Clipmarks | deb2012's clips

LANDSCAPES !!! To Die For !

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:05:14 GMT

clipped by: righthand
clipper's remarks: Thanks to Ahmed86. For the experts. All the technical data is give on the site. Enjoy.

Clip Source: www.mwaheb.net

المصور :

المصور :

المصور :

المصور :Adam Burton

المصور :

Patrick Di Fruscia

Adam Burton

Ian Cameron

Jay Patel

Kenneth Kwan

Marc Adamus

Tags: photos

Top 10 mind mapping tools

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 18:08:35 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: en.onsoftware.com

Mind maps - also known as concept maps - are visual diagrams used to represent ideas and tasks relating to a given topic. They come in especially handy when you need to generate and manage ideas for a work project, because having a visual representation of all available concepts helps you organize the necessary workflow in a more optimized way.

Check out this list with the best mind mapping software apps out there.

MindManager - capture ideas from several sources and create mind maps with them

MindGenius - easy, intuitive mindmapping tool for everyone

FreeMind - a mind map tool based on Java

MindPad - create colorful, complete mind maps

Visual Mind - mind map tool with a flexible graphic interface

NovaMind - conduct brainstorming sessions and create mindmaps with their outcome

CMapTools - free mindmapping tool with exporting capabilities

Cayra - an open-source mind map program with basic functionalities

ConceptDrawMindmap - professional tool to create concept maps

Mindomo

Tags: software, mind, mind maos

Freaky roads

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 22:33:14 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.night4joy.com

How to destroy a nation

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:34:55 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: hmmm.

Clip Source: www.opednews.com

"If I were given the power to take down a nation, how would I do it?"

Control the nation's monetary system.

Tax the population, incurring massive debt. Institute various handouts.

Import foreign workers for one third of American wages.

Pit American workers against immigrants to keep the focus off the various trade agreements; the more hatred and chaos, the better. The people must never see these issues as pertaining to class, but rather intolerance, racism and bigotry.

keeping the field limited to a two party system, where only the wealthy need apply.

Set up a dysfunctional Department of Education to dictate to the states insane mandates, regulations and policies to dumb down the future generation.

Institute perpetual war, borrowing billions for destruction, while filling the coffers of corporate hucksters

Keep the multitudes distracted with ball games, theme parks, shopping malls, expensive automobiles, environmental activism, OJ, Paris Hilton, pit bulls and Rosie O'Donnell.

Tags: politics

A Giant Solar Tower Could Power the Future

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:10:31 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: On a sunny day, the air at the top of the tower would be 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), whereas the air in the greenhouse could reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Celsius). As this hot air escapes up the tower at 34 mph (15 meters per second), it spins 32 turbines that generate up to 200 megawatts of electricity.

Even with all this power, the solar tower is less than one tenth as efficient as solar cells in converting the sun's energy into electricity.

The advantage for a solar tower is that its materials are much less expensive.

Clip Source: www.livescience.com

A new energy concept called a solar tower could generate enough electricity for 200,000 homes.

Looking like a giant smokestack, it would release no noxious fumes — just sun-heated air.

Demonstrated more than 20 years ago, the basic design calls for solar collectors to warm the air near Earth's surface and then channel it up the tall central tower. Turbines placed at the bottom make electricity from the updraft.

EnviroMission has designed a kilometer-high solar tower (0.62 miles) and is now looking at possible sites in the southwestern United States.

The solar tower is an updated version of a solar chimney — a centuries-old technique for providing ventilation to a home by creating a natural updraft from sun-heated air.

The optimum configuration is an 800- to 1,000-meter tower (twice the height of the Empire State Building) surrounded by a greenhouse canopy 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) in radius on the ground.

