How children draw conclusions from the products they see

How children draw conclusions from the products they see
A well-groomed man gets out of a Mercedes. He's holding a Smartphone and wearing a slick business suit and what appear to be $400 Kenneth Cole shoes. You only catch a glimpse, but you've already drawn conclusions about him. A newly released study in the Journal of Consumer Research examines children's tendencies to draw conclusions about social roles from the products they see.

"Good or bad, we adults have all made similar stereotypes about people, based on the products they own," write authors Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Arizona) and Tina M. Lowrey (University of Texas, San Antonio). "We recognize that the meanings of products are often derived from their existence within a set of complementary products used by a social role (referred to as consumption constellations".

The scientists set out to discover whether children can match a set of diverse products to a particular social role. They looked at how early product stereotypes develop and how they change over time.

The study observed that children as young as five years old are capable of forming consumption constellations. Little developmental change in this regard happens between first and third grade. From third grade on, changes occur, but not in a clear linear fashion. From third to fifth grade, children will use products and brands to describe social roles but their views of roles tend to be more flexible.

Seventh graders use fewer descriptions than the younger children and are more rigid in how they view roles. "Early adolescents appear to have a more myopic view of social roles," the authors explain; they will say things like, "All cool kids wear Adidas and Abercrombie & Fitch. They are also loud, have a lot of friends, and play sports".

"Our work aids our understanding of how diverse marketing cues are received by children, and helps parents, educators, and other concerned constituents understand how marketers' increasingly popular cross-promotional tactics affect children's knowledge of social roles, which can lead to stereotypes and feelings of prejudice that may carry into adulthood," the authors conclude.

Tit for Tu

Tit for Tu
There are many things I expect to encounter on an episode of The Real Housewives of Atlanta. Free flowing glasses of wine? Check. Oversized wigs? Check. Poets and helicopters? Semi-check. But a festive gathering of the ENTIRE CAST at a King Tut viewing? Didn"t see that one coming. And yet, that"s exactly what happened. Midway through the episode, Nene casually announced that oh yeah, she had a private viewing for King Tut, and maybe some people might want to get together and join her. Wh-wh-wh-whaaa? Since when did Nene go to private mummy viewings? And since when did people on this show do cultural activities in general? Clearly never, as evidenced by Kim"s typically dim response ("Who"s King Tut???").

Anyway, at first I thought Nene meant that she was going to see King Tut and THEN meet up with the ladies for some post-antiquities fun at an Atlanta hotspot, but no. She really wanted to get everyone together to LOOK AT KING TUT. Oh, if only this historical figure knew what his life had become: a staging area for drunken snickering on the set of a low-rent Bravo reality show. Quite the legacy indeed. What"s next? The Real Housewives of Orange County visits the Terracotta Army? (I would love to see that actually. You know Lynne"s mind would be totally blown. Hmmm.... my next mashup?)

Staple Skyscrapers

Staple Skyscrapers
Low-Rise is the installation created by P. Root in 2006 using staples and mirror, and it measures 180x80cm. Thousands of stacks of staples were used to make this skyline or what the artists call "city-like mosaic". "Like a city, the staples are subject to the elements, on a micro scale. The slightest breath or vibration and the domino effect kicks in."
His work experience includes a variety of professions such as architecture, contemporary media production and education. Architecture has an influence on his work which can be seen in his use of architectonic models (both digital and physical) and technical drawing skills.
His site has some really interesting other projects too, do check them - link.

(Image credit: sweet-station).

Franchising Myths

Franchising Myths
© chego101
I saw an articles recently on myths many business people have in their heads regarding franchise businesses. They're the kind of myths that prevent people from getting into a franchsie.

The author is Terry O. Powell:As a 25-year veteran of the franchise industry and a multi-brand franchisor, I've seen tremendous growth in the popularity of franchising. However, a number of misconceptions about franchise ownership still exist, and if you accept them at face value, there's a good chance you'll be robbing yourself of an opportunity that can be not only financially rewarding, but also personally satisfying.One myth: you can only be successful if you find the "right" business. Another myth: you can't go into a business you know nothing about.

