Month: September 2012

  • -40-useful-sites-to-learn-new-skills/

    OST WRITTEN BY: MARC

    Top 40 Useful Sites To Learn New Skills

     

    Learn New Skills

    The web is a powerful resource that can easily help you learn new skills.  You just have to know where to look.  Sure, you can use Google, Yahoo, or Bing to search for sites where you can learn new skills, but I figured I’d save you some time.

    Here are the top 40 sites I have personally used over the last few years when I want to learn something new.

    1. Hack a Day - Hack a Day serves up fresh hacks (short tutorials) every day from around the web and one in-depth ‘How-To hack’ guide each week.
    2. eHow - eHow is an online community dedicated to providing visitors the ability to research, share, and discuss solutions and tips for completing day-to-day tasks and projects.
    3. Wired How-To Wiki - Collaborate with Wired editors and help them build their extensive library of projects, hacks, tricks and tips.  Browse through hundreds how-to articles and then add to them, or start a new one.
    4. MAKE Magazine - Brings the do-it-yourself (DIY) mindset to all of the technology in your life.  MAKE is loaded with cool DIY projects that help you make the most of the technology you already own.
    5. 50 Things Everyone Should Know How To Do - While not totally comprehensive, here is a list of 50 things everyone should know how to do.  It’s a great starting point to learn new skills.
    6. wikiHow - A user based collaboration to build and share the world’s largest, highest quality how-to manual.
    7. Lifehacker - An award-winning daily blog that features tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently.
    8. 100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time - Today, knowing how to use Google effectively is a vital skill.  This list links out to enough Google related resources to make you an elite Google hacker.
    9. Instructables - Similar to MAKE, Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others as the tackle new projects and learn new skills.
    10. Merriam-Webster Online - In this digital age, your ability to communicate with written English is paramount skill.  And M-W.com is the perfect resource to improve your English now.
    11. Lumosity - Learn to improve your memory by playing a series of fun and educational brain training games.
    12. 100 Skills Every Man Should Know - Another compilation article with instructions to help you learn new skills.  This one says it’s geared for men, but I think most of these skills are applicable to women as well.
    13. 5min Life Videopedia - Lot’s of great tutorials and DIY videos.
    14. HowStuffWorks - Knowledge is power.  While this site isn’t exactly geared to help you learn new skills, it contains so much useful information that you’re bound to learn a skill or two while you browse.
    15. StumbleUpon - A collective set of recommendations from thousands of hours of searching by web users who share your interests.  It’s basically a recommendation engine.  Users add to this engine by providing their personal recommendations on what sites are worth your time.  If you select topics and tags of interest like ‘Self-Improvement‘ and ‘DIY,’ you’ll be learning new skills in no time.
    16. Work.com - An extensive directory of how-to guides for beginning entrepreneurs.
    17. Howcast - Hosts professional how-to videos as well as how-to wiki tutorials.  Howcast combines user ideas with the expertise of professional studio video to deliver what is nothing short of amazing, informative content.
    18. VideoJug - The video content on this site covers a variety of topics including informative ‘How To’ and ‘Ask The Expert’ films that guide you step-by-step through everything and anything in life.
    19. MakeUseOf - A booming daily blog that features cool websites, computer tips, and downloads that make you more productive.  Lot’s of insightful tips and tricks to learn.
    20. WonderHowTo - This site is focused on one clear organizing principle: aggregating and linking to truly great, free how-to videos from which you can learn new skills.
    21. SuTree - Another useful aggregator of how-to videos from all around the web.
    22. Zen Habits - The ultimate productivity and self-improvement blog.  Zen Habits is about finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives.  It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, and find happiness.  Lot’s of learning material here.
    23. Academic Earth - Online degrees and video courses from leading universities.
    24. About.com Videos - Another solid collection of how-to video tutorials.
    25. PCWorld How-To - Lot’s of useful tutorials and guides related to fixing and modifying computers and other electronic gadgets.
    26. Spreeder - This site is focused on teaching you one new skill:  speed reading.  And it does a great job of doing so.
    27. Woopid - Watch free technology training videos.  Get help and answer your computer and gadget questions with thousands of video tutorials for PCs, Macs, and various software applications.
    28. DIY Network - A go-to destination for rip-up, knock-out home improvement projects.  The site offers expert answers the most sought-after questions regarding creative projects for DIY enthusiasts.
    29. Scitable - A free science library and personal learning tool that currently concentrates on genetics, the study of evolution, variation, and the rich complexity of living organisms.  The site also expects to expand into other topics of learning and education.
    30. All Recipes - A complete guide to recipes and cooking tips.  If you’d like to learn to be a better cook, this site is for you.
    31. 43 Folders - This site is more about inspiring you to follow-through with your goals than it is about learning new skills.  But I think following-through with your goals is a skill.  Most people never quite get there.
    32. Dumb Little Man - Another awesome productivity and self-improvement blog hosting lots of useful information.
    33. iTunes U - Hundreds of universities — including Stanford, Yale and MIT — distribute lectures, slide shows, PDFs, films, exhibit tours and audio books through iTunes U.  The Science section alone contains content on topics including agriculture, astronomy, biology, chemistry, physics, ecology and geography.
    34. American Sign Language Browser - Teach yourself sign language online.
    35. BBC Languages - Teach yourself a new spoken language online.
    36. Delicious Popular DIY - Lots of popular DIY articles bookmarked by users from all over the web.
    37. Khan Academy - Over 1200 videos lessons covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, physics, chemistry, biology and finance.  Lot’s of educational material to help you learn new skills.
    38. The Happiness Project - Learn the skills necessary to create happiness in your life.
    39. How To Do Things - Another solid collection of how-to tutorials.
    40. ShowMeDo - A peer-produced video-tutorials and screencasts site for free and open-source software.  The large majority are free to watch and download.

