Eideard

A top executive at France’s biggest telecommunications company, which is dealing with a spate of suicides, warned that the barrage of emails from smartphones and personal computers was stressing out employees…

“Today for people working in business, whatever the level, whether they are CEO or even first- or second-rank level employees, they are always connected,” he told Reuters in an interview.

France Telecom, which operates under the Orange brand, has come under public scrutiny after 22 workers committed suicide and another 13 attempted to kill themselves since the start of 2008.

Gervais Pellissier said some employees were clearly feeling a lot of pressure due to the privatization of France Telecom, but he added that this was compounded by new technologies that cause work to encroach increasingly on personal lives.

“When you were an average employee in a big corporation 15 years ago, you had no mobile phone or no PC at home. When you were back home, work was out,” he said…

As a result a fragile employee with difficulties would probably have more confusion with “more mixture between personal life and professional life than in the past…”

France Telecom Chief Executive Didier Lombard said earlier this month the company was adding surveillance and counseling services as the pace of suicides among employees had picked up. One man had stabbed himself in the stomach during a staff meeting while a woman threw herself out a window.

Har! Does this dimwit even download his own email?

Jürgen Stiller regularly stands outside Berlin’s historic Friedrichstrasse train station with a four-pound canister of flammable propane strapped to his back. But if a police officer approaches him, it is only to buy one of the hot bratwurst sizzling on the flaming grill suspended from his shoulders.

Mr. Stiller works as a Grillwalker, a one-man mobile sausage-cooking machine. He and his colleagues can be seen around the capital, turning their browning bratwursts with tongs and tempting pedestrians with the scent of cooking meat wafting from their grills…

They are a hit with local commuters thanks to the low price — an inexpensive $1.75 for a bratwurst in a roll with mustard or ketchup. Tourists unaccustomed to seeing a kitchen stroll around on two feet gawk, gape and take pictures. Mr. Stiller estimated that he is photographed more than 30 times a day…

After losing his job in hotel management in 1997, Bertram Rohloff wanted to open a stand to sell sandwiches, but found he could not get the necessary permits to set up shop. So instead he envisaged an evolution in food-preparation technology, a step beyond the rolling hot-dog cart, because without the necessary permits, neither the grill nor the sausages could touch the ground…

As he worked on the invention, Mr. Rohloff considered everything from burning charcoal to hooking the grill up to a car battery — which he rejected because it would run down in just 10 minutes — before settling on propane. He designed it with an automatic cut-off mechanism for the gas, to ensure that it was safe in the event of an accident.

Mr. Rohloff was the first person to don his invention and sell bratwurst on the street. He now has 15 employees selling sausages around the city in teams of two; they take turns wearing the grill and reloading the sausages, rolls and condiments.

Cripes. I know one dude who would do this in a Santa Fe minute on the Plaza.

Santa Fe minute? That’s roughly an hour anywhere else.

The head of a powerful Florida trial lawyer lobbying group apologized for a flier linked to his group that used race-baiting in a recent state Senate election.

“Morally and politically, it was indefensible,” Florida Justice Association Executive Director Scott Carruthers said of the flier aimed at senior citizens that juxtaposed images of Black Panther “black power” advocates from the mid-1960s and 1970s with U.S. President Barack Obama, the Rev. Louis Farrakhan of Nation of Islam and black marchers holding a large ACORN banner…

The flier’s caption read, “Is this the change YOU want to believe in?” and suggested “armed thugs” might try to intimidate seniors at the polls.

“I accept full responsibility for not having done everything to stop that piece from going out,” Carruthers said…

The $69,000 cost of the flier, distributed in Jacksonville, was paid for by a group calling itself Conservative Citizens for Justice.

It was designed by Republican campaign consultant Bill Helmich in the name of the Conservative Voters’ Coalition, created to serve as a front for the trial lawyers association, the Times said.

Republicans are on a hypocrite trip trying to excuse their racism as simply being sleaze.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Discovering the UK’s largest haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure has been the highlight of Terry Herbert’s 18-year hobby.

“People laugh at metal detectorists,” said the unemployed 55-year-old, who stands to make a fortune.

“I’ve had people go past and go ‘beep beep, he’s after pennies‘. Well no, we are out there to find this kind of stuff and it is out there.”

He made the find in a field near his Staffordshire home with a detector he bought in 1995.

Experts have said the collection of 1,500 gold and silver pieces, which may date back to the seventh century, was unparalleled in size. One has suggested the find was the hobbyist’s equivalent of uncovering Tutankhamen’s tomb.

Mr Herbert, from Burntwood, said he dug up so much gold over five days in July he was seeing the precious metal in his sleep.

“My mates at the metal detecting club always say if there is a gold coin in a field I will be the one to find it.

“I dread to think what they’ll say when they hear about this.”

The financial worth of the hoard may take months to assess, but its market value will eventually go to Mr Herbert and the owner of the farmland where it was found.

I mostly walk with our dogs – but, that’s the point of a proper outdoors hobby – exercise and fresh air. Getting more than that is always a bonus.

The light rail here, which opened in December, has been a greater success than its proponents thought it would be, but not quite the way they envisioned. Unlike the rest of the country’s public transportation systems, which are used principally by commuters, the 20 miles of light rail here stretching from central Phoenix to Mesa and Tempe is used largely by people going to restaurants, bars, ball games and cultural events downtown.

The rail was projected to attract 26,000 riders per day, but the number is closer to 33,000, boosted in large part by weekend riders. Only 27 percent use the train for work, according to its operator, compared with 60 percent of other public transit users on average nationwide.

