If you've been taking far too many virtual road trips after employing the (unofficial) Street View Hyperlapse chauffeur, you may be running out of places to go next. Well, today Google has added Hungary and Lesotho (a country within South Africa) to the list of lands you can vicariously visit, which brings the total number of Street View-catalogued countries to 50. This being the "largest single update" since, well, the last big one, Google has also added "new and updated imagery for nearly 350,000 miles of roads across 14 countries," including more places of interest for its special collections, thanks to the Street View trike. So, why venture outdoors this lunchtime, when you can wander the streets of Budapest instead?
Restoring a woodie from scratch is tough but not impossible. Here are some ways to make sure it's done correctly.
By Benjamin Preston
", credit: "Rex Gray/Flickr", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/5v/woodies-resto-01-0313-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/WB/woodies-resto-01-0313-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide2", url: "how-to-bring-a-woodie-wagon-back-to-life-2", slidetype: "image", title: "Pick a Car You Know You\'ll Still Like Later", description: "Are woodies your favorite classic cars? If so, is there a particular woodie wagon that strikes your fancy? Perhaps you prefer Plymouths to Fords. Whatever car you pick, it had better be something that will sustain your passion. Restoring a woodie is a long, expensive process, and the last thing you want is to be stuck with a half-finished car that you can\'t sell and don\'t want to look at anymore.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/TZ/woodies-resto-02-0313-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/3Y/woodies-resto-02-0313-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide3", url: "how-to-bring-a-woodie-wagon-back-to-life-3", slidetype: "image", title: "Do Your Homework", description: "Read. Take a woodworking class. Find out what kind of wood and materials you need. Familiarize yourself with your particular car\'s layout and design. Mastering the background information will go a long way when you start doing the work that counts.\n
\nSeek out others who have restored or are restoring a wood-bodied car. Learn from their mistakes to minimize your own. (You\'ll undoubtedly make plenty of those, anyway. Don\'t worry.) \nWestrate has a small library of woodie books; they\'re packed with information about not only rebuilding woodies but also general woodworking knowledge.", credit: "Frank Carroll at Wikipedia", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/RL/woodies-resto-03-0313-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/5V/woodies-resto-03-0313-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide4", url: "how-to-bring-a-woodie-wagon-back-to-life-4", slidetype: "image", title: "Practice on Scrap Wood First", description: "Automotive carpentry is tricky even for skilled woodworkers: Every piece must be perfect. You don\'t want to spend days curving an expensive piece of wood for a door post only to find that you\'ve joined the boards in the wrong place or screwed on the hinges at a weird angle. \n
\nIf there\'s a skill you haven\'t mastered yet, practice on scrap wood (which you can often get at a lumber yard for free) until you\'ve got it down pat.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/AG/woodies-resto-04-0313-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/HM/woodies-resto-04-0313-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide5", url: "how-to-bring-a-woodie-wagon-back-to-life-5", slidetype: "image", title: "Cut and Grain Are Everything", description: "Don\'t just drive down to Home Depot for all the wood you need. This is a fine woodworking project, and you\'ll need to locate just the right wood. For instance, the cut of the boards will have a big impact on how your project looks as it absorbs and evaporates moisture; flat-sawn boards have a tendency to cup because of the way the grains are arranged. The cut will also affect the attractiveness of a piece of wood\'s grain pattern. You should generally look for quarter-sawn boards, as they\'re less likely to warp.\n
\nWestrate is using hard maple for the structural parts of his \'39 Ford Deluxe, birch for its panels, and a host of other types of wood for seat supports, the dashboard, and other interior parts. He sourced the wood from a local hardwood supplier who specializes in gun stocks and musical-instrument bodies. After spending a bunch of money on hardwoods, he says, it\'s a good idea to keep them stored in a dry place so they fit correctly once you\'ve shaped them. (Remember, wood expands when it absorbs moisture and contracts when it dries.)", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/WS/woodies-resto-05-0313-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/nh/woodies-resto-05-0313-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 }, { id: "slide6", url: "how-to-bring-a-woodie-wagon-back-to-life-6", slidetype: "image", title: "Formulate a Plan and Keep Everything", description: "A woodie rebuild is like any classic-car restoration: You have to complete tasks in a certain order. Drawing up an outline for how you want to proceed will help keep your project free from major hiccups. Hang on to all the old parts, even bad ones you\'d otherwise throw away, until your project is completed. Keep them labeled and organized, because you might need them later.", credit: "", sourceid: null, sourcename: "", sourceurl: null, sourcelogo: "", thumbsrc: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/Kt/woodies-resto-06-0313-smn.jpg", src: "/cm/popularmechanics/images/DL/woodies-resto-06-0313-lgn.jpg", srcwidth: 600, srcheight: 450 } ] };
Although many of us were born after the age of wood-bodied cars had come and gone, the woodie wagon remains an icon 60 years after its demise. Long before stick-on vinyl wood grain simulation replaced real wood in America's automotive landscape, these cars' original buyers valued the beauty and craftsmanship of a well-constructed piece of carpentry. Then, in the chrome-drenched 1950s and '60s, you couldn't give away a wooden car. The dirt-cheap price appealed to the vagabond surfers seen in Bruce Brown films, giving woodies a new cultural identity.
