Saturday, March 5, 2011
@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
Thursday, March 3, 2011
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 this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bsnas
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%.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bslct
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.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bslbj
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
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
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
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bshff
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
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.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bsb2m
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
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."
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/brgx8
Monday, February 14, 2011
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 this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/aq8yp
Sunday, February 13, 2011
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 
Amplify’d from singularityhub.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/aq2en
Sunday, February 6, 2011
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 this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/aoy67
Thursday, February 3, 2011
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."
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/aocxw
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 this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/aobbz
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
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 this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ao69f
Monday, January 31, 2011
Call to Tweet - No Internet required - #egypt
Amplify’d from googleblog.blogspot.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/ao53z
Friday, January 28, 2011
White Space Wireless Broadband Coming Soon
Seems like a major development for the future of broadband access. Hopefully.
Amplify’d from googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/anv8r
Monday, January 24, 2011
Thomas Edison's 1911 Predictions for 2011
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 this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/anhpm
Saturday, January 22, 2011
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
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bnckk
Thursday, January 20, 2011
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.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bn31m
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
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
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/bmw0z
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
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