Sunday, July 25, 2010

Communication between you and your doctors

Did you know you can help your doctors improve the care they give you? It can be as simple as telling them everything you know about your health -- past and present.

The more you share, the better they can care!

Communication between you, your primary care doctor and all the specialists you see is vital to your health and well-being.
Through this team effort, your doctors can help make sure the care you get is the best kind for you.

At every visit, tell your doctors these things about your health:


* Health status.  How you feel and any symptoms you may be having.


* History. Updates to your medical and surgical history and your family's history.


* Medicine. All the medicine you take (prescription, over-the-counter, vitamins and herbal remedies). Remember to ask if each medication is safe to take with the others.


* Doctor's visits. Other doctors you have recently seen, their telephone numbers and the reason for each visit.


* Tests. Any tests you have had. Also mention who ordered the tests, where they were done and the results of each one.


* Hospital visits. Any urgent care, emergency room visits or hospital stays and the reason for the care.

Use these tips to get the most out of your doctor's visits:

* Ask questions! Make a list of questions before your visit to make sure you get all the answers you're looking for.


* Share your symptoms and discuss your diagnosis. (A diagnosis is any health condition your doctor identifies.) Providing this information can help you and your doctor make shared decisions about your care.


* Listen carefully to what your doctor is saying. Repeat back what your doctor tells you. This helps ensure you understand it. It also gives the doctor a chance to clear up any misunderstandings.


* Get any prescriptions you need (new or renewals). Ask what each medication is for and how and when to take each one. Learn what side effects to watch for and what to do if you experience one or more of them.


* Make all follow-up appointments to be sure all your health care needs are met. Start the communication process now!




Using this list, write down some things to tell and ask your doctor at your next visit. It can make a difference.


Professional Hosting from Just Host

Green Business Network: Connect, Market, and Grow

Share

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Today In History July 24



Highlights of this day in history: A key ruling during the Watergate scandal; Nixon and Khrushchev hold a 'kitchen debate' during the Cold War; Brigham Young and Mormon followers arrive in present-day Utah; Apollo 11's crew returns home. (July 24)




Professional Hosting from Just Host Share

Monday, July 19, 2010

National Guard Troops heading To Arizona

 As Arizona counts down the days until its controversial immigration bill goes into effect, the federal government announced on Monday that National Guard troops and other reinforcements are scheduled to arrive in the state beginning Aug. 1 to help battle the movement of illegal immigrants and drugs across the border.

In addition to the roughly 524 National Guard troops that the administration has previously promised to send to the Arizona-Mexico border, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced on Monday that hundreds of additional Border Patrol agents and customs officers will also be sent to the area.

"We are also reassigning major technology assets, including mobile surveillance systems, thermal-imaging binocular units, and trucks equipped with detection scopes, as well as observation and utility aircraft," Napolitano said in a guest column in the Arizona Republic.

Up to 1200 Guard troops will be deployed to the Southwest in total, and the troops will train and be fully deployed by September, reports The Associated Press. They are slated to be stationed on the border for a year, and will be working in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

The Republic also spoke to a government official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, who said Napolitano will be sending over 300 Border Patrol agents and port inspectors to the Tucson Sector, while also shifting 100 existing ICE personnel to be on duty across Arizona state.

The Obama administration has publicly decried Arizona's new law, scheduled to start being enforced July 20, and the Justice Department is suing to block the bill on the grounds that it attempts to usurp the power of the federal government.

Instead, President Obama has outlined an approach to immigration reform that would include a process to allow illegal immigrants to gain residency by paying back taxes and passing background checks, among other stipulations.

In her column for the Republic, Napolitano reiterated that security along the U.S.-Mexico border has improved in recent years. "Despite what those looking to score political points may tell you, the numbers show we are moving in the right direction," she wrote. "Last year, illegal crossings along the Southwest border were down 23 percent...And, by all measurable standards, crime levels in U.S. border towns have remained flat for most of the last decade."

Yet recent polls show that most Americans support even tougher laws against illegal immigration. A Gallup poll this month found that a majority of Americans responded badly to the Justice Department's lawsuit against the Arizona bill, with 50 percent of respondents reporting a negative initial reaction, while only 33 percent reacted positively.

