Latest news clips 2012.11.01

                    

1.      Storm Barrels Through Region, Leaving Destructive Path

The New York Times     October 29, 2012

Hurricane Sandy battered the mid-Atlantic region on Monday, its powerful gusts and storm surges causing once-in-a-generation flooding in coastal communities, knocking down trees and power lines and leaving more than five million people — including a large swath of Manhattan — in the rain-soaked dark. At least seven deaths in the New York region were tied to the storm.

The mammoth and merciless storm made landfall near Atlantic City around 8 p.m., with maximum sustained winds of about 80 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said. That was shortly after the center had reclassified the storm as a post-tropical cyclone, a scientific renaming that had no bearing on the powerful winds, driving rains and life-threatening storm surge expected to accompany its push onto land.

The storm had unexpectedly picked up speed as it roared over the Atlantic Ocean on a slate-gray day and went on to paralyze life for millions of people in more than a half-dozen states, with extensive evacuations that turned shorefront neighborhoods into ghost towns. Even the superintendent of the Statue of Liberty left to ride out the storm at his mother’s house in New Jersey; he said the statue itself was “high and dry,” but his house in the shadow of the torch was not.

The wind-driven rain lashed sea walls and protective barriers in places like Atlantic City, where the Boardwalk was damaged as water forced its way inland. Foam was spitting, and the sand gave in to the waves along the beach at Sandy Hook, N.J., at the entrance to New York Harbor. Water was thigh-high on the streets in Sea Bright, N.J., a three-mile sand-sliver of a town where the ocean joined the Shrewsbury River.

“It’s the worst I’ve seen,” said David Arnold, watching the storm from his longtime home in Long Branch, N.J. “The ocean is in the road, there are trees down everywhere. I’ve never seen it this bad.”

2.  Billions in Hidden Riches for Family of Chinese Leader

The New York Times   By DAVID BARBOZA   October 25, 2012

 BEIJING — The mother of China’s prime minister was a schoolteacher in northern China. His father was ordered to tend pigs in one of Mao’s political campaigns. And during childhood, “my family was extremely poor,” the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, said in a speech last year.

But now 90, the prime minister’s mother, Yang Zhiyun, not only left poverty behind — she became outright rich, at least on paper, according to corporate and regulatory records. Just one investment in her name, in a large Chinese financial services company, had a value of $120 million five years ago, the records show.

The details of how Ms. Yang, a widow, accumulated such wealth are not known, or even if she was aware of the holdings in her name. But it happened after her son was elevated to China’s ruling elite, first in 1998 as vice prime minister and then five years later as prime minister.

Many relatives of Wen Jiabao, including his son, daughter, younger brother and brother-in-law, have become extraordinarily wealthy during his leadership, an investigation by The New York Times shows. A review of corporate and regulatory records indicates that the prime minister’s relatives, some of whom have a knack for aggressive deal-making, including his wife, have controlled assets worth at least $2.7 billion.

In many cases, the names of the relatives have been hidden behind layers of partnerships and investment vehicles involving friends, work colleagues and business partners. Untangling their financial holdings provides an unusually detailed look at how politically connected people have profited from being at the intersection of government and business as state influence and private wealth converge in China’s fast-growing economy.

Unlike most new businesses in China, the family’s ventures sometimes received financial backing from state-owned companies, including China Mobile, one of the country’s biggest phone operators, the documents show. At other times, the ventures won support from some of Asia’s richest tycoons. The Times found that Mr. Wen’s relatives accumulated shares in banks, jewelers, tourist resorts, telecommunications companies and infrastructure projects, sometimes by using offshore entities.

The holdings include a villa development project in Beijing; a tire factory in northern China; a company that helped build some of Beijing’s Olympic stadiums, including the well-known “Bird’s Nest”; and Ping An Insurance, one of the world’s biggest financial services companies.

As prime minister in an economy that remains heavily state-driven, Mr. Wen, who is best known for his simple ways and common touch, more importantly has broad authority over the major industries where his relatives have made their fortunes. Chinese companies cannot list their shares on a stock exchange without approval from agencies overseen by Mr. Wen, for example. He also has the power to influence investments in strategic sectors like energy and telecommunications.

