Neil Dawson (born Christchurch, 1948) is a prominent New Zealand
sculptor. His best known works are large-scale civic
pieces crafted from aluminium and stainless steel, often made using a lattice
of natural forms which between them form a geometric whole. Dawson's best-known
pieces include The Chalice, a large inverted cone in Cathedral Square, Christchurch, and Ferns,
a sphere created from metal fern leaves which hangs above Wellington's Civic Square. Major overseas commissions include Globe,
for the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and Canopy, for
Brisbane's Queensland Art Gallery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Dawson
See
also: http://gibbsfarm.org.nz/dawson.php
Karen Keninger became director of the
National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS)
at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., in March. She is the first person who is blind to direct
the Braille and talking-book program. Keninger
is former director of the Iowa Department for the Blind, a provider of
vocational rehabilitation and independent-living programs and library services
for blind and visually impaired individuals.
Read interview at: http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/newsmaker/karen-keninger
On borrowing digital books from the library by Ann Carrns
E-books may cost less than
physical ones, but the spending quickly mounts when you’re an avid reader and
you download volumes at will. When I got
my credit card bill for my Barnes & Noble account, which feeds my Nook
reader, it gave me pause — and got me wondering about borrowing e-books from my
library. I found that borrowing digital
books isn’t as easy as it should be. A
study released in June from the Pew
Internet & American Life Project found that 12 percent of adults who
read e-books have borrowed from a library. But more than half of e-book borrowers from
libraries reported that the library did not carry a book they wanted, and half
said that at some point they discovered there was a waiting list to borrow the
book. My experience at my local library
mirrors those findings. I logged onto
the Web site (using my card number and PIN, established when I got the card). Then I clicked on a tab that said “Download
audio books and e-books.” To my
disappointment, I wasn’t able to download books wirelessly to my Nook, as I do
when buying books online. Instead, I was
directed to download Adobe’s e-reader software, Digital Editions, to my laptop.
This took a few minutes and wasn’t
entirely intuitive, but it has to be done only once. After downloading the Adobe software, I had
to download the e-book to my laptop first, and then transfer it — with a USB
cable — to my Nook. All a bit of an
annoyance . But one I could brush off, if the reward was a meaty selection of
e-books, gratis. Unfortunately,
the menu is limited. Many publishers are
nervous that borrowing e-books from libraries is too easy and will cut into
digital sales, so they refuse to sell them to libraries, or restrict the number
of times a digital book can be loaned.
Read more at: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/on-borrowing-digital-books-from-the-library/
The bells were ringing across London for the
Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and rang out again to welcome the world to the 2012
Olympic & Paralympics Games. One
thing all the chimes have in common is the work, skill and the history of the
Whitechapel Bell Foundry in the east end of the UK capital city. Records list the foundry as Britain’s oldest
manufacturing company, having been established in 1570 (during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I) and being in continuous business since that date. But it had been thought that the company may
have a longer history and, shortly after the 400 years’ celebration in 1970, a
link was established founders in Aldgate and Whitechapel going back to 1420 (in
the reign of Henry V and 72 years before Columbus sailed for America). At two metres tall and three metres wide, the
bell was designed and then completed by Whitechapel for installation in the
Olympic Park after being cast at a foundry in the Netherlands. The UK firm’s own foundry does not have the
capacity to make such a large bell and sub-contracted the work to Royal
Eijsbouts, located in Asten, Netherlands, founded in 1872. Whitechapel’s famous bells include the
original Liberty Bell (1752), the Great Bell of Montreal and, probably best known
of all, Big Ben at the Palace of Westminster - the Parliament. Cast in 1858, this is the largest bell that
has ever been made at Whitechapel, weighing 13.5 tons. Read more at:
http://www.ukti.gov.uk/lps/tradeindustry/item/352020.html
Carambola, also known as star fruit, is the fruit of Averrhoa carambola, a species of tree native
to the Philippines,
Indonesia,
Malaysia, India, Bangladesh,
and Sri
Lanka. The fruit is popular throughout
Southeast
Asia, the South
Pacific and parts of East Asia. The
tree is also cultivated throughout non-indigenous tropical areas, such as in Latin
America, the Caribbean, and the southern United
States. The fruit has distinctive
ridges running down its sides (usually five, but can sometimes vary); in
cross-section, it resembles a star, hence its name. The entire fruit is edible and is usually
eaten out of hand. They may also be used
in cooking, and can be made into relishes, preserves, and juice drinks. See
pictures at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carambola
Metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas (metro and micro areas) are geographic entities
defined by the Office
of Management and Budget (OMB) for use by Federal statistical agencies in
collecting, tabulating, and publishing Federal statistics. The term "Core Based Statistical
Area" (CBSA) is a collective term for both metro and micro areas. A metro area contains a core urban area of
50,000 or more population, and a micro area contains an urban core of at least
10,000 (but less than 50,000) population. Each metro or micro area consists of one or
more counties and includes the counties containing the core urban area, as well
as any adjacent counties that have a high degree of social and economic
integration (as measured by commuting to work) with the urban core. http://www.census.gov/population/metro/
Aug. 15 is the 100th anniversary
of the birth of Julia Child, the trailblazing TV chef who made French cooking
accessible to many Americans — becoming a jolly presence in our living rooms
and an inspiration in our kitchens. Google
is celebrating her centenary with a colorful homepage Doodle that displays the
array of her talents, from poultry to dessert — with the top of the Google “G”
sitting in the first pot.
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