"This means the Obama administration is sailing against the tide of public opinion in its efforts to block the law," Gallup reported.    Source: DailyNews



Professional Hosting from Just Host

Share

Next up on unfinished Senate agenda: unemployment insurance

Once Democrat Carte Goodwin is sworn in Tuesday to replace the late Sen. Robert Byrd, Senate Democrats will have the votes to try again to extend unemployment insurance to the jobless.

For congressional Democrats – especially in the often-gridlocked US Senate – this week marks a sprint to wind up a large, unfinished agenda in time to sway midterm elections.

Big-ticket items range from energy and campaign-finance reform to decisions over expiring Bush-era tax cuts, war funding, and 12 spending bills for fiscal year 2011, which begins Oct. 1. On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on the confirmation of Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court, with a full Senate vote expected later in the week.

With the swearing-in on Tuesday of Democrat Carte Goodwin to fill the seat of the late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, Democrats say they have the 60th vote needed break a Republican filibuster and approve a long-stalled $34 billion extension of unemployment benefits..

Highlighting the unfinished Senate agenda in his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama charged Republicans with "filibustering the nation's economic recovery" and making a stand “on the backs of the unemployed.” Most Senate Republicans oppose the measure on the grounds that Democrats have not identified offsetting spending cuts to pay for it..

“We're all for extending unemployment insurance. The question is, when are we going to get serious … about the debt?” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday on CNN’s "State of the Union." “We recently passed a $13 trillion cumulative deficit threshold. When are we going to get serious about this? This administration has been on an incredible spending spree.”.

Back in February, when maverick Sen. Jim Bunning (R) of Kentucky launched a one-man bid to block a $10 billion, temporary extension of eligibility for unemployment insurance, 78 senators opposed him, including 19 of his GOP colleagues. But since then, Senate Republicans, with the exception of Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, have rallied around the theme of reining in federal deficits, even at the expense of unemployed constituents..

“There’s bipartisan support for the idea of helping the unemployed. The Democrats missed a great opportunity to pass a bill showing that we could also control costs,” says Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina..

At the same time, Republicans say there is no need to offset the cost of extending the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, now set to expire Dec. 31. If these cuts expire, the highest income tax bracket jumps from 35 percent to 39.6 percent; the lowest, from 10 percent to 15 percent. The top rate for dividends, now 15 percent, runs up to 39.6 percent. The top rate for taxes on capital gains rises from 15 to 20 percent. The estate tax, which dropped to zero for 2010, reverts to a top rate of 55 percent..

“We believe that the problem is not that we tax too little but that we spend too much,” Senator McConnell said Sunday..

Mr. Obama campaigned on a pledge to extend the Bush tax cuts for families with incomes less than $250,000 a year and for individuals earning less than $200,000 – a measure that Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation estimates will cost $300 billion annually..   Full Story

.

Professional Hosting from Just Host Share .

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Today In History July 17

 

Today in History for July 17th




TWA Flight 800 explodes; Russia's royal family executed; Disneyland opens; Nicaragua's Somoza goes into exile; Apollo and Soyuz link up in space; Baseball's Ty Cobb and jazz great John Coltrane die.








Professional Hosting from Just Host Share

Thursday, July 15, 2010

10 Cool Facebook Status Tips and Tricks

As an advanced Facebook user I didn't even know about all these Cool Facebook Status Tips and Tricks, so I thought I would share them with you.

With Facebook’s ever-changing layout, and the fact that other social sites are encroaching on its real-time update strangle-hold, it’s easy to forget that there are some pretty nifty tricks you can pull using your humble Facebook status.

Mashable.com pulled together 10 great how-to tips that will help you get the most out of your status update, from official features to apps, Easter eggs, jokes and more.

Perfect for newer Facebook (Facebook) users, or anyone who is looking for a refresher, read on.............

1. HOW TO: Add a Dislike Option to Your Status Update
“Like” buttons are everywhere on Facebook, and they’re everywhere on the web. But what if you want to update your status or share something that your friends can “dislike?” We know, your friends can choose to “comment” on your post, but where’s the fun in that? The clever Status Magic Facebook app can add a dislike button to any status updates posted via the app. And if you wanted to really mix it up you can actually customize the second emotion to anything, such as “love,” “hate,” “disagree” or even “LOLs.”

