In September, we wrote about the
Election Dance Off from Jon M. Chu, the guy the ignited The Biggest Online Dance Battle in YouTube History. Now a spoof as come out using the footage from the Election Dance off spliced with your favorite Presidential candidate. With a couple week til the election, remember to get out the Asian American Vote.
Election Dance off spoof
 |
 |
Tough times at Yahoo! and for co-founder/CEO Jerry Yang this year. Lots of things happening to Yahoo!: Carl Icahn tried to remove Jerry Yang during the summer, on and off deal for Microsoft to buy Yahoo!, Department of Justice examining the Yahoo!/Google advetising deal, and the potential acquisition of AOL. We hope Jerry Yang can pull off this turnaround for Yahoo! During rough economic times, Yahoo! announced that it would layoff about 10% of its workforce. Here’s the memo from Jerry Yang:
yahoos,
i feel it’s important for me to reach out to you after our earnings announcement, and before our all hands meeting tomorrow.
we as a company have been through a tremendously challenging year; and managing the increasingly turbulent global advertising climate has been an important focus for the last three months.
throughout the first three quarters of 2008, we have been balancing between investing in our top priorities, and managing our cost structure. beginning in september, with the help of Bain & Co., we initiated a series of steps to determine how we can become more efficient and productive as an organization.
we heard from you through the YEES survey, and through your suggestions on backyard, and we’ve identified many areas that we all feel we can improve upon. our productivity efforts, based in part on what we heard from you, will involve initiatives such as streamlining our organizational structure through reducing layers and increasing spans of control, and eliminating redundancies. longer term structural efficiencies include consolidating facilities, improving procurement, and standardizing our global technology platforms.
today as part of our q3 earnings release, we said that our goal is to reduce our current annualized cost run rate of roughly $3.9 billion by more than $400 million before the end of 2008. we are targeting non-headcount expenses wherever possible, such as facilities and outside services. however, because compensation expenses are the single largest part of our costs, we anticipate a reduction of at least 10% of our global workforce by year-end.
affected employees will be notified of layoffs in the next several weeks. we understand that hearing this news now creates uncertainty, but we are moving ahead in a way that balances speed with a clear focus on accomplishing what is necessary to set the organization up for long term success. going forward it will continue to be important for us to make the right decisions to keep our business efficient and strong.
having layoffs is very difficult, particularly in light of all we’ve experienced this year. but we don’t take these decisions lightly, and are committed to treating affected employees fairly, offering severance and outplacement services.
the steps we are taking are not easy for us as a company, but as we become more fit as an organization, decision-making will be faster and it will be easier for us all to get more done and stay focused on our strategy. these changes will also prepare us to better deal with the macroeconomic downturn. as with previous downturns, yahoo! continues to be a place where consumers turn for information and communications, and is an integral part of their internet day. as the global economy improves in the future, i certainly believe that we will be stronger and benefit from the actions we are taking now.
as always, i thank you for all you do as yahoos.
best,
jerry
Yahoo! layoffs
|
|
A whopping 67 countries have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category at the 81st Oscars, topping last year’s record of 63 countries. Nominations for the 81st Academy Awards will be announced on Thursday, January 22, 2009, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2008 will be presented on Sunday, February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center®, and televised live by the ABC Television Network. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide.
Here’s the Asian submissions for consideration
Bangladesh, “Aha!,” Enamul Karim Nirjhar, director
China, “Dream Weavers,” Jun Gu, director
Hong Kong, “Painted Skin,” Gordon Chan, director
India, “Taare Zameen Par,” Aamir Khan, director
Japan, “Departures,” Yojiro Takita, director
Korea, “Crossing,” Tae-kyun Kim, director
Singapore, “My Magic,” Eric Khoo, director
Taiwan, “Cape No. 7,” Te-Sheng Wei, director
Thailand, “Love of Siam,” Chookiat Sakveerakul, director
Crossing Trailer
|
|
Recent sculptures, drawings, and installations by the celebrated artist Maya Lin are on view at the de Young Museum October 25, 2008, to January 18, 2009. Lin (b. 1959) came to prominence in 1981 with her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and has since achieved a high degree of recognition for a body of work that includes monuments, buildings, earthworks, sculpture, and installations. Systematic Landscapes is Lin’s second nationally-traveling exhibition in ten years, with venues in Seattle, St. Louis, San Diego, and Washington, D.C. “This exhibition continues my interest in exploring notions of landscape and geologic phenomena,” says Lin. “The works created, both small- and large-scale installations, reveal new and at times unexpected views of the natural world: from the topology of the ocean floor to the stratified layers of a mountain to a form that sits between water and earth.”
Lin’s extraordinary ability to convey complex and poetic ideas using simple forms and natural materials is fully evident in Systematic Landscapes. Working in a scale that relates to the land, and combining a deep interest in forces and forms of nature with a long-term investigation into the possibilities of sculptural form to embody meaning, this exhibition offers a rich, immersive experience for visitors that brings the sensory understanding of Lin’s outdoor works inside.