Delicious fruit slices can be your memo(ry) aids

Delicious fruit slices can be your memo(ry) aids
The last thing you would want to do with such gorgeous fruit is feed them to that unforgiving abyss called the stomach. And that too when they can sit so pretty on your table, radiating a mysterious sense of calm each time you steal a glance. Which is why someone has already ensured that these beauties are not at all edible, to begin with. These "slices" of fruit (apple and pear) are post-it note dispensers called Kudamemo.

Amazed, huh? Not surprising at all, this great design by D-BROS caught us unawares too. These beautiful memo dispensers derive the name Kudamemo from the Japanese word for fruit, "Kudamono". Each fruit can dispense 150 mini memos which aren"t self-sticking like their clinical 3M cousins. But really, that"s little worry considering that it is a piece of art on your desktop that we are looking at, isn"t it?

A single "fruit" can be ordered at 1,890 yen ($20) or a crate of 6 at 11,340 yen ($120) that comes complete with a cardboard casing within which the fruits lie cuddled in their nets. "Eating" healthy cannot get better or easier than this. Contact Rinkya Stores for ordering information.

Via Inventorspot.

$4.5 billion go into Hedge funds in Aug 2009


 $4.5 billion go into Hedge funds in Aug 2009
Net inflows for hedge funds reached $4.5 billion in August, with over 50% of the reporting funds attracting capital during the month.

Preliminary reporting from Eurekahedge finds that August marks the 6th consecutive month of positive returns for hedge funds (up 13.1% YTD); hedge funds up 2.6% for the last 12 months, while the MSCI AC World Index is down 18.5% for the same period.

There were over 300 new hedge fund launches and 400 fund closures confirmed by Eurekahedge so far this year.

More on this story here

Steve Jobs is Back and He Brought New iPods

Steve Jobs is Back and He Brought New iPods
Steve Jobs himself showed up today to deliver the news about new iPods in Apple land. He looked healthy, happy, and he had plenty of good news for iPod users. Almost everything got a bump of some sort, and iTunes itself became a bit more useful. For me, it was a good day. My wife had a great day, because the iPod Nano refresh means that she gets a new iPod for her anniversary.

Firstly, iTunes 9 hit and it has sone nice features. The new iTunes LP tries to bring MP3s back to the days of records with album art, liner notes, and fan information. The albums that support the new LP features will have plenty of info that will sync to your iPod of choice. iTunes also includes support for Facebook and Twitter, which allows you to share your passions or obsessions with the world. The new Genius play list feature will play on, and on, and on which is handy because you can now sync and share your iTunes libraries between Bonjour enabled machines (Macs or Windows machines with Bonjour) throughout your house. Overall, the new iTunes is a big plus. Personally, I noticed that it is both faster and less resource hungry on my Snow Leopard machines.

Next, the iPod touch dropped its price an upped its capacity. You can get an 8GB iPod touch for a mere $199 now, and a fully stacked 64GB Touch will set you back $399. The iPod Touch received much of the speed increases that the iPhone 3GS did earier this summer. Specifically, the Touch now supports OpenGL which makes 3D gaming a smoother experience. Combined with the 3.1 iPhone and iPod Touch upgrade, the iPod touch is a gaming and application running monster.

The iPod Nano was not left out. In fact, I think it received the best bump of all. The Nano now features a video camera that is capable of capturing some pretty good video. The video can be tweaked with filters and then displayed on the new, larger display. The base Nano now has 8GB of storage and only costs $149. Compared to most low-end video cameras like the Flip, the iPod Nano represens a pretty complete package. The 16GB model is only $179. The camera is in addition to a radio with live pause, a pedometer, and a speed bump. Based on what I have seen from the video camera, the 16GB iPod Nano is a steal. I know my wife is looking forward to getting hers next week.

