MillionFace

About 17,000 of the state employees of Utah will be working 4 days a week with 10 hours per day. Does that sound great?

This is an experiment by the state of Utah to save utility costs of the office permises and the soaring gas costs for the employees. It’s an experiment which they’re doing. Will the rest of the states follow the suite? That is a good question. Better question will be: will Utah maintain it or revert to 5-day work-week after the experiment is over.

4-day work-week has it’s own advantages and disadvantages. It depends upon the person whose angle you’re looking it at from.

An employee working 10 hours per day for 4 days will most probably be happier, because he could spend more time with family, fun, etc (any non-work related stuff!).

A person whose business needs to be taken care of by the state employee may not like it, because for him now there are only four days to get the customer service. Think about only 4 days in the week to go to the social security office for whatever work you may have. The good thing is that the customer service could be for extended hours. Earlier it may have been from 8 am to 5 pm, now it could be from 8 am to 7 pm

Some may say that it will throw all your personal life into mess. There’s a saying: ‘work expands with time’. The notion of having one extra free day per week may not help you much. You get more chance to slag. Normally, you may go out (or not go out) and have fun for two full days and now you’ve 3 days to have fun, but you plan to rest for a day and have fun for the 2 remaining days

I don’t know, it just depends upon what kind of a person you are. If you can stand late hours in your office cube, then way to go. If you feel like jailed inside the office and the head droops after 4 pm, then …

It could happen that after a few days (or months) of working 10 hours a day, the workers try to squeeze it to 9.5 hours and then 9 hours and … you understand what I am saying [turn it into a 4 day, 8 hours work-week]!

Another bigger issue is the backlash. If the experiment is not successfully and/or economical for whatever reasons, there may be issues in reverting to a 5 day work-week; the ‘inertia factor’. Once the employees get used to working for 4 days, they would probably not want to go back to 5 days. Utah (or any other state who would also want to implement 4 days) should learn from the experience of some European countries where there’s already a 4-day work-week; and they’re trying to change it to 5 days but are facing a lot of resistance from the masses. Is Utah ready to face the tough brunt from the people (employees, etc) if the experiment does not go well? Only time can tell this.
Will other states follow Utah or not? Any opinions ???

The Ren building is a proposal for a hotel, sports and conference center for the “Better City, Better Life” 2010 World Expo in Shanghai. The building is conceived as two buildings merging into one. The two buildings meet in a 1000 room hotel, a building for living.

The building takes its form from the Chinese character for person 人 (”ren”) and combines two buildings (one symbolic of mind and the other symbolic of body). We love the poetic inspiration that reflects both site and cultural sensitivity

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The first building, emerging from the water, is devoted to the activities of the body, and houses the sports and water culture center.

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Now see this stuff.This is taken from world’s tallest building “Burj Dubai” at 2,620 ft / 801m

Needless to say, Every house has a beach

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Some more updates from Seattle Times

” The Yahoo shareholders who spoke at the company’s meeting in San Jose today were not particularly interested in raking the company’s board of directors over the coals for its handling of Microsoft’s acquisition offer. In fact, several who spoke praised the board and were glad that it held off Microsoft. In the quote of the day, one man, who said he owns 1,200 shares, along with his wife, described Microsoft as “a corporation-destroying, over-the-hill, green tentacled octopus from Redmond.” Zing.

There was no announcement of the outcome of the vote for the board of directors — meaning no indication of the number of shareholders who expressed their discontent with the board by withholding votes.

Chairman Roy Bostock went back through the entire Microsoft acquisition saga from Yahoo’s point of view. His version of events elicited a one-line statement from Microsoft before the Yahoo meeting concluded”

I am dying to hear the outcome, meanwhile Jim Goldman is providing updates at CNBC. Here are excerpts

2:10 pm EST: Jerry Yang stayed on message, reiterating the strategy, in broad brush strokes, that the company has been implementing since the end of last year.

“Yahoo is a great brand, well recognized around the world,” he proclaimed. The company is focused on “driving relevance,” good for both users and advertisers.

Yahoo, says Yang, “attracts a huge number of users…500 million users a month…Number 1 or 2″ in every major category used to measure net influence and success.

He says Yahoo is unique as a platform, that “no other company… has this collection of assets,” that he and his management team “remain very excited to transform” the company.

1:52 pm EST: As soon as Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock took the microphone at today’s shareholder meeting, he immediately went on the offensive, responding to a shareholder who requested that Yahoo execs fill out timesheets to show just how much they’re actually working, he said he’d be more than happy to.

He also said, “A great deal of misinformation, a great deal of misunderstanding” about the company, its strategy and its executives.

He said, there’s been “tremendous forward progress by the company since the middle of ‘07″ when Jerry Yang succeeded Terry Semel as the company’s CEO.

On negotiations with Microsoft, he said, “The board controlled the process in dealing with Microsoft from the beginning… We called the shots… Our number one priority was maximizing shareholder value.”

On the offer confusion over what Microsoft was offering: “Microsoft’s initial $31 bid was the only written proposal ever received by the company…

“In an offhand comment, (Microsoft said to one of our executives), ‘There may be a few more dollars on the table. It was never explicitly communicated to the board, and never communicated in writing.” On the partnership with Google

“After Microsoft withdrew the offer, and only after they withdrew the offer, we entered into a deal with Google.”

On Carl Icahn, “He’s a smart guy, and despite some of the things written about him…a good guy.”