Lin has created a trio of large-scale sculptural installations for the exhibition that present different ways to encounter and comprehend the landscape. 2×4 Landscape (2006), a vast hill built of 65,000 boards set on end, presents a land surface rising from the gallery floor. Water Line (2006), a wire-frame three-dimensional drawing in space based on an undersea formation, is installed overhead and dips into the visitor’s sightline. Blue Lake Pass (2006) is a topographic translation of a Colorado mountain range made of layers of stacked particleboard that have been segmented and pulled apart to create landscape strata through which the visitor can see.
Systematic Landscapes also includes a series of sculptures based on the water volumes of various inland seas; plaster reliefs of imagined landscapes that are embedded directly into gallery walls; large drawings of landforms and river sheds; and altered atlases that present alternative topographies.
Concurrent with Systematic Landscapes is the debut of Maya Lin’s public art installation Where the Land Meets the Sea, a tubular wire sculpture commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission for the California Academy of Sciences, also in Golden Gate Park. The installation is the first permanent work by Lin in San Francisco. The de Young exhibition will feature small-scale models, maquettes, and renderings of the piece, engaging audiences in Lin’s creative thinking process and studio practice.
Maya Lin Systematic Landscapes Documentary
|
|
Vanessa Hudgens plays Gabriella Montez for the third time in the High School Musical series. Last year, nude photos of her surfaced online. Early rumors were that Disney would drop Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical 3 due to the scandal. Obviously with her in the movie that rumor was not true.
Vanessa is HAPA. Her mother is Filipina, Chinese,and Spanish, while her father is Irish and American Indian.
High School Musical 3 : Senior Year Synopsis
Disney ’s “High School Musical ” phenomenon leaps onto the big screen in HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR, in which the world ’s favorite high school students (ZAC EFRON, VANESSA HUDGENS, ASHLEY TISDALE, LUCAS GRABEEL, CORBIN BLEU and MONIQUE COLEMAN) hit senior year. Amidst a basketball championship, prom and a big spring musical featuring all of the Wildcats, Troy and Gabriella vow to make every moment last as their lifelong college dreams put the future of their relationship in question. A crew of sophomore Wildcats (MATT PROKOP, JUSTIN MARTIN, JEMMA MCKENZIE-BROWN) joins in the fun as the film ’s incredible new music and exciting dance numbers take maximum advantage of the big screen.
Vanessa Hudgens in High School Musical 3 : Senior Year
|
|
More about Vanessa Hudgens
VANESSA HUDGENS (Gabriella Montez) is a promising young actress and recording artist.
She appears in the music-driven, inspirational fish-out-of-water story “Bandslam” to be released in early 2009. Starring alongside Gaelan Connell, Aly Michalka and Lisa Kudrow, Hudgens plays a misfit who finds her voice in a coming-of-age story about a high school battle-of-the-bands competition.
Hudgens began her career at age 8 in the world of musical theatre. Early roles in such productions as “Evita,” “Carousel,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The King & I,” “The Music Man,” “Cinderella” and “Damn Yankees” gave the actress the opportunity to showcase her impressive singing and acting skills.
She made her feature film debut in Catherine Hardwicke’s “Thirteen,” starring Holly Hunter and Evan Rachel Wood. Soon thereafter, she co-starred in the action-adventure film “Thunderbirds,” and was a recurring guest star on Disney Channel’s “The Suite Life of Zach & Cody.” Her television credits include “Quintuplets,” “Brothers Garcia,” “Still Standing” and “Robbery Homicide Division.”
But it was Hudgens’s role in Disney Channel’s breakaway sensation “High School Musical” and its follow-up “High School Musical 2” that has garnered her much praise and attention. In 2006, Hudgens released her debut solo album “V”-a captivating variety of rock, electronic and R&B styles-and toured with the Cheetah Girls, followed by a sold-out 42-date arena concert tour of “High School Musical: The Concert.” In July 2008, Hudgens released her second album “IDENTIFY” for Hollywood Records, followed by a two-month concert tour in the Unites States.
KCET Los Angeles presents SoCal Connected, a new hard-hitting prime-time weekly television news program that examines the issues and people of Southern California. The program features a repertory company of some of the best broadcast journalists in Southern California, including contributors Lisa Ling, Judy Muller, and Patt Morrison.
SoCal Connected debuts with an unsettling look at the biggest issue in Southern California and the nation today-the economy. Lisa Ling (ABC, CNN, Nat Geo) looks at foreclosure from a different point of view-from the people left behind. For the past few years, the Inland Empire has been one of the fastest growing counties in the state of California. But now the Inland Empire is pretty much the poster child for the foreclosure crisis.
Look for Lisa Ling’s part in the debut of SoCal Connected.
Lisa Ling visits Foreclosure Alley
|
|