Tech.com - 11 Tech Predictions for Twenty Eleven.

Tech.com calls these 'risky' predictions.

Not sure why as they all look reasonable to me.

See

11 Bold Tech Predictions for 2011

Old Style Soviet Bar in Paris: "Le Molotov"

"Un repère de Soviets à deux pas de l'Opéra ? Plutôt un bar secret, entre décor d'époque et nostalgie ironique d'une ère révolue."

Le Molotov

Du lundi au samedi, de 19h à 2h 

4 rue de Port Mahon, 75 002 Paris. Métro Quatre Septembre. 

Tél. : 01 73 70 98 46 

Plateau de spécialités soviétiques : 20€. Shot de vodka : 8-10€. Cocktail Molotov: 15€. 

From My Little Paris

Bar russe clandestin

Foursquare Goes Mainstream in the US: Macy's Top Retail Checkin

SAI Business Insider's Chart of the Day shows that checkins at Macy's and  "at major brands' retail stores during Christmas week from Ad Age and social media analytics company Trendrr" beat traditional Foursquare geeky checkins at places such as Starbucks and Apple Stores.
The article goes on to say
"Macy's is a big department store, frequented by (mostly) normal people. As checkins at venues like Macy's grow, so too, does Foursquare. If it's ever going to become mainstream, it needs to see checkins at these sorts of places growing each week. "
This blogger agrees, and also believes Foursquare is in fact rapidly going mainstream.
See       Which Stores Saw The Biggest Leap In Checkins For Christmas? 

Rolling Stone Magazine Best and Worst Movies of 2010

Peter Travers, the Rolling Stone Magazine's movie critic has best and worst movies of 2010.

• The Best headed by "The Social Network"
• The Worst headed by "The Tourist"

          

The Big One - Rhythm and Vines Waiohika Estate, Gisborne 2010

"Nestled amongst the rolling hills and the vines of picturesque Waiohika Estate, Gisborne, Rhythm & Vines is the first place in the world to see the sun rise and the finest location in the land for a party.

Now in its eight year, Rhythm & Vines is New Zealand’s biggest and best New Years Eve festival, with a killer three-day line up for 2010."

From MSN NZ EntertamentFIX

See Rhythm and Vines

2011 - Yet Another African Year?

A wish list from The Economist's Baobab blog for events that may or may not be important in 2011, starting with a list from The New Yorker of the top ten issues in Africa for 2010.

Even if these 2010 issues are "media churn". 

See

Africa in 2011

via ScribeFire

The Wiki Book of Revelations

Least we forget in the noise of the more recent 'banal' cables being published by Wikileaks, such as the Saudi/Iran 'cut off the head of the snake' revaluation - really who on earth is surprised by that - Salon.com has published a list of the more important leaks.

See What WikiLeaks revealed to the world in 2010

As Glen Greenwald writes in the above article

"As revealing as the disclosures themselves are, the reactions to them have been equally revealing.  The vast bulk of the outrage has been devoted not to the crimes that have been exposed but rather to those who exposed them:  WikiLeaks and (allegedly) Bradley Manning. "

Maledetto Nostalgia!

Take on Me - "Maledetto Nostagia!"

Where did this come from....

A French Christmas Play List - Spot the Irony

From My Little Paris a list of what the French call "Jazzy" Christmas songs.

No need for translation...ha!

See Playlist de Noël jazzy

Say what you want about the irony of not a single French language song in this list, but just love the graphics in this site:

"Attention mesdames, je'arrive!" (no quote)

China Inflation: Compare and Contrast - A View from Sydney and London

Karen Maley, writing in the Australian Business Spectator quotes from a research report from HSBC's chief China economist Qu Hongbin, who argues that the risk of “explosive” inflation in China is remote.

He says that “The inflation risk is broadly manageable and should be less severe than the period of 2007 to the first half of 2008 when China was faced with both inflation and overheating.”

See Australia's China cliffhanger (free sign up requires to view).

Granted she prefaces her article with a five paragraph preamble where she lists all the inflation risks and possible negative inflation scenario's. However the article naturally flows into the prevailing Australian view that the Chinese command economy manage their way out of the issue.

Compare the above this article in the Financial Times:

Beijing’s housing price fury goes viral

"With consumer inflation in China topping 5.1 per cent in November, public dissatisfaction at price rises has reached the highest level since records began in 1999, according to a recent central bank survey."

As I have been saying for the past two years: 

Mind the gap!

 

The New Zealand Economy: Preparing for Take-Off !

Good to see that the others decide to follow.

This writer has been saying since hearing the expected cost of re-construction of the 2010 Canterbury earthquake may be as high as NZ$4 billion, that it was highly likely that that sort of spending in an economy the size of New Zealand's could act as a catalyst for economic growth.

Been saying that since 2 days after the quake.

So, as I was saying, it's good to see others thinking this way.

From the Macqaurie Bank's  "The Australasian Insider Outlook for the March quarter 2011" published 22 December, 2010

"New Zealand: Preparing for take-off.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand's cautious outlook for domestic demand - and the resultant accommodative policy setting - is likely to be the key factor supporting growth in NZ in the year ahead. We expect interest rates to remain lower for longer, with households and businesses exhibiting a cautious attitude towards spending. This would be supplemented by subdued house prices and weak credit growth. But providing some offset to this would be stronger income growth due to rising employment and strong terms of trade. And this should help generate a gradual pick-up in consumer spending. Meanwhile, events such as earthquake rebuilding and the 2011 Rugby World Cup are also positive. Thus, while we think cautious attitudes towards spending by households and businesses will likely persist, there is enough to suggest that GDP growth will accelerate in 2011."

