South Asia Current Affairs: 2011-07-17

Thursday, 21 July 2011

AirAsia to launch new budget carrier with Japan's ANA

Japan's All Nippon Airways and Southeast Asia's largest budget carrier AirAsia said yesterday they will form a joint venture to establish a low-cost airline that will be based in Tokyo.
AirAsia Japan will be the first low-cost carrier out of the capital's Narita International Airport when it begins domestic and international operations in August 2012, the companies said.
ANA will hold a 67 per cent stake in the AirAsia Japan venture in terms of voting rights, with AirAsia holding the remainder.
They cited Japan's aviation market as "undergoing rapid transformation with developments including the expansion of Open Skies agreements and increased domestic competition from road and rail-based travel."
AirAsia Japan will serve the Japanese domestic market from Narita airport as well as South Korea and Taiwan.
At a press conference, ANA president Shinichiro Ito said that ticket prices could be up to half those of the Japanese carrier's regular fares.
"The key to the success of this airline is actually the airfares: can we make the airfares low enough to stimulate people to travel more often," said flamboyant AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes.
"AirAsia Japan will not only boost economic growth between ASEAN and East Asia by providing better access to markets around the region, but also enhance links within travel, trade and tourism."
Narita, a major international hub, is also seeking to increase capacity with the introduction of a new terminal and is expected to attract many low-cost carriers and foreign airlines, amid expectations of increasing competition in Japanese airspace.
Japan's existing cheaper domestic carriers such as Skymark and Air Do have been unable to offer the kind of heavily discounted fares associated with budget airlines in the United States and Europe due to higher operating costs.
AirAsia has other similar joint-ventures in Southeast Asia -- in Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand -- while its long-haul airline AirAsia X flies to Tokyo's Haneda airport.
ANA holds a 33.4 per cent stake in budget carrier Peach, which aims to begin domestic services out of Kansai International Airport in the western Japanese city of Osaka in March 2012.
AFP

Figures indicate record terms of trade

AAP
Import and export price figures show the terms of trade most likely hit a new high in the June quarter.
The terms of trade is an index of the ratio of export prices to import prices.
High export prices boost domestic income and encourage investment in export industries, while lower import prices mean the buying power of the nation's income is boosted even more.
There are a couple of stings in the tail of a surge in the terms of trade.
It typically comes with a soaring exchange rate, crushing the competitiveness of trade-exposed industries such as exporters, businesses competing with imports and domestic tourism operators.
And it can generate inflationary pressures that often prompt the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to raise interest rates, adding to the pain.
Both effects suppress economic activity outside the sector enjoying high prices - mining in this case - for its export commodities.
And when the terms of trade heads south again, the economy can find itself in trouble, with suppressed sectors "hollowed out", lacking the capacity to respond to a falling exchange rate.
But in the short term, a new record high for the terms of trade means the RBA will still be expecting the economy to accelerate and, eventually, need to be retrained with higher interest rates.
The figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Friday showed the export price index rose by 6.0 per cent in the June quarter while import prices rose by 0.8 per cent.
Over the year to June, the export price index was up by 10.5 per cent, while the import price index actually fell back by 1.0 per cent.
The export and price index measures are compiled on a different basis than the the method used to put together the price measures - implicit prices deflators - behind the terms of trade measures in the quarterly national accounts.
Even so, the index numbers suggest strongly that the terms of trade did, as the RBAforecast earlier this week in the minutes of its latest monetary policy meeting, hit a new record high for the period covered by the quarterly national accounts, which go back to 1959.
The terms of trade spike of the early 1950s, related to the Korean war wool boom, has probably not yet been eclipsed, but the latest increase has been sustained for longer.
For how much longer is unknown.
"There have been a number of big booms. They all ended," RBA governor Glenn Stevens reminded us in a speech back in February.
For the time being, though, the RBA will be expecting the latest terms of trade peak to push the economy along over the coming year or two.
Hopefully the central bank will be mindful of those stings in the tail.

The Age

Open Wi-Fi = no sympathy?

Do people get what they deserve if they leave their Wi-Fi network unsecured?

Would you feel sorry for someone who had their car stolen, if you discovered they’d left their keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked? What if their house was robbed after they went on holidays and left the front door wide open? Leaving your home Wi-Fi network unprotected is just as stupid, yet people still do it.

If you’ve got a Wi-Fi network, at home or at work, it’s essential to secure it by enabling WPA encryption and setting a password. Firstly you’re protecting yourself against leeches looking for free bandwidth, who could leave you with a throttled connection or a hefty excess data bill. You’re also guarding yourself against people using your network to do dodgy things while letting you take the blame. It’s still possible to hack into a secure network, but few people would bother unless they’re really out to get you like the neighbour from hell.

People seem to be learning about Wi-Fi security. I remember a time when everyone I knew had an open Wi-Fi network near their home, but they’re becoming harder to find. It’s partly due to user education and partly due to the fact that more vendors now ship their wireless gear secured by default. If people would just Read The Frickin’ Manual they’d see how easy it is to enable password protection. A few years ago one of the major Wi-Fi hardware vendors told me they had to sell their gear unsecured because they couldn’t afford to handle all the support calls from dopey customers who couldn’t connect to their new wireless point. This sounds a little cold but I can see their point.

Despite all the warnings, open Wi-Fi networks are still out there and it doesn’t take very long to find one if you go war-driving at night. Even if just one or two percent of networks are unsecured, as found in this SMH Online story, that still equates to tens of thousands of open networks across Australia. Should we feel sorry for these people? It's not that hard to enable encryption, even if you're a newbie. I might sound like a tech-savvy snob, but surely if you buy any new product or service - from a sports car to a smartphone - it's your responsibility to learn how to use it safely.

The German courts have inflicted 100 euro fines on people who failed to secure their Wi-Fi networks, after open networks were used to download pirated music. While I’m generally not a fan of the nanny state, this might not be a bad idea. What do you think, should we protect people from their own stupidity?

Gigantic Nazi resort becomes youth hostel

Originally built as the world's biggest hotel, the building stretches along 4.5 km of one of Germany's best beaches with 10,000 rooms. Photo: Reuters

A gigantic Nazi seaside resort on Germany's Baltic coast in the town of Prora has been turned -- after decades of disuse and decay -- into one of the country's largest youth hostels.
Yet initial advertisements highlighting its Nazi past as the "World famous" Strength through Joy (Kraft durch Freude) project caused objections from local historians and led to a marketing U-turn, but not before the German media took notice.
Originally built as the world's biggest hotel, stretching along 4.5 kilometres of one of Germany's best beaches with 10,000 rooms, it was never used as a holiday resort for the masses in World War II or afterwards although it was used by the military.
As part of the Nazi's Strength through Joy program, the resort's aim was to prepare up to 20,000 citizens for war through organized leisure.
The outbreak of World War Two put an abrupt end to its construction in 1939, yet even in its incomplete version it was one of the biggest Nazi building projects.
The opening of one of the site's parts as a youth hostel on Monday has also led extreme right-wing forums on the web to express their enthusiasm over the event, which attracted widespread media attention in Germany.
"The usage of the term 'world famous' in the advertisement is problematic," said Perke Kuehnel of the Documentation Center Prora, which chronicles the Nazi history of the site. She added that using the term showed a lack of historical sensitivity.
"Everyone involved is aware that the project needs to be handled in a sensible manner," Jochen Schmidt of the state agency for civic education said, adding that the particular sentence was more a question of detail.
Having just returned from a meeting with the hostel's management, Schmidt pointed out that the youth hostel was already taking measures. "Colossos of Ruegen" was now exclusively used in the marketing of the site.
In collaboration with local Prora Centre, the hostel is currently also in the process of setting up a center documenting the site's Nazi, Soviet and East German past for the public and hostel guests in particular, which is to be open from 2013.
In the meantime the existing choice of tours and exhibitions on offer ensures that all guests have the opportunity to combine leisure with a journey through history.
The idea of a mass tourist resort and the design's steel-reinforced concrete architecture won it an award at the 1937 Paris world exhibition. The original building plans foresaw a structure of eight housing blocs.
World War Two put an end to the Nazi vision however, and building stopped in 1939. The resort was never finished. Today, five building blocs remain usable thanks to the robust design, which have withstood strong sea winds and decades of neglect.
In 1944 and 1945 the building housed refugees fleeing from the advancing Soviet Red Army. After the war the Soviets took over, followed by the East German military.
Despite its historical legacy, it is also a site of resistance, as Schmidt points out. Those who rejected conscription to the army in East Germany were sent to Prora to become "Bausoldaten" -- or "construction soldiers."
Reuters

