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O2 UK has announced that it is boosting its UK workforce by 1,427 people as a direct result of the iPhone launching in the UK. 700 new jobs will be added to customer services while another 727 people |
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South Africa needs to take a series of "firm and decisive" action steps to make its economy more competitive in attracting foreign-direct investment and becoming a more job-creating economy, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday. DA spokesperson for trade and industry, Pierre Rabie, said the State was not succeeding in determining to what extent and, in what manner, it should intervene in the economy to make it conducive to job creation. In a report, entitled 'Jobs in Jeopardy', which was released in Parliament on Monday, the DA listed a series of actions that South Africa could undertake to encourage access to investment in job-creating projects. |
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Director of Information Technology Successful direct mail, fulfillment, and print services company seeks an energetic Director of IT & DP. Full Time Position, Excellent Wages and Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, 401K, Life, Holiday, Vacati
Location: Sacramento, CA
Source: Jobs.net ........... more |
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IDEARC Media, The Official Publisher of Verizon Print Directories Seeking candidates serious about a Career & a Future. Come Join an expanding world leader of directory publishing/information services. IDEARC Medi
Location: Orlando, FL
Pay Range: $60,000 - $100,000/Year
Source: Jobs.net ........... more |
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JOB FUNCTION: SUPERVISE AND DIRECT WEB PRESS AND SMALL BINDERY. WILL PROVIDE HANDS-ON MACHINE SUPPORT FOR EMPLOYEES. ENSURE STRICT QUALITY CONTROL AND FOLLOW ESTABLISHED PRODUCTION GUIDELINES AND PROCEDURES. MUST BE SAFETY ORIENTED.
Location: Oklahoma City, OK
Source: Jobs.net ........... more |
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Renewable energy sector offers 'huge' employment potentialBy: Mariaan OlivierPublished: 27 Sep 07 - 16:58The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) has called upon the government to step up efforts to examine the number of employment opportunities that could be generated by a viable renewable energy industry in South Africa.Speaking after a three-day energy summit in Johannesburg, the NUM’s Fred Gona said that the amount of money being spent on research on nuclear energy far surpassed the funds allocated to the development of renewable energies, such as wind, solar and hydropower.Gona said that, while the NUM was supporting job creation in the mining industry, it believed that the renewable energy sector had “huge” job creation opportunities.He added that employment in a renewable energy industry would also bring about fewer occupational hazards, when compared with uranium mining, for example.The South African government has recently committed itself to building a “new industry” around nuclear power, and proposed that some 10 000 additional jobs could be created by uranium mining and beneficiation.Job creation would firstly come from uranium mining, but the rest of the nuclear energy value chain was expected to contribute to job creation.A recent independent study on the employment potential of renewable energy in South Africa stated that, if 15% of South Africa’s electricity came from renewable resources, 36 400 new direct jobs would be created.It also showed that about 506 000 direct jobs could be created if a portion of the country’s energy needs were sourced from renewable energy technologies by 2020.South African Climate Action Network coordinator Richard Worthington added that the country had to liberate its energy sector from minerals if it wanted to commit to tackling climate change.In the 1998 Energy White paper, which was currently being reviewed, government said that it would provide focused support for the development, demonstration and implementation of renewable energy sources for both small- and large-scale applications. Immediate priorities were biomass applications, passive building design, photovoltaic applications, micro-hydro and wind-based electricity systems, and solar water heating.Source: http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/ar...?a_id=117796 |
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SA solar star in GermanyKevin Davie, Mail & Guardian: 5 August 2007As a country we do not do too well on the green front. We are generally energy inefficient and wasteful. But we can take a small measure of pride next month when the first solar panels resulting from South African taxpayer-funded research and development come out of a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant costing upwards of R500-million.But South Africans will have to wait before they can use this technology. The panels about to come out of the production process next month are being produced and marketed in Germany.It will be a good two years before the first thin-film solar panels, as they are called, are manufactured in South Africa.The electricity-producing panels are leading edge in terms of both the cost, reckoned to be about a quarter of existing technology, and efficiency. These panels convert considerably more -- in excess of 16% -- of the sun’s rays to electricity than current offerings. As one observer says, “in solar anything above 10% is considered pretty good”.This solar technology, developed over a 13-year period at the Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg) with R13-million in funding from the department of science and technology’s innovation fund, stands to make a significant contribution to easing the country’s