Lindsaycdavison

If you've dreamed of popping by Ina Garten's house in the Hamptons for a fabulous lunch or a dinner party with Jeffery, here's the next best thing. The entertaining guru has listed their Upper East Side pied à terre for $1.975 million.

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Until I visited France, I had always thought that a person’s weight simply increases irrevocably as one ages. One day in Paris, however, clarified that misinformation. The lean-ness of the citizens struck me, particularly of the chic older people. Grandpas and grannies strolled their trim figures around the the Jardin de Luxembourg, their beige trench coats cinched at the waist. However, that first trip to Paris was in 1982. Today, the typical French physique is larger: 57% of men and 41% of women aged 30 to 60 years old are overweight or obese, according to a recent study.

So it’s no surprise that France is the #2 market for McDonald’s. They frickin’ LOVE “McDo.” And that is part of the reason why France, while still Europe’s slimmest nation, has a population with expanding waistlines. There are several reasons for this trend–the convenience and low cost of the food, the clever marketing by the fast-food chain. But it’s also part of a global move away from home-cooked, sit-down diners and towards dining on the go.

It does not bode well for the health of the nation, so France has just done something to try to buck the trend. It has just passed a law making it illegal to offer free refills on sodas in restaurants. (A patron is welcome to purchase a second or third pop, of course.)

This was a smart move by French legislators. Instead of levying a tax on sugary drinks, as Mexico has done (to measurable success, but despite controversy), the country simply prevents a restaurant from giving away a freebie. Soda refills are a relatively new thing anyway–they certainly weren’t a thing in the ’80s. I seriously doubt this will hurt the beloved McDo. What do you think?

The post France Bans Free Soda Refills appeared first on .

We’re big fans of Saint Patrick’s Day around here. It’s pretty much the only thing we have to hold onto as a cultural thing and we do our part to pay homage to our Irish roots when St. Paddy’s Day rolls around!

As we gear up for this year, I thought I’d share a little with you about what we did last year with our friends.

When we all arrived at our friends’ house, we found messages left by a real, live leprechaun, sending us on a scavenger hunt. He had been traipsing around the their house causing all kinds of mischief.

He left little clues wherever he went. Here are some options for printable scavenger hunt clues on some other lovely blogs here and here.

I didn’t get a picture of it, but the group favorite was the green pee in the downstairs bathroom. They were amazed, and full disclosure — some of the little ones were also a little terrified of that bathroom for a while after that. You just never know when a little man might sneak up on you in there!

At the end of the trail was a pot of gold chocolate coins. Perhaps that made up for the trauma at least a little bit. ;)

Now, obviously if you’ve got a leprechaun on the loose around your house, you’re going to want to catch that guy. Leprechaun traps were a natural progression in our day.

We stocked the kids with boxes, stickers and random things that might be alluring to a sneaky leprechaun and let them go wild. Each family made a trap together and yes, this does become quite the time consuming project for the mothers, but we all had fun. :)

For story time we read two of my favorite Irish folk tales. Tim O’Toole and the Wee Folk tells the tale of a man who is a bit of a blunder, but turns his life around with the help of the mischievous leprechauns.

Fiona’s Luck is about a resourceful young girl who saves Ireland by tricking the leprechauns into returning the luck to the land.

Both of these stories are so delightfully written and illustrated. We love pulling them out year after year.

The post St. Patrick’s Day Celebration with Kids appeared first on McLellan Family - Entrepreneurs + Adventurers.

  

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Last year, IKEA released a line of indoor hydroponic gardening products in the UK. The process, for those unfamiliar, entails growing plants without soil. Will the technique take off?

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“Who are you?” may well be the world’s most frequently asked question. On a website, in a nightclub, at an airport, or in front of a bank counter, everyone wants us to prove that we are who we say we are.

But 2.4 billion poor people worldwide, about 1.5 billion of whom are over the age of 14, can’t answer that question to the satisfaction of authorities. While they certainly know who they are, they are often excluded from property ownership, free movement, and social protection simply because they can’t prove their identity. They are more exposed to corruption and crime, including people trafficking and slavery. (Insightfully, the United Nations is aiming to change this, with UN Sustainable Development Goal #16, Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, aiming to “provide legal identity to all, including birth registration, by 2030.”)