3.  Psy: One-hit wonder or K-pop breakthrough? - CNN.com

CNN    October 25, 2012

Hong Kong (CNN) -- If you are one of the few who haven't seen South Korean rapper Psy's performance of "Gangnam Style" on YouTube (which, until I wrote these words, included me), you're missing not only a piece of power pop, but -- some hope -- a harbinger of things to come for Asian music artists.

 Rapper Psy brings 'Gangnam Style' to U.S.

"Is this an anomaly or an inevitability? The feeling has been that sooner or later, (a music artist) from Asia was going to break into the global sphere," said Ruuben van den Heuvel, executive director of music and technology consultancy, GateWay Entertainment.

Psy became the first South Korean artist to hit number one on the UK music charts, and at the time of this writing was sitting number two for the third week on the U.S. charts. Anticipation is so high, Billboard Magazine launched a "Psy Watch" online on whether the artist will crack the number one spot.

"I didn't expect this kind of thing," Psy told CNN recently. "I made this song, I made this music video and dance moves just for Korea, not worldwide. I didn't expect anything like this: I'm talking to CNN on the VMA (MTV Video Music Awards) -- crazy!"

'Gangnam Style' a hit in world of sports

As CNN's Madison Park writes, Psy's song -- about the wannabe style of the affluent neighborhood of Gangnam in Seoul -- has been sliced and diced with theories about what it means about wealth and class in Korea, and questions about whether Psy embodies the stereotypes about Asian masculinity. The video -- featuring his now famous horsey dance -- has spawned hundreds of parodies and so far has been watched 472 million times and achieved 4.1 million likes -- a record for a YouTube video.

Latest news clips 2012.10.25

1.      In London, Nimble Start-Ups Offer Alternatives to Stodgy Banks

The New York Time      OCTOBER 22, 2012

LONDON - When Hiroki Takeuchi joined McKinsey & Company in 2008, he had a front-row seat to the upheaval in finance.

After the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Mr. Takeuchi, a 26-year-old Oxford graduate, worked with some of the world's biggest banks trying to figure out how to adjust to new regulations and a changed market. Then he quit.

For Mr. Takeuchi, memories of friends building successful start-ups at college outweighed the lucrative rewards offered by the blue-chip consulting firm. He joined forces with two McKinsey consultants, feverishly writing code out of his parents' house on a minimal budget to create his own technology start-up.

The result was GoCardless, a London-based company that allows small businesses to set up monthly payments to suppliers at a fraction of the cost that banks charge. The business has secured $1.5 million in seed capital from a number of well-known investors, including the American early-stage venture capital firm Y Combinator.

"The whole idea of bank payments is broken," said Mr. Takeuchi at the start-up's office in a dilapidated building on the outskirts of London's financial district. "There's an opportunity here, and we're looking to grab it."

London's fast-growing start-up scene is trying to disrupt the financial status quo. As consumers' trust in banks deteriorates because of a series of recent scandals, young companies are pressing their newcomer advantage. Firms are offering services like low-cost foreign currency exchange and new ways for small business to borrow cash.

Start-Ups:創業
Business Start-Ups 

2.      Stir-Frying With the Seasons

The New York Times   OCTOBER 19, 2012

One of the easiest ways to enjoy seasonal fare is a simple stir-fry, writes Martha Rose Shulman in this week's Recipes for Health. She says:

Right now I'm phasing out summer's tomatoes and corn, green beans and zucchini and picking up Chinese broccoli, mushrooms, cabbage and carrots at the farmers' market. I'm still finding an array of peppers and beautiful Asian eggplants to brighten my wok. Stir-fries can be adapted to any number of ingredients that may be lingering in your refrigerator, or in your freezer, like the frozen peas that liven up a fish and mushroom stir-fry that is one of this week's recipes.

I like to make a meal of a stir-fry, so I try to include a protein - chicken, fish, shellfish or, for vegetarian stir-fries, tofu or eggs. With meat or without it, the vegetables are the focus of these dishes. Twelve to 14 ounces of chicken breast (two of the organic free-range boneless skinless breasts that I use) is plenty to flavor and add substance to a stir-fry that will feed three people. I learned the velveting technique that these recipes call for from Grace Young; you marinate the cut-up chicken breast in egg white and cornstarch seasoned with a little rice wine or sherry and salt, and blanch it before stir-frying. This is a step worth taking and results in very succulent, tender chicken. I use the same water I've blanched vegetables in to blanch the chicken.