energy crisis.Its low cost, says one South African-based energy analyst, means that it can be cost competitive with coal-fired electricity, offering the prospect that this solar power can help the country to embrace clean, renewable energy.The German-based company, Johanna Solar Technology (JST), which secured the first licence to produce these panels, has three South African investors.Richemont/Venfin, Anglo Coal and the state-owned Central Energy Fund (3%) own 24% of JST.JST makes the solar panels under licence from PTIP, a South African company which is listed on the register of South African companies, Cipro, as a subsidiary of the University of Johannesburg. The other shareholder is Professor Vivian Alberts, the chief inventor. The University of Johannesburg did not respond to a verbal and email request for a breakdown on this shareholding.Maclean Sibanda, a senior patent attorney at the innovation fund, a business unit that reports to the department of science and technology, says the innovation fund will get 5% of any revenues earned by PTIP.Sibanda says that the innovation fund’s agreement with PTIP means that the intellectual rights to the invention have to remain in South Africa.The story of Alberts’s invention received a blast of publicity when the breakthrough was first announced a few years back, but for reasons that are unclear, there appears to be a reluctance by some of the parties to take the public into their confidence, so it has not been easy to get information. Some will only talk on an off-the-record basis.Plans for a production facility in South Africa, which will match that set up in Germany, are at an advanced stage and are expected to be finalised within the next two months. The facility will be the same size as the German plant, each year manufacturing panels that can produce 30MW of power. The plant represents an investment of between R500-million and R800-million.The facility will be sited at the coast as the major part of the production is likely to be exported. An apparently high-tech production process, the facility will create a relatively modest 150 direct jobs, but many more downstream as South Africans switch to this clean energy source.The Central Energy Fund will be the main South African investor, taking up between 33% and 49% of the shareholding. The other investors are expected to be one of the two private companies which are invested in JST, Richemont or Anglo Coal. The non-South African investors who are shareholders in JST are expected to hold about 40% of the South African manufacturing operation.The South African plant is also to benefit from any know-how that the German operation has learned from setting up the new plant. JST could also assist, such as in skills training of the South African workers.A site for the plant has been identified, one of the remaining requirements being that an environmental impact assessment (EIA) be completed before the manufacturing plant be built.The German licence restricts the licensor to selling outside of Africa. The South African licensor will have no such restriction. It will target both the continent and the rest of the global market.One source says that, when the technology was first marketed locally to investors, there was a marked lack of interest. “Investors were quite scared,” the source says, explaining that while the technology was proven in pilot studies it still had to be proven in a commercial manufacturing operation.German investors in the meantime learned of the technology and applied for a licence, one of three PTIP is understood to be issuing.The use of solar energy to heat hot water is relatively well known. The technology can also be relatively simple, being no more than passing water over a source that has been heated by the sun. Converting the sun’s rays into electrical power, a process known as solar photo voltaics, or solar PV, is a much more difficult and costly technology. Equipping an average household of five with solar PV can cost in the region of R100 000.Thin-film solar uses a layer of metals less than the thickness of a human hair to convert the energy from the sun into electricity.The technology developed by Alberts is not the only such solution. Fuel giant Shell is developing its own thin-film solar and Google founders, Larry Page and Segrey Brin have invested in another.Called Nanosolar, this is a well-resourced competitor that raised more than $100-million in funding last year.But Alberts’s solution is considered, at least by its supporters, to be the best of the best. It uses more metals, giving it more flexibility, and achieves the highest level of efficiency. It also reportedly offers significant cost advantages over rival technologies.One supporter says the local plant should be aiming to produce four gigawatts of panels rather than 30MW. He says producing at scale will bring costs down.A supplier of solar PV to the South African market grumbles that news of Alberts’s invention a few years back all but killed the domestic market as many people who were considering installing solar PV decided to wait until his solution was available, perhaps at as little as a quarter of the cost.Common business sense says it will be offered more cheaply than rival products, but that it will be some time before the price falls closer to its actual costs. |
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Classification: Temporary Compensation: $18 to $28 per hour Financial company looking for a Print Production Manager with 4+ years experience. Will be managing print production for direct marketing pieces, brochures, fax sheets, and co
Location: BOSTON, MA
Pay Range: $18.00 - $28.00/Hour
Source: Jobs.net ........... more |
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Written by Mark Roth, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you.”
