Creative accounting: the consolidation of debts

There is another side to the recent debate about graduate student labor.
Just like welfare, the discomfort of most graduate student stipends are an impetus to finish.
They have the option to mortgage their future with loans (if they can get one), but that adds to the dis- comfort.
As you are "discovering" yourself in graduate school often real life events creep in like marriage and parenthood.
This makes it harder to take that $20-25K post- doc 3000 miles away from your spouse's job.
The recent nanny-gate controversy highlighted how punitive the system is to people just starting out.
With first year college costs 18 years from now estimated at $75,000 they are not only sacrificing their current well being by holding out for an academic or industry position in their field that allows a middle class lifestyle, they are also sacrificing their children's chances. Wouldn't it also be nice to save something for retirement?
In this scenario it is everyday easier for students to need loans and consolidation of loans.
Student Loan Consolidation can assist in finding an honest lender whose area of expertise is finding the perfect student loan.
Their debt management professionals can consolidate accrued student loans into a single low interest monthly payment.
The Expert Advice, Lead Stories, and Student Loan 101 columns aid in defining student loan types, the student loan application, how to consolidate, and the advantages of consolidating student loans.
The key benefits they can offer are:

• Lower your monthly student loans

• Decrease student loan expenses with a fixed interest rate

• Take advantage of tax-deductible interest rates

• Free student loan consolidation advice and tips

• Search for student loan professionals in your area




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The Main attractions of Maine

A U.S. venture capitalist wants to lease Mir from the Russians, renovate it, and turn it into a vacation spot for other millionaires. The price will be about $40 million for the first visitor, but then about $25 for others.
I guess also third generation visitors will have to pay a nice amount.
If you, like me, cannot afford a few millions for a vacation, there are other wonderful places where you can relax and bring your family (including your pets).

Winter is the season when Maine truly sparkles!
Maine is a winter playground for alpine skiers and snowboarders of all ages. The state is also home to some of the best cross country skiing on the East Coast…
From the first hint of spring through the lazy days of summer, Maine is an outdoor wonderland. You can explore the coast, mountains, woods, rivers and lakes by kayak, bike or seaplane.
With the crisp air of autumn comes the chance to experience a quintessential fall weekend in Maine. From quiet coastal villages to lakeside golf courses to scenic mountain passes, Maine offers a variety of settings for nature’s brilliant show.

What about Maine vacation rentals?
You can easily browse all the main places of Maine!
What about Aroostook County?
You’ll find an abundance of natural, cultural and recreational resources that will make for a memorable vacation in any season.
And Greater Portland & Casco Bay?
Southern Maine, offers scenic beauty, recreational opportunities and a wealth of historic and cultural attractions.
May be Kennebec & Moose River Valleys?
The Upper Kennebec and Moose River Valleys offer incomparable opportunities for hiking, bicycling, canoeing, kayaking, whitewater rafting, fishing, hunting, cross country skiing, snowmobiling and fall foliage viewing.
Or Maine Lakes & Mountains?
From the colorful wild flowers of spring and the bright sunlit hillsides of summer to the brilliant palette of fall and the stunning white snows capes of winter, it’s a region of great scenic beauty. It is also the home to outstanding recreational pursuits.
The Maine Highlands?
It is a region of superlatives. Here you will find the most plentiful moose and deer in Maine; more parkland than anywhere else in the state.
In any one of this places you have a good choice.
You can also find a last minute special offer for very restricted budgets, but not less amazing than all the other offers.
This type of vacation besides being cheaper than the hotel room, it is also the best alternative if you want to enjoy your holidays with the full family.
Nothing is more comfortable after an intense day to come back to a real "home".
And you can choose and book directly from your home or office whenever you feel like!



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As sparkling as a diamond can be...

What I like about Ebay is not only the fact that I can make good bargains, but also that I can find everything I want just sitting at my computer and that with a few clicks of the mouse I can buy and actually receive everything from every part of this world directly at my address.
Buying made easy in every way.
But, of course, I learned my lessons in the painful way.
Who has not been cheated on Ebay?
People who bid and never pay, people who sell and never deliver, people who deliver what you didn't order, or a different item and so on.
It is true, you can open a controversy, but when it comes to small sums it is not even worth and when it comes to big sums...your liver goes bust...
So, first rule, just buy from a trustable place, second rule, be careful of what you buy and how much it is worth.
You do not want to risk to pay more, don't you?
Ebay is the place you go to ACTUALLY save money...
For example if you want to invest in diamonds, be very careful.
In principle on Ebay you just buy something you see on a picture and of course you do not want to buy a diamond and receive a piece of glass...
Diamond House Arizona, Loose Diamonds Section. has open a new eBay store and with that, launched a new campaign to promote the store. Almost all the items are for 30%-50% discount, and the items quality is super high and with fine taste.
You can directly contact Adam, Diamond House Arizona online sales director, with a kind and gentle way to support the customers with every need (you can read on the feedback page of the store the comment the customers leave for him).
And then there is Robert, the customer support director, who will always be kind and support the toll free number calling customers.
Besides the ebay store has the lights always on and there's always someone to answer the customers and support them.
And do not forget the 30 days money back, and the ability to upgrade the diamond you bought even after a year and receive the same price you bought it, deducted out of the total price.
Moreover the store will hold items on each and every category within the upcoming weeks and the customers can use the "YOU ASK, WE FIND" option to send requests and the Diamond House Arizona will take care to their needs.
Well, it is almost too good to be true! But you can see by yourself.
The only thing you need is THE MONEY to buy...





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Good Marketing

Good Marketing is forgetting the things you are writing about...

Good news for saving people

I am somebody who loves to save.
I cannot understand the ones who spend, and , of course, they cannot understand me.
What I like best is thinking how much money I was able to save.
And, of course, when I spend I never fully enjoy it, because there is a remote place in my heart who regrets I had to part with some of my money.
But after you saved your money, you also want to see it carefully kept and looked after.
It is almost like those small plants you buy and plant in your garden.
You want them to grow and to grow strong.
The same is with those small euros I deposit in my bank.
I want them to grow and possibly to make fruits (and nice fruits) that of course I am going to save and let them grow to make new fruits.
They say you will never enjoy your money!
How blind they are! I already enjoy just thinking to save it...
But the banking part is sometimes painful, not only sometimes, lately very often.
If you have the disgrace to finish in the hands (more and more) of unscroupolous investors, you will see your nice, small, promising, euro plants to get ill and die sooner than you think.
So, what is the good news?
I found a place Savings-Accounts.com a guide to finding your new high yield savings account where you have a list of the major banks with ALL the details you need.
Well, I and the people like me, can finally choose in the privacy of their own home or office, the suitable place where to grow their money.
I already found out things that I didn't know, and, I can assure you, it is a nice reading....and the electronic way to transfer money makes it so easy to transfer any sum you like...

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On the folly of trusting cell phones

How many hours you spent trying to find out who called you that precise moment and that precise day?
You came to the conclusion it was impossible, that is the best way to call and be unknown...That is what you think.
That is what you won't think anymore after knowing about the best Reverse Cell Phone Look Up website.
Yes, you can "Get the data from thousands of sources, public and private, quickly and conveniently right to your screen - they have records for more than 70% of all cellular numbers and over 95% of unlisted phone numbers in the US..."
ReverseMobile.com, a recognized and trusted online records information provider, lets you utilize a network of multiple data sources to find the exact records you are looking for. You can get the data from thousands of sources, public and private, quickly and conveniently right to your screen.
What can they find for you?
ISP providers, ISP services, ISP delinquencies, names, old address, date of birth, social security, telephones, cell phone numbers, listed telephone numbers, unlisted telephone numbers, 800-900 numbers, adoption records, arrest records, attorney records, background checks, bankruptcy records, birth records, child support lookup, court records, credit reports, criminal files, criminal indictments, death records, divorce records, driving records, DUI files, estate records, family history, FBI files, federal dockets, and more...

Well, you see, never trust a cell phone...
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Cypherpunks

More and more, the Information Age is looking more or less like the hype doctors want you to think it is: the most radical extension of minds and bodies into representational space since humans first learned to talk. What it could become, however, is not nearly as clear. Will it be a time of unimaginably refined surveillance and control of those minds and bodies? Or a time of freely and furiously propagating connections among them?

