The Largest Building Ever Constructed Has Opened in China

At what point does a building become a city? At 1.7 million square meters, the New Century Global Center lands somewhere between the two.

New Century, which has been under construction since spring of 2012 (which isn't long, for a building of this size), opened officially on July 1. The 18-story, glass-and-steel frame structure sits above a new subway station in Chengdu, a Sichuan province city of more than 14 million and one of China's fastest-growing megalopolises.

What will visitors find inside its glassy walls? It's actually fairly standard, as mega-structures go: A 14-screen IMAX theater, shops, restaurants, offices, hotels, a Mediterranean village reconstruction (duh), and finally, its pi?ce de r?sistance?a massive artificial beach that boasts realistic sunsets and sea breezes, thanks to a huge LED screen on one side. A 500,000-square-foot art center designed by Zaha Hadid is under construction next door.

It's not so much what New Century contains as how much of it. It's hard to visualize numbers like 1.7 million square meters, so here are a few comparisons. You could fit three Pentagons inside its walls, or 20 Sydney Opera Houses. It's nearly 500,000 square feet larger than the building it beat out for the title, Dubai's International Airport Terminal 3. The largest building in the US, by comparison, is the Palazzo in Las Vegas, which comes in at #11 worldwide.

It's worth pointing out that New Century isn't the first megastructure of its kind, though it is the largest. Architects and planners in China are pioneering the construction of entire urban regions from scratch. The title of world's largest structure, in that light, is really just a way for New Century's developers to distinguish it from the pack. [ArchDaily via The Independent]

[Images via Entertainment and Travel Group]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-largest-building-ever-constructed-has-opened-in-chi-694836621

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Israel jails Arab citizen who briefly joined Syria's rebels| Reuters

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM | Mon Jul 8, 2013 8:34am EDT

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel sentenced an Arab citizen to 30 months' imprisonment on Monday for endangering national security by briefly joining Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

Hikmat Massarwa's case was unprecedented, and the relatively light penalty handed down to him as part of a plea bargain reflected Israel's indecision about who - if anyone - to back in its northern neighbor's civil war.

Massarwa was arrested on March 19 upon returning via Turkey from Syria, where he had spent a week at a rebel base. Israeli prosecutors accused him of undergoing small-arms training by radical Islamists there who asked him to carry out a suicide attack in Israel - although, by all accounts, he declined.

Those charges carried a maximum 15-year jail term. But prosecutors appeared unable, from the outset, to throw the book at Massarwa because of Israeli haziness about the Syria crisis.

"There's no legal guidance regarding the rebel groups fighting in Syria," Judge Avraham Yaakov said at a session of the trial at Lod district court, south of Tel Aviv, in May.

Massarwa, a 29-year-old baker, at first denied wrongdoing, saying he had gone to Syria to seek a brother missing since joining the insurgency. He also argued that the Western-backed anti-Assad rebels should not be regarded as a danger to Israel.

But, changing tack on Monday, Massarwa confessed to unlawfully travelling to a hostile state and meeting what prosecutors designated a "foreign agent". In turn, they dropped the count against him of illicitly receiving military training.

Under the plea bargain, Massarwa acknowledged his actions "had potential to threaten the security of the state of Israel".

Technically at war with Syria, Israel enjoyed decades of stable ceasefire while the Assad family ruled unchallenged in Syria. It fears that, if Damascus falls to the Islamist-dominated rebels, jihadis among them will have a Syrian springboard for striking at the Jewish state.

Such concern has been stoked in recent months by Syrian gunfire and shelling into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, incidents in which Israel has routinely shot back. Israel took the Golan from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

Arabs, most of them Muslim, make up around 20 percent of Israel's population. They seldom take up arms with its enemies.

Yet some Israeli officials privately described Massarwa's trial as a bid to deter other Arab citizens from going to Syria and possibly acquiring the Islamist agenda and fighting savvy that could drive them to turn to violence once back home.

"The prosecution were definitely looking for a deterrent effect here, and they got it, even though they scaled down the penalty," Massarwa's lawyer, Helal Jaber, told Reuters.

But he added that Israeli Arab volunteerism for the Syrian civil war was "hardly a phenomenon. We are talking about two or three people - bad apples. The overwhelming majority of the community are loyal to the state of Israel".

(This story is refiled to add dropped letter in penultimate paragraph quote)

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/08/us-syria-crisis-israel-idUSBRE9670F320130708?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

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DFL leaders say budget deal is 'progress' for middle class (Star Tribune)

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The digital design imperative | Feature | Computer Arts magazine

Opinions matter. And mine has always been that if bad typography and Photoshop work don?t make your blood boil then you shouldn?t be a designer. If you can sit on the train opposite an ad featuring poorly kerned letters or view a Frankenstein?s monster comp of a ?lead character when young? movie prop photo and not twitch, you are creatively dead inside.