andy Pausch set the tone early on yesterday at his farewell lecture at Carnegie Mellon University.
“If I don’t seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you,” said Dr. Pausch, a 46-year-old computer science professor who has incurable pancreatic cancer.
It’s not that he’s in denial about the fact that he only has months to live, he told the 400 listeners packed into McConomy Auditorium on the campus, and the hundreds more listening to a live Web cast.
It’s more that “I am in phenomenally good health right now; it’s the greatest cognitive dissonance you will ever see — the fact is, I’m in better shape than most of you,” he said.
And then, to the appreciative laughs and applause of his audience, Dr. Pausch dropped to the stage floor and did a set of pushups.
“So anyone who wants to cry or pity me can come down here and do a few of those, and then you may pity me,” he said.
“What we’re not going to talk about today,” he continued, “is cancer, because I’ve spent a lot of time talking about that … and we’re not going to talk about things that are even more important, like my wife and [three preschool] kids, because I’m good, but I’m not good enough to talk about that without tearing up.”
What he was there to discuss was how to fulfill your childhood dreams, and the lessons he had learned on his life’s journey.
When he was a boy, Dr. Pausch said, he had a concrete set of dreams: He wanted to experience the weightlessness of zero gravity; he wanted to play football in the NFL; he wanted to write an article for the World Book Encyclopedia (”You can tell the nerds early on,” he joked); he wanted to be Captain Kirk from “Star Trek”; and he wanted to work for the Disney Co.
In the end, he got to tackle all of them, he said — even if his football accomplishments fell somewhere short of the NFL.
In his 10 years at Carnegie Mellon, Dr. Pausch helped found the Entertainment Technology Center, which one video game executive yesterday called the premier institution in the world for training students in video game and other interactive technology.
He also established an annual virtual reality contest that has become a campuswide sensation, and helped start the Alice program, an animation-based curriculum for teaching high school and college students how to have fun while learning computer programming.
It was the virtual reality work, in which participants wear a headset that puts them in an artificial digital environment, that earned him and his Carnegie Mellon students a chance to go on the U.S. Air Force plane known as the “vomit comet,” which creates moments of weightlessness, and which the students promised to model with VR technology.
And even though his football career ended in high school, he said, he probably learned more from that experience than all the other childhood goals he did achieve.
Among other things, he learned the value of the coach yelling at him for his mistakes, because an assistant coach told him after one particularly brutal practice: “When you’re screwing up and nobody’s saying anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you.”
While he didn’t get to be Captain Kirk, actor William Shatner, who played Kirk, did visit him at Carnegie Mellon in recent years.
“It’s cool to meet your boyhood idol,” Dr. Pausch said. “It’s even cooler when he comes to you to see what you’re doing in your lab.”
And he got the chance to write the World Book’s article on virtual reality.
Known for his flamboyance and showmanship as a teacher and mentor, Dr. Pausch talked Disney officials into letting him work on sabbatical at the company, helping design such virtual reality rides as the Magic Carpet and Pirates of the Caribbean.
More recently, he got the chance to intern with Electronic Arts, the video game company, and that relationship prompted the firm to give Carnegie Mellon the right to use its famous Sims animated characters as part of the Alice curriculum.