    Also, check out these books for more ideas on pertinent life skills:

    Photo by: vramak

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  • Lewis Hamilton warned by McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh of his ‘mistake’ in leaving for Mercedes

    Lewis Hamilton warned by McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh of his ‘mistake’ in leaving for Mercedes

    Martin Whitmarsh has warned Lewis Hamilton that he is making “a mistake” by walking out on his lifelong team, McLaren, to link up with rivals Mercedes.

    Lewis Hamilton warned by McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh of his 'mistake' in leaving for Mercedes
    New start: Lewis Hamilton says he is moving to Mercedes for a ‘fresh challenge’ Photo: EPA
     

    The 2008 world champion on Friday ended weeks of frenzied speculation by confirming his imminent defection from Woking to Brackley, on a three-year deal worth up to $100 million (£62 million).

    Whitmarsh, the McLaren team principal, was adamant that Hamilton, who has been on the British team’s books since the age of 13, would live to regret his choice.

    “Mercedes-Benz is a great partner of ours and they are a great team,” he said. “But anyone leaving McLaren, who wants to win, I think that’s a mistake because I have faith and belief in this team.

    “Whether you measure it over the last four races, four years or 40 years, we’re a fantastic team. I wouldn’t advise anyone to leave McLaren if they want to win. But I’ve got to respect Lewis’s decision and really wish him well.”

     

     

    Hamilton’s announcement was the culmination of one of the most drawn-out transfer sagas in recent Formula One history. But it was not even the first transfer announced on Friday. As predicted in Friday’s Daily Telegraph, McLaren pre-empted Mercedes’ big announcement with one of their own, unveiling Sauber’s Sergio Perez as Hamilton’s replacement.

    Trying desperately to put a positive spin on the departure of arguably the fastest driver currently in Formula One, McLaren claimed that in the 22-year-old Mexican and Jenson Button they now had the “perfect blend of youth and experience”.

    It may be an exciting line-up, and Perez may be rich in potential, but even Whitmarsh did not deny later that Hamilton had been their No 1 choice.

    “I know we made [Hamilton] a very, very big financial offer, bigger than I believe any Formula One driver is enjoying today,” he said. “We went a long way to make a good offer to Lewis but ultimately it takes two to get to a signature. We clearly didn’t agree terms and we’ve moved in a different direction.”

    The question now is whether heads will roll at McLaren for failing to get Hamilton to sign. It would seem doubtful although executive chairman Ron Dennis was clear at Monza three weeks ago that it was Whitmarsh’s responsibility to get Hamilton over the line. He failed to achieve that.

    Asked about Dennis’s reaction to that failure and whether he might contemplate retiring as a result of having let one of the fastest drivers of his generation slip through his fingers, Whitmarsh chose to avoid the question.

    “Ron is a racer,” he said. “He understood. What is important is actually what we are doing with the team and he knows, as we have monitored Sergio over a number of years, that he is a massively exciting talent and we have the opportunity now to mould him and we like doing that. We are looking forward to completing this season successfully and also to next year.”

    Whitmarsh, who said that Hamilton had broken the news to him on Wednesday in an “emotional” phone call from Asia, where he stayed after last weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, instead tried to focus on Perez and what he could bring to the team.

    There has been plenty of speculation that McLaren’s title sponsors Vodafone may be about to pull out and that what Perez might bring to the team is lots of much-needed cash via his backers Telmex, but Whitmarsh denied that had been a motivating factor.

    McLaren are understood to be paying Perez around £7 million per season, and Whitmarsh said there were no “side deals”.

    “I did have a conversation with [Telmex board member] Carlos Slim yesterday but we have made an offer to Sergio, we are paying him well and there are no side deals,” he said.

    “I’m not saying that ultimately there won’t be other fresh partners coming forward because of it but that wasn’t the motivating force. We’ve got a tremendously strong partner line-up of investors, that’s solid and we are confident and comfortable with that.”

    Whitmarsh added that other drivers such as Force India’s Paul di Resta had also been in the frame but ultimately fell down because McLaren have already been down the all-British route and it would be hard to top the Hamilton-Button partnership.

    “I know Paul very well and the true answer is that I rate him but it would probably have been continuing a little bit too much with the British theme to have gone that route,” he said.

    Hamilton said his decision to quit his boyhood team had been motivated by the desire for a “fresh challenge”.

    McLaren have won 16 times and finished on the podium four times in the period since Mercedes returned as a full works team in 2010.

    But despite his new team having won just once, with six podiums, in the same period Hamilton said he was confident he could help begin a “new chapter” for the famous Silver Arrows. “Together, we can grow and rise to this new challenge,” he said.

    Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn, meanwhile, claimed that despite speculation to the contrary his team had not offered more money than McLaren.

    “Lewis didn’t come here because we offered more money, because we didn’t,” he said. “I think for Lewis, the attraction was being part of that building structure – the creation of the team. Not walking into a ready-formed, successful package; it was being part of the process of building that package.”