Tags: energy, solar energy, renewable energy

Great Train Journeys of the World

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:35:04 GMT

clipped by: mickfinn

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

Switzerland: The Bernina Express

This takes you over the highest rail summit in the Alps – 7,405 feet up

Canada: Rocky Mountaineer Vacations

South Africa: Rovos Rail

Now regarded as superior to the Blue Train for quality and service

Observation cars allow unrivalled views across the bush

Russia: Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express

The world’s longest train journey at nearly 6,000 miles

provides comfort unknown since Tsarist times

South East Asia: Eastern & Oriental Express

1,262-mile journey from Bangkok to Singapore

North America: California Zephyr

The Amtrak trip on the California Zephyr runs through the heart of the Rocky Mountains

Great Britain: Northern Belle

The Flying Scotsman used to be the way to see the Scottish Highlands. Now there's another – the Northern Belle

Europe: Venice Simplon-Orient-Express

Japan: The Shinkansen

The Bullet Train, as it is better known, is closer to a rocket than a train

On the Tokyo to Kyoto Bullet Train trip, the adrenaline rush is the train itself

Tags: trains and travelling

Chernobyl 2008

Sun, 25 May 2008 22:29:19 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.angelfire.com

Pluto's Realm

It is really Plutonium that will reign here for thousands of years. It is extremely toxic and highly chemically reactive, half-life of Plutonium-239 is over 24,000 years. Plutonium is appropriately named after Pluto, god of the dead and ruler of the underworld

Clip Source: www.angelfire.com

Year after year it becomes more difficult to reach those distant towns and villages of Chernobyl; roads overgrown, trees falling and bridges collapse.

I am never bored with looking at Chernobyl's dead towns and villages. As I travel the picture moves on, it seems always tells the same story: ruined towns, destroyed villages, abandoned farms... but the moving panorama is never the same, it is always different.. I never get bored with it, just like I never bored with looking at the flame of a camp-fire or watching the waves of the sea

Clip Source: www.angelfire.com

might look like complete chaos. But chaos they are not, for chaos is an absence of order and what we see is a massive re-ordering of the surface of the earth according to the laws of nature

Clip Source: www.angelfire.com

Best Online documentaries

Wed, 07 May 2008 01:03:46 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.bodocus.com

Tags: documentaries

Will "Dirt Energy" Power the Future of Africa?

Sun, 25 May 2008 20:46:14 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: An anode and a cathode are then linked to a circuit board and presto; you’ve got power. Once all of the components are put into a solid container the owner has his or her own soil-based power generator.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Ironically, dirt might be the new clean. What started as a simple student design to light up a display at the London Olympics, “dirt energy” will soon be powering 10 households in Tanzania.

If the pilot program succeeds, dirt energy tech will be distributed across the country.

A team from Harvard led by Hugo Van Vuuren was among the winners of the recent World Bank’s Lighting Africa 2008 Development Competition. They are developing a series of dirt-based fuel cells that are capable of lighting high efficiency LED lamps. Their goal is simple: Light up Africa. But eventually this “dirty” technology could help clean up the whole world.

Dirt based microbial fuel cells can power electricity conducting polymers, or PLEDs.

Microbial fuel cells (developed originally by Peter Girguis) tap the energy that microbes generate as they break down organic matter.

All you have to do is dig a hole in the ground, then fill it with animal and plant waste.

Tags: energy, clean energy, africa

Teaching futurism to children and teens

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:10:07 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.depressedmetabolism.com

Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” Plato (BC 427-BC 347) Greek philosopher.

For the most part the education systems of the industrialized nations are functional in that they cover the basics: reading, writing, science, and arithmetic. There is systematic guidance in the form of counselors in schools once a child becomes an adolescent and help is given for the child to develop into their adult career.

What is a futurist to do to inspire the next generation?

A futurist can share sci-fi books such as Stephen Hawking’s new book for children “George’s Secret Key to the Universe”, or a transhumanist adventure based on what is seen as possible by scientists now –like my book “21st Century Kids”,

but they still must encourage the child’s own loves, even if they are radically different.