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel-news/gigantic-nazi-resort-becomes-youth-hostel-20110721-1hqe4.html#ixzz1SoX3Q6FB

Chinese man makes iPad look-a-like from scratch

An iPad look-a-like using computer parts, a touch screen and a case with a keypad made by enterprising Chinese man Liu Xinying. Photo: AFP PHOTO / HO

An enterprising Chinese man has come up with a solution for gadget-crazy people who desperately want Apple's popular iPad tablet computer but cannot afford it - DIY.
In a 20-minute video posted on Youku - the Chinese YouTube equivalent - Liu Xinying demonstrates how to assemble an iPad look-a-like using computer parts, a touch screen and a case with a keypad, to the sound of metal music.
At the end of the video dubbed "DIY IPAD 3", the IT whizz shows off the finished version - an apparently functional tablet computer that looks like a thick iPad but runs on Windows, an operating system made by rival Microsoft.
News of Liu's apparent feat spread on several foreign and Chinese technology websites, as well as on the nation's Twitter-like Weibo service.
When contacted by AFP, the 21-year-old from the eastern province of Shandong said that since he posted the video online a month ago, he has knocked back requests from a dozen pepole wanting him to make them a DIY iPad.
"I did this for fun," said Liu, who works at a computer store in Jinan city.
"It cost me 2000 yuan ($287) to make it, so I guess that's how much it's worth."
By comparison, the cheapest 16-gigabyte version of the iPad 2 sells for 3688 yuan ($530) in China, while the most expensive 64-gigabyte model costs 5288 yuan $760).
iPads and iPhones are hugely popular in China - the world's largest internet market with 457 million online users - and the launch of new models has been known to trigger fights and even crimes.
Last month, a court in the southern province of Guangdong sentenced three people to prison for stealing the design to the iPad 2 and using it to make fake tablet computers.
And Apple was forced to compensate a customer who sustained injuries in a fight at its Beijing flagship store in May, when the iPad 2 was launched.
AFP

Google Plus could be minus the elements it needs to succeed

So, ten million people have already jumped the velvet rope into the exclusive clubby surrounds of Google+. But only half a dozen that I know.
Maybe that’s a good thing.
I’m not taking the piss. As somebody whose twitter stream rages like a torrent, and who has two thousand new best friends I’ve never met on Facebook, I like the idea of a social media hub in which only a couple of mates are rattling around, checking the beer fridge and putting their feet up on my couch. Partly it's a matter of more robust privacy settings at G+. You are notoriously exposed on Facebook. The default setting for Plus seems to lean towards privacy and a much stricter control of your groups, or 'Circles'.
Not much of a business model though, is it? A couple of guys kicking around in a tiny, if beautifully designed friendship circle. And if Google are about anything it's massive scaleability.
It's not hard to see why the googs jumped into social notworking. Facebook provides nothing of any real value and it's valued at billions. Twitter has no settled revenue model, but by some estimates it's already turning a tidy profit.
If Google can capture more of your world than just your gmail address, it can more tightly target the advertising with which it already makes billions of dollars a year. Indeed, if it can provide a real alternative to Zuckerberg, it could possibly even do him some real damage. After all, there’s a whole lotta hatin’ out there for the 'book.
There are a couple of big ifs and buts, however.
For the moment there’s no compelling reason to have your G+ tab open, 24/7 in the same way it feels like you need to have your twitter feed running constantly, just in case you miss someone eating a really awesome sandwich or zapping off a choice zinger during MasterChef.
@benmckelvey "When I heard we're cooking for the Dalai Lama my first thought was, 'isn't that the guy we killed in Pakistan?" says Ellie.
@nuradical: It's as bad as if Jesus was on "So you think u can dance", #masterchef #awkward
@JohnBirmingham: Whoah! The Dalai Llama is using The Force to cure Ellie of lameness!
(Well I thought it was funny).
The other, probably deeper issue is Google itself, which doesn't have a great attention span when it comes to supporting products that aren't immediately, wildly successful. Yes. They've gathered 10 million users – but for now they’re mostly Geeks drawn by the glint of the new shiny precious. Which is fine for those of us who have lots of geeks as friends, but may not draw in the hundreds of millions of average punters you need to get medieval on Facebook.
One of the big cultural differences between, say, Microsoft and Google is that Microsoft tends to figure out if there is a need for a product before they go to the effort of building it. Google is more: “Wow this is cool - we'll build it and throw it out there and see if it catches on”. This leads to a culture where Redmond sticks with a product that isn't immediately successful, giving it a few versions to see if it catches on – or not, as in the Zune – while Mountain View throws stuff out at random, frequently orphaning their babies, rather than taking them back to the nursery if they’re not popular right away.
Sometime in the next two minutes we can probably look to Facebook to adapt and promote their Groups feature so that it is more intuitive and less sucky - the big advantage of Circles at the moment. If Zuckerberg does that, then people have much less reason to switch to Plus. At which point Google's ADHD management will likely say "fark this" and move on to something even newer and shinier.
Oh, and if anyone would like an invite to Google Plus, just tip me the nod in the comments.

Planning takes pain out of flying

On track ... Beijing's Airport Express. Photo: Getty Images

Getting to and from airports can be bad for your health and sanity, so a little thought will ensure your trip begins and ends smoothly, writes Julietta Jameson.
YOU'VE booked flights and secured accommodation; you're all set. Or are you? Flights and hotels can be the easy parts of travel. Once you're on board or checked in, you're someone else's responsibility.
It's the bits in between them, getting to and from airports, that are fraught with potential mishaps. You're loaded with luggage, so less agile than usual, or are on a tight schedule. You perhaps don't travel all that often, or you're in a new and foreign place. There are language difficulties, budget considerations and a range of variables that include everything from traffic to tricksters. To avoid stress, research is key.
Home to airport
Which transport is the best depends on point of departure, number of people travelling, duration of stay and budget. Private car transport and taxi services are often the best alternatives to and from Sydney Airport. The Airport Link train from the city centre costs about $15 for a full adult fare (less for same-day return). But with two-plus people travelling from the city, inner west or eastern suburbs, a taxi won't cost all that much more than your combined train tickets - maybe less.
For those on train lines further afield, Airport Link may prove cost efficient (www.airport.link.com.au).
For departures from the inner city and suburbs, shuttles can also be excellent value, with return tickets offering trips for as little as $11. For shuttles outside the city, Google which company picks up in your area. Sydney Buses may also service your area with a connection to the airport (131500.com).
A limousine service is a good - albeit top-dollar - option for those who are time-poor and might need a car on standby or for people who need help with their luggage. Some savvy folk choose to drive themselves to the airport and use long-term parking. If coming from outside greater Sydney, this is both time- and cost-efficient. Several private parking operators are dotted around the airport, as well as the terminal's own facility (parking.sydneyairport.com.au). The site has a great transport calculator, which, based on postcode and passenger number, gives you the most cost-efficient way to go.
One word of warning about long-term parking: I once missed an early flight to Perth as I stood at a shuttle stop watching full peak-hour services from the car park to the terminal go by me. It's a 20-minute extra-time option at best. Peak hours can be worse. And therein lies one of the best tips a traveller can get: whichever mode of transport you choose, make sure you have factored in enough time for your journey, potential hold-ups and check-in processes before boarding is due. It's better to read a book in the gate lounge for 40 minutes than miss your flight.
Airport to hotel
The best mode of transport depends on where you are in the world. Here are some common airports and tips for getting to and from them.
Bangkok After lengthy delays, Suvarnabhumi Airport's train line has opened. That might be welcome news to anyone who's ever been stuck in a traffic-jammed taxi on their way into central Bangkok, which is pretty much anyone who's ever visited Bangkok and taken a taxi from the airport. Debate rages on which is the best option, however. Taxis, while often slow, are super-cheap, plentiful and door-to-door convenient. The train often requires a walk and a change of lines. Perhaps the best way is a combination of taxi to a main station, then train to the airport.