     

     Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2012

  • Maurice H. Keen Dies at 78; redefined Chivalry

    Balliol College

    Maurice H. Keen

     

     

    ale University Press

    Mr. Keen’s book, “Chivalry.”

     

     

    September 25, 2012
     

    Maurice H. Keen Dies at 78; redefined Chivalry

     

    By PAUL VITELLO

     

    Honorable men, as they were called in the golden age of chivalry, were rich enough to outfit a squadron of knights and brutal enough to lead them into battle, often culminating in the killing and plundering of civilian populations. The code of chivalry defined honor in ways that are familiar to people today — as honesty, loyalty, courage — and in ways that are not. It was honorable, for example, to show mercy to a defeated enemy, but only if the enemy was a social equal.

    There was no dishonor in slaughtering commoners.

    Maurice H. Keen, a historian who presented that unvarnished view of the medieval nobility in his book “Chivalry,” was one of a small group of scholars in the 1980s who re-examined the record of the chivalric knights, long portrayed in romantic literature as do-gooders, and who found it — with all due respect to Thomas Malory and Walter Scott — incomplete.

    There were many do-gooders and brave fellows, no doubt. And the chivalric code did moderate and civilize men’s behavior, especially toward women of equal status. But Mr. Keen, who died on Sept. 11, argued that chivalry was mainly a “cult of martial virtues” for men and about men, charting a path to glory, honor and wealth. From about 1150 to 1500, he wrote, obeying its code was the only way for aristocrats to move higher on the social ladder and the only way for commoners to reach the first rung.

    “Chivalry, in effect, was a protection plan for the warrior class,” said Richard P. Abels, chairman of the history department at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., and a professor of medieval history. It was a system, he said, for shielding knights and their families (and no one else) from the worst excesses of war.

    Mr. Keen, whose books on medieval history have been taught at the Naval Academy as well as at the United States Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., died in Oxford, England, after several years of declining health. He was 78. His death was announced by Balliol College, where he was named an emeritus fellow in 2000 after four decades as a teacher and administrator.

    Mr. Keen wrote or edited almost a dozen books on the Middle Ages. But “Chivalry,” published in 1984, was his most influential because it so sharply redefined medieval court life, challenging a view that had been dominant for hundreds of years.

    In that view, chivalry was a code of behavior that emerged in the 12th century as a kind of self-improvement guide for men — who spent a lot of time killing — seeking to familiarize themselves with Christian values and humane principles and become gentlemen. It promoted fair fighting, for example, and the protection of women and children.

    “Keen said that that was true enough, but only part of the picture,” said Clifford Rogers, a professor of history at West Point. “His great insight was that chivalry was synonymous with the law of war — an international body of law agreed upon by the aristocratic classes across just about all of Europe, from the 12th to the 15th centuries.”

    Mr. Keen’s book was among the first to “cut through all the stuff about courtly love and show that chivalry was an important part of the social history of warfare,” said C. Stephen Jaeger, a medieval historian and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois.

    The code was enforced in chivalric courts. To illustrate how they worked, Mr. Keen cited the trial of a 14th-century knight charged with rape, arson, murder and kidnapping. The knight was convicted and executed — but not for those barbarous acts.

    “The knight had carried out his violence after a truce was declared between the two sides in the combat,” Mr. Rogers related. “He was executed for violating the truce, not for murder and rape. Murder and rape were accepted as the norm.”

    Still, for Mr. Keen, the chivalric code was a turning point in social history.

    “Its most important legacy was its conception of honor,” he wrote, one that incorporated traits still considered the gold standard of human behavior: loyalty to friends, courage in combat, personal honesty, athletic skills, protection of the weak, courtesy toward all and, he wrote, “the constant quest to improve on achievement.”

    Maurice Hugh Keen was born in London on Oct. 30, 1933, to Harold Hugh Keen and the former Catherine Cummins. His father was a university administrator, his mother an artist. After military service, he graduated from Balliol College in 1957 and earned a master’s degree in history there in 1961. He remained a Balliol fellow throughout his professional life.

    His survivors include his wife, Mary, and three daughters.

    Mr. Abels said he had assigned Mr. Keen’s “Chivalry” many times for his Naval Academy class “The Age of Chivalry and Faith.”

    It is an important source book on the roots of military culture and the social history of warfare, he said — although, he added, “I find myself disillusioning my students year after year when they discover chivalry wasn’t what they thought it was.”

     
    Copyright. 2012. The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved
     

     

  • Gordon Parks: ‘A Lasting Love’

    September 27, 2012, 5:00 AM2 Comments

    Gordon Parks: ‘A Lasting Love’

    By JAMES ESTRIN

    What can you know about Gordon Parks by looking at his photos? He was a sophisticated photographer and one of the most eloquent voices for the poor and oppressed in the middle part of the 20th century. He was a lover of beauty, particularly in women, and he knew how to tell a good story (both in photographs, film and in a conversation between friends). You can easily discern these things by looking at his work. If you can find the images.

    LESSONS
    Gordon Parks

    DESCRIPTION

    Gordon Parks was born 100 years ago this year (he died in 2006), and Steidl will offer a five-volume monograph of his career. On Lens, previous posts discuss Mr. Parks’s work:

    Though he was quite famous for being a filmmakerand the first African-American photographer for Life magazine, until this year, the 100th anniversary of his birth, most of his photographs, except for a few iconic images, were not widely known. That’s changing this week as the publisher Gerhard Steidl’s famed presses print “Gordon Parks: Collected Works,” a comprehensive five-volume collection of Mr. Parks’s photographs.

