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Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Finger-Shaped Tacks: Handy in the Creepiest Way Possible
Fabolous And Pusha T Toast Newcomer Troy Ave
Rapper drops Troy Ave Presents: BSB mixtape after Fab and Pusha share their support with Mixtape Daily.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Nadeska Alexis
Troy Ave
Photo: Johnny Nunez/ WireImage
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1703003/pusha-t-fabolous-troy-ave-od-exclusive.jhtml
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Facebook Messenger on Android loaded with free voice calls for Canadian users
Android's flavor of Facebook Messenger has just been updated with VoIP functionality for the social network's Canadian users. There's no word when Android faithful in the US will snag the functionality, but Cancuks can at least ring their American counterparts who wield the iOS app. Version 2.3 of the mobile messenger also makes group conversations accessible in the sidebar, allows them to be named from the top of a talk and makes them searchable by name and friends. Hit the neighboring source link to grab the revamped software.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile, Facebook
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Facebook Messenger (Google Play)
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/04/facebook-messenger-android-voip-canada/
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Monday, March 4, 2013
Kaiapoi Labourers Lose Jobs To Prisoners | Stuff.co.nz
DAVID HALLETT/Fairfax NZ
Hare Solomon
A Kaiapoi business fired five of its labourers two days after employing 11 convicts - and then made the workers train the inmates who were to replace them, current and former staff say.
Kaiapoi man Hare Solomon said Kiwi Pallets Kaiapoi told him and four workmates they would be laid off in late January "due to lack of work and other factors" just days after the company had hired 11 inmates from Christchurch's Rolleston Prison under the Release to Work scheme.
He was then made to train the convicts during the two-week notice period.
He did not ask his employer why 11 staff were being trained if there was not enough work.
"I was just frustrated and didn't want to lose it, so I just did it [trained them]."
He did not know any reason why the business wanted to get rid of him and his workmates.
"I feel this could happen to other employees at other places of work and would not like to see this happen to anyone, it is not a good feeling to lose a job you like.
"What is the point of giving inmates work if it is being taken away from people already employed? Surely it would be better if jobs are created for the inmates instead?"
Solomon said he was likely to start Department of Labour mediation with his former employer, who would not return several calls from The Press.
One of the few non-inmate labourers left at the business believed he too would be sacked when his fixed-term contract ran out in about a month. He did not want to be named because he feared he could be fired earlier.
He said Solomon had been one of the most productive workers and had been achieving more than his target.
"We were doing really well with the workers we had. We needed a couple more people because we were getting so many orders."
Then the inmates were brought in, people started getting laid off, and the business's productivity plummeted, he said.
The company was now almost a month behind its work, he said.
"I'll back Hare up 100 per cent because what went on was wrong. I kept my job but he deserves to keep his too.
"We were a tight little family, we all got along and always had a laugh. And then they brought them [inmates] in and it went downhill and we lost people we shouldn't have lost."
Solomon said he had worked at Kiwi Pallets for almost a year without being offered a contract before management, in haste, told him he had to sign a four-month fixed-term and back-dated contract on the spot or he would not be kept or paid.
"It all seems a bit fishy to me . . . I was pushed to sign a contract immediately or else they would not pay me and I would not have been able to go to work on Monday."
Two weeks later he was given his marching orders.
Kerry Lambert, of Christchurch, was also laid off after just under a year's employment at the end of his contract and has been unable to get a new job.
The manager had handed out the redundancy letters to staff an hour before the end of day and Lambert was forced to train the inmates who were replacing him as well.
He thought inmates must have been brought in because they were cheaper, but he had been paid minimum wage, so he could not understand why he and his workmates had been fired.
The Department of Corrections would not confirm whether inmates were working at Kiwi Pallets due to prisoners' privacy, but The Press followed a van full of workers from the company premises to Rolleston Prison.
Due to the privacy issues, the department could not say whether it knew prisoners were replacing employees or comment on its procedures for preventing such events happening.
It did say the Release to Work scheme was successful in helping inmates reintegrate with society and that almost half kept their jobs once they had left prison.
Also, it stressed that Release to Work inmates were paid market rates and not subsidised in any way by the department.
"The Release to Work programme is an important reintegrative programme for offenders and Corrections values the employers who participate in the programme," a department statement said.
CASE COULD BE BROUGHT - SOLICITOR
On the face of Hare Solomon's allegations there appear to be "some issues" with the process his employer took, Duncan Cotterill senior solicitor Adam Gallagher says.
An employer could make employees redundant, but it had to be for a legitimate reason, the employment law specialist said.
"It looks like they possibly made him redundant, although it doesn't look like the positions have gone."
All employers needed to follow the proper process when making staff redundant, including giving reasons and consulting with the affected workers, he said.
"The potential issue's whether it was a fair redundancy because the work remains, it's just they've replaced them with other workers."
The allegation of pressuring workers to sign a contract threw up other issues, because employees had to be allowed the opportunity to seek independent advice before signing, he said.
