Portland, Ore.-based provider of revenue cycle management software and clinical solutions for outpatient rehabilitation therapy businesses, has raised $15 million in Series C funding from Catalyst Investors. www.clinicient.com

Wickr, a San Francisco-based provider of a military-grade encrypted mobile messaging service, has raised $9 million in Series A funding. Alsop Louie Partners led the round, and was joined by Juniper Networks and the Knight Foundation. www.mywickr.com

Play-I Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif.–based maker of robotic toys for children, has raised $8 million in Series A funding co-led by Madrona Venture Group and Charles River Ventures. The deal was done at a $25 million pre-money valuation, according to VentureWire. www.play-i.com

Reflektion, a San Mateo, Calif.-based provider of predictive analytics for retailers, has raised $8 million in Series B funding co-led by Intel Capital and Nike Inc. www.reflektion.com

Zumper, a San Francisco-based apartment rental platform, has raised $6.5 million in new VC funding.Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers led the round, and was joined by New Enterprise Associates and Dawn Capital. www.zumper.com

Speek, a Reston, Va.-based provider of browser-based conference calling solutions, has raised $5.1 million in Series A funding (including conversion of $2.7m in prior convertible notes). Backers include 500 Startups, CNF Investments, Middleland Capital and angel investors like the actor Edward Norton.www.speek.com

Altamont Capital Partners has acquired a majority equity stake in Celestite, an Irving, Texas–based insurance managing general agency focused on the non-standard auto market. No financial terms were disclosed. www.celestite.com

Apax Partners is in talks to acquire Israeli paint company Tambour Ltd. from Azrieli Group for approximately $230 million, according to the Globes financial daily. www.apax.com

The Carlyle Group has acquired a majority stake in Bonotel Exclusive Travel, a Las Vegas-based luxury tour operator in North America and the Caribbean. No financial terms were disclosed.www.bonotel.com

CIP Capital has acquired OnCourse Learning Corp., a Waukesha, Wisc.-based provider of career-focused professional training programs in the financial services, real estate and IT industries, from The Riverside Company. No financial terms were disclosed.. www.riversidecompany.com

One Equity Partners has acquired PeroxyChem LLC, a Philadelphia-based peroxygen chemistries business, from FMC Corp. (NYSE: FMC) for approximately $200 million. www.PeroxyChem.com

Resilience Capital Partners has acquired Thermal Product Solutions, a maker of environmental test chambers, industrial ovens and industrial furnaces, from SPX Corp. (NYSE: SPW). No financial terms were disclosed. www.resiliencecapital.com

The Watermill Group has acquired The Plastics Group, a Willowbrook, Ill.–based maker of highly-engineered plastic components, from Chicago Growth Partners and Merit Capital Partners. No financial terms were disclosed. www.theplasticsgroup.net

Brit Insurance, an Amsterdam-based insurance and reinsurance group backed by Apollo Global Management and CVC Capital Partners, today filed an “intention to float” with the London Stock Exchange, with plans to list around 25% of the company next month. www.britinsurance.com

Corium International Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif.-based developer of pharma products that leverage transdermal and transmucosal delivery systems, has filed for a $50 million IPO. It plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol CORI, with Jefferies and Leerink Partners serving as lead underwriters. The company reports a $2 million net loss on $10 million in revenue for Q4 2013. Shareholders include Essex Woodlands Health Ventures (55.92% pre-IPO stake) and Barr Laboratories (9.97%).www.coriumgroup.com

iKang Healthcare Group Inc., a Chinese medical services provider, has filed for a $150 million IPO. It plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol KANG, with BofA Merrill Lynch and UBS serving as lead underwriters. The company reports a $12.5 million in net income on $134 million in revenue for 2013, compared to $10 million in net income on $94 million in revenue for 2012. Shareholders include Top Fortune Win (15.4% pre-IPO stake), ShanghaiMed (11.2%), Ora Investment (13.6% pre-IPO stake), Goldman Sachs (10.5%) and NewQuest Asia Investments (7.8%).