Would you like to belong to the family?
Before he retired seven years ago, a wealthy man at age 34, May was a reasonably illustrious corporate physicist. Now he's a Cypherpunk, part of a loose-knit band of scrappy, libertarian-leaning computer jockeys who have dedicated themselves to perfecting and promoting the art of disappearing into the virtual hinterlands.
Do you have some unique friends?
Why not make a crossword puzzle about them and put it on your MySpace page?
You do not know how?
Crossword Puzzles will help you with a guide to show you exactly how to create a hilarious crossword for all your MySpace friends!

Or sign up to the Free Crossword Contest.
Be one of the first to complete the puzzle and win cash or prizes!
To receive an email notification about the date and time of the contest, simply register as a member (it's free). Do it right now, while this site is still young and growing for great odds of winning!
.
You can just start playing crosswords puzzles (there are many quite difficult)
The will teach you how to play ,how to create a crossword .
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An old adagio.

Well, it was a common saying: when somebody talks about sex all day long, that means he is not getting enough or none at all.

We never heard the word freedom as much as lately.
It looks like everything depends on that.
The world is divided between the ones who want to take our freedom and the ones who want to fight for getting back our freedom.

Freedom is a wonderful thing, but doesn't fill your stomach.
If you are without a job, or you fear to loose it, it doesn't cheer you much the thought that somebody is fighting for your freedom.
You would rather have no freedom at all, but a pay at the end of the month.

This is where we have come to.
We forget that most wars were fought not for ideals, but for lack of food.

I never believed in people who were so disinterested as to risk their life and future just for an ideal.
Behind every ideal there is a catch.
And the one behind wars is so easy to see...


Patrizia

The pursuit of knowledge

I think most of the people in my place wouldn't have written this post.
Because I have an audio book website since the year 2000.
And it is something I am very proud of, and more than anything something I really believe in.
That is the main reason I write this post.
Because I do not see somebody else's audio book club website as a threat.
I am happy there are others who love the electronic format for books and believe in it.
Data is not necessarily information, but it is better than nothing.

Since thousand of years the purpose of teaching has began with giving opportunities.
The more opportunities, the more culture was spread.
We came from an age when most people couldn’t read or write to one when analphabetism is not so wide spread any more.
That was thanks to the fact that books were published and not hand written.
The fact that culture became cheaper meant that more people could have access to it.
That didn’t mean that all who could have access to it became suddenly cultured people.

As regarding interactivity, I agree, ebooks should be used in their full potential, which is not only text.
I think the most successful ebooks are the audio ebooks.

When I was a child I loved reading, and I would have liked to have a speaking book with images and may be small movies.
I guess interactivity would be perfect for children books and scientific books.
And ,since it is possible to easily download a book from the Internet,culture is really accessible to most.
On AudiobookGeek.com you can have a wide choice of audiobooks and even rent them.
You can find thousand of the hottest and newest titles, unlimited download and rentals.
And what is good on the Net, if you decide this is the right moment to read and listen, you just download, WITHOUT WAITING!

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Receive your mail wherever you are

How?
It's simple: using Mail Drops.
They are also known as letter boxes, mail box rentals, accommodation addresses, remailing services, and mail forwarding services.
Mail drops are nothing else than businesses which allow clients to use their addresses for a small fee.
They receive mail and re-mail it regarding to instructions.
The reasons for using alternative addresses can be various and not all related to secrecy. Some have to do with convenience or practicality.
Now a days the need for more privacy is becoming extremely apparent.
W find ourselves becoming more and more vulnerable to government snooping.
New technology in the hands of the bureaucrats provides sophisticated methods of penetrating our affairs. Our mail is a good example.
But not only.
The government is claiming in court that it doesn't need a search warrant, and doesn't need to notify you, before it can tap your e-mail if it is stored on a third party's server (e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, or even an intermediate machine which is forwarding e- mail on to its final destination). Apparently, the government is interpreting a very dated law called the Stored Communications Act of 1986 -- written before most people had e-mail -- to allow this.
It seems that this is another example of a "public/private loophole" -- a term I've coined to describe situations in which government attempts to circumvent constitutional restrictions by enlisting private companies to do what government is constitutionally proscribed from doing.
Postal authorities use a little known surveillance technique known as the "mail cover", which operates informally and allows them to investigate your mail without having to first obtain a court order, a requirement in most countries.
'The mail cover' is simply an instruction to the mail carrier requesting that they note the return addresses on mail delivered to any address under investigation.

This is far worse than a court order to open mail, as it's totally indiscriminate. It means that whoever sends a letter or package to the marked address can end up on the suspect list.

Besides the need of privacy, which other categories of people would need a mail drop?
All categories of people who frequently travel or spend long periods away from their home.
Lately, mail lost or stolen in the delivery process or from domestic mailboxes has become a problem. A mail drop could be able cut the risk.
There are also people that for various reasons could desire to keep their address secret.
Or there could be people that simply prefer not to deal with the post office.
A small new business just starting from a residential premises can benefit from having a prestigious address. Arranging a mail drop address in a high profile international area can provide the answer.

For all these people, or millions of others with different reasons, arranging a mail drop is simple, fast and no identification is needed.
Maildropguide.com offers a remailing service at a very convenient price.
No ID is needed to use their services. Mail drops have an actual street address unlike P.O. Box numbers and this always makes a better impression.
This gives the impression that you are writing from that location. Post offices rarely offer remailing services.

Mail drops will accept courier service packages on your behalf. Post offices won't. Mail drops will forward your mail to whichever address you have requested them. Mail drops are completely independent from the government and this ensures absolute privacy.
If you are a business owner operating a maildrop they offer very inexpensive opportunity for lifetime listings (Only $40).
Well, the reasons to use a maildrop services are many and alluring. Why not trying?


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The advantages of Googling

Google is in many ways most dangerous website on the Internet for thousands of individuals and organisations, writes SecurityFocus columnist Scott Granneman. Most computers users still have no idea that they may be revealing far more to the world than they would want.

I'm not putting down Google. Far from it: it's a great search engine, and I use it all the time. I couldn't do my many jobs without Google, so I've spent some time learning how to maximize its value, how to find exactly what I want, how to plumb its depths to find just the right nugget of information that I need. In the same way that Google can be used for good, though, it can also be used by malevolent individuals to root out
vulnerabilities, discover passwords and other sensitive data, and in general find out way more about systems than they need to know. And, of course, Google's not the only game in town - but it is certainly the biggest, the most widely-used, and in many ways the easiest to use.

Throwing back the curtain Most people just head to Google, type in the words they're looking for, and hit Google Search. Some more knowledgeable folks know that they put
quotation marks around phrases, or put a "+" in front of required words or a "-" in front of words that should not appear, or even use Boolean search terms like AND, OR, and NOT. Greater Google aficionados know about Google's Advanced Search page, where you get really specific.

The page that Google provides for its Advanced Search is nice, and it's certainly easy and full of necessary tips, but if you really want to master all the tricks that Google offers the dedicated searcher, you need to learn at least some of what is detailed on the Google Advanced Search Operators page. For instance, let's say you just type the word "budget" into a Google search box, without the quotation marks. You're going to get over 11,000,000 hits, so many that it would take a tremendously long time to find anything troublesome from a security perspective.

Now try that same search, but include the search operator "filetype" along with it. Using the filetype operator, you can specify the kind of file you're looking for. Google's Advanced Search page lists several common formats, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Adobe Acrobat PDF, but you actually search for far more than those. Let's change our search from just "budget" to "budget filetype:xls" (again without the quotes; in fact, just ignore the quotation marks unless I mention otherwise) and see what we get.

63,000 hits and counting Hmmm ... now we're down to 63,000 hits. Still an overwhelming number, but if you start looking through the first couple of pages, you'll notice some items of interest if you were an attacker looking for information you shouldn't have. Let's add another operator into the mix.

The "site" operator allows you to narrow down your results to a particular subdomain, a second-level domain, or even a top-level domain.
For instance, if you wanted to find out what Google has indexed at SecurityFocus on the topic of password cracking, try this search:
"site:www.securityfocus.com password cracking", which gives you 449 results. I often use this trick even when a site provides its own search engine, as Google's index is often far better than the search that many sites include.

Let's try our search, but stick to the .edu top-level domain, so we're looking for "budget filetype:xls site:edu". 15,200 hits. Not bad. Things are starting to look very interesting.

Let's introduce another tool into your toolbox: the ability to look only on pages that use a certain word or words in their title by incorporating the "intitle" operator into your search. At SecurityFocus, this query would narrow our results list down to only five, an incredible tightening of our search: "site:www.securityfocus.com intitle:password cracking" (note that "password" is the only word that must be in the title; "cracking" should appear on the page as a search term, but not in the title, since I didn't place "intitle:" prior to it).

