友情当如是
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2007-06-05
十大名厕
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十大名厕
via 煎蛋 by maple on Jun 05, 2007
这些厕所有些算不得很新，比如带 MP3 的马桶我前年就见过了，带鱼缸的也是，北京公交车上都放过，不过图上这个还是蛮强悍的，应证了那句谁说的，"厕，在脚下"。
此外还有不用水的（这样就不用担心手机掉进水的问题了）、半透明暧昧型的、便携式的（一手笔记本、一手马桶？）、皇族式的、不用手的、带焚烧功能的（保证不留下证据？）和带按摩功能的几种。
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标签： 有趣的东西
信不信就由你了：一个来自2036年的未来人的预言
信不信就由你了：一个来自2036年的未来人的预言
2007-03-01 15:53
不知道大家有没有听过 John Titor这个来自未来的人?那是在印度洋海啸之后，我从凤凰卫视上看到的据说John Titor是个来自2036年的人, 乘时间机器来到了2000年的世界 ,还在这里留下了很多关于未来的信息 ！
他说美国将分裂成5个国家 ,然后由此产生的世界大战杀死了近30亿的人类,中国,俄罗斯等都卷入这场战争中。而最大的赢家则是中国，中国将一统包括曰本在内的东亚诸国，中国将同俄罗斯一起成为世界二级。
印度阿三将成为世界第五大强国，人口将达到二十四亿，但与巴基斯坦在2024年的战争失它在几年之内滑入低谷。
他的一个预言是所有阿拉伯人最想听到的结果：以色列将从这个地球上消失，这个犹太民族的最后结果就像《圣经》上说的那样，过了海洋才可以得到重生——结果美国并不是它重生的地方，而是它的覆灭地。
在他的预言中说到一个关于如何重新划分世界力量的假设——在他那个时代，也就是 2036之前，曰本、马达加斯加、马尔代夫等一系列岛国将从这个地球 上消失。甚至那时他还预言说2004年底将会在印度洋发生大海啸.还有许多他在 2000年和2001年预言的事情真的发生了！
他说，在那个时代，中国的文化是最堕落的，没有内涵，没有水准，它完全与20世纪之前的伟大中国文化相背，诺贝尔奖一直没有光顾过这个空虚的世界第一大国。中国人于 2012年拍出了耗资10亿人民币的大片《龙的传人》，票方收入却惨败，居说主演是个人妖。
英国在他的说法下将被北爱政权所左右，主要是它拒绝加入欧盟，加之美国又面临五国内战，没有他人的支持，就等于是个空架子。他是由一个汽车上的小装置 回到过去的. 还有一个预言让中国人很难接受的事，他说 2004年的雅典奥运会是最后一届奥运会,也就实说2008年的奥运会北京办不了了.不幸的是在 2001年他就坐着他的时光机"回到未来" ！
信不信都由你，全是一家之言，不过可以当来恶搞一下，可有
一些预言真的发生了——印度洋海啸决对是真实的事，在他离开2001返回2036年的最后一刻里，他才说出的这个大灾难。当时出了一本书叫《一个来自未来的语言家》上面就有关于印度洋海啸的说明——不过是一笔带过 。
Titor声称自己是来自2036年，其最初任务是回到70年代的美国拿一块IBM芯片。他在 2000至2001年在网上发了一些帖子，说2004／2005到2015年美国将会爆发内战，而2015 年将会有一次非常短暂的世界大战，核武器将会杀死30亿人口！
任何人面对这样一个声称自己是来自2036年的时间旅行者的第一反应都是不信，但是我仔细研读之下，也觉得他说的某些东西并不是完全没有道理。我几乎 看了他所有的言论，与传说不同，他并没有预言伊拉克war,911,和columbia号的。但是他却是提到了疯牛病，警告大家说不要吃那些曾经吃过自己 同类的肉喂养的动物
－－－有人曾经问他中国是否会在2036年以前把人送上太空，他说中国很快就会。
－－－他特别提到了"IT"，也就是"Ginger"。这个东西现在大家都知道了是segway，我在大街上也看到有人使用了。但是在2001年，"IT"
到底是什么东西还非常神秘，大家只知道这是一个号称比internet,汽车都重要的伟大发明。 titor问大家对这个东西对这种产品宣传模式有什么看法。
－－－他说，"Taiwan, Japan and Korea were all "forcefully annexed" before N Day. "
－－－他说2008年奥运会开不成。实际上2004年奥运会是最后一次正式的奥运会，从此就没有了，但在2036年，人们正在讨论能不能在2040年恢复奥运会。
－－－他说中国将会入侵澳大利亚！
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Outsourcing Your Life外包你的生活
Outsourcing Your Life
Sending work offshore has transformed the U.S. economy. Now, some families are tapping the same approach for personal tasks, getting them done for a fraction of what they'd cost at home. Taking your to-do list global.