2. HOW TO: Hide Status Updates From Certain People Using Facebook’s general privacy settings (find these by hitting “account” on the top right of a Facebook page) you can select whether everyone, just friends or friends of friends can see your status updates. However, there is a way to narrow those options down even further. You can select specific friend lists to see your status (relevant for work, special interest groups, etc.) or even individual people by name, which is useful for anyone organizing a surprise party. To take advantage of these options, click the padlock icon just below your “what’s on your mind” box on your wall and a drop down menu should appear. Selecting “customize” will bring up more options such as “make this visible to” and “hide from” with the option to make your selection a default.

3. HOW TO: Pre-Schedule Status Updates
While SocialOomph, Sendible and HootSuite (HootSuite) offer the same kind of service, the simplest way to schedule Facebook status updates is by using the easy, free Later Bro service. Just sign in with Facebook Connect, select your time zone, type in what it is you’d like to say, set the calendar and clock to when you’d like to say it, and presto!

4. HOW TO: Tag People in Your Status Updates
This was quite a big deal when it was announced this past September, but from the amount of searches on the topic “how can I make someone’s name go blue in a Facebook status?” it seems it’s not universally known. To mention someone in a status update just type “@” (a la Twitter (Twitter)) in the status bar and start typing their name as it appears on Facebook. An auto-generated list will then come up with people in your social circle whose name starts with the letters you’ve typed. The feature also works with pages, brands, events and companies. Hit the name you want, complete the update, click share and the name will become a hyperlink (you won’t see the @ symbol) and will appear in blue text.

5. HOW TO: Add Symbols to Your Facebook Status
Although there are plenty of emoticons that work with Facebook Chat, typing “:)” into Facebook’s status bar will not magically transform into a smiley yellow face. In fact, the only symbol you can create in a Facebook status update through the shortcut keys is a ♥, by typing “<3." While this won't bother many Facebook users, others more used to punctuating their missives can copy and paste web-happy, universal symbols into the box, as you can see in the screengrab above. PC users can also access some symbols by hitting “alt” + various number combinations (on a numerical keypad). So, while smileys are yet to hit Facebook statuses, you can annoy or amuse your buddies with symbols right now.

6. HOW TO: Turn Your Status Updates Into a Word Cloud 
There’s a really fun way to visualize anyone’s status updates (even an entire country’s) as a word cloud. The Status Analyzer 3D app will look at what it is you’ve been chatting about lately and generate a list, and then a pretty, colorful, animated cloud as pictured above. You can share the results with others on the social networking site by posting it to your friends’ walls or by adding it to your profile.

7. HOW TO: Have Fun With Facebook’s Humorous Language Options
While you can always change your setting into more sensible alternative languages, the site offers a couple of fun linguistic Easter eggs. You can chose to have Facebook display upside down English, or, for anyone feeling a little salty, in “pirate.” Pirate essentially turns your status into your “plank,” your attachments into “loot” and instead of “share” it offers the option to “blabber t’ yer mates.” Sadly, anything you type in the status bar won’t be upside down, or pirate-y. But with the use of some external sites you can achieve the same effect. TypeUpsideDown.com and UpsideDownText.com are just two examples of sites that can flip your text, while the Talk Like a Pirate Day site can help you with your pirate translations.

8. HOW TO: See Status Updates From Around the World
If you want to get a glimpse of the thoughts of Facebook users from around the world’s, head over to OpenBook. Created by three San Fran web developers with a serious privacy message in mind, the site aggregates the status updates of everyone whose privacy levels are set to “everyone.” You can narrow your searchable results down by gender and keywords to find out what people are saying about a certain topic. Or you can just browse the recent searches.

9. HOW TO: See Your Status Update Stats
Have you ever wondered how many times you have updated your status on Facebook? The Facebook app Status Statistics, can tell you this and more. The app analyzes your updates and gives you a tidy list of how many you’ve written, the average word count and how many times a day you post. In addition, it generates a graph that shows you what time of day or what days of the week you normally update. Old statuses are also searchable via the app, so you can find that witty retort you made back in November 2009 without having to scroll back through your history.

