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Friday, December 31, 2010

2011

Here we are.
One year is almost finished and the next one ready to begin.
I cannot do previsions of how it will be, I like to read them, hoping they are good, but since I do not believe in them I soon forget what I read.
Everybody can predict everything, the difficult part is predicting the right things.
May be there are people who can predict events, because they make them happen.
I am not one of them and I think I like to ignore the future, just in case...
Well I certainly know that I won´t win at the lottery (because I do not play) that I won´t get married ( I already am), that I won´t see Australia or New Zealand.
I certainly know what I won´t do or what I will do.
I do not know what will happen or what the others will do.
I just read a funny thought.
Somebody was complaining that in the very near future the dollar will be worth just as toilet paper.
The other answered: at least will be worth for something.
Have you ever tried to wipe your bottom with gold coins?

This perfectly explains my predictions for next year.
Whatever happens may be is not as bad as we think.
Having less sometimes is the right road to BE more.
Happy new year to ALL!

How much brainwashed already? Is there any hope left?

Every man, like every dog, has his own individual limit of endurance.
Most men reach their limit after about thirty days of more or less continuous stress under the conditions of modern combat.
The more than averagely susceptible succumb in only fifteen days. The more than averagely tough can resist for forty-five or even fifty days.
Strong or weak, in the long run all of them break down. All, that is to say, of those who are initially sane. For, ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity.

Whatever may have happened in earlier years, it seems fairly certain that torture is not extensively used by the Communist police today.
They draw their inspiration, not from the Inquisitor or the SS man, but from the physiologist and his methodically conditioned laboratory animals.
For the dictator and his policemen, Pavlov's findings have important practical implications.
If the central nervous system of dogs can be broken down, so can the central nervous system of political prisoners. It is simply a matter of applying the right amount of stress for the right length of time. At the end of the treatment, the prisoner will be in a state of neurosis or hysteria, and will be ready to confess whatever his captors want him to confess.

But confession is not enough. A hopeless neurotic is no use to anyone.
What the intelligent and practical dictator needs is not a patient to be institutionalized, or a victim to be shot, but a convert who will work for the Cause.
Turning once again to Pavlov, he learns that, on their way to the point of final breakdown, dogs become more than normally suggestible.
New behavior patterns can easily be installed while the dog is at or near the limit of its cerebral endurance, and these new behavior patterns seem to be ineradicable. The animal in which they have been implanted cannot be deconditioned; that which it has learned under stress will remain an integral part of its make-up

Hitler was quite right in maintaining that mass meetings at night were more effective than mass meetings in the daytime.
Pavlov would have agreed with him; fatigue increases suggestibility.
Illness is even more effective than fatigue as an intensifier of suggestibility. In the past, sickrooms were the scene of countless religious conversions.

Strong negative emotions tend to heighten suggestibility and so facilitate a change.John Wesley's enormous success as a preacher was based upon an intuitive understanding of the central nervous system.
He would open his sermon with a long and detailed description of the torments to which, unless they underwent conversion, his hearers would undoubtedly be condemned for all eternity.

The effectiveness of political and religious propaganda depends upon the methods employed, not upon the doctrines taught.
These doctrines may be true or false, wholesome or pernicious -- it makes little or no difference. If the indoctrination is given in the right way at the proper stage of nervous exhaustion, it will work.
Under favorable conditions, practically everybody can be converted to practically anything.

From the moment he is taken into custody, the victim is subjected systematically to many kinds of physical and psychological stress.
He is badly fed, he is made extremely uncomfortable, he is not allowed to sleep for more than a few hours each night. And all the time he is kept in a state of suspense, uncertainty and acute apprehension.
The young field workers, whose business it was, during the first years of the new regime, to act as Communist missionaries and organizers in China's innumerable towns and villages were made to take a course of indoctrination far more intense than that to which any prisoner of war was ever subjected.
This is what the Jesuits did for the Roman Church of the Counter Reformation.

Brainwashing, as it is now practiced, is a hybrid technique, depending for its effectiveness partly on the systematic use of violence, partly on skilful psychological manipulation.

Conditioned from earliest infancy (and perhaps also biologically predestined), the average middle- or lower-caste individual will never require conversion or even a refresher course in the true faith.
The members of the highest caste will have to be able to think new thoughts in response to new situations; consequently their training will be much less rigid than the training imposed upon those whose business is not to reason why, but merely to do and die with the minimum of fuss.

The enzymes which regulate the workings of the brain are being studied.
Within the body, chemical substances such as adrenochrome and serotonin have been isolated and their far-reaching effects on our mental and physical functions are now being investigated. Meanwhile new drugs are being synthesized -- drugs that reinforce or correct or interfere with the actions of the various chemicals, by means of which the nervous system performs its daily and hourly miracles as the controller of the body, the instrument and mediator of consciousness.

A dictator could, if he so desired, make use of these drugs for political purposes. He could ensure himself against political unrest by changing the chemistry of his subjects' brains and so making them content with their servile condition.
He could use tranquillizers to calm the excited, stimulants to arouse enthusiasm in the indifferent, halluciants to distract the attention of the wretched from their miseries.
But how, it may be asked, will the dictator get his subjects to take the pills that will make them think, feel and behave in the ways he finds desirable?
In all probability it will be enough merely to make the pills available. Today alcohol and tobacco are available, and people spend considerably more on these very unsatisfactory euphorics, pseudo-stimulants and sedatives than they are ready to spend on the education of their children.
If tranquillizers could be bought as easily and cheaply as aspirin, they would be consumed, not by the billions, as they are at present, but by the scores and hundreds of billions. And a good, cheap stimulant would be almost as popular.
Too much tension is a disease; but so is too little.
There are certain occasions when we ought to be tense, when an excess of tranquillity (and especially of tranquillity imposed from the outside, by a chemical) is entirely inappropriate.

People actually see and hear a great deal more than they consciously know they see and hear, and that what they see and hear without knowing it is recorded by the subconscious mind and may affect their conscious thoughts, feelings and behavior.
Pure science does not remain pure indefinitely.
Sooner or later it is apt to turn into applied science and finally into technology. Theory modulates into industrial practice, knowledge becomes power, formulas and laboratory experiments undergo a metamorphosis, and emerge as the H-bomb.

The new technique of "subliminal projection," as it was called, was intimately associated with mass entertainment, and in the life of civilized human beings mass entertainment now plays a part comparable to that played in the Middle Ages by religion.
Our epoch has been given many nicknames -- the Age of Anxiety, the Atomic Age, the Space Age. It might, with equally good reason, be called the Age of Television Addiction, the Age of Soap Opera, the Age of the Disk Jockey.

The new technique was aimed directly at the world's mass entertainees, and its purpose was to manipulate their minds without their being aware of what was being done to them.
By means of specially designed tachistoscopes words or images were to be flashed for a millisecond or less upon the screens of television sets and motion picture theaters during (not before or after) the program. "Drink Coca-Cola" or "Light up a Camel" would be superimposed upon the lovers' embrace, the tears of the broken-hearted mother, and the optic nerves of the viewers would record these secret messages, their subconscious minds would respond to them and in due course they would consciously feel a craving for soda pop and tobacco.
And meanwhile other secret messages would be whispered too softly, or squeaked too shrilly, for conscious hearing.
Consciously the listener might be paying attention to some phrase as "Darling, I love you"; but subliminally, beneath the threshold of awareness, his incredibly sensitive ears and his subconscious mind would be taking in the latest good news about deodorants and laxatives.

Repeated at regular intervals during the showing of a picture in a movie theater, the command to buy more popcorn was said to have resulted in a 50 per cent increase in popcorn sales during the intermission.

In Britain, where the process of manipulating minds below the level of consciousness is known as "strobonic injection," investigators have stressed the practical importance of creating the right psychological conditions for subconscious persuasion. A suggestion above the threshold of awareness is more likely to take effect when the recipient is in a light hypnotic trance, under the influence of certain drugs, or has been debilitated by illness, starvation, or any kind of physical or emotional stress.

Above the threshold of awareness, one of the most effective methods of non-rational persuasion is what may be called persuasion-by-association.
In a political campaign patriotism may be associated with any cause from apartheid to integration, and with any kind of person, from a Mahatma Gandhi to a Senator.

In the light of what has been said about persuasion-by-association and the enhancement of emotions by subliminal suggestion, let us try to imagine what a political meeting can be like.
The candidate (if there is still a question of candidates), or the appointed representative of the ruling oligarchy, will make his speech for all to hear. Meanwhile the tachistoscopes, the whispering and squeaking machines, the projectors of images so dim that only the subconscious mind can respond to them, will be reinforcing what he says by systematically associating the man and his cause with positively charged words and hallowed images, and by strobonically injecting negatively charged words and odious symbols whenever he mentions the enemies of the State or the Party.