In some part thanks to the new system, downtown Phoenix appears to be one of the few bright spots in an otherwise economically pummeled city, which like the rest of Arizona has suffered under the crushing slide of the state’s economy. The state, for years almost totally dependent on growth, has one of the deepest budget deficits in the country.

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The first Swiss satellite in history — extremely small and 100 percent student designed and built — has been successfully launched from the Sriharikota space station in India. Constructed by the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, with many institutional partners, the SwissCube has gone into orbit.

The Indian launcher Polar Space Launch Vehicle took off at 8:22 a.m. Swiss time. Twenty minutes later, the SwissCube was ejected from the nose cone of the rocket at an altitude of around 720 kilometers. At 9:37 a.m. the first ever signals sent from a Swiss satellite in space were picked up from Stanford (California).

Students and professors have been working very hard during the last three and a half years in order to send the concentrated cube of high technology into space. The SwissCube satellite is only 10 cubic centimeters in size and weighs a light 820 grams. It is equipped with a telescope to fulfill its mission of observing airglow. Airglow is a luminescent phenomenon in the planetary atmosphere caused by cosmic rays striking the upper atmosphere and chemiluminescence caused mainly by oxygen and nitrogen reacting with hydroxyl ions at heights of a few hundred kilometers. The satellite should allow students and researchers to better understand the phenomenon, especially during day and night cycles.

But the real goal of the SwissCube project is more pedagogic than atmospheric. Almost 200 students working closely with experienced researchers from the EPFL and several other technical schools and departments have collaborated on the project. From the conception, through the design, and finally the fabrication of the Swiss spatial sparkler—these young engineers have had the unique opportunity of participating in a space project from the first brainstorming sessions to the data collection once in orbit. This educational model focuses on cross-platform collaboration from A-Z, and apart from ensuring an exceptional finished product, prepares students for the work world in a way that sets it apart from similar attempts at other technical universities that often buy a prefabricated CubeSat kit.

Bravo! I can only imagine what it’s like to be a student, today. Setting forth to experiment with projects I only knew within the realm of science fiction when I was of a similar age.

Hand gels supplied to a prison to combat the risk of swine flu have been removed after inmates realised it contained alcohol and began drinking it to try to get drunk.

At least one prisoner at HMP The Verne on Portland, Dorset, was found intoxicated. The Prison Service confirmed that this case was being investigated but meanwhile antibacterial gel pumps had been removed as a “precautionary measure”.

Andy Fear, a member of the Verne’s Prison Officers Association (POA) committee, said the canisters had been ordered because of the swine flu threat.

“It was subsequently reported by some association members working here that the inmates had been incorrectly using them, for want of a better phrase,” he said.

Alcoholics can be as self-destructive as junkies. Any time.

Teaching in a local school

When Bill Sparkman told retired trooper Gilbert Acciardo that he was going door-to-door collecting census data in rural Kentucky, the former cop drew on years of experience for a warning: “Be careful.”

The 51-year-old Sparkman was found this month hanged from a tree near a Kentucky cemetery with the word “fed” scrawled on his chest…and the FBI is investigating whether he was a victim of anti-government sentiment.

“Even though he was with the Census Bureau, sometimes people can view someone with any government agency as ‘the government.’ I just was afraid that he might meet the wrong character along the way up there,” said Acciardo, who directs an after-school program at an elementary school where Sparkman was a frequent substitute teacher.

The Census Bureau has suspended door-to-door interviews in rural Clay County, where the body was found, until the investigation is complete, an official said…

The Census Bureau has yet to begin door-to-door canvassing for the 2010 head count, but thousands of field workers are doing smaller surveys on various demographic topics on behalf of federal agencies. Next year, the Census Bureau will dispatch up to 1.2 million temporary employees.

No doubt the Beck/Limbaugh brigade will praise their God for the death of another ordinary human being who chose to work for his country.

Obviously part of the Socialist Conspiracy.

Humpback whale checking out the humans in the neighborhood
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Scientists are surprised at how extensively coastal ice in Antarctica and Greenland is thinning, according to a study that could help predict rising sea levels linked to climate change.

Analysis of millions of NASA satellite laser images showed the biggest loss of ice was caused by glaciers speeding up when they flowed into the sea, according to scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Bristol University.

“We were surprised to see such a strong pattern of thinning glaciers across such large areas of coastline — it’s widespread and in some cases thinning extends hundreds of kilometers inland,” said Hamish Pritchard of BAS who led the study…

Among findings, Wednesday’s study said 81 of 111 fast-moving glaciers in Greenland were thinning at twice the rate of slow-flowing ice at the same altitude.

“Dynamic thinning of Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheet margins is more sensitive, pervasive, enduring and important than previously realized,” they wrote. “Dynamic thinning” means loss of ice due to a faster flow.

There are a number of variables in the dynamism – all happening faster than anyone expected.

A Florida man admitted to reporters that he killed his wife and five “innocent” children, adding that he wants to be executed “right away” so he can be buried with them on Saturday.

Mesac Damas, 32, said he wanted to take his own life, but did not have the courage to go through with it, “because if you kill yourself, you’re not going to heaven.”

Damas made the statements to a Naples Daily News reporter as he was being led into a Haitian police vehicle in Port-au-Prince. Damas was returned to the United States late Tuesday following his capture in Haiti.

Damas faces six counts of premeditated first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Guerline Damas, 32; and the couple’s five children — Michzach, 9; Marven, 6; Maven, 5; Megan, 3; and Morgan, 11 months, police have said. The six bodies were found Saturday in the family’s North Naples, Florida, home after relatives called police saying they had not been heard from.

Just another superstitious nutball who knows he has his God’s support for killing everyone near and dear to him.