Lastly, the shuffle received a sale price, so for $59 you get a 2GB shuffle. For $79, you can have a 4GB shuffle. The suffle also comes in colors including a stainless steel limited edition. Overall, the iPod Shuffle was the least exciting announcement, but if you need a green or pink ultra-small MP3 player, the Shuffle might excite you.

It was a good day for Steve Jobs and for Apple. This Christmas, there are going to be a ton of iGifts.

More Ways to Save Money While in School

More Ways to Save Money While in School
© Paul Keleher
Everyone knows that college is becoming more expensive every year. This means that money is becoming tighter and ways to save money need to be found. Here are some more ways you can save money while you are in school.


Take Distance Learning Courses

If you have a job where you are you may want to think about taking your courses online. Jobs are hard enough to find right now and you may be able to keep the one you have - along with job security. If you move and start afresh while you are going to school, you will be at the bottom of the list - and the first to go if there is a layoff.

Distance learning courses enable you to get the same quality of training - if it is an accredited college - and it can save you moving costs and job hunt time. This would save you thousands of dollars - and you get to keep on working, too. You will need to research and find out, however, if you think you would do well in a distance learning situation. It will take a little more self-discipline.

Consider Your School Loans Wisely

I mentioned yesterday that you should get all the scholarships you can. If you still do not have enough, though, then you may have to get a college loan. Use wisdom here, and do not take the first loan offer you get. Consider that an interest percentage of a couple of points can make a large difference over a long period of time.

Look to get government loans first, such as Stafford or Perkins loans. These loans have the lowest interest on the market - and can be consolidated later. You cannot, however, consolidate government and private loans together.

The financial meltdown and tell-tale emails

The financial meltdown and tell-tale emails
Should UBS be held accountable for selling toxic collateralised debt obligations? The Wall Street Journal reports that UBS staff knew these debt securities were bad and sent off emails making that point quite clear. "OK still have this vomit?" one email said. Another email was just as pithy, saying they had sold "more crap".

As Reuters blogger Matthew Goldstein points out, the damning part about the evidence now coming out in legal proceedings is the allegation that ratings agency Moody's shared information with UBS which makes it very close to insider trading. That's bad news for other investment banks. "It's doubtful that this sharing of information between a rating agency and a Wall Street bank was an isolated event," Goldstein writes.

The Huffington Post backs this up with its report showing these damning emails were being fired off by so a number of in Wall Street. The implication: Wall Street traders knew they were selling junk but were still intent on ripping off the public. Expect more lawsuits.

Appetizing Architecture

Appetizing Architecture
image credit

Buildings shaped like food became hugely popular in the 1930s when the idea of road tripping was relatively new. Business owners along the Lincoln Highway, the first coast-to-coast highway in the U.S. were looking for a creative way to entice road trippers to stop for a bite.

Today, many of these structures are lovingly maintained, while others sit abandoned. Still, new ones occasionally pop up. So next time you"re on a road trip, take some time to look out the window and smell the donuts, or the coffee, or the watermelons.

Toothpaste Caps

Getting the kids to brush their teeth everyday can be a bit of a chore, but there is a simple and easy solution to it by Spread Heads - Toothpaste Heads/Caps. These encourage kids to brush their teeth. As the name implies, these caps can be kept on the usual sized toothpaste tubes, replacing the standard cap that it came with. There are two to choose from - Pete the dog, and Oscar the cat. These work with most of the toothpastes. Once you fix it on your toothpaste, the toothpaste flows easily through their mouths. Once you are done, there is a paw that closes their mouth so that the cap gets closed. With these, getting the kids to brush their teeth becomes a lot easier and is more fun.

(Image credit: perpetualkid).

(Image credit: urbanoutfitters).

(Image credit: perpetualkid).

Watch the "Toothpaste Heads/Caps" Video on Youtube
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Alessi Rondo Toothpaste Caps:

(Image credit: ipejournal).
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Spread Heads Mustard Marvin and Ketchup Charlie: Ketchup Charlie and Mustard Marvin replaces the cap of your regular mustard sauce bottle and ketchup top. When pressed, ketchup runs out of Charlie"s nose, and mustard flows out of Marvin"s mouth.