    Covering his career from the Farm Security Administration in the early 1940s to his later Life magazine photo essays, the collection reveals the depth of his talent and his mastery of the photo essay form. There are more than 900 plates and more than 1,200 pages, including his brilliant fashion photographs and portraits as well as a full volume of the actual Life magazine spreads. More than a third of the images have never been published before.

    DESCRIPTIONGordon Parks, courtesy The Gordon Parks FoundationUntitled, Shady Grove, Ala. 1956.

    The handsome boxed set will retail for $285 and includes essays by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Deborah Willis, Maurice Berger, Bobby Baker Burrows and the co-editors Peter W. Kunhardt Jr. and Paul Roth. It is being produced in partnership with The Gordon Parks Foundation. The foundation’s mission is to preserve, protect and promote Mr. Parks’s work and to help young artists through grants and scholarships.

    Just as his fame as a magazine photographer was reaching its peak in the early 1970s, he stopped being mainly a photographer and became a filmmaker. Mr. Parks published five autobiographies, although there were few books that showed the depth and breadth of his work. Outside of the photo essay “Flavio,” of a young boy living in extreme poverty, and dying of tuberculosis in a slum outside Rio de Janeiro , it is mainly Mr. Parks’s individual images that are known. When he edited his work for exhibits or books he usually picked just a few of the best images from a few stories.

    DESCRIPTIONGordon Parks, courtesy The Gordon Parks FoundationLangston Hughes, Chicago. 1941.

    “I think people anecdotally know that Gordon Parks is a great photo essayist, but most people have never seen all of his picture essays,” said Mr. Roth, who is the senior curator of photography at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington. “And of course they were Life picture essays so they weren’t always full edits, full actualizations, of the stories,” he said.

    Mr. Parks often explored the effects of hatred, bigotry and poverty — subjects he knew firsthand from his childhood — as Mr. Gates writes in his essay:

    Born on Nov. 30, 1912, in Fort Scott, Kan., Gordon Parks was the youngest of the 15 children of Andrew Jackson Parks, a tenant farmer, and Sarah Ross, a maid. He came into a world defined by grinding poverty and the pervasive racism of Jim Crow America — and like virtually all African-Americans at the time, his early years predicted only more of the same. Growing up, Parks witnessed the gruesome murders of childhood friends; the early passing of his brother Leroy; the rampant discrimination that pervaded Fort Scott (a place he called “the Mecca of bigotry” in his autobiography, “A Hungry Heart“); and worse.

    Mr. Parks returned to Fort Scott for Life in 1949 to photograph what happened to eight people he went to school with (Slides 7 to 11). In this autobiographical photo essay, you not only see the segregated town where Mr Parks grew up, but also how his life might have been different if he hadn’t left Fort Scott, at 14, after his mother died.

    DESCRIPTIONGordon Parks, courtesy The Gordon Parks FoundationHarlem rooftops. 1948.

    “Gordon Parks: Collected Works” also has an extended edit of his first photo essay for Life, which was published under the headline “Harlem Gang Leader: Red Jackson’s Life Is One of Fear, Frustration and Violence.” Mr. Parks spent months with Mr. Jackson and produced a remarkably in-depth piece that Ms. Willis — an author, curator and chairman of the photography department at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University — wrote about in Volume 2:

    It was about street bravado, and death among members of the Midtowner gang in Harlem. The opening image draws the readers’ attention to the words on the page. Parks’ photograph is a two-page spread, in black-and-white, of a gritty skyline of Harlem at dusk. The panoramic view includes rooftops, chapels, high-rise buildings, and brownstones [above]. A portrait of the sixteen-year-old gang leader and Golden Gloves boxer, Red Jackson, is inserted on the page [Slide 13]; he is framed looking intently away from the camera and through a broken windowpane at the street below. A cigarette hangs between his lips, and his interior fear is palpable with the close framing. Here, Parks shows the remarkably handsome Red in a reflective mood; in the other photographs in the series, he appears daring and in control. Bewilderment is intimated through the high contrast of light and shadow. The emotionally charged photographs show the stark realities of death and the possibility of dying, but also respect, love, strength, and honor. Paradoxically, they embody the beauty of a close-knit group of young men, some with hope, others looking for brotherhood.

    There are also beautiful portraits, extraordinary fashion photos and joyous images of life in Europe by someone who, clearly, really enjoyed life. Despite his focus on societal wrongs, Mr. Parks was an optimist and a humanist.

    In an essay republished in the boxed set, Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks wrote: “The pictures that have most persistently confronted my camera have been those of crime, racism and poverty. I was cut through by the jagged edges of all three. Yet I remain aware of imagery that lends itself to serenity and beauty, and here my camera has searched for nature’s evanescent splendors.”

    The five-volume set by Steidl brings Mr. Parks’s images to the fore, where we can revel in their immediacy and beauty. It allows us to see beyond his fame as the first black photographer for Life and the first black director to make a Hollywood-backed film, and helps clarify Mr. Parks’s legacy as a photographer and as a person. Mr. Kunhardt, co-editor and executive director of the foundation, described him in his foreword in Volume 1: “Parks’ genius, I think, was based on the respect and trust he brought to his subjects. He lived with many of the people he photographed — sometimes in the harshest conditions. ‘I have to live with a family,’ he said, ‘so they accept me as a person, as a big brother, or uncle — so that they have confidence in me and I have love for them. And it is a lasting love.’ ”

    DESCRIPTIONGordon Parks, courtesy The Gordon Parks FoundationUntitled, Harlem. From the series “Harlem Gang Leader.” 1948.
     