Today there are few woodies left. The survivors have become very valuable, and if they're in bad shape, professional restoration is prohibitively expensive. But that doesn't mean you can't rebuild a woodie at home. All you need to build your own wooden car body is a dry space for work and storage, a decent set of woodworking tools, and lot of time and patience.
Dave Westrate of Oakton, Va., restored a 1939 Ford Standard woodie wagon to concours quality and is currently working on a Deluxe model of the same year. The Deluxe is a basket case. The wheel wells are rusted out, the floorboards are rotten, and most of the body is ruined. But the fresh pile of shaped pieces of wood lying across the back of its frame is an encouraging sign that someday it will look like the gleaming woodie sitting next to it in the garage.
Building a wooden car body is something a skilled cabinetmaker could do with relative ease, but it isn't impossible for the rest of us. You can learn as you go?Westrate said both cars have been a learning process for him. Here are a few things you should know before you start:
The Associated Press dropped the term ?illegal immigrant? from its style guide Tuesday, handing a victory to immigration rights advocates and Latino media organizations who have pressured the news media for years to abandon a phrase that many view as offensive.
The news was first announced in a statement from AP?s Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carrol on the wire service?s blog, who said the change resulted from conversations with people who opposed the term, as well as a commitment to eschew labels.
?Our goal always is to use the most precise and accurate words so that the meaning is clear to any reader anywhere,? Carrol said.
AP will also avoid sweeping labels like ?undocumented? or ?unauthorized? used by some in the news media who avoid the term ?illegal immigrant.?
?Except in direct quotes essential to the story, use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant,? the style guide update says. ?Except in direct quotations, do not use the terms illegal alien, an illegal, illegals or undocumented.?
Instead, the AP styleguide instructs reporters to specify how someone entered the country. Those brought to the country as minors ?should not be described as having immigrated illegally,? the guide says.
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists first pushed the news media to stop referring to immigrants without lawful immigration status as ?illegal? in 2006, arguing that the term criminalizes people rather than their actions. Almost half of likely Latino voters find the term ?illegal immigrant? offensive, according to a Fox News Latino poll published last year.
The NAHJ was later joined by the Applied Research Center and its publication ColorLines, which pressured the media to ?Drop the I-Word,? calling it a ?racially charged slur used to dehumanize and discriminate against immigrants and people of color regardless of migratory status.?
But pressure to drop the term ?illegal immigrant? ramped up last year, as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and immigrant rights activist Jose Antonio Vargas and ABC/Univision News openly challenged the New York Times and the Associated Press to change their stylebooks. At the time, the AP said it would restrict its use of the term illegal immigrant without dropping it entirely, while the New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan said she continued to view it as the appropriate word choice.
"It is clear and accurate; it gets its job done in two words that are easily understood," Sullivan wrote in October. "The same cannot be said of the most frequently suggested alternatives ? 'unauthorized,' 'immigrants without legal status,' 'undocumented.'"
Vargas welcomed AP's decision to strike the term entirely.
?This was inevitable. This is not about being politically correct," Vargas said in an interview with Poynter.
The AP?s new policy leaves the New York Times increasingly isolated. Several news organizations, particularly in television, have abandoned the term ?illegal immigrant? -- an editorial decision likely prompted by networks? efforts to attract the growing U.S. Hispanic market. CNN, ABC News, and NBC News have all excised the term in recent years, according to ABC/Univision News. Fox News Latino, a digital property of the Fox News empire, uses the term ?undocumented? to refer to those without legal immigration status.
The Huffington Post uses the term ?undocumented immigrant? to refer to those without lawful immigration status.
