The Bear That’s Slept With Every ‘It’ Girl

Like a selfie taken in front of Indochine’s leafy wallpaper or a geotag at the Maidstone country club in East Hampton, the latest subtle status symbol to sweep the Instaverse is, oddly enough for adults, a dignified teddy bear clad in a bellhop getup. His name is Bo. And he sits expectantly on the red-and-white duvet cover of all rooms at New York’s Bowery Hotel where, in recent months, he has been ‘grammed by "It" folk the world over — Poppy Delevingne, Courtney Love, Karen Elson, Amanda Brooks, and their ilk.

Mostly it's women doing this, effectively alerting various in-the-know friends that they're in town without being so obvious as, say, photographing the Chrysler Building. And given that Bo's home is a bed, this inevitably gives off a flirty, coy, "It's just me and this soft toy here alone in this big downtown hotel room" kind of vibe. "Guess who I'm sleeping with tonight," Amanda de Cadenet captioned her photo back in April.

Bo first took up residence two years ago. And according to Bowery Hotel proprietor Sean MacPherson, it was seventies designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s famous teddy bear coat that inspired him. The name Bo is short for "Bowery," obviously, and MacPherson says he chose it because “it’s an equal opportunity name; regardless of your sexual orientation, you can feel comfortable sleeping with Bo. As Iman once said, ‘I’m not a man, I’m not a woman, I’m just Iman.’ Bo is Bo.” For those who want to take Bo home with them, there are hermetically sealed “virgin bears” for sale in each room’s minibar. MacPherson says that while Bos don’t get thrown in the washing machine, they are regularly switched out when they've gotten a little worse for the wear. But, he adds, “I think it’s fine if Bo’s gotten around a bit.” Click ahead to see the ladies (and a few guys) he's been with recently.

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Madonna Talks ‘Hot and Sexy’ Costumes, Crying Every Day on Tour, and Her 12-Year-Old Son Rocco

After the world premiere of Madonna: The MDNA Tour, an amalgamation of footage taken in multiple cities from May to December 2012, the singer herself took the stage last night at the Paris Theatre. Looking very Marlene Dietrich in a top hat and white bow tie, she admitted that MDNA “was probably the hardest tour I’ve ever done.”

Indeed, it looked exhausting. The movie showed clips of Madonna fighting off masked intruders in a “motel room,” marching as a drum majorette ahead of a cheerleading squad, strip-teasing down to her Gaultier teddy atop a piano, and walking on a tightrope — all while singing.

“I was a mess. Just talk to my manager. But in my book, if you don’t leave a pound of flesh on the stage every night, you did not do your job. Go hard or go home,” she explained during the audience Q&A. And given what we'd seen in the film, one could hardly blame Madge for her blunt reply when an audience member asked how she stayed in shape on tour. “I hate those questions,” she said cheerfully, to much laughter from the crowd. “I did the show every fucking night, okay? Is that a workout? I mean, did you watch? My workouts got smaller and smaller as the tour went on, because I became more and more exhausted. There’s your answer.”

On having her 12-year-old son, Rocco, on tour with her:
Um, well, he was going to go on my tour whether he liked it or not … He’s a Leo. What can I say? He’s disconcertingly comfortable onstage, and I was thrilled to see him every night. He gave me a little boost of energy. So, go, Rocco, wherever you are! However, he does not look like that. In one year, he has grown. He’s six feet tall, his voice has deepened, and I’m a little bit scared of him.

On her stage costumes:
I collaborated with Jean Paul Gaultier, who I’ve been collaborating with for years. And he loves to push the envelope and play with gender confusion, and wear your underwear outside, and girls that play boys and boys that play girls. But all that’s pretty sexy and hot, so. The last section of the show was a strange marriage between martial arts and Joan of Arc, and I don’t know — there’s something wrong with me!

On pumping herself up to perform when she’s not in the mood to perform:
There’s no such thing as "not in the mood," because the show must go on. I mean, I’m a human being like everyone else, so I would have my bad nights, and I would cry and say, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ But you know, I sold the tickets and I can’t let my audience down. Even if I hadn’t slept the night before and I’m exhausted, before every show everyone came into my dressing room, and we got into a circle and we held hands and we said prayers. Fifty percent of the time I said them, and 49 percent of the time I was crying — usually from overexhaustion. 

 There’s something about pushing yourself when it’s pouring rain or it’s freezing cold or you don’t feel well or something really shitty-crazy happened in the world, like Hurricane Sandy. There were so many weird, bizarre things happening [during the tour], from the trial of Pussy Riot to gays being arrested at my concert in St. Petersburg to the election of Obama. The world was changing rapidly — the shooting of Malala — it was just a crazy time. And I was personally and tremendously affected by it, and sometimes I just didn’t feel like I had the strength to go on and sing and dance and pretend that crazy shit wasn’t happening in the world. But by the end of each show I felt victorious that I had pushed through something. The world needs to be inspired — it’s my job, it’s all of our jobs to bring people up.