Enter the bad guys.
Bad guys know about the "intitle" operator, but they know something else
that makes it even more powerful. Often Web servers are left configured to list the contents of directories if there is no default Web page in those
directories; on top of that, those directories often contain lots of stuff that the website owners don't actually want to be on the Web. That makes such directory lists prime targets for snoopers. The title of these directory listings almost always start with "Index of", so let's try a new query that I guarantee will generate results that should make you sit up and worry: "intitle:"index of" site:edu password". 2,940 results, and many, if not most, would be completely useless to a potential attacker. Many, however, would yield passwords in plain text, while others could be cracked using common tools like Crack and John the Ripper.

There are other operators, but these should be enough to make the picture clear. Once you start to think about it, the potentially troublesome words and phrases that can be searched for and leveraged should begin to multiply in your mind: passwd. htpasswd. accounts. users.pwd. web_store.cgi.
finances. admin. secret. fpadmin.htm. credit card. ssn. And so on. Heck, even "robots.txt" would be useful: after all, if someone doesn't want search engines to find the stuff listed in robots.txt, that stuff could very well be worth a look. Remember, robots.txt just indicates that the website doesn't want search engines to index the files and folders listed in robots.txt; nothing inherently stops users from accessing that content once they know it exists.

Sensitive information
A couple of websites have even sprung up dedicated to listing words and phrases that reveal sensitive information and vulnerabilities. My favorite of these, Googledorks, is a treasure trove of ideas for the budding attacker. As a protective countermeasure, all security pros should visit this site and try out some of the suggestions on the sites that they oversee or with whom they consult. With a little elbow grease, some Perl, and the Google Web API, you could write scripts that would automate the process and generate some nice reports that you could show to your clients.
Of course, so could the bad guys... except I don't think your clients will ever see those reports, just the end results.

Even the Google cache can aid in exposing holes in systems. Couple the operators outlined above with Google's cache, which can provide you with a look at files that have changed or been removed, and attackers have an incredibly powerful tool at their disposal.

Responses
As I said at the beginning of this column, the fact that it is actually quite easy to find dangerous information using just a search engine and some intelligent guesses is not exactly news to people who think about security professionally. But I'm afraid that there are many uneducated folks putting content onto Web servers that they think is hidden to the world, when it is in reality anything but.

We have two seemingly opposite problems at work here: simplicity and complexity. On the one hand, it has become very easy for non-technical users to post content onto Web servers, sometimes without realizing that they're in fact placing that content on a Web server. It has even become easier to Web-enable databases, which has led in one case to the exposure of a database containing the records of a medical college's patients (and by the way, the search terms discussed in that article are still very much active at Google, one year later).

Even when people do understand that their content is about to go onto the Web, many do not fully think through what they're about to post. They don't examine that content in light of a few simple questions: How could this information be used against me? Or my organisation? And should this even go on the Web in the first place?

Well, of course ordinary users don't think to ask these questions! They're just interested in getting their content out there, and most of the time are just pleased as punch that they could publish on the Web in the first place. Critically examining that content for security vulnerabilities is not something they've been trained to do.

Points of failure
On the other side of the coin we have complexity. For all the ease that has come about in the past several years, no matter how simple it has become for Bob in Marketing to publish the company's public sales figures online, the fact remains that we're dealing with complex systems that have many, many points of potential failure. That knowledge scares the hell out of the people who live security, while Bob goes blithely on successfully publishing the company's public sales figures ... and accidentally publishing the spreadsheet containing the company's top customers, complete with contact info, sales figures, and notes about who the salespeople think
are good for a few thousand more this year.

For instance, FrontPage is touted by Microsoft as an extremely simple-to-use Web publishing solution that enables users to "move files easily between local and remote locations and publish in both directions".
Unfortunately for those average Joes who buy into the hype, FrontPage is still a very complicated program that can easily expose passwords and other sensitive data if it is not administered correctly. Don't believe me? Just search Google or "_vti_pvt password intitle:index.of" and take a look at what you find.

FrontPage is not the only offender, but it is certainly an easy one to find in abundance on our favourite search engine. Now think about all the other programs out there that people are using every day. Personal Web servers that come with operating systems. Turnkey shopping cart software.
Web-enabled Access databases. The list goes on and on. Take a moment and start to think about the organisations you oversee. See the list of potential problems tumble off into infinity. Oy.

Sure, it's possible for the folks creating Web content to tell Google and other search engines not to index that content. O'Reilly's website has a marvellous short piece titled "Removing Your Materials From Google" that should be required reading for anyone who even thinks about putting anything on or even near a Web server. Of course, as I mentioned above, relying on robots.txt to protect sensitive content is a bit like putting a sign up saying "Please ignore the expensive jewels hidden inside this shack". But at least it will get folks thinking.

Understand the threat
And really, that's what it comes down to: we have to get folks thinking.
Sure, those of us responsible for security can try to shut everything down and turn everything off that could pose a threat - and we should, within reason.
But those pesky users are going to do their job: use the systems we provide them, and some we don't provide. We need to help them understand the threats that any Web-enabled technology can provide.

Print out this column and hand it out. Show them how easy it is to find sensitive content online. Talk to them about appropriate and inappropriate content.
Try to get them on your side so they trust you and come to you with requests for help beforehand instead of coming to you after the fact, when it's too late and the toothpaste is out of the tube. Finally, realise that humans have an innate need to communicate and will seize on any tool to do so, and if that means talking to your users and setting up a wiki or bulletin board or other collaborate tool, then do so.

Google and other search tools have made the world available to us all, if we just know what to ask for. It's our job as security pros to help make the folks we work and interact with aware of that fact, in all of its far-reaching ramifications.

In case of Emergency

Here are a few tips in case of Emergency.
The idea is that you store the word 'ICE' in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted In Case of Emergency.
In an emergency situation ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them.
It's so simple that everyone can do it. Please do.
And please do not forget that you can also have the services of air ambulance in the worst case scenario.
AeroCare provides Air Ambulance services and is a nationally recognized throughout the world.
AeroCare Air Ambulance Service offers 24 hour emergency and non-emergency ambulance services throughout the world.
Their philosophy is to provide out patients with the highest level of aero medical care including medical services at the most cost effective price.
They offer commitment to quality and cost effectiveness, achieved by combining highly trained medical personnel and state-of-the-art equipment with highly trained Flight Crews and well maintained fleet of aircraft, thus ensuring that your air ambulance service will be the best it can be.
Their Flight Coordinator's specialize in assisting their customers in all aspects to insure a smooth, safe, and efficient transfer of the patient.
AeroCare's expert staff has received full accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems (CAMTS) on March 29, 2003.
AeroCare flights are operated by R&M Aviation and other FAA certificated air carriers. R&M Aviation is a FAA Part 135 certificated Air Carrier and a wholly owned subsidiary of AeroCare Medical Transport System, Inc.

You can also look for an online quote.


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Critical thinking

"WSJ writes:

Critical thinking means being able to evaluate evidence, to tell fact from opinion, to see holes in an argument, to tell whether cause and effect has been established and to spot illogic. "

Critical thinking is the exercise of the brain.
It is moving neurons and synapses.
The more you exercise your brain the more critical you become.
It is where progress and innovations come from.
It is elaborating other people's ideas, finding the good and the bad.
Discharging the bad and developing the good.
Without critical thinking, man would not have evolved.
Critical thinking is the meaning of our lives.

However, critical thinking would not exist without communication.
Ideas make new ideas and from new ideas, this world grows.

Critical thinking should be encouraged by every democratic and progressive society.
That is why "Today’s democracies" do not do it...

About Fertility

Sustained reductions in family size in the context of peace and social progress-were first witnessed in late eighteenth- century Europe.
During the interwar period, a number of European states reported fertility patterns that, if continued, would lead to an eventual stabilization and indefinite population decline thereafter.
These low fertility regimens were entirely voluntary: heretofore, such low birth Rates had virtually always been attended by war, pestilence, famine, or disaster.
Europe experienced a baby boom after World War II, but low fertility has now returned with a vengeance.
There are no reliable methods for anticipating just how low fertility levels may sink, or how long low fertility may persist in various locales.
One consequence, however, is already clear: it will force a great aging of the populations affected.
All of the developed countries are already "graying."
A final surprise involves what we might call America's "demographic exceptionalism." The U.S. is the singular and major exception to the demographic rhythms characterizing virtually all other affluent Western states.