Globalization and population growth increase the pressure to find cost-effective solutions to prove identity. Recent advances in biometrics, from iris scanning to DNA analysis and voice pattern recognition, are likely to play an important technical role in “fixing” this, yet identity is not necessarily something that is fixed. Our identities are records of our past behavior, and they change over time. Our identities can also vary depending on who is doing the identifying. For example, the tax office probably has little interest in your school report cards, but may care enormously about the days you spent out of the country as an adult.

Proof of identity can be a problem for rich and poor alike. For the rich, regulations around anti-money laundering, know-your-customer, and ultimate beneficial ownership increase legal and regulatory costs and hassles. Ninety percent of businesses responding to the International Chamber of Commerce’s 2016 Global Survey on Trade Finance pointed to anti-money laundering as the most significant impediment to trade.

For the poor, Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian economist famous for his work on the informal economy, observes: “Without an integrated formal property system, a modern market economy is inconceivable.” Thus a modern market economy is inconceivable without proper identification, because there are no proven holders of property rights.

How Blockchain Works

While hassles for the wealthy are a world away from the daily toils of the “great undocumented,” the solution to their problems may be the same: mutual distributed ledgers (MDLs), or blockchain technology. MDLs are unalterable registers that allow groups of people to validate, record, and track transactions across a network of decentralized computer systems. The computers follow a common protocol that allows individuals to add new transactions and distribute them using peer-to-peer architecture. MDLs are multiorganizational databases with a super audit trail. Whereas a central database can lead to a natural monopoly that everyone has to use, the fact that MDLs are mutual — i.e., held in common — means they are hard to exploit as natural monopolies. You can’t charge me for my copy of the ledger, because you don’t own it. No one does.

A common question after two decades of MDLs is “What is the killer app?” Since the 2009 launch of bitcoin, the short and somewhat shaky answer has been cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has had its ups and downs. It stirs up economic controversy with its community’s libertarian “new currency” agenda and high price volatility. Bitcoin also stirs up social controversy as rumors of heavy criminal trading of drugs and guns rightly attracts the attention of law enforcement agencies. Yet this decentralized cryptocurrency and its underlying MDL technology works, and some regulators grudgingly allow financial firms to use it.

Now a more fundamental killer app for MDLs is emerging: the secure storage and transmission of digitally signed documents with a super audit trail. These immutable document exchange networks are emerging in trade finance, shipping, and insurance, where everyone has a big problem validating the identity of people and assets. An identity document exchange typically has three parties: (1) the subject, which is an individual or an asset, (2) the certifier, which is usually an organization that notarizes documents, like a government agency, an accounting firm, or a credit referencing agency, and (3) the inquisitor, which is an organization conducting know-your-customer/anti-money laundering (KYC/AML) checks on the subject.

Typically, there are two distinct MDLs: a content ledger holding the individually encrypted documents, and a transaction ledger holding encryption key access on a series of “key rings,” which are folders for documents such as identity, health, or academic qualifications. The subject can give the identity certifier permission to put digitally certified documents on the subject’s key rings. For example, a law firm might provide digitally signed copies of documents it has notarized to the subject for them to keep and use. A government might provide each of us with a digitally signed copy of our driving license for us to control. Certifiers have no further access to the data, but inquisitors rely on the data being stamped by a trusted third party, much as a notary public notarizes a physical document.

Insight Center

The subject gives controlled key usage to inquisitors to inspect the documents with smart contracts, pieces of code recorded on the MDL. The network can restrict the number or timing of inquisitions and record them all for the subject. Third parties such as banks, insurers, or governments can get permission to access documents based on the permissions framework coded into the MDL. Commercial certifiers, such as accountants, lawyers, or notaries, may provide indemnities, such as insurance of validity, to inquisitors for a fee.

Tellingly, since 2007 Estonia has been operating a universal national digital identity scheme using blockchain. All government data about individuals is stored on a distributed ledger that individuals control and can pass to others. This digital identity system powers a low-paperwork society using digital signatures. The scheme is so useful that nonnationals use it for their personal digital signatures elsewhere in Europe.

