Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2013/08/01/waterfield-adds-two-more-finn-wallets-to-their-line-up/
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Saturday, August 3, 2013
WaterField adds two more Finn wallets to their line up
It’s not news that I love love love WaterField wallets. Just do a search on this site and you’ll find me gushing about them too many times to count. Their wallets are the standard by which I judge all other wallets that I happen to be judging I recently switched from one of their Catch [...]
The Case for Replacing Family Dinners with Family Breakfasts
By dinnertime, your family is tired, in a bad mood, and often not together. The mornings are another story?and can bring all the benefits of supper, with none of the pain. Plus: waffles! Fast Company's Laura Vanderkam lays out why family breakfasts are superior to family dinners.
Parents hear again and again that eating dinner together as a family is supposed to be important for kids. Studies find that kids who eat with their families are less likely be depressed, and more likely to eat fruits and veggies. Such research may explain why families claim to eat together far more often than they actually do. While one USA Today survey found that 50% of families claim to always eat dinner together, a UCLA study that observed middle-class families found that only 17% actually do. (Both stats can be found in this book.)
Despite our best intentions, dinner is just hard to pull off. Kids have after-school activities, and working parents may not be home until 6 pm or later. Someone has to make dinner just as everyone is crashing in the door, harried from traffic and starving. But dinner isn?t the only time a family can have a family meal. In our house, we?ve found that family breakfast has a lot going for it that family dinner just can?t match.
First off, we?re usually all there.
Second, everyone likes breakfast food. Many a family dinner has been marred by fights over broccoli or kale consumption. No one complains about pancakes, waffles, cereal, eggs, bagels, etc.
Third, research into the science of willpower is finding that self-discipline is like a muscle. It gets fatigued from constant use. By dinnertime, everyone has been taxing their willpower all day making decisions and dealing with difficult people. So we?re more likely to be crabby and unpleasant with our loved ones.
But at breakfast? We?re fresh?and able to give our families our best, rather than what?s left over. That?s worth getting up a few minutes earlier.
The Delicious Case for Replacing Family Dinners with Family Breakfasts | Fast Company
Laura Vanderkam is a nationally recognized writer who questions the status quo and helps her readers rediscover their true passions and beliefs in pursuit of more meaningful lives. She is the author of What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast (Portfolio, August 27, 2013), and 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think (Portfolio, 2010). She blogs at www.lauravanderkam.com.
Image remixed from Nemo (Pixabay).
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Ford to offer compressed natural gas V6 option with 2014 F-150
The 2014 Ford F-150 will offer a gaseous-fuel prep option on the 3.7L V6 engine, which means it will be able to run on compressed natural gas (CNG) or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).
With this addition, the Blue Oval will have 8 vehicles available to run on clean-burning, inexpensive CNG/LPG, the others being mostly commercial trucks.
Ford will also become the only manufacturer with an available CNG/LPG-capable half-ton pickup.
The factory-installed, gaseous-fuel prep package will cost $315 in the U.S. and include hardened valves, valve seats, pistons and rings so it can operate on either natural gas or gasoline through separate fuel systems. Upfits will run approximately $7,500 to $9,500 depending on fuel tank capacity.
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Friday, August 2, 2013
Berkshire profit rises 46 percent, helped by economy
By Jonathan Stempel and Jennifer Ablan
(Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc
on Friday said second-quarter profit rose 46 percent, boosted by improved demand in such businesses as car insurance, energy and railroads, as well as gains from investments and derivatives.
Operating results topped analyst forecasts, reflecting how many of Berkshire's more than 80 businesses are benefiting from growth, however modest, in the U.S. economy.
"It's about as good as you could expect," said Jeff Matthews, a Berkshire shareholder and author of "Secrets in Plain Sight: Business and Investing Secrets of Warren Buffett." "Berkshire's earnings are very similar to the economy - not shooting the lights out but still growing."
Buffett, who turns 83 later this month, has run Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire since 1965, and favors businesses with consistent earnings power.