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Delhi: for a close shave with a speedy barber

An Indian man is shaved by a street barber next to a train station in New Delhi.

A customer at a street barber in New Delhi. Photo: AFP

YOU get what you pay for and outside the sari shops of Babu Market in the Sarojini Nagar neighbourhood of Delhi, where tailors busily take up hemlines and let out seams on pedal-powered Geminy sewing machines, I might have just paid for my own demise.
Mr Prasad, one of countless alfresco barbers snipping away on the edge of India's traffic-choked streets, has me arched back in a chair that ergonomics forgot, neck exposed to a very sharp razor.
It could be a scene from a Bollywood The Demon Barber of Fleet Street except I can scarcely breathe, let alone belt out The Ballad of Sweeney Todd. At least Mr Prasad's razor is not rusty. The same can't be said of his scissors, which look as if they once trimmed Gandhi's moustache.
The little boy next to me is clearly not enjoying the bowl cut Mr Prasad's apprentice is scissoring him, crying as his father holds him down to prevent escape.
In contrast, my 50-rupee ($1) haircut - I'm making a special effort for my friend's wedding - has given me no cause to complain.
Choosing a style was as easy as pointing to a poster of Salman Khan, Bollywood's biggest male star. Mr Prasad shrugs his shoulders and gestures to his barber's chair. Once seated, he slings a blue cape around my shoulders still covered in hair from the previous customer and pushes me into an awkward slump so he can reach my scalp. He selects a comb and begins snapping his scissors like a pair of castanets.
A chai wallah trundles past in a three-wheeled bicycle selling "Special Tea" but his gentle pestering of passers-by is drowned out by the screech of a Bollywood singer over the market's PA system and the sobbing child next to me. Hopefully, they're distracting shoppers from watching Mr Prasad as he snips at my nostril and ear hair.
Admittedly, I'm not wearing glasses and his mirror is clouded with age and grime but he seems to have disguised my receding hairline, plucked a few grey hairs and not drawn any blood. The crying child's mother, meanwhile, is dabbing her son's ear to staunch a nick. Head dealt with, Mr Prasad surveys the unruly grey-flecked beard straggling across my chin and down my neck. He mows my jawline with what look like wool shears, then snaps open a fresh razor, presses me into the intoxicated slump position and moistens a finger to wet my neck and sprays it with liquid from a bottle labelled "Dunhill agricultural spray".
An inability to communicate with someone wielding a razor blade a hair's breadth from your carotid artery has its drawbacks but Mr Prasad dabs and scrapes at my beard like an artist painting a canvas.
After engulfing me in a cloud of talcum powder, he brandishes a bottle of what I think he says is meant to stimulate hair growth. Lathering up, he begins massaging my scalp. He also rubs my temples and forehead. A few hard slaps to the neck to show who's in charge finish the treatment.
Another cloud of talcum descends on me, one last trim around the ears and Mr Prasad flashes a mirror to show his handiwork. He even dollops cream on my forehead for a face massage and gives my scalp another knead.
Mr Prasad's styling has taken barely 20 minutes; however, rampant inflation has tripled the price to 150 rupees.
Still, it's a small price to pay for beauty.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/travel/delhi-for-a-close-shave-with-a-speedy-barber-20110714-1hfn4.html#ixzz1SoWMGjZH

Thrown in at deep end

The newly appointed Pakistani foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar.

Hina Rabbani Khar, who turned 34 this year, has been catapulted to one of the top jobs in Pakistan.
Mrs Khar (right) was sworn in as Foreign Minister this week. Next week she will travel to Delhi for talks on Kashmir.
Pakistani President Asif Zardari said her promotion was a tribute to her skills. ''The elevation will also send positive signals about the soft image of Pakistan,'' he added. Mrs Khar replaces Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who is reported to have differed with the President over whether Raymond Davis - the CIA contractor arrested in Pakistan for shooting two men dead in January - was entitled to diplomatic immunity.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/thrown-in-at-deep-end-20110721-1hqsx.html#ixzz1SoV6gkgz

London bids for McHuge Games

The world's busiest McDonalds to be build in the London 2012 games. Photo: Elesa Lee

IT MIGHT not quite have been what Pierre de Coubertin had in mind when he coined the ''faster, higher, stronger'' motto of the modern Olympics.
But the world's largest fast-food chain is using the 2012 Olympic Games in London to break its own records, announcing plans to open the world's biggest, and busiest McDonald's restaurant on the Games site in Stratford.
Metres from where famous athletes will strain every sinew in the quest for medals, up to 1500 people will be able to dine in the biggest McDonald's yet built.

Food and sport ... McDonald's sees a commonality with the ideals of the Olympic Games and the company. Photo: Glen Hunt

The two-storey, 3000-square-metre diner will be one of four McDonald's restaurants built in and near the Olympics park, in east London. There will be two public eateries, one in the athlete's village, one in the media centre.
The company insists there is no conflict between the Games ideals and its plans to serve 1.75 million meals during the 29 days of the Olympics and Paralympics.
McDonald's is a long-standing sponsor of the Olympics and the soccer World Cup, with exclusive deals ensuring that it is the only branded restaurant on the site.
But it is bound to attract protests from those who feel the Games should not be so closely associated with potentially unhealthy food brands.
The London organising committee promises that a wide range of food will be available at the Olympics park, including that from local suppliers.
McDonald's is expected to use the Games to try to highlight its ''corporate social responsibility''. It has been involved in the recruitment of 70,000 Games volunteers and has pledged re-use of equipment in its other British restaurants after the Olympics. GUARDIAN

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/london-bids-for-mchuge-games-20110721-1hqsy.html#ixzz1So60m5uL

iTunes music store and iPod's days numbered

Remember that quaint age when people actually bought their music - way back before everyone started stealing the stuff online? Now it's beginning to look like the idea of collecting music, legally or illegally, is about to become equally outdated. We suspect that the days of the iTunes music store and the iPod (although possibly not the iPhone and Touch versions) are also numbered.
A few separate events over the past couple of weeks have got us thinking about the new world of music. Firstly, this week the Spotify music streaming service finally cracked the US market, apparently after capping free listening to 10 hours a month.
Spotify has been a great success in the UK and northern Europe, signing up more than 10 million users to stream whatever they want from a library of more than 15 million tracks. The streaming quality is absurdly good, so good that 1.6 million of its users have actually agreed to - gasp! - pay a subscription for additional features such as having the service available on their mobile phones.
We are prepared to bet that the round of negotiations between Spotify and the US record labels would also have included access to the Australian market. We'd be very surprised indeed if Spotify didn't turn up here within the next 12 months, just as the local iTunes Store followed the opening of its US parent.
Last month, the Anubis.fm subscription service which is available in Australia, announced that it was doubling its library to 4 million tracks. That will shortly rise to 6.5 million tracks, when Anubis adds the Australian music charts back to the 1950s.
You can play that music via a PC, but it becomes much more accessible, and in our view becomes the future default for music lovers, when you link it with a multi-room music streaming system.
That's the other significant development of the week: the release by the Rolls Royce of that category - Sonos - of a new, cheaper speaker called the Play:3. It looks like a typical desktop package, but the heft of it tells you there's more inside: three Class-D digital amplifiers and three drivers - one tweeter and two 3-inch mid-range, with a passive, rear-firing bass and self-sensing adjustment that shifts the sound field depending on whether it's positioned vertically or horizontally. Put two of them in one room, and you can set them up as left and right channels of a true stereo system.

Hands on: PlayON!HD2 streaming media player

At $419, the Play:3 brings the attractions that have lured more moneyed audiophiles to its big brother, the S5 (now called the Play:5) to a much wider audience.
Even without a subscription service, the way the Sonos links to a music library on your PC or Mac or Networked Attached Storage, is compelling. It gives you easy access to internet radio, streaming different programs to different rooms or the entire house. With a subscription service, it's completely addictive. Party playlists become almost infinitely deep. Someone wants to hear another track? No problem, just plug it in.
It's a combination that's highly likely to have you experience once more that forgotten feeling of pulling out your wallet to feed your taste for music.