As always, remember when you look at a long list of ingredients required for a stir-fry that all of the time here goes into assembling the ingredients. It takes maybe 20 minutes. The stir-frying itself takes only about 5 minutes. Prepare whatever grains or noodles you're going to serve the stir-fry with in advance, and be ready to eat when you're ready to cook.

3.      Housecleaning, Then Dinner? Silicon Valley Perks Come Home

The New York Times       October 19, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO — Phil Libin, chief executive of Evernote, turned to his wife last year and asked if she had suggestions for how the software company might improve the lives of its employees and their families. His wife, who also works at Evernote, didn’t miss a beat: housecleaning.

Today, Evernote’s 250 employees — every full-time worker, from receptionist to top executive — have their homes cleaned twice a month, free.

It is the latest innovation from Silicon Valley: the employee perk is moving from the office to the home. Facebook gives new parents $4,000 in spending money. Stanford School of Medicine is piloting a project to provide doctors with housecleaning and in-home dinner delivery. Genentech offers take-home dinners and helps employees find last-minute baby sitters when a child is too sick to go to school.

These kinds of benefits are a departure from the upscale cafeteria meals, massages and other services intended to keep employees happy and productive while at work. And the goal is not just to reduce stress for employees, but for their families, too. If the companies succeed, the thinking goes, they will minimize distractions and sources of tension that can inhibit focus and creativity.

Now that technology has allowed work to bleed into home life, it seems that companies are trying to address the impact of home life on work.

There is, of course, the possibility that relieving people of chores at home will simply free them up to work more. But David Lewin, a compensation expert and management professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said he viewed the perks as part of a growing effort by American business to reward people with time and peace of mind instead of more traditional financial tools, like stock options and bonuses.

“They’re trying to get at people’s larger lives and sanity,” Mr. Lewin said. “You might call it the bang for the nonbuck.”

At Deloitte, the consulting firm, employees can get a backup care worker if an aging parent or grandparent needs help. The company subsidizes personal trainers and nutritionists, and offers round-the-clock counseling service for help with issues like marital strife and infertility. Deloitte executives, and other experts, said they believe that such benefits were likely to spread.

MS SQLServer 只有MDF文件還原DB

1. 先建立一個DB
2. stop server, 覆蓋mdf檔至剛建完DB的新產生的mdf檔 
執行以下
alter database brandsec set emergency
use master 

exec sp_dboption brandsec, N'single', N'true'
dbcc checkdb('brandsec',REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS) 

dbcc checkdb('brandsec',REPAIR_REBUILD)


exec sp_dboption brandsec, N'single', N'false'

還原成功

參考網路文章:
我把原来的数据库分离后，直接把日志文件给干掉了。原来在SQL 2000里经常这么干，只用一个mdf就附加了。没想到sql2005居然不行。我试验了一圈 终于找到一个成功的方法。转载，供后来者参考。

SQL2005 如何在没有日志文件的情况下如何恢复MDF数据库文件

第一步：先建立一个同名数据库，停止SQL SERVER2005，将没有日志的的.mdf数据库文件覆盖刚新建的.mdf数据库文件，重新启动数据库。

第三步：在查询分析器中运行如下代码：

alter database 数据库名 set emergency —将数据库设置为紧急状态

use master 

declare @databasename varchar(255) 

set @databasename=‘数据库名’ —你的.mdf文件文件名

exec sp_dboption @databasename, N’single‘, N’true’ —将目标数据库置为单用户状态 

dbcc checkdb(@databasename,REPAIR_ALLOW_DATA_LOSS) 

dbcc checkdb(@databasename,REPAIR_REBUILD) 

exec sp_dboption @databasename, N’single‘, N’false’—将目标数据库置为多用户状态 


执行出现“数据库其他多个文件与数据库主文件不匹配….”错误，再执行一次即可。

Latest news clips 2012.10.18

                  


1.  Candidates Tangle in Fractious Debate

 
The Wall Street Journal         October 17, 2012

John Moore/Getty Images

ROUND TWO: Former governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama sparred in their second debate.