All the available evidence points to the conclusion that in the life of individuals and societies heredity is no less significant than culture.
Every individual is biologically unique and unlike all other individuals. Freedom is therefore a great good, tolerance a great virtue and regimentation a great misfortune.
For practical or theoretical reasons, dictators, organization men and certain scientists are anxious to reduce the maddening diversity of men's natures to some kind of manageable uniformity.

Everything that is done within a society is done by individuals. These individuals are, of course, profoundly influenced by the local culture, the taboos and moralities, the information and misinformation handed down from the past and preserved in a body of spoken traditions or written literature; but whatever each individual takes from society (or, to be more accurate, whatever he takes from other individuals associated in groups, or from the symbolic records compiled by other individuals, living or dead) will be used by him in his own unique way -- with his special senses, his biochemical make-up, his physique and temperament, and nobody else's. No amount of scientific explanation, however comprehensive, can explain away these self-evident facts.

The effects of false and pernicious propaganda cannot be neutralized except by a thorough training in the art of analyzing its techniques and seeing through its sophistries.

In their anti-rational propaganda the enemies of freedom systematically pervert the resources of language in order to wheedle or stampede their victims into thinking, feeling and acting as they, the mind-manipulators, want them to think, feel and act. An education for freedom (and for the love and intelligence which are at once the conditions and the results of freedom) must be, among other things, an education in the proper uses of language.


What Can Be Done?


Education. Education to crytical thinking.
We can be educated for freedom -- much better educated for it than we are at present. But freedom, is threatened from many directions, and these threats are of many different kinds -- demographic, social, political, psychological.

The victim of mind-manipulation does not know that he is a victim. To him, the walls of his prison are invisible, and he believes himself to be free. That he is not free is apparent only to other people. His servitude is strictly objective.

We should fight for a statute for the protection of minds against the unscrupulous purveyors of poisonous propaganda, modeled on the statutes for the protection of bodies against the unscrupulous purveyors of adulterated food and dangerous drugs.
There should be legislation prohibiting the use of subliminal projection in public places or on television screens. There could and, I think, there should be legislation to prevent political candidates not merely from spending more than a certain amount of money on their election campaigns, but also to prevent them from resorting to the kind of anti-rational propaganda that makes nonsense of the whole democratic process.

Under the relentless thrust of accelerating overpopulation and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms -- elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest -- will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism.

How can we control the vast impersonal forces that now menace our hard-won freedoms?

It is now a historical fact that the means of production are fast becoming the monopolistic property of Big Business and Big Government. Therefore, if you believe in democracy, make arrangements to distribute property as widely as possible.
The right to vote in principle is a great privilege. In practice, as recent history has repeatedly shown, the right to vote, by itself, is no guarantee of liberty. Therefore, if you wish to avoid dictatorship by referendum, break up modern society's merely functional collectives into self-governing, voluntarily cooperating groups, capable of functioning outside the bureaucratic systems of Big Business and Big Government.

Over-population and over-organization have produced the modern metropolis, in which a fully human life of multiple personal relationships has become almost impossible. Therefore, if you wish to avoid the spiritual impoverishment of individuals and whole societies, leave the metropolis and revive the small country community, or alternately humanize the metropolis by creating within its network of mechanical organization the urban equivalents of small country communities, in which individuals can meet and cooperate as complete persons, not as the mere embodiments of specialized functions.

Do we really wish to act upon our knowledge? Does a majority of the population think it worth while to take a good deal of trouble, in order to halt and, if possible, reverse the current drift toward totalitarian control of everything?

Recent public opinion polls have revealed that an actual majority of young people in their teens, the voters of tomorrow, have no faith in democratic institutions, see no objection to the censorship of unpopular ideas, do not believe that government of the people by the people is possible and would be perfectly content, if they can continue to live in the style to which the boom has accustomed them, to be ruled, from above, by an oligarchy of assorted experts.
That so many of the well-fed young television-watchers in the world's most powerful democracy should be so completely indifferent to the idea of self-government, so blankly uninterested in freedom of thought and the right to dissent, is distressing, but not too surprising.
If the bread is supplied regularly and copiously three times a day, many of them will be perfectly content to live by bread alone

"in the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'make us your slaves, but feed us.' "

But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.

Liberally taken from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley

"The society described in 1984 is a society controlled almost exclusively by punishment and the fear of punishment.
In the imaginary world of my own fable, punishment is infrequent and generally mild. The nearly perfect control exercised by the government is achieved by systematic reinforcement of desirable behavior, by many kinds of nearly non-violent manipulation, both physical and psychological, and by genetic standardization.
Babies in bottles and the centralized control of reproduction are not perhaps impossible; but it is quite clear that for a long time to come we shall remain a viviparous species breeding at random.
For practical purposes genetic standardization may be ruled out. Societies will continue to be controlled post-natally -- by punishment, as in the past, and to an ever increasing extent by the more effective methods of reward and scientific manipulation."

If you can achieve mind manipulation you won´t need punishment, since people will do EXACTLY what they are supposed to do.
This I do not think is impossible, I guess technology and its important branch psychology, can provide all means, but the question is:
What is it that people are supposed to do or how are they supposed to behave and, more important, WHO says what?

I am not a fan of nature, I do not believe that ALL what nature does is good and is the best.
We need to reproduce ourselves in order to go on for doing whatever we are supposed to do in this earth.
We do not know why we are here or how we came here, we do not know who we are or why we are.
We know that we live a certain amount of years, that we will die, that we have to leave a part of ourselves to go on with the job begun millions of years ago.
To assure the continuation of a species which is endangered to survive, you have usually to "overdo".
A tree spreads millions seeds, but just a few become a new tree.
Humanity has reached a good point, in which most of the seeds survive, so the answer should be only one: plant less seeds.
When you have a reduced piece of land you plant just what is more likely to grow.

I am not a Eugenist, but I understand.
Still the big question: Does somebody have the right to decide?

Thursday, December 30, 2010

This is today and tomorrow invisible dictatorship.

Hitler was a stupid, a naive, because he thought (as ALL before him) that for ruling the world was enough to be the strongest, to have the best weapons, the best scientists.
There is a fable of Aesop, written thousands of years ago, but that explains it all, in few words: the Fable of the Sun and the Wind.
If you are able to own the mind of the people, then you OWN the people.
Because they do WHAT you want on their "free will".
Many times I asked myself is there really a "free will"? Or what we call in that way, in reality is the product of what we are told, and told, and told.
When a child is born it merely follows its instinct.
It can even walk.
Then the more its experience, the less its instinct.
May be instinct is the "free will", what the body feels of doing because it is the "Best" for surviving.
Our instinct tells us to fear certain things, because in our DNA there is the remote memory of our ancestor, the memory of the most important things to help us surviving.
Killing the instinct, building a new brain in which the priorities are what "the family" wants, this is the right pattern to rule the world.
As Aesop said, you cannot OBLIGE, but you can CONVINCE.
When you have somebody doing what you want "for his own will" you will have him forever.
Call it brainwashing, call it collective persuasion, call it whatever you want, it is the WORST, more ABOMINABLE, more EVIL way to rule.
You can fight a dictator, you can fight for freedom, you NEVER fight something in which you are a part.
Our body has wonderful resources; I would say that a healthy person can heal from most of illnesses.
It cannot heal from cancer, or a virus attack, because it is willingly accepting them, they are A PART of the body.
That is the best way to kill an "enemy" or to enslave somebody.

This is today and tomorrow invisible dictatorship.

The Wind and The Sun

This is one of my favorite stories by Aesop, still valid after thousands of years:

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger.
Suddenly they saw a traveler coming down the road, and the Sun said: "I see a way to decide our dispute.
Whichever of us can cause that traveler to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin."

So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveler.

But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveler wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair.

Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveler, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

Kindness effects more than severity.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

What we should ALL fear

“The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”

Going West to reach East

"As the planet continues its long slide into the pit, what are YOU going to do to try to change the direction?"