Don't waste your time at the gym

The basics of exercise are good form, good breathing, good tempo, and good intensity. Photo: Robert Pearce

I love watching those people at the gym who move with fluidity, intensity, and a sense of purpose. These types of people, big or small, get results and reach their goals.
Unfortunately, many of the other workouts I witness resemble train wrecks. I know - it’s your body, your health and your future wellbeing - but some of you seem to be making some pretty big mistakes.
To help those people get back on track with their fitness I have compiled a list of the top 8 things you should really try to avoid doing at the gym.
Training with zero intensity
Stop with the 30 minute cross trainer sessions while getting in some talk-show giggles and watching Bieber videos - you could burn more calories walking around Luna Park. Man-up and train with some intensity. Get some knowledge around circuit training, strength/hypertrophy training, CrossFit or High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).
Creating an imbalanced body
You want a big chest, so all you do is chest, chest, chest work. Bad idea. Why? Because in doing so much chest work, as you strengthen, you tighten and turn into a hunched over kyphotic mess. You must balance your body with an equal ratio of back exercises to ensure balance and decent alignment. Good posture means a good body. Hunched over posture means you look like the antagonist in a Marvel Comics movie.
And if you build your upper body, don’t forget about building the legs, eh? Squats/deadlifts. Triceps/biceps. Hypertrophy/cardio. Yin/Yang. Church/Pub. Balance your body, and balance your life.

Poor planning
If you attack the array of fitness machines like a Sizzler buffet, you’re going at it all wrong. First, think about your goal. We all have fitness goals, but if you have no plan on how to get there, you won’t get there. So what’s your plan for your body at the gym? Think. Research. Learn. Make a plan.
Enjoying the easy-peasy
I once trained a lovely guy who was new to the country, and after five sit ups, he exclaimed ‘‘Michael, this hurts. I think I twisted my organs’’.
It’s easy to lay on the couch. It’s easy to shift your body weight back and forth for 30 minutes on the stair machine. You do what’s easy with the mindframe of ‘at least I’m doing something’.
It’s hard to run real stairs, and it’s hard to make a lifestyle change. Training should hurt a little bit. Good, healthy pain with some sweating and swearing is good progress, and you won’t even twist your organs.
Understanding good v bad cardio
Do you enjoy walking on the treadmill? The belt is doing the moving for you. Skip it.
In fact, get skipping – rope. Jump roping is one of the biggest calorie burning exercises you can choose. Try 100. Try 200. Try doing some double unders. Your heart rate will go through the roof. In fact, according to a study on The Mayo Clinic’s website, skipping rope burns 50 per cent more calories than swimming laps. Rowing is serious cardio work; so is sprinting and hill running.
Style stinks
Your deadlift with a rounded back will cause you so much pain tomorrow. Your lack of breathing might cause even more damage. You run like you’re missing a quad. Likewise your bicep curls with that cheating back thrust, and your Zumba moves wouldn’t even cut it in a bar on Friday at midnight.
The basics are tough to learn, but they are: good form, good breathing, good tempo, and good intensity.
Negating your workout
Outside the gym, do you smoke? Do you hit beer o’clock 3 days a week with a slab of cold gold, movies, and frozen pizza? Do you sleep four hours a night?
Good nutrition, hydration, and rest matters. It’s not completely what you do in the gym; all the naughty bits outside count too.
Doing the same ole cardio
Only a caged guinea pig runs in the same wheel every day, doing the same ole thing. Hit the weights. Build some strength, and you’ll build lean muscles and burn more fat. Change up your cardio work, and change up your weight bearing sessions because the body doesn’t like change. So, it will adapt to a new stimulus, and change for the good and help you reach goals.
Not doing a Thing
I could write volumes about form, intensity, tempo, and breathing, and the number of sets and reps required for strength, hypertrophy, and toning exercises, but in reality the worst thing you can do is not doing a thing. And the cost argument doesn’t cut it because the truth is if you want to get fit, you don’t even have to join a gym.
We live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world. The running trails, the ocean, the parks, the hikes … it’s endless and so damn simple. So get outside. Get moving. Just do something that combines fun and intensity and watch what you put into your body.
What sort of gym mistakes most annoy you?

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/executive-style/fitness/blogs/boot-camp/dont-waste-your-time-at-the-gym-20110708-1h6co.html#ixzz1So5amhW4

Facebook could become adults only in Australia

Facebook could become an adults-only forum to protect against online predators. Photo: AP

Winklevoss twins 'a--holes': former Harvard president

Ways to force Facebook to give parents access to their kids' profiles will be discussed today by state and federal attorneys-general in a meeting that will also examine an 18+ Facebook age limit.
The idea was first proposed by a South Australian Family First MP, Dennis Hood, and is being championed by South Australian Attorney-General John Rau. Rau argued that giving parents assistance to supervise their children on Facebook would help protect against online predators and limit access to unsuitable material.
But Susan McLean, who was Victoria Police's first cyber safety officer and is now an online safety consultant, said the proposal was “ill informed and it shows a total lack of understanding of what the internet is”.
“It's not Facebook's fault that there are problems on Facebook. You can't legislate against stupidity or poor parenting or anything like that,” said McLean.
“It would be nice but it can't be done and it breaks down any level of trust that you should be trying to develop with your kids.”
Facebook's terms of use currently requires users to be aged at least 13 but there is no proof of age requirement and kids regularly lie to gain access.
At their meeting today, the country's top lawmakers will consider requiring proof of age checks and even raising the age limit to 18, federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland confirmed.
This would be at stark odds with recent comments from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who floated the idea of removing the 13 minimum sign-up age policy.
“Age verification is something that various platforms deal with and I can't see why it should be beyond the wit of Facebook to do the same thing, if that was the solution people wanted,” said Rau.
“I think people need to understand that just because they are operating in the virtual world, that is on the internet, it does not mean that there should not be boundaries or rules or standards of behaviour.
“Exactly how these boundaries and rules should be applied and enforced is a matter that we need to discuss.”
It is unclear how the attorneys-general could apply such regulations to Facebook given it is a US-based company. Rau said changing the rules on access to Facebook would require cooperation from operators and the federal government would need to use its communications powers.
McClelland said yesterday it would be Rau's task to come up with methods of implementing the restrictions.
He said Rau made a fair point as “there has been concern expressed by some parents that the images being put up by their own children are prejudicial to their future career prospects”.
“I think that all Attorneys recognise it as a legitimate issue to raise and … John having raised it, will be tasked … to come back with a few suggested solutions,” said McClelland.
“Having Australian jurisdiction extend off shore is the challenge. That's not to say a bit of discussion can't get some goodwill. Hopefully we will be able to look at a few options.”
Asked whether the issue could be solved simply by parents sitting down with their children, rather than with new regulations, McClelland agreed that this would be a preferable approach.
“Having said that, I have four kids, not in every situation can we reach an accommodation so I can understand some parents have raised the issue,” he said.
But McLean said implementing the proposals would be impossible.
“Say we get this law that says parents are allowed to access their kids facebook accounts, how am I going to prove that I'm your mother?,” she said.
“It's totally unworkable because there is nothing on the internet that allows anyone to age and identity verify anyone, so that's where it's going to fall down in the first place.
“Secondly, American companies aren't necessarily obliged to obey Australian law. Thirdly, tech savvy kids will set up two accounts – here's the one mum can see and here's the one where I do whatever it is I wanna do on it.”
Stephen Collins, spokesman for the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, agreed with McLean that any restrictions would be difficult to enforce.
"We'd very much prefer a social and educational approach - teach people good privacy practice, make it easy for them, educate about acceptable behaviors (e.g. why should online behaviors be different in terms of what we accept from those in the physical world?)," he said.
"So too, a parental right to access that is any greater than exists in law now (such as access to medical details for 16-18 year olds) seems heavy-handed."
Comment is being sought from Facebook. The site counts about 10 million Australian users, or almost half the population.
At the meeting today the attorneys-general will also discuss whether to allow an R18+ rating for video games. The federal government is a vocal supporter of the change but has had difficulty convincing some states that it won't result in a stream of ultra-violent and sexualised games flooding the market.
Privacy is also on the agenda after the government raised the idea of a statutory right to privacy following the hacking scandal that has engulfed News Corporation.
Ways to deal with the online publication of suppressed legal material will also be discussed. Rau said it was clear that suppression orders – which prevent media from reporting details of court cases - were being undermined by social networking sites.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/facebook-could-become-adults-only-in-australia-20110722-1hrkg.html#ixzz1So5LK27b

