Clipmarks | Problem Clips

World's Oceans: Is It too Late to Save Our Most Precious Resource?

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 11:24:17 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The problem in the Pacific is so severe a humongous plastic-strewn patch floats between California and Hawaii within the North Pacific Gyre. According to the man who first discovered it in 1997, Captain John Moore, this patch is 1 ½ times the size of the contiguous United States and goes to a depth of at least 100 feet. And there is another huge rubbish patch off the coast of Japan.

Clip Source: www.dailygalaxy.com

Could it be too late to save the global ocean, which covers 70% of the earth’s surface? When you tally up all the environmental damage from a variety of causes it’s not hard to conclude by the end of this century the ocean will be unable to support the vast diversity of life we have come to associate with it.

Instead of shellfish, whales, and tuna, it will be teeming with algae and jellyfish.

Humankind’s gluttonous appetite for plastic, fertilizers, and of course, carbon fuels is the cause.

Plastic? You might how this could be a major problem until you realize the average consumer in an industrialized country uses 250 pounds every year.

The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that currently 46,000 pieces of plastic are floating on every square mile of the ocean.

The problem in the Pacific is so severe a humongous plastic-strewn patch floats between California and Hawaii within the North Pacific Gyre.

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: environment, oceans, pollution

What was wrong ? the problem actually got worse after we put the sign up...

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:49:19 GMT

clipped by: 6812144

Clip Source: kelvynstevens.blogspot.com

What was wrong ? the problem actually got worse after we put the sign up...

How To Manage People

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 02:57:06 GMT

clipped by: socialmarketer
clipper's remarks: Great tips on how to manage people

Clip Source: management-tips.tumblr.com

How To Manage People

Most managers have probably experienced a time when they implemented a change within their organization that was not well received. Perhaps they were trying to solve a problem that existed among our team members only to find that the solution we came up with actually did more harm than good. It takes skill to learn how to manage people!

No one likes to have a change in policy or procedure thrust upon them. It’s natural for people to feel comfortable with what they know and to be uncomfortable with change. However, problems do arise that need to be resolved. Next time you come across an issue that requires a solution, call your team together and invite them to share input rather than telling them what you’ve decided to do. In this way, you are managing people, not problems, and allowing your employees to be part of the solution.

3 hours ago

Tags: how, to, manage, people

A Tale of Two States

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:21:39 GMT

clipped by: CohoctonWindWatch

Clip Source: www.sfgate.com

Now, to Upstate New York, another relatively conservative region, though far more economically depressed than Colorado. Wind power companies have descended on the region partly because they expect less organized resistance there than in more affluent areas such as Long Island and Nantucket. (The biggest players are Noble Environmental Power, based in Connecticut, and First Wind, based in Massachusetts.)

That makes for familiar battles: Some people are desperate for new job opportunities, and happily sign easements that allow turbines to operate on or next to their property, creating a loud, constant buzz. Others—sometimes neighbors of those who sign contracts—are more distrustful. They don't think guaranteed noise pollution is a fair trade in exchange for promises of jobs.

Because the state has provided no guidelines about where turbines can and cannot operate, local governments are left to decide—and corruption is consistently a problem.

Tags: industrial wind, wind turbines, alternative energy, environment

Fixing carbon - Discovery Project Earth

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 19:10:56 GMT

clipped by: bsykora
clipper's remarks: What if we could solve the problem of global warming just by scrubbing the air clean of carbon dioxide, before it has the chance to add the to blanket of greenhouse gases?

Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Fixing Carbon
Premieres Friday, Sept. 19 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

What if we could solve the problem of global warming by just scrubbing the air clean of carbon dioxide, before it has the opportunity to add to the blanket of greenhouse gases smothering the earth? Canadian professor David Keith, the 2006 Canadian Geographic "Environmental Scientist of the Year," believes we can do exactly that. He's building a prototype of a machine that will eventually be almost 400 feet high. It will suck ambient air into one end and spray it with sodium hydroxide solution, then expel clean air out the other end. Keith thinks he'll prove that his machine will be even more efficient than trees in cleaning C02 from the air.

Tags: discovery, projectearth, carbon, c02

Croup

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:04:42 GMT

clipped by: ivanova

Clip Source: www.ehow.com

How to Treat Your Child's Croup

By AmyU

Rate: (4 Ratings)

Hearing your child barking like a seal is a terrifying experience. The sound is actually the child coughing as his throat is slightly swollen. This is caused by a viral infection, croup. While there is not cure for croup, there are a few things you can do to treat the problem and help your child breathe easier again.

Gamers Make Better Surgeons

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:43:00 GMT

clipped by: sahara
clipper's remarks: Yet another study, by Fordham University, measured the effect of learning a new video game on problem-solving skills in middle school aged children. It found that "playing video games can improve cognitive and perceptual skills."

"Certain types of video games can have beneficial effects improving gamers' dexterity as well as their ability to problem solve - attributes that have proven useful not only to students but to surgeons," the researchers found.

There are actually "games" where you perform virtual operations, BTW.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Playing video games improves manual dexterity among surgeons, US researchers have found.

The findings were contained in a raft of research about how video games affect the people who play them, discussed at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in Boston.

"The big picture is that there are several dimensions in which games have effects," including their content, how they are played and how much," said psychologist Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University.

"This means that games are not 'good' or 'bad' but are powerful educational tools and have many effects we might not have expected they could."

Dr Gentile presented several studies on video games including one involving 33 surgeons specialising in laparoscopy - the use of a thin lighted tube to inspect and treat various conditions in the pelvic and abdominal cavities.