It was for that reason that contracts should be signed before people started work, he said.
Even if an employee did not have a written contract, they would still be considered to have an employment agreement, even though it would be in breach of employment law, he said.
The nature of the default agreement would be from the conditions that had prevailed during employment.
So a person working regular 40-hour weeks would be considered to be in permanent fulltime employment.
Introducing a fixed-term contract to that situation after almost a year would probably be considered a change in conditions, which would need to be justified to the employee and consultation made, he said.
Solomon would have 90 days to bring a personal grievance against his former employer if he believed he was unfairly treated, Gallagher said.
- ? Fairfax NZ News
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/8376234/Labourers-lose-jobs-to-prisoners
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Obama nominates 3 to Cabinet-level posts
Walmart Foundation President Sylvia Mathews Burwell stands on stage in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013, as President Barack Obama announced he would nomination Burwell to head the Budget Office. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Walmart Foundation President Sylvia Mathews Burwell stands on stage in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013, as President Barack Obama announced he would nomination Burwell to head the Budget Office. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Gina McCarthy stands on stage in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013, as President Barack Obama announced he would nominate McCarthy to head the EPA. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
MIT physics professor Ernest Moniz smiles as he stands on stage in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013, where President Barack Obama announces he would nominate Moniz for Energy Secretary . (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama speaks to members of the media at the start of a cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Monday, March 4, 2013. With Obama, back row, from left are, Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Karen Mills, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the president, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. Facing the president, from left are, Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama signaled his willingness to tackle climate change with his pick of Gina McCarthy to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, one of three major appointments he announced Monday.
A 25-year veteran of environmental policy and politics, McCarthy has worked for Republicans and Democrats, including Obama's presidential rival, Mitt Romney, who tapped her to help draft state plans for curbing the pollution linked to global warming. Along with McCarthy, Obama nominated MIT nuclear physicist Ernie Moniz to lead the Energy Department and Wal-Mart's Sylvia Mathews Burwell to head the budget office.
McCarthy, 58, a Boston native, has led the EPA's air pollution division since 2009, ushering in a host of new rules targeting air pollution from power plants, automobiles, and oil and gas production.
In nominating McCarthy as the nation's top environmental official, Obama is promoting a climate change champion at a time when he has renewed his commitment to address global warming and the agency is contemplating a host of new rules that could help achieve that. But McCarthy will have to balance the administration's ambitions with a dwindling budget: Congress has cut EPA's budget by 18 percent over the last two years, and the automatic budget cuts that went into effect Friday will hinder the agency's energy efficiency programs and climate research.
Moniz, as head of MIT's Energy Initiative, has worked on developing ways to produce power while curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
"They're going to be making sure we're investing in American energy, that we're doing everything we can to combat the threat of climate change, that we're going to be creating jobs and economic opportunity," Obama said.
McCarthy also brings a distinctive pronunciation of carbon dioxide, the chief pollutant blamed for climate change. McCarthy, in her thick accent, pronounces carbon as "cahbon."
"You wouldn't know by talking to her, but Gina's from Boston," Obama said. He then praised her for putting in place over the last four years what he said were "practical, cost-effective ways to keep our air clean and our economy growing."
Already, McCarthy has orchestrated many of the agency's most controversial new rules, such as placing the first-ever limits on greenhouse gases on newly built power plants and a long-overdue standard to control toxic mercury pollution from burning coal for electricity. On her plate, should she be confirmed by the Senate, will be even more rules ? from lowering sulfur emissions from gasoline to controlling global warming pollution from the older coal-fired power plants.
Like those regulations, her nomination is all but guaranteed to spark criticism from Republicans, who charge that the agency is killing jobs and undermining the coal industry. Environmentalists, meanwhile, will be looking to ensure that McCarthy issues the toughest rules possible, particularly when it comes to controlling emissions from the existing fleet of power plants.
Despite the partisanship in Washington, McCarthy has said the environment is a non-partisan issue, saying that the choice "doesn't have to be, 'Can I have a job or can I breathe clean air.'"
But she hasn't backed down when politicians have falsely portrayed her agency's work, such as suggesting EPA was poised to regulate cow flatulence to combat climate change and was looking to go after farmers for spilling milk.
"When I listen to their concerns, I am struck by the fact that what they think we are often doing bears little or no relationship to what we are actually doing," she said in testimony before Congress in April 2011.
Obama called her on Monday "a straight-shooter" who "welcomes different points of views."
Last year, the American Petroleum Institute praised an EPA rule for which she was responsible because it gave drillers two additional years to curb pollution from recently drilled oil and gas wells.
At the state level, McCarthy pressed for federal action to reduce greenhouse gases and was a key player in setting up the nation's first mandatory cap-and-trade system to reduce global warming pollution from power plants in 10 states. As head of Connecticut's environmental department, she is credited with convincing Republican Gov. Jodi Rell not to abolish a 10-state regional pact, even as other Republicans, including Romney, pulled out.