Waugh reveals bookie approaches soaring

PAA
Former Australian cricket captain Steve Waugh has revealed 56 cricketers reported illegal approaches by bookmakers to the International Cricket Council last year, after only five players came forward in 2009.
Waugh played his last Test for Australia in 2004 and now plays a pivotal role in attempting to eliminate illegal betting issues from cricket.
The ICC have an anti-corruption and security unit, the body to which players can report suspicious approaches.
Waugh has suggested lie-detector tests would be a good way to catch culprits and also serve as a deterrent.
Waugh, 46, who has taken the polygraph test himself, is currently a member of the MCC's world cricket committee.
"I don't know if the ICC is doing enough," he told BBC Test Match Special. "I'd like to have some conversations with them.
"They are doing some good work because last year 56 players reported an approach by a bookmaker and the year before it was only five, so that suggests the players have confidence in the system and confidence that it will work.
"By taking the lie-detector test I wanted to get the message out there that I was prepared to do this and I saw that [England captain] Andrew Strauss said he was prepared to do one if required too.
"It's totally voluntary and it's not about going over the past, it's about moving forward."
Waugh also called for lifetime bans for captains caught offending and wants the sport's biggest names to back him up.
"Any captain found guilty should have a lifetime ban because they set the tone and values of the side," Waugh said. "If they are doing something wrong it's a lot easier for the younger kids to get involved in it.
"How can the public get some confidence back? People have been caught only by accident over the years, which only goes to show it's very hard to prove and catch people.
"So let's go the other way, let's be positive about it, have people who are ambassadors for the game and are willing to sign these statements and, if required, back it up with a polygraph."
The Age

Scientific method to weight loss

Generic fitness, exercise, gym, bicycle pic.

Metabolism boosters ... researchers test weight loss theories.

The room isn't much to look at. Small and plain, with a single bed, a chair, a tiny refrigerator, a sink and a toilet.
But the spartan appearance is deceiving.
This "metabolic chamber" at the UNC Nutrition Research Institute has cost almost $1 million to build and maintain. It's the newest and most sensitive of 17 such research tools in the world, according to Dr Steven Zeisel, the institute's director.
Institute scientists hope the chamber will help them unlock the secrets of human metabolism and provide answers for people who struggle to control their weight.
By monitoring volunteers who stay overnight in the 2.4-metre-by-3.4-metre space, researchers hope to identify foods, activity levels and genes that affect human metabolism. With that, they'll be able to prescribe customised diets and exercise plans that are more likely to work for specific people.
"Nowadays people jump around from diet to diet, and most of the time it doesn't work. Then they get discouraged and maybe just give up," said Karen Corbin, a dietitian and research fellow at the institute. "But once you know for sure what's going to work for someone, and they follow your recommendation and see a result, they're going to be more motivated to stick to it."
The nutrition institute is housed at the North Carolina Research Campus, a $US1.5 billion ($1.4 billion) biotechnology complex. The campus is a collaboration of eight North Carolina universities to promote research in the areas of health and nutrition.
Collaboration among nutritionists, plant biologists and exercise scientists on the same campus enhances the research process, Corbin said.
"There is something to be said for having everybody here. It's easy to get together and talk and say 'Hey, I have this idea. What do you think?'"
Earlier this year, researchers from UNC and Appalachian State published results from the first study using the metabolic chamber. It found that 10 men who exercised vigorously for 45 minutes in the morning continued to burn calories over the next 14 hours.
Proof that an "after-burn" exists could motivate people to exercise intensely enough to get the added benefit, Corbin said.
Currently, the chamber is being used to study whether black pepper increases metabolism. If it does, look for the sponsoring spice company to tout weight-loss enhancing properties.
Institute researchers will work with other food companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers as they try to increase understanding of the role of diet and activity in normal brain development, cancer prevention and the treatment of obesity.
"Everyone's trying to develop products that help people lose weight," said Andrew Swick, director of obesity and eating disorders research at the institute.
"The ultimate goal is individualised nutrition," he said. "We'd love to be able to tell people, 'You're more likely to lose weight by exercising' or 'you're more likely to lose weight by eating this'. We'd like to be able to make recommendations individually based on somebody's genetics."
So far, about 50 volunteers have spent time in the metabolic chamber.
On a recent day, a 50-something woman sat inside the soundproof space, watching a movie on a laptop computer. In an outer room, a computer displayed measurements of the amount oxygen she had consumed, carbon dioxide emitted and calories burned.
She is one of 18 postmenopausal women being monitored for the pepper study. Animal studies suggest that black pepper increases metabolism. Anecdotally, people get hot when they eat pepper, which could mean they burn more calories. But this is the first human study of the hypothesis, Swick said.
Research subjects stay in the chamber for about 24 hours on two occasions, a week apart. During one stay, they eat food made with pepper. During the other stay, they eat food without pepper.
Although they eat the same foods, they get different amounts. "Some people burn less calories per pound [kilo]. Some people burn more calories per pound," Swick said. "We have to feed them an exact amount of calories based on their energy needs."
For example, one woman required 1550 calories while another needed 2150.
In the institute's "metabolic kitchen", cooks prepare food to order, with the exact number of calories, proteins, carbohydrates and fats prescribed by researchers.
Meals are delivered to the chamber in a pass-through between double doors that prevent air from escaping. Subjects must eat their meals at specific times and finish in a certain amount of time. They get up every hour to stretch, and they're not allowed to sleep, except at night-time, because that would decrease their metabolism and skew the study results.
At the end of the study, Swick said, "We'll find out whether black pepper increases metabolic rate or not ... We'll be able to detect less than a 100-calorie difference (per day)."
That's a small amount, but it adds up over time.
"If you overeat by 100 calories per day, you would gain 10 [4.54 kg] a year," Swick said. "If we can find three or four things that raise your calorie requirements and your energy expenditure by 50 to 100 calories (per day), that would be huge."
MCT

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/scientific-method-to-weight-loss-20110722-1hryb.html#ixzz1So4zTQnN

Losing touch in the online world

Mobile apps are making it easier for singles to hook up.

And now, a pertinent question that links loneliness with prostitution in the aftermath of a blog about acrimonious relations between Australian men and women:
Grindr for straight people, good or bad idea?
If you’re not familiar with the mobile app, here’s the skinny.
Currently used by over 1.65 million people worldwide (particularly London), Grindr is a hyper-local match-making application for the gay community. Like a GPS/RSVP mash-up, users sign up to the service which delivers a catalogue of possible dates based on geographical proximity. Like the look of Gary, 23, 58 metres away, who’s looking to chat, network, and date? Exchange pleasantries via Grindr and a real-world meet-up might be organised in moments – you’re just around the corner from each other anyway …
The concept is pretty kooky and clever. But it’s not without critics.
The creators have long defended the app against those who say it poses safety risks, or promotes promiscuity.
"It’s no different from a gay-bar," they say, as others wail "but you're killing the gay-bar!"
And it is in mind of gay-bars - or any real-world meet-market for that matter - that we consider what comes next:
Grindr for straight people.
The project is already underway. Nicknamed Amicus, from the *LATIN meaning friend, the app will offer the same geo-based match-making service to everyone else when it makes it out of the beta stage. And surely, as there are gay lovers of Grindr, there shall be other lovers too.
But who will they be?
Nick Paumgarten in the New Yorker was quick to wonder whether women needed an app to tell them they were surrounded by people wanting to have sex with them.
Tech blogger David McGowan supposed the straight version would mostly be used by “randy sweaty blokes looking at prostitutes pretending to be something else, and a very small bunch of women mistakenly using it to find a husband”.
Major LGBT newsite Pink.co.uk considers the straight app might struggle to match the original if it simply offers a place-mapping service similar to what Facebook Places already does.
Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out whether the whole thing is a sign we’re more messed up than ever ...
A recent report showed that the most "connected" generation – mine – is also the loneliest, partly because what used to be a room full of strangers is now a virtual world filled with people you not only don’t really know, or know at all, but haven’t so much as shared air with.
Here’s where the gay-bar bit comes in.
While I’ve never been a fan of using bars to meet other people, particularly if you’re hoping to meet someone who could be a partner for more than just sex, I really am starting to think that’s preferable to transferring the bulk of our socialising online.
Sure, online dating sits can be marvellous. The elegant algorithms, as Professor Helen Fisher points out, make sense – from a biologic anthropological point of view at least – and I know of many happy couples matched online. I also know of many happy sex lives fuelled by online services.
Yet, physicality is so much a part of sociality – getting a feel of someone is just as important as getting a look at them – and socialising has to exist in a physical world, especially if you intend on enjoying a physical relationship.
Milling about in a bar, on the street, in crowds, around people – this is important. It is important that you may smell the air, sniff out signals, observe movement, and make the deeper, animalistic assessments that literally cannot be made in a synthetic environment. These instincts that help us get a sense of the world around us, help us grow into better social creatures, and help us lead richer social lives.
So we continue to shift our sociality online, what will happen to our instincts? What will happen to our social lives? What will happen to our relationships, really, in the long run?
Grindr for straight people might help with the easy connections so many current gay users adore it for.
But since when was the easy way the best?