But students who played "pro-social" games got into fewer fights at school and were more helpful to other students, the researchers found.

Tags: games, video

Email to ID

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:24:02 GMT

clipped by: akipta

Clip Source: emailtoid.net

One of the criticisms of OpenID's usability is the reliance on URLs for identifiers since people seem more comfortable identifying themselves by their email address. To remedy this problem, emailtoid was established to offer a simple but robust means for turning email addresses into fully qualified OpenID URLs.

Once an account has been created on Emailtoid associating an email addresses with an existing OpenID (AOL, WordPress, etc), supporting relying parties can accept email addresses as identifiers without needing to ask for passwords.

Tags: e-mail open-id

identity theft

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:10:37 GMT

clipped by: purcxzqis
clipper's remarks: What can you do about identity theft? There are three basic steps to take to confront identity theft.
Make sure access to legal counsel is readily available.
A Pre-Paid Legal membership provides affordable access to an attorney, and along with an Identity Theft ShieldSM plan, can help protect your most valuable, yet most vulnerable, information.

Clip Source: www.prepaidlegal.com

You understand identity theft is a problem facing many people.

Tags: identity theft

Trackvia Email Campaign

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:40:17 GMT

clipped by: nbreslin

Clip Source: www.trackvia.com

TrackVia is a CRM that allows you to send email campaigns to your contacts from the same app you use to manage and track their status! Using one app to manage your contacts, and a separate app to send email campaigns to them, quickly becomes a problem. You're constantly doing exports and uploads into an email campaign tool - which means you quickly lose track of which emails you've sent to which records, and who's opted out. TrackVia solves this problem by letting you send email campaigns using the same tool that you use to manage your contacts.

Our email campaigns include:

Automatic history notes of each email sent to each record
Use your own customized email templates
Emails show you as the sender
Built-in Opt Out in each email, with real time updates in your database

1. Select one of your customized, filtered database views to send an email campaign to a specific subset of contacts in your database

2. Merge contacts into your own customized email template

Frrom a Net Techie

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:57:05 GMT

clipped by: isabellesuter

Clip Source: thinkprogress.org

The Net-Neutrality laws would force us into the “best-effort” category forever (or until the laws go away), which could seriously break and/or dwarf the Internet. The problem is not the ISP’s. The problem is with the vendor software, it’s quality, it’s security, and the default configuration of how Cisco, Juniper, and others manufacture their shoddy products.

What we need instead is litigation against these vendors. The ISP’s can do it. The FCC or FTC can do it. The customers of ISP’s can do it. I’m thinking class-action lawsuit, but the reality is that we’ll never come together. As the finger-pointing continues, our biggest enemy is truly ourselves.

The Age of Anxiety

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:57:20 GMT

clipped by: abailart
clipper's remarks: Good economic units must be anxious all the time

Clip Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Anxiety is a bigger problem than this navel-gazing might suggest. Across a spectrum that includes panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress, phobias and the catch-all, generalised anxiety disorder - anxiety disorder has become the most prevalent mental health problem in the world, according to a World Mental Health Survey of 18 countries.

And it's about to get worse. We are entering a new age of anxiety.

Could it be caused by consumerism, which we grow into more slowly?

It could, says Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler and author of the inspirational How to Be Free. He believes that our economic system functions precisely by keeping us anxious. We're encouraged to believe, at all times, that we're just one purchase away from happiness: 'Anxious people make good consumers and good workers. Anxiety will drive us back into our comfort blankets of credit-card shopping and bad food

deliberately produces anxiety while simultaneously promising to take it away.

Tags: anxiety, economics

Sharing Content

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:03:15 GMT

clipped by: a_chink_in_ur_armor

Clip Source: average12.blogspot.com

The problem with the sharing of files on the Internet has nothing to do with what is fair to artists or with complex notions of "intellectual property", it has to do with men like John McCain and Gene Simmons. The technologically ignorant, the ones who cannot bring themselves to come to terms with the fact that the world is no longer theirs. It's about the old ways passing out and the new ways coming in.

Tags: media, file sharing, internet, technology, aging

Telluride considers hampering homeless voting

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:27:15 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: Everyone has the right. Not everyone has a home.The problem is, are they keeping up on the issues to vote intelligently? Homeless people are more likely to vote democrat, I'll bet there aren't many democrats living in Telluride.

Clip Source: coloradoindependent.com

While Denver officials are preparing a voter registration registration drive for the city's homeless during the Democratic National Convention, the city of Telluride, about 360 miles southwest of Denver, may approve a plan that could keep the homeless from voting.

Homeless individuals would have to provide proof of a physical address, like a homeless shelter. Problem is, Telluride doesn't have a homeless shelter.

"The last time that a homeless person was barred from voting was when it was decided that they had no proof of a permanent dwelling," he wrote. "This too proved to be in violation of the Voting Rights Act. A person who is released from prison or jail is entitled to vote and also, anyone who is unable to use an address aside from a place where they receive mail."

Ocean 'dead zones'

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 07:17:32 GMT

clipped by: lpc2385316
clipper's remarks: from http://www.topix.com/world/2008/08/ocean-dead-zones-becoming-global-problem

Clip Source: www.topix.com

Ocean 'dead zones' becoming global problem

Like a chronic disease spreading through the body, "dead zones" with too little oxygen for life are expanding in the world's oceans.

"We have to realize that hypoxia is not a local problem," said Robert J. Diaz of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "It is a global problem and it has severe