A good start, and Mr. Kunstler is doing that since long, is talking about, explaining what happens, proposing solutions.
But writing is not enough, to say the truth you need two persons, the one who talks AND the one who listens.
The main problem of today is that there are too many talkers and too few listeners.
They say that for going better you must reach the bottom.
We already have, but instead of trying to go better it looks that people are digging furher, may be they think it is easier to reach the other side of the globe digging, or they think going on digging they will find the solution, or, which is more likely, they are TOLD that the solution is going further down.
How can you dream to solve your problems going on the same direction it created them?
Or may be it is right.
Cristoforo Colombo went West to arrive East.
He didn´t know that he would have found America and stop there.
But he was right.
Earth is a globe and going in one direction you can find yourself in the opposite.
May be the same applies to life.
Life is a circle, you go in one direction and you find yourself in the opposite.
If you do not, as Colombo did, find death (America) in between.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Communism and Capitalism

Communism failed for the same reason Capitalism will fail.
They both weren’t bad ideas, they were great ideas in the hands of the wrong people.
Make a revolution, build the perfect society, with the perfect government, justice, law and order.
It will slowly get into an oligarchy or a totalitarian state where the strong will get the power and with the power the money and the mass poorer and poorer till the point in which there will be a new revolution and after it a new perfect society and so on.
It is not the type of government that has to be changed.
It is the people.
But that will never happen.

Bad news for Europe´s future

The unsold condos and the unsolved mortgages are in Florida, but most of the money for the subprime crisis came from European banks.
That is why Europe’s banks still fight to finance themselves.
Making matters worse now they have to compete against their governments which need to sell outrageously huge debts.
In this war Germany’s banks, even though have big refinancing needs, can still borrow at very low rates because investors know that the state has the strength to back them.
A different scenario is in countries like Spain or Great Britain where banks can just hope in the markets recovery.
The feared insolvency of the state makes things much more difficult, and to catch investor’s higher interest rates could be necessary.
This can only mean less investments and a lower income for the people.
Lower income brings as a result lower spending which means economical crisis and a growth of unemployment.
I guess this means bad news for Europe’s future.

The unbalance that must be balanced

China’s economy relies too much on investment and too little on consumers spending, while America and Europe rely too much on consumers spending and too little on investment.
Rebalancing the two would mean higher salaries for the Chinese’s and lower spending for Americans and Europeans.
Letting wages rise at the expense of the profits would mean the trade with China would be smaller in quantity, but the local American and European companies would see the advantage to produce again in their own countries.
That would also mean inflation and not deflation.
In spite of the lowering of prices, people in the West buy less because the available money is less (unemployment grew a lot since China came into the game).
China needs consumers, the West needs workers.

You can only go forward, no backward allowed

Two days after Christmas, buried in snow, we still survive.
The future? Who cares?
This is the good side of realizing you are getting old.
The future doesn´t scare you anymore, because it is just a prolonged present.
You appreciate youth when you are old, and you appreciate old age when you are dying.
Because there is always something worse.
Christmas is one of those moments in which you remember the past.
The smell of paper and ink, the place where when I was a child we used to buy the Christmas tree´s decorations, every year a few new colored pieces to wrap and put aside the first days of January.
The long walks in the woods to pick up the moss for the "Presepio", the hours spent to paint the sky and the stars, the small lakes made with an empty metal box where the sheeps were drinking.
The candles, the lights, the songs, the presents, everything was magic.
Then you ask what has become of the child who was dreaming a happy and glamorous life, how that child can be the woman of today, and you realize the biggest tragedy of life: you can only go forward, no backward allowed.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Christmas

Once again it is Christmas.
When I was a child I used to think to the Christmases of the future, now I like to wander in the ones of the past.
They were much different, not because of their poverty compared to the abundance of today (even if people complain) but because the spirit was different.
When you have hopes and dreams life is much more beautiful than when you have the money and the possibility to satisfy them (at least a part).
I think I am a REAL European, and I think that if ALL the people living in Europe were real Europeans, Europe would be a different thing, because it would be ALIVE.
I was born in Italy, I lived in England, France, and Switzerland and now I live in Germany and my husband is German.
But I just think I lived in Europe and my husband is a European just like me.
I know there are people who almost laugh and enjoy the troubles some countries are living, (the people of the country)I feel bad and grieve for them and I am also so angry, because when you live the life the OTHERS oblige you to live, well that is just not fair.
I am not among the ones who believe that for example the Greeks are lazier than the Germans, or stupider or more naive.
They were just more deceived, like the millions on this globe who suffer because a minority can drink Champagne or "enjoy" whatever they want.
The only satisfaction I have is the knowledge that nobody really "enjoys" for long.
Life is a hard thing, and sooner or later presents the bill.
A bill everybody has to pay.
Merry Christmas to all, also to the ones who won´t have a Merry Christmas at all.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

eBay

I think I can call myself a "professional eBayer".
I can proudly say I got a certain experience.
I guess that few people can really understandand what it is.
It is mostly a game in which the stronger wins, the stronger being, as usual, the one who can spare more money.
But not always.
Sometimes it is also a game that requires a certain amount of psychology and of course experience.
The best bargain is, as usual, the one that nobody wants.
That happens seldom, I always want what most people do, and I would even say that sometimes you do not want what nobody bids for and you think irresistable what many bid for.
If everybody wants it, it must be good.
I do not know who invented the one euro or one dollar or one pound beginning.
I do not know if it would be worth to give him a Nobel prize, but certainly some kind of award yes.
That one euro is so irresistable, it makes you bidding for things you would never dream to buy and sometimes paying for them much more than what you would if you could really understand what you are doing.
Because you begin with one, but if the bidders are many you can finish much higher.
Now it has got so tough, it is getting a war of seconds.
I began bidding the last 2 minutes, then I got to one, then to 40 seconds, now I am around 6 seconds, crossing my fingers hoping to have enough speed on the line to reach the goal before it is finished.
One thing must be said and that is that it was a great invention.
It is true you buy a lot of useless thing, but it is also true you can afford what you normally wouldn´t.
For my son it has become the way of wearing the last fashion, the most requested brand and spend nothing.
He buys what he likes, wears it a few times, then resells it and buys something else.
Not only he spends nothing and changes his wardrobe very often, sometimes he even makes a profit.
After a while you get the feeling and perfectly know what you will be able to resell and what you could get for it.
So you know what you have to pay for.
It is very "green".
So many things would just go wasted or sit in the wardrobe doing nothing, while they can be used by someone else.
And it also produces jobs.
Imagine the tons of goods traveling from one home to the other.
Well, as they say, if it didn´t exist, someone should invent it...

The problem? Too much state

The biggest threat to today’s economy and innovation is too much state and too less private.
Remember when they complained about the Communist societies in which there was no place for individualism, no place for private initiative, too much burocracy?
We are at the same point.
Also the Internet under the word "regulation" is going toward its end, by the ubiquitous hands of the State.
"When the FCC asserts regulatory jurisdiction over an area of telecommunications, the dynamic of the industry changes. No longer are customer needs and desires at the forefront of firms' competitive strategies; rather firms take their competitive battles to the FCC, hoping for a favourable ruling that will translate into a marketplace advantage. Customer needs take second place; regulatory "rent-seeking" becomes the rule of the day, and a previously innovative and vibrant industry becomes a creature of government rule-making."

What do we need to make this clear to ALL?

Sunday, December 19, 2010

When open means innovation

Openess applied to software initially had a very specific meaning: open computer programs and languages are those that can run within a variety of environments and interoperability, which means they can exchange data with other software.
They must also adhere to open standards, a term that is generally understood to refer to two related ideas: that the software should be free for use, and its source, or underlying, code should in some manner be defined by its community of developers and users. The operating system Linux is the best-known open software.
The Windows operating system, by contrast, is closed, or “proprietary,”in the jargon of information technology: it is not portable and possesses limited interoperability.
Although elements of Windows adhere to open standards, the program must be licensed, usually for a fee, and its source code has been compiled and hidden from users and developers outside Microsoft.
Developers write to application programming interfaces, or APIs, which until last year were mostly closed, and which still Microsoft jealously guards.
Ever since the emergence of the Web, whose multitudinous pages are themselves created with open standards, information technology has tended to become more and more open.
Increasingly, software companies stress their openness.
Often, this is mere marketing.
Sun Microsystems’ Java platform, widely used to create software for devices as different as embedded systems and supercomputers, has been portable and interoperable since it was launched, but the heart of its source code was released only in 2007. Most technologists want their software to be open, because openness attracts innovation.