By ELLEN GAMERMAN
When David San Filippo decided to create a tribute video in honor of his sister's wedding, he could have gotten a recommendation from a friend or looked up video editors in the phone book. Instead, he did what big corporations have been doing for more than a decade: sent the work offshore.
On the Internet, Mr. San Filippo located a graphic artist in Romania who agreed to do the whole thing for $59. The result was a splashy two-minute video with a space theme and "Star Wars" soundtrack. It won raves at the wedding.
![[Art]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/PT-AF552A_Cover_20070601192836.gif)
Offshore outsourcing has transformed the way U.S. companies do business. Now, some early adopters are figuring out how to tap overseas workers for personal tasks. They're turning to a vast talent pool in India, China, Bangladesh and elsewhere for jobs ranging from landscape architecture to kitchen remodeling and math tutoring. They're also outsourcing some surprisingly small jobs, including getting a dress designed, creating address labels for wedding invitations or finding a good deal on a hotel room, for example.
Such "personal offshoring" is still new and represents a tiny fraction of the more than $20 billion overseas outsourcing industry. But management consultants and economists say it's likely to evolve into a larger niche as offshore workers identify the opportunities. Thanks to instant messaging, computer scanners and email attachments, any work that doesn't require meeting in person has the potential to be done overseas.
The approach relies on the same model that drives corporate outsourcing: labor arbitrage, or benefiting from the wage differential between U.S. workers and those in developing countries. In the U.S., tutoring services charge $40 to $60 an hour for math help. Some skilled tutors in India are paid $2 to $3 an hour. In India, $20 is enough to buy a week's groceries for two people.
WSJ.COM PODCAST
![[Podcast icon]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/it_podcast08102005141132.gif)
Families and individuals are starting to outsource everything from tutoring to tax returns, says WSJ's Emily Gitter. Hear the podcast.
PERSONAL OFFSHORING: A TESTTake a look at the results of the Journal's tests, and see examples of the revisions and edits often involved in the outsourcing.
Sending personal work offshore requires Internet proficiency, and some patience as well. Though a few firms have begun tailoring their services to consumers, most deal primarily with businesses. Tapping this bargain work force means knowing about the online bazaars where workers abroad compete to bid for small projects.
Some big free-lancing sites include Elance.com, Guru.com and Rentacoder.com . In a recent study on the growth of offshoring services to small businesses and homes, market researcher Evalueserve found more than 90 such online marketplaces, with 500,000 vendors from low-wage countries using them.
Consumers must also be able to recognize when a routine task can be done digitally, and across time zones. Earlier this year, Dan Frey went in search of an artist to illustrate a children's book his mother had written for the grandkids about her life growing up in New York City. He thought about finding a student from a local art school, but then it dawned on him that he could outsource it without leaving his house. The job didn't necessarily require a face-to-face meeting -- he could just email the draft.
He logged on to Guru, which he'd learned about from computer programmer friends who had used it for work. Within a week, 80 bids had come in from countries like Lebanon, Ukraine and Malaysia. To narrow the field, he had 10 finalists send him sample drawings depicting a young girl. He rejected the illustrators who didn't follow instructions and sent pictures of animals instead, and he bypassed an Indian firm that seemed big and impersonal, offering him a "project manager" to oversee a staff of artists.
The woman he finally hired lives in the Philippines. He says her drawings, styled after Japanese anime, were more cheerful than other entries, and he was impressed by her polished portfolio. She offered to do 25 drawings for $300 -- what some others wanted for a single illustration. "I was kind of amazed at how easy it was," says the 36-year-old sales and marketing consultant. He says his mother was "overwhelmed" when she saw the finished product.