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/blogs/citykat/losing-touch-in-the-online-world-20110721-1hqma.html#ixzz1So4mMfdh

Naked truth: nudity disappears from German beaches, parks

One reason blamed for the decrease in public nudity has been Germany's shrinking population. Photo: AFP

If you're visiting a public park or beach in Germany expecting to see plenty of exposed flesh, you may be in for a surprise.
The naked sunbathers who once crowded Germany's Baltic beaches and city parks are becoming an endangered species due to shifting demographics, the fall of the Berlin Wall, growing prosperity and widening girths.
Much to the chagrin of Free Body Culture (FKK) enthusiasts who have been stripping off their clothing on beaches and parks since the early 1900s, a cold wind has been blowing across Germany for nudists and their numbers are steadily dwindling.

Mostly clothed people relax in Munich's English Garten park. The naked sunbathers who once crowded Germany's Baltic beaches and city parks are becoming an endangered species. Photo: Reuters

"German society is changing and it's not easy to be a naturist anymore," said Kurt Fischer, president of the German FKK association (DFK). There are some 500,000 registered nudists and a total of seven million Germans sunbathe naked regularly.
"But the numbers are unfortunately falling by about two percent each year," Fischer told a group of reporters in the Foreign Press Association (VAP) while sitting, fully clothed, at a beach bar in Berlin's government quarter. "Times are tough."
The main problem is the shrinking population, Fischer said.
The number of Germans fell by more than 3.2 million over the last three decades even though the country's total population has managed to remain more or less steady at about 82 million thanks to immigration -- often from countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans as well as Turkey and Arabic countries.
"Our problems are demographic changes and the fact that immigrants aren't interested in social nudity," said Fischer, 70, whose association has such honoured standing in Germany that it is even part of the Olympic Sport Federation (DOSB).
"Germany is relying more and more on immigrants to keep the population steady. But many come from countries with strong religious beliefs. They just aren't into FKK."
Immigrants who arrive from cultures where headscarves are common will not usually be interested in becoming naturists in Germany, he said.
VIRTUES OF SOCIAL NUDITY
With one of the lowest birth rates in the world, Germany's native population is projected to fall from about 75 million to 50 million by 2050, population researchers say.
The dwindling number of Germans has caused myriad problems -- affecting everything from beer and schnitzel sales to the numbers of schoolchildren. The country's proud nudity traditions are not immune. Fischer said the trend is inexorable.
"It's better that we shrink in a controlled fashion and keep a diverse age-group structure with all age-groups than to try to stay bloated with mostly seniors and few young people," he said.
Fischer added they were using "special trial offers", direct recruitment and other gimmicks to attract young people.

Nude sunbathing has a long tradition in Germany. The Free Body Culture (FKK) movement was founded in the early 20th century and succeeded in taking much of the smut and embarrassment out of nudity.
Even Germany's top model Heidi Klum was quoted in the German media recently extolling the virtues of topless sunbathing and describing difficulties she has pursuing it in places such as the United States and Italy where it's frowned upon or illegal.
"I love to get a sun tan and I don't like white stripes," said Klum. "I don't worry about what other people think." Her parents often ran around in the nude and still do, she said.
In Germany, public nudity on beaches and lakes is by and large tolerated and practitioners face no legal consequences, although some courts have fined some caught hiking nude on public trails or riding bikes or horses while naked.

Read Complete Article….

'Love bombing' for happy kids

Love-bombing: spending uninterrupted time with your children, and giving them all the affection and treats they want. The aim is that they regress to a state of emotional security and "reset" their minds, so they shake off their anxieties for good.

It's when I am interviewing the psychologist Oliver James about his most recent book, How Not To F... Them Up, which he wrote for parents of children up to the age of three, that I wonder aloud what you do if this has already happened. What if your kids are over three and have already been f...ed up?

Is it a straight road to delinquency and destructive behaviour and an adulthood on the therapist's couch (if they're lucky)? Or is there something you can do in the meantime? Can you repair damage, rewire neural pathways, reset brain chemistry, even if your kids have had worse things happen to them than the usual new-baby-in-the-family shock or first-day-at-school anxiety?

James tells me about love-bombing, the subject of his next book. It is for parents of children between the ages of three and puberty, and sounds so simple that you wonder why you didn't think of it yourself. "What you do is you say to the child that you're going to spend the weekend together," says James. "You're going to spend Friday night and Saturday night alone together and give it a name that they choose, Mummy Time or whatever. It's going to be a very special sealed-off time during which the child can do anything they want: they can eat as much ice-cream as they want, or watch all the television they want, and you're going to do this together. You're going to sleep in the same bed and you're going to have a lot of cuddles and an enormous amount of fun. This is their time."

It works, he says, for children who may need extra reassurance and feelings of security. "What you do is first identify the problem," he says. "Usually it's not a big problem, it's not ADHD [attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] or anything like that, but maybe the child doesn't speak very well, or there are still signs of cortisol [a stress-related hormone], in that they might be a bit jumpy or whatever. Or maybe just not doing as well at school as they might. This can also be used
to reassure children suffering after the birth of a new sibling."

But could it work for bigger stuff, like the traumatic bereavement that my two children suffered when they were five and three, after their dad committed suicide following an untreated depression? Although they have since done lots of therapeutic work around suicide and bereavement, the effects still linger, especially for my son.

"When I first used this technique I was flabbergasted," says James. "It seems to correct the child's thermostat, to get the electrochemistry back into sync again. The child comes out of it feeling very loved. And it changes the trajectory of your relationship with the child; the child feels that they're special. It's very simple and enormously rewarding."

Read Complete Article….

Handsome men mean better sex

The female orgasm ... commonly found around good-looking men.

Women orgasm more quickly and more often with handsome partners, according to research carried out by anthropologists and psychologists.
Noting that "supporting evidence indicates that female orgasm promotes conception," the researchers concluded that the female orgasm is linked to the urge to produce "quality" offspring.
The study, which was carried out at Pennsylvania State University, focused on the sex lives of 110 heterosexual couples, who reported who orgasmed and how often.
The male subjects were rated for "objectively-measured facial masculinity, observer-rated facial masculinity, partner-rated masculinity, and partner-rated dominance"; observers, as well as the men themselves, were also asked to rated their own attractiveness.
Women whose partners rated as masculine and dominant reported more frequent and earlier-timed orgasms than those whose partners rated less well. The women whose partners were deemed attractive also orgasmed more often during or after male ejaculation.
Frequency of female orgasm as a result of masturbation was not predicted by the male partner's attractiveness.
"Thus, possible conception-promoting correlates of female orgasm may be especially effective and/or likely when copulation occurs with masculine males," the authors wrote in the study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour. "These results appear to support a role for female orgasm in sire choice."
smh.com.au

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/handsome-men-mean-better-sex-20110722-1hryi.html#ixzz1So3gldr9

Sex attacker's alcohol lure

A man who offered a 14-year-old girl a cigarette and alcohol before raping her could strike again, police fear.
The girl was at the Bayswater train station in Melbourne’s east when she had a conversation with two men on June 26.
One of the men offered the young girl a cigarette and to buy her alcohol before they walked off together down the Mountain Highway towards a local bottle shop.

