Clipmarks |

Maybe this guy should give Clipmarks a try!

Sat, 24 May 2008 15:36:17 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: I read this sentence and thought, "hmm, i know a place just like that."

Clip Source: www.webomatica.com

All I want to do is share crap with people, comment on stuff, and feel like part of a community, and maybe meet some new eccentrics - as fast and efficiently as possible.

Tags: web 2.0, clipmarks, friendfeed, social web

Conscience versus Belief and Dogma

Sun, 25 May 2008 06:01:20 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Although those with deep beliefs and expressed values do any amazing job of advertising their compassion and calls for justice in the names of far away people, only conscience cam motivate love for the person next door. Who is my neighbour?

Clip Source: www.thenation.com

"I feel safer down here among the Christian savages along Narragansett Bay than I do among the savage Christians of Massachusetts Bay Colony," wrote Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, shortly after his exile from polite society in 1635. Williams was one of the great heretics of what Europeans deemed a new world, not least because he bothered to learn the languages and customs of those he found already living there. He knew the Native Americans he admired were not Christians in any doctrinal sense, but he believed they lived according to a spirit of brotherly love more fully than the Puritans of Massachusetts from whom he'd fled.

Religion is a set of beliefs, ideas, rituals or customs. Conscience is more fundamental: the faculty of searching for the beliefs, ideas, rituals or customs that make up religion or, for that matter, the rejection of religion.

Tags: conscience

Huge hidden biomass lives deep beneath the oceans

Sun, 25 May 2008 18:02:34 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: They found simple organisms known as prokaryotes in every sample. Prokaryotes are organisms that often have just one cell. Their peculiarity is that, unlike any other form of life, their DNA is not neatly packed into a nucleus.

Clip Source: environment.newscientist.com

It's the basement apartment like no other. Life has been found 1.6 kilometres beneath the sea floor, at temperatures reaching 100 °C.

The discovery marks the deepest living cells ever to be found beneath the sea floor. Bacteria have been found deeper underneath the continents, but there they are rare. In comparison, the rocks beneath the sea appear to be teeming with life.

John Parkes, a geobiologist at the University of Cardiff, UK, hopes his team's discovery might one day help find life on other planets. He says it might even redefine what we understand as life, and, bizarrely, what we understand by "age".

Parkes has been hunting for deep life for over 20 years. Recently, he and his colleagues examined samples of a mud core extracted from between 860 metres and 1626 metres beneath the sea floor off the coast of Newfoundland.

Tags: life, sea, ocean

The New 7 Wonders

Sat, 24 May 2008 18:10:16 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad
clipper's remarks: Spectacular!

Clip Source: www.panoramas.dk

The New 7 Wonders

Click on images for fullscreen interactive 360 degree panoramas

The Roman Colosseum Italy- Click to view Fullscreen QTVR

For more fullscreen panoramas from Rome visit roma.arounder.com

The Great Wall, China Click on image for fullscreen QTVR
For more fullscreen panoramas from the great wall visit www.sleeponthegreatwall.com

Petra Jordan - the forgotten City- Click to view Fullscreen QTVR

Taj Mahal India - Click to view Fullscreen QTVR

Machu Picchu - Click to view Fullscreen QTVR

Christ Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro Brazil Click on image for fullscreen QTVR

Chichén Itzá, Mexico - Click to view Fullscreen QTVR

More Wonders of the world at panoramas.dk

Eiffel Tower

The Giza Pyramids

The Cordoba Mosque

Angkor Wat

Yulonghe river

Can the Singularity Save Us From Ourselves?

Sat, 24 May 2008 12:29:59 GMT

clipped by: wildcat
clipper's remarks: Persons who believe firmly in the inevitability of The Singularity might be surprised to learn that the default human society is the closed society, resistant to change. Most of them have never known anything but open societies, born of western civilization’s restless urge to expand intellectual horizons. They live in an exceptional time, in an exceptional society, yet somehow believe it to be the human default. That type of blindness comes from forgetting to study history.

Clip Source: memebox.com

The abstract concept of a Technological Singularity (TS) was made most famous in the recent past by inventor Ray Kurzweil. The concept has several overlapping meanings, but I like George Dvorsky’s definition best: The Singularity is a blindspot in our predictive thinking.

Humans are only evolved primates-monkeys and apes-with a limited conceptual vocabulary. We are easily impressed by our technological accomplishments. In networked opportunity societies, creative and inventive persons are able to feed off each others’ ideas so that during periods of economic surplus, the pace of innovation will take off. In dark ages, totalitarian societies where information is compartmentalized and otherwise restricted, innovation slows.