In June, he spent $12.3 billion to buy part of H.J. Heinz Co, the maker of ketchup and Ore-Ida potato products. A month earlier, the world's fourth-richest person told shareholders at that in looking for companies to buy, "we're going to find most of our opportunities in the United States."
Quarterly net income for Berkshire rose to $4.54 billion, or $2,763 per Class A share, from $3.11 billion, or $1,882 per share, a year earlier.
Operating profit rose 5 percent to $3.92 billion, or $2,384 per Class A share, from $3.72 billion, or $2,252 per share.
Analysts on average expected operating profit of $2,170 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Revenue rose 16 percent from a year ago to $44.69 billion. Book value per Class A share, Buffett's preferred measure of growth, rose 2 percent from the end of March to $122,900.
BURLINGTON NORTHERN, GEICO
Profit rose 10 percent at the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad to $884 million as higher revenue from shipping consumer products, industrial products and coal offset lower revenue from agricultural products.
Rising prices and higher customer loads helped drive a 10 percent increase in profit from its MidAmerican Energy utilities and energy unit to $279 million.
Meanwhile, pretax underwriting gains more than doubled at the Geico car insurance unit to $336 million, as premiums earned grew by 11 percent while underwriting expenses fell.
Businesses benefiting from growing sales included the NetJets corporate plane unit, the Clayton Homes manufactured housing unit, and the Forest River recreational vehicle unit.
Other businesses fared less well. Underwriting gains in reinsurance operations, including General Re, declined in part from catastrophe losses tied to European floods.
Berkshire also said growing price competition and "relatively sluggish customer demand in certain markets" hurt earnings at its Iscar metalworking, Lubrizol specialty chemical and Fruit of the Loom underwear businesses.
HEINZ REDUCES BERKSHIRE CASH STAKE
The quarter also included $622 million of net gains from investments and derivatives, compared with a year-earlier $612 million net loss.
Accounting rules require Berkshire to report these sums with its earnings, and Buffett believes the amounts in any given quarter are often meaningless.
The company's cash stake shrank during the quarter to $35.7 billion from $49.1 billion, largely reflecting the purchase of Heinz by Berkshire and Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital.
Another $5.6 billion in cash will go toward the purchase of Nevada utility NV Energy Inc
And this week, building supply unit MiTek Industries said it bought Benson Industries LLC, which designs curtain wall systems for buildings such as One World Trade Center and the United Nations Secretariat, for an undisclosed price.
Berkshire also owns tens of billions of dollars of common stocks such as Coca-Cola Co
In Friday trading, Berkshire Class A shares closed up $800 at $176,500. Its Class B shares rose 54 cents to $117.82.
(Reporting by Jennifer Ablan and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler, Bernard Orr)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/berkshire-hathaway-second-quarter-profit-rises-46-percent-211724471.html
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Republicans hold key to progress in Washington
The American democratic system of government was never intended to function with the extreme levels of partisan loyalty and rancor that have characterized the Obama years ? the like of which has not been seen since the years immediately prior to the Civil War.
This largely explains why President Obama, who was solidly elected to the presidency twice, can?t get more of his agenda through Congress. After all, the Republicans have only controlled one house of Congress during three of his five years in office. Ronald Reagan managed to get a lot done, even though the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives for his entire presidency.
But on every major issue, from increasing defense spending to cutting taxes, Reagan had allies in the Democratic Party.?Today, Mr. Obama cannot count on a single Republican vote on any vital matter before the House, and scant few in the Senate, outside of immigration.
Even Nixon, at the nadir of his presidency, had more support from the opposition for parts of his agenda than Obama has today.
Is the fault Obama?s? Has his cold professorial style alienated Republicans? Has he not moderated his agenda enough?
Moderated his agenda? Republican-style tax cuts made up a third of his 2009 stimulus. His health-care plan was largely the Republican alternative to Hillarycare. His (and the Fed's) response to the global securities collapse has sent the stock market skyrocketing, and sent no Wall Streeters to jail ? though at least one may be on his way. His immigration plan is very near to George W. Bush?s. His gun control plan in response to the horrific Newtown massacre was to the right of Reagan?s Brady Bill.
