Vietnamese “ao tu than”

Submitted by Hanvi on 10/19/12 2:07pm
The longstanding Vietnamese dress

The Vietnamese “ao dai” is considered to be iconic for the country of Vietnam.  However, there are some that would argue that the Vietnamese long dress has not been in existence long enough to be the country’s symbolic dress when it comes to traditional clothing.  Those who feel that way are the ones to believe that the spotlight should be on the Vietnamese “ao tu than” instead.

The “ao tu than” is similar to the “ao dai” in that both are tunics that tend to flow.  However, the “ao tu than” is not meant to be worn with a pair of silk pants.  Instead, it is to be worn with a long skirt. 

A direct translation of “ao tu than” is a dress with four parts.  The first layer to be worn when wearing the “ao tu than” is a top that pretty much looks like the present day halter top.  Then on top of that, the woman would wear a jacket with flaps.  The back of the jacket is a single flap that closely resembles the backside of the “ao dai”.  Meanwhile, the front of the jacket is made of two flaps that are often tied together into a knot.    

The “ao tu than” has been said to exist since the 12th century in Vietnam.  Back then, the dress was mainly worn by peasants.  Therefore, the dress was commonly seen in plain and neutral colors like black and brown.  These days, the “ao tu than” is no longer plain and neutral.  Instead, the dress is often seen in colorful fabrics.

Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake just got married

Submitted by LauriePerry on 10/19/12 2:00pm
The celebrity power couple tied the knot in Italy.

Congratulations are in order for one of the world's most beautiful couples, Justin Timberlake and his new bride, Jessica Biel! That's right: J.T. and Jessica just tied the knot. These two make such a gorgeous pair, and I cannot wait to see the wedding photos. I can't imagine any celebrity bride this year even coming close to Jessica (maybe Blake Lively, but I still think Jessica would win).

Apparently, Justin and Jessica managed to keep their wedding pretty private. Tabloids did report that it would happen, probably this week, but no one had the real inside scoop. Kudos to this celeb couple for pulling off a great ceremony without the pesky paparazzi!

When I first heard that Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake were finally engaged (after years of on and off-again dating), I actually thought they'd go for a huge ceremony somewhere in the U.S. I thought very wrong: This couple opted for one of the most romantic places on Earth for their destination wedding, Southern Italy. One report says the couple knew that this was the perfect place to say their "I dos," and they actually made the decision earlier this year after a vacation there.

How did Jessica Biel and J.T. pull off their super secret wedding? According to People magazine, they decided not to tell their invited guests the location of the ceremony "until the last minute." How exciting! Did they just get on a private plane with no idea of the destination?! People, by the way, promises to have "exclusive" wedding details in an upcoming print issue, so we can expect to see the wedding photos emerge soon, I suspect. I can't wait to see Jessica Biel's wedding gown!

Weak earnings report from Microsoft

Submitted by vinayak1000 on 10/19/12 12:34pm
The Dow tumbled 200 points.

I had to talk about Microsoft stock this week as it is one of the more talked about ones along with apple, and  Google. All three of these tech stocks had common themes with Apple and Google coming off the worst. The good thing is that investors are still bullish about the latter stocks.

As for Microsoft, the stock fell three percent and this negatively impacted the Dow as it is one of the giants of the index. Two other giants - McDonald's and General Electric - also had disappointing earnings reports.

Microsoft's net income has gone down 22 percent with PC sales falling and the European debt crisis affecting the Seattle, WA firm's global revenues.

The sales of the Xbox 360 as of late have been a disappointment for Microsoft and they need a new game console really badly. This makes the release of Windows 8 on Friday all the more important. Analysts have reduced their earnings forecast for Microsoft for next quarter and the success of Windows 8 will determine the trajectory of the company's stock price.

Another one to look out for is the Microsoft Surface tablet that Microsoft is banking on to regain lost market share. .

The Surface has become a necessity for Microsoft because Apple's iPad has penetrated the PC market that Microsoft has a hegemony in. Small businesses are increasingly using the safe and light iPads instead of the heavy, virus-prone PCs.

Microsoft can really make a comeback with Surface as its Windows OS and Microsoft Office software are so widely used in global commerce.

Valuation

Submitted by vinayak1000 on 10/19/12 12:23pm
Add this to your investment skill set.

If you're going to be good at picking stocks and investments, you need to be well grounded in valuation. It is not just important to be familiar with terms like ‘burn rate’ and 'pre-money valuation.' An investor will always have an edge if he or she can do a sensitivity analysis and prepare a cash flow statement forecast.

