Expensive Hat - Napoleon’s famed two-cornered hat sold at auction for $2.4 million

Original article here. I wonder if my Grandpa's red cap or my Blue Jay's hat will ever be worth anything?

Napoleon Bonaparte’s trademark bicorn hat sold at auction near Paris on Sunday for roughly $2.4 million, according to news reports.

A South Korean collector, whose name was not released, paid nearly five times more than the minimum price set for the two-cornered, black felt hat that was apparently worn by the French emperor during the Battle of Marengo in 1800, the BBC reported.



Jean-Pierre Osenat of the Osenat auction house in Fontainebleau, France said the hat, now weathered from its age, is part of a collection belonging to the Prince of Monaco, whose family is distantly related to Napoleon. Prince Albert II said the family decided to sell the items in the collection “rather than see them remain in the shadows,” the Associated Press reported.

Napoleon wore it and others made by French hatmaker Poupard sideways, rather than with the points facing front and back, so he could easily be spotted on the battlefield, an official with the Osenat auction house told Reuters.

Napoleon’s battlefield style was depicted in the painting “Napoleon Crossing the Alps” by Jacques Louis David from 1801. Credit: Getty Images

“He understood at that time that the symbol was powerful,” said Alexandre Giquello, who works at the auction house, told the AP. ”On the battlefields, his enemies called him ‘The Bat’ because he has that silhouette with this hat.” During the emperor’s 15-year reign in the early 19th century, Napoleon reportedly went through about 120 hats — 19 of which of are currently in museums around the world.

The auction of the hat concluded a three-day sale of about 1,000 other Napoleon artifacts, including dozens of medals, decorative keys, documents, a jeweled sword, a Russian caviar spoon and a bronze eagle that once perched atop a battle flag, complete with bullet holes, the AP reported.

Oldest Surviving Photo of a Human

Original article here

This photo of a Paris street was taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838.

(CNN) -- At first glance, it doesn't seem that remarkable: An old black-and-white scene of a strangely deserted city, smudged in places by some primitive photographic process. But this image, taken in Paris, France, in 1838, is believed to be the earliest known photograph featuring a person. Look in the photo's lower left corner and you'll see a man getting his boots cleaned on the sidewalk. The boot-cleaner is there too, although he is harder to spot.

The image has been posted online before, but it gained a higher profile after news site Mashable published a full-page version on Wednesday in partnership with Retronaut, a website that archives photos from the past.

This detail from the photo's lower left corner shows a man who appears to be getting his boots cleaned.It was taken by Louis Daguerre, the French photographer famous for pioneering the daguerreotype, an early type of photo produced on a silver plate or a silver-covered copper plate. According to Retronaut's Amanda Uren, the exposure time for the image was around seven minutes. The street appears deserted because while the two human figures were relatively still, other pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages were moving too fast to register on the plate. 

 

The photo shows the Boulevard du Temple, a then-fashionable area of shops, cafés and theaters.The two people on the sidewalk are the most recognizable human figures in the photo, although Uren points out that a detailed examination reveals other possible people on a bench and in a window of the building in the foreground.

 

The image is not close to being the earliest known surviving photograph, though. That distinction belongs to a photo by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, one of Daguerre's partners, who used a crude camera to capture the view from a window at his French estate in 1826 or 1827.

Today, when almost everyone has a phone camera in their pocket and more than 350 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day, Daguerre's milestone seems quaint. In 2014, he might have just snapped a selfie.

Planetary System - great baby picture

The Best Baby Picture Ever of a Planetary System

original article here

Protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star HL Tau.

Astronomers have taken the best picture yet of a planetary system being born. The image, taken by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in the high-altitude desert in Chile, reveals a planet-forming disk of gas around a young, sun-like star, in great detail. “The first time I saw this image, I thought it was actually probably a simulation—it was way too good,” said Tony Beasley, director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, in a video accompanying a press release. The NRAO helps operate ALMA.

The disk has gaps and rings that are carved out by nascent planets—features that have only been modeled in computer simulations. The star, named HL Tau, is 450 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. It’s only about a million years old—remarkably young to be already giving birth to planets.

A star forms when a cloud of gas and dust collapses under its own weight. As the embryonic star comes together, it spins, and the excess gas and dust flatten out into a surrounding disk like a pizza. All that stuff in the disk starts to form particles that then clump together, accumulating until they eventually form asteroids, comets, and planets. As those budding bodies grow, they plow through the remaining material in the disk, creating the gaps and rings seen in the new ALMA image.

HL Tau’s surroundings, as seen by Hubble.

Resume writing recommendations

from here.

What makes a recruiter reject your resume in seconds?

When it comes to job hunting, your resume can make or break your chances ... very quickly. Three-quarters of human resource professionals said it takes them less than five minutes to review a resume before deciding whether a job applicant makes it to the next round, according to a recent survey from the Society for Human Resource Management. And that may be generous. "I thought it would be a lot less. [Often] an initial screen takes 30 seconds," said Doug Arms, a vice president at staffing firm Kelly Services.

So, basically, think Tinder for talent.
Hiring managers and recruiters say there are telltale signs that help them weed out candidates at first glance. These are the resumes that can make an applicant seem, among other things, careless, immature or just not worth pursuing relative to the competition.

And here's the thing: Anyone, regardless of education or experience, can fall into these traps.
"I see it at every level for every type of job I've ever hired for," said Alison Green, an HR consultant in the Washington, D.C., area who runs AskAManager.org.

Here are seven of the biggest resume killers that hiring pros say they see all the time:
1. Using a ridiculous email address: Your college friends may know exactly why hairofthedogdude@yahoo.com is fitting for you, but recruiters and hiring managers may not be so amused. "It just shoots your credibility," Arms said.
2. Making spelling errors and grammatical mistakes: Time to admit it, your mother was right. "If you can't be trusted to proof your resume, why should I trust you with details once you're on the job?" Arms said.
3. Including crazy fonts, colors and other graphics: Creativity is desirable in many jobs. But resumes that look like art projects are not.
"Keep the document simple and clear. If it takes too long for us to figure out where people work and what they do, they won't get too far," said Maryanne Rainone, managing director of Heyman Associates in New York.
4. Not using keywords: Terms particular to the job you want and the relevant skills you have should feature prominently on your resume and LinkedIn profile.Pay attention to the words in the job description, Arms said. "Ask yourself first: 'Do I satisfy the criteria?' If so, is that reflected on your resume?"
Some employers use software to search for keywords when they are sorting through hundreds of applicants' resumes. Recruiters also use keywords to find potential candidates through LinkedIn and other sites.

Kelly Dingee, director of strategic recruiting at Staffing Advisors in Maryland, suggests thinking broadly about which words to use.If she's trying to recruit for a development officer position, for instance, she'll search not just for that job title but for words like "philanthropy," "fundraising" and "major gifts."
5. Stating everything but your accomplishments: Listing your day-to-day responsibilities (e.g., managing a Web site, organizing conferences) in your current and past jobs won't distinguish you from the pack.
Instead, hiring managers should be able to tell at first glance what you've accomplished (e.g., doubled sales, increased audience reach by 30%, negotiated the company's biggest deal, etc.).
6. Writing too much: Writing a book is an impressive feat, but your resume shouldn't read like one.
Recruiters won't read paragraph after paragraph. They'd much prefer short, bulleted points.
7. Forgetting to include dates: The years that you worked at every job you held should be easily scannable.
Otherwise, "it looks like someone is trying to hide something," Rainone said.