Caught up in the enthusiasm of a grand idea, humans prefer to remain buoyed up in the “vital importance” and “inevitability” of their visions.

Tags: singularity, technology, future

Web users 'getting more selfish'

Sun, 25 May 2008 09:26:10 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when they go online, reveals research.

The annual report into web habits by usability guru Jakob Nielsen shows people are becoming much less patient when they go online.

Instead of dawdling on websites many users want simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.

Most ignore efforts to make them linger and are suspicious of promotions designed to hold their attention.

Search rules

Instead, many are "hot potato" driven and just want to get a specific task completed.

Success rates measuring whether people achieve what they set out to do online are now about 75%, said Dr Nielsen. In 1999 this figure stood at 60%.

There were two reasons for this, he said.

"The designs have become better but also users have become accustomed to that interactive environment," Dr Nielsen told BBC News.

Now, when people go online they know what they want and how to do it, he said.

Tags: web, users, selfishness, speed

Everyday Mysteries

Sat, 24 May 2008 20:04:25 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad

Clip Source: www.loc.gov

Find

Did you ever wonder why a camel has a hump? If you can really tell the weather by listening to the chirp of a cricket? Or why our joints make popping sounds? These questions deal with everyday phenomena that we often take for granted, but each can be explained scientifically.

Everyday Mysteries will help you get the answers to these and many other of life's most interesting questions through scientific inquiry. In addition, we will introduce you to the Library of Congress' rich collections in science and technology.

All of the questions presented on this Web site were asked by researchers and answered by librarians from the Library's Science Reference Services.

Tesla Motors sells out first 100 cars

Sat, 24 May 2008 15:05:19 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: Innovation and capitalism are amazing forces in dealing with global dynamics. We've got sky high oil prices, instability in the region that oil comes from and a global warming threat that many attribute to our use of fossil fuels. So what do we do? We innovate....this is just the beginning!!

Clip Source: www.engadget.com

Less than a month after this extra-green automobile hit the pre-order market, all 100 that were offered up are now claimed.

we've heard that both of Google's co-founders, as well as eBay's Jeff Skoll, have thrown down for the seemingly coveted ride.

Tags: alternative energy, tesla, batteries, electric car

Online communities open but still limit movement

Sat, 24 May 2008 08:56:27 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: physorg.com

(AP) -- Online social networking today is more about hanging out with friends behind gated communities than exploring the World Wide Web: Visit another site and you'll have to rebuild your profile from scratch. That's like having to get a new driver's license for every state you drive through.

Although the walls that keep users from taking their data wherever they go are starting to erode, how much three recently announced programs will help users move among the networks remains to be seen. Google Inc.'s attempt to break those fortifications was quickly blocked by Facebook.

The two leading online hangouts, News Corp.'s MySpace and Facebook, have promised to release tools in the coming weeks for Web sites to incorporate profile data, friends lists and other social functions. Google followed with its own program for bridging various networks.

Tags: social network, profile

Sun's properties not 'fine-tuned' for life

Fri, 23 May 2008 21:26:46 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: space.newscientist.com

There's nothing special about the Sun that makes it more likely than other stars to host life, a new study shows. The finding adds weight to the idea that alien life should be common throughout the universe.

"The Sun's properties are consistent with it being pulled out at random from the bag of all stars," says Charles Lineweaver from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra. "Life does not seem to require anything special in its host star, other than it be close."

Some previous studies of the Sun's vital statistics have concluded that it is unusual among stars, for instance, by having a higher mass than average. Such atypical properties might somehow help explain why the Sun seems to be unique, as far as we know, in having an inhabited planet.

Mistaken conclusion

"You can mistakenly come to the conclusion that the Sun is 'special'," Lineweaver told New Scientist.

Tags: sun, life, aliens

Toons' skeletons

Sat, 24 May 2008 02:46:06 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: www.damnfunnypictures.com

A Gentler Way to Jump-Start the Brain

Sat, 24 May 2008 09:03:55 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

Scientists in Israel are testing a noninvasive method to electrically stimulate neurons deep in the brain.

Electrically shocking the brain is often the only recourse for people suffering from severe, untreatable depression. While standard antidepressants have little effect on these patients, electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) can sometimes jump-start the brain, lifting people out of depression, at least for a while. But ECT can also carry some serious side effects, including seizures and memory loss.

The technique, called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), uses an external magnetic field to create electric currents within the brain. Until recently, researchers experimenting with TMS have only been able to stimulate superficial brain regions. Now a company in Israel called Brainsway has developed a TMS method that reaches deeper into the brain, to stimulate areas associated with depression and other neurological disorders

Tags: brain, deep stimulation, tms