One thing to remember about valuation is that it is not a hard science. Two people can pick up the same valuation method say Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis and use the same assumptions and end up with wildly different valuations.

The main idea in business valuation is to determine capital needs and present a story to potential investors. In the case of stock valuation, an investor is trying to decide whether to buy a stock or not based on his or her investment needs.

When you've done your homework and have had a good understanding of a company's valuation, stock downturns like what we see with Apple and Google will not deter you from investing in great companies that still have a lot of promise.

Valuation is a skill that can be mastered over time. I really think it is the bread and butter of investments and so I dedicated a whole post on it on Investment Talk. Reading a lot of the posts on this blog will give you a good background in valuation and I hope to discuss further intricacies such as revenue models and other things that go into financial models.

There are plenty of high-paying jobs for valuation experts. Get to work and learn how to model rent expense and present operating expenses. It will be well worth your time!

Yahoo making good moves

Submitted by vinayak1000 on 10/19/12 12:20pm
The Internet giant hopes for a turnaround in 2013

Yahoo has been much ignored by the media and Wall Street which seems to favor Microsoft, Apple, Google and Facebook among others. But I am here to tell you that techies are expecting big things from Yahoo in 2013.

Yahoo was also negatively impacted after the Google earnings report and its stock shed 1.5 percent. This was still a far cry from the 8 percent that Google stock shed.

This post comes at a time when the Internet company is due to release its Q3 earnings after the stock market closes on Monday. Yahoo's most impressive move for me personally was the hiring of Marissa Mayer as President and CEO. She was a big talent at Google and also a Stanford grad. However, she has had her first child and investors are worried that this could impact her performance. I doubt it will!

Still, she has managed to hire Henrique de Castro (former top advertising executive at Google) to be Yahoo's COO starting from early next year. Yahoo is going to be spending top dollar on its employees and it hopes to follow a strategy similar to Google.

The company stock has not been doing well and this could be attributed to Yahoo not being bought by Microsoft back in 2008 for $47.5 billion. Yahoo has 700 million monthly visitors and it will need to step up its game in the online ad revenues which it is losing to Google and Facebook.

Yahoo really doesn't have to change much. It has a pile of cash and $5 billion in annual revenue. Moreover, the Internet company has almost no debt. So all Yahoo has to do are some minor cosmetic changes and for its products and services to have better focus.

I am pretty bullish about Yahoo stock in 2013 and this is definitely a good time to buy. The Internet giant has also seen significant growth in Yahoo Japan which is co-owned with Softbank Corp.

Shiny bits on Mars

Submitted by erika on 10/19/12 10:44am
What are these metallic bits Curiosity keeps finding?

 

Curiosity has found even more of the little bits of shiny things. What are they, and where are they coming from? The first time Curiosity panned down to reveal something shiny in the Martian soil, scientists assumed that it was a flake of something that had fallen off the Curiosity rover itself.
 
They scooped it up for closer inspection, to see if it was something important or not. Upon analysis it turned out to be plastic, and not something necessary to the rover's operation. (I guess even Martian rovers can have bits of leftover flash flaking off them?)
 
Other shiny bits found on the surface were presumed to be scraps from the rover's descent mechanism, the complex and ingenious series of devices that transferred the rover from outer space to the Martian surface. You would expect some bits to get blown around, after a landing that dramatic. 
 
All well and good. But now Curiosity has been scooping up soil, and finding even more shiny bits buried inches below the surface. Surely these cannot also be from the rover or its transportation equipment?
 
Curiosity's team is currently working under the assumption that these shiny bits are flakes of metal, or possibly something resulting from an unknown geological soil process. The Martian shiny bits are currently under investigation and analysis, but it will take several weeks before we get definitive results back.
 
In the mean time, the scientists have dubbed these shiny bits "schmutz." Of course, some people are hoping these objects may come to be called "proof." Proof of life on Mars, or of alien visitation. 
 
Speculation has always been rampant about alien life on Mars. Memorably, remote viewer Joseph McMoneagle once claimed to have viewed Mars' past, when it was inhabited by a race of very thin, tall, large people who wore "strange clothes" and who communicated telepathically. McMoneagle claimed that he himself was able to communicate telepathically with these Martians of the long-ago past. 
 