In Western Europe, total populations are anticipated to decline between 2000 and 2025, with a substantial shrinkage in the under-55 population and pronounced population aging.
In the U.S., overall population aging is much more moderate; the overall population is projected to increase, and a higher number of young people are expected in 2025 than today.

Part of this difference is attributable to a significant divergence in fertility patterns and partly in the availability of first class structures offering home and in vitro fertilization.

Randy S. Morris M.D. is a certified IVF specialist based in Chicago Illinois. Dr. Morris specializes in invitro fertilization, PCOS and PGD.
Although they are best known for their IVF and PGD programs, you will find that they offer much, much more.
They have In Vitro Fertilization Services ,Treatment of Recurrent Miscarriage,Treatment of Female Endocrine Problems,Treatment of Other Reproductive Problems,Reproductive Surgery,Ovulation Induction / Superovulation,Complete Diagnostic Testing,Radiology (X-ray) Services.

U.S.-Western Europe income differences are not tremendous. One might think that fertility would be higher in societies that devote more public resources to child support, but social welfare programs are far more generous in most of Western Europe than in the U.S.

So how can we explain this fertility discrepancy? Possibly it is a matter of attitudes and outlook. There are big revealed differences between Americans and Europeans regarding a number of important life values.
Attitudes about individualism, patriotism, and religiosity seem to separate Americans from much of the rest of the developed world.
While the rest of the developed areas gradually drop off the roster of the world's major population centers, the U.S. actually rises, from fourth largest in 1950 to third largest in 2000, which it is projected to remain in 2050 as well.

From a purely demographic standpoint, the U.S., virtually alone among developed nations, does not look set to be going off gently into the night.


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Blog Ads: the Internet of Ads

New technologies like RFID and smart computing promise a world of networked and interconnected devices that provide relevant content and information whatever the location of the user.
Everything from tires to toothbrushes will be in communications range, heralding the dawn of a new era, one in which today’s Internet (of data and people) gives way to tomorrow’s Internet of Ads.
It seems that we are standing on the brink of a new computing and communication era, one that will radically transform our corporate, community, and personal spheres. With continuing developments in miniaturization and declining costs, it is becoming not only technologically possible but also economically feasible to make everyday objects smarter, and to connect the world of people with the world of ads.

Every one hundred words, twenty will be about something we have to see, try, experience, buy.
Just like on TV the new future of the Internet will be the future of the new commercial ERA.
The Internet has proven invaluable for activists with high ideals and low budgets. And yes, Web searches can locate a lot of information within seconds. But let's get a view on what has been happening to the World Wide Web overall.

More and more, big money is weaving the Web, and the most heavily trafficked websites reflect that reality. Almost all of the Web's largest-volume sites are now owned by huge conglomerates. Even search-engine results are increasingly skewed, with priority placements greased by behind-the-scenes fees.

These days, "information superhighway" sounds outmoded and vaguely quaint.
The World Wide Web isn't supposed to make sense nearly as much as it's supposed to make money. All glory to electronic commerce!

The Web was primarily a resource for learning and communication. Today, according to the prevalent spin, the Web is best understood as a way to make and spend money.

What has happened to the "Information Superhighway"?
It has got bigger and bigger.
It began as a network among few "informatic gurus" and grew into a network of life.
It is the Cyber space, the Virtual life, the mirror of the world.
There is nothing like a "good" or "bad" Internet.

The Internet is the real and only democratic place on this earth.
It gives space and voice to ALL.
Being them people who look for high level information or those who want to chat and look at YouTube.
But one thing is clear.

The few people grew to a huge number and that number will grow and grow.
The Internet IS and Will be more and more the new MEDIA.
If customers go to the Internet, ADS will follow them.
And companies want customers, don't they?

I love Education

If education does start to change and modernize, it will become the dominant source of social change in the 21st century.
People must be able to access and apply information to contexts never thought possible before.
They will be able to build "a new culture for the academy."
"The revolution in information technology is bringing and will bring significant changes in how we perform our functions as teachers and scholars, and how students learn. Those changes create an imperative for new institutional structures and a new academic culture."
"It will offer new opportunities for cooperation across institutions...and for
collaborations across fields of science."
"I believe that one of the most dramatic changes will take place in the way we teach. In a current lecture class, students sit passively, receiving information." "With information technology the possibilities open to making the task of learning into a complex, active, and intellectually challenging engagement with a subject."
Campuses will not disappear as students turn to "virtual" universities.
Rather, "My own prediction envisions greater interdependence rather than independence among cutting edge researchers.
Teamwork and collaboration will become ever more important as research
questions draw on the expertise of diverse fields of knowledge."
Under this system, students might visit campuses "for shorter periods of concentrated interaction with faculty and research collaborations."
One of the results is that "the faculty of the future will need to be adept at drawing out the individual intellectual and creative talents of each student in guiding him or her beyond the mastery of information to the use and extension of knowledge."

It is in this view that landmark education was born.
The Landmark Education graduates aspire to educate themelves by using the language that celebrates, shares, and empowers the designing and living of extraordinary lives for everyone.
What do they offer?

landmark education

landmark forum

landmark seminars


National Science Board ChairmanKelly urges that "we need to continue to be more agile in identifying and adequately supporting the most promising areas for research. We need to enable broader cross-disciplinary, cross-sector, and cross-institution collaborations among researchers and their students, even while providing strong support to traditional fields."
"We should be quick to seek opportunities to employ the latest in technology in research and learning in an environment of free and open inquiry."
"It is our obligation to provide our future citizens with a healthy infrastructure of cutting edge scientific research and graduate education not just for today but to serve the next quarter century and beyond."


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What if the dream is not a dream anymore?

"The sentiment now in the financial press is -- like that expressed by my banker correspondent -- that the US economy is indestructable."J.K.

They couldn't dream or fancy anything else.
Because otherwise it would be an economy's suicide.
What if some of us began to suspect that this kind of society is struggling to death, that all what they believed and planed is going to find its natural end?
What if suddendly you had the doubt that you cannot go on consuming more and more forever?
That whatever energy you can find, cheap and abundant, if you overuse it will anyway, sooner or later have an end?
What if we will have so many cars and so many roads that there is no place any more for any human?
So many houses that there is no place for a tree?
What if somebody found out that YES there is an alternative way of living?
That consumerism is good till a certain point, but it cannot go on forever and ever.
You cannot go on producing more and more, because people cannot go on consuming more and more.
Fun is getting boring.
Having more and more produces more and more problems.
Of storage or even worse of disposal.
What is too much IS too much.
What if you suddendly find out that it is utterly stupid to work 18 hours a day to have a new car, a new home, new clothes, when your old ones are still good and may be more comfortable?
That it is nicer to work less and enjoy life more.
That fun is not always spending, but doing the things you like and the things you really like sometimes cost nothing.
What if suddendly we found out that HAVING is much less fun than BEING?

Jewish singles

If you are a lonely man and you think that a Jewish woman wouldn't be what you are looking for, may be you will change your mind in this website:

Jewish Dating Site

I can assure you that you could hardly find a better place to look for a friend or something more (that is up to you).
The choice is huge and you can immediately be in touch with the person you choose, chatting, talking on the Voip phone.

What can you ask more?
Yes, you can ask to find a nice, honest, devote, morally oriented person.
But talking about a Jewish dating site, you can be sure this IS the prerogative.
Welcome to Jsingles.com, a safe, fun online community for Jewish singles seeking friendship, romance or marriage.
Join jsingles.com today and enjoy a full set of features including
two-way matching, audio/video instant messenger, private email, advanced search, new member alerts, prayer exchange, bible search, and more.
They have thousands of single Jewish profiles.
You can try, because you can join for free.
Alerts will let you know when members are interested in you.
You will be able to share photos and private emails.
Once you become a member of jsingles.com you will be given a rich set of search criteria that will help you narrow your choices down to just the right person. You will be able to search on anything from ethnicity, religion, age, location, smoking, drinking and so on.
Remember to upload your photo with your big beautiful smile. Profiles with photos are shown first to other members and get clicked 20 times more than profiles without photos.
You can also use the feature: Private Photos.
If you need to be discreet with your photo then you can use the Private Photo Sharing feature. You can send a private photo through private email so only the members you are interested in can see you.
If a picture is worth 1K words, You won't certainly need words in this web site!


