London: The most expensive city to build (video)

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How the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Actually Started (video)

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is the latest internet craze . It’s a funny and, so far, very effective means of raising money to combat ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), often referred to as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” which is defined as a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. 

When you accept the Ice Bucket Challenge you have to pour a bucket of ice water on your head and then challenge 3 others to do the same within 24 hours or make a donation to fight ALS, or both.

Well-known names from Lionel Messi and Lady Gaga to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have taken the plunge. 

But how did the ALS Ice Bucket actually start?

The Wall Street Journal reported that Chris Kennedy, a golfer in Sarasota, Fla., was nominated by a friend to participate in the Ice Bucket Challenge, which at the time, had nothing to do with ALS. The campaign was not tied to any specific charity, and participants had to select a charity of their choice for donations. 

Kennedy, passing the challenge along, selected ALS because a relative is suffering from the disease. Kennedy nominated his wife’s cousin Jeanette Senerchia, whose husband Anthony is the one suffering from ALS. Kennedy posted this video on July 15—what appears to be the first instance in which the Ice Bucket Challenge and ALS were linked.

 Senerchia accepted the challenge and posted the video on her Facebook page on July 16, nominating more people. In the beginning, they used the hashtags #takingiceforantsenerchiajr and #StrikeOutALS to support a newly-formed non profit and baseball tournament to honor Anthony.

Senerchia and Anthony’s town of Pelham, N.Y., is small and the challenge started to spread like wildfire among everyone including their families and even high school friends. Soon, they couldn’t keep track of the number of videos. 

Eventually, their social network connected with Pete Frates in Boston, who has an especially large network of supporters.  Frates posted his own video on Facebook on July 31, using both the hashtags #StrikeOutALS and #Quinnforthewin—and that’s when the campaign really went viral.

The ALS Association says it started seeing an unexplained uptick in donations on July 29, and on Aug. 4, it was clear something was really taking off. The organization said Monday that it’s received more than $15 million from existing donors and 307,598 new donors.

 “What started out as a small gesture to put a smile on Anthony’s face and bring some awareness to this terrible disease has turned into a national phenomenon and it is something we never could have dreamed of,” Kennedy said.

Pilot vs. Flight Attendant (quiz)

 

How about filling in the blanks with prepositions while reading the article?

A flight  ________________  Saudi Arabian airline “Saudi” was delayed   ________________ nearly six hours because  ________________ a violent fistfight  ________________  a pilot and a flight attendant.

The incident started  ________________  the men began arguing. 

"The fight took place as the plane was about  ________________  take ________________," Col Mutaz Youssef ________________  the Cairo airport police said.  

The attendant suffered hand injuries and was treated ________________  the airport. The pilot received an eye injury and was taken  ________________  a nearby hospital  ________________  treatment.

It was not clear what led  ________________  the dispute between the pilot and attendant. The fistfight took place ________________ Wednesday morning.  

The remaining attendants deplaned the flight's 153 passengers, who then had  ________________  wait  ________________  another Saudia crew to arrive   ________________ Cairo. The Medina-bound flight took  ________________  about six hours later than originally scheduled.

And it apparently isn't the first  incident  ________________  a Saudi flight.  A similar incident occurred ________________   2012, according  ________________ Emirates 24/7 News.

Edited from USA Today

Pro Bono Help (video)

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Big Brother? Chicago to measure pedestrians' movements

 By year's end, Chicago will have 50 sensors attached to downtown light poles collecting data on everything from the humidity to air quality to the noise level.

The project, called "Array of Things," has the potential for far-reaching applications. For example, air quality data will help you navigate a route through the city that avoids pollution and allergens. Or traffic data will inform the city where best to install bike lines.

 The Center for Computation and Data at the University of Chicago is taking the lead on the project in partnership with Chicago. The sensors are located in a box and will be covered with a decorative aluminum shield. A prototype will be completed in the next couple of weeks.

The first of the sensors will appear along Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago.

The data — which also includes wind, heat, light intensity and precipitation — will be made public on Chicago's open data website as well as a separate online database, allowing individuals to build their own applications.

One of the things the sensors will collect is the number of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices within a 100-foot range to try to get at the number of pedestrians. The information collected by the sensors will not be connected to a specific device or IP address, says Charlie Catlett, director of the Center for Computation and Data at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory

Currently, Catlett's team is seeking additional funding from the National Science Foundation, which will allow them to install "hundreds of nodes" throughout the city, he said.

Chicago is already using sensors in a limited way. For example, some bridges have sensors that collect data about temperatures and road conditions, said Brenna Berman, the city's chief information officer.

"We want to know as much about our city as we can because we know we can use that information to deliver services more efficiently and effectively," Berman said.