![[Megan Oyler]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/PT-AF602_Outsou_20070601190300.jpg)
![[Raji Suresh]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/PT-AF603_Outsou_20070601190906.jpg) |
| Offshore: Megan Oyler, top, sits at her computer in her home in North Carolina, while Raji Suresh, bottom, tutors her in math and reading from her home in Chennai, India. |
It isn't always easy to evaluate a vendor. Language gaps can lead to misunderstandings, and if projects involve revisions, they could take more time -- and cost more in long-distance bills -- than they're worth. When reporters tried outsourcing personal tasks, they were offered a range of prices, making it difficult to know what they were getting (see adjacent chart for more on our test).
Janice Harrelson says she was ultimately satisfied with the Web site designed for her by Virtuoso Online, a firm in India. But she says cultural gaps initially hampered the designers' ability to strike the right tone on a site devoted to her Christian beliefs. The theme she wanted to emphasize was the bond that believers have with Jesus Christ -- a concept known as being "the bride of Christ." The Indian technicians posted pictures of women in wedding gowns.
"They were beautiful, but not what I had in mind," says the real-estate manager from North Carolina, who went through a few more revisions before the site was completed with images of a waterfall and a crown. The total bill came to $250 -- half the price she was quoted by a local Web designer.
Global Solutions India, in Mumbai, is one of the firms now adding consumers to its primary business of corporate graphic design and web development. Americans never used to call for small personal projects four years ago, but now the company says about 20% of all inquiries comes from individuals in the U.S. -- some of whom discover the company after seeing its occasional banner ads on sites like Google. The jobs are handled by a six-person team making $1,000 to $1,500 each per month. They work in a small office with anything from Hindi pop to Shania Twain playing in the background.
Rajesh Shah, the 27-year-old president of Global Solutions, tells his clients to call him anytime, even on his cellphone at 3 a.m. He sometimes works 16-hour days, and he lives a seven-minute walk from the office so he can get there fast. "I normally don't turn down work," says Mr. Shah, who often sends work to new customers before they've paid him. The most prominent feature of the office is a statue of the elephant-headed Lord Ganesh, worshiped as a god of wisdom and a remover of obstacles.
Outsourcing has already trickled down from big corporations to small businesses, which now send everything from secretarial work to graphic design to back-end legal research overseas. Outsourcing revenue from small businesses was more than $250 million in fiscal 2006, and is likely to grow to more than $2 billion by 2015, according to Evalueserve. As offshore providers gain proficiency in dealing with smaller clients, individuals are a logical next step. "We're seeing the very tip of a very big trend," says Peter Allen, partner and managing director of TPI, a Houston management consulting firm that specializes in outsourcing.
Glen Hackler says he was inspired to try outsourcing for his personal income taxes after he hired an offshore firm to do the bookkeeping for his business. The owner of a Web site that sells RV parts, Mr. Hackler came across FinTax Experts, part of a larger outsourcing firm based outside New Delhi, during a Web search. He says FinTax saved his business several hundred dollars in accounting work.
This year, he decided to have FinTax do his personal income taxes, too. He emailed his earnings and scanned receipts, getting a completed return within two days. The firm charged him about $50, a third of what H&R Block charges for an average return. Since the return wasn't prepared by a U.S. accountant, he says, he filed it as "self-prepared," but he says he got all the deductions his CPA used to find him. "They seem to know all the laws here."
Most consumer outsourcing takes place on auction sites like Guru. In 2000, the Pittsburgh-based company launched an online job board. Its infrastructure is like eBay, with a ratings system so buyers can feel more comfortable choosing a vendor. Guru has an escrow system to avoid handing over a credit-card number to a stranger. Vendors pay a listing fee of roughly $10 to $80 a month, and Guru gets 6% to 9% of every successful deal. Customers aren't charged to list projects for which they're seeking bidders.
Guru says it is taking steps to make the process more user-friendly, with additions it says are likely to appeal to consumers. A new feature will let vendors post short videos of themselves and their offices.
Another site, Elance, is starting up "Elance University," a mandatory online course for vendors that will instruct them on how to attract customers and improve their customer-service skills. Elance just doubled the size of its customer-service team as it gets more calls from people who aren't Internet whizzes. "We're just coming out of the early adopter phase," says Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance. "We're starting to see more and more mainstream people ... people that are not Silicon Valley technofreaks, that are not online entrepreneurs."