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The Market is a God that sucks

Markets must rule, some right-wing prophets tell us, because of "globalization," because the moral weight of the entire world somehow demands it.
The new god makes great demands on us, and its demands must be appeased.
None can be shielded from its will.
The welfare of AFDC mothers must be entrusted unhesitatingly to its mercies.
Workers of every description must learn its discipline, must sacrifice all to achieve flexibility, to create shareholder value.
The professional, the intellectual, the manager must each shed their pride and own up to their flawed, lowly natures, must acknowledge their impotence and insensibility before its divine logic.
We put our health care system in its invisible hands, and to all appearances it botches the job.
Yet the faith of the believers is not shaken.
We deregulate the banking industry. Deregulate the broadcasters. Deregulate electricity. Halt antitrust. Make plans to privatize Social Security and to privatize the public schools.
And to those who worry about the cost of all this, the market's disciples speak of mutual funds, of IPOs, of online trading, of early retirement. All we have to do is believe.
Then, one fine day, you check in at Ameritrade and find that your tech portfolio is off 90 percent. Your department at work has been right-sized, meaning you spend a lot more time at the office-without getting a raise.
You have one kid in college to the tune of $30,000 a year, another with no health insurance because she's working as a temp.
Or maybe you lost your job because they can do it cheaper in Alabama or Mexico.

That's when it dawns on you: The market is a god that sucks.
Yes, it cashed a few out at the tippy top, piled up the loot of the world at their feet, delivered shiny Lexuses into the driveways of their ten-bedroom suburban chateaux.
But for the rest of us the very principles that make the market the object of D'Souza's worship, of Gilder's awestruck piety, are the forces that conspire to make life shitty in a million ways great and small.
The market is the reason our housing is so expensive.
It is the reason our public transportation is lousy.
It is the reason our cities sprawl idiotically all across the map.
It is the reason our word processing programs stink and our prescription drugs cost more than anywhere else.
In order that a fortunate few might enjoy a kind of prosperity unequaled in human history, the rest of us have had to abandon ourselves to a lifetime of casual employment, to unquestioning obedience within an ever-more arbitrary and despotic corporate regime, to medical care available on a maybe/maybe-not basis, to a housing market interested in catering only to the fortunate.
In order for the libertarians of Orange County to enjoy the smug sleep of the true believer, the thirty millions among whom they live must join them in the dark.
But it is not enough to count the ways in which the market sucks.
This is a deity of spectacular theological agility, supported by a priesthood of millions: journalists, admen, politicians, Op-Ed writers, think-tankers, cyberspace scrawlers, Sunday morning talk-show libertarians, and, of course, bosses, all of them united in the conviction that, no matter what, the market can't be held responsible.
When things go wrong only we are to blame.
After all, they remind us, every step in the economic process is a matter of choice.
Virtually any deed can be excused by this logic.
The stock market, in recent years a scene of no small amount of deceit, misinformation, and manipulation, can be made to seem quite benign when the high priests roll up their sleeves.
Since those lovable little guys acted of their own free will when they invested in Lucent, PMC Sierra, and Cisco, today there is no claim they can make that deserves a hearing. What has happened is their fault and theirs alone.
Free to choose is a painfully ironic slogan for the market order.
While markets do indeed sometimes provide a great array of consumer choices, the clear intention of much of the chatter about technology, "globalization," and the "New Economy" is, in fact, to deny us any choice at all.

Liberally taken from

"Off-shoring and the Free Market"

Bosley, John

The Magic of the Internet

Only a few years ago, the Internet was virtually unknown in the mass-consumer market.
Today, it is a phenomenon reshaping global communications for millions of people. Almost every industry is touched by the Internet's fanatical momentum.
It is growing faster than any other new technology industry in history, and it has the potential to change the way people interact on Earth.
In many ways, the Internet's communications properties have acted as a catalyst to its own growth, making it a self-fueling entity.
PCs essentially have become the most important tool of empowerment and [have] driven a whole wave of productivity and additional communication and research and sharing.

The Internet has changed our life, the way we do everything.
We are "always on" and "always looking, searching, buying".

Once, when we had to insure our car, we just went to the next office of our Insurance Company, we asked and we got what they wanted us to have.
Internet means to be able to choose.
But, since the offer is huge, how to choose the best?
There are a lot of websites now, where you can browse and look and compare.
Most brokers websites compare quotes from their small panel of insurers, but Quotezone compares quotes from these websites to give a much better overall comparison.
The quotes are returned in real time, so you dont have to wait for an email/phone call to see your results.
You get over 20 different quotes from different websites in 2 minutes.
They promise to give cheap quotes for UK.
And what's better than a comparison among Van insurances?
They don't just search direct insurers but also brokers.
Normally when you get an insurance quote online, its from a broker.
The broker will find you a policy from an insurance company and charge you a certain price for it.
However, if you go to another broker , they might sell you the same policy , but charge more for it!
So if you are looking for a Cheap Van Insurance all what you have to do is to click on my link.
You can try and get a quote and really see how convenient it is.

And the beauty of it is that today you do not have to go anywhere, just sit in front of your computer and: IT'S DONE!
And they promise this is just the beginning.


This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, a method for allowing Internet users to automatically obtain up-to-date information from their favorite sources.


The concept was conceived in 1999, but unknown to most of us until 2004, the year of the weblog. The bloggers who hounded the presidential candidates and humbled Dan Rather used RSS to broadcast their words.
Now,nearly every media company in the world is imitating them, with RSS ''feeds" sent from their websites to millions of subscribers.

2007 is shaping up as the year of the podcast and the vlog -- audio and video programming created by independent authors and posted on the Internet.
Again,it's RSS time. A fan of Al Franken need never miss his radio show.
He can use a bit of RSS-based software to check for each new episode and automatically download it for later listening.

Consumers can enjoy the benefits of RSS without paying a dime. Software to let you subscribe to RSS website feeds can be downloaded free; one such program is built into the popular Firefox Internet browser.
You can also get free podcasting and vlogging programs.
The latest version of Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes software includes listings for about 20,000 podcasts.
Click a button, and the iTunes music player locks onto the correct RSS feed and downloads the podcasts of your choice.

HDTV and Home Theater

HDTV PRICES FALL TO ALMOST AFFORDABLE LEVELS

Though hardly low enough to prompt impulse purchases, the prices of high-definition TV sets have fallen for some 32- and 36-inch models, and HDTV sales are up 50% through August, while prices are down 22%.
A CBS executive said that, in the spite of slow development of HDTV program offerings, high-definition TV is "a business now", not just a hobby.
But there are still a lot of issues, that are more technological than business,that need to be resolved.
One issue waiting for resolution is the question of how content suppliers can prevent the recording and illegal reuse of high-definition entertainment fare.
A whole new generation of homeowner options are appearing for accessing video - multi-TV video servers (both embedded systems and PC-based systems), tablets, PDAs - and broadband (DVD quality bitrates) streaming video (IP/Ethernet).
The vast majority of these systems are not MPEG 6Mhz RF channel based.
They are based upon ethernet, and transports that look like ethernet (802.11 wireless, HomePNA, HomePlug).

An ethernet TV (10/100/1000), stripped of all of today's connectivity options, analog coax, analog RBG, analog component, and the newly standardized cable FCC connectivity option - 1-way hybrid analog-digital MPEG RF coax - would probably be $100 cheaper (list). Is that a scenario interesting to consumers/manufacturers?

Comcast Exceeds One Million HDTV-Capable Set-Top Boxes; Demand
for HDTV Service Propelled by Super Bowl
- Feb 2, 2005 11:34 AM (PR Newswire)

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- As Super Bowl frenzy reaches a fever pitch, Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), announced it has now deployed more than one million high-definition television (HDTV)-capable Digital Cable set-top boxes in customers' homes, adding more than 800,000 of them in 2004 alone.
In addition, Comcast has experienced a 143% increase in the number of customers connecting HDTV sets to Comcast's HD service during January 2005 versus January 2004.

In 2007 WE ARE THERE.
We arrived to the Home Theater and finally to HDTV
The personal computer has moved out of the office and den into the living room, kitchen and bedroom.
The arrival of the more flexible personal computers is aimed at permitting the industry to make big inroads into the consumer market as digital television replaces conventional analog TV, a move that is expected to lead Americans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the next few years on things like new big-screen displays and home-theater-in-a-box sets.
Examples of this are the ones you can find browsing Electronics Catalog

Wireless networking will level the playing field by letting any electronic device
communicate with any other, allowing the current cable and satellite providers of television signals to control not just how movies are viewed in the home but also to some extent how video games and music are played.
Seeing classic films in their original form, for example on a Samsung HL-S6187W 61 Widescreen (16:9) - Resolution: 1920 x 1080 Pixels reveals the vast difference between what we are used to and quality home theater.
Most Americans now would rather watch films at home than in theaters.
"I just prefer to stay home and watch movies," said Mark Gil, 34, of Central Square, N.Y. "It's cheaper. ... By the time you're done at the movie theater with sodas and stuff, it's 20 bucks."
That is why devices like Pioneer PDP-5070HD PureVision 50' Plasma HDTV are getting more and more popular.