     
    Copyright. The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved

  • Lewis Hamilton’s F1 title chase hits buffers at Singapore Grand Prix

    Lewis Hamilton’s F1 title chase hits buffers at Singapore Grand Prix

    • Sebastian Vettel wins ahead of Jenson Button 
    • Result helps Fernando Alonso in drivers’ championship

    Lewis Hamilton
    Britain’s Lewis Hamilton was forced to retire from the Singapore Grand Prix with mechnical failure. Photograph: Sutton Images/Corbis

    Lewis Hamilton‘s world championship bid, which appeared to have developed an irresistible momentum, looks to be in ruins after he dropped out of the Singapore Grand Prix with more than half the race remaining.

    Hamilton came to a standstill with mechanical trouble on the 23rd lap. “We have a gearbox failure,” said a race engineer. “I’m sorry, we did everything we could yesterday.”

    Hamilton was looking to cut into the championship leader Fernando Alonso‘s 37-point lead in the 2012 F1 championship lead. But now he is 52 points behind the Spaniard with just six races remaining.

    Sebastian Vettel won here, just as he did last year, and has now replaced Hamilton as Alonso’s closest challenger, 29 points behind. Before the race, which was ended on the two-hour cut-off because the cars did not have time to complete the 61 laps, Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, said he had never seen Vettel so focused. It could be 2010 all over again, with the German now within sight of a hat-trick of titles.

    For Hamilton, though, he is either winning or retiring at the moment. Having won two of the previous three races he has now failed to finish four times in seven outings. That’s more retirements than Frank Sinatra. He is back in fourth place in the table.

    This was also the fourth time in five races that McLaren, the form horse in terms of the pace of their car, have failed to bring both cars home.

    But there was some consolation for the team, with Jenson Button taking second place at the Marina Bay street circuit, ahead of Alonso, Paul di Resta, Nico Rosberg and Kimi Raikkonen.

    It was also the best career result for Di Resta, which is sweet timing for the Force India driver, who is being linked with a drive with one of the big teams.

    But there was yet another disappointment for Rosberg’s Mercedes team-mate Michael Schumacher, who failed to make the finish for the seventh time this season.

    This time he crashed into the back of Jean-Eric Vergne – the oldest driver on the circuit colliding with the youngest.

    When the celebratory post-race fireworks went off in the warm night air they might have been going off for Alonso. Every time he looks behind there seems to be someone else in second place, which is just as he likes it.

     

  • Cowboys vs. the Mob in Las Vegas of the ’60s

    Sonja Flemming/CBS

    Vegas, with, from left, Jason O’Mara, Dennis Quaid and Taylor Handley, on CBS on Tuesday nights at 10, Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central.

     

    September 24, 2012
    TELEVISION REVIEW

    Cowboys vs. the Mob in Las Vegas of the ’60s

    It’s a tight race, but my vote for the drabbest and least informative title among the new fall television shows goes to CBS’s “Vegas” over some tough competition, including “Arrow,” “Revolution,” “Elementary,” “Partners” and “Nashville,” which is at least the entire name of a city.

    (I imagine a conversation in which a development executive asks, “Wasn’t there a show on a different network, not too long ago, called ‘Las Vegas’?,” and another answers, “It’s O.K., we’re dropping the ‘Las.’ ”)

    In some ways the title doesn’t do justice to the show, which has an amusing premise — cowboys versus mobsters, or “High Noon” meets “The Godfather,” with chorus girls — and a high-class actor, the often underrated veteran Dennis Quaid, making his debut as a TV series star.

    In another way, however, the title fits, because beneath the period details and despite a cast that includes Michael Chiklis, Carrie-Anne Moss and Jason O’Mara, “Vegas” is something profoundly ordinary: a CBS crime procedural, with all the professionalism and limited ambition that tends to imply.

    The pilot on Tuesday gets off to a brisk start, with Mr. Quaid on horseback charging across the dusty runways of the Las Vegas airport in 1960, running down the plane that has spooked his cattle. He’s a rancher and a former military policeman, and his character is based — extremely loosely, you would guess — on Ralph Lamb, who was sheriff of Clark County, Nev., through the 1960s and ’70s.

    The hardheaded fictional Lamb gets into a dust-up with some airport employees and catches the eye of a Chicago mobster, Vincent Savino (Mr. Chiklis), who’s just debarked from the plane and is on his way into town to capture as big a share of the new casino action as he can.

    It’s an elegant, economical opening that sets up the show’s battle lines: the cowboy sheriff will fight the city-slick gangster, as well as corrupt officials and greedy businessmen, for Las Vegas’s soul. There’s an element of romantic fatalism, since Lamb appears to be against development in general — he just wants to get back to his ranch — and we know how that will work out.

    Of course, he still needs to be named sheriff, a formality the show accomplishes by the end of the first episode. A relative of the governor is murdered, and the mayor (Michael O’Neill), looking for someone he can trust, enlists Lamb to help with the investigation. During the entirely routine, inconsequential case, we’re introduced to the rest of the cast that will help Lamb solve future whodunits: his rancher brother (Mr. O’Mara) and son (Taylor Handley), and a female prosecutor (Ms. Moss of the “Matrix” films) who feels out of place in this frontier tale but looks great in snug wool suits.