Sure, if a more experienced Washington insider had become president in 2009 ?? a Joe Biden or a Hillary Rodham Clinton ? it?s possible a few more Republican votes would have been gettable, but not enough to change the outcome on any of Obama?s key agenda items.
And of course, Obama has misplayed his hand badly on occasion. His rhetoric at the last fiscal cliff, that allowing sequestration to take place would be a disaster for the country, hasn?t turned out to be true. The Republicans who proclaimed there was more than enough fat in every agency to withstand the first round of cuts without widespread suffering, have been vindicated. Specific vulnerable populations have been hurt by sequestration, but it is far from the disaster Obama foretold.
But these are minor parts of the story. Most of the responsibility ? and possibility for progress ? lies with Republicans, especially in the House. (Several key Senate Republicans have forged a compromise on immigration.)
GOP members have seen that simply hugging Obama once can virtually end a Republican career (see the former governor of Florida, Charlie Crist). A single vote with Obama has done the same for several Republicans in Congress.
The tea party movement, which represents not a third party but the most conservative, populist elements within the base of the GOP, has defeated almost no Democrats. But its interventions in Republican primaries have sent home many Republican incumbents.
There were early signs of extremists holding lawmaking ? and even GOP agendas ? hostage in Congress. In the mid-1990s, GOP House speakers began following The Hastert Rule, named after Speaker Dennis Hastert. It commands that the leadership of the GOP in the House allow no bill to come up for a vote that doesn?t have majority support in the Republican caucus. And it can be read as an early harbinger of the grassroots extremism ruling Republican politics.
Imagine the Reagan presidency if Democrats had adopted a similar rule. None of Reagan?s agenda items could have passed that test. Reagan would be remembered as a failed president.
That?s the real challenge that Obama is facing, one unlike what any other American president has ever faced. It?s a parliamentary level of almost uniform opposition, in a presidential system that cannot function without cooperation from the opposing party.
The tea party claims, above all else, to revere America?s Founding Founders. But the Founders were pragmatists who deeply opposed partisan politics. The Constitution they wrote makes no mention of, and no institutional allowance for, political parties.
The system they set up will not work if one party moves in lock step, following a rigid ideology. If the radical left had taken over the Democrats during the Eisenhower or Reagan presidencies, the results would be the same as we are seeing today.
One of two things will occur before mid-term elections in 2016. Republican conservatives who believe in the traditional American way of doing politics could start outvoting the tea party movement in Republican primaries. If that happens, the normal rhythm of compromise and contestation returns. Or, American politics is in for even more gridlock and fiscal cliffs. And Obama will be relegated to executive orders and speaking from the bully pulpit. (Note his current speech tour around the country.)
In the short term, it looks like America is in for the latter scenario ? more gridlock. When Republicans and Obama sit down to negotiate the next budget as well as the debt ceiling, there is little reason to expect anything different from what has been seen lately.
But a hopeful sign of change could come soon in Wyoming. Hardline Republican Liz Cheney, the elder daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, has announced that she is running for Senate against three-term incumbent Mike Enzi ? a fellow Republican. If Ms. Cheney, whose tea-party tinged stances promise even more confrontation and gridlock, can be beaten by solidly conservative incumbent Enzi in the August 2014 primary, it could be an indication that the battle for the soul of the GOP is finally shifting against the more radical elements. Other incumbent Republicans would then stop fearing tea party challenges so much.
The emerging battle between ultra conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma and the GOP radicals in the Senate over Obamacare is another key data point to watch. If Republicans shut down the government this fall in a pointless attempt to get Obama to defund his health-care plan, the blame for the ensuing catastrophe would almost certainly land squarely on the Republicans, as it did in 1995. The tea party would finally have gone too far, and it might well cause a backlash within the GOP primaries against its kamikaze style of politics.
Then the traditional American style of Republican politics as practiced by Lincoln, Eisenhower, and Reagan could return. And Congress could get back to the business of governing, rather than obstructing.
Jeremy D. Mayer is an associate professor in the School of Public Policy at?George Mason University?where he also directs the masters program in public policy.
