alicia27

From the page:

"The first of New York City�s twenty automated self cleaning toilets opened its sliding doors to the public recently. The glass and steel toilets which are the size of a newsstand are part of a billion dollar arrangement with Spanish street furniture company Cemusa to provide the city with matching bike racks, pay toilets and bus shutters.

The sliding doors open when you make a deposit of 25 cents, and users will have a full 15 minutes of privacy before the doors automatically open. (Might not be a good idea to dart into one when you�re having a no-go day) No chances of sudden surprises here �" there will an alarm and a warning light flashing ninety seconds before the doors open. The toilets also self clean during this period.

It�s a sweet deal for the city �" Cemusa will actually pay New York a cool $1 billion for advertising on the structures that are part of the arrangement, and an additional $400 million for advertising on the structures the company operates outside the city."

From the page: "Hello there! Thanks for stopping by the site!

Something incredible occured to me the other day. I realised that this whole thing - Join Me - all started a massive five years ago, when I first advertised for someone - anyone - to Join Me.

Since then, thousands and thousands have joined our simple cause - to be nice, at least once a week, to someone else, for absolutely no personal gain whatsoever.

All over the world - from Sweden to Australia to America to China to the UK - people have got involved, jumped in at the deep end, pledged their support, and turned Join Me into something far bigger and far better than I could ever have imagined.

And all - crucially - while having fun. People of all faiths and no faith - of all political persuasions and none at all - all joined together just to be nice. Because being nice is... well... it's nice."

From the page: "I am inspired by...
But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can."

"Home Automation Superstore"

Tons of cool gadgets for the home, from Signal Boosters to flushable cat toilets... they have a range of products for anyone who loves to see the latest inventions in technology!

From the page: "Promote your blog by linking out

By Patrick Altoft on September 20th, 2007

One of the best ways to get somebody to read your website or blog is to write about them and link either to their website or a recent blog post they published. Every top blogger has a number of reputation monitoring tools they use to see what�s being said about them and they probably read most of the comments.

The key to attracting the most attention once they have read your post is to send them a huge amount of traffic. Nothing improves your reputation as much as when you link to a bigger site and send 1000 unique visitors.

Here are the top ways to drive traffic to another blog:

* Featuring the link twice in your article, once at the start and once at the end.
* Using call to action anchor text
* Get your blog post on Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon etc
* Click the link 20 times yourself
* Leave out a vital piece of information so the reader has to click on the link

Another good method is to wait until a famous blogger publishes a video on YouTube and then drive as much traffic as possible to the video. If you send enough you get a spiderable link from underneath the video telling the world exactly how much traffic you sent. The value of being top of this list can be quite high."

From the page: "Have you tried out Google Apps yet? If you haven�t you are missing out on seeing history being made. Google Apps include a word processor, spreadsheets, and now presentation maker. You may be wondering why you would need these when you already have Microsoft Office or Open Office already on your computer, but with those programs, you are missing one key function that makes Google Apps a must have…Collaboration.

In real estate it is all about location, location, location. Well, in the business world it is becoming more and more about collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. What is collaboration? Collaboration is the ability to work together on something. Google Apps allow you to do this in a very functional way. Once you have opened or created a document, you can invite people to make changes to it with you.

Do you have an important spreadsheet that needs information from 2 other people to finish it but you don�t have the time to wait for them to make their own version? Invite them to work on your Google spreadsheet and get it all done at once. Have a school project with 5 of your closest acquaintances who only have 20 minutes to finalize a presentation before their next class? Try out Google�s new presentation app.

That only drawback is that some of the features you would expect in the apps just aren�t there. The word processor app (the oldest of them) has the most functionality. The functionalities that are missing would be used by more hardcore typists and would not be missed by the general user. The spreadsheet app is right in the middle with most of the features that you would expect but missing a few features you would want.

The presentation app is the newest of them all (unveiled just a month or so ago) and is missing some pretty important features. The most important missing feature(s) would be the lack of audio and video files. Obviously this is a major consideration for using this app but it would not prevent you from making a rough draft together so one person in the group would make the final version…that is if another missing feature didn�t prevent this. Google presentations cannot be saved or run in PowerPoint. This alone might be a deal breaker.

Right now, the word processor is good enough to type a school research paper on (if you don�t go crazy) or a memo to your manager. The spreadsheet app is almost ready. They just need to update it and add a few more capabilities. The presentation app isn�t ready for any real use that to play around with it. Don�t kids yourself. If you walk in and do a Google presentation, they will probably think you are too cheap to buy Keynote (Mac) or PowerPoint.

Overall, Google is doing something innovative. They always have. However, it is going to take time for their apps to be true contenders in the office. I would suggest you try them out and see if you like them. Who knows, you might need to collaborate with someone and you will end up using Google Apps."

From the page: "Pregnant Marine Is Dead, Officials Say


The mystery of a missing pregnant marine may turn out to be a homicide. Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, who disappeared from Camp Lejeune on December 14, is believed to be dead, said Sheriff Ed Brown, of the North Carolina county where the military facility is located.

The principal suspect is the man, a fellow Marine, who Corporal Lauterbach had accused of rape. Sheriff Brown said investigators have �oetangible evidence” of Ms. Lauterbach�s death, and said authorities were searching for the body. He would not say how she died, other than it was of an �oeinjury to her.”

He said it did not appear she had delivered the child she had been carrying before her death. Her body was said to be buried in a �oeresidential, wooded area” within the county that includes the base.

Investigators are looking for Cpl. Cesar Armando Lauren, 21, who appears to have fled the base as the circumstances of the case unfolded. Corporal Lauterbach seems to have had some kind of renewed relationship with Cpl. Lauren after she disappeared.

Sheriff Brown said he had been expecting to find Corporal Lauterbach alive until Friday morning when a witness came forward with information about her death. He said the witness, a former marine from Camp Lejeune, contacted military authorities, who then alerted the sheriff�s office.

He said civilian authorities had not spoken to Corporal Lauren, despite the disappearance, because his lawyer declined to make him available. Corporal Lauren was driving a four-door pickup truck, the sheriff said, and possibly heading for his native state of Nevada.

The Marine Corps had brought Sergeant Daniel Durham, who had shared his house with Corporal Lauterbach for a brief time, to North Carolina from a training deployment in California for questioning. Sheriff Brown said Sergeant Durham did not have much information to offer and was not a subject in the case.

Corporal Lauterbach, 20, vanished about a month ago, on Dec. 14, when she was about to testify in the rape case. Local authorities say that five days passed before the woman was reported missing �" not by the military, but by her stepmother, hundreds of miles away in Ohio.

Her stepmother, Mary Lauterbach, told the police that her daughter typically called home about 12 times a week, and that she had not been heard from in five days. A day later, the local police found the young woman�s cell phone at a Camp Lejeune gate, and eventually uncovered �oesuspicious activity” on her bank account. They also discovered her abandoned car at a Jacksonville, N.C., bus station.

�oeHer housemate had called and said �Maria�s not here, I think she�s gone,� �oe Mrs. Lauterbach said in an interview broadcast on CNN. �oeMost of her possessions were still in her room. Immediately we started calling her cell phone, and we found it had been turned off. She was gone.”

The sheriff said he did now know if Corporal Lauren is the father of Corporal Lauterbach�s child."


This is sooooo sad. Just this morning, the cop sounded like he thought she was still alive and was hiding... her poor family...