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Life as we know it was not forever changed at Minneapolis City Hall on Monday. But that might happen in January.

That’s if life includes an occasional ride in a taxicab. What was proposed was a requirement that drivers accept credit and debit cards. Just like Starbucks. What the Regulatory, Energy amp; Environment Committee approved on Monday was a gentle overhaul of the taxicab ordinance.

We now have a new dress code for drivers. The credit- and debit-card language was pulled out for more study.

Council Member Gary Schiff, fresh from reading a story in Forbes Magazine about how taxi drivers are getting ripped off, wants to make sure the ripping off doesn’t happen in Minneapolis.

He cited Boston as the bad example. Drivers there pay a 6 percent fee to the cab owners when they accept credit cards for payment as required by the city. That 6 percent fee also comes out of their tip if the tip is on the credit card.

“Credit cards make it easier for the consumers,” said Schiff, but “we also want to make sure drivers are not getting taken advantage of behind the scenes.” He is quite sure the credit and debit card part of the taxicab ordinance will be approved in January.

The good news is we will not be riding with drivers wearing flip-flops. Or for that matter, we will not be riding with drivers wearing clothing items with holes, tears or prominent stains. And drivers must have $20 in change available for those who pay in cash.

Most of the credit- and debit-card discussion was favorable. Zach Williams of Rainbow Taxi said his company takes credit cards but cautioned about putting the scanner in the back seat because, he said, the drunks will ruin it in six months. Better to keep the scanner up front.

Williams said Visa and MasterCard fees are just under 2 percent, while American Express charges 3.5 percent.  

“I used to swallow (those fees) as a company, but found I couldn’t afford it,” said Williams, who now passes the fees along to his drivers.

St. Paul does not require taxicabs to accept credit or debit cards. But the Metropolitan Airports Commission does require drivers picking up passengers there to accept the cards.

Eric Hudak, assistant manager of MAC Commercial Vehicle Operations, said there are 36 companies supplying taxi service to the airport, which represents a fleet of 725 taxis and more than 900 licensed drivers. All of them are credit- and debit-card ready.

Del Jenkins had a different story about the need for taxi drivers who take cards. He works as a bouncer in downtown Minneapolis. It apparently can be quite a challenge to find a taxi at closing time that will accept a drunk person who doesn’t have cash for the ride home.

The committee plans to schedule the credit- and debit-card ordinance for reconsideration in January.

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While the British Fashion Councils special ambassador – on hand last night to present the Designer of the Year award to Alexander McQueen creative director, Sarah Burton – chose an understated black velvet dress and necklace by rising British fashion star Holly Fulton, all eyes were on her show-stopping feet.

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JAMSHEDPUR: For the first time, Jamshedpur Cooperative College has introduced dress code for students. Starting with the Bachelors of Education (BEd) section, the institution has decided to make all its students follow the dress code from the next calendar year.

With a view to bringing uniformity in students and reserve the campus only for bonafide students, the college administration decided to implement the dress code. Initially, BEd students have been asked to come in uniform with boys in pink shirt and black trousers and girls in pink kameez and black salwar.

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Miley Cyrus dressbuzz hit the Internet after theCNN Heroes: An All-Star Tributeover the weekend. On Twitter, breast augmentation rumors followed the gawking. She then tweeted away the chatter, saying her boobies are real.

Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth a Breath of Fresh Air on the Red Carpet

She looked like a mermaid on land with her long and silky canary dress with a deep and plunging neckline. She completed the ensemble off with a Bohemian-style long twisted plait.

Needless to say, Cyrus looked enchanting in her yellow confection, and beamed despite thelow-cutdress-voyeurs holding their gaze on her cleavage.

Her Australian beau looked all the bit dapper in his wrinkled Men in Black wrinkled ensemble. With all the camera flashes probably meant for his date, its a wonder anyone knew he was even around.

Miley Cyrus Dress Attracts Attention in All Shapes and Sizes: Breast Augmentation?

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Its 600 light years from Earth, orbits a star very similar to our Sun in a period of about 290 days, and has a diameter about two and a half times that of Earth. What is it? Its the NASA Kepler missions most recent exciting confirmed discovery, the extrasolar-planet (exoplanet) Kepler 22B.

Another real, Earth-sized planet to imagine? Cool! Im on it….

Its fun to play around with the planetary possibilities, as science fiction writers have done for decades, but having a real find out there to pin our thoughts on is something more. On that blank ball-shaped canvass we can paint whatever atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphereand who knows, biosphere?we care to imagine, at least until scientific observation starts to fill in those details.

But, Kepler 22B offers something more to our fancy than a mere Earthoid dress-up doll. Being somewhat larger than our world, though still smaller than a Neptune or a Uranus, places it in the category of super-Earth, a type of planet that we have very little experience with.

What do we know of Kepler 22B beyond the barebone figures revealed by the Kepler spacecraft? In a word, not much. Kepler–a really big camera orbiting the Sun and staring at a patch of 150,000 or so stars in the constellation Cygnus–was designed to detect the presence of Earth-like exoplanets. Using the transit method of exoplanet detection, Kepler watches unblinkingly for the slight dimming of a stars light as one of its planets transits, or moves across, its face.

That dimming can tell us exactly three things: the approximate diameter of the planet by how much of the stars light is blocked, the orbital period of the planet by how often it transits, and the distance between the planet and its star (because once you know the orbital period, you can calculate that distanceor visa versaas long as you know the mass of the star the planet orbits…which we do).

Being relatively close to the size of the Earth makes Kepler 22B an important find, but maybe more important is the fact of the planets distance from its star. Keplers mission isnt merely to find Earth-sized planets, but ones that are within their stars habitable zones: the right distance so that, given a sufficient atmosphere, liquid water could exist on their surfaces.

Kepler 22B is at that correct distance. Though it is closer to its star than Earth is from the Sun, that star is slightly cooler than the Sun, so its habitable zone is closer in. (Earth is obviously in the Suns habitable zone; if youre not sure, go get yourself a glass of water.)

But back to what we know, and dont know, about Kepler 22B. Not having a super-Earth in our own Solar System, we dont have an up-close example to study. Is it like Earth, a rocky sphere from the core right up to the visible surface, with an apple-peel thin layer of gas and liquid on top? Or is it more like Uranus, with a solid core deep down with massive layers of fluid and gas upholstered around it? Or something between?

We dont know. Future observations may reveal more about this planet, and others. One day we might know more about Kepler 22Bs atmosphere (if it has one) through spectroscopic measurements. If we can make a measurement of the planets mass, we could calculate its average density and better place it on the spectrum between super-Earth and infra-Uranus.

Were we to travel there, could we land, step outside and breathe the air (as well as strain under a super-Earths gravity)? Would we sink into the fluid envelope around the hidden core, falling to ever greater depths and atmospheric pressure? Would we find ourselves surrounded by human-sized chimpanzees?

That adventure is yet far in the future…but a lot of fun to imagine in the meantime….

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