Police wish to speak to this man in relation to a sexual assault in Melbourne's outer suburbs. Photo: Victoria Police

The attacker, thought to be in his 20s, became angry when the bottle shop was closed, and for unknown reasons became hostile towards the girl, digitally raping her and chasing her to a nearby park.
At the park he threw her on to the ground and attempted to rape her again but she fought him off, Detective Inspector Paul Binyon said.
She then ran to the Bayswater train station where she called her mother to come and pick her up.
‘‘The fact that he followed her and escalated it, we do hold concerns that in the same sort of situation if it was presented to him he may target other young girls and try and commit other offences,’’ Detective Inspector Binyon said.
‘‘I think in this day and age everyone has to be careful about their movements and be aware of their surroundings.’’
The offender, who spoke with a heavy New Zealand accent, was of Maori appearance and told the girl his name was James.
Detective Inspector Binyon said police had not yet linked the attack to any other crimes in the area.
He said the girl’s parents did not know where she was at the time of the attack, which happened about 7.45pm on a Sunday night.
‘‘I think there is a message for parents there that they need to be aware where their children are,’’ he said.
Investigators have released images and CCTV footage of a man who they believe can assist with their inquiries.
He was wearing a beanie, shorts and had a bag slung over his shoulder.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/sex-attackers-alcohol-lure-20110722-1hrl3.html#ixzz1So3T9dYj

1 day, 205 stations, 17 hours, 25 minutes

Lachlan Campbell rides again. Photo: Paul Rovere

YOU can call him eccentric. Perhaps you can even call him a trainspotter. But you can't call Lachlan Campbell a quitter.
In January, a delay on the Epping line foiled the 19-year-old's first attempt to achieve his dream: to stop at every railway station in Melbourne on one day.
Like Everest, this mountain had been conquered before Mr Campbell got to it.
In 2008, Melbourne man Heath Tully zipped through the 369-kilometre journey in 18 hours and 18 minutes.
Ever since, Mr Campbell - a psychology student and son of a train driver - has been planning to better that time, by almost an hour.
Yesterday, he tried a second time.
Why? ''Why not?'' he said. ''Everyone's got a goal; it's mine. It's better than wasting your life away in front of a computer.''
A precise schedule, which Mr Campbell spent a year developing, is required to get to every station in less than 18 hours. It all falls apart if too many trains are late or cancelled.
In January his schedule was thrown into disarray after Metro cancelled one train, and then a sick passenger delayed another one.
Yesterday, Mr Campbell launched his journey at 4.32am, on the first train from Hurstbridge.
''I only slept a couple hours,'' he said mid-morning, as he sailed through Mooroolbark station. He put the lack of sleep down, in part, to ''the excitement of doing it again''.
Using his concession myki card (70¢ cheaper than using a Metcard), Mr Campbell was travelling yesterday with not just one companion, as he had in January, but six.
''It's got more of an uplifting feel to it, [being] with others,'' he said, cheerfully, late yesterday afternoon.
In the lead-up to yesterday's attempt, Mr Campbell contacted Transport Minister Terry Mulder, who did not respond, and Metro, to tell them of his attempt.
A Metro employee wrote back, wishing him the best of luck.
Mr Campbell's assessment of the system yesterday would have been music to the ears of Metro's public relations team.
''Everything's been pretty much running to clockwork, which has been a bit of a shock.''
Fewer than five trains over the course of the day were significantly late, and none were cancelled, he said. And, in a rare good news story for transport in this city, Mr Campbell last night achieved his dream, completing his circuit of Melbourne's rail system in a record 17 hours and 25 minutes.
''I just feel relieved it's over,'' he said, as he took the final train to Pakenham.
Having climbed his personal mountain, The Age asked Mr Campbell last night what challenge he would tackle next.
The answer should have come as no surprise.
''I will be doing it again. There are heaps of little extensions to the network.''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/1-day-205-stations-17-hours-25-minutes-20110721-1hr66.html#ixzz1So2uL8sm

Bright lights, big history

Gertrude Street comes alive in a celebration, writes Carolyn Webb.
BEHIND the trendy boutiques and cafes there's a strong Aboriginal presence in Gertrude Street, Fitzroy. For 25-year-old indigenous artist Arika Waulu, it's a precious community, not just somewhere to go for coffee.
In the late 1970s Waulu's grandmother, Alma Thorpe, helped found the Fitzroy Stars youth club and gym, patronised by world champion boxer Lionel Rose.
In 1982 it was renamed MAYSAR, the Melbourne Aboriginal Youth, Sport and Recreation centre, at the corner of Gertrude and George streets. Not just a sports club, it became a place of support for indigenous people.
Inside MAYSAR today, it is vibrant; there is still a boxing gym but also a kitchen, art studio, meeting rooms, internet cafe and multimedia business.
The exterior of the two-storey Victorian building, however, is rather opaque, with frosted ground floor windows.
''People could walk past for years and not even know what that place is,'' says Waulu. ''It is kind of hidden, even though it's a big building.''
She aims to draw attention to MAYSAR at the Gertrude Street Projection Festival, which begins tonight.
Waulu has co-created an animation sequence that will be projected onto the building's exterior for the next 10 nights.
The festival began in 2008 with eight buildings. This year, there are 29. New participants include two housing commission towers.
Also new is Stories Around the Fire, a free storytelling night featuring elders and activists who will talk about the area's indigenous heritage on Sunday at 5pm at Atherton Gardens housing estate.
Waulu says MAYSAR members asked her to create something ''to represent them and what they're about''.
Festival director Kym Ortenburg teamed Waulu with Yandell Walton, a Collingwood-based, internationally recognised video installation artist, who drew out Waulu's ideas and mentored her on animation and projection. The result is a five-minute series of images that run on a loop. There are silhouetted Aboriginal dancers collaged with old photos of boxers and footballers; in the next sequence, photos of the eyes of current MAYSAR people are imposed on the glittering leaves of an animated tree to represent heritage, community and growth.
The wider story of local Aborigines is told with simple but powerful images: firstly with video and animation of native plants growing; next with animated images of the Australian coat of arms amid fire, representing white intervention; and then with images of long bullrushes to symbolise regrowth after fire.
For Waulu, it's a very personal piece, and her grandmother and MAYSAR are not the only link to Gertrude Street.
In 1933, her great-grandmother, Edna Brown, aged 16, was forced to come to Melbourne from the Framlingham Aboriginal mission near Warrnambool to work as a domestic.
In 1972, Brown helped set up the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service, with one voluntary doctor, in a slum they refurbished at 229 Gertrude Street.
Brown worked there as a cleaner but also helped treat homeless people in the Exhibition Gardens and the street.
She also helped set up the Aboriginal Funeral Fund, to give indigenous people a dignified burial.
Waulu's parents, Marjorie Thorpe and Kelvin Onus, met at the Builders Arms pub in Gertrude Street in 1980, and both worked at the health service. They were in netball and football clubs that trained at MAYSAR, and when Waulu was a child in the late 1980s she would spend school holidays there dancing, painting, playing games and watching movies.
When Waulu was six, the family moved to Lake Tyers, near Bairnsdale, but would visit relatives in Gertrude Street when in town.
Waulu moved back to Melbourne when she was 15 and the Fitzroy connection continued, with grandmother Alma on the Health Service board and her great-aunt Rose Dwyer and several cousins health workers there.
Waulu's aunt, Glenda Thorpe, is the current head of both the health service and MAYSAR.
Waulu feels ''entwined'' with Gertrude Street and proud to talk about it.
''It's been a big part of our history for many generations. I feel connected to this area, proud to come from a family that has been a big part of building the Aboriginal community,'' she says.
''I hope my piece unveils the hidden MAYSAR, which is the great community happenings in that place, behind those doors.''

