Created by
artist Dessa Kirk. In Greek mythology
the winged Eos was the goddess of the dawn, and rose from her home at the edge
of Oceanus, the Ocean, dispersed the mists of the night and opened the gates of
heaven every day so her brother, Helios, the sun, could ride his chariot across
the sky. Generally depicted as a
supernaturally beautiful woman, her tears were considered to be the morning
dew. Eos is one of the second generation
of gods and goddesses in Greek mythology called the Titans. See more than 40 pieces of public art
at: http://www.columbus.in.us/listings/index.cfm?action=showSub&catID=336&subcatID=2929
Housing shortage in Columbus, Indiana
Cummins Inc. http://www.cummins.com/cmi/ is bussing
in college interns, mostly engineering students, from Indianapolis, Bloomington
and Greenwood and also asking Columbus-area homeowners if they want to rent
rooms to its interns. A large apartment
and parking structure is currently being built downtown to meet housing
demands.
Although the federal government has increased protection for passengers in the last
two years, the legal fine print in airlines' contracts of carriage really
spells out the agreement you've got with the carrier when you buy a ticket. In a nutshell: The airlines promise to get you from one place
to another — but they don't guarantee they'll do so on time. Many people taking to the skies this summer
for vacations don't even know that contracts of carriage exist. Although located on each airline's website,
they're not always prominently displayed. On Delta Air Lines' website, for instance, you
have to scroll down to the bottom of the home page and click on the link for
"Legal." If travelers do find
the contracts, they typically don't have the patience to go through pages and
pages of legalese, or find that it's too often skewed against them. "They're written by airline lawyers for
airlines," says Robert Mann, founder of
airline consulting firm R.W. Mann & Co.
The Transportation
Department has tipped the scales back toward consumers by ruling:
•Airlines can no longer
let domestic flights linger on airport tarmacs for longer than three hours or
international flights for longer than four hours. If passengers are stuck on
tarmacs for more than two hours, airlines have to give them food and water and
access to bathrooms.
•Airlines are required to
refund baggage fees if the bag is lost.
•Advertised airfares must
include all government taxes and other fees once hidden behind asterisks or in
footnotes. All baggage fees must also be included when you book and pay for a
ticket online.
•Customers can change
their reservations without having to pay re-booking fees within 24 hours of
making them.
•Previously, if a flight
was oversold and you were involuntarily kept off the plane, you'd get up to
twice the value of the one-way price of the ticket, up to $800. Now you can get as much as four times the
value, or $1,300. "We've never had
the (Transportation Department) taking on the carriers for consumer protection
as they did the last year," says Alexander Anolik, a San Francisco-based
travel lawyer. But are the new
protections enough? Consumer complaints
against U.S. airlines are on the rise. In April of this year, there were 865
complaints filed with the Transportation Department against U.S. airlines, up
from 745 in April 2011. "I think
the one clause in most contracts that consumers should take to heart is the one
that reads, basically, 'schedules are not guaranteed,' " says George
Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog.com. "Airlines can change flight times,
cancel flights, eliminate routes at will, and there's nothing the consumer can
do other than, in some cases, ask for a refund of the fare paid." "In the U.S., it is effectively a
free-for-all," says Andrew Thomas, author of Soft
Landing: Airline Industry Strategy, Service and Safety. "Passengers are at the mercy of the
carrier. The airlines have blocked any
substantial attempt by the government to make it similar to the EU." That wasn't always the case. Before 1978,
when U.S. airlines were regulated by the government, there was a "Rule
240" that required carriers to put a passenger on another flight or
another airline if they were to blame for a delayed or canceled flight. http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2012-06-25/Airline-contracts-limit-what-passengers-should-expect/55815466/1
June 26, 2012 Microsoft
paid $1.2 billion to acquire Yammer, an enterprise social network company. Yammer's got a lot of users -- and Microsoft
plans to use that base to make the Office suite more useful. If you've never heard of Yammer, Microsoft's
new billion-dollar darling, you're not out of the loop; it just means you don't
keep up with corporate social networks.
Think of a network like Facebook,
complete with sharing and news posting capabilities, but limited to employees
of a single organization. That's Yammer.
It's designed to let users within
organizations communicate and collaborate on projects -- and on June 25
Microsoft paid $1.2 billion to acquire the company. To be fair, Yammer brings quite a bit to the
table. Founded in 2008 by former Paypal
COO David Sacks, it boasts a customer base of more than 200,000 companies,
which translates into about 5 million users. It's matured since its early days as a
microblogging service, and now boasts file and photo sharing, mobile clients,
public and private groups within a network, and solid security. Back in 2010 Sacks said that 70 percent of Fortune 500 companies were using
Yammer for collaboration. Jeff
Ward-Bailey http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2012/0626/Yammer-Microsoft-s-billion-dollar-social-bid
The National Geographic Channel is preparing to collect your tweets, then broadcast
them into space via the world-famous Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico
this August. The channel is producing a
show about the so-called Wow signal, a 72-second transmission from space
received in 1977. The extremely unusual
frequency of the signal is why it’s still one of the high points of SETI,
the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. It’s also why the astronomer who picked it up
wrote “wow!” in the margins of his printout.
To mark the 35th anniversary of the signal — and heavily promote its show UFO
Chasers — the channel
is asking you to tweet on July 29 with the hashtag #ufochasers. The resulting tweets will be sent via Arecibo
on August 15.
The tower housing Big Ben, the backdrop to
millions of tourist photos every year, is poised for a right royal re-brand. On June 25, lawmakers passed a motion
officially renaming the London landmark the “Elizabeth Tower” in honor of Her
Majesty’s 60th year on the throne. More
than half of Parliament’s 650 MPs supported the proposal. “The renaming of the Clock Tower to the
Elizabeth Tower is a fitting recognition of the Queen’s 60 years of service,”
Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement. “This is an exceptional tribute to an
exceptional Monarch.” Politicians
know full well that tourists and London residents alike will still call the
96-meter (315-foot) tower “Big Ben.” But
they won’t be far off the mark. “Big
Ben” technically refers to the massive bell perched on top of the tower, which
itself is officially known as the “Clock Tower.” The name “Elizabeth Tower” only affects the
latter designation. The name change
mirrors a tribute made to Queen Victoria—the only other monarch to ever
celebrate a Diamond Jubilee. In the 19th
century, officials at the Houses of Parliament renamed the King’s Tower, which
is situated at the southwest end of the complex, the Victoria Tower. http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/06/27/big-ben-to-become-the-elizabeth-tower-in-honor-of-the-queen/
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