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6 Obscure NASA Sites Every Nerd Has to See

By Amanda Wills2013-05-03 21:40:47 UTC

NASA has Twitter down to a science. The agency knows the ins and outs of YouTube. It even even makes Google+ look cool.

But what you may not know is that NASA has plenty of forgotten features all over its websites, just waiting for geeks to uncover. Here are six of them.

Just what are astronauts in space doing at this exact moment? NASA's International Space Station Live lets you monitor everyone's daily tasks in real time on the ISS, from Chris Hadfield to Roman Romanenko.

The site features a timeline of each crewmember's activities, like performing science experiments, extravehicular activities and the more mundane eating, exercising and sleeping.

Every time you brush your teeth, you're using a NASA technology. The agency once worked with a hospital to create a pleasant-tasting toothpaste that could be swallowed. It was originally created for astronauts, who have limited access to bathrooms while in orbit.

Space technology like this is part of your everyday life, and you may not even know it. The NASA Home and City interactive feature shows how commercial spinoffs of space science have improved life on Earth — from temper foam and baby food to flame-retardant materials and invisible braces.

The International Space Station orbits 240 miles above us at 175,000 miles per hour. Because it's the third-brightest object in the sky, you can see the ISS from Earth without a telescope. The trick is all in the timing.

Last November, NASA released its Spot the Station app that sends you an email or text alert when the station is visible from your area. Subscribers can have notifications sent to their phones a few hours before the optimal sighting time, so you can always be prepared.

Downloading ringtones may have gone out of style — but not if those sounds are from Sputnik or Shuttle Discovery. NASA hosts a website where you can download every space sound you can think of — "The Eagle Has Landed" for a voicemail and Cassini: Enceladus for texts. The ringtones are available in both MP3 and M4R formats.

Not that ringtones would come in very handy in the silence of space, of course.

NASA's Eyes on the Solar System uses mission data to create a 3D environment that lets you visualize our celestial neighbors.

You get to control space and time: hop on an asteroid, buddy up with Curiosity rover as she lands on Mars or travel to the very edge of the solar system with Voyager (and it won't even take you 35 years to get there).

You'll have to make sure you have Java installed for this one. But trust us, it's worth it.

Perhaps the best part of this hub is that it reminds us that NASA's illustrious astronauts are, at heart, really just nerds like us. Over the past few years, some fabulous photoshopping whiz at the agency has produced promotional posters featuring astronauts as other kinds of geek icons.

While the usual nerdy suspects made this list — Star Trek provided the inspiration for the International Space Station's Expedition 21, while Expedition 16 appears in Matrix-style costumes — NASA also threw in nods to Reservoir Dogs and The Beatles. How could you not love this?

BONUS: Amazing Photos Taken From Space

Images courtesy of NASA

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6 Coffee Apps to Help You Savor Every Sip

Gloria Dawson2013-04-29 23:53:58 UTC

Coffee is just a means to an end for some; it's a way to wake up and stay that way. But to others, coffee is a way of life, an art form, a drink to be savored with each sip. Here are six of our favorite apps for coffee making and drinking.

Although coffee and technology haven't always been a great match (think pourover coffee fanatics who do everything by hand), at April’s Specialty Coffee Association of America Expo in Boston, a new piece of tech was what generated the most buzz. The Modbar could transform the modern coffee bar. The laboratory-like system hides all but the coffee, milk and water taps under the counter. The system is both modular and customizable and uses a touchscreen to control all of the elements.

Technology has advanced the art of coffee making on a smaller scale as well –- from apps that help you find a local fair-trade-grown cup o' joe, to those with timers and video tutorials for making coffee drinks at home. Read about a few of them in the slideshow above.

Do you have a coffee app that you love? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, creacart

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3 Elements of Every Successful Business Plan

Lauren Hockenson2013-04-15 15:37:30 UTC

So you have a great product, platform or business that you’re stoked to start up. It can be an exciting and thrilling opportunity to get your own company up and running, but it’s also filled with stress and anxiety — that road can be full of obstacles and a lot of confusion.

Well, first things first: Have you done your business plan yet?

It sounds trite, but the business plan is really the roadmap to success. When done correctly and thoroughly, that document can not only put you on track to proper growth and healthy strategies, but it can also be the perfect way to introduce your company to potential investors.