Both high-net-worth and low-net-worth customers expect to have a sensible, inexpensive, global way to prove their identity, whether it is for payments, credit, government records, health records, or academic qualifications. MDL technology is ideally suited for immutable identity document exchange networks, and there are many initiatives under way to realize their potential. Empowering individuals to store, update, and manage access to their data seems rather obvious, including exercising their “right to be forgotten” by canceling their keys.

Proving your identity today is an expensive process. Each identity document validation takes a lot of time and uses low-tech paperwork. People would like to get more use from expensively validated identity documents. One way is to increase the number of uses. For example, in Estonia, banks realized that account access could be given on the national ID as well as a bank card. The rise of many-use IDs could in turn drive consolidation toward a few competitive global systems.

But this is no panacea. The ultimate question surrounding an immutable identity ledger is this: Will it become a lifeline for people, or a burden? Using ledgers that never lose data could materially alter the way society views identity, privacy, and security. Bureaucratic slips such as a mistyped name can be corrected, but the slip can never be forgotten. Behaviors will change, and societal conventions will alter as a result. For example, we may be more tolerant of other people’s histories when they can see our own unpaid fines or misdemeanors. Perhaps we will be more intrusive with important issues such as lying about academic qualifications, and more forgiving with lighter matters such as a few mediocre grades.

And think of our permanent legacies. Perhaps we will act more responsibly if our legacy is indelible. For example, we might choose to donate our health data to research through smart contracts triggered by our death certificates. When our identities are forever etched in immutable stone, “Don’t you forget about me” may prove to be a more enduring tune than we ever could have imagined.

From Kitchn → 7 Houseplants That Clean Your Air

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The New York City Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment has teamed up with Buzzfeed to launch "One Book, One New York," an initiative to get everyone in the Big Apple—that's 8.4 million residents—to read the same book at the same time.

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Most showers are not fancy. They get the job done. They have a spout that water comes out of, a drain at the bottom and some sort of enclosure to keep water from getting all over the place. These are not those showers.

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Our sense of smell is the one most strongly tied to memory. So it's no wonder that this company that makes candles that smell like different states is growing in popularity amongst those who are far away from home.

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Apple is unveiling its new phones tomorrow, and it's basically confirmed now that prices will start at $1,000. That, as the New York Times puts it, is "luxury territory," and it's about what the cost of their entry level laptop retails for. While we surely have love for the design-driven brand (full disclosure: currently typing this from my beloved Macbook Pro as my iPhone 7 Plus sits within arm's reach), four figures can buy a lot. Here's a partial list of other things you can spend your hard-earned cash on.

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BALAGAN:

Fantastic news. The Experimental Group, the team behind Experimental Cocktail Club, Beef Club, Fish Club, Compagnie des Vins Surnaturels, Hotel Bachaumont just to name a few other enterprises – tell me that they are opening a new cocktail bar & restaurant with rock star Chef Assaf Granit (co-owner of Jerusalem’s famous MachneYuda restaurant and London’s award-winning The Palomar/The Barbary) in the 1st arr. Look for it this Spring.

PIERRE SANG:

Third time is a charm for Top Chef contestant Pierre Sang Boyer who is adding to his successful restaurant and wine bar group on the corner of rue Oberkampf and rue Gamey. Pierre is gearing up  ready for an intimate third venture next to the wine bar, opening this Spring, with only ten seats max. Pierre tells me he’s currently working on signature dishes for the menu. Look for it in the coming months.

GREENHOUSE:

Serial restaurateur Kristin Frederick made her mark on Paris with its first ever food truck Le Camion Qui Fume, followed by the namesake restaurant, Freddie’s sandwich shop (now closed), and Huabu. Yesterday she told me that she’s “evolving from burgers” but keeping with her California cuisine philosophy by planting a community garden to grow vegetables for her new project Greenhouse, in the former Freddie’s space. It won’t be all veggies though, she says, “Think a Kristin twist on veggie food ” such as Kombucha, ice teas, Bols, homemade flatbread, but “also falafels, meat and small plates/natural wines at night.” Look for it by end of March.

STREET BANGKOK BAR & GRILL:

Following the success of Thai Street Bangkok Local Food on the Canal St Martin, Normon Kolton has tapped Taku Sekine (Dersou) as culinary technical advisor for the new name & location on the rue de la Roquette near Bastille. Look for it by February.

