After going viral, this unbelievable cliffside home is becoming a reality | Inhabitat

November 15, 2016November 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It’s official: the beautiful and bizarre house-in-a-cliff known as Casa Brutale is actually being built. We reported last July on this crazy concrete design, which would be carved into a cliff overlooking the Aegean Sea, roofed by a transparent swimming pool and with a dizzying view of the sea below. The stunning design quickly went viral, but few expected the project to actually receive the funding needed to become a reality.

The house, originally conceived as a volumetrically inverted conceptual homage to the iconic Casa Malaparte in Naples, Italy, took on a life of its own once it was announced by the Open Platform for Architecture (OPA). The firm quickly found a partner in engineering and construction firm Arup, which pledged to consult on the structural and geotechnical challenges required to embed a house within a cliff face, provided they could find a serious client to back the project.

Warren Buffett says economy is weaker than people think | Money CNN

November 15, 2016November 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Warren Buffett is worth $70 billion. He is the second-most wealthy person in the world. But he recognizes that the growing income inequality gap in the United States is a big problem. And it may have helped Donald Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

“The Forbes 400 had $93 billion in 1982, and they got $2.4 trillion now. And that’s 25 times as much,” Buffett told CNN’s Poppy Harlow in an exclusive interview in Omaha on Thursday.

“If you’ve been working 40 hours a week, maybe holding a second job, and, you know, you work with the Little League and you’ve been a good parent, and you’re really struggling, you think, ‘What’s wrong with this picture?'” he added.

Set Your Company Apart By Using Multiple Forms Of Communication With Customers | Getentrepreneurial.com

November 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

As your business grows, you will find that the time your employees spend interacting with customers is growing to grow substantially as well. In order to keep in line with what you need your bottom line to be and to ensure customer satisfaction, you will want to expand on the various ways you assist your customers.

Why Speed Is Of Importance

Most customers are going to lose faith in a company that is giving them the run around when it comes to getting their questions and concerns answered. Even if you are not really giving them the run around, they might feel as though you are if they have to be transferred to one department after another, explaining their story all over again each time, just to have one simple problem addressed.

Why You Should Organize Donation Drives for Your Small Business | Small Biz Trends

November 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

You may think it is easier to just throw their old or lightly used items away instead of donating them. It often seems like the process of donating clothing items, electronics or even office furnishings to charity is too cumbersome or time consuming for individuals — or for your small business.

However, organizing and planning for a charitable donation drive isn’t as difficult as you might think with a bit of help, suggests GreenDrop, an East Coast company that collects lightly used clothing and other denotable items on behalf of charities.

Um, why am I being targeted with Australian anti-refugee ads on Facebook? | Mashable

November 14, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Those “No Way: You will not make Australia home,” campaign ads from the country’s government have made it to Facebook, and they’re targeting…Australians.

Earlier in the week, the government proposed a lifetime ban on refugees who arrive by boat. Now, some Australians are being served the same anti-immigration campaign as people in other parts of the world are seeing. Including myself.

The anti-immigration ads have been around since 2014, aiming to deter would-be asylum seekers from making their way to Australia by boat.

They’ve been translated into 16 different languages, including Tamil, Arabic and Vietnamese. The format has even been copied by far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

I have a Vietnamese background, but as someone born and raised in Australia, I’m not really sure why I’m being served the ads.

9 ways to get better at small talk | Business Insider

November 11, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In a recent article for Wired magazine, Kristen Berman and behavioral economist Dan Ariely share their experience hosting a dinner party with one key rule: “Absolutely no small talk.”

Apparently, the guests were all the happier for it — and the authors conclude in their headline that “small talk should be banned.”

Whether this sounds to you like a great idea or a terrifying prospect, the fact is that most event organizers won’t go so far as to prohibit small talk — so you’d best get good at it.

There Is A Major Climate Issue Hiding In Your Closet: Fast Fashion | Co.Exist

November 11, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

This month as world leaders meet in Morocco to discuss implementation of the Paris climate agreement, which recently entered into force as most major economies began committing to some kind of carbon emissions reduction, there is little talk about one major contributor to climate change: fast fashion.

Fashion has been largely left out of the Paris climate talks. There’s lots of chatter about the more . . . fashionable low-hanging fruit: energy efficiency, conservationism, or the ramp up of renewables. But there’s little talk about textiles and what we’re wearing.

What’s Pushing the Tech Giants to Make an $8,500 Smart Fridge? | Bloomberg

November 10, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The Note 7 isn’t the only Samsung product with problems. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is also working with the Korean company to address safety issues with its washing machines. Customers who bought certain top-load Samsung washers should use only the delicate cycle for bulky items such as sheets to reduce the risk of “impact injuries or property damage,” the CPSC warned in late September following a series of consumer complaints, including a class action contending that Samsung’s machines “explode during normal use.” The company declined to comment.

What’s bad for Samsung may be good for homegrown rival LG, which has been promoting appliances loaded with the latest technology. In September the company unveiled a fridge with a 29-inch touchscreen powered by Intel equipment and running Windows 10; an onboard computer can store recipes and send alerts about needed ingredients to a mobile app. A few weeks later, LG set up an exhibition in New York’s Rockefeller Center to show off its current slate of high-end appliances, including a Signature fridge with doors that open when you wave a foot near a floor sensor. Tap the door twice, and a glass panel goes from opaque to transparent, revealing what’s inside.

4 Reasons Why Immigrants Are Essential for Entrepreneurship | Entrepreneur

November 10, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

There are more entrepreneurs in the United States than ever before. And many of them are immigrants, whose proportion of the U.S. population is the highest in history.

According to the Migration Institute, immigrants in the United States and their U.S.-born children now number approximately 81 million people, or 26 percent of the overall U.S. population.

And many of them have started their own companies, spurred by the financial crash of 2008. That’s evidence that the long tradition of the American Dream lives on: Immigrants continue to come to this country to make their dreams come true.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, and the Future of Disaster Response | WIRED

November 10, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

DAVID MORAN WAS all set to go out that Saturday night. He thought he might hit Parliament House, Orlando’s oldest gay nightclub, or maybe make it over to Pulse, another mainstay. But after he and a friend ended their shift at the restaurant where they both worked, car trouble kept them marooned in the parking lot for an hour. So Moran went home and fell asleep watching Bob’s Burgers on Netflix instead.

He was awakened just before 5 am by the sound of his phone buzzing next to him on his bed. He fished it out from between the covers and found a text message asking if he had heard the news about Pulse. “Mass shooting,” said the message that arrived next. Now wide awake, Moran instinctively thumbed his way to Facebook.