As evidence that more consumer tasks will wind up going overseas, economists point out that it's already happening more than Americans might realize. Many U.S. service businesses now routinely subcontract some portions of their work offshore. An architect designing a residence, for instance, might send drawings overseas to be turned into computer-generated renderings.
Some labor experts are skeptical that this kind of outsourcing will ever go beyond a small group of enthusiasts. One issue is being able to trust a worker thousands of miles away with projects of a personal nature.
And though it's hardly the political hot-button that's provoked industries like manufacturing and information technology, it is bringing consumers face to face with some thorny issues. Many are stumbling into their own personal-life versions of corporate responsibility in terms of working conditions and fair wages.
That has become an issue for the Oyler family of Fayetteville, N.C. Nitza Oyler raves about her stepdaughter's tutor, Raji Suresh, whom she hired through TutorVista, an online tutoring service based in Bangalore, India. Ms. Oyler says after shopping around, she couldn't find anyone else to beat the price: $99 a month, compared with the roughly $40-an-hour quote she got from Sylvan Learning Center. Last fall, her daughter Megan began two-hour sessions five days a week, using a digital tablet, instant messaging and a headset to communicate with her tutor.
Ms. Suresh, has grown close with the Oylers. She frequently tells Megan she loves her and says Megan always replies, "I love you more." But earlier in the spring, the Oylers began to worry about Ms. Suresh, who wakes up at 3:30 a.m. so the 12-year-old can do her homework after dinner in North Carolina -- and works a full day after that. "I felt bad," says Ms. Oyler.
When daylight savings time kicked in, Ms. Oyler decided that instead of making Raji get up even earlier to accommodate the new hours, Megan would start her homework an hour later, at 7 p.m., giving Raji some extra sleep. "That was very considerate," says Ms. Suresh, who lives with her husband and two sons in a three-bedroom apartment in Chennai.
Architects, accountants, landscape designers and other professionals say it's too soon to tell if this kind of outsourcing poses a threat to their business. But American free-lancers say they're getting hit. To compete on auction sites, U.S. vendors are either positioning themselves as experts so they can charge more, or lowering their bids. "People are undercutting each other to remain competitive," says Jia Ji, who manages community relations at Guru.
Tanisha Coffey, who does small writing jobs through her Atlanta-area company, Scribe, Etc., says larger offshore firms with several dozen employees routinely win contracts she's going after because of their low prices. While she asks 50 cents a word for a long article, she says some offshore firms charge $3 for the whole thing. "I can't work for that," she says.
Actress Michele Greene, known for her role as Abby on "L.A. Law," has found a way to outsource one of Hollywood's most entrenched jobs: the personal assistant. She contracted India-based concierge service GetFriday last year. Ms. Greene says she pays $150 a month for about 20 hours of service. That's about $2 less per hour than her L.A. assistants charged.
Ms. Greene says her offshore assistant has been a big help while she works on her second young-adult novel and a country-folk CD in addition to acting projects. Along with paying her bills and booking her flights, her assistant has given her tips on Bollywood movies and Indian food. His recipe for garbanzo beans with eggplant and peppers has become one of her signature dishes. It's a huge improvement over the unemployed actors who typically fill these jobs in Hollywood, she says: "They'd screw up everything you'd ask them to do."
--Tariq Engineer and Binny Sabharwal contributed to this article.
