Tsunami Survival Capsule

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Some inventors are daring. Julian Sharpe, 50, qualifies as one of the most daring. Or just plain nuts. The Seattle inventor plans to test his “tsunami survival capsule” with a plunge over Niagara Falls. He says it will feel like “being rear-ended at 20 miles per hour.”

Sharpe, an aerospace engineer originally from Wales, has built two aluminum prototypes of the tsunami capsules. The vehicles are equipped with food and special air vents. One will sell for $8,000, the other for $10,000. The 2011 Japanese tsunami gave Sharpe the idea to create the capsules. Sharpe will do two Niagara Falls trials, the first with a crash-test dummy, then later in the year he hopes to make the attempt himself.

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Mysterious Yahoo Move

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Marissa Mayer

Even though I have consistently told everyone that more and more people are working from home or other remote locations, the new CEO of Yahoo wants to change all that. In a memo that was distributed to all employees on Friday, Marissa Mayer said that as of June everyone will be required to work at company headquarters.

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The Day We Lost Cable and Internet

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When we arrived home last night after a delightful dinner with my nephew William and his very pregnant wife Rachel (due in a few weeks), we found out that we had no Internet and Cable. It was working yesterday morning before we left for work.

Eliot sprang into action because the Academy Awards is on tomorrow night and we saw every movie nominated. We are in a total panic state because the Verizon repairman is not due until tomorrow. Life without our connection to the outside world makes us feel so isolated. I almost started to twitch.

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Two Generations Later and I Am Still Going Strong (poo, poo, poo)

My mother Ruth with the Champ

My mother Ruth, with the Champ

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. ~Muhammad Ali

At home I am a nice guy; but I don’t want the world to know. Humble people, I’ve found, don’t get very far. ~Muhammad Ali

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.
~Muhammad Ali

I first met Muhammad Ali about two or three years after we started our PR agency. That was 35 years ago. I hired him to do work for one of our clients, BSR (USA), the largest turntable manufacturer at the time. Boy, is that dating me!

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Way Before the Internet

There are a lot of people over 50 who feel that life was better before the Internet. To those folks, I say, scroll down. What were we thinking?

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If You Want to Impress the Kids

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The most advanced video game system was introduced yesterday. All you have to do is read a few sentences, watch the video demo, and then casually talk about the new Sony PlayStation 4 to the younger folks in your life.

They will be so impressed. Sony designed the PlayStation 4 with S.I.S.I.P. which stands for Simple, Immediate, Social, Integration, and Personalization. Each of these areas make the PlayStation 4 stand out from everything else in the video game market. To learn more about it, click here.

Electronic Art

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Digital art is becoming more and more popular. You might want to start collecting as soon as possible because 10 years from now you will be sorry that you didn’t.

Galleries around the world are showcasing digital art as serious pieces of work. Here is one artist who is leading the way.

Nicholas James Gentry is a British artist from London. His art comprises of consumerism, technology, identity and cyberculture in society, with a distinctive focus on obsolete media. Continue reading

I Hate to Exercise

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Everyday when I wake up I tell myself that I am going to exercise immediately. A treadmill, weights, and all kinds of electronic exercise equipment are on the side of my bed. First I have to check my email on my iPhone next to me. Then I decide to read a few newspapers online. About a half hour later, I have to go to the bathroom. I do my business and then realize that I am late for work. I jump into the shower, get dressed, and rush out the door. Another day without exercising.

You can call me lazy but a new study shows that some of us don’t have the right chemistry for exercising. I wanted to tell you about this because as we get older, exercise becomes more important. My doctor recently told me that a half hour on the treadmill several times a week is one of the most important things I have to do to stay healthy. Continue reading

Travel Writer Gets the Boot

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This story is about a travel blogger who was thrown off a recent United Airlines flight on its way to Istanbul because he snapped a few pictures inside the cabin. The airplane was still on the ground. His tale is so frightening that it got retweeted hundreds of times on Twitter yesterday. Continue reading