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The future of music

"We're entering an era of ubiquitous wireless broadband, where data will be available to us wherever we go. In that kind of world, we will not need iTunes. I doubt most people will want to buy or "own" music at all. It will be far more useful to pick from a giant online library and listen to whatever we want wherever we are."


We are also entering the era of the "download or stream and consume" instead of "download and orderly store".
Too much music, too much new music, how to choose?
The best is NOT TO CHOOSE.
Why should you listen to the music of yesterday instead of the music of today?
Or why should you store it, when it is available whenever, wherever you like it?

Broadcasters React to Los Angeles Earthquake

Los Angeles was hit by a massive earthquake centred 20 miles
northwest of downtown LA in the San Fernando Valley.
Telecommunications services throughout the area were disrupted by the early morning quake although emergency service communications on the whole remained operable.
The effects of the quake on America's second city were felt as far away as Las Vegas (275 miles east).
Broadcast stations were understandably busy covering the event.
Interest from international broadcast stations was also high "After-shocks" are occurring, but except for a few fallen ceiling tiles and a slightly disturbed 21 meter auto tracker, we are doing fine,” said Grant Koehler, a spacecraft controller for GE at the site.

It appears that not all Americans sympathized with the plight of their fellow countrymen. ABC Television said that they received hundreds of phone calls that continuous news coverage interrupted their soap opera viewing.


And this is how Soap Operaaffects everyday life.
More important than an earthquake.

So, I would forecast a bright future for this www.soaps.com website.
It is quite well made.

Easy and fast to load, very easy to navigate.

You find:

The list of Shows to choose.
The latest News
The daily Update
The Newsroom
The message Board

And you can regisyer for FREE!

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The other side of Interactivity

Men And Women Get Interactive

Long suffering men should get ready to lock up their credit cards.
Women are finding more ways to spend their money! 1 in 4 women questioned embraces the idea of shopping through interactive digital satellite television.

The next generation of Web Deals

Do you want to make money?
Of course everybody wants it.
The problem is knowing how and not risking too much.
How does it sound to be able to win betting on both sides of the coin?
Just visit your "Sport Broker".

Yes this could be a new, interesting opportunity for the ones who want to invest and NEVER loose.
How is that possible?
Are you looking for a long-term investment program?
You will not make millions overnight.
But this is something that can provide you a high return on your investment or additional side income, like an annual return of 50% or more on your investment.

Let's make an example to make it clearer:
1) You have a starting bankroll of $1000,
2) You conduct 1 transaction a day,
3) It gives you a profit of .5%,
4) You invest your entire bankroll each day.

Cumulatively speaking, you should expect your bankroll to be at around $6000 in 365 days or 1 year.
Of course, this can be more or less because on some days, you may get an arb with a higher return rate, but on other days, you may not get any.
You will also run into situations where your bankroll is spread out among a couple of sportsbooks and some money will sit idle in one account while there is an existing arb in another account.

What is the concept?
Sport Arbitrage is betting on both sides of an event/game with 2 different sports books and coming out with a profit no matter what the outcome is.

The problem is that you cannot sift through all of the sports books out there as well as compare all of their lines. It is practically impossible to compare the hundreds of lines between all the sports books out there.

But a software can do it easily for you.

Sport Arbitrage will sift through the hundreds of lines offered by the sports books on the list and compare them. If the program finds an arbitrage, it will make a sound and create a Pop-up that will alert of you of the arbitrage. You can then simply go to the sports book and place the investment yourself.

Easy, isn't it?
And you can try it for free...
FREE 1 Week Trial Period - You WILL believe!



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Once "macho" always "macho"

New TV viewing survey from ASTRA finds women are frustrated by men's channel flicking habits.
A survey carried out by ASTRA, the digital satellite operator, has today revealed that women, driven mad by their partner's channel flicking habits, are confessing to hiding the remote in a bid to regain control. It's not just the fact that 50% of men claim to rule the remote, it's what they do with it that matters!

The highlights are:

a.. 39% of women complain partners click from one channel to other
b.. 25% of men spend less than 2 secs on one channel
c.. 50% of men claim to rule remote
d.. One in five women hide the remote
e.. 1in 4 women keen to shop through interactive digital satellite TV
f.. Documentaries & comedy - Britain's favourite TV programmes
g.. SEXIEST TV presenters - Jamie Theakston & Cat Deely Channel surfing was top of the list of annoying viewing habits listed by women about their men. 39% of women complained that their partnersliked to click from one channel to another.
What's more, nearly a quarter of all men spend less than two seconds on each channel before clicking to the next.
And when asked what would make them stick to a channel, sport wins over an attractive woman with 60% of men saying something sporty, and 44% an attractive female.
Cars (41%) were also high on the list.

B as Building contractors

" Building Contractors are associated with many works, related to the construction of apartments, factories, offices, schools, and also in the construction of the new buildings."
That is how it begins in Encyclocentral.com
And here you can find any detailed information about them.
That their work can be divided in three segmenta, and which is which, their role, how long and how much they are supposed to work,the working conditionsand so on...
You can also find a link to U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, Construction site.

There you can furtherly read ALL what you can dream of knowing about it.
I find all this quite useful, even though I am not directly interested in it.
The Internet is the biggest change in human communications since the printing press. Every day, this rapidly growing global network touches the lives of millions of People. Students log in to take virtual field trips to the Mayan ruins. Entrepreneurs get the information they need to start a new business and sell their products in overseas markets.
Caregivers for people with Alzheimer's Disease participate in an "extended family" on the Cleveland FreeNet. Citizens keep tabs on the voting records and accomplishments of their elected representatives.
The explosion of the Internet has generated economic growth, high-wage jobs, and a dramatic increase in the number of high-tech start-ups.

What we need is ordered and easy reachable information.
What we are looking for, at a click (or two) of the mouse...

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Our future alternative brain

I read a very interesting article this morning:
"Brain chip reads man's thoughts" by Reese

"I remember the movie Firefox with Eastwood, where a prototype MIG fighter operated in part by thought was stolen by the West. Was that the first mainstream silver screen use of thought-directed control and military hardware? While I'm sure the medical usesfor this technology are endless, some degree of oversight seems prudent. Cybernetic warriors on the battlefield is an idea just around the corner, maybe we (as a race) should not turn that corner."


[Image of the brain::The 'chip' reads brain signals]

A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind.
Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001.
The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone.
The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher.

Mind over matter

He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks to the technology and software linked to devices in his home.
Scientists have been working for some time to devise a way to enable paralysed people to control devices with the brain.
Studies have shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain.
Recently four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, were able to move a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes that pick up brain waves.
Mr Nagle's device, called BrainGate, consists of nearly 100 hair-thin electrodes implanted a millimetre deep into part of the motor cortex of his brain that controls movement.
Wires feed the information from the electrodes into a computer which analyses the brain signals.

The signals are interpreted and translated into cursor movements,offering the user an alternative way to control devices such as a computer with thought.

Motor control

Professor John Donoghue, an expert on neuroscience at Brown University, Rhode Island, is the scientist behind the device produced by Cyberkinetics.
He said: "The computer screen is basically a TV remote control panel, and in order to indicate a selection he merely has to pass the cursor over an icon, and that's equivalent to a click when he goes over that icon."
Mr Nagle has also been able to use thought to move a prosthetic hand and robotic arm to grab sweets from one person's hand and place them into another.
Professor Donoghue hopes that ultimately implants such as this will allow people with paralysis to regain the use of their limbs.
The long term aim is to design a package the size of a mobile phone that will run on batteries, and to electrically stimulate the patient's own muscles.

This will be difficult.

The simple movements we take for granted in fact involve complex electrical signals which will be hard to replicate, Dr Richard Apps, a neurophysiologist from Bristol University, the UK, told the BBC News website.
He said there were millions of neurones in the brain involved with movement.
The brain chip taps into only a very small number of these.
But he said the work was extremely exciting.
"It's quite remarkable. They have taken research to the next stage to have a clear benefit for a patient that otherwise would not be able to move.
"It seems that they have cracked the crucial step and arguably the most challenging step to get hand movements.
"Just to be able to grasp an object is a major step forward."
He said it might be possible to hone this further to achieve finer movements of the hand.
Matthew Nagel's story was featured in a Frontiers programme on BBC Radio Four on Wednesday 13 April, 2005, at 2100 BST.