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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/republicans-hold-key-progress-washington-173011509.html
Digital to dethrone TV as king of home entertainment
Technology 
4 hours ago
Microsoft
Microsoft's Smart Glass app takes advantage of the fact that most users will have a smartphone or tablet handy while using the TV.
It's been a long time coming, but it looks like television, the reigning champ of home entertainment for generations, may finally be displaced by our smaller, more portable digital devices. A new study suggests the dethroning should occur this year.
According to tracking firm eMarketer's data, in 2013 adults in the U.S. will spend 5 hours and 9 minutes every day on average using digital media in some form ? be it apps, streaming video, games, or browsing the Web. They will also, meanwhile, engage on average with 4 hours and 31 minutes of TV.
It's second (and third) screens that contributed to digital's growth, the company says. Although time spent on desktops and laptops dropped slightly, people spent about an hour more on average doing non-voice things on their mobiles.
It makes sense: mobile phones are our constant companions, and every minute spent checking your Instagram feed, chatting on Facebook, or watching YouTube is one less you could be watching TV. And how many times during a boring show have you checked Twitter or played a quick level of "Cut the Rope"?
test
Of course, it's not a simple thing to collect or even define some of these figures, so eMarketer was careful to point out that other research companies reached different conclusions. For instance, it estimated that among all consumers, about 2 hours and 19 minutes of a person's media consumption time was online. But a Temkin Group study they cite puts the figure at 5 hours and 48 minutes. So take all these figures with a grain of salt.
That said, the trends shown are unmistakeable: People are watching the same amount of TV or slightly less, while their use of mobiles and online services is skyrocketing. Even if eMarketer's estimate that digital will overtake TV is premature, it's sure to happen soon ? or maybe it happened already.
Devin Coldewey is a contributing writer for NBC News Digital. His personal website is coldewey.cc.
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Rihanna comes out on top in T-shirt suit
Retail 
13 hours ago
Stuart Wilson / Getty Images
A High Court has decided in favor of Rihanna to ban Topshop from selling T-shirts with Rihanna's image on them. In this file photo, Rihanna attends as the Rihanna for River Island collection is launched at the Oxford Street River Island store on March 4, 2013 in London, England.
Pop star Rihanna has won a legal battle in London against fashion giant Topshop over the sale of a T-shirt bearing the R&B singer's image.
Topshop began selling an image of the singer on a T-shirt in 2012, with the approval of the photographer who took the image, but not with the permission of Rihanna herself.
Rihanna sued Topshop's parent company, Arcadia, for $5 million, and the U.K. High Court found in her favor on Wednesday morning, although damages have not yet been settled.
(Read more: Billionaire Green plans 10 new Topshop stores in US)
Rihanna's lawyers argued that Topshop had misled customers into thinking that Rihanna had endorsed the use of her image on the T-shirt, leading to consumer confusion and damaging Rihanna's reputation.
Simon Clark, head of intellectual property at Berwin Leighton Paisner, said that that was exactly what had led Justice Birss to find in favor of Rihanna.
(Read more: Geek chic: Google revamps Topshop runway)
"In finding that a substantial proportion of Rihanna fans will have mistakenly bought the Topshop T-shirt thinking that she had endorsed it, the judge appears to have been influenced by two key factors," Clark said.
"Firstly, the image showed Rihanna wearing the same clothes that she wore in the video for her 'We Found Love' single. Secondly, the fact that it was Topshop, which has a reputation for associating fashion with celebrities, meant that there was more likely to be confusion than if the T-shirt had been sold in a different type of outlet."
Indeed, Birss said that Topshop's use of Rihanna's image "amounts to sales lost to her [Rihanna's] merchandising business. It also represents a loss of control over her reputation in the fashion sphere."
(Read more: Topshop sells stake ? A new reason for US retailers to worry)
Topshop said it was surprised by Birss's decision, and would seek permission to appeal. Topshop's lawyers had argued that the Barbados-born star was attempting to assert image rights, which are unrecognized under U.K. law, in contrast to U.S. law.
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