According to McMoneagle, the Martians left (and/or were wiped out) after "a major geologic problem." Perhaps this "problem" was responsible for scattering all the metal bits throughout the Martian sub-soil. Or perhaps - more boringly, but more realistically - they are just chips of quartz or some other shiny silicate that might be found in soil. 
 
Of course, the first object - the one that turned out to be a chunk of plastic - was from alien visitation. Meaning, us!

Hunting as a Sims 3 werewolf

Submitted by erika on 10/19/12 10:05am
I can't get that Shakira song out of my head.

 

Once I started playing a werewolf character, I was a little disappointed to learn that, you can't hunt deer or horses. Not even in fun. Sheesh! Instead, what you are hunting for is gems and minerals. This is more lucrative, but - if you ask me - a little less interesting.
 
Hunting gems and minerals as a normal Sim is a time consuming business. Assuming you have the Collection Helper (which I certainly hope you do) you switch to Map View, click the appropriate map tags, and send your Sim all over the map to pick up stuff that is lying on the ground for anyone to find.
 
Hunting as a werewolf is different. It reminds me of the way the pet dogs hunt in the Sims Freeplay game for iPad and iPod. You only hunt in a single lot, instead of having to run all over the map. Your Sim basically runs in circles, then stops and digs something out of the ground. That "something" may turn out to be a gem, mineral, insect, or meteor.
 
If you are part of a pack, your pack will hunt together. Each pack member who finds something gives it to the pack leader (the one who clicked the interaction to start hunting). So if you are the leader of a pack, you can accumulate quite a bit of treasure by going out hunting with your pack.
 
Lycanthropy is a skill that you can level up by hunting (among doing other werewolf-y things). As you improve your Lycanthropy skill, your hunting success rate gets better, and you unlock new abilities. For example, at level 6 you get the ability to hunt specific items. And the higher your skill, the more items you can find at once. Apparently if you get to a high enough level, you can find up to four items at one time. You also improve your ability to find items, which means that you spend less time hunting around before you scoop up the goods.
 
Because hunting as a werewolf is effectively free, and because it doesn't take much time (compared to hunting gems as a normal Sim), this is one of the better ways to earn money in the game. Of course, there are so many ways to earn money, do we really need another? Oh well - more shiny things for players to collect, I suppose!

Gettin' dolled up for my Kmart trip

Submitted by Maverick on 10/19/12 9:12am
They see me rollin, they hatin

 

Aw yeah, peeps! My homies! I got all dressed up to the nines to go shopping at the Kmart in Studio City, and boy am I glad I did. The paparazzi, you know, they are everywhere. Even Kmart, although you would think that such a fine, heartland kind of store wouldn't attract that sort of Hollywood attention, you know, with the redneck and the down market and all. You would think you could just go shopping with your daughter, have a nice afternoon together getting a manicure and shopping for paper towels. 
 
But no, the photographers are everywhere. I mean obviously I knew that, otherwise I wouldn't have worn my best off-the-shoulder asymmetrical shirt outfit, or my huge bling necklace. (I call it my "bling" but it makes Willow embarrassed every time I do it. That's why I do it. What good is being a mama if you can't make your babies cringe when you try and use their slang?) I sure as heck wouldn't have worn skinny jeans and those mile-high wedges if I didn't think the photographers were going to be there.
 
And the sunglasses indoors, you know. I love that. It's like "No one will recognize me if I'm wearing these sunglasses inside," but the best way to guarantee everyone is staring at you trying to figure out who you are is to wear sunglasses inside. It's one of the funny little Hollywood tricks you pick up.
 
Most celebrities probably would have snuck out to go shopping at a high-end boutique. But not me. I know my people, and my people want to see me shopping at Kmart. This kind of thing is how I maintain the illusion that I’m just a down-home regular old red-blooded American like all the regular folk. It’s not an easy illusion, given that I make millions of dollars a year and every dang member of my family is on TV somewhere at any given time. But I do what I can. It’s worked so far. (Promise you won’t tell!)
 
Speaking of the National Enquirer and Bristol's incredibly expensive and also somewhat weird plastic surgery - I mean, "corrective jaw surgery" - to make her face more heart-shaped. I'm here in southern California, "enemy territory" if you will, to support my daughter Bristol who is on Dancing With the Stars by the way, if you hadn't heard. You should vote for her right now, show those liberals what's what! Strike a blow for using the word "homosexual" as a slur, and for disrespecting transgendered people. Vote Bristol, vote conservative, a vote for Bristol is like a vote for me! Vote vote vote!
 