Mediwound Ltd., an Israel-based developer of burn and chronic wound management drug, has set its IPO terms to 5 million shares being offered at between $14 and $16 per share. It would have an initial market cap of around $265 million, were it to price in the middle of its range. The company plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol MDWD, with Jefferies, Credit Suisse and BMO Capital Markets serving as lead underwriters. Shareholders include Clal Biotechnology Industries (65.3% pre-IPO stake). www.mediwound.com

OPower, an Arlington, Va.-based provider of energy efficiency and smart grid software, has filed a $100 million IPO. It plans to trade on the NYSE under ticker symbol OPWR, with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs serving as lead underwriters. The company reports a $14 million net loss on nearly $89 million in revenue for 2013, compared to a $12 million net loss on $52 million in revenue for 2012. The company has raised over $65 million in VC funding from firms like New Enterprise Associates (21.8% pre-IPO stake), MHS Capital (8.3%), Accel Partners (5.4%) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (5.4%). www.opower.com

The City of Philadelphia has agreed to sell its natural gas utility to UIL Holdings (NYSE: UIL) for approximately $1.9 billion. The utility manages gas for around 500,000 customers, and UIL has agreed not to raise base rates until 2017. www.uil.com

Borro, a UK-based online pawn shop, has raised $112 million in financing from Victory Park Capital. The company previously raised $26 million in VC funding led by Canaan Partners. Read more.www.borro.com

Facebook (Nasdaq: FB) is in talks to acquire near-orbital, solar-powered drone-maker Titan Aerospace for approximately $60 million, according to TechCrunch. www.titanaerospace.com

Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) has approached Safeway Inc. (NYSE: SWY) about buying certain assets, according to Bloomberg. Kroger also has spoken with Cerberus Capital Management, which has offered to acquire Safeway, about purchasing select assets that Cerberus may not want.www.kroger.com

Numericable (Paris: NUM) and Altice (Amsterdam: ATC) are prepping a $20 billion bid for Vivendi’s (Paris: VIV) mobile unit, according to The NY Times. www.vivendi.com

Unilever has hired Morgan Stanley to find a buyer for pasta sauce brand Ragu, according to the WSJ. The deal could be valued at around $2 billion. www.unilever.com

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Summary: To get deals in your inbox each morning, sign up for our Term Sheet newsletter Venture Capital Deals Invuity Inc., a San Francisco-based developer of surgical visualization and illumination technology, has raised $36 million in Series E funding. HealthCare Royalty Partners led the round, and was joined by return backers Valence Life Sciences, InterWest Partners and Kleiner Perkins…


Adrian Grenier needs to keep computer maker Dell honest.

The star of HBO’s hit series “Entourage” recently became Dell’s first “Social Good Advocate,” making his debut in the role this week at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. Dell, which is based in the Austin area, hopes that Grenier will help draw more attention to the company’s green initiatives, something that has become progressively harder for the company since it went private in 2013.

Grenier has a track record of supporting and working for social causes, especially those focused on the environment. In 2008, Grenier and film-producer Peter Glatzer co-created “Alter Eco,” a television show for the Discovery Channel focused on sustainable living. The following year, the two created Shft, a website described as a “lifestyle platform” to convey a more sustainable approach to film, design, art, and food. Grenier’s latest eco project is a Kickstarter campaign to raise money to fund a film about whales and raise awareness of ocean noise pollution.

Dell recently published its Dell 2020 Legacy of Good Plan, in which the company lays out a number of social and environmental goals that it plans to tackle from now until the end of the decade. Some of the goals can be tracked relatively easily, such as the company’s desire to reduce energy intensity on its product portfolio by 80% from 2013 levels and use only packaging that is 100% compostable.

Then there’s it’s “Legacy of Good” goal in which the company is seeking to generate 10 times more benefit through their technology than it takes to make and use it.

The goals outlined in the sustainability plan are admirable and could produce significant cost savings for the company and social good for the planet if executed in the right way. But it won’t be easy. Such changes are hard to make and require real investment and time from Dell. In a couple years or so, the company could very well choose to quietly bury the whole plan and pretend that it never existed.

