Profilactic Mashup - Mac

Google Reader: Do Riders Think Some Cabbies Cheat Them? Are Cabs Yellow?

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:53:51 GMT

Passengers were not shocked by officials’ report that thousands of drivers gouged millions of dollars by setting taxi meters at too high a rate.

Google Reader: Happy Daylight Saving Time: Prepare to Die Young, Commit Suicide, and Not Have Sex [Spring Forward]

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:11:10 GMT

Daylight saving time begins at 2AM, which only matters if you still own clocks that don't connect to the internet or have cellphones attached. (Technophobe.) Saving daylight means increased rates of heart attack, suicide, money loss, and sleeplessness. Thus, sexlessness. More »

Google Reader: The South Bronx, Plagued by Obesity, Tops a Hunger Survey

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:29:03 GMT

A recent survey found that the most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country’s capitals of obesity.

Google Reader: City Critic: The New York Skyline, Where Eagles Roam

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:57:34 GMT

Bald eagles have made a comeback in New York State. They can even be seen in the city — but they’re just visiting. They choose to nest elsewhere.

Google Reader: New York Is Finally Taking Its Coffee Seriously

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:47:33 GMT

Dozens of new cafes and coffee bars treat coffee making like an art, or at least a high form of craft.

Google Reader: Une cantatrice accusée d'avoir remplacé son défunt époux par un acteur

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 16:24:05 GMT

Une chanteuse d'opéra, soupçonnée d'avoir tué son mari, a tenté de dissimuler la disparition de celui-ci en recourant aux services d'un acteur.

Google Reader: Spanish SOS: send over Starbucks

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:06:46 GMT

Murcia residents start Facebook campaign to attract global coffee chain – possibly for the muffins, the wifi or the mugs!

Murcia is one of the fastest growing cities in Spain, the proud capital of the country's south-eastern market garden region. But the coffee guzzling citizens of Murcia say it still lacks the one thing that would prove they have made it onto the global map of cities that count: the green, white and black sign of a local Starbucks.

Now the city's cappuccino and mocha starved citizens have mounted a Facebook campaign to join the list of 16,000 places on the planet with a Starbucks.

"They have got it everywhere but here," complains Alicia Delgado, a recent contributor to the Starbucks campaign wall. "It is about time we had one too."

Enrique Marhuenda agrees: "The day we have a Starbucks, Murcia will be an important city."

Although Spaniards have long had a variety of good quality coffee on hand at almost every street corner cafe, Starbucks has already established 76 outlets in Spain and continues to expand there while it shrinks elsewhere in the world.

But do the people of Murcia, who can get Spanish carajillos, cortados, cafes solo and cafes con leche at the dozens of cafes doted around each neighbourhood, really know what they would be getting?

Some who have had the Starbucks experience insist they would kill for a muffin and a frappuccino. Others admit that the coffee is often better (not to say cheaper) elsewhere – but say that is not why they want their Starbucks. "The coffee is not really up to much," admits Maria Esther Ser. "But the muffins, the seats, the powdered chocolate and the cinammon are good – and the iced coffees too."

The Murcia fans are also organising an email campaign, hoping the firm will pay attention to the severity of their Starbucks starvation when bombarded by mails. The owners of the Starbucks brand in Spain, Grupo VIPS, were not available for comment.

Some Facebook users are not convinced that their fellow campaigners are only interested in the wifi, sofas and cherry mocha. "Admit it, what you really want is to steal those mugs," says Luis Vallejo.

Others believe Starbucks will destroy local cafe culture. "If I get back to Murcia this summer and find a Starbucks I will turn my back on my birthplace," said Marcos Campillo Supongo.

"In the US the Starbucks coffee is awful and priced like gold. A lot of people only drink it because 'it's Starbucks and it makes me feel cool.'"

Meanwhile, teachers on the Murcia university marketing master's course have already set their pupils the task of putting together a marketing plan for a local Starbucks.

For the moment, those who go to the Starbucks store locator screen and enter "Murcia" will continue getting the following message: "There are no stores matching your search parameters. Please try a different search."

The nearest one the Guardian could find was 140 miles away in Valencia.

Giles Tremlett

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Google Reader: Nicolas Sarkozy éprouve l'urgence de calmer le jeu

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 07:48:48 GMT

Dans un long entretien au Figaro Magazine, Sarkozy annonce une "pause" dans les réformes.

Google Reader: Barcelona Journal: Trumpeting Catalan in Small Type on the Big Screen

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:10:25 GMT

A local bill requiring that at least half the copies of every film from outside Europe be dubbed in Catalan is the latest attempt to assert Catalan culture.