Photo: Douglas Pancoast and Satya Mark Basu, School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
edited from USA TODAY

Half Technologist, Half Psychologist

Your doctor and your lawyer may know a lot about you. But in a time when we are using computers to socialize, keep track of finances, do work and store family photos, your IT person probably knows more. So when computers go down, it can cause intense feelings of frustration. Some psychologists have even coined the term "computer rage" to describe these outbursts.

When you're feeling that way, you can pick up a hammer or you can call an IT guy at a firm like Mann Consulting in downtown San Francisco. This is command central for customers in the midst of a crisis.

 
Co-founder Harold Mann says his office can be like a hospital emergency room. "We have the same challenges where we have to counsel people and comfort them during stressful times while also practicing our craft, which is getting their machines to work," he says.

Mann has a staff of 16, who never treat clients with disdain or give incoherent technical explanations. "There's no question that pure engineering talents does not make for a great IT person," he says. "When we hire people we focus on people who are kind, not just brilliant."

Fred Goldberg, a retired advertising executive, has been working with Mann for two decades. Goldberg says he often gets comfort from Mann. When Mann or his people finish their work, Goldberg says, he's like a starving person who just got fed for the first time in months. "Thank you! Thank you for fixing this," he'll tell them. "Thank you for relieving me of this horrible mess that I was in."

Goldberg says when your whole life is on a computer, you need more comfort from your IT person than you need from your doctor. 

Another Mann client, Pat Belding, who runs a small marketing firm, talks about his 25-year relationship with Mann almost like a marriage.

"Over these years we've had our times where we've just bumped heads," Belding says. "He knows what will push me and I know what'll push him, and then you just kind of let things rest, and he'll come back and I'll come back to him."

As we all get even more dependent on our computers, many of us hope we too can have a happy marriage with someone who will fix them.

edited from NPR

Ebola Quiz: How Much Do You Know About The Outbreak?

1. Ebola is the Latin name for the virus.

• True
• False

2. The first country to report Ebola in this current outbreak was:

• Liberia
• Guinea
• Sierra Leone
• Nigeria

3. Ebola can be spread by:

• Mosquitoes
• Contact with the blood of an infected person
• Particles of virus in the air
• All of the above

4. An individual exposed to the virus is contagious from the moment of exposure.

• True
• False

5. Prior to the arrival of the doctor and missionary worker suffering from Ebola, the virus has never been in the United States.

• True
• False

6. Dead bodies can be contagious.

• True
• False

7. After health care workers give a patient a certificate that says he or she has recovered from Ebola there is no risk of transmitting the virus to anyone else.

• True
• False

8. If someone has Ebola and flies on a plane, this person could infect virtually everyone on the plane.

• True
• False

Click HERE to check whether your answers were correct

Robin Williams: 9 memorable moments

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Zootopia (audio)

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Ebola: Delayed response? (video)

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Ebola: understanding it

  

 Last week two American health workers infected with Ebola in Liberia were brought to Atlanta, USA, to receive care. “The fact that we are taking the Ebola patients, while others from the area are fleeing to the United States, is absolutely CRAZY,” tweeted Donald Trump, a property mogul, to his 2.65m followers on August 2nd. He is not the only one in a panic. 

With around 1,700 suspected cases and more than 900 deaths, the outbreak of Ebola haemorrhagic fever in 4 west African countries—Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone— is the biggest ever recorded.  On August 8th the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the epidemic an "international emergency".

One reason for Ebola's frightening reputation (after all, diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria kill far more people than it does) is that comparatively little is known about it. 

Ebola, like many other diseases, mainly menaces those countries that are poor. Guinea is ranked by the UN as one of the poorest countries in the world. In recent years Ebola has also struck in DRC, Sudan, Uganda, Sierra Leone and Liberia, all countries where civil wars have left poverty and deep scars. Urgent need drives people to cut down forests and hunt, bringing them into contact with the wild animals thought to harbor Ebola, and providing the virus with opportunities to jump to humans.

Run-down health facilities are another link in the chain. Contrary to popular belief, Ebola is not particularly easy to catch, spreading only via close contact with the bodily fluids of the very sick. Each victim usually passes it to just one or two others.

 "If you come to a hospital in New York with vomiting or bleeding, healthcare workers use gloves," says Dr Bausch. "But if you go to a hospital in Guinea, they might say 'we just don't have any gloves'". Doctors and nurses in these poor countries contract the virus, spread it to other patients and then bring it home to their families. In this epidemic, more than 160 health care workers have been infected, and around 80 have died.

After decades of civil wars in west Africa, outsiders and authorities are widely distrusted. Villagers have attacked foreign health workers. Families are concealing ill relatives rather than bringing them to hospital. “We’ve never faced this level of population resistance before,” says Laurie Garrett of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank.

  US DOCTOR  diagnosed with Ebola after working with patients in Liberia is recovering from the deadly disease.

edited from The Economist