This is where Grenier could make a real difference. Given the fluidity of his role, he can make it a point to keep track of Dell’s progress and help prevent the company from shirking on its commitments. By standing up to Dell and making sure it sticks to its goals, Grenier could carve out a new legacy for himself and inspire more celebrities to take on similar roles in corporations across the country.

I sat down with Grenier in Austin this week to discuss his new role and what he plans to accomplish. The following interview has been edited and condensed for publication.

Fortune: Why are you here at SXSW? Why did you think it was the appropriate venue to launch this partnership with Dell?

Adrian Grenier: Well it’s awesome, where else would you do it? I mean, is this not the perfect venue? It’s a gathering of great minds, great ideas, and it’s an opportunity to get everyone in the same space. So, besides all the fun we’re gonna have, I think we can come together and make a difference.

Okay, so Dell has named their Social Good Advocate. What exactly does that mean?

It means that I am going to help them not only spread the message of what they’re doing, but also to change and shift their behaviors and their practices and their business to do better for the planet and for people. I also think it involves finding ways that we can bring people together and invite them to share their ideas so that we can double down on that good.

Who approached who regarding a partnership with Dell?

Dell approached me. They said that they got a chance to explore my work with SHFT, Alter Echo, and a few of the other productions I had been a part of in the past. If you look at some of the work that Dell is doing right now around setting goals and trying to incubate ideas, it is really exciting. I thought it was a good blend to put our platforms together.

I know you’ve worked with big corporations in the past, like with Ford over at SHFT, correct?

That was a little bit different. Ford came out with a series of more sustainable vehicles—electric and hybrid vehicles. And, through SHFT, we were able to let people know that this is yet another option consumers had to put their money towards; something that was actually better for the planet.

Do you see yourself advocating for Dell’s products?

Well, I think a lot of things that Dell is doing is behind the scenes, such as with its packaging. Dell is committed to making a significant measurable impact in how they do business so that consumers can feel better about buying products from Dell.

Can you talk a little bit more about the packaging?

I’m learning that this package [holding up a cardboard looking box] is made from wheat-straw, which is pretty cool. It acts just like cardboard, so you know the fibers are the same as tree fibers, except it’s a highly renewable resource. In China, they would actually burn the wheat straw so it would contribute more CO2 to the planet. So it actually reduces that element. It’s also … creating an industry to actually process and make this new type of material out of the wheat straw. Oh, and it is cheaper too!

So, some might say this is nothing but typical corporate “greenwashing” and that Dell doesn’t really care about the environment. It just wants to sell more products to eco-conscious customers.

Well … let’s hold them to it. I’m not an employee of Dell. I’m an independent, free-thinking person, and I also have my own reputation to maintain. Believe it or not, I did a lot of research to make sure that this was for real. But you’re right. I don’t think we should take anything for granted, and there is a lot of greenwashing out there. So let’s actually hold Dell to their goals and let’s help them achieve their goals too.

Summary: The actor recently became Dell’s first “Social Good Advocate.” He explains to Fortune what exactly that means.


updated 04/08/2015 AT 12:10 PM EDT

•originally published 04/08/2015 AT 11:40 AM EDT

It's been 11 long years since

premiered on ABC and started driving its fans crazy with six seasons of speculation.

Now, five years after the show's controversial finale, shake off your unresolved feelings about that sideways 'verse and celebrate Lost Day!

On April 8, 2015, the numbers that pretty much landed everybody on that mysterious island align at 23 minutes and 42 seconds past the 4 p.m. hour.

The numbers – 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 – won Hurley (

) his fortune and were the sequence that Desmond (

) typed into the computer in the hatch every 108 minutes for over three years.

How will you be celebrating this once-in-a-century opportunity? By crying your eyes out over the finale? Shaking your fist at the sky for all your theories that never panned out?

Summary: May Lost fans, numerologists and conspiracy theorists unite on this most auspicious of TV holidays