    Lamb moves across a colorful landscape of location desert scenery and soundstage re-creations of casinos and the old Fremont Street gambling strip in downtown Las Vegas. It’s fun to look at, as are the costumes and the vintage cars and airplanes. A scene in which Lamb and his brother track down Lamb’s son (just before an angry husband takes a potshot at him) is jolting for its view of a spanking-new cookie-cutter subdivision.

    It’s all just window dressing on a standard crime drama, however, and while the pilot sets up running story lines involving the gangster and the officials he controls, they feel squeezed and a little perfunctory. It’s the CBS quality-control bargain: “Vegas” won’t be a wreck like NBC’s “Playboy Club” last season (to pick another show that tried to capitalize on a swinging 1960s backdrop), but the chances that its storytelling will be out of the ordinary are reduced.

    The weight of making “Vegas” into something distinctive is probably on Mr. Quaid: can he prosper in the latter-day Bat Masterson role the way Timothy Olyphant has in FX’s “Justified,” and Robert Taylor has in A&E’s “Longmire”? It’s hard to tell from one episode — Lamb mostly comes across as uptight, marked by an unsettling squint.

    But I wouldn’t bet against Mr. Quaid’s relaxing into the role and turning in one of the more watchable performances of the new season, even if he is playing just another TV detective.

    Vegas

    CBS, Tuesday nights at 10, Eastern and Pacific times; 9, Central time.

    Produced by CBS Television Studios. Greg Walker, Nicholas Pileggi, Cathy Konrad, Arthur Sarkissian and James Mangold, executive producers.

    WITH: Dennis Quaid (Ralph Lamb), Michael Chiklis (Vincent Savino), Carrie-Anne Moss (Katherine O’Connell), Jason O’Mara (Jack Lamb), Taylor Handley (Dixon Lamb) and Sarah Jones (Mia Rizzo).

  • 2012 Formula 1 Grand Prix of Singapore.

    Race Track for 2012 Formula 1 Grand Prix of Singapore.

    In Full Swing in Singapore, on Track and Off

    By SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP

    The Grand Prix provides the perfect backdrop for Singapore’s party scene.

    The Singapore Grand Prix is run at night through the Southeast Asian city-state’s streets, set amid both modern skyscrapers and old colonial architecture and beside the  shimmering waters of Marina Bay.

    Lighting Up the Night

    By BRAD SPURGEON

    Since it began in 2008, the Singapore Grand Prix has lived up to the city-state’s expectations for glitter and business to rival that of Monaco.

    Around the World in Crates and Boxes

    By BRAD SPURGEON

    Behind Formula One’s high-tech sophistication, high-speed danger and jet-set glamour, the real heroics are in just getting there.

    Ferrari’s Felipe Massa lost the world title by a single point to Lewis Hamilton in 2008.

    A Racing Driver’s Rise and Fall in 38 Seconds

    By BRAD SPURGEON

    Felipe Massa’s grasp on the world championship lasted less than a minute in 2008 and then it was gone.

    The Japan Grand Prix at Suzuka is one of the six Formula One races in Asia this season.

    Asia’s Growing Role in Formula One Racing

    By BRAD SPURGEON

    As the series has expanded over the years into Asia, home to six of the 20 races this season, so has the region’s presence throughout Formula One.

    Ferrari is using its new F12 Berlinetta to spearhead its growth in several Asian markets.

    The Ferrari Allure Catches On in Asia

    By SONIA KOLESNIKOV-JESSOP

    Italian auto maker seeks to use Grand Prix races to deepen ties with region as sales grow.

    Jenson Button of McLaren Mercedes.

    Nothing Beats the Sweet Thrill of Victory

    By BRAD SPURGEON

    Q&A with Jenson Button, British driver for McLaren Mercedes and former world champion.

    Cycling Chief Questions Delay on Armstrong File

    By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

    The chief of world cycling’s governing body is questioning why the United States Anti-Doping Agency has not sent him the file of evidence that prompted it to erase Lance Armstrong’s seven Tour de France titles and ban him for life.

     

     

    Copyright. 2012. The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved

  • Singapore GP: Sebastian Vettel wins after Lewis Hamilton retires

    23 September 2012Last updated at14:25 GMT

     

    Singapore GP: Sebastian Vettel wins after Lewis Hamilton retires

    By Andrew BensonChief F1 writer in Singapore

    Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel cruised to victory in the Singapore GP after Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren retired.

    Hamilton headed Vettel from the start but a gearbox failure dealt a major blow to the Briton’s world title hopes.

    Fellow British driver Jenson Button took second in his McLaren from Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who leads Vettel by 29 points in the standings.

    Hamilton slips to fourth, 52 points off the lead with only 150 available, seven points behind Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen.

    The retirement means Hamilton will almost certainly not be able to catch Alonso in the remaining six races, barring some bad luck for the Spaniard, and it remains to be seen whether the latest in a series of disappointments this season has an effect on his future career choice.

    Hamilton is out of contract at the end of the season and has two offers on the table – one to stay with McLaren and one to move to Mercedes.

    Vettel’s pace following Hamilton’s exit suggested the McLaren might have been holding up the Red Bull slightly but Hamilton was in control of the race until his car lost drive on lap 23 coming out of the first chicane.