BREIZH CAFE ST GERMAIN

Bertrand Larcher, the crepe & galette king behind the wildly popular Breizh Café (Tokyo, Cancale, Paris) is opening a left bank location across from Le Comptoir. They’re continuing with the organic buckwheat four for the crepe/galette base, Jean-Yves Bordier butter, Artisan ciders, etc. and some fun new additions to the menu just for the new location. Look for it by March.

The post 5 New Paris Restaurants Opening Soon appeared first on Wendy Lyn - Paris Is My Kitchen.

In most bathrooms, the shower enclosure is a bit of an afterthought, just a practical solution for keeping water from spraying all over the room. But lately a different kind of shower enclosure is picking up steam — steel framed doors that make the shower a thing to be celebrated.

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Bertrand Auboyneau, the owner of Bistrot Paul Bert, shared the essential ingredient in the cream sauce that keeps his steak-frites consistently  on “the best in Paris” list. If the top quality beef, heavy cream, butter and Cognac aren’t enough to win you over, it is the “Sarawak” pepper from Borneo Island in Malaysia that adds the ooo-hh in the aaa-hhh. Oh, and dipping the hot frites in the sauce? Yeah baby.

SERVES 4

Four 1/4-lb (250-g) thick beef filets

1 oz. (25-g) Sarawak peppercorns

5 tablespoons (75-g) butter

1/2 cup (100-ml) high-quality Cognac

1 2/3 cups (400-ml) heavy or double cream, 45% butterfat

 

PREPARATION

Crush the peppercorns using a pestle and mortor, and roll the fillets in the crushed pepper to coat them.

Place the butter in a pan over high heat, and when it begins to foam, sear the fillets on each side. Season with salt.

Deglaze with the Cognac, and flambé the contents of the pan.

Pour the cream into the pan, and continue cooking the meat (RARE!)

Remove it, and leave it to rest while the cream cooks until it reaches desired consistency.

Pour the sauce over the steak and serve with hot frites and a green salad.

The post The Secret to Bistro Paul Bert’s Steak Frites appeared first on Wendy Lyn - Paris Is My Kitchen.

When you live in a small space with smaller storage options, a blank slate under the bed becomes valuable for storing, well, whatever will fit. We've rounded up smart projects, inspiring photos, and a useful shopping guide to help you make the most of your available bed-to-floor storage options.

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Fitness wearable manufacturer Fitbit is planning to lay off 6 percent of its staff after a dramatically disappointing holiday quarter, while the Apple Watch saw its best sales quarter, meaning marketers who cater to wearables need to adjust their strategies.

Canada's favorite spirited ginger is getting the Netflix treatment. The streaming service-cum-network is partnering with CBC for a new miniseries called "Anne," and they just debuted a short teaser trailer and announced a release date.

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So I make a lot of promises and don’t always make good on them. I know this about myself. It’s not always a lack of commitment (though sometimes it is)- it is often just I get distracted by a shiny object or over-commit myself or go all in on a passing fancy (when I should probably just say I want to hypothetically do it and not Do it..do it..ya know? ) This year I decided (after taking a couple years off from one of my favorite hobbies) that I was going to read 20 books in 2016. [Tangent: I know this is going to be a huge shock to all of you who think I am edgy AF and super too cool for school (NONE of you think that!), but I used to read A LOT. Like I would hear about a book that sounded interesting and actually go out and read it. I had favorite authors and everything. Then I got a smart phone and I 100% am blaming that device for superseding books in my life (and not just for the stuff that pays my bills, but for important things like googling "what is LeeLee Sobieski doing now? or falling down a vortex of Chuck Tingle titles.). I wasn't just distracted, but was dwelling in the land of delusional pretension where I couldn’t possibly put an e-book on my phone because that would somehow ruin the experience. Ya know- the magic of flipping and folding and smelling the written page. I was an asshole because guess what guys? E-books are the cat’s pjs and you can download them for free from the library whilst sitting on the toilet or lying in bed aka primo me time(and you don’t have to lend them to people and disclose that they have been sitting on the back of your toilet for a month...or have people judge your questionable titles in a doctor's waiting room. EEK!).]  