If you are looking for medical scrubs look online

Since we spend most of our time working, while not trying to look good also when we do our job?
Even if we wear a uniform?
But besides looking good we should also feel comfortable and wear something that actually can help us to do what we are supposed to do.
These are the reasons while medical stuff should always choose medical scrubs made by professionals who know how to make them.
They must fit and make the people who wear them looking nice.
It is true that a doctor and a nurse must be first efficient, but it doesn´t hurt, on the contrary, if they look also pleasant.
And now, you can also buy scrubs online. That means no time wasting in shops and Department stores looking for them.
You can comfortably sit in front of your computer and decide among a huge assortment of them.
You can think, decide and chose the ones that fit yourself and your budget.
So, from now on, if you are looking for medical scrub the answer is: look online.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Is WikiLeaks legal?

This question is so outrageus and well explains the pit in which people are, a pit of ignorance and what our great poet Dante called "ignavia".
In a real Democratic society the governement is made by people freely elected, they are there NOT to rule, but to represent the ones who elected them.
Imagine this scenario: you are the owner of a company and you delegate somebody to represent you.
One day you find out that this person has secrets and he keeps secret things you wouldn´t approve.
What do you do?
Do you ask yourself if it is actually LEGAL the fact that you know his secrets or you think that it is ILLEGAL the someone paid by you to act in your behalf and following your interests and your goals, does what you do not approve and keeps this secret, in order not to loose his job?

The question is:

IS IT LEGAL THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS SECRETS?
THAT IT KEEPS SECRETS IN ORDER NOT TO LET THE VOTERS KNOW THAT IT DOES NOT WHAT IT WAS VOTED FOR?

The real meaning of WikiLeaks

"For someone who was watching Iraq and Afghanistan with some care over the previous years, the leaks might have provided interesting details but they would not have provided any startling distinction between the reality that was known and what was revealed. If, on the other hand, you weren’t paying close attention, and WikiLeaks provided your first and only view of the battlefields in any detail, you might have been surprised."

That proves that the more you do to threaten and shut WikiLeaks the more interesting it gets also for people who do not care and do not understand about war or politics.
What everybody understands and doesn´t like is the thought of being told one lie after the other, of being manipulated and brainwashed.

"First, how significant were the leaks? Second, how could they have happened? Third, was their release a crime? Fourth, what were their consequences? Finally, and most important, is the WikiLeaks premise that releasing government secrets is a healthy and appropriate act a tenable position?"

The question should be this: Has the Government have ANY right to have "government secrets"? Shouldn´t people know what is going on?
Isn´t it the people´s right to KNOW what the Army is doing in Iraq?
Shouldn´t they be entitled to have their own opinions, their own moral view?
Shouldn´t they be entitled to say no to something they think immoral?
And LAST, isn´t that the reason why THOSE were secrets?
Because the Government knew that people wouldn´t have approved?

Isn´t it the right of the people to KNOW what the ones who were elected do?
And shouldn´t the ONES who were elected DO WHAT the people who elected them want them to do?
WikiLeaks is the voice of the unknown, worthless man on the road.
It is the voice of right versus wrong, is the real Democracy, not the empty word they use to wash their mouth to justify ALL they do.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

How many Assange will we have in the near future?

"Among many of WikiLeaks critics, there is a self-reinforcing hysteria surrounding WikiLeaks recent disclosures.
These critics, in government, media and policy circles, are making irresponsible and factually inaccurate statements, with import far beyond the WikiLeaks case.
Dangerous calls for the assassination of WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange or wild demands that Assange and WikiLeaks be designated terrorists must be condemned not only for being morally and legally outrageous, but because they will chill free speech for many years to come."

They won´t chill free speech, on the contrary, many who do not know or do not care, will know and will care.

"These investigations appear to be targeting WikiLeaks for publishing leaked information. Newspapers and other media outlets routinely publish leaked information, and this action should not criminalized through application of existing law, nor through new legislation."

Newspaper belong to the past and to the present, WikiLeak belongs to the future.
It is the beginning, as in all revolution, the signs were already there long before, but they just needed a match, a beginning.
How many Assange will we have in the near future?
How many more leaking websites?
People want truth and justice and a better world.

Give us something to die for and you will make us more human.

"Which is why I want to say this, as clearly as I can: it’s exactly because Assange and Wikileaks are relatively unimportant (compared to the gigantic scandal of the anti-democratic security state in which we now live) that the media has made him into a superstar, has tried to make the entire story about Wikileaks and a single eccentric and interesting character, rather than about the United States government’s actions as a system. The more we focus on him – and I’ve contributed to that, which is why I particularly want to write this post — the more we take attention away from the real story, the substance of the things Wikileaks has revealed....."

I fully disagree.
I see the big picture.
Which is the dawn of a new world, a world where people care to say what the others do not know.
Today is "the United States government’s actions as a system."and tomorrow something else.
It is the reborn "conscience", the wish of having again a future, better than this present, is being able to hope, which is all about life.
I had a wonderful grandfather, he hoped and dreamed to be able to do great things in his life, he didn´t reach any of his goals, but he lived a wonderful life, waking up everyday with something to fulfill.
That is why we ALL love Assange.
Give us something to die for and you will make us more human.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Where you can win, even if you do not win


Radisson Blu launched a Quiz competition in which (this is the nice part) you can actually win also if you didn´t win.



How does it work?



You can try the



Radisson Blue Quiz ,



where you will be asked three easy questions (of course easy if you know the answer).



If you answer  the 3 questions correctly, you will be able to participate in a random draw to win a prize in the form of a gift card.



You will asked to spin a wheel to see if you won and what  (the “Instant Prize”).



If you didn´t give the right answers do not worry, you  can still win.



All participants who have entered the Contest during the previous week can sign up for participation in a weekly draw to win a

prize in the form of a weekend stay for 2 persons...



And all this with no obligation (you do not have to purchase anything).



But...you must be European, (sorry, no Swedish) and not an employee of Rezidor, entities in the Rezidor Hotel Group or Zupa,or an immediate family member, or a member of the household of such employees.



You must also be 18 or more.



The contest lasts from 1 December 2010 until 23.59 on 2 January 2011.



Needless to say that I just tried (won nothing) but still hoping to win that promised " weekend stay for 2 persons".



I would like to go to Hamburg.



I have this dream since I saw pictures of the city on a Meridian magazine.



That is the place where I would like to be, I thought.



But since then I haven´t had the chance, also because it is NOT a cheap place and I love (when I travel) to enjoy luxury.



Hamburg has a wide selection of galleries to explore and the largest art museum in Germany.



On Sunday morning I would like to be in the Fischmarkt at the Elbe river.



I know a funny joke about  “Aale Dieter”( a  so called "Marktschreier") : "Hering, Hering - so fett wie der Göring" (herring, herring as fat as Göring" - he used to shout until he was warned by some officials. The next day it was : "Hering, Hering so fett wie gestern"  (Herring, herring as fat as yesterday).



Last dream would be seeing the famous Blankenese.



It is where you can see the most exclusive Villas of Hamburg. Just to please the eyes.



Hamburg is absolutely the best place to be for coffee lovers, as I am.



Well, this and much more is something you can dream until 2 January 2011.



And if I do not win? May be it is better not to spoil your dreams making them reality... next year or sooner there will be another competition...





Radisson Blue Quiz







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Who will win?

Something very interesting happened and I didn't want to tell you as a public post. My husband works for a Federal contractor for the Dept of Education. A few days ago they received a memo stating that, unless they had the security clearance to do so, if it was found out that he or any of his fellow employees were found to have accessed Wikileaks they would be immediately terminated from their job.
I thought you might find this little piece of info interesting. You may use it at any point you like but PLEASE keep my name anonymous.

If I had to put a bet, I would bid against the State.
They should know what is universally known, that the more you forbid something, the more interesting that something gets...

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Truth mixed with disinformation

The State Department claims that the "leaks" contain a mixture of falsehoods and truths in unknown proportion.

It is the last strategy, after trying to close mouth and Internet, talking about "truth mixed with disinformation", of course not saying what is what, to confuse the reader.
It would work if it wasn´t that WikiLeak says things "dejavu" and "dejaheard" or "dejaknown", but of which the reader didn´t have the proof.
Nothing is more believable of what you already know.
People of the world, it is time to realize that the fairy tale is finished, it is time to face the truth, it is time to take our life in OUR hands.

When you are young you are more liable to believe, in truth, in right, in perfect.
When you get older you realize that nothing is completely right or wrong, because everything is humanized and human nature is NOT completely right or wrong, or better, it isn´t completely neutral, it cannot be.

Human nature drives people to look for their best, which very seldom (almost never) is everybody´s best.
Some people exasperate this goal to the extreme.
And those are the ones that generally rule, the ones who say one thing and do another.
Trusting, believing, is in our nature, but there is nothing you can fully trust or believe.
"So far, there's not a single revelation that would even mildly surprise any normally diligent reader of the morning papers. Where's the bombshell? I am not suggesting that there is not one -- or even several."
Do we really think that there is still something that can surprise us? That we didn´t know already?

