Eideard

Hong Kong — Shahrzad Moaven quit a public relations job in London and moved to this teeming metropolis four months ago to take up what she saw as a more exciting post: communications director at the exclusive jeweler Carnet.

Jan Mezlik, 29, moved here from the Czech Republic in late April for a job as a trainer in a physical therapy studio called Stretch. For him, the move brought a secure job and the chance to learn to become a yoga instructor.

Charlotte Sumner, a lawyer, arrived eight months ago, thanks to a transfer within her firm. She had spent six months in London and another six in Moscow and had jumped at the chance of a stint in Asia, which she felt would lead to more opportunities than a posting elsewhere.

Before the global financial crisis, none of the three had thought seriously about moving to Asia. But growth in China, India, South Korea and many other countries in the region is outpacing that of Europe and the United States. Many local companies are enjoying rapid expansion, while international employers are shifting positions to Asia and are hiring again. So increasingly, European and American job seekers are hoping that Asia is a place where opportunities match their ambitions…

Landing a position in Asia, though, is not just a matter of being willing to make a new life halfway around the world. Many employers prefer candidates who have track records in the region and who bring language skills and local contacts to the job.

Mike Game, chief executive in Asia for Hudson, an international recruitment agency, said the number of Westerners actually making the move was still fairly small. Many employers, he said, are more demanding than they were during the economic peak of 2007 and are “setting the bar very high in terms of what they want.”

Nevertheless, many Westerners seem to be looking to make the move…

Local language skills are a plus — and often a must — for anything China-related…

“Employers don’t want to have to do a lot of baby-sitting and training,” said Matthew Hoyle, who runs his own company, which specializes in hiring senior staff members for banks and hedge funds. “There are plenty of local people with good qualifications who speak Mandarin and Cantonese — you’d have to bring something pretty special to the table to top that.”

I recall watching a tech panel on TV a while back – when the CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, mentioned he was pushing his grandkids to learn to speak Chinese.

Go East, young man – and young woman, Go East.

Building bigger, stronger levees in New Orleans will not be enough to save the US city from another Hurricane Katrina, a report has said…

The report said the authorities should consider raising the level of buildings and even abandoning flood-prone areas…

New Orleans has about 563 km (350 miles) of barriers, levees and other structures intended to protect the city. But in August 2005, large sections of this system failed and much of the city was inundated by the storm surges brought by Katrina.

The report, from the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the National Research Council (NRC), said the disaster had exposed the “many weaknesses in the hurricane protection and preparedness systems” for New Orleans and surrounding areas. It said there had been “undue optimism” about the ability of the protection systems to withstand the impact of a storm on the scale of Katrina.

The report said improvements made to the flood protection system since Katrina had “reduced some vulnerabilities”. But, it said that “the risks of inundation and flooding never can be fully eliminated by protective structures, no matter how large or sturdy those structures may be”.

The authors advised that as there can be no absolute protection against storm surges and flooding, the authorities should consider encouraging people to move away from areas at risk. Where this is not possible, “significant improvements in flood-proofing measures will be essential”.

This would include raising the standard height for ground floors of properties, strengthening critical infrastructure such as power and telecommunications and improving evacuation plans.

Seems pretty reasonable to me. Not that my opinion is worth a whole hill of beans. I haven’t lived there in decades and folks whose roots are deep and timed into the city ain’t ever paying much attention to outsiders.

Daylife/AFP/Getty Images

The clearing out of the Bushes’ belongings began over the summer, when many items were packed and taken to Crawford, Texas, says Anita McBride, chief of staff to first lady Laura Bush. Then, during the Christmas holiday, the Bushes moved their personal things out of Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.

On January 20, the Obamas move in — a side of Inauguration Day that most people never see: a grueling, precisely timed workday involving scores of staffers that follows six months of careful planning.

In the morning, after the Bushes and Obamas depart the executive mansion for the Capitol Hill swearing-in ceremony, moving trucks will roll up to the south side of the White House. The drivers put down their tailgates, allowing most of the White House’s 93 staff members to begin unloading Obama family items, he said.

By about 5 p.m., before the Obamas move from the parade viewing stand to their new home, the presidential move must be complete.

“Their clothes will be in their closets; everything will be put away,” Gary Walters said. “There should be no full or half-empty boxes will in view. Furniture will be set in proper places. Their favorite foods will be in the kitchen or the pantry. The chief usher will welcome them into their home and ask them what they would like to do before going out to enjoy the inaugural balls.”

On Tuesday, once the whirlwind moving operation is finally done, Chief Usher Stephen Rochon will probably greet Obama the same way Walters did Bush in 2001.

Standing near the doorway to the White House North Portico, Walters recalls, he said, “Hello, Mr. President, welcome to your home.”

I suppose I shouldn’t complain about this change being overdue. We might have had 4 years to struggle with Kerry. On the other hand, if we had an honest election in 2000, we probably wouldn’t have had the Iraq slaughter.

At first, figuring out how pebble-sized rocks organize themselves in evenly-spaced patterns in sand seemed simple and even intuitive. But once Andrew Leier…started observing, he discovered that the most commonly held notions did not apply. And even more surprising, was that his findings revealed answers to NASA’s questions about sediment transport and surface processes on Mars.

Leier first studied loose pebbles and rocks, also known as clasts, when he was looking at sand dunes in Wyoming and noticed that the clasts seemed to spread away from each other in an almost organized fashion. It turns out, NASA was examining similar patterns on the sandy surface of Mars.

NASA proposed that wind was moving these rocks around. But Leier, who co-authored the study with Jon Pelletier at the University of Arizona and James Steidtmann at the University of Wyoming, says that would be impossible. They also discovered that rather than being pushed backward by the breeze, clasts actually tend to move into the direction of prevailing winds…

Instead, the loose sand around clasts is removed by the wind, causing scour-pits to form in front of larger clasts. Eventually, the rocks fall forward (or laterally) into the scours and then, the process repeats.

“What I find most interesting about this is that something as seemingly mundane as the distribution of rocks on a sandy, wind-blown surface can actually be used to tell us a lot about how wind-related processes operate on a place as familiar as the Earth and as alien as Mars,” says Leier. “It’s chaotic and simple at the same time.”

Leier’s article is published in the January 2009 edition of Geology. I have to thank him for solving a puzzle that’s bemused me on many of my walks on the Caja del Rio mesa across the valley from my home. Not that the solution will slow down skeptical ghost and alien hunters.