After the inauguration of President Trump, there were numerous stories about federal employees leaving the State Department, with perhaps more to follow in environmental and scientific agencies. A number of former government officials expressed worry that the departures would deprive the government of expertise and continuity precisely when they are most necessary. This raises the question: How much turnover is normal when a new administration takes office?

We set out to answer this question with data obtained from the United States government’s Office of Personnel Management. We followed the careers of millions of federal employees from 1988 and 2011 to determine the effect of new presidential administrations on their career choices. It turns out that when a new administration is sworn in, it is not just the former president’s appointees who leave. Many senior civil servants depart, too.

The data reveals a number of interesting patterns. First, there is a predictable increase in departures among the most senior employees after a presidential election. There are approximately 2.8 million U.S. civilian employees scattered across the nation (and globe), but the subset most affected by a new administration are those at the top of the hierarchy. For example, the Senior Executive Service (SES) is a corps of the 7,000 highest-level managers in government who serve across changing Democratic and Republican administrations. Most members have spent their entire careers in the public service. They direct counterintelligence in the Department of Homeland Security or emergency response in the Federal Emergency Management Agency, among other things. They have substantial policy and management experience and are tasked with keeping the government running while appointed positions are vacant during the transition and first year of a new administration. The annual turnover rate for these executives is about 8%, which means that about 560 members of the SES retire each year. This increases to 9.6%, or about 660 members, in the first year of a new administration. An additional 100 experienced managers leave the government when a new president takes over.

Agencies are not equally affected by the turnover. The federal workforce is spread across nearly 300 agencies with dramatically different missions and cultures. Some agencies carry out tasks that are more liberal in nature, say, implementing social welfare policies or cleaning the environment. Others agencies are more conservative, enforcing security or providing for national defense. (Social science research shows that liberal and conservative employees tend to self-select into agencies whose missions they support, further giving many agencies a liberal or conservative bent.) This matters for turnover: Departure rates are higher in liberal-leaning agencies during Republican administrations and in conservative-leaning agencies during Democratic administrations.

We categorized agencies as liberal, moderate, or conservative based on data from surveys of experts (e.g., journalists, academics, Washington think tanks). We then identified where there were mismatches — cases where an agency was liberal but a president was a Republican, or vice versa. We found that turnover was higher at all employment levels in mismatch agencies than in other agencies. The overall rate of federal employee turnover in the first year of a new administration is 6.1%, but in mismatch agencies it is 6.5%. Among members of the SES, the 8% average turnover rate increases to 10.2% in mismatch agencies. Higher turnover at mismatch agencies lasts for the next two years.

 

The chart above plots the estimated probability that a member of the SES leaves government (i.e., departure rate) by whether they work in an agency that is an ideological mismatch with the new president. During the president’s first term, the departure rate is notably higher for those working in a mismatch agency. It is highest in the first year, right after the new administration takes office, and then declines over the course of the president’s first term — so that eventually there is no difference between civil servants in mismatch agencies and other agencies.

If the president is reelected, departure rates in mismatch agencies actually fall behind departure rates in other agencies for a couple of years, as the executives who left in the first term are replaced by younger executives who have less of an incentive to leave, and as people who delayed leaving in the first term start to leave in the second term. Ultimately, mismatch agencies have higher average departure rates over the course of a president’s eight years.

When senior managers leave, what does that mean for middle managers? We found that, on average, departure rates actually decrease slightly for the subset of employees who are next in line. After all, when high-ranking positions become vacant, this opens up new career opportunities for those below. The data shows that federal employees in Grades 13–15, the group from which career SES members are generally drawn, show the lowest sensitivity to ideological mismatches and are slightly more likely to stay in government in the first year of a new administration.

Elections can bring significant changes to federal workplaces, from empowering new decision makers to changes in policies to hiring freezes. These can be significant career events, particularly for senior federal employees. If a new administration indicates that career professionals who worked closely with the old administration will be sidelined as part of larger policy changes, then their departures are predictable. Presumably, those with the best options outside government will be among the first to leave.