Slink away now if you?re unmoved by either example, or hang around and get motivated. The role of designer has changed beyond all recognition since I left college (it?s moved fast; I?m not that old). So what is graphic design? Well, before ?digital? it used to be relatively easy to define: branding, brochures, editorial layouts, posters, flyers and packaging, for starters.

That list still exists, but many brochures are now interactive, from PDFs to eBooks with websites that either replicate or deliver the same content. Great editorial layouts are still essential for tablet-based magazines and eBooks because the eye is arrested by the skilful juxtaposition of stunning images and intelligent typography. Posters, meanwhile, work on various levels, from the 48-sheet variety now on many digital Jumbotrons to our ever-increasing desktop screen sizes offering the scale previously reserved for printed posters. And flyers, unless they come from a local pizza delivery business, are now emails, Facebook posts or Tweets. We haven?t lost packaging from our high streets yet, but the online marketplace offers increasing numbers of virtually packaged downloads.

So, who gives a crap? Things change. Technology advances and forces us to move with it. It?s a take that can lead to the kind of sloppy Photoshop, branding and layouts that make me want to punch inanimate objects (or designers). It?s an attitude cultivated by creatives who don?t live and breathe design, as well as clients who believe our computers do all the work.

So snap out of it. And appreciate the incredible opportunities to not only design great visual experiences, but also to bring them to life as incredible user experiences. The graphic design label has been well and truly scrapped ? welcome to the wonderful new world of design, where the brief to create postage stamps becomes the task to build instantly recognisable icons or miniaturised album covers and book jackets, where the fight to be seen and remembered provides the ultimate pixel-pushing challenge. Wearable technology and smart TVs will provide your next playgrounds, so start thinking about future opportunities to make a design difference.

Knock down the mental barriers and apply great design thinking to everything you do. Don?t assign different standards to different work or clients ? we live in a world in which a local butcher can have as much global visibility as Wal-Mart. The world?s eyes are on your kerning, your cut-outs and your colour palette.
?

Discover 10 amazing examples of experimental design at our sister site, Creative Bloq.

Source: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/features/digital-design-imperative

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Water may reshape energy industry

Demand for fresh water could exceed supply by an estimated 40 percent by 2030, pushing up prices for the water-intensive energy industry. Soaring water prices would help wind, solar, and natural gas, but hurt coal and nuclear plants.

By Eli Hinckley,?Guest blogger / May 19, 2013

A worker helps monitor water pumping pressure and temperature, at the site of a natural gas hydraulic fracturing and extraction operation run by Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc., outside Rifle, in western Colorado. A doubling of water prices wouldn't hurt energy operations, but soaring prices would.

Brennan Linsley/AP/File

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Why It Matters

Energy: The industry uses 23 percent of fresh water globally and 40 percent in the US.

Environment:?Higher water prices would be one way to ration increasingly precious fresh water, where demand is outstripping supply.

Energy Trends Report

identifies and analyzes risks and opportunities, offering subscribers an inside track to sectors and companies affected by developments in the energy industry. For a free subscription,?click here.

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There is a broad and growing consensus that freshwater is undervalued. It is a limited, but vital, commodity without a price. In nearly every region the price of water is the cost of water access rights, treatment costs, and transportation costs. There is no price or market for the water itself.

That will begin to change. Prolonged drought and overuse have depleted freshwater reserves at the same time that demand is rising rapidly. The resulting imbalance has some projections of demand for freshwater exceeding supply by?as much as 40% by 2030?. Increasingly, water starved regions have begun to look to ways to both reduce overall use and to prioritize different types of use. While there are a number of policy approaches, one that seems to have wide support is the idea of regional exchanges where water could be priced (with adjustments for preferred uses) and sold.

The implications for the energy industry are significant. Fuel extraction is water intensive, especially for mining and fracking extraction - for fracked natural gas, about a gallon of water is required to extract one mmbtu. Electric generation from fossil fuels also requires large amounts of water. The average kWh produced from coal-fired electric generation uses a gallon of water, and while natural gas averages less water use, nuclear uses significantly more.

Initially, reduction in use will focus on eliminating waste and high-use-low-value activities (like watering a lawn), but as the limitations become more acute some uses will simply cease to be provided for, or the cost of use will increase, forcing a rebalancing of the ways water gets used.