(Image credit: perpetualkid).

(Image credit: perpetualkid).

Watch the "Spread Heads Mustard Marvin and Ketchup Charlie" Video on Youtube
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Bottle Clip: Creation of designer Mattias Ries, it lets you carry a standard bottle of water on your bike.

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Solar Powered Water Bottle Cap: This cap can be fixed on standard 2"-mouth water bottles (such as Nalgene, Camelbak and more) and transforms it into a solar-powered lantern.

iLuv presents the kooky iMM183

iLuv presents the kooky iMM183
iLuv appear to have created a product for a really oddly specific niche; couples who both own iPhones/iPod touches. The er, creatively named iMM183 features a dual dock system for charging and playing of your tunes, as well as being an alarm clock with the ability to set seperate alarms for either player. Er, it also tells you the weather? Some of the press pictures show it with a big ol "TORNADO WARNING" written on it. I don"t think I"d like to be woken up by a clock telling me I am set to be swept away.

Zaid Hamid: Iqbal Ka Pakistan | Episode 9

Zaid Hamid: Iqbal Ka Pakistan | Episode 9


With Ali Azmat on Aag TV

Zaid Hamid and Ali Azmat (formerly of Junoon) take live calls and discuss ideology, vision and mission of Allama Iqbal and its relevance with the current times, and answer questions from the youth of Pakistan in his latest episode of “Iqbal Ka Pakistan” series.

[SHARE ON FACEBOOK]

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Zaid Hamid: Iqbal Ka Pakistan | Episode 8

Zaid Hamid: Iqbal Ka Pakistan | Episode 8


With Ali Azmat on Aag TV

Zaid Hamid and Ali Azmat (formerly of Junoon) take live calls and discuss ideology, vision and mission of Allama Iqbal and its relevance with the current times, and answer questions from the youth of Pakistan. [SHARE ON FACEBOOK]

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4


A call to save the system , a call of sanity

By Barrister Amjad Malik
I am bit puzzled at the SC orders verbally to replace a head of federal investigating agency Mr. Khosa as I was puzzled when judiciary tried to set rate of sugar, tried to sort out traffic in Karachi and vegetable prices. I am afraid despite a staunch supporter of independent judiciary and being the petitioner for chief justice against a military dictator, I for once cannot see the wisdom, and logical reason in undermining the corruption free executive authority if it is coupled with good governance. I feel it must not be challenged and interfered by any other institution except Parliament.

It’s not judiciary’s function to appoint or recommend executive organ’s heads or to cover the main holes or determine sugar or vegetable prices, it’s the job of the Chief executive, and units executives who are answerable to their cabinet and in return the Parliament. If Prime Minister cannot assert his legal authority, he must go home. No one is a smart lamp jinni who can in this situation deliver if judiciary on the whole sale basis issues verbal directives and expectschief executive to act upon it overnight without consulting his cabinet colleagues, allies and in this case his party head.

It’s a rightful job of the SC to interpret the constitution and law, and settle major disputes between provinces and remove a deadlock, but Supreme court must be careful in their use of ‘suo moto powers’ as no limits have been set yet on this deadly weapon directly pointed againstexecutive. Currently the use of this power is prima facie disabling the smooth function of the executive and at least on each notice a 3 month period must be given to executive to muster their administrative actions and matter must be looked at by provincial chief justices to start with whereby appeal rights against those orders and directives remain intact. These are matters for the parliament to look at but currently, this useful item though is aiding greatly in some cases to public at large who are resource less with limited access tojustice but is a cause of anxiety for many who feel ready to appear in court on hourly notice.

Supreme Court judgement is a difficult challenge and its politicians internal weakness that matter came to judges, they have voluntarily given their tale in the hands of hunters. Govt’s failure to erect consensus and their obstinacy to get it approved as it is a nonsensical behaviour unworthy of their parliamentary positions. They should have capped NRO in theparliament and replaced it with new Accountability commission as was chartered by both former premiers, with a new law to curb corrupt practices whilst at public office and set up a truth and reconciliation commission separately to filter all backlog of cases addressing the anxiety of public and grievances of the accused, some of whom have served sentence for years, and presumption of innocence must be maintained until proven guilty by acourt of law.