10. HOW TO: Play a Trick On Your Friends in Your Status Update

We have a funny one to end on — a way to play an amusing trick on your Facebook buddies. This clever link “http://facebook.com/profile.php?=73322363″ looks like it could be a URL for anyone’s Facebook profile, actually takes anyone logged into Facebook to their own profile page. If you try it out, be sure to remove the link preview that Facebook auto-ads. Have fun, and don’t be too mean
   Source Mashable




Professional Hosting from Just Host

Share

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

EcoMotors in Troy secures $23.5M from tech titans: Gates, Khosla

EcoMotors International, a 2-year-old start-up supplier headquartered in Troy, Michigan with about three dozen employees, just got a boost in confidence for its innovative high-efficiency, low-cost, lightweight engine, called the OPOC.

 The Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures dream team are swooping in once again to provide much-needed cash to a worthy sustainable startup. The pair recently injected millions into nuclear power startup TerraPower, and now they're back again to invest $23.5 million in EcoMotors's series B funding round.

EcoMotors builds a lightweight, high-efficiency, low-cost combustion engine that supposedly offer 50% greater fuel efficiency than similar conventional engines. The company's Opposed Piston Opposed Cylinder (OPOC) engine can be used in everything from passenger vehicles to auxiliary power supplies--anywhere traditional gas and diesel-powered engines can be found.

The Troy, Michigan-based company has an impressive history. CEO Don Runkle led GM's EV1 electric vehicle project in the mid-1990's, and CTO Peter Hofbauer designed VW's high-speed diesel engine, which ultimately developed into the Jetta Clean Diesel's engine.

EcoMotors is moving quickly towards commercialization, too--by 2011, the company hopes to have a 100 MPG diesel engine ready for five-passenger vehicles.

So why did Gates and Khosla opt to invest in EcoMotors instead of an electric vehicle manufacturer? For practical reasons, most likely. EV's are far from becoming widespread in the U.S., and EcoMotors is focusing on developing markets that are even further from large-scale EV commercialization. We need to cut down on carbon emissions and petroleum use now, not 5 or 10 years from now when an EV infrastructure is in place. EcoMotors recognizes that--and so do Khosla and Gates.

While much of the auto industry has been captivated by the emerging electric car market, EcoMotors has staked its business on its OPOC engine. While it runs on unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel, the engine is 20% to 50% more efficient than a standard gasoline engine.


Source FastCompany

Professional Hosting from Just Host Share

Monday, July 12, 2010

Electric Trucks


 If a house can generate its own electricity, why can't the trucking industry? The industry might not be far off, with a new technology that generates sustainable electricity by capturing the kinetic energy of moving trucks.

New Energy Technologies says it's approaching commercialization with its MotionPower-Heavy technology, an alternative energy source the company believes will be technically and economically competitive with solar photovoltaic modules, such as those we see on the roofs of commercial buildings and residential houses. The difference is, MotionPower may cost less to the owner and is intended for use at application-specific locations.

While New Energy's version of MotionPower-Auto for cars and light trucks is intended for such locations as toll booths, traffic intersections, rest areas, and border crossings, the company is interested in demonstrating the technology at trucking facilities, warehouses, transportation depots, weigh stations and truckstops. In fact, the company will be demonstrating at a cargo port in the Northeast, according to John Conklin, manager of product development and business development for New Energy.

Conklin says MotionPower provides a way for businesses, state agencies and Departments of Transportation and cities to offset their electricity costs by producing their own. This can help reduce their operating expenses. For example, the energy produced from MotionPower may be designed and operated to power a weigh scale, with electrical energy supplied into a load center to power facility fixtures, or excess energy put back on the grid (i.e., net metering interconnect agreement). Later this summer and into the fall, New Energy will be traveling around the country, offering two-day demonstrations.


To Read How it Works    click here 





Professional Hosting from Just Host



Share

Today In History July 12

**************************Today In History for July 12********************* 

Highlights of this day in history: Julius Caesar born; Walter Mondale taps Geraldine Ferraro as the first woman to run on a major party ticket for the White House; Boris Yeltsin quits the Soviet Communist Party; Comedian Bill Cosby born. **************************************************************************************

**************************************************************************************** Professional Hosting from Just Host Share

Sunday, July 11, 2010

Tea, exercise, vitamin D reduce risk of dementia

Certain habit changes including drinking tea regularly, physical exercise, and vitamin D intake, may help prevent dementia, according to new studies published Sunday.

