Clipmarks | pokkets's clips

15 Things It Took Me Over 50 Years To Learn

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 23:14:30 GMT

clipped by: swampfoxz
clipper's remarks: If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”

Clip Source: www.awesomeology.com

15 Things It Took Me Over 50 Years To Learn

Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

You should not confuse your career with your life.

Never lick a steak knife.

There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

A person who is nice to you but rude to a waiter is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

Your friends love you anyway.

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

Tags: aging

10 Rare Cloud Formations

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 17:42:38 GMT

clipped by: Patty2007

Clip Source: listverse.com

10 Rare Cloud Formations

Clip Source: listverse.com

1. Nacreous Clouds

2. Mammatus Clouds

3. Altocumulus Castelanus

4. Noctilucent Clouds

5. Mushroom Clouds

6. Cirrus Kelvin-Helmholtz

7. Lenticular Clouds

8. Roll Clouds

9. Shelf Clouds

10. Stratocumulus Clouds

Tags: clouds

50 Great Free Online Libraries

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 06:18:56 GMT

clipped by: karokan
clipper's remarks: Comprehensive list of free online book resources

Clip Source: www.attiaspace.com

Research & Education

50 Great Free Online Libraries

1. California Digital Library

2. The Online Books Page

3. Free Books

5. Research Assistance

6. BookRags - E-Books and Book Notes

7. All Bookstores.com

8. FreeTech Books

10. Free E-Books.net

11. MindView

12. The eBook Directory

13. University of Virginia's E-Book library

14. BizzyDays Ebook Publications

15. Web Source

16. free-ebooks-4u.com

17. Prosperity Point

18. Free eBooks and Best Sites

19. Free Electronic Books

20. CIW Free E-Books

21. My Free EBooks

22. Free E-Books

23. A Good Read

24. Blackmask Online

25. EBookstand

26. Bibliomania

27. Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts

28. The eText Archive

29. Free Books 5000

30. Classic Bookshelf

32. Samizdat Press

33. Page by Page Books

34. bartleby.com

35. Free Books 4 Doctors

36. InformIT Online Books

37. Chapter-a-Day - Free Books in Your E-Mail!

42. BeyondBooks.com

47. Free-Ed.Net

48. Free Joke Books

52. Great Books Index

54. Internet Medieval Sourcebook

55. Books by David Irving

56. Be Successful!

Tags: lists, ebooks, resources

Scientists create solar cells with a twist.

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:53:18 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: I suppose it won't be hard to have the power to at least power a Laptop. Perhaps a Solar powered tent for camping. We are finding new ways to transform energy into media we can use, and it, with the open information on the web is only bound to improve dramatically

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Julie Steenhuysen

US researchers have found a way to make efficient silicon-based solar cells that are flexible enough to be rolled around a pencil and transparent enough to be used to tint windows on buildings or cars.

The finding, published in the journal Nature Materials, offers a new way to process conventional silicon by slicing the brittle wafers into ultrathin bits and carefully transferring them onto a flexible surface.

"We can make it thin enough that we can put it on plastic to make a rollable system. You can make it grey in the form of a film that could be added to architectural glass," says Professor John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who led the research.

"It opens up spaces on the fronts of buildings as opportunities for solar energy."

Solar cells, which convert solar energy into electricity, are in high demand because of higher oil prices and concerns over climate change.

Rogers says his technology uses conventional single crystal silicon.

Our choices go to the core of who we are - Accounting for Taste

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 05:59:26 GMT

clipped by: einbar
clipper's remarks: "We consume books, movies, music, and visual art primarily to fulfill the internal emotional needs that are fundamental to our personalities. But we also make choices about art based on a desire to carve out identities for ourselves—to articulate the stories of our lives. By the same token, we look for those stories in others"

Clip Source: beinart.org

Clip Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Our choices in books, movies, music, and art go to the core of who we are. What your tastes reveal about you.

Clip Source: www.psychologytoday.com

"Openness correlates to a great range of tastes," explains Stephen Dollinger, a psychologist at Southern Illinois University. "These individuals are more cultured and have a greater conception of what makes great and interesting art."

Less open people, meanwhile, may be stuck on the tastes of their youth, watching nostalgic movies on Nick at Night and listening to classic rock.

Clip Source: www.psychologytoday.com

If our taste preferences reflect our personalities, does this mean we can accurately judge others based on their tastes?

Personality types are not mutually exclusive—most of us are a complex combination of many traits. An open-minded taste hunter, for instance, may also have an extrovert's need to seek sensation.

perhaps we should view the differences in tastes between us and others not as grounds for disagreement, but as opportunities for interpersonal revelation

NASA spacecraft to visit Mercury again

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:48:51 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: I suppose now they have more of an idea where to look

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

A US space probe is poised to glide past Mercury to photograph the solar system's smallest planet, in the second of three planned passes, says NASA.