Tags: teaching, learning, open mind, future

Giant rubber snake could be the future of wave power

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:05:21 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: environment.newscientist.com

[Video]

A giant rubber snake could be the future of renewable energy. The rippling "Anaconda" produces electricity as it is squeezed by passing waves. Its developers say it would produce more energy than existing wave-energy devices and be cheaper to maintain.

Retired physicist Francis Farley and Rod Rainey of Atkins Global dreamed up a flexible tube filled with seawater and sealed at both ends like a giant sausage. The structure streams out in the waves like a windsock pushed by the wind.

The passage of each wave squeezes the rubber and produces a bulging pressure wave that travels down its length. When the bulge reaches the end it sets turbines spinning to generate electricity.

Eventually, full-scale versions should be 7 metres across, 200 m long and be anchored at one end in water between 40 m and 100 m deep.

Tags: energy, green

Our Electric Future - (by Andy Grove)

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 10:56:34 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.american.com

Energy independence is the wrong goal. Here is a plan Americans can stick to.

In fact, we may be at a critical juncture, the kind that can creep up, in a gradual and insidious way, on companies and industries, and even on societies. Invariably, the actions that are needed to change course at such times are painful. Leaders rarely appreciate the gravity of their situation, and even when they do, they are loath to take appropriate action.

Let’s put this situation in perspective. Google’s share of the U.S search market is more than half. This allows the firm to wield tremendous influence over the very nature of the American advertising market. Google may even have the power to transform and redefine how advertising is carried out. OPEC has a similarly dominant share of the worldwide oil market, and it may have a correspondingly large influence on its customers.

We can do that by increasing our reliance on electricity.

Electricity: Energy That Sticks

Tags: andy grove, electricity, oil, energy, independence

A new 'window' on solar energy: Cost effective devices expected on market soon

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:42:53 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Such unexpected innovations can make a solar energy economy feasible within just a few years.

Clip Source: www.hlrhodes.com

Clip Source: www.physorg.com

Imagine windows that not only provide a clear view and illuminate rooms, but also use sunlight to efficiently help power the building they are part of.

MIT engineers report a new approach to harnessing the sun's energy that could allow just that.

The work, to be reported in the July 11 issue of Science, involves the creation of a novel "solar concentrator.

Light is collected over a large area [like a window] and gathered, or concentrated, at the edges

As a result, rather than covering a roof with expensive solar cells (the semiconductor devices that transform sunlight into electricity), the cells only need to be around the edges of a flat glass panel

In addition, the focused light increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell "by a factor of over 40

Because the system is simple to manufacture, the team believes that it could be implemented within three years—even added onto existing solar-panel systems to increase their efficiency by 50 percent for minimal additional cost.

Tags: energy, solar energy

Women Thrive Worldwide

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:00:48 GMT

clipped by: deb2012
clipper's remarks: caught my eye -- I'd like to see this organization and KIVA, my favorite social service organization, work to do more in the U.S.
http://www.kiva.org/lender/deb4800

Clip Source: sharecompassion.blogspot.com

Women Thrive Worldwide

is a leading non-profit organization helping to shape U.S. Policy to give women in developing countries a chance to lift themselves out of poverty.

Women Thrive - develops, shapes, and advocates for policies that foster economic opportunity for women living in poverty. They focus on making U.S. international assistance and trade programs prioritize women. They bring together over 50 organizations and 25,000 individuals united in the belief that women are the key to ending global poverty.

Tags: social service, economics, poverty

DNA confirms Russain czar mystery

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:06:16 GMT

clipped by: deb2012

Clip Source: news.yahoo.com

DNA tests carried out by a U.S. laboratory prove that remains exhumed last year belong to two children of Czar Nicholas II, putting to rest questions about what happened to Russia's last royal family, a regional governor said Wednesday.

The bone fragments dug up are those of Crown Prince Alexei and his sister, Maria, whose remains had been missing since the family was murdered in 1918 as Russia descended into civil war, said Eduard Rossel, governor of the Sverdlovsk region.

Tags: history