UPDATED: The New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan writes on her blog that the paper is also considering changing its stylebook. She writes:
The Times, for the past couple of months, has also been considering changes to its stylebook entry on this term and will probably announce them to staff members this week. (A stylebook is the definitive guide to usage, relied upon by writers and editors, for the purpose of consistency.)
From what I can gather, The Times?s changes will not be nearly as sweeping as The A.P.?s.
Read the rest of the explanation at the New York Times.
This post was updated at 5:10 p.m. on Tuesday, April 2, 2013.
Barclays will cut at least 3,700 jobs in a major restructuring, the bank said Tuesday. The layoffs follow a scandal-ridden year for Barclays, which was?was forced to pay a $453 million fine for manipulating a key market interest rate that serves as the basis for trillions in mortgage loans.
By Danica Kirka,?Associated Press / February 12, 2013
Customers wait outside a retail branch of Barclays Bank for the bank to open in London, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. Barclays PLC has announced plans to cut at least 3,700 jobs in a major restructuring that follows a scandal-hit year for the UK bank.
Alistair Grant/AP
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Barclays?PLC has announced plans to cut at least 3,700 jobs in a major restructuring that follows a scandal-hit year for the U.K. bank.
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The bank said Tuesday it will cut at least 1,800 positions in the Corporate and Investment Bank unit and 1,900 retail and business banking jobs outside the U.K.
The cuts come after the British institution was forced to pay a $453 million fine for manipulating a key market interest rate that serves as the basis for trillions in mortgage loans. A slew of executives, including chief executive, Bob Diamond, were forced to resign. It also faced criticism for mis-selling of insurance and interest rate products to consumers and small businesses.
The bank's new CEO, Antony Jenkins, has warned his staff that making money won't be the only thing on which they'll be judged. Ethics count ? and matter more in the long run than what happens in the fourth quarter.
"It's not complicated," he told the BBC. "It's about recognizing that we're in business to serve our customers and clients, to deliver return for our shareholders. But also to be good for the societies where we do business, particularly Britain, where we are a major bank."
He said the bank has already taken steps to back his words.?Barclays?has closed the structured capital markets business ? which sought ways for its customers to pay less tax on their investments ? as well as cutting bonuses and removing branch sales incentives. Even so, he said it would take years before "people changed their impression of us."
"Believe me, I understand the cynics and the skeptics out there," he told the BBC. "But cynics and skeptics never built anything. This is about fundamentally changing?Barclays. And we will be judged by our actions not our words."
Barclays?recorded a loss of 236 million pounds ($368 million) for 2012 against a net profit of 3.9 billion pounds for 2011. It made 2.45 billion pounds in provisions in 2012 for compensating clients for the mis-sold products.
Wisdom's mate attends to their newborn chick, while the mother was out at sea. (Live Science)
The oldest known living wild bird in the world has given birth to a healthy hatchling. The 62-year-old bird, ?Wisdom,? last made headlines in 2011, when the albatross survived the aftermath of the Japanese tsunami.
Wisdom has defied the odds in many aspects: She?s already lived nearly twice as long as the average Laysan albatross. She was given her name after being tagged by a U.S. Geological Survey researcher in 1956. The USGS said in a statement that since being tagged, Wisdom has flown an estimated 2 million to 3 million miles, or ?four to six trips from the Earth to the Moon and back again with plenty of miles to spare.?
?To know that she can still successfully raise young at age 60-plus, that is beyond words,? USGS bird banding program chief Bruce Peterjohn said. ?While the process of banding a bird has not changed greatly during the past century, the information provided by birds marked with a simple numbered metal band has transformed our knowledge of birds.?
And while there have been other albatross birds spotted in the wild who are estimated to be around 50 years old, Wisdom is the only one on record to have given birth at such an advanced age. Though, some scientists may have seen the feat coming, when Wisdom gave birth two years ago to another chick, and has given birth to a total of five chicks since 2006.
?While I have grown old and gray and get around only with the use of a cane, Wisdom still looks and acts just the same as on the day I banded her,? said retired USGS scientist Chandler Robbins, who was in his 40s when he first banded Wisdom in 1956.
In 2001, Robbins ?rediscovered? Wisdom, helping the USGS determine her age and track her record-setting reproductive habits.
Because the Laysan albatross mates for life, USGS officials estimate that Wisdom has had to take on several ?much younger? male partners over the years to help foster an estimated 35 chicks.
?I?m trying to straighten out the record,? Robbins said. ?It takes a lot.?