    Singapore GP results

    1. Sebastian Vettel – Red Bull 2:00:26.144 = 25pts

    2. Jenson Button – McLaren+00:08.959 = 18pts

    3. Fernando Alonso – Ferrari +00:15.227 = 15pts

    4. Paul Di Resta – Force Indi+00:19.063 = 12pts

    5. Nico Rosberg – Mercedes +00:34.784 =10pts

    6. Kimi Raikkonen – Lotus+00:35.759 = 8pts

    7. Romain Grosjean – Lotus+00:36.698 = 6pts

    8. Felipe Massa – Ferrari +00:42.829 = 4pts

    9. Daniel Ricciardo = Toro Rosso+00:45.820 – 2pts

    10. Mark Webber = Red Bull+00:47.175 -1pts

    He had known for about a minute that there was an impending problem.

    “It’s one of the toughest races all year,” said Vettel. “It’s very long, we did the full two hours, the circuit is a killer, there are many bumps and there is no room for error.

    “Obviously I benefited from Lewis’s failure, which I could see for a couple of laps. I’m very happy, it’s such a tough race and very proud to win it.

    “I’d like to dedicate it to Sid Watkins. He will be remembered [as] one of the main reasons we can go out on a circuit like this and be reasonably safe.

    “It’s an incredible weekend for all of us. We have a lot of races left, we just have to use the momentum and keep pushing.”

    That left Vettel in front from Button, Williams’s Pastor Maldonado and Alonso but they raced only until lap 33, when a crash by Narain Karthikeyan’s HRT brought out the safety car.

    Play media
    McLaren's Lewis Hamilton
     

    Singapore GP: Lewis Hamilton ‘gutted’ after retirement

    Maldonado dropped down the order after pitting to change tyres, even though he had made his second pit stop only four laps earlier at the same time as Alonso.

    The Venezuelan, who had qualified second, retired before the race was restarted with a hydraulics problem.

    The re-start came on lap 39, but the cars raced for only half a lap before Michael Schumacher smashed into the back of Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne, who was battling with Sauber’s Sergio Perez.

    It was the second time in succession Schumacher had retired in Singapore after running into the back of another car – and the second time this season after doing the same to Williams’s Bruno Senna in the Spanish Grand Prix.

    He said there was a problem with the car that meant it did not brake in the normal way.

    The race was restarted again on lap 42, when it was already clear it would reach the two-hour time limit before the full 61 laps were complete. In the end it was stopped two short of full distance.

    Vettel and Button exchanged fastest laps for a while before Vettel began to open the gap and establish a comfortable lead. He was eight seconds ahead before backing off on the final lap.

    Behind them, Alonso measured his pace to ensure his tyres would last to the end – they were four laps older than those on the Force India of Paul di Resta behind him.

    Did you know?

    Fernando Alonso has a strong record in Singapore, finishing on the podium in four of the five races held.

    The Scot took an impressive fourth place after a strong qualifying saw him start sixth, ahead of Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg and Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen.

    The second Lotus of Romain Grosjean was seventh, ahead of Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, Toro Rosso’s Daniel Ricciardo and Red Bull’s Mark Webber.

    The closing stages of the grand prix were enlivened by some exciting racing as closely-packed drivers battled for position.

    Massa might have helped secure his Ferrari future with a strong drive, including an improvisational pass on Williams’s Bruno Senna into Turn 13. The Brazilian was last at the end of the first lap after picking up a puncture.

    And both Sauber drivers lost their front wings in separate incidents with Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg.

    SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX 2012, DAY THREE

    • Sunday, 23 September: Highlights on BBC Three at 19:00 BST.

  • Singapore GP: Sebastian Vettel heads Button in second practice

     

    BBC SportFORMULA 1
     
     

    21 September 2012Last updated at11:42 GMT

     

    Singapore GP: Sebastian Vettel heads Button in second practice

    By Andrew BensonChief F1 writer in Singapore

    Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel headed McLaren’s Jenson Button in practice at the Singapore Grand Prix.

    Vettel was 0.311 seconds faster than Button, with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso third from Red Bull’s Mark Webber.

    Continue reading the main story

    “The McLaren looks very good, the Red Bulls are competitive again after Monza, where we knew they were struggling”

    Jaime AlguersuariBBC 5 live analyst

    McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, who closely matched Vettel throughout the day, was fifth fastest after running wide at the final corner on his fastest lap.

    Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen, third in the championship behind Alonso and Hamilton, was 12th fastest.

    The Force Indias of Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg were an impressive sixth and seventh fastest, ahead of the heavily updated Mercedes of Nico Rosberg.

    Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Raikkonen’s team-mate Romain Grosjean completed the top 10, ahead of the second Mercedes of Michael Schumacher.

    Mercedes have adopted a new exhaust system similar to those on the McLaren and Ferrari, directing the gases at the edge of the floor inside the rear tyres to improve aerodynamics.

    But on the face of it the upgrades have not made a significant difference to the team’s competitiveness – Rosberg was 1.45 seconds slower than Vettel and Schumacher was nearly 0.5secs slower than his team-mate.

    After a disappointing race in Monza, which does not suit their car, Red Bull were always expected to bounce back to competitiveness in Singapore.

    Play media
    Sebastian Vettel
     

    New kerbs are better – Vettel

    Vettel was quick all day, trading fastest times with Hamilton until the Englishman’s error on his low-fuel lap on the faster ‘super-soft’ tyres.