5 Ways to Best Promote Your Blog | Best Web Hosting Reviews-Top ...

It?s great to blog, especially about things you care deeply for and have opinions that you want to express and discuss with others interested in the same area. But if you want to make a living of your blogging, you may find out that?s just not as easy as you thought it would be, particularly if you are at the very beginning of your career as a blogger. When blogging for profit you must not only create relevant and useful content for your readers, but you must also be effective in your blog?s promotional activities in an effort to gain more and consistent traffic. And this won?t happen overnight; it takes time and persistence to build reputable online history. Here are some of the things your blog?s promotion should include:

Consider the appearance of your blog

You want your blog to appear well to the eyes of your readers, and you want them to be satisfied from their experience as a user. This includes many aspects, from the choice of blogging platform, to the font, colors and navigational layout. WordPress, Joomla, Blogger and Drupal are some of the most preferred platforms by bloggers, and they also allow users to build their own blog sites. WordPress is currently the most popular, but they all feature some dynamic functionalities, ecommerce features, social networking and different modules and plugins.

Also consider the navigation on your blog ? is it easy enough for your readers to find what they want? Organize your links and blocks, make your recent posts and most read articles more accessible, and test to find the best positions for your ads to increase the click through rates. When you share and promote your content and new visitors come to your blog, you want them to be satisfied with what they see and how everything appears, so they?ll feel comfortable to come check it again. The Internet users today have higher expectations, so it?s better to be prepared ahead.

Make sure your blog and content are search engine optimized

To be able to drive more traffic to your blog content you should also aim to rank higher in the results of the popular search engines. This means making sure that the articles and your whole website is well optimized for the search engines to be able to ?read? it and recommend you links as relevant when their users search the web.

Google is the main search engine in the world and its latest algorithm updates have significantly changed the way blogs and websites appear in their result pages. Relevant content for your targeted niche that is interesting, useful and brings value to your readers is one of the best ways to ensure optimization. If the visitors on your blog find your posts helpful, think you are interesting and share those links with their friends and networks, if they like reading more and coming back again to check out for new things, they will also get you higher in the ranking positions when others search for your queries. Make sure to publish new content on regular daily or weekly basis. You can also submit your blog to ping sites like Ping-O-Matic to remind the search engines to index your pages as you publish new content.

Higher page rank is also determined by the number of back links to your blog; higher link presence on the web increases your website relevance. But we are talking here of quality back links ? link building as we knew before does not apply anymore. You should now look for more meaningful and deeper relationships with the relevant authorities in your industry and use these connections to create quality links to your blog. By submitting articles or writing guest posts for other blogs and websites, through social networking and press releases, you?ll be able to increase your backlinks, promote your blog and get greater exposure for your content.

Promote your blog on social and blogging websites, forums and niche-related online community

We cannot talk about promotion and not mention social media; in today?s world that?s simply not possible. If you want more traffic for your blog, hence more revenues for your blogging activity, you must invest time, effort and money into building a substantial network of fans and followers on the popular social networks. Your social presence is now also a deciding factor in your website rankings ? the more people are talking about you, sharing your stories, blog posts and images on Facebook, Twiter, Pinterest, Reddit, linkedIn, you name it, the higher your blog authority, relevance and rankings. This doesn?t mean that you should have profiles on absolutely every network; you can?t even physically manage this workload. Think about your niche, about the type of content that you post, about your readers and their preferences, and then select few social platforms that work best for you.

Also get involved in your niche online community to help build your brand as a blogger and get recognized by the audience as an expert whose knowledge and experience can be trusted. Register to forums and make a list of authoritative bloggers in your industry whose blogs you?ll regularly visit to read their content and make contributions commenting about your experiences, answering questions users have asked and being as helpful as you can to provide extra value to the posts and the readers. Being active member of the community can help your blog promotion a lot.

Be creative with your email marketing, and don?t spam your readers

Email marketing is an important promotional activity, but also one that you should be very careful with. You can?t bomb your readers with emails when they haven?t given you a permission to do so, and spammy mail can even cost you your regular visitors. Use tools like FeedBurner to create a pitch block on your site where users can leave their emails if they want to receive your messages and newsletters. Create attractive and interesting e-newsletter with a creative layout and quality readings and provide links directing to the content. You can also add games, rewards, promotions and other calls to action to interest your readers in visiting your blog.

Gain exposure through guest blogging

Guest blogging on various authority industry-related websites will get you more quality online presence and will improve your image as a blogger, helping you promote yourself and reach out to the communities built around these blogs. Writing guest posts isn?t the same as writing your own content, but it has many SEO and social media benefits attached to it, particularly if you are not only writing for others but also inviting them to publish guest posts on your blog too.

These are just few of the things you can do to gain maximum exposure for your blog. Keep up with the new ideas and methods evolving each day as the internet marketing keeps developing further.

Author?s bio: Alice McLean is a writer at bestdissertation.com with background in history, sociology and internet marketing. Now she is writing her first book on internet marketing.

Source: http://www.thegrizasonline.com/5-ways-to-best-promote-your-blog

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