The NASA spacecraft MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) will pass the innermost planet at an altitude of 201 kilometres with its camera expected to take more than 1200 images of the cratered surface.

Mercury is the closest of all the planets to the Sun, and because of the high-risks of its proximity - the Sun's enormous gravitational pull, and massively high levels of radiation - it is one of the most mysterious bodies in the solar system, even though it is relatively close to Earth.

"The results from MESSENGER's first fly-by of Mercury resolved debates that are more than 30 years old," says Sean Solomon, the mission's principal investigator from the Carnegie Institution of Washington.

"This second encounter will uncover even more information about the planet."

The Man Who Stuck His Head Inside a Particle Accelerator

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 04:32:59 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Well if you are interested, go and read. Not for the faint of heart though...

Clip Source: www.neatorama.com

So with all the recent news about the Large Hadron Collider, many of you may have this nagging question: what, exactly, would happen if you stick your head in the particle accelerator?

Well, actually, we know the answer to that because someone did stick his head into a particle accelerator. Here’s the story of Anatoli Bugorski:

Tags: particle accelerator, strange accidents

Earliest animal footprints uncovered

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:58:08 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Scientists didn't 'know' Pre-Cambrian life was well developed, they just seemed to reach their conclusions with too little evidence

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Scientists have found the oldest fossilised tracks of a tiny legged animal, providing further evidence that complex creatures existed on earth 570 million years ago.

The fossilised trails, thought to belong to a centipede or a leg-bearing worm that lived in the water, were found in sedimentary rocks in Nevada, says Ohio State University geology professor and the study chief author Loren Babcock.

The finding, presented to the Geological Society of America's meeting in Houston, shatters the belief that Pre-Cambrian life on earth was restricted to microbes and simple, multicellular organisms.

The tracks, two parallel rows of small dots, each about two millimetres in diameter, date back to the Ediacaran period - 630 to 542 million years ago.

They suggest that animals walked using legs at least 30 million years earlier than had been thought.

The Cambrian period (543 to 490 million years ago) saw an evolutionary explosion that produced most of the major animal groups we know today.

Alchemy Laboratories

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:41:03 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: "Thus have I been wishing to reveal to you in this treatise, as far as may be lawful to me, the Stone of the Ancients, that you, too, might possess the knowledge of this highest of earthly treasures for your health and comfort in this valley of sorrow.

I write about it, not for my own good, but for that of posterity, and though my words be few and simple, that which they import is of immeasurable magnitude. Ponder them well, that you also may find the Rock which is the foundation Stone of truth, the temporal blessing, and the eternal reward."

Clip Source: bibliodyssey.blogspot.com

Alchemist's Laboratory IN: 'Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae' by Heinrich Khunrath, 1595.

a strange combination of Christianity and magic

An emblem that came to be known as the 'Twelfth Key of Basil Valentine'

the lion transforms the serpent into its own flesh when he devours it, so the philosopher's stone has the power to transmute or transform all imperfect metals into gold

'The second Booke of Distillations, containing Sundrie
excellent Secret remedies of Distilled Waters'

'The Practise of the New and Old Phisicke' by Conrad Gesner, 1599. [source]

Key to the figures (click picture for larger version):

1. An iron hook to clear the grate with

10, a melting furnace

12, a plain glass bell for making spirit of sulphur

Key to the figures (click picture for larger version):

'The Alchemist' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1558
[source or alternative version]

'L'Alchimiste'

by David Teniers (before 1690)

satirical view of an alchemist

(Collection of diverse caricatures)

Satirical broadside on folly

Motorcycles of the Air May Give Wings to All

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:45:56 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman
clipper's remarks: August 1931

Clip Source: blog.modernmechanix.com

SINCE the very beginning of aviation the alluring idea of an aerocycle or motorcycle of the air, such as is shown on this month’s cover of Modern Mechanics and Inventions, has appealed to countless inventors, none of whom have to date succeeded in perfecting a craft of this type. But today, for the first time in history, the development of light motors and alloys has progressed to such a degree that the problem of building an aircycle plane is greatly simplified, so it is safe to predict that within a short time a light plane built along the lines of those shown in Douglas Rolfe’s drawing on the opposite page will be commercially produced.

Indeed, as shown in the photograph herewith, a cycle plane already has been successfully designed and flown by Johann Franz, a Czechoslovakian inventor. A tow rope of the type used in launching gliders assisted in the take-off of the cycle plane, “but once in the air it skimmed along with its propeller turning over under power of its motorcycle engine

Forensic spotlight cast on Bach's music

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 08:53:32 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Of course there must have been a reason Bach would have wanted to write, it's one thing to have the Talent but there needs to be a reason for Music rather than Just the Music it's self. Perhaps they were just in harmony and could hear each others music clearly

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Anna Salleh

The international forensic science community is set to examine the provocative theory that Johann Sebastian Bach's wife, Anna Magdalena, wrote some of the works attributed to the great composer.