Thursday, December 09, 2010

One of the best advertisements... ever!!!

Best advertisement
This is on the French Riviera, just outside Monte Carlo.

Being a succesful criminal sometimes proves to be even harder than to be a honest man.

"Mobster Al Capone, you’ll recall, was nailed for tax evasion, not murder. As the Pentagon and Justice Department have learned, it may be difficult to try Assange in the U.S. under the creaky Espionage Act of 1917, unsuited to our Age of Wiki.
So sex allegations will have to do. "Margaret Carlson

There is a huge difference between the two.
AlCapone was a REAL criminal, he was on the wrong side of the law, Assange is on the right side of the law, with documented proof that his enemies are on the wrong side of the law.
And they are also on the wrong side of the simple, elementary intelligence.
When you try to defeat an enemy in an unlawful way, not only you won´t win, you will make a hero.
If there are two men, one with a gun and one with a pen, the one with the gun is a dead man, because the pen gives you immortality.
If you are too stupid to understand this simple fact, you are also too stupid to be on the wrong side of the law.
Being a succesful criminal sometimes proves to be even harder than to be a honest man.

How can we contribute to freedom?

What can we do to help Google, Bing, and other search engines avoid and if necessary mitigate the possibilities of future government attempts to mutate them from honest indexers of Internet data into government information control puppets?

The first thing you can do is to stop using the Quisling companies that folded at the first sign of government pressure -- and tell them so, and tell your own audience so.

The strongest motivation you can give a company like Google or Bing is for its customers to be solidly behind it in principled action, and opposed to any unprincipled action.

Since in the twisted ad-based economics of the Intertubes, most of us aren't Google's or Bing's customers, that ties our hands somewhat.

But we *are* customers of Amazon, PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard. Those are the companies that currently deserve our scorn and don't deserve our money. If they got a flood of complaints -- and most important, a visibly lowered business during this wonderful holiday season -- then some of them might recant.

Monday, December 06, 2010

PayPal

This is the clear example of how a Monopolist takes advantage of its position and legally steals money from its customers.
This is an example:

"My Paypal account is also frozen for no apparent reason and they will not give a reason. Well they call it restricted but in reality it means frozen and they get to do what they like with my and your money.

From what information I can gather from the Internet this is a very common occurrence horror stories abound in fact there are websites dedicated to exposing Paypal and its many scams and underhand business practices. One employee (now ex-employee)of Paypal actually testified in court restricting accounts was looked upon as an additional source of revenue.

No one knows for certain how many of Paypals 26,000,000 accounts are frozen at any given time but it is estimated to be over 1,000,000.

There are hundreds of thousands of court cases filed against Paypal most of which seem to get settled just before going to court.

Paypal tries every trick in the book to wriggle out of getting regulated by any government financial regulators or from coming under any sort of regulations at all except their own terms and conditions where they are the sole arbitrator judge and jury. They were beginning to be regulated in the UK so in order to circumvent that they registered in Luxembourg where the FSA

The question is why what are they so afraid of, have they been cooking the books are they insolvent and can only keep going by freezing customers accounts withholding their funds and using them in order to keep trading.

One thing is becoming very clear it is about time Paypal was regulated its business practices investigated and the practice of freezing customers accounts withholding their funds and not even allowing them to return the money from where it came abolished. It is not even possible to close your account when it is restricted."

I tried to close mine, bur it was impossible.
And what about the ppromised "You are insured if you pay with paypal"
The insurance consists, when it works, to move the money from one account to the other, without any investigation, and when it doesn´t work, just ignore any complaints.

there are millions of entrpreneurs, why nobody builds something working and honest?
Has our world so deteriorated that there is NOBODY you can trust anymore?

Friday, December 03, 2010

In a world that goes global the secret of success is going local


 



 



 



Since many years I have this view of the Internet as what I call “Metropolitan web”.



In a world where the Internet is conceived and seen as a global mean of communication, they lost the most important point of view, which is: global comes AFTER local.



As the Internet proved to be the best way to promote businesses, education, health, why not making a Metropolitan Internet, where you can connect to ALL local services, including the local government?



Imagine a close network where you can find ALL local news, local businesses, local schools, local Libraries.



Where they can broadcast, for example, the local public City Hall reunions and other public related issues, or educational courses (languages, job training and so on).



A local Internet where the local business can broadcast their products, offers, where they can promote what they do and so on.



What would be the main advantage?



First of all it could be a separate Network, even if connected to the big Internet network.



The bandwidth could be cheap and shared among the local users.



Lot of bandwidth means also the chance to broadcast for example a local TV, or movies or music or whatever could be of interest.



The only limit would be the people´s imagination…



How could my dream become true?



May be I could involve The Co-operative Community Fund.



It is a fund  made up of donations from members who have chosen to give a percentage of their twice-yearly share of the profits.



It is a registered charity and is governed by The Co-operative Community Investment Fund (CCIF).



The money each region has to give is the money that members have donated in their area.



Groups have to apply for the funding and the application form is available on their website.



The name is



The Cooperative Membership Fund

The Cooperative Membership Fund







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What is technology worth?

"Robots will be doing all our work, Computers will be doing all our thinking and Artificial Minds will be doing all our living . This is an automatic process, you can't stop, so just accept it and deal with it."

This IS the point.
What is technology worth if it doesn’t make human life better?
If it is not useful to produce more food to feed ALL?
If just a few get enormous advantages out of it and the mass suffers even more?

Technology should be used, should be at humans service to help us to live better, to think more and to progress.
When man discovered the fire, the wheel, the electricity and all other great inventions, life changed and changed in better for ALL.
Why doesn’t the computer, the modern science, the latest inventions, help us to progress?
Because they are used by a restricted number of individuals, for making them richer, while making the others poorer and poorer.
Technology is no evil, but men are.

Thursday, December 02, 2010

The Creative Economy

That is what is left when all the rest is gone.
And all the rest is Working, Producing, Saving, Investing.
In other words making something out of your time, which is generally energy consuming.
And this is particularly awesome in an age of "Energy Peak".
We are at the point of no return.
Gone is the age of "human energy" usage, gone is the age of "Cheap Oil energy" usage, and "Alternative Energy" hasn't arrive yet.
Better: "Cheap Alternative Energy".

So, in times where all the Stereotypes have fallen, when what they taught us is not valid anymore, when the world is falling and our lifestyle follows it, what do we have left, or better, what do our governments have left?
When everything is taxed, and highly taxed, when whatever you do you have to pay them, when you don't do anything because you have no job and consequently you do not pay them, where do they get the money?
They look into the Future, but no solution there, they look into the past, but you cannot go backward.
The solution: be creative, invent "alternative ways of grabbing money".
Too bad it is the same old story, the one who has to pay and the one who has to get.

How to save the Planet and your budget


Lately I have been obsessed with the garbage.



I used to dream mountains of garbage, all mixed up.



I had to sort the paper, the plastic, the plasticated paper, the papered plastic, the aluminum, the glass, the organic, the semiorganic, the semiinorganic and so on.



I have bags for this and bags for that.



I have the schedule for the paper collection, the plastic collection and so on...



I love our Planet and I am more than willing to save it...but sometimes I miss those times when you put ALL in one big bag, the big bag in a big can and you just forgot all...



Since I am NOT somebody who passively does what she is requested to do, I began thinking.



Where does ALL my garbage finish?



There are people who make a good profit out of it, just burning and producing energy.



Why shouldn´t we, the garbage owners, do the same?



This is one of those ideas that not only solve a problem, but make a good profit out of it.



My idea: since in a big scale they use our garbage to make energy, why not building a machine that burns it and transforms it in energy?



Nothing really new, the sterling engine exists since long, why not using it in every household to produce the expensive energy we need and to get rid of our waste?



The investment would easily be recuperated in a little time.



What bigger ROI than the cost increasing, demand increasing energy, and the solution for the ever increasing garbage hassle?



 



An engine, which swallows all kind of our garbage, but deals with the different material in a different way (organic material creates biogas, the leftover of burned other material is reburned as long as it is almost CO2 neutral).



 



A stirling type engine is fed by the gas produced while burning our garbage, the engine produces energy for warming my house, for feeding all my electric appliances and so on...



I think that it is a great idea, worth of further development, so I posted it on Open Planet Ideas  website.