Oh and the election stuff too. There's that. Vote for that too. But vote for Bristol first, because the other election isn't for a couple more weeks!

Pharmacies should be allowed to vaccinate

Submitted by erika on 10/19/12 8:29am
State-by-state laws are patchy

 

I recently learned about the not-so-secret war on the ability of drugstore pharmacies to dispense vaccinations. I live in Washington state, where pharmacies can dispense all manner of vaccinations. 
 
Here in Washington, pharmacies are a cheap, effective, and convenient way to get a shot. I don't have a primary care physician (I only barely have health insurance) and I'm sure not going to set foot into a doctor's office just to get a vaccination. Every year I get a flu shot at the local Safeway pharmacy. In the last five years I have gotten two separate tetanus vaccinations at the local Walgreen's pharmacy. 
 
Pharmacies are open far longer hours, with most pharmacies available on weekends and after work. The vaccine costs the same per shot, but you don't have the cost overhead of going to the doctor's office. Just walking into a doctor's office starts the fees clock running, and who wants to pay a bunch of extra money just for a dang flu shot? Plus, the wait is typically far shorter at a pharmacy. I have never had to wait more than five minutes to get a shot.
 
I was blown away to learn that in most states, pharmacies have been hobbled, and you have to actually go to the doctor in order to get a vaccination. I'm sure they mean this for the best, even though it does raise the "nanny state" issue. But of course, a lot of money is being thrown at this issue - from both directions.
 
Considering that vaccinations are a cheap and effective means of protecting the populace and preventing the spread of disease, I would think states would want to make it as easy as possible for people to get vaccinations. That seems like a no-brainer to me. Why NOT let people get a flu shot when they stop in to buy groceries or fill a prescription?
 
The idea that pharmacists should give out vaccines began in the mid-90s, thanks to Donna Shalala who was the secretary of Health and Human Services at the time. Shalala saw that it could be a cheap and effective way to get more vaccines out there to the public, particularly to populations (like the rural and uninsured0 who are under-served by the medical community. 
 
Doctors are pushing back because many of them "rely on the flu shot as a way to get patients in" for other services like blood pressure and cholesterol screenings. We know! That's why we don't want to go! Just let us get our flu shots at the pharmacy, it's for the greater good.

Limbaugh reminisces about photo requirement for female callers

Submitted by erika on 10/19/12 8:07am
Used to only let pretty women speak on his show

 

In the wake of Romney's infamous "binders full of women" comment, Rush Limbaugh went on a long nostalgic tangent about the good ol' days when, if you were a woman who wanted to be allowed to call into Limbaugh's show, you had to produce a photo first. The hotter the photo, the more likely it was that Limbaugh would allow you on the air.
 
Limbaugh and his assistant Snerdley were the ones in charge of deciding which women made the cut. "Snerdley was in Heaven," Limbaugh said. "It was nirvana."
 
Limbaugh also points out that "We didn't make this rule applicable to men." As long as you were male, you could call in and talk to Rush without having to win an ad hoc beauty contest first. 
 
The best thing about this story - and I mean that in all seriousness - is that THIS IS FOR A RADIO SHOW. What kind of idiot puts a beauty requirement into place FOR A RADIO SHOW? How dumb do you have to be, to rate your callers by looks? 
 
A more intelligent sexist pig would rate his callers by the relative sexiness of their voices. Because it is A RADIO SHOW and NO ONE CAN SEE THEM. Just sayin'. 
 
Of course, if Limbaugh himself was here, he would scoff and say something like, "Of course you would say that, you're one of those feminazis." And it is true. I wear the badge with pride. I'm one of "your classic feminazi-liberal women" who believes that callers to a talk show should be judged based on what they have to say - the content of their argument; the clarity of their speech - and not on their looks. 
 
By selecting his female callers based on looks, Limbaugh did all womankind a disservice. If you were stupid but pretty, you could call into Limbaugh's show and say something stupid and thus fuel the common consensus among Limbaugh's audience that women are dumb. By selecting for prettiness and not for interestingness, Limbaugh no doubt just reinforced that pernicious and ugly worldview. 
 
Limbaugh is a fourteen year-old kid with a bully pulpit. Like every other know-it-all teenager with more hormones than sense, his actions are predictably perverse and idiotic.
 
I'm not saying that pretty women are dumb. That is far from true. But I am saying that Rush Limbaugh is ugly - ugly on the inside, where it really counts. 
 

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