Have a great New Year!  

It's Gadget Greedy Life - 2010 A Year of Disappointment

" I was disappointed by the year in tech. We saw exceedingly few revolutionary technologies this year. In almost every category, the best products of 2010 offered only incremental improvements over those of 2009. They worked just a bit better or offered a few more features but did little that was an obvious leap forward."

By Farhad Manjoo, writing in Slate Magazine

See

 

The Year in Gadgets - Where were the revolutionary technologies in 2010?

Cool excerpt:

"Apple's big hardware innovation in the iPhone 4 was to put the antenna in a spot most susceptible to interference and to cover both the front and back of the phone in glass (because why have one easily breakable surface on a gadget that's bound to fall out of your hands when two will look so much better in ads?)"

 

No Sky at Night Equals More Polluton - Come to the Edge!

The Economist Blog Babbage notes a problem that we don't have here in Edge City

"The term “light pollution” is not, it seems, a metaphor. The light that emanates from cities all over the world not only deprives their citizens of the pleasure of seeing the Milky Way on a moonless night, it also diminishes the freshness of the air they breathe at dawn. It interferes, says Harald Stark of American’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with the chemicals that mop up nasty molecules that are the raw materials of smog."

Full article

Noxious night lights

Rolling Stone Magazine: The Greatest Rock and Roll Christmas Songs

"Most rock fans assume that all Christmas music is terrible. They're mostly right, but every once in a while a Christmas miracle happens — and a great holiday song gets produced. Some of the best examples come from 1963's Phil Spector's Christmas Album"

The Greatest Rock and Roll Christmas Songs

Some of them have embedded You Tube videos.

 

 

Another Mako Sunset

No comment...

The (UK) Times Behind the Paywall: 54 thousand vs 20 million - What a Joke.

"New research from Experian Hitwise has been used by The Guardian to suggests that 54,000 people a month are accessing content behind the paywall of The Times and Sunday Times."

From the PressGazette

Guardian memo: 54,000 a month behind Times paywall

The article concludes

"Pre-paywall The Times had around 20 million unique website visitors per month, according to figures from ABCe."

As I said: what a joke.

And the New York Times thinks it's going to do better when it goes behind it's paywall early next year. Good luck guys.

Facebook vs Google: Revenue Growth vs Years of Business

Facebook Revenue Is Not Growing Like Google's Did 

From SAI Business Insider Chart of the Day

Forget Black Friday it's Cyber Monday for US Shopping

"Cyber Monday broke the $1 billion mark for the first time as online shopping grew across the board in 2010.'

From Techi

Black Friday was Strong, But Mondays Ruled Shopping on the Web

 

The Alien Forest

"It sounds like a zen koan. If a tree on an alien world falls, would we notice? Christopher Doughty of the University of Oxford and Adam Wolf of Princeton University think we just might."

From The NewScientist

Could we detect trees on other planets?

The Leaker gets Leaked - Newspapers Report Assange Anger at Leaked Papers

That he is angry over the smear campaign is one thing, reporting an implied anger at the leaks themselves is pure journalistic license.

What the rest of us call "lies"

From The Australian

Assange anger at 'smear campaign' after leaked police files published in The Guardian

 

An American in Madagascar

"Cut off from the mainland 160 million years ago, Madagascar is host to some of the rarest and most unusual flora and fauna in the world. There are hissing cockroaches, giant jumping rats, pygmy chameleons, moths as big as dinner plates, along with various kinds of lemurs."

"Madagascar is part French, part African, part Indonesian."

From The New York Times Travel Section

Only in Madagascar

by JEFFREY GETTLEMAN their East Africa bureau chief

The OECD Youth Gap

"The global recession has hit young workers particularly hard. In the mostly rich countries of the OECD, the youth-unemployment rate (the unemployed as a proportion of the labour force aged 15-24) increased by 4.9 percentage points between 2007 and 2009, to 18.4%."

From The Economist Blog Daily Chart

See Young and Jobless

 

African Music - Mad Ice Video - Te Amo

Check out this great song by Mad Ice or Ahmed.M.Kakoyi born in Uganda but now living in Helsinki, which should explain the ice!

See the video Te Amo brought to my attention by

MyAfricanMusic.com

 

Zambia and yet Another High Cost Story

"Why is Zambia so expensive? Observers have offered a number of explanations. The labour market is rigid—a 15% annual increase in wages is customary. Transport costs bump up the price of everything else—Zambia is a landlocked country with little domestic manufacturing. The cost of finance is high—banks charge up to 35% in interest (one study even reports loans with 100% interest rates). "

From The Economist Baobab Blog

Some Puzzling Numbers

The Taliban's Taliban War - Going Nuts Just the Same as the Yanks

"U.S. troops aren’t the only ones in Afghanistan who suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder. It also afflicts Afghan civilians—and the Taliban, too."

From Newsweek

Shell Shocked

Twitter Usage Stats: Where are the Bots?

SAI Business Insider's "Chart of the Day" shows a great series of graphics of Twitter usage

But where, or where are the Twitter Bots in this wonderful graph?

Those seemingly endlessly prolific Tweeters who have downloaded, purchased (yea, right), sorry meant pirated those 'Tweet Me Forever' bot programs.

Those "Hey Me! I can Tweet" Programs that bombard my Tweetdeck...