President Barack Obama, seeking to regain momentum in his campaign, battled with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney during a tense and highly anticipated rematch Tuesday marked by repeated confrontations.

Just three weeks before the election, Messrs. Obama and Romney disbanded the debate's town hall-style format in offering competing plans for creating jobs, expanding energy production and taxes.

In contrast to their first debate, they repeatedly interrupted each other, accused each other of lying and appealed to the moderator for more time. Tension was evident as they paced toward each other and pointed.

Mr. Obama, who was under intense pressure from supporters to be more aggressive after his lethargic performance in the first one on Oct. 3, began attacking Mr. Romney less than four minutes into the debate, noting his opposition to the federal auto bailout. "Gov. Romney says he's got a five-point plan…He has a one-point plan," Mr. Obama said of Mr. Romney's economic agenda. "And that plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules."

Mr. Romney distilled his argument against the president to a simple theme: The country can't afford four more years under Mr. Obama. "If you were to elect President Obama, you know what you're going to get—you're going to get a repeat of the last four years," he said. "The middle class is getting crushed under the policies of a president who has not understood what it takes to get the economy working again." He later added, "The president has tried, but his policies haven't worked."

The candidates fielded a range of questions from undecided voters, selected by the Gallup Organization polling company, in a 90-minute debate at Hofstra University on New York's Long Island.

Mr. Obama took on Mr. Romney's positions on taxes, trade, energy and women's health issues in an attempt to cast him as more conservative than the GOP candidate has suggested in recent days. He also noted the former governor's 14% effective tax rate and, in response to repeated questions from Mr. Romney about whether he had looked at his pension, he said, "I don't look at my pension. It's not as big as yours."

While the first debate was a clear win for Mr. Romney, the second was far more mixed. Matthew Latimer, a former speechwriter to George W. Bush, called it "very aggressive on both sides" and said the constant interruptions could turn off some voters, especially the dwindling number of those who remain undecided. "Voters always say they want candidates who don't squabble. And there was a lot of squabbling." Mr. Latimer said he thought the questions picked seemed to favor the president.

"I've not found it inspiring," said Tim Shriver, chairman and CEO of Special Olympics, and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy. "It feels like a boxing match with attempted knockdowns rather than political rhetoric with an articulation of goals."

On Libya, Mr. Obama for the first time accepted responsibility for the security lapses that contributed to the death of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans on Sept. 11 in Benghazi. He sought to turn the issue against Mr. Romney, accusing him of playing politics with a national-security crisis.

Mr. Obama said he called the Benghazi attack "an act of terror" during a statement in the Rose Garden the day after it occurred, challenging Republican accusations that the administration had been misleading when it described the attack as a demonstration sparked by an anti-Muslim video.

"I want to make sure we get that for the record, because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror," Mr. Romney said.

2.  German giants join GM food fight in California

DW   October 16, 2012

CONSUMER PROTECTION

On November 6, California will vote whether genetically modified food should be labeled - a long-standing practice in Europe. The move has drawn fierce opposition from US corporate interests - and two German firms.

The often-used biblical account of David vs. Goliath doesn't always work when it's applied to modern-day battles between two unequal adversaries, but in the fight over labeling genetically engineered foods in California it does.

The battle pits the combined resources of a vast coalition of agribusiness, food industry and grocery manufacturers against a small group of organic farmers and stores and committed individuals.

At the center of the fight is Proposition 37, an initiative that will be on the California ballot on Election Day and would make it mandatory to label genetically modified food. In the US there is no national law requiring foods containing genetically modified organisms to be labeled.

And since an estimated 80 percent of food products sold in the US contain genetically modified ingredients, a labeling law in California would force the food industry to set up two entirely separated product streams.

Even worse for the industry is Europe's record ever since the EU made GM food labels mandatory in 1997: Even though GM foods are allowed, the law has de facto kept genetically engineered foods off the shelves in Europe because consumers are simply not buying them.

Failed attempts

In the US there have been many failed attempts to require labels for GM foods in various states. But what makes Proposition 37 so significant is not just that California would be the first state to institute GM labels, its California's unique position and history among US states.

With its 37 million residents California is not just the most populous state in the union, but as a stand-alone economy it would be the ninth-biggest country in the world by gross domestic product.