Outsourcing? Try 'Insourcing'

Wired News: "Chris Harry is a model employee for the U.S. call-center industry.

The 25 year-old arrives promptly at his cubicle, speaks courteously on the phone and is never late or absent. He plans to stick with his job for three years, a boon in an industry plagued by high turnover. And he gladly works for money many Americans would scoff at -- $130 or so a month.
After all, he could be back swabbing cell-block floors for a third of that.

'I can't complain about fair,' said Harry, who was sentenced to 10 years and eight months for robbery. 'I did a crime and I'm in prison. At least I'm not wearing a ball and chain.'

Prison inmates like Harry are the reason Perry Johnson Inc., a Southfield, Michigan consulting company, chose to remain in the United States rather than join a host of telemarketing companies moving offshore.

Perry Johnson had intended to move to India. But the company chose instead to open inside the Snake River Correctional Institution, a sprawling razor wire and cinder block state penitentiary a few miles west of the Idaho line."

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Digital Cam media safe to fly with

Technocrat.net : "Recent tests found no evidence of X-ray scanner damage to digital camera media cards or to the images they hold. The tests of scanner models currently in use in the U.S. transportation industry were jointly conducted by the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A), the leading global association for the imaging industry; SanDisk Corporation, a manufacturer of digital media cards; and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). These findings mean that digital cameras and their image storage media can travel safely in either checked or carry-on bags, which will be reassuring to holiday travelers. And though they were not explicitly tested, it is likely that images on camera-phones will be safe in either situation as well. More care is needed for cameras with film, however, as the X-ray scanners for both checked and carry-on luggage can fog both developed and undeveloped film."

EELSTHEBAND.COM

NEWS : "The 40-year-old Mr. Everett was raised in McLean, Va., with his sister Elizabeth, mother Nancy and father Hugh Everett III, a quantum physicist who in 1957 proposed a formal theory of parallel universes known as 'The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.' 'Everett's work has boggled minds inside and outside physics for more than four decades,' reported Scientific American in last month's issue. Mr. Everett said his brilliant father wasn't communicative at home. When I asked him what the conversation was like around the breakfast table, he replied, 'There wasn't any.' 'Physicists and geniuses don't always make great family men. I lived with him for 18 years and I learned more about him from the Internet.' Mr. Everett's family was a heartrending source of inspiration for his most notable work, the 1998 album 'Electro-Shock Blues' (DreamWorks), written after his sister committed suicide and h...

Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"

Sophont

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