@egoldstein, I'm willing to go back to the basics to play along. What does clicking on Like do here at Amplify? I see that if the people I follow like a post, it shows up in RSS (I don't use Amplify RSS daily as it is always crowded) So what happens when I like someone's post? Thanks. http://amplify.com/u/bt2mf

Lavish Indian wedding celebrations continue - Filthy rich has a new meaning in India

Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk

A helicopter was among the gifts for the groom in what is being described as one of India's most expensive weddings.

The week-long nuptials of Lalit Tanwar to his bride Yogita Jaunapuria are lavish and attended by thousands.

Thursday's Indian newspapers say that the wedding was celebrated with 100 dishes and 12 giant TV screens to broadcast proceedings.

The Hindustan Times reported that 2,000 guests were invited to the pre-wedding ceremony last week and each was given a silver biscuit, a safari suit and $500 (£307) in cash, while at a different ritual the bride's family welcomed the groom with gifts worth $5m (£3m).

There was even a reported gift of $5,500 (£3,381) for the groom's barber.

See more at www.bbc.co.uk

 

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How the rich soaked the rest of us

The astonishing story of the last few decades is a massive redistribution of wealth, as the rich have shifted the tax burden

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk

Over the last half century, the richest Americans have shifted the burden of the federal individual income tax off themselves and onto everybody else. The three convenient and accurate Wikipedia graphs below show the details. The first graph compares the official tax rates paid by the top and bottom income earners. Note especially that from the end of the second world war into the early 1960s, the highest income earners paid a tax rate over 90% for many years. Today, the top earners pay a rate of only 35%. Note also how the gap between the rates paid by the richest and the poorest has narrowed. If we take into account the many loopholes the rich can and do use far more than the poor, the gap narrows even more.

One conclusion is clear and obvious: the richest Americans have dramatically lowered their income tax burden since 1945, both absolutely and relative to the tax burdens of the middle income groups and the poor.

When the Cadillac Eldorado made its debut in the 1950s, wealthy Americans were paying a top rate of tax of 90%; today, the top rate of tax is 35%. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

 

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TwitPic makes $1,600 every time Charlie Sheen tweets an image

Amplify’d from blogs.forbes.com

The company best poised to capitalize on Sheen’s move to social media would be TwitPic.com, a Twitter-based image sharing website founded in 2008 by Noah Everett. TwitPic.com – one of many photo sharing sites utilized by Twitter users – is clearly Sheen’s service of choice; it has been the medium for six of Sheen’s eleven tweets at press time. Sheen’s first photograph – which features the actor posing with chocolate milk, a Naked juice bottle, and a porn star – has racked up 1.2 million views in less than 24 hours. By contrast, one of TwitPic.com’s most recognizable photos, of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River, has received only 656,000+ views in its considerably longer lifespan. Read more at blogs.forbes.com

 

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Are "groups" & "chat" making a comeback?

Groups and Chat seem to have sneaked back in through the back door of mobile user adaptability.  Is this is a real deal or a fad? Well, get on the bandwagon while it is hot!



Here are four recent stories.



Blogging Startup Posterous Throws In The Towel, Reinvents Itself As Mobile App

Facebook set to unveil new group chat feature

Forget Facebook and use The Fridge to plan your spring break

New Chat Thing Convore Is Google Wave Minus the Suck

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Scientists examine the impact of the human genome map, 10 years later

Amplify’d from harvardmagazine.com

In the decade since the first mapping of a human genome in its entirety, the pace of discovery enabled by this new technology has, in different ways, both exceeded and fallen short of expectations, professor of systems biology Eric Lander said at a February 22 panel.

Subsequent discoveries have radically altered our understanding of how the genome operates: among the three billion base pairs, “there are a lot fewer genes than we thought, but a lot more regulatory controls,” Lander noted. (Read more about the surprising importance of what was once known as “junk DNA.”) Scientists today are aware of about 1,100 genes associated with common diseases, he said; 10 years ago, that number was 20. And, he said, “The cost of sequencing has fallen by 100,000-fold—soon to be a millionfold.”

Journalists and the public, on the other hand, were overly optimistic, hoping for disease cures within a few years, Lander said. “Real scientific revolutions are measured in a period of multiple decades,” he said, noting that 60 years passed between the discovery of the germ theory of disease and the successful use of antibiotics to treat illness. Read more at harvardmagazine.com

 

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How To Block Targeted Ads From Following You Around

Not sure how effective this is.

Amplify’d from www.businessinsider.com via Google Reader

Maybe you've seen this before: You're shopping around for a DVD, book, or gadget on Google and later that same item shows up in an ad on another website.

It's annoying. And it means companies are tracking your browsing history to show you targeted ads.

How can you stop it? Lifehacker has an extensive column on the subject, but we'll tell you one way to help get rid of it.

Several major online advertising companies have joined together to give users the option to avoid targeted ads while browsing.