If the past is any indication, the Trump administration will lead to turnover among senior federal personnel, particularly in agencies with views that most differ from the White House. Given signs that President Trump’s administration will be more conservative than recent presidents’, we can expect to see a particularly large exodus of senior executives from liberal-leaning agencies, but not in agencies that share the president’s views. Some next-in-line managers will look at the openings as an opportunity, but this will not offset the disruption across the government caused by the new administration.

Does any of this matter to actual policy? While presidents and their appointees cycle in and out of leadership roles in the executive branch, career officials in government are thought to play a stabilizing role, supporting new leaders and providing continuity for agencies and their missions. An excessive loss of civil servant experience and expertise could harm the new government’s decision making and its ability to respond to the electorate’s needs and concerns.

The new Ikea collection should be in store in a few weeks time and it’s just great! La nouvelle collection Ikea devrait être en magasin d’ici quelques semaines et elle est tout simplement superbe ! No need to remind you … Continue reading →

Hallways—those oft neglected strips of space that connect one room to another—may perform an important function, but, especially if you live in a small dwelling, you may resent them for the space they take up on your floor plan. To turn that irritation around, we're taking a look at ways you can recapture your hallway space for other uses—or just take it from a boring, in-between sliver of your home to one that feels like a place you'd really like to linger.

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If you grew up as a craft-loving kid, then finger knitting probably reminds you of middle school and summer camp crafts. The process is every bit as easy as you remember (no worries if you need a refresher course, the sources ahead offer plenty), but the projects have gotten a tad more sophisticated. Put down the needles, pick up some fabric yarn, and you'll have a finished project in under two hours.

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Oh papasan chair. Your bowl-like nest, rattan base and cozy cushion made an appearance alongside many a shag rug and brass floor lamp in the 1970s, but your popularity waned and we were left with mere glimpses of you tucked into dorm room corners, bad bachelor pads or movie sets.

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"Impromptu get together at my place tonight!" or "Charcuterie party anyone?" are typical statements made by our consummate entertainer, who is always ready, willing and able to throw together a well-curated soirée. From trivets and glassware to ice cream spoons and punch bowls, all are welcome to reside in the home of the entertainer. No matter their style (whether streamlined and modern or high-energy glam), gift the entertainer what they need this season to remain on the permanent guest list.

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It's all about the good life for the Bon Vivant! Always on the hunt for head-turning gadgets, decor and fashionable duds, they possess a keen eye for all things chic and current, and love the thrill of adventure. Whether they lean toward a more-is-more sensibility or are simply inclined, when gifting this hard-to-shop-for epicure, be sure to keep luxe looks top of mind.

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Have you ever wanted to just give up on everything and retreat deep into the country, far from any society, where you can write a novel and raise goats and contemplate the stars, untrammeled by the presence of other human beings? If it's your dream to become a modern-day Thoreau, this tiny house is the perfect place to do it.

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Four years ago, when I was home for a couple days between book tour stops and I had about 3 gazillion errands to run but I was also hungry (because proper meals are the first thing to go when I’m busy) and really craving a great salad (because vegetables are the first thing to get stiffed when you travel a lot) and I didn’t want to eat it out of a takeout container or on my lap or in a hurry, I wanted to sit down and eat it off a plate like a civilized person with water in a glass, not a plastic bottle, and the want for this was overwhelming and I looked up and I was right in front of the Union Square Cafe and thought, “Why not?”

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Imagine walking into a store, grabbing what you want, and just walking out without waiting in line. No, it's not shoplifting—it's a reality at Amazon Go, the retail giant's new grocery store in Seattle that is opening to the public in 2017.

<p><a href='http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/amazons-futuristic-grocery-store-has-no-checkout-lines-239498'><strong>READ MORE »</strong></a></p>

I know we all associate December with cookies, cocktails, yule logs and latkes, but what about the smaller, enduring festivities that often go overlooked, namely workplace and other potluck luncheons? Because my “coworkers” are basically a laptop and occasionally these wild things, my current participation level is limited, but I know that usually what happens is that it’s rather easy to bring cookies and cakes but as nobody wants to drag a roast on the subway and then heat it up in the breakroom microwave, main dishes are harder to nail down.

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Mr. Tillerson, Exxon Mobil’s chief executive and a secretary of state candidate, has a relationship with Russia that could be both a strength and his Achilles’ heel.