“Needless to say, the last six months have been full of twists and turns,” but Bostock wants shareholders to focus on what he calls an ambitious plan and “one hell of a performance by this management team” especially in light of Yahoo’s decision not to change guidance for the remainder of 2008.

There is always a way around doing things your way. This is exactly what the residents of Lavonia a small northeastern town of Georia did.

Cafe Risque - strip club was a little more true to its name than the residents of a small northeast Georgia town could take. Cafe Risque was opened in 2001 by Alachua, Fla., businessman Jerry Sullivan. Sullivan however died in his sleep in 2006, but the club continued to operate under new ownership. The city went to court several times to close it but was never successful.

So, what the Lavonians did was they shelled out nearly $1 million to buy and shut down the strip club along I-85. Then, the city quickly burned the interstate signs advertising the club, which was popular with truckers. Lavonia has since passed an ordinance outlawing adult entertainment businesses.

Someone once rightly said, There is right way, wrong way and my way!

Creators of the popular Scrabble knockoff, Scrabulous, had to S-U-S-P-E-N-D the word game on Facebook in the United States and Canada. Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla suspended the game after being hit with a lawsuit, disappointing wordsmiths who have spent hours playing the game on Facebook.

Hasbro Inc., the company that owns the North American rights to the word game, last week sued Rajat and Jayant  in Calcutta, India, who created the Scrabulous program. Separately, Hasbro asked Facebook to block the program, something the site resisted despite risks of losing immunity protection from copyright lawsuits.

Facebook says the Agarwalla brothers, not the company, made the decision.

Earlier this year Video game maker Electronic Arts Inc. “released an official version for American and Canadian Facebook users under a licensing deal with Hasbro. But the authorized Scrabble has been attracting only 15,000 daily users, compared with some half-million for Scrabulous.” That authorized version is actually still in a “beta” test mode, and encountered technical problems Tuesday.

Facebook users who tried to access Scrabulous on Tuesday were simply told the game was disabled “until further notice,” and many Facebook users updated their one-line status messages on the site to mourn the suspension.

The game continues to work at the developers’ Web site, Scrabulous.com, but users must sign up and start games afresh.

What a shame, Hasbro could have at least let Facebook users play the game (Scrabulous) until they got their game perfected. It came up today, but kept crashing, and now it seems to be completely down.

It fits into your pocket and packs one hell of a punch. Probably the smallest Working Gun In The World. total length of this gun does not exceed 5.5 cm. Made in Switzerland, by SwissMiniGun company, no bigger than 5.5 cm (2.16 inches), it’s a deadly weapon. It fires 2.34mm bullets, with the killing range of 112 meters.

SwissMiniGun can also be more expensive than a luxury Swiss watch. In fact, one of the offered models is made in hand-engraved 18k gold, encrusted with the choicest diamonds (price starts at $50,000)

SwissMiniGun feels sorry for all the US collectors and buyers who can’t lay their hands on this gun. Here is the text from the landing page of the website

“Important information for import into the USA.
The US Department of Justice has mentioned that our miniature revolver, ref. C1ST does not meet with the minimum size prerequisites referring to the Factoring Criteria for Weapons ATF Form 4590.
Therefore, our revolver is not classified as sporting and is not importable into the USA.
We feel sorry for all the US collectors who have showed interest in our miniature revolver.
We promise that our next model will meet with the US Factoring Criteria for Weapons. “

The huge inflows of investment to support the Olympics and recreate Beijing have had an important ripple effect on economic growth. From new construction projects to attracting the spotlight, the Olympics will have a lasting effect on China.

China has embraced the basic ideals of the Olympics with its own slogan, “One World, One Dream,” and has widely promoted a green and high-tech Olympics. To prepare for the games, China invested nearly $40 billion in infrastructure alone from 2002 to 2006, transformed the cityscape of Beijing, made national stars out of PRC Olympic champions—such as high hurdler Liu Xiang and platform diver Guo Jingjing—and created a great sense of excitement and anticipation among the public.
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In another 10 days from now on August 1st 2oo8, The Fairmont hotel in downtown San Jose, will be under a world microscope, all eyes and ears except the 1,000-person ballroom will be dying to see and hear the outcome of Yahoo Annual Shareholder Meeting

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What Makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here’s a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions:
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A lot of folks can’t understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in our country.

Well, there’s a very simple answer. Nobody bothered to check the oil. We just didn’t know we were getting low. The reason for that is purely geographical.

Our OIL is located in :
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ALASKA
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California
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Coastal Florida
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Coastal Louisiana
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Wyoming
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Colorado
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Kansas
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Oklahoma
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Pennsylvania and Texas
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Our dipsticks are located in DC
Any Questions? NO?…Didn’t think So

eBay, the online auction company, has been convicted of selling counterfeit goods and fined 20,000 euro ($32,497) in damages to French luxury group Hermes, Hermes’ lawyer said.

The ruling, which marks a first in France, found eBay directly responsible for the sale on its website of three Hermes bags including two fakes, for a total of 3000 euro.

As per Hermes’ lawyer’s arguments:
“eBay is an active player in the transaction because not only does it offer a number of services to improve the sale, but when it does not work well enough or fast enough, they intervene with the client. They are perfectly informed of the transactions since they take a percentage cut.”

A study conducted by Centre for Work-Life Policy got the results that more than half of the women folks in Technology and Scientific fields drop their jobs after they reach mid-age (around 40).

While it’s no brainer and all know that women quit their jobs at some point in their life to better take care of their family (kids), but this research study is alarming; and not good for the overall development of the fairer sex and society as a whole.
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