Constitution is clear that Chief Justice cannot be tried except by Supreme Judicial Council, Army chief by his peers through court martial recommended by Corpse commander, premier by his members of national assembly voters in the parliament through vote of no confidence and President through his peers in parliament via impeachment. Ousting president via court petitions will be not only dangerous but against the spirit of constitution and will set a undesirable and dangerous trend for the newly born democracy as all of them are guilty as charged by allowing him to be elected at the first place where an opportunity was lost to check his election preaching common sense to him that head of state must remain a personal of integrity, without baggage and a fatherly figure.

Now resignation is a different ball game altogether, its his choice but Pakistani tradition is different to that of UK, Europe and USA , If Chief Justice does not resign after allegations levelled against him believing he is innocent until proven guilty by his peers , and he throughout maintained that he ischief justice until removed accordingly, similarly forcing g president to resign or his ouster otherwise will be a difficult demand and his legal exit is only possible through impeachment byParliament. Still Justice Ramdey’s detailed judgement of 20 July 2007 is not out yet and it must be published in order to regulate future actions under Article 209, as law still is not clear.

I think political settlement is way out saving the system, democracy and retaining balance of power between institutions. Despite President’s obstinate behaviour in the past, his broken promises, its Still not late and it must be expected that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will offer a hand of cooperation to effect consensus to address all issues through 18th amendment in theparliament, and restart where he left with Mr. Zardari, a way out to save democracy and constitutionalism in the country.

Otherwise, if we are little late, an other General will be emerging out of this crises telling the nation how corrupt these politicians are, and he will promise to hold true accountability this time, and we will be back to square one, not a desirable scenario and all the blame will be of politicians who left politicking whilst consultations and remained stuck in their small egos. They must allow theparliament a chance to function at least for once and a club carrying collective wisdom of the nation will emerge as victor out of the mother of crisis. Lets have faith for once on ourParliament only if it shows its muscles.

Barrister Amjad Malik is a chair of Association of Pakistani Lawyers (UK)

19 December 2009

Ministers not to resign, face cases: PPP

The Central Executive Committee of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has decided that PPP leaders will defend the cases in courts while all government departments will work within their specified limits.

The CEC meeting was held here at the Presidency on Saturday which was presided over by the party co-chairman President Asif Ali Zardari. The meeting lasted for 7 hours.

Briefing the media about CEC meeting, PPP Secretary General Jahangir Badar said that party is unified under the leadership of Asif Ali Zardari.

“The party would continue to struggle for the people, federation, supremacy of justice and the Constitution,” he asserted.

Jehangir Badar said PPP is facing a number of challenges and that the process of reconciliation will be carried on in future.

Referring to the current geo-political situation of the country, he said all other paths lead to anarchy while only the democratic way leads to stability and progress.

WordPress 2.9, “Carmen” version released

Wordpress 2.9 is now available to upgrade your blogs. Wordpress.org have posted an article as “WordPress 2.9, oh so fine” as WP 2.9 announcment. If you want to upgrade from your dashboard use Tools>Upgrade or you can also see a message below the header of you blog thatwordpress 2.9 is avilable. One important thing always backup your blog before any upgrade. Some of the new features.

1. Global undo/”trash” feature, This is really a very nice feature to deal with accidental deletion of articles, blogs.
2.
Built-in image editor, for image editing with many features like crop, edit, rotate, flip, and scale your images to show them
3. Easier Video embeds, this is a very importan feature which i like most. here it allow you to just paste a URL on its own line and have it magically turn it into the proper embed code, with Oembed support for YouTube, Daily Motion, Blip.tv, Flickr, Hulu, Viddler, Qik, Revision3, Scribd, Google Video, Photobucket, PollDaddy, andWordPress.tv There are many other features which you can find details from the link given above.

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