If you are somebody who has ideas, the fertile type, the ones that produce other good ideas and all together help to save the Planet (and may be also our budget), you can Join the challenge.



Where can you Find Out More About Open Planet Ideas ?



Follow my links and Good Luck!

 



My project:<a href="http://www.openplanetideas.com/how-can-sony-technology-be-used-to-address-environmental-challenges/concepting/how-to-solve-a-big-problem-makig-a-profit/">How to solve a big problem</A> on the Open Planet Ideas





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Technology is for creative types

Creativity is something you feed with communication. Fertile ideas make new ideas and new ideas make progress.
I, myself, feel a newborn brain after surfing the Net for a while, after reading stimulating and interesting articles.
I learn much more reading what the others think than from any book.
Technology is one thing and the application and use of a new technology something else.
Any invention is for nothing if you do not know how to use it.
And how to use it depends from creativity.
Creativity is the exercise of the brain.
It is moving neurons and synapses.
It is where progress and innovations come from.
It is riel borating other people's ideas, finding the good and the bad.
Discharging the bad and developing the good.
Without creativity, man wouldn't have evolved.
Creativity is the meaning of our lives.
But creativity wouldn't exist without communication.
Ideas make new ideas and from new ideas, our world grows.

You can say whatever you want, as long as you say what I want to hear

That is freedom of speech American style.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Looking for creative bloggers


For me blogging is mostly a pleasure, I like to write when I have something to say.



And since I could also make some profit out of it, it became even more interesting.



It is mostly the challenge, trying to write a post, an interesting one, if possible, about a subject they assign you.



It is, in a few words, the very essence of creativity.



And what would the campaign I would like to write about? What would allow me to express myself at its best?



It should probably be something I know quite well, something I am interested in, of course something I like.



I used to be and I still am, interested in philosophy and life, mostly in people, so the choice could be quite big.



May be something related to everyday life, to education or health, or technology.



I think I am quite open and quite versatile.



One of the companies I like most to work for is ebuzzing, which belongs to  the Wikio Group, and allows you to display videos and publish articles about brands that you like, when you want, whilst earning.



You are free to say what you want, the way you like it and decide to accept a campaign or deny it.



That is you are free to decide if, when and what.



What about  the ethics of writing about a brand on your blog through ebuzzing?



I had several discussions, and I can say I feel fine about it.



Because I would never write a positive comment or sponsor something I do not believe in, just because they pay me for.



This is also one point on < a href="http://www.ebuzzing.com"> ebuzzing.com </A>side.



They always propose interesting campaigns, the way to add very often cool, relevant and  exclusive content to your blog.



What brand  would I like to write about?



If I could choose I would like to write about some new technology, some new application, some really "killer application".



Something concerning the Internet and its future, something  "new".



I do not care about the "brand", I care about the "content".



If you like marketing, and that is what a sponsored post is all about, or aims to be, then it is not important "who" but "what".



There is nothing more stimulating than having to do the impossible( or almost)...that brings usually out the best of you.



It is far from boring and it needs creativity.



If you think you are creative and you want to make some money out of it, why not registering at <a href="http://www.ebuzzing.co.uk/membre/?inscrit=1&devenez=buzz">ebuzzing.com</A>?

















 



 



 



Find out more on ebuzzing.co.uk

Find out more on ebuzzing.co.uk







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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

WW3 is here

We've always thought that WW3 would involve soaring missiles and mushroom clouds, but I think we're already in the midst of WW3 and the shadowy forces who foment war are winning -- without firing hardly a shot (at least in comparison to other wars).

Their goal, as always, is to profit from war and even they know that there is nothing to be gained for them from dueling nukes. Instead they have conducted economic warfare -- and they're winning. First, they saturate the banking system with toxic securities, creating a bubble of unsustainable debt, and thereby bring banks and governments to their knees.

Once that's done, they blame the working people for the problem and offer to "bail out" the bankrupt countries -- but only if they'll cut wages, eliminate social programs, privatize the infrastructure, and a host of other things that will bring about a domination of the populace to a degree that couldn't be accomplished with war. They call it "austerity."

It's proceeding apace in the US -- oddly enough cheered on by the very people who will suffer the most -- and now the sights are set on Europe.

Even the normally sane Paul Krugman said that Spain's problems were due in part to the soaring wages. I wonder if Krugman has even been to Spain. About 60 percent of the people make 1,000 euros a month and are just getting by. Wages are not, in fact, soaring. Contrary to right-wing propaganda, Spain's problems did not come from their health care or education or their pension system. Spain was doing fine until the bankers and developers decided -- and were encouraged -- to emulate the US housing/lending/toxic security bubble.

But one country after another is falling, and falling faster than any military leader could hope for. Pretty soon, the forces of unrestrained corporate capitalism will dominate most of the industrialized world to the detriment of the 90 percent of people who aren't among the financial elite. WW3 will have ended without one mushroom cloud.

Help bankrupt J.P. Morgan

JP Morgan has trillions of dollars of short positions in the silver market, betting the price of silver will go down.
If everyone goes out and buys just 1 silver coin, the silver market which is leveraged 45 to 1 will implode, JP Morgan will not be able to deliver on their silver delivery contracts.
Show the world that YOU can win.

Sometimes, somewhere, somehow, revolutions happen

"Does the bankruptee go broke all at once, or is she recruited into permanent debt slavery so that the bond-holders of various banks can keep their loved ones in marzipan and Fauchon's wonderful marrons glacés for one more holiday season"

Sometimes, somewhere, somehow, revolutions happen, so that the weak gets strong and stays strong for as log as the powerful will let him the illusion to be the one in charge...

You should NEVER spoil your dreams making them into reality.

"We are caught in the web of duality ,only viewing things in the context of opposites. Our politics is left and right our economy is grow or shrink our religions are good and evil(God and the Devil).Our fear based Ego is aligned with the status quo beliefs and ideologies.No one wants to be left out; go along to get along. We will vote in the politician that promotes the status quo dream.Reality sucks ,balance ,dynamic equilibrium ,sustainability are fearful to the Ego.Reality doesn't give a dam about the dream so sit back and watch the conflict on your big screen tv with all the comforts of misplaced resources the fun is just beginning.Happy Landing."

We spend our lives chasing dreams, tryig to make them reality, just to realize too late that the reality of the dream is never so fulfilling as the dream, that you should NEVER spoil your dreams making them into reality.

Robots learn to read

They will be equipped with X-ray specs or specialized radar technology.
Robots have already learned to map their surroundinngs and to pick up objects.
They say it should be relatively easy, using a software optical carachter recognition which automatically transforms scanned images into text.
But still there are some problems, like picking up words embedded in a busy scene.
Another problem is identyifing words that are difficult reading because of viewing perspective.
But the future will make softwares more and more sophisticated, in order to overcome these difficulties.

Friday, November 26, 2010

The only limit to it is your imagination...

Once I used to be somebody who looked at movies or listened to music without caring how and when.
Since I began using a computer I found my real hidden nature, which was not to be a mere passive user, but who enjoyed very much in being part of what she was doing.
There is nothing that gives you more satisfaction than a creative work, and I would add the more difficult, the more challenging, the better.
I discovered the new and thrilling world of software that allows you to do everything ( or almost) you want with a piece of music or a piece of a movie.
And I am not the only one.
If you look at youTube you will find out that sometimes a simple guy, with the right imagination can do better than a good director.
This is the future of video and audio.
No more passive users, but a lot of creative and intelligent people making wonders with little.
What do you need?
First a good Video Converter, like ImToo for example that allows you to do everything.
That is really everythig, including convertig between all possible compressions available on the market, extract audio from video, convert between various audio formats.
Even extract pictures and create video from pictures, encoding and decoding of High-Definition video, convert video and audio for iPad, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, Xbox 360, PSP, PS3, NDS, Wii, BlackBerry phone, iRiver, Creative Zen and other multimedia devices.
They also have a Video Converter for Mac.
Of course one of their best featur is the iPad Video Converter.
That comes really useful if you have a iPad and like to use it for example to watch movies on a train and wherever you like.
The only limit to it is your imagination...

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

You never have a second chance to make a first impression

You never have a second chance to make a first impression.
That is why you should carefully think how to look your best, especially when it is important.
The same applies to your company.
And how to make the best impression?
When it comes to you it is mostly the dress, besides the make up, the hair, the speech, the smile and so on...and when it comes to your company?
I guess that having the right logo is not only important, it is essential.
At Logo Works 40 in-house designers can make a real difference.
Because even if you are not what you look, nevertheless it is great to look great.
Also through your company.
At LogosRated.com they hire leading logo design companies to create logos for companies who care to look at their best.
Because if You never have a second chance to make a first impression, just try to make the first impression as good as you can AT THE FIRST CHANCE.