McCarthy was also Connecticut's point person on the environment when the state joined a lawsuit aimed at forcing the EPA to regulate global warming emissions from automobiles. When the Supreme Court ruled in April 2007 in the state's favor, McCarthy said "there's no downside." Many of the regulations she has helped shape at agency stemmed from that case.
But the state of Connecticut also sued the Bush administration for a limit on ground-level ozone, the primary ingredient in smog, which McCarthy believed was too weak. That standard is still in place, thanks to a decision by Obama to stall the fast-tracking of a stricter smog limit that had been drafted by McCarthy's division at EPA.
Environmentalists praised the nomination on Monday, stressing her pragmatic approach to solving environmental problems and her ability to work with both parties.
Former Obama climate adviser and Clinton EPA administrator Carol Browner said in an interview that McCarthy has "a good understanding what the president needs to do, wants to do on climate change, which is to find the sweet spot for everyone, from the environmentalists to the states to companies."
But conservatives immediately stressed her role in what they view would as destructive policies from EPA.
"McCarthy will continue the regulatory attack on oil, coal and natural gas with the result that Americans will experience increasing energy costs and high unemployment rates," said Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a conservative think tank that receives some support from the fossil fuel industry.
Moniz, 68, was a former Energy Department undersecretary under Clinton. He's advised Obama on numerous energy topics, including how to handle the country's nuclear waste and the natural gas produced by the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing.
Environmental groups are wary of Moniz, because of his support of natural gas and nuclear power. His MIT Energy Initiative has received funding from oil companies such as BP, Shell and Chevron.
Burwell is Washington veteran, having served in several posts during the Clinton administration, including deputy OMB director. She currently heads the Wal-Mart Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the retail giant, and previously served as president of the Gates Foundation's Global Development Program.
___
Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Julie Pace contributed to this report.
___
Follow Dina Cappiello's environment coverage on Twitter (at)dinacappiello
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Sunday, March 3, 2013
Nicklaus says McIlroy will be fine by Masters
Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, watches his tee shot on the 10th hole during the first round of the Honda Classic golf tournament, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
Rory McIlroy, of Northern Ireland, watches his tee shot on the 10th hole during the first round of the Honda Classic golf tournament, Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013, in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) ? Jack Nicklaus says there's no reason to be alarmed: Rory McIlroy is probably frustrated with his game and his adjustment to new equipment.
McIlroy, the No. 1 player in the world and defending champion at the Honda Classic, caused a stir this week when he walked off the course after eight holes at PGA National when he was 7 over for the second round. He told reporters he was "not in a good place mentally," and an hour later issued a statement attributing his withdrawal to a sore wisdom tooth.
He signed with Nike during the offseason. In three starts this year, McIlroy has missed the cut, lost in the opening round of the Match Play Championship and withdrew from the Honda Classic after 26 holes.
"Rory is so talented," Nicklaus said during a visit to the NBC Sports booth at the Honda Classic. "He's a good kid. I think he's a little frustrated, and he's frustrated at himself right now. He's probably not playing his best, and he also has a set of golf clubs that he's having trouble getting used to, and one sort of plays off the other. He'll be fine. When Augusta rolls around, he'll be fine."
McIlroy plays out of The Bear's Club, which Nicklaus built as his home club for South Florida. The 23-year-old from Northern Ireland seeks advice from Nicklaus whenever he sees him. Nicklaus said he last spoke to McIlroy last Monday.
"He was struggling a little bit with his irons," Nicklaus said. "But he felt confident of it. I said, 'Don't worry about it. You're too good of a player. Your clubs will not make that much difference.' Maybe it's easy for me to say."
Nicklaus said he once played three different sets of clubs depending on whether he was in America, Britain or Australia. He played in an era when a smaller golf ball was used specifically for the British Open, which he won three times and was runner-up seven times.
"I was able to go back and forth, back and forth. It wasn't that big of a deal," Nicklaus said. "Maybe the guys today, maybe they're so used to having one thing. I always feel like it's your talent that plays, not the golf club."
McIlroy had said at the start of the week that his swing was more of a problem than his new clubs.
Johnny Miller, the NBC analyst and two-time major champion, said McIlroy should not have walked off the course in the middle of the round.
"John, if he had waited five more minutes he wouldn't have done that," Nicklaus replied. "I think he's a good kid. He tries to do the right thing. Unfortunately, that probably wasn't that time."
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Marc Andreessen And Ben Horowitz ?Decode? Groupon CEO Andrew Mason?s Farewell Memo ? On Rap Genius
When Andreessen Horowitz invested a whopping $15 million into RapGenius this past fall, they were keen to point out that the platform can be used for decoding more than song lyrics, and extend to other forms of wordplay -- literature, historical texts, political speeches, and the like. The venture capital firm has really put their mouths where their money is. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz have both logged onto RapGenius to add their own decodings of the memo issued this past week by Groupon's founder Andrew Mason after he'd been fired from his position as CEO.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/2BIqh7dgLQs/
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