America's decay

As strange as it can be the biggest threat America is facing now is NOT terrorism

Right, it was like what had happened in the auto industry 20 years ago, when you had French auto producers, Italian auto producers, Japanese auto producers and the big three here, and they all competed for national market share. But then that market went global -- as did the market for TVs and the market for telecommunication devices and the market for computers -- and then companies had to compete on a world
scale. The same thing is happening with cities and the talent they compete for.

And when all this hysteria about national security, homeland security started to happen, what really drove the United States to its position of greatness wasn't the fact that They had a big market or lots of raw materials or their American ingenuity. What really made America great for the better part of a century and a half has been their openness to people from all over the world. That's what built their textile industry, that's what built their railroad industry.
It was because they accepted people like Andrew Carnegie in the steel industry, David Sarnoff in the electronics industry, Adolphus Busch in the beer industry, and so on.

And according to analysts' statistics for the high-tech revolution, 30 percent of the companies in the Silicon Valley area were founded by an Indian or someone born in a Chinese-speaking country. Whether it's eBay or Yahoo or Google or Hotmail, what drove America's high-tech revolution and other industries was the ability to attract the world's best talent.


But what are the current problems the U.S. faces in terms of attracting that sort of talent? What's the difference between now and, say, five years ago?

There are two factors interacting here. The first, which would have happened anyway, is that other countries realized how important talent is and cities in those countries have become really effective in competing for talent.
So the playing field has been leveled. In the past, people would have said, "Absolutely, my first choice is to move to New York or Boston or San Francisco or Seattle or Chicago ..." Now cities like London, Dublin, Amsterdam and Stockholm have become extremely attractive to talented people, not because of any particular public policy but because of the way they've developed over the past decade.
And I'm not just talking about the relocation of Americans, I'm talking about the location decisions of people on a world scale.
So many foreigners have visa troubles now, even great scientists, artists and musicians.
And once they're living and working in the U.S., they can't go home to visit relatives for five years because if they're not a resident they have to get their visa renewed every time they enter or exit the country.
Which means it's a huge problem to leave the U.S. even for a short period of time because they're not sure they'll be able to get back in again.
Not surprisingly, there's a general sense in the world that the United States
isn't as welcoming.
And in particular, the recent U.S. restrictions have hit hard at foreign students who compose the critical backbone of their high-tech industries.
They couldn't have high-tech industries in the United States -- no matter how much they want to say they would -- without foreign-born engineers and computer scientists.
They just wouldn't have them. They couldn't run them because they don't produce enough talent of their own.
Fifty percent of the computer scientists in the United States are foreign-born, which is a huge number.
But it makes sense. If you have a billion kids in India and China and a billion kids are trying to learn engineering and math and computer science, there are going to be a lot of really talented and smart kids, even if they're distributed at the same ratios as U.S. kids.
And in the past that gave the U.S. a great advantage because they were able to attract the lion's share of the brightest, most technically sophisticated, entrepreneurial, motivated kids in the world.
No, it's not that any one country is going to emerge as the next great superpower and attract all the best talent.
It's not like "It's going to be the EU" or "It's going to be China." That's silly. But if these increasingly competitive countries take 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 percent of the
talent that used to come here, when you add that up over 10 to 20 countries, that's a huge loss.
Roosevelt said, "I'm going to make sure that these working-class people get to be part of the industrial economy. I'm going to build an industrial society that allows people to organize and bargain collectively, raise their wages, has affordable housing, get long-term mortgages, provides occupational safety and health, Social
Security in their old age and welfare in their spells of poverty.
And I'm going to make sure that their kids can go to college."

All what they are doing now is to dismantle the New Deal. And this will have consequences...

Liberally taken from William Law "The Flight of the Creative Class"

Digital markets

This is an account of how the truly gigantic international flows of cash, greatly facilitated by computers and telecommunications, are changing economic institutions and theories.
The computerized high finance centers on so-called "derivative products".
These are (among other things) ways of buying and selling debt streams with given properties.
For example, a company in need of short-term cash might exchange a bundle of 30-year home mortgages (which provide money with high reliability but at low rates of return and over a long period) in favor of a bundle of junk bonds (which provide money with lower reliability but at higher rates of return and on a variety of schedules).
The business of home mortgages is highly alluring, not for its profitability, but for the fact that it means a highly safe investment.
And the business is based on the need of the people to assure a "future" to themselves and to their family.
The need to OWN a place where to live in order to make it comfortable, nice and safe.
But how to choose among the most alluring proposals?
If you are a mathematic guru, you can calculate how much it really costs you, how safe you are, if it is better for your incame a long term or a short term loan.
If you are not, our digital society comes to your rescue.
When I made my first mortgage I looked for informations on the Net.
It was too early then.
Luckily enough I found on my husband's Visual Basic IV ( long time ago) a very interesting exercise: How to make a Mortgage calculator.
It was easy and it was great and it was very useful.
Today you can find it already made.
At Home equity loans you can easily find Mortgage Rates and a
mortgage calculator.
Not only, you can find also expert advice and tips for "Borrowing Intelligently" or understanding the big difference between prequalified and preapproved and everything else you might be interested in knowing...

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I like it private

« Obamavision The revolution will be YouTubed »

Obitvision

Art Buchwald has died – and announced the news himself in a video on NYTimes.com: “Hi,” he says/said, “I’m Art Buchwald and I just died.”
There was still a twinkle in his eye.

The Times says this is the first of a new effort to go to the prominent to ask them on tape how they want to be remembered. It’s an absolutely wonderful idea. (I do wish, though, this tribute did not start off paying tribute to The Times for having the idea.)

How is it to be you?

That is what people want to know.

How is it to be you dying?

I guess I prefer not to know and not to show.

I like it private…

Wireless RFID Tags

Shoppers leaving Wal-Mart Stores these days are used to long check-out lines. In a few years, however, those lines well might be history.

Wal-Mart is introducing radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to its products--small devices that emit radio waves containing information about product size, price, etc. Though this scenario is still far in the future, such tags could let the world's largest retailer add up the prices of purchased goods as shoppers leave the store and deduct the tab directly from their accounts. Whether such futuristic practices materialize or not, one thing is certain: RFID has begun to acquire a buzz that positions it as the next revolution in the world of retailing.
How real is this revolution? And what does it mean for retailers and
customers?
RFID is a potentially powerful technology that several organizations--including retailers and government organizations--are seriously looking at implementing to ramp up the efficiency of their supply chains.
Still, several hurdles remain. One big question is whether the benefits will be immediate or be spread out years into the future.

In current systems, you may know there are 10 items on the shelf, and that information is compiled in an enterprise planning software system.
With RFID, you know there are 10 items, their age, lot number, expiration date and warehouse origin.
"It's like knowing there are 1,000 people in a city,".
"With RFID, you know their names."

Among the key issues yet to be resolved:

Cost of tags RFID Chips (It's a chicken-and-egg conundrum,if more companies were forging ahead with RFID installations, tags would be cheaper)
Standards in flux (potential suppliers are holding out until those standards are set)
RFID Tags

There's little experience in the field when it comes to integrating multiple RFID systems from various partners in the supply chain Barcode RFID

German supermarket chain Metro is researching how wireless technology can boost retail.

The collection of technology in Metro's Future Store initiative aims to boost store efficiency, enable targeted marketing and cut long queues,among other things.
The Future Store is an experimental store, but it is one that involves real customers using real technology in real time.
As example Bluetooth RFID

"A lot still needs to be done, but the potential is great,"
Morris A. Cohen, co-director of Wharton's Fishman-Davidson Center for Service and Operations Management.
If you want to know more about an interesting subject like RFID Wireless Tags you can find everything at:
RFID Journal and can read the appropriate articles.

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Reinvention of Media

"Everyone has - and always has had - interests and hobbies and opinions. Everyone has always been a "producer" as well as a "consumer" of culture, and the Internet offers new (if not necessarily better) opportunities for self-expression. And that's good. But it doesn't amount to a reinvention of media. Today's new media, as Steven Johnson writes, "are not historically unique; they draw upon and resemble a number of past traditions and forms, depending on their focus."