The world of goods at a click of the mouse

I like the Internet when it comes to shopping because I can really chose.
First because nothing like the Net offers you such a great selection of EVERYTHING, second because it takes very little to see ALL what is on the market.
You really have the world of goods at a click of the mouse.
More so whe it comes to virtual goods, the ones you do not even need the shipment, things like web hosting.
There are sites that make the choice so simple, because they even rate all offers.
Are you looking for UNLIMITED Sites, Space & Bandwidth, 24/7 U.S. Technical Support and 90-Day FULL Money Back Guarantee?
You can have ALL the available hosts with detailed informations and relative price.
You can click on the name, read the reviews, calculate the cost, decide for the quality and it is done.
No problems, or lost time, no regrets later.
Even somebody lazy like me has no excuses, it is so simple, you just need to read.
You can choose by location, type of hosting, price range.
In the read buying guide they even tell you HOW to choose...
What do you want more?

Thursday, November 11, 2010

The stirling engine

The latest invention is an electrical generator based on a19th-century idea, an unusually efficient kind of engine, called a Stirling engine which never caught on.
With the Stirling, has been built the world’s neatest little high reliability package that will turn any form of waste into power.
They have experimented with Stirling engines in electric cars and motorbikes, but the real target is the developing world.
In trials in Bangladesh, a village used one of the engines to generate electricity for nearly six months using only cow dung for fuel.
Technology is easy to develop, but developing a new attitude, moving the culture from one mental model to another, that’s the difficult part.
You give people a solution to a problem and the great irony is that even though they’re unhappy, they have high inertia.
People don’t like change.
The reason it takes technology 15 or 20 years to come in, is because 15 years is the time it takes a kid who saw it when he was young to become a functioning adult.
Cities (especially in Europe) were made to be highly dense environments for pedestrians, while the car is a piece of hardware that was optimized to go really far, really fast.
Over half the world’s population now lives in cities, and nobody knows for certain what people will be using to get around cities in 20 years’ time, but certainly they won’t be using cars.
The financial, emotional, political and environmental costs will be prohibitive.
So welcome solutions that are going to transform waste (which is getting a big problem to get rid of)in power.

Monday, November 08, 2010

The usual dirty game behind Net Neutrality

Internet service providers can’t favor traffic to and from certain companies while undermining competitors’ traffic.
That is the dream that goes under the name of Net Neutrality: the networks that deliver the Internet to consumers must be equally open to all data packets.
One of net neutrality’s strongest backers, Google, has stopped insisting that the principle apply on wireless networks, which might need to manipulate traffic to deal with capacity constraints.
A neutral platform is the perfect environment for innovation, because innovators can develop the next great widget, and deliver it without the need of getting any permission.
We have already seen it many times: a new technology shakes up a marketplace.
It is followed by a period of amazing, generative competition. And then, when it begins to make big money, it is taken over, often by some monopolists in conspiracy with the government. Radio is the best example.
And the Internet now is the best example of how a network, end to end, grown thanks to the adding number of users and not a central unity, determined the explosion of so many new technologies.

Friday, November 05, 2010

Old age

It is better to be a young June bug than an old bird of Paradise.
How true, Mr. Twain, especially when you happen to be the old bird...
All life turns around wanting to be what you are not.
When you are young, being mature and wise, when you are finally wise, then you understand that wisdom is not fun.
The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality.
The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.
Then, and mostly then, you feel old, because you are old...

Small is safer

Small modular reactors that generate less than 300 megawatts, (around a quarter the output of the plants under construction today) may be the answer to a better use of this technology.
Those reactors could be the solution to some of the nuclear industry’s biggest problems:waste, safety, security and nonproliferation, and last but not least important, the capital cost of construction.
Infact, small modular reactors require less initial capital investment than conventional ones and can have simpler, safer designs.
Their modules can be built in factories (unlike the components of a traditional plant, which must be built on site) and so can be deployed rapidly.
Besides, they could run for 20 years on their initial fuel, thus generating minimal waste.
Will they change the face of nuclear energy?

Recreating the sun

The International Thermonuclear ExperimentalReactor, or ITER, will be built at Cadarache, in the south of France and will be a consortium to manufacture and supply superconducting coils.
The multibillion dollar project will be the world’s largest fusion experiment, with contributions from the European Union, the United States, Russia, and Asian countries.
ITER will attempt to re-create the conditions of the process that powers the sun, in order to manufacture a potentially endless supply of renewable, carbon-dioxide-free energy.
One potential goal of ITER is to replace nuclear power generation, and large companies that work with nuclear power have been able to supply a great deal of the necessary experience to design ITER’s buildings and systems and to help determine the safety procedures.

The air at the "Top" is bright and fresh

Where can you find good search engine marketing advice and affiliate marketing advice?
Or videos teaching step by step how to set up your first website or blog, how to reach high ranking with competitive keywords, and how to actually make good money out of it through affiliate offers?
What you need is just to become a member of a network which is 10 years old and has thousands of members.
Do you happen to know "rich jerk"?
Kelly Felix, created the "Rich Jerk" website.
It is one of the top affiliate marketing courses of all time and has more than 100,000 members.
Do you think that these are good credentials to become a member of this group?
I personally think that they are more than good...
The air at the "Top" is bright and fresh, would you like to try?

Thursday, November 04, 2010

Recycling energy

There is a lot of energy around, and is not doing anything else.
The first devices to be powered entirely by ambient energy are likely to be sensors, calculators and clocks. But the hope is that music-players, e-readers and mobile phones will eventually follow.
The aim is to harvest radiation from multiple sources.
Markku Rouvala, an engineer at Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, England, harvested as much as 5 milliwatts of power using a wide band receiver capable of mopping up radio signals between 500MHz and 10GHz including radio, TV, Wi-Fi and mobile-phone signals from nearby transmitters.
Advocates of satellite solar power, for example, dream of beaming gigawatts of solar power down to Earth from geostationary satellites more than 35,000km up.
The same approach has been used in ground-based experiments to beam one kilowatt of power over a distance of several kilometers.
A little over a century ago, the inventor Nikola Tesla drew up ambitious plans to transmit electrical power without wires.
He carried out a series of experiments in which electric lights were illuminated via electrostatic induction, by connecting them to metal sheets suspended in a strong electric field produced by a distant transmitter.
In 1898 he proposed a world system of giant towers that would form both a global wireless communications network and a means of delivering electricity over large areas without wires.
Today several firms are pursuing various technologies that deliver electrical power without Wires.

Reading keystrokes

Clattering keyboards may seem the white noise of the modern age, but they betray more information than unwary typists realize. Simply by analyzing audio recordings of keyboard clatter,computer scientists can now reconstruct an accurate transcript of what was typed, including passwords.
And in contrast with many types of computer espionage, the process is simple, requiring only a cheap microphone and a desktop computer.
Such snooping is possible because each key produces a characteristic click, shaped by its position on the keyboard, the vigor and hand position of the typist, and the type of keyboard used.

Playing with colours

I like to live in a warm and nice house.
Because I spend most of my time in it and being surrounded by the things you like and you enjoy is the best way to spend your life.
But my house is not a museum, one of those places which are glamorous, but you cannot live comfortably, because of the limitations of the environment.
I love marble and wood, but prefer laminate and tiles.
Why?
Because they are easy to clean, survive most mistreatments ( if you have children you know what I mean) and so pleasant to walk on, especially in summer.
For example my bathroom tiles are marble alike.
They look the same, but you can wash them as much as you like, knowing they won’t loose their shine and colour.(they must be a good quality of course, it doesn’t pay to use low quality tiles).
I love glass tiles, the kind you can use to make mosaics.
For example, if you want something very special, that your children will love, you can make a mosaic using red, white and blue tiles, the colour of the subway tiles, (I am talking about London subway).
You can make the most amazing and original bathroom, just playing with colours!

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Will HTML5 be what promised?