Write to Ellen Gamerman at ellen.gamerman@wsj.com
![[Personal Offshoring chart]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/PT-AF598_Outsou_20070601192357.gif)
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最新奇有趣的新技术、科幻、社会学信息：
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标签： 新趋势
[图片] 1000 兆象素的芝加哥之夜！
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[图片] 1000 兆象素的芝加哥之夜！
via 煎蛋 by sfufoet on Jun 04, 2007
配图的作者叫 Scott Howard ，这张图是他 2006 年在芝加哥两天游的时候拍摄的。大家可以在这里页面看到这张图片，放心，图片是利用 Flash 技术动态载入的，不用担心浏览器会挂掉。我们来看看作者对配图的一些说明：
- 像素： 1000 兆象素（ 67 , 000 x 15 , 000 ）
- 使用相机： Canon 10D , Canon 100-400L lens
- 总共拍摄的相片： 194 张
- 快门参数： 4 秒， f/6.7 ， ISO 200
- 拍摄所花时间： 58 分钟
- 合成图片所用软件： Autopano Pro
- 最终图片大小： 7 GB ！
- 网页浏览使用软件： Zoomify
作者还制作过：
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外包"生活"，你怎么想？
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外包"生活"，你怎么想？
via 煎蛋 by cunni on Jun 04, 2007
不管全体地球村民们是不是真想把世界铲平，看起来至少美国人是想把外包这架推土机开到底了。华尔街日报的这篇文章讲到，把工作外包出去的趋势不止是在美国的工商业蔓延，也同样流行到了个人身上。很多美国居民开始把一些可以网上传递成果的生活事宜外包给外国人----尤其是印度人----来完成。这些工作主要包括：筹划婚礼、建立个人网站、旅游计划、家庭花园园艺设计以及数学等科目的辅导等。
digg 站上这篇文章的留言见仁见智，首先是搞笑的：
"我希望把华盛顿也外包出去，我相信 20 个印度的优等生会比我们的白宫做的好。"
"我想外包我的性生活，我对本地的妓院已经厌倦了。"
"我在印度雇了个人来刷我的牙！"
然后一位叫做 edebolt 美国人站出来为外包辩护，而且，他还很不客气的提到了中国：
"好文章，说的非常有道理，我已经把我的许多工作外包给了泰国，许多人都抱怨外国人抢走了我们的工作，但是我们可以从事更多更具创造性的工作。在互联网和生物科技领域所创造出来的新职位完全可以弥补我们在制造业上的工作流失。在纳米科技和分子材料科学上有着许多的新技术，它们的发展将会让工业革命看起来如同儿戏。而且我们现在只有4％的失业率，非常正常。人们经常谈到中国，我常常去那里，但是我可以告诉你：他们可以制造越来越多的东西，但是在 20 年内只会有很少的创新。现在中国只占有不到 2％的专利，而我和其它的分析家指不出任何一家完全自主创新而没有偷窃行为的中国公司。让那些低附加值高污染的破烂制造业去养活中国的人民吧，美国留下的是创新和利润。还记得二十五年前美国和日本的经济之争么？当时所有人都说美国不行了，而二十五年之后的现在，美国的经济要比日本好的多。同样的事情也会发生在中国身上，它会有着固定的经济模式，却没有推动它前进的力量。我相信未来越来越多地的美国人会把他们的医疗事务外包出去，他们不需要在俄亥俄州摘除昂贵的扁桃体，而是可以以少的多的价钱在阿根廷、泰国、菲律宾或是马来西亚完成，同时还能享受一个惬意的假期。"
一位印度人则提出了反驳：
"我想说，当外包局限于公司和组织时，一切还好，但是当它延伸到个体时，事情真是太荒诞了。我刚刚看了看 timferris.com 这个外包网站，而我震惊于自己所看到的。我看到的只是一些真正的懒人把他们不能完成的研究外包出去，美国的丈夫甚至不能对自己的妻子说句'我爱你'而把它外包了出去，要知道，外包并不是让你的生活更舒服，而只是让你变的更懒。再想想印度，那些从学校出来的高材生本该进到一个高科技公司学习一些真正创新的事情，但他们却把时间耗费在一些懒人身上，为一个懒记者写稿件、为一个懒食客点菜、为一个受惊了的男孩说'我爱你'。想想由此带来的精神影响吧，这些印度人在脑海里过着美国懒人的生活。"
"这些，这所有的一切都该被停止。对美国人，我想说'停止你们的懒惰'。对印度人，我想说'停止去过别人的生活，找一份真正的工作，这种外包烂透了'"。
#Cunni：后面的争论还有很多，有兴趣的人可以点来源去看，我只是把正反方的观点各列了一个有代表性的出来，顺便说一句，我十分赞同这位印度人的言论。
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爽歪歪
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爽歪歪
via 煎蛋 by sein on Jun 05, 2007
这俩图太邪恶太猥琐了，未成年的同学千万别看，正在吃早餐的同学千万别看。
某个评论最搞笑："他们正在演示我们的2012奥运LOGO( They're just acting out the new 2012 Olympics logo... )"。
Tag: Offbeat News
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标签： 电影八卦娱乐
NASA公布的高清晰火星照片
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