Here’s a list of guidelines that will help you craft the right business plan for your organization. Keep in mind: All businesses are unique and have their own specific challenges that must be met. But, if you stick with these characteristics, you will already be miles ahead from where you started.

What’s your business plan must-have? Let us know in the comments.

Many people consider a business plan to be the novelization of their ideal path to creating a company, jamming all hopes, dreams and projected profits into a pages-long document that, frankly, no one is interested in reading. A business plan doesn’t have to be filled with everything you’ve ever wanted in your business — it just needs to be straightforward.

“People think that a business plan needs to be a multi-page document that’s poetic in nature, and that’s not the case

“People think that a business plan needs to be a multi-page document that’s poetic in nature, and that’s not the case," says Barbara Findlay Schenck, author of Business Plans Kit For Dummies. “What you need to have is a piece of paper that details the main things that will keep your business on course.”

Schenck says the myth of the business plan as a lengthy document doesn’t match reality. In fact, just writing down the basics of your business is enough to think about your company’s pathway clearly, and how exactly you or your team will move forward.

Business plan specialist Greg Goodman agrees that excessive detail in a business plan, including month over month statistics or intense data projections, can not only be a burden on the company but also set unrealistic expectations for investors. An even worse mistake can be a business plan that includes a restrictive NDA.

“There’s a great grey area, and most VCs I’ve encountered will not sign one,” Goodman says. “They’re not going to sign it because they have the same liability issues as a company looking at an outside product. What if they’re already looking at developing it internally? Do they want to get sued by someone from Pennsylvania who thinks they have the greatest thing since sliced bread, but in fact they’re duplicative of something they’re already working on? It’s not worth it to them.”

Simple doesn’t mean sparse — the best business plan will be diligent in outlining the characteristics of the company that are most important. Hammering down the basics of your business, everything from a personnel onboarding plan to securing the proper name rights and trademarks, will ensure no important detail is left unchecked.

In her book, Schenck says that there are must-do tasks to make the business plan a useful document:

Describe the business.

Describe the product or service.

Describe the competitive environment of the product.

Describe how the business will make money through a business model.

Describe how to market the business.

Describe how you’re going to produce the product.

Describe the business team, whether it’s you or a small team.

Describe the financial projection, including how much money you need and how much money you will profit.

These tentpole concepts may seem obvious to some, but Schenck says she is surprised at how often these characteristics are missing from business plans of all kinds.

“It’s amazing how many businesses start without that knowledge and fail without that knowledge,” Schenck says.

Goodman says that even though it’s trite, the “roadmap” analogy is the most accurate way to approach the development of a business plan. By outlining all of the major points and remaining stringent about your details, you can have a solid pathway without the need for unnecessary details — and perhaps learn more about your own business in the process.

“You always should have a business plan just so that you guide your own steps,” Goodman explains. “The reality is that it has a certain value — it’s not just plotting out Step A to Step B to Step C. Once you start putting details on paper, you see stuff you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.”

No two businesses are alike, so business plans are not one-size-fits-all. Although it may be tempting to rip off a boilerplate business plan or to copy the plan from a successful business, that denies you the ability to address the unique challenges of your particular company. Worse, an untailored business plan is an easy way to set yourself up for failure.

“The business plan needs to mirror the proposed business endeavor

“The business plan needs to mirror the proposed business endeavor,” Goodman explains. “So, what goes into it is everything that is necessary to depict that particular proposition, whether it’s a candy store or some high-tech venture.”

Goodman says that when writing a business plan, it’s important to write to your particular audience. If the business plan is a strictly internal document meant to keep the performance and growth of your company on track, then it should emphasize internal information that will help that (such as hiring order or important partnerships). If the business plan is an external document, then it’s all about writing about your business as attractively as possible to get investors intrigued.

“Even seasoned people don’t necessarily get that you need to think about who is reading your document,” Goodman says. “Your audience is different, and your audience can only be judged in relationship to yourself. If you’re Joe or Susie Smith and nobody knows your background, you need to write differently and make a different pitch for venture firms.”

Schenck says understanding the nature of the business is key to producing a great business plan. It’s important for founders to think about the purpose of the business, what they’re selling, who their audience is, and how it will make money. Those are questions that need to be answered right on paper, although Schenck asserts many businesses can’t answer them right away.

“These questions can be answered on the back of a napkin for all I care, but when you’ve answered them, you’re in business.” Schenck says. “Those questions answer what you’re doing, who you’re doing it for, how you’re doing it and how you’re going to make money doing it.”

Remember, your business is unique and deserves special care when crafting a plan for success. Making a fair assessment of your needs and planning accordingly will ensure that your plan is stable enough to get you off the ground.

Image via istockphoto, fotostorm

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