If you want them to stop tracking your browsing history, head over to aboutads.info, a site that will let you opt out of ads from 60 different companies.

The site adds a cookie to your browser that will keep your history a secret. Just check the box next to each company you want to block and click "submit." Read more at www.businessinsider.com

 

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Stanford researchers develop new wireless technology for faster, more efficient networks

Amplify’d from www.eurekalert.org

Radio traffic can flow in only one direction at a time on a specific frequency, hence the frequent use of "over" by pilots and air traffic controllers, walkie-talkie users and emergency personnel as they take turns speaking.

But now, Stanford researchers have developed the first wireless radios that can send and receive signals at the same time.

This immediately makes them twice as fast as existing technology, and with further tweaking will likely lead to even faster and more efficient networks in the future.

"Textbooks say you can't do it," said Philip Levis, assistant professor of computer science and of electrical engineering. "The new system completely reworks our assumptions about how wireless networks can be designed," he said.

Cell phone networks allow users to talk and listen simultaneously, but they use a work-around that is expensive and requires careful planning, making the technique less feasible for other wireless networks, including Wi-Fi.

See more at www.eurekalert.org

 

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Yes, The Khan Academy IS the Future of Education

Damn, I'm really surprised, the quality of this software has shot up tremendously. There's so much fun and learning, all for free. It's the real too good to be true but it is true Watch the video at the source.

Amplify’d from singularityhub.com

I’m just going to come out and say it: the Khan Academy is the best thing that has happened to education since Socrates. The brainchild of Salman Khan, the Khan Academy became famous by teaching simple math lessons for free through over 2000 YouTube videos. Now, after millions in donations and an expansion of the company, the academy is so much more. The website for the Khan Academy already had exercises you could use to test your understanding of the videos you just watched, but in the past few weeks the website has exploded with wonderful new features.

See more at singularityhub.com

 

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Hunters spot 90 potential new planets

Amplify’d from www.ox.ac.uk

Online stargazers have reported 90 potential new planets to Oxford University's planet seekers' website.

Planethunters.org was set up by Oxford’s Department of Physics to test NASA's Kepler project which is searching for planets in the 'Goldilocks zone', the region around a star in which planets can have liquid water and are neither too hot nor too cold for life to exist.

See more at www.ox.ac.uk

 

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Barack Obama affirms his Christianity

Hmm...hmm...

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk via Google Reader

US president told national prayer breakfast in Washington that he prays for the Middle East – and his 12-year-old, Malia

It's fair to say that Barack Obama has more on his plate than most people. But today Obama admitted that when he kneels to pray for help, it is not always on the weightiest affairs of state.

The US president told the national prayer breakfast in Washington that he prays for peace in the Middle East – and that he also asks for God's assistance with his 12-year-old daughter, Malia.

"Lord, give me patience as I watch Malia go to her first dance, where there will be boys. Lord, let her skirt get longer as she travels to that place," Obama recounted.

Obama's speech today was laced with Biblical references in his most public affirmation of his faith. With many Americans under the illusion that he might be a covert Muslim, Obama explained: "I came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace him as my Lord and Saviour." Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

 

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Pakistan village renamed in honour of UK charity

Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk

A village in Pakistan devastated by flooding has been renamed Midlands after a West Midlands charity raised money to help rebuild it.

Walsall-based Midland International Aid Trust raised £113,000 to help the 20 million people thought to be affected by the monsoon floods last year.

The village of Lal Pir, now named Midlands, had been cut off by water.

Mohammed Aslam MBE, the trust's founder, has been visiting the country to oversee how the aid is spent.

Mr Aslam, 71, originally from Kashmir, said he wanted to make sure every penny of aid went to the people living in the region.

See more at www.bbc.co.uk

 

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Homegrown terrorists are not just Muslims - POLITICO.com

Amplify’d from www.politico.com

Today’s terrorists do not share a particular ethnic, educational or socioeconomic background. Recently, when state law enforcement agencies were asked to identify terror groups in their states, Muslim extremist groups ranked 11th on a list of 18. Law enforcement agencies identified neo-Nazis, environmental extremists and anti-tax groups as more prevalent than Muslim terrorist organizations. The sophisticated explosive device found along a parade route in Washington on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, an act of domestic terrorism clearly motivated by racist ideology, should prove that other groups are just as willing and able to carry out horrific attacks on Americans.

See more at www.politico.com

 

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Call to Tweet - No Internet required - #egypt

Amplify’d from googleblog.blogspot.com

anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet. Read more at googleblog.blogspot.com

 

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White Space Wireless Broadband Coming Soon

Seems like a major development for the future of broadband access. Hopefully.