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/bright-lights-big-history-20110721-1hqrx.html#ixzz1So2QT4KK

Alleged Monroe sex film for auction

Marilyn Monroe

A Spanish collector plans to auction what he claims is a newly discovered 8-mm version of a film purportedly showing Marilyn Monroe having sex when she was still an underage actress known as Norma Jean Baker.
A Marilyn Monroe expert, however, says the actress in the film is someone else, considerably heavier and less feminine than the legendary film star.
"That's not Marilyn. The chin is not the same, the lips are not the same, the teeth are not the same," said Scott Fortner, who has a sizeable collection of Monroe memorabilia, including a belt he said proves how much more petite she was. "Marilyn was a tiny little thing. And I know that for a fact. I own her clothing."
Collector Mikel Barsa said in an interview on Wednesday that he wants at least $US500,000 ($A466,984) for the sexually explicit 6 1/2 minute, grainy black-and-white film, which he says was made before 1947, when Monroe was not yet 21.
He said it's an exact copy of a 16-mm film discovered more than a decade ago. Barsa brokered a sale of that film to a European magazine in 1997, which he said in turn sold some 600,000 copies before a collector bought the original 16-mm reel for $US1.2 million ($A1.12 million). Copies of that version are still circulating on the internet.
"People with romantic notions have denied that it's Marilyn Monroe, and have invented stories" to raise doubts about the film, Barsa said in his Buenos Aires office, which is lined with pictures from his days as a concert promoter. "This film shows the real Marilyn Monroe - it was only later that the studios discovered her and transformed her."
The face of the woman in the film looks considerably different from the Monroe who emerged later as a star, but more similar to the Monroe seen in one of her first movies, 1949's Love Happy, which shows the actress before she lost weight, added a beauty spot on her left cheek and became one of Hollywood's most enduring stars.
Barsa said he has no idea how the two original copies ended up in the hands of the people who sought his help selling them, and he refused to identify any of the principals involved. He said that in the 1940s, sex films were often made using side-by-side 16-mm and 8-mm cameras, since audiences used both formats.
The collector said that Mark Roesler of Indianapolis-based CMG Worldwide, which has managed the image and estate of Monroe, threatened to sue after the earlier version surfaced in 1997. Barsa said nothing ever came of it after the owners offered to sell the film to CMG.
Roesler didn't respond on Wednesday to two emails and a phone call requesting comment.
Barsa says he plans to auction the film himself on August 7 at a memorabilia collectors fair that he has organised in Buenos Aires, and is hoping for publicity similar to the scandal he generated when he screened the 16-mm version at a similar fair in Madrid in 1997. News coverage of his auction is already creating another buzz on the internet.
His part of the deal is a 10 per cent sales commission, he said.
A variety of sexually explicit films and pictures have been attributed to Monroe over the years, fostering a long and unresolved debate.
"In the Marilyn community, people have debated this for years and years and for the most part it's widely believed that this is not her," Fortner said.
Still, even Fortner said Monroe's image changed considerably as she became a star - that she had some plastic surgery, learned how to hold her face differently in modelling school and adopted a mole on her left cheek. "I actually think it moved from time to time," Fortner said.
Monroe died of an overdose of sleeping pills in 1962 at 36.
AP

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/movies/alleged-monroe-sex-film-for-auction-20110722-1hrua.html#ixzz1So2FmWu3

Man of Steel to unveil hot look

The jeans-clad super hero.

THE Man of Steel is back on the market looking for love. Superman, who has been married to star reporter Lois Lane since 1996, will be a bachelor again when DC Comics relaunches its entire superhero line in September.
''We just felt there were more interesting, creative stories to mine in that time period prior to him getting married,'' says Jim Lee, one of DC's co-publishers. ''There was something special and unique about the love triangle that existed between Clark Kent, Superman and Lois Lane,'' Lee said.
''By restoring that essential part of his mythology, we would take Superman and Clark Kent in directions that felt more contemporary.''
There will be two Superman-centric titles in DC's The New 52 line. One is set in the present and features Superman sporting a new costume (red briefs are out, Kryptonian ceremonial armour is in), a new villain who is more powerful than the Man of Steel, Clark Kent as a bachelor and Lois Lane dating a co-worker.
The other title, Action Comics No. 1, will be set five years in the past. This book promises a younger, brooding, outsider version of Superman who is still finding his way in the world as an alien from the planet Krypton.
His outfit? Jeans, T-shirt and a cape.
''Does he wear a skintight ballet suit? No, I don't think anyone falls for it,'' writer Grant Morrison said. ''And if the skintight ballet suit has to come into it, I want to have a really good explanation.''
Action Comics No. 1 in 1938 introduced the world to Superman, and the new one is taking a similar approach.
It tells a ''Year One'' story in which Superman wins the public's acceptance - and accepts mankind as well.
Lee is looking forward to offering a truly different ''Man of Tomorrow''.
''Maybe we've grown too comfortable,'' he said. ''Part of the change is to tell people, 'Look, you may think you know Superman, but you don't.' There's a lot of great stuff that hasn't been presented before.'' USA TODAY

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/man-of-steel-to-unveil-hot-look-20110721-1hqp7.html#ixzz1So1mnAwC

Clash of the coupons: Aussie brothers cash in again after blocking US giant Groupon

After cashing in for $80 million on selling their online coupon business to a consortium led by James Packer, two Australian brothers have now brought one of the biggest online brands to heel in a further windfall worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Melbourne-based brothers Gabby and Hezi Leibovich - who recently sold a chunk of their lucrative daily deal sites CatchOfTheDay and Scoopon at a believed valuation of $200 million - registered groupon.com.au and its associated trademark and business name before its rival, US coupon giant Groupon, revealed its plans to launch in Australia.
The Leibovich brothers' sites are very similar offerings to those of Groupon. Both market coupons for different items each day and prices are heavily discounted as each item is bought by a large group of people.

Andrew Mason, chief executive officer and co-founder of Groupon. Photo: Bloomberg

The opportunistic move to snap up Groupon's Australian trademark and domain name forced Groupon to launch in Australia under a different brand, Stardeals.
Last year Groupon took the Leibovich brothers to court, filing cases in the US, New Zealand and Australia. It hoped to force the Leibovich brothers to hand over the name.
Now they've agreed to settle and it's understood the Australian brothers have been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to hand over the groupon.com.au domain name and local trademark.

Billionaire James Packer. Photo: Nic Walker

A study released in July by the research firm Telsyte showed the Australian group-buying market was booming.
"The market grew from $71.8 million in Q1 2011 to $123.9 million in Q2 2011, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 72 per cent. The market is on track to reach or exceed $400 million by the end of 2011," Telyste said.
In US court documents obtained by Fairfax Media, publisher of this website, Hezi Leibovich says in a declaration to the court that the Groupon business name, trademark and domain name was purchased "solely for defensive purposes ... to ensure that neither plaintiff [Groupon in the US] nor any other entity could use the name to offer online discount voucher services that might lead to confusion in Australia with Scoopon".
Hezi also makes note of the fact that his groupon.com.au domain name had "not conducted any business in Australia or elsewhere" and that the website was "not in operation" and returned a "server not found" message when viewed using a web browser, effectively meaning that the Leibovich brothers weren't even using the website to sell goods and had only purchased it to block competitors from using it.
Documents filed by Groupon in the US allege the Leibovich brothers had copied their idea and were infringing on their copyright, among a number of other allegations including the Leibovich's knowing about Groupon in the US before registering groupon.com.au, the trademark "Groupon" and the business Groupon Pty Ltd.
Groupon also alleged that the brothers' Scoopon website home page was "nearly identical to Groupon's home page" and that supporting web pages were "similarly indistinguishable from Groupon".
Groupon was seeking damages which it had not put a price on in the US court.
Separate to lodging a case in the US, Groupon lodged an intellectual property action in the Federal Court in Victoria last August in an attempt to gain access to the groupon.com.au domain name, trademark and business name.

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Thursday, 21 July 2011