Google Reader: Les rescapés de la Toile

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:55:40 GMT

A la fin des années 1990, ils ont lancé leur start-up, se sont vite enrichis, ont vécu l'explosion de la bulle Internet en mars 2000. Dix ans après, ces pionniers voient se réaliser la nouvelle économie dont ils rêvaient.

Google Reader: Demand for Lithium Is Poised to Take Off

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:32:10 GMT

As awareness spreads that lithium is an ingredient for hybrid cars, a hunt is under way for sources of the metal.

del.icio.us: Western Digital’s Advanced Format: The 4K Sector Transition Begins

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:35:13 GMT

By early 2011 all hard drives will use an "advanced format" that changes how they go about saving the data people store on them. The move to the advanced format will make it easier for hard drive makers to produce bigger drives that use less power and are more reliable. However, it might mean problems for Windows XP users who swap an old drive for one using the changed format.

Google Reader: L'agence Fitch met en garde le Royaume-Uni, la France et l'Espagne

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:17:42 GMT

L'agence appelle ces trois pays à prendre des mesures de réduction des déficits "plus crédibles", au risque de voir leurs notes (AAA) remises en cause.

Catalog: Operation Shylock: A Confession (Vintage International) by Philip Roth

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:25:55 GMT

Pantheon Books Inc (1994), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 400 pages

Diggs: 1024-bit RSA encryption cracked by carefully starving CPU of

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:22:23 GMT

Since 1977, RSA public-key encryption has protected privacy and verified authenticity when using computers, gadgets and web browsers around the globe, with only the most brutish of brute force efforts (and 1,500 years of processing time) felling its 768-bit variety earlier this year. ...

Google Reader: Expulsés et déplacés, victimes collatérales des grandes manifestations sportives

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:25:37 GMT

Une experte onusienne dénonce le mépris de la FIFA pour le droit au logement convenable des populations locales.

Diggs: 8-Bit Map of New York CIty

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:45:27 GMT

New York City as an 8-bit video game map!

Google Reader: Why So Many Superheroes Are Drawn to New York

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:05:11 GMT

A panel in Midtown on Tuesday will examine New York City as character, inspiration and player in the universe of superhero comics.

Google Reader: Filling In City Holes With Legos

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:35:00 GMT

According to NewYorkology, artist Jan Vormann has been busy repairing some holes in New York City buildings with Legos! Vormann’s website now has a DispatchWork—New York section, which documents the latest Lego frenzy. He writes, “In cooperation with the Gallery Jarmuschek+Partner and the kind support of Henk Holzheimer (LEGO Graffity Styles Convention), I went to New York City, as part of the VOLTA artshow, to support Mayor Bloomberg in his everyday-struggle to make this city even more amazing." We think he succeeded.

Google Reader: Malepocalypse: Metrosexuals by Another Name [Trendwatch]

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:14:19 GMT

As if men didn't have enough to worry about, with all the sports viewing: prepare for "the biggest array of product launches for men in nearly a decade and maybe ever." Translation, fellas: corporate America's comin' fer yer balls.

In the Good Old Days When Men Were Men, the only fancy things a man was expected to possess were a razor and a watch, and possibly a nice Zippo for cross-burnings. But clever marketers figured out that simply by inventing a social expectation that men would adhere to the same grooming standards as women, they could create a massive new market for personal care products.

Ad Age points out that the first wave of this assault upon the testicular fortitude of the American male was the attempted hyping of the "metrosexual" lifestyle, which failed, probably due to skinhead stompings(?). But we are now mired firmly in the second wave. From fancy underwear to fancy shampoo to more fancy underwear, the newest marketing Malepocalypse has been broad-based. And it's about to get much worse.

Take this simple test, men: Do you have one of these items in your homes? It is a loofah. It is used for caressing oneself with body wash. Both a loofah and a body wash would have been unthinkable items in the bathroom of, say, Tom Brokaw's Greatest Generation. But thanks to an easy bit of Axe advertising fuckery, the average man is not ashamed at all to be caught caressing himself with this loofah concealed in a rugged rubberized grip—a "Shower Tool." (Fittingly). The ball-shrinking truth: we are all potential metrosexuals.

Marketers who had heralded the arrival of the "metrosexual" last decade found the term tended to pigeonhole their products with a relatively narrow segment of upscale, fashion-conscious men. The reality is that the segment exists and has kept growing, but marketers seeking to sell such products as shampoo and bodywash to men are appealing to a much broader audience, too.

That broader audience: You, bro.