Near the end of his talk yesterday, Dr. Pausch surprised his wife, Jai, with a cake for her birthday on Monday, and persuaded the audience to sing for her. She managed to choke back her tears long enough to blow out the single candle on top.
To honor his life and career, Electronic Arts announced it was setting up a scholarship fund for deserving female computer science majors at Carnegie Mellon.
And the school itself said it would put his name on the footbridge that will connect the new Gates Computer Sciences Building and the Purnell Center for the Arts, symbolizing the way he linked those disciplines.
Dr. Pausch’s ordeal began a year ago, when he began to feel bloated and his bowel movements changed, he said in an e-mail interview. When doctors did a CT scan to see if he had gallstones, they spotted a tumor.
“I got the news from my GP,” he wrote, “who said ‘There’s a mass on your pancreas, and it’s not fair.’
“As I later told him, it’s unfortunate, and it’s unlucky, but it’s not unfair. As I always tell my 5-year-old, it’s not ‘unfair’ when you don’t get what you want. We all run the risk of getting hit by the cancer dart.”
In a Web-based diary he kept of his treatment, Dr. Pausch concentrated on trying to improve his survival odds. He knew it would be an uphill battle. Despite improvements in treatment, the overall five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is just 5 percent. Even the one-year rate is only 26 percent.
The first step was surgery, which took place exactly one year ago today at UPMC Shadyside. Surgeons took out his gall bladder, a third of his pancreas, part of his stomach and several feet of small intestine.
As he recovered, Dr. Pausch discovered that M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston was carrying out an experimental, highly toxic radiation and chemotherapy regimen for pancreatic cancer that might increase his five-year survival odds to almost 45 percent.
The treatments began in November and didn’t end until the following May. The low point, he wrote, was on Christmas Day of last year: “My wife and children were in Norfolk, and I was in Houston getting poison put in my veins. I was never depressed, but that was the day I was really squeezing the lemons hard to get lemonade.”
But later, less than a week after finishing chemotherapy and radiation, Dr. Pausch was playing flag football with his recreational league team again.
“First play of the game, I caught a 25-yard pass over the middle,” he said in his diary. “Granted, I was sucking wind the whole game, but damn it’s good to be back on the field.”
In mid-summer, after tests initially showed he was clear of cancer, he added two rounds of treatment with an experimental cancer vaccine at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
And then, just as he was finally feeling healthy again late last month, Dr. Pausch sent out this message to his diary readers:
“A recent CT scan showed that there are 10 tumors in my liver, and my spleen is also peppered with small tumors. The doctors say that it is one of the most aggressive recurrences they have ever seen.”
He and Jai moved their family to Chesapeake, Va., so she would be near her relatives. They made initial plans for hospice care, and Dr. Pausch began palliative chemotherapy to give him some extra time.
“I find that I am completely positive,” he wrote. “The only times I cry are when I think about the kids — and it’s not so much the ‘Gee, I’ll miss seeing their first bicycle ride’ type of stuff as it is a sense of unfulfilled duty — that I will not be there to help raise them, and that I have left a very heavy burden for my wife.”
He is concentrating now on creating videos for his children. With his oldest son, 5-year-old Dylan, Dr. Pausch went on a recent trip to Disney World and to swim with dolphins, thinking Dylan may be the only child who will have strong direct memories of him.
His wife and children, he said, “mean everything to me. They give a purpose to life and a depth of joy that no job [and I’ve had some of the most awesome jobs in the world] can begin to provide.
“I hope my wife is able to remarry down the line. And I hope they will remember me as a man who loved them, and did everything he could for them.”
If you liked this post, buy me a beer (Source: the Mail online | Men's health) |
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Intercape is looking for a consultant to come and give some Drupal training. Intercape wants to replace their intranet site with drupal.
Please contact Keith Waters on 021 3804408 (direct) if you are interested.
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