    Vettel made no such mistake, and produced an extremely impressive lap to beat Button by 0.311 seconds.

    He made up the time in the final sector of the lap – almost entirely of a succession of 90-degree corners – where he was 0.4secs faster than anyone else.

    “We can be quite happy, let’s see what we do tomorrow,” said Vettel. “It’s only Friday and especially here it’s not very conclusive because some people might be stuck in traffic. All in all most important is the car seemed to work on either tyre and we go from there.”

    Alonso had been confident he would be able to compete for pole position this weekend but did not look quite on the pace.

    The world championship leader was 0.556secs slower than Vettel.

    The German was also fastest in the first session, which began on a damp track after a tropical storm as dusk fell.

    The track dried throughout the earlier session, and Vettel ended up just 0.049secs faster than Hamilton.

    Hamilton ended up 0.624secs slower than Vettel in the second session, but said he felt his error at the final corner had cost him “quite a bit over half a second, so it was good.”

    Singapore GP Second Practice

    1. Sebastian Vettel – Red Bull 1:48.340

    2. Jenson Button – McLaren 1:48.651

    3. Fernando Alonso – Ferrari 1:48.896

    4. Mark Webber – Red Bull 1:48.964

    5. Lewis Hamilton – McLaren 1:49.086

    6. Paul Di Resta – Force India 1:49.300

    7. Nico Hulkenberg – Force India 1:49.339

    8. Nico Rosberg – Mercedes 1:49.790

    9. Felipe Massa – Ferrari 1:50.039

    10. Romain Grosjean – Lotus 1:50.161

    BBC 5 live analyst Jaime Alguersuari predicted qualifying and the race would be very competitive.

    He said: “The McLaren looks very good, the Red Bulls are competitive again after Monza, where we knew they were struggling, and again Alonso [is there]. He is driving fantastically and I expect him to be competitive this weekend.”

    The Ferrari does not appear to have the one-lap pace to compete for pole position but his race run was impressive. Alonso dipped into the 1:54s after five laps whereas Hamilton and Raikkonen started in the low 1:54s but then quickly went out to 1:55s.

    “I would say today was positive even if the first impression is that we are not as competitive as we were in Monza two weeks ago,” said Alonso. “We still lack a bit of performance on tracks like this one, where you need maximum aerodynamic downforce.”

    Ferrari brought new front and rear wings to Singapore but the new rear wing was taken off Alonso’s car before he set his fastest time in the second session.

    Play media
    Jenson Button
     

    Still finding balance – Button

    Ferrari’s head of race operations and factory car assembly Diego Ioverno said the team took it off to provide a comparison with the old wing. He said they were still analysing the data but admitted the new part may not be used for the rest of the weekend.

    He admitted it would be “a bit of a concern” if it turned out that another aerodynamic part that had been intended as an improvement turned out not to be, but emphasised that it was not an unusual situation up and down the pit lane.

    There were relatively few incidents, although Williams driver Bruno Senna did bring the session to a temporary halt when he tagged the wall coming out of Turn 19.

    The impact broke the car’s left-rear suspension and the Brazilian spun to a halt in Turn 20. Marshals were unable to remove the car, forcing officials to stop the session while it was recovered.

    SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX 2012, DAY ONE

    • Friday, 21 September: Second practice 14:25 BST, Live video on the Red Button and online, audio on BBC 5 live sports extra and live text online

    SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX 2012, DAY TWO

    • Saturday, 22 September: Third practice 10:55 BST; Live video on the Red Button and online, audio on BBC 5 live sports extra and live text online. Qualifying 13:00 BST; BBC One, BBC Radio 5 live and live text commentary online

    SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX 2012, DAY THREE

    • Sunday, 23 September: Live race coverage on BBC One from 12:10 BST & BBC Radio 5 live from 13:00 BST & live text commentary online from 12:00 BST. Highlights on BBC Three at 19:00 BST.

  • Zadie Smith’s 10 Rules of Writing

    19 SEPTEMBER, 2012

    Zadie Smith’s 10 Rules of Writing

    By: 

    “Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.”

    In the winter of 2010, inspired by Elmore Leonard’s 10 rules of writingpublished in The New York Times nearly a decade earlier, The Guardian reached out to some of today’s most celebrated authors and asked them to each offer his or her 10 rules. My favorite is Zadie Smith’s list — an exquisite balance of the practical, the philosophical, and the poetic:

    1. When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.
    2. When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.
    3. Don’t romanticise your ‘vocation’. You can either write good sentences or you can’t. There is no ‘writer’s lifestyle’. All that matters is what you leave on the page.
    4. Avoid your weaknesses. But do this without telling yourself that the things you can’t do aren’t worth doing. Don’t mask self-doubt with contempt.
    5. Leave a decent space of time between writing something and editing it.
    6. Avoid cliques, gangs, groups. The presence of a crowd won’t make your writing any better than it is.
    7. Work on a computer that is disconnected from the ­internet.
    8. Protect the time and space in which you write. Keep everybody away from it, even the people who are most important to you.
    9. Don’t confuse honours with achievement.
    10. Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand — but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never ­being satisfied.

    What a fine addition to other timeless wisdom on writing, including Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 rules for a great story, David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and Susan Sontag’s synthesized learnings.

    Smith’s latest novel, NW, seven years in the waiting, came out earlier this month.

    Image via The Guardian

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    Copyright. 2012 Brainpickings.com All Rights Reserved