interesting

>BEIJING (Reuters) - Haze hovered over the Chinese capital onThursday, just a day before the opening ceremony of the OlympicGames that have been beset by worries about pollution.
Cloudy skies were forecast for the rest of the day in Beijing wherethe Environmental Protection Bureau said that levels of particulatematter were within the "fairly good" range on Wednesday.
Humid, still weather and temperatures hitting 34 degrees Celsius(93 Fahrenheit) have seen stubborn smog hanging over the city overthe past few days.
The capital has already pulled millions of cars off the roads andhalted factory production to ensure cleaner air.
Friday is expected to be cloudy too, with scattered rain, and amaximum temperature of 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit).
"During the opening ceremony it will mainly be cloudy ... and therewill essentially be no impact upon it," the China MeteorologicalAdministration said on its website (www.cma.gov.cn).
It was raining in muggy Hong Kong, where equestrian events arescheduled to start on Saturday, as a tropical storm looms over theformer British territory.
Tropical storms often develop over the South China Sea in thesummer months, growing into full-fledged typhoons threateningChina, the Philippines, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
For athletes of endurance events, smog could pose a major problemand the International Olympic Committee has said it mightreschedule events if the pollution is too bad.
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Perhaps the biggest question many have in the current economicclimate is their money safe in the banks?. If their bank closes,will they be out of money?
"Nothing is more safe than money in the bank," Roger Beverage saidduring Wednesday's Chamber of Commerce monthly luncheon at theBailey Education Foundation.
Beverage is the president and CEO of the Oklahoma Banker'sAssociation and assured Wednesday's crowd that all banks - nomatter if they are the biggest or the smallest - are safe todeposit your money in.
Beverage said even if a bank fails, a depositor's money is safethanks to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), whichprovides deposit insurance and guarantees checking and savingsdeposits in member banks for up to $100,000.
The FDIC was created in 1933.
"No one has ever lost a dime with a FDIC insured bank account,"Beverage said. "You have nothing to worry about."Most depositors in Oklahoma, especially Oklahoma City, remember thefamous collapse of Penn Square Bank in July 1982. Penn Square Bankmade numerous high risk energy loans. Those lending practices ledto the decline of the bank. Soon after the collapse, the FDIC tookover the bank, which insured that all of its depositor's wouldstill have their money.
However, a panic mode set in and most of Penn Square's depositor'sstood in long lines to withdraw their money. Beverage said thosedepositor's were not well educated on how the FDIC works.
Twenty-six years later, Beverage said history will not repeatitself. "A situation like Penn Square will never happen again. Andeven if it does, you are not going to lose a dime with the FDIC."
Despite the guarantee, Beverage said the media coverage has helpedfan the flames of doubt for many depositors.
"I understand the media's need to get people's attention. But whatmany media outlets need to do is get some folks on there and knowwhat the hell they are talking about," Beverage said. "Some ofthese reporters obviously don't understand the financial servicesbusiness and they don't understand the FDIC insurance at all."
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Since the dawn of history, mankind has been plagued by anunnecessary burden whilst grocery shopping at their neighborhoodsupermarket: telling the cashier whether they prefer a paper orplastic bag.
Precious moments are squandered. Moments better spent reading thecollected works of Spinoza, curing cancer, building shelters forthe homeless, or leveling Night Elf druids in World of Warcraft.
IBM may have discovered a solution to this most grievous ofconditions with a US patent approved only yesterday. Let bells ringand the annals of history show that August 5, 2008 was a great dayindeed.
Patent 7,407,089 (
available here
) is a method and system for identifying a customer and displayingwhether they like paper or plastic bags without the need foruncomfortable questioning.
From the patent's description:
"However, at conventional retail locations, the customer is likelyto be asked for their packaging preference each time the customerpasses through a cashier station, resulting in unnecessaryinconvenience for both the customer and the cashier.
What is needed is a more flexible system and method for determiningpackaging preference that overcomes some of these limitations. "
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