Debate surrounds how much Anna Magdalena contributed to her husband's music

Associate Professor Martin Jarvis of Charles Darwin University in Australia will present his research at the International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences in Melbourne next week.

He says Anna Magdalena is normally portrayed as a simple woman who was only good for having babies and accurately copying Bach's manuscripts.

"My conclusions may not be wholly accurate," he says. "But the way in which tradition has put Anna Magdalena into this pathetic role ... is rubbish."

Jarvis' interest was further peaked by the discovery of a note written on the cover of the cello suites manuscript, by its owner.

The note said "Ecrite par Madame Bachen Son Epouse", which is French for "Written by Mrs Bach his Wife"

Steps of How to Hack Into a Computer

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 01:13:13 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes
clipper's remarks: http://www.vulnerabilityassessment.co.uk/Framework.png

Clip Source: www.vulnerabilityassessment.co.uk

Tags: hack, computer, howto, steps, visual, representation, image, overview, hacking

The big bounce vs Big Bang

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 02:00:19 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Edwin Hubble and Stephen Hawking, and the discovery of Cosmic background radiation amongst other contributers drafted the Big Bang Theory, but Each knew it was a theory, and destined to be qualified significantly as our our technology and depth of understanding progresses. Big bang is a Theory, not a conclusion. Ask Stephen Hawking to consider any new theories, and evidence, and he would be delighted to consider the evidence. He's a scientist, and a Mathematician, who knows how limited our theories can be with what we know. He is looking for what happened, not what may have happened,.

Clip Source: www.nationalpost.com

WATERLOO, Ont.. -- Among the crushing throng of physics enthusiasts who gathered this week for a lecture by Sir Roger Penrose, who is to the University of Oxford what Stephen Hawking is to Cambridge, the very mention of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland elicited a resounding throaty chuckle.

Famous mathematician Sir Roger Penrose posits that the Big Bang Theory might actually be incorrect.

Everyone knew that when the world's biggest particle accelerator was switched on last month, its computers were promptly hacked and its superconducting magnets accidentally melted. And provided one is skeptical of all the press reports about how this "Big Bang machine" might create an apocalyptic black hole somewhere beneath Geneva, this is all pretty hilarious, just a few broken eggs for the omelette of discovery.

"The universe seems to go through cycles of some kind ... Our universe is what I call an aeon in an endless sequence of aeons,"

But no one gasped in awe. There were no hoots of surprise

'Old-boy's club holding back innovation

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 08:42:24 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: We all now have access to a vast amount of research and data on the net. a Few people would have absolutely no hope, but the networks being created on the web, are places where anyone can comment, or include findings, so the pieces can start coming together more quickly. It isn't what we know that is important. it's what we do with the knowledge

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Anna Salleh

Science needs to break free of its power-brokers and embrace a participatory web-based culture to boost innovation, says one expert.

John Wilbanks, of Science Commons - a project of Creative Commons - says the plethora of machine-generated data, that characterises today's scientific activity, needs the power of open networks to make sense of it properly.

"The value of any individual piece of knowledge is about the value of any individual piece of lego," Wilbanks said in a keynote address to the Open Access and Research Conference held in Brisbane last week.

"It's not that much until you put it together with other legos."

He says the ability to connect knowledge brings scientific revolutions. For example Watson and Crick's breakthrough on the structure of DNA involved them reading all the scientific papers on nucleotide bonding and encoding it in the form of a physical model, says Wilbanks.

"For example, we have 45,000 papers about one protein or one gene," says Wilbanks.

'Historic' 'bailout' passes Congress

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 04:26:18 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: This has got Nothing whatsoever to do with People (Who?) This is to bail ou the banking industry and corporate holdings. - give them the cash, and when the Economy hits rock bottom the idea is to buy out things of value, real assets for pennies. There is an Australian Movie 'The Castle' that puts into context "They're Dreamin' " Are we going to sell what we own Like they've sold the U.S. to Europe.? That's up to You

Clip Source: www.mail.com

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS

With the economy on the brink of meltdown and elections looming, a reluctant Congress abruptly reversed course and approved a historic $700 billion government bailout of the battered financial industry on Friday. President Bush swiftly signed it.

The 263-171 House vote capped two weeks of tumult in Congress and on Wall Street, punctuated by urgent warnings from Bush that the country confronted the gravest economic disaster since the Great Depression if lawmakers failed to act.

"We have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country," Bush said shortly after the plan

cleared Congress, although he conceded, "our economy continues to face serious challenges."

The vote was a striking turnaround from the measure's spectacular failure earlier in the week, which had triggered a massive stock sell-off and prompted jittery lawmakers

-- to reconsider.

fearing a crushing economic contagion