Amplify’d from googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com

Today we’re one step closer to a world with “super Wi-Fi.” In an order released yesterday afternoon, the FCC conditionally designated nine companies, including Google, as administrators for a white spaces database and outlined some important ground rules for its operation. Read more at googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com

 

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Thomas Edison's 1911 Predictions for 2011

via http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2134240

Amplify’d from www.paleofuture.com

Edison makes some amazing predictions about a future of golden automobiles, the discontinuation of gold as currency, the rise of steel and the death of the steam engine.

What will the world be a hundred years hence?

See more at www.paleofuture.com

 

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The days of English as the world’s second language may (slowly) be ending

The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel. By Nicholas Ostler

Amplify’d from www.economist.com

ENGLISH is the most successful language in the history of the world. It is spoken on every continent, is learnt as a second language by schoolchildren and is the vehicle of science, global business and popular culture. Many think it will spread without end. But Nicholas Ostler, a scholar of the rise and fall of languages, makes a surprising prediction in his latest book: the days of English as the world’s lingua-franca may be numbered.

Conquest, trade and religion were the biggest forces behind the spread of earlier lingua-francas

A linguist of astonishing voracity, Mr Ostler plunges happily into his tales from ancient history.

See more at www.economist.com

 

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Tracing Islamic History Through Its Scripts

Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com

The exhibition, designed by the Czech architect Boris Micka, traces the transition of Islamic writings from animal-skin parchment to paper, and from blocky, time-consuming print to a quicker cursive script and colorful illustrated texts. Examples appear on materials including wood, metal, ceramics and textiles from North Africa to Iran and the Far East.

Graphic design enthusiasts will be fascinated by a timeline that shows the transitions to different scripts and styles that emerged over time — clues that often help researchers pinpoint the provenance of antiquities. Read more at www.nytimes.com

 

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Katie Couric hosts a panel discussion on Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, and everyday life for Muslims in America

Amplify’d from www.cbsnews.com

Katie Couric hosts a panel discussion on Islam, Islamic fundamentalism, and everyday life for Muslims in America.

See more at www.cbsnews.com

 

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What McDonald's chicken nuggets really contain

URL:  http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/What+Mcdon...

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7 Billion

Amplify’d from www.youtube.com

With the worldwide population expected to exceed seven billion in 2011, National Geographic magazine offers a 7-part series examining specific challenges and solutions to the issues we face. Read more at www.youtube.com

 

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Blood libel – what does it mean?

Amplify’d from www.guardian.co.uk via Google Reader

Sarah Palin borrows phrase from a notorious passage in the Bible to condemn the Arizona shootings

Sarah Palin's use of the phrase "blood libel" could scarcely be more incendiary, especially in a religious country like the US.

The blood libel refers specifically to perhaps the most notorious verse in the Bible: Matthew 27:25, which has been used by some Christians to persecute Jews for nearly 2,000 years. That it should be used by an avowedly Christian politician about a Jewish one just takes crassness and insensitivity to a new level.

One can only hope that Palin, or her advisers, did not appreciate the context, or the history. The verse in Matthew refers to the scene during Christ's trial before Pontius Pilate, before his execution, where the Roman governor, not being able to find fault with the accused man, publicly washed his hands of his fate, saying the crowd bore responsibility for his death. Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

 

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New York Times Skimmer is a good web interface for a traditional newspaper reading. Just in case if you're not aware http://www.nytimes.com/timesskimmer/ http://amplify.com/u/bl12z

Egypt's Muslims attend Coptic Christmas mass, serving as "human shields"

Amplify’d from english.ahram.org.eg

Muslims turned up in droves for the Coptic Christmas mass Thursday night, offering their bodies, and lives, as “shields” to Egypt’s threatened Christian community

Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside.

From the well-known to the unknown, Muslims had offered their bodies as “human shields” for last night’s mass, making a pledge to collectively fight the threat of Islamic militants and towards an Egypt free from sectarian strife.

“We either live together, or we die together,” was the sloganeering genius of Mohamed El-Sawy Read more at english.ahram.org.eg

 

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Facebook income $355m, revenue $1.2bn (first 9 months of 2010)

All because of "users' time online" and "advertising dollars"?

Amplify’d from www.reuters.com

Facebook earned $355 million in net income in the first nine months of 2010, according to documents distributed by Goldman Sachs, a fraction of the online social network's $50 billion valuation. According to the document, Facebook generated $1.2 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2010.

Facebook, which was founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, has more than 500 million users and is challenging big Web businesses like Google Inc and Yahoo Inc for users' time online and for advertising dollars.

See more at www.reuters.com

 

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Scientists construct Synthetic Proteins that sustain life

Amplify’d from www.princeton.edu

In a groundbreaking achievement that could help scientists "build" new biological systems, Princeton University scientists have constructed for the first time artificial proteins that enable the growth of living cells.

The team of researchers created genetic sequences never before seen in nature, and the scientists showed that they can produce substances that sustain life in cells almost as readily as proteins produced by nature's own toolkit.

See more at www.princeton.edu

 

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