By programming in HTML, Web developers tell a browser what to do when it encounters a page.
HTML is the language a computer can understand and subsequently follow the directions to display on the user’s screen correctly all the information’s sent via the Web.
HTML itself embodies the ideal that knowledge is meant to be shared. Unlike proprietary software that hides its programming code, HTML lets anyone see and learn from its workings.
But when the Internet boom was on, HTML couldn’t handle the complexity of what people and businesses
were trying to use the Web for.
The central goal of HTML5 is to give websites the chance to expand beyond pages and into programs.
The new terms in the HTML dictionary include “canvas,” which lets a website designer insert a moving graphic that can be used in games or animations.
The language will also have tags for video and audio, which should dramatically streamline the way the Web handles multimedia: it will be as easy for a Web developer to incorporate a fi lm clip or a song as it is to place text and images.
Multimedia elements will no longer require complex code and an add-on program such as Flash. This should make Web browsers faster and more efficient.
Learning to build Web pages should become easier.
HTML5 could potentially boost security, by making it harder for attackers to dupe people into downloading malicious plug-in programs.

When Fool´s gold becomes smarts´gold

Today, most solar cells are made of silicon, but they are expensive: though silicon is abundant, turning it into photovoltaics requires extensive, energy-intensive processing.
So a study of possible solar-cell materials, examining not only their chemistry and physics but also their availability produced as a result fool’s gold (pyrite or iron sulfide): it is abundant and cheap, and it has optical properties that allow it to efficiently convert sunlight into electricity.
The theoretical efficiency of iron sulfide is 31 percent.
That’s as good as silicon.
What’s more, 20 nanometers of pyrite can absorb as much light as 300 micro meters of silicon.
Because it absorbs so much more light, it can be made into thinner cells, which require less raw material.
Previous efforts to build solar cells with pyrite produced devices that, at best, converted only 2.8 percent of sunlight into electricity.
The low efficiency was due to inconsistencies in the crystal structure of the pyrite.
Making pyrite nanoparticles will produce pyrite crystals with a uniform, favorable structure .
The resulting material will outperform conventional pyrite in solar cells.

Dreaming...


When I was a little girl (some time ago) my favourite past time was dreaming what I would have done if I had won the lottery or some big prize.



Growing up my wishes changed, but the pleasure to think to be able, once in my life, to have enough money to do ALL the things I would have liked to, was always the same.



I had a good friend,  Laura, we shared almost everything, including this dream.



She always had the best ideas and since then I understood that nothing is as nice and looks more real than what you can share, being it a joy or a sorrow.



And you, what would you do, if suddenly you were able to win something like   £40,000?



I ask you, because it could be possible, even easier than winning at the Lotto.



PayPal launched a brilliant prize draw promotion that give everyone who enters the chance to win £40,000.



It is quite simple, you just have to buy something using PayPal.

Find out more visiting the  website www.paypal.co.uk/win.



 



For example at <a href="http://www.dabs.com/category/sound-and-vision,tv-and-home-entertainment/11038?q=eye">Dabs.com</A> you could buy something like a new Laptop.



They have wonderful offers and amazing prices....



 



Or what about a new Monitor? At <a href="http://www.ebuyer.com/">Ebuyer</A> they have a Samsung 23" for just £129.98



 



If you are looking for something very special, for you or as a present to somebody special, you could invest £29.99 for a 



Boombox Speaker T-Shirt, it even comes with free delivery...



If you still do not have an iPod, may be it is the right moment to buy one, for only £280.00 at < a href="http://www.misco.co.uk">Misco</A>.



A real bargain could be (in the case you buy the iPod) the CAMBRIDGE AUDIO iD10Black iPod Dock  for £19.95...at <a href="http://www.richersounds.com/"> Richer Sounds</A>



 



What can I say more...



Everything is so easy, you can buy everything you like, just sitting in front of your computer and may be even win a lot of money...



And if you don´t? Dreaming is always the best pastime and costs nothing...



Enter now for your chance to win



 







 



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Who spends more, spends less

Each purchasing decision we make represents a choice and an opportunity for positive change.
Many so-called intelligent choices, even when they come at higher price, actually can save us money in the long run.
Consumers are willing to pay a little more for high-quality, ethical products.
And the success of this type of products shows that given the choice, many consumers will decide to help society, the environment, and, in the long run, themselves.
Consumers buy computer batteries on the basis of their initial capacity, only to be disappointed when that capacity shrinks by half after just a few months.
But today is available a notebook-computer battery, designed to run four to five hours between charges, that will retain its capacity for three years without degrading.
Consumers would be able to buy just one instead of many batteries over the life of the computer.
That translates into a lower total cost of ownership for the computer, saving consumers money.
Moreover, when fewer batteries are purchased, fewer are manufactured.
Fewer manufacturing materials are consumed, less energy is needed for production and transport, and fewer goods must be recycled or disposed of.
To save money and reduce our effect on the environment, we can ride a bicycle instead of driving a car, buy longer lasting light bulbs, use high-quality electronics, and stop buying disposable water bottles.
In a few words, spending more to spend less.

Tuesday, November 02, 2010

Is the future in the coal?

The goal of the near future is finding renewable-energy technologies capable of generating electricity completely free of emissions, along with biofuels that promise to end global demand for coal and petroleum. Unfortunately, these technologies are not economically, technically, or logistically ready to be adopted on a large scale.
Renewable energy will ultimately be a critical element of a more sustainable world.
The single largest source of global greenhouse-gas emissions is burning coal, and coal is not going to go away anytime soon.
The solution appears to be to convert coal into natural gas.
Natural gas is made up of four parts hydrogen to one part carbon, and it is so clean we burn it in our
homes without even needing a vent.
Burning natural gas made from coal in a modern power plant generates about 60 percent less in greenhouse- gas emissions than burning coal directly and eliminates almost all other pollutants.
The only and not small problem is that converting coal into natural gas has long been too expensive to implement on a large scale.
But a process called catalytic hydromethanation, can economically convert coal into pure natural gas while removing and capturing most of the carbon.
Apart from nuclear energy—which comes with its own problems there is no other option that could make such a significant global impact using available technology

Monday, November 01, 2010

Intelligence is mostly a matter of white matter

In 2001, Thompson showed that intelligence is correlated with volume in the frontal cortex, a result consistent with a number of studies that have linked intelligence to overall brain size.
But size is a crude measure: while larger brains may be smarter on average, it’s not clear if that’s because they have more nerve cells, more connections between cells, or more of the fibers that carry neural signals.
Studies of Albert Einstein’s brain, for example, have found that it was typical in size, or even a bit on the small side.
But what if the key to intelligence is neither an individual area of the brain nor its total volume but the network over which information is transmitted and integrated?
The neural signals travel from nodes near the back of the brain, where sensory data is collected and synthesized, to those in the frontal lobes, which are responsible for decision making and planning. The connections between these nodes are just as critical as the nodes themselves. “If the nodes of a network
aren’t communicating effectively and efficiently, then the network won’t function efficiently,”.
By volume, gray matter makes up roughly half the human brain.
The other half is white matter, consisting of fi lament-like neural projections wrapped in a fatty material called myelin; such a high proportion of white matter appears to be unique to humans.
As we evolved from worms to humans, the number of non-neural cells in the brain increased 50 times more than the number of neurons.
What gives us our cognitive capacity is not actually the number of neurons, which can vary tremendously between human individuals, but rather the quality of our connections.
Thanks to their layer of insulation, which prevents leakage of electrical impulses, myelinated nerve fibers can send signals about 100 times as fast as unmyelinated ones.
The myelin also allows more information to be sent per second by reducing the waiting time between signals. The result is that neurons can process 3,000 times as much information as would otherwise be possible. That
capacity is crucial for speaking and processing language.
Is intelligence determined by how fast the brain works? If so, does finding the key to processing speed in the brain mean researchers have finally found the secret to intelligence?
Speed is probably not the only determinant of IQ.
One of the things that is important for IQ is frontal-lobe function, which is involved in planning, decision making, and weighing evidence.
The crucial factor may be how efficiently information moves around the brain, rather than just how quickly.
People with above-normal IQs of 120 and up have the most efficient brain networks.
If white matter plays a key role in intelligence, is there a way to enhance it?
It’s likely that the quality of white matter is at least partly genetically determined and, therefore, difficult to change.
But environmental factors also play a role. Rodents raised in a stimulating environment have more white matter. And research suggests that the apparent IQ difference between people who were breast-fed and bottle-fed as babies may arise because breast milk contains omega-3s, fatty acids involved in the production of myelin; as a result, some baby formula now includes these compounds.
Scientists haven’t yet studied white matter enough to know how to improve it directly, especially in healthy people. But exercise, diet, and mental activity have all been shown to boost brain health and decrease the risk of dementia, a disorder that has been linked to white-matter damage.
Learning more about the role of white matter in intelligence will give scientists a fuller picture of how brain anatomy influences cognition.
This could be a boon for physicians working with Alzheimer’s patients or others suffering from diseases that cause cognitive damage.
 
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