In that sense, media weren't reinvented for long. Let's say television is not so much different in substance from the ancient Greek Theatre.
Both are the performance of actors seen by a "public".
Nevertheless nobody would deny the importance of TV.
Not certainly for the content broadcasted, for that of course the Greek are still much better.
The difference is in the footprint.
While the first was available to "few elected people" the second is seen buy the majority.
And that will make the difference of the Internet compared to the traditional TV. The footprint AND the interactivity.
With the Internet the consumer can really be at the same time "producer". And the Internet offers undoubtely NEW AND BETTER opportunities for self expression.

My next holyday...

What I like when I have to make a ppppost is that I come to know websites that I wouldn't have seen in another way.
It's the way to find things I didn't even know that existed.
That is a big limit of Search engines.
They show Always the same websites, and most of the time, things you are not interested in.
The really interesting ones are mostly hidden and difficult to find.
People should read more advertising blogs, it is the way sometimes to find gems.

One of them is the one I found today.
A beautifully made website where they list by owner vacation rentals.
That means that if you want to rent something to spend your holydays in California, it is there just a few mouse clicks away.
Easy to navigate, with nice pictures, maps, explanations, name and address of the people you can contact and so on...
And IT IS FREE.
The alternative would be contacting an agency, possibly a local one and of course chosse among their choices, pay their prices and so on (we all know).
And it is perfect also for the owners who want to list their property.
In a few words, it is what we want the Internet to be.
The big Network where one end can easily meet the other end...
My only regret: Why isn't here in Europe somebody willing to copy them?
I would be customer number one.
For now I have to plan something in California for next year...


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The Infrastructure of Democracy

The Infrastructure of Democracy
Strengthening the Open Internet for a Safer World
March 11, 2005

I. The Internet is a foundation of democratic society in the 21st century, because the core values of the Internet and democracy are so closely aligned.

1. The Internet is fundamentally about openness, participation, and freedom of expression for all - increasing the diversity and reach of information and ideas.
2. The Internet allows people to communicate and collaborate across borders and belief systems.
3. The Internet unites families and cultures in diaspora; it connects people, helping them to form civil societies.
4. The Internet can foster economic development by connecting people to information and markets.
5. The Internet introduces new ideas and views to those who may be isolated and prone to political violence.
6. The Internet is neither above nor below the law. The same legal principles that apply in the physical world also apply to human activities conducted over the Internet.

Global politics, global voices


Patrizia

VoIP is the natural evolution of the Internet.

The Internet created the "visual and writing society". VoIP will create the "Talking society".

But for doing so VoIP must be what the internet is: OPEN.

1. Open, transparent environments are more secure and more stable than closed, opaque ones.
2. While Internet services can be interrupted, the Internet as a global system is ultimately resilient to attacks, even sophisticated and widely distributed ones.
3. The connectedness of the Internet – people talking with people – counters the divisiveness the miriades of VoIP companies are creating.
Close Networks that cannot communicate among each other.

Absurdly what they proposed against the Telecom Monopoly was a cheap and more restrictive copy of it.

At least with the old telephone system people all over the world could communicate using the same devices.
With the actual VoIP people can connect to people inside the same Network.

Of course they could tell me they can communicate with the rest of the World using a termination.
But I AM TALKING OF VoIP and not PSTN.

I want a World on IP, not part on IP and part on PSTN.
I agree it cannot be done immediately, but in between for reaching the goal the VoIP infrastructures and codecs and devices must be intercommunicating one with the other.

No More new Monopolies, if the Internet is the Infrastructure of Democracy, VoIP must provide a democratic infrastructure.

Open and not closed networks.

Skype looks like the most democratic of VoIP, they talk about P2P, but if you do not use Skype, if , for example you choose a provider like Vonage, you will never be able to reach any of the Skype users.



And you will be obliged to use a termination for the rest of your life.
Where are the democratic infrastructures of VoIP?




PS.Resist attempts at international governance of the Internet: It can introduce processes that have unintended effects and violate the bottom-up democratic nature of the Net.

Not any "more" is "better".

When Gutenberg invented the printing press, it revolutionized how people accessed information by allowing printed text to be reproducible.
A similar revolution occurred with the advent of the Internet. The Internet provides users with billions of pages of information at the touch of their fingertips.
It was Alta Vista,Lycos, Inktomi that ruled the roost. They all got seduced by the portal concept and attempted to exploit their customers with paid placements and useless presentation.
Google came from nowhere with a better technology and scattered the field before it.
They didn't need a huge amount of capital or major advertising (low entry barriers). They just had a better product, better searches, and more credibility than their incumbent competitors.
The world did indeed beat a path to their door.
If Google doesn't get it right, I expect the very same thing to happen to them.

Given how many people worldwide now rely on search engines it is clear how important is to be listed and well positioned in them.
But how?
Search Engine Optimization Information could be one answer.
They explain what Search Engine Optimization is. How it works and they even offer Search Engine Optimizations packages that perfectly suit the customer.
The SEO Consultation Option Includes:

Keyword Research and Recommendations
Pre-optimization Ranking Report
Website Analysis
Content Analysis
Web Page Optimization
Link Analysis and Recommendations
Recommended Submissions, including exact link text / descriptions.
5 Hours Technical Phone Support
3 Months E-mail Support

This is especially made for businesses that either have their own in-house web developers or use an outside design firm capable of implementing SEO procedures.



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Davos 07: Declining trust in leaders

Equal justice means that I have exactly the same rights as my neighbor, but he has a little bit less rights than me.
Everybody agrees on the top priorities (how couldn't he?).
In what we disagree is who has to loose in order to fulfill the needs of our changing society.
Priorities:

eliminating poverty, 13% That should be a little less rich and a little less poor.
But who is going to be less rich? "the others"

economic growth, 12%, How and when? Of course we have to produce more at a more competitive price. But who is going to produce and sell, who is going to buy?
Answer number first: WE, answer number second: the Others.

closing the gap between rich and poor, 11% The same as number first. The Others are going to be less rich in order that the poor get less poor.

protecting the environment, 10%Who is going to save on energy, cars, electricity, mobile phones...

restoring trust 9%Who has to get more honest? The OTHERS

human rights 4% Don't forget the meaning of equal justice...

overcoming drugs, 4% Easy to say, impossible (almost) to do...

integrating social issues, 4% Remember Equal Justice...

overcoming AIDS, 3% In principle, it is somebody else's problem...(as long as it doesn't touch us)...

reducing organized crime, 2% With equal justice, we would have just a few lunatics as criminals, wouldn't we?

equality for women, 1%. I am a woman, no comment on this point...

All this for explaining that it is ALWAYS somebody else's fault and duty and matter.
But if anyone of us would once ask himself: what am I doing to make a slightly better world? and WOULD just try to do something, may be we WOULD see better results than just complaining and blaming the same...
We say "Piove, governo ladro..."

New Media Trends

Robin Good looks ahead to 2007 and writes:



Video: As if 2006 hadn't seen enough of it, the online video publishing and sharing space will see further innovation and growth. Better and easier tools will facilitate small and large publishers abilities to post, edit and aggregate quality content online. In this scenario the greatest opportunity it still represented by those companies that will be providing the tool and means to facilitate the filtering, selection and distribution of quality video content out of the ocean of low-quality stuff being dumped out there. Video search engine and directories are in particularly favorable position to provide breakthrough tools and facilities to let quality content finally surface. One of my most wanted tools, the online video interview recorder, will also likely become a reality next year for the benefit of many online reporters and video producers.
...
Mobile Group Text Messaging: Smart mobs are coming. Though the US has been lagging behind due to a number of industry idiosyncrasies and standard issues, the lure of many commercial opportunities along with the examples brought by the first early entrants, has pushed many to look more seriously into the monetization opportunities to be tapped. Mobile group messaging is hot and though the market isn't yet ready for the many useful applications it will soon allow, you can be sure that in 2007 too we will see a lot of innovation and new announcements in this space.

VoIP the "narrowband application" that likes broadband possibilities

Remember? VoIP is not only saving money...
Once when you talked about Communication you meant essentially talking, face to face.
Later the telephone arrived and communication meant also talking long distance.

Once typing meant using a type writer, later the computer arrived and typing was using a word processor.

But a computer is not a type writer, as much as VoIP is not telephony.
The computer is a new World of New features, one new everyday.
And VoIP too is a full World of new features.
Communication is not anymore just talking, it involves all our senses.
And this is just the beginning.
The limits are the limits of our imagination.

That is why even though VoIP is a narrowband application, will be a Broadband user.

Patrizia from a World on IP