All posts tagged: Tide

The House | Turning The Tide: Can Digital Nomads Breathe New Life Into Seaside Towns?

The House | Turning The Tide: Can Digital Nomads Breathe New Life Into Seaside Towns?

Published by Sam Flores

8 min read28 min Britain’s seaside towns are often emblematic of economic ill-health, but Zoe Crowther finds hope that digital entrepreneurs will breathe new life into coastal economies Angela Hicks knows what people think about Weston-super-Mare – her parents once ran hotels in the seaside town near Bristol. The businesswoman saw its postcard charm curdle into ugly deprivation, until by 2009 the town was home to around 11 per cent of the UK’s drug rehabilitation places. But today, although still struggling to cling on to declining numbers of tourists, Hicks detects a small but growing renaissance as so-called ‘digital nomads’ start new ventures in the town. The House recently visited The Hive, a business support centre on the edge of Weston that has become a focal point for the town’s small-business community. More than 25 entrepreneurs gathered there for a roundtable hosted by the Startup Coalition and the town’s Labour MP, Daniel Aldridge. Arriving at the centre’s car park, young founders stepping out of Range Rovers and Porsches seemed a far …

Jeff Bridges’s ‘Big Lebowski’ Sweater and Gene Hackman’s ‘Crimson Tide’ Rolex Are Up for Sale

Jeff Bridges’s ‘Big Lebowski’ Sweater and Gene Hackman’s ‘Crimson Tide’ Rolex Are Up for Sale

Published by Jenni Sidey

The list of candidates for the world’s most famous sweater is a short one. On it are such greats as Kurt Cobain’s “Unplugged” cardigan, Princess Diana’s “black sheep” jumper, and Billy Crystal’s oversized cable knit from When Harry Met Sally. The top spot, however, assuredly belongs to the chunky brown shawl-collar cardigan worn by Jeff Bridges as The Dude in the Coen brothers classic The Big Lebowski. And on March 25th, someone is going to buy it. The Dude’s signature knit is just one of more than 1,500 items hitting the block in the Entertainment Memorabilia Live Auction, which is set to take place from March 25 to 27 in Los Angeles. Hosted by Propstore Auctions, the same auction house that sold Darth Vader’s lightsaber from Return of the Jedi for $3.6 million last year, the sale runs the gamut from original production drawings from The Simpsons (estimated to hammer for $300-$600) to an original C-3PO head from The Empire Strikes Back ($350,000-$700,000). It would take far too long to highlight every piece from the …

Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgement’ gets clean up as tide of visitors to Sistine Chapel grows

Michelangelo’s ‘Last Judgement’ gets clean up as tide of visitors to Sistine Chapel grows

Published by Sam Flores

VATICAN CITY (RNS) – “The Last Judgement,” Michelangelo’s vast fresco painted into the plaster of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel is undergoing an extraordinary maintenance process in preparation for Easter, with a team of 20 restorers working in two shifts a day remove a thin milky residue that has built up due to the thousands who come to admire the masterpiece every day. Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, described the coating as “a sort of cataract” to journalists on Saturday (Feb. 28) that flattens the dramatic effect of shadows and light of the roughly 45-by-40-foot fresco. After it was discovered two years ago, laboratory tests revealed that the coating primarily consisted of calcium lactate, a type of salt formed from the breath of the 17,000 to 20,000 daily visitors to the chapel, where the church’s cardinals convene to elect a pontiff. Seven million people passed through the space last year. “Calcium lactate comes from respiration, the increase in temperatures, humidity, and also the increase in the number of visitors,” explained Fabrizio Biferali, the curator …

Tide’s Evo Tiles Are a Fresh, Overengineered Take on the Tide Pod

Tide’s Evo Tiles Are a Fresh, Overengineered Take on the Tide Pod

Published by skeptic

Laundry is a $100 billion business. It can also be a real time suck, what with all the washing, drying, and folding. Detergent company Tide has found great success with its Pods that let you pop detergent right into a washing machine without having to measure and pour liquid or powder. Now, the next evolution is an exhaustively engineered single-use detergent called Tide Evo Tiles—a dry, fibery, single-use tile that can dissolve in cold water. It looks a lot less tasty than the bright, colorful Tide Pods, so hopefully, fewer people will try to eat this one. Tide Evo Tiles have been in product development for over a decade. After spending a year in test markets, Tide and its parent company, Procter & Gamble, announced last week that Evo Tiles are now rolling out more broadly across the US. Prices range from $5 to $20 per box, depending on the retailer, with the price roughly 50 cents per tile. “This is really a feat of engineering,” says Marcello Puddu, senior director of research and development …