It’s a living is a book that grew out of more than ten years living and working in Vietnam. When I first came to Vietnam in 2000, my conversation partners were the tea ladies, market vendors, and motorcycle taxi drivers who were a part of my every day. And of all the possible starting points for a conversation, work was inevitably the most engaging.
On Dec. 23, the Federal Reserve System, or the Fed, celebrates 100 years of providing economic insurance for America. While that is certainly not the way most people would describe it, the function of the Federal Reserve system, as defined by the U.S. Congress, is to provide the American economy with three kinds of insurance: maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.
In other words, the Federal Reserve functions to insure and assure the American people that economic professionals who specialize in high finance are going to take intelligent, responsible steps to help make sure the American economy has as many jobs as possible, has prices that are as stable as possible, and that interest rates never get too high.
Amazon.com (AMZN), a company that's diving into everything from tablets and cloud computing to assembling a fleet of trucks to ferry fresh groceries door to door, raised eyebrows Sunday by disclosing that it's developing its own drone air force to deliver customer orders.
Where same-day delivery has been a longtime goal that Amazon, eBay (EBAY) and other online sellers have been working toward, Amazon is envisioning 30-minute to-the-door delivery via its small drones.
Harvard University on Monday reopened four buildings at the heart of its centuries-old campus outside Boston that had been evacuated earlier after the school received an e-mail warning explosives had been planted on the premises.
The Ivy League school said on its online alert system that all four buildings - three classroom facilities and a dorm - had reopened following a sweep by local, state and federal law enforcement officials.
What’s the best way to support a friend going through a hard time? Pop round for a visit? Send flowers? Or ‘like’ their sad status update on Facebook?
That last option has long struck most Facebook users as somehow inadequate, but currently, if a friend posts bad news, there are limited ways to express sympathy. You can click ‘Like’ - hardly the most sensitive response to news of a beloved pet's death - or you can compose a comment to post underneath their status. This may involve pressing as many as 12 different keys in succession and - srsly? - Who has the time? As a result, many a plea for social affirmation has been left hanging awkwardly in the digital breeze without so much as a “u ok hun?” in response.
Now Facebook has a solution; a ‘sympathise’ button which will appear as an option on any status tagged as ‘sad’. Because nothing says “I truly care for you, friend” like pausing for approximately half a second as you scroll down your newsfeed.
You may be wondering why Facebook doesn’t already have the ‘Dislike’ button that users have been requesting for almost as long as the site’s been active. In a Reddit thread back in April, someone with the screen name “Buttraper” (Dislike) asked Facebook engineer Bob Baldwin that very question: “Actions on Facebook tend to focus on positive social interactions,” said Baldwin, quite reasonably. “I don’t think adding a light-weight way to express negative sentiment would be that valuable.”
In other words, the lack of a Dislike button wasn’t based on a design flaw, or a failure to engage with user requests - it was deliberate. Facebook is intended to be used largely as a forum for lightweight boasting, not a substitute for genuine, supportive relationships. If you’re posting sad statuses, you’re not only missing the point of Facebook, you're missing the point of friendship.
Now, however, it seems Facebook is on the brink of a disappointing climb-down. Far from enhancing our digital vocabulary, a sympathise button will only limit the rich expressiveness of online silence. What if you’re sorry your friend has been dumped, but feel the real tragedy is their decision to air this dirty laundry in public? What if you’re so sick of looking at pictures of luxury holidays that you think it only reasonable if their return flight was delayed on the runway for two hours? The campaign for a “schadenfreude” button starts here.
Source: www.independent.co.uk