The studies were presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Honolulu.

The first study is on cardiovascular risk and was conducted by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. It tracked more than 1,200 senior people over 20 years, 242 of whom developed dementia.

Those who had moderate to heavy amounts of physical activity had about a 40% lower risk of developing dementia, while participants engaging in the least amount of activity were 45% more likely to develop dementia, according to the research.

The second study, which lasted for 14 years, targeted more than 4,800 men and women aging 65 and above. Researchers found that those who drank tea one to four times a week had a 37% lower chance of developing dementia than participants who didn't drink tea at all.

The third study examined vitamin D's effect on brain health. Researchers examined 3,325 U.S. adults ages 65 and older. According to the study, those who are deficient in vitamin D have 42% higher chances of suffering from cognitive impairment.

"More and more studies are suggesting that lifestyle changes may be able to silence the expression of risk genes, a phenomenon called epigenetics," said Murali Doraiswamy of Duke University.
Source


Professional Hosting from Just Host Share

Drill Baby Drill

Drive less
  Professional Hosting from Just Host Share

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

I too am Unemployed, so reading this article............

  Reading this article today about the 

 long-term unemployed are a bunch of 

lazy drug addicts is quite upsetting to 

the many unemployed including myself 

who continue everyday to look for employment.

 
The majority of people who are unemployed would rather be working.  
Work not only provides income, but a sense of worth and direction.   
We are people who have been contributing members of society and have much more to contribute.

All we need is the opportunity.

Check out this disturbing story, they wont even consider to hire you if you are unemployed.

The last 17 months of not working has been a nightmare, everyday you wake up and still say to yourself is this a bad dream.

You have days where you feel motivated and hopeful and optimistic, Then there are other days, you really lose the faith and think, I'm never going to get another job. Ever.

Economists say those out of work for six months or more risk becoming less and less employable. Their skills can erode, their confidence falter, their contacts dry up.

I don't do drugs, I don't live extravagantly, I want a job more than anything

I have marketable skills but it's just not happening. 

I am sad, and discouraged, but I am not lazy and I am not giving up.         I can't, I won't.

I just gotta believe it will work out.   
It can't be like this forever.........







Professional Hosting from Just Host Share

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Let's Make A Deal

Let's Make A Deal: The Art of Haggling
When hunting for lower prices for goods and services for the home, there may be room for negotiation.

Here's a look at how to haggle and what products and services to consider.

It never hurts to ask.

A department store might have $100 leeway on a chair that hasn't been selling well.

Your favorite home contractor might reduce his fee.

A store manager trying to sell a pricey appliance could drop the price, waive delivery or throw in accessories.

When hunting for lower prices for goods and services for the home, "There's more room for negotiation than we normally think," said David Bell, a business professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "If you're bold enough to offer something lower, it's usually worthwhile to enter into negotiation."

Consumer Reports' polling indicates that more people are starting to haggle — and more are succeeding, according to executive editor Greg Daugherty.

"You have every reason to try to haggle," said Daugherty, who cites the economic downturn as the reason for the increase. "If you're polite and say you don't have that much in your budget, the people you ask won't be surprised or upset. Give it a shot."

WHAT IS UP FOR NEGOTIATION?

"We tend to think of big-ticket items — houses, cars — when we think of negotiation," said Richard Reuben, a professor of law at the University of Missouri-Columbia. "But truly, almost anything is fair game."

If the expiration date on a gallon of milk is close and you don't have a lot of money, a manager might be convinced to lower the price, Reuben said. But Reuben noted that the margin on lower-priced goods is so small that negotiating over them usually isn't worthwhile.

"If you start looking around the house at higher-priced items, you'll see where you can haggle," said Devavrat Purohit, a business professor at Duke University.

"Interior decorating, installation of blinds, carpets, furniture, mattresses — are all negotiable. Things purchased infrequently have leeway."

Experts agree that boldness is key. "Many get embarrassed, but there's no harm in asking for a better price," Purohit said. "Some people will fold quickly, don't have patience or will get uncomfortable. You'll get the best deal if you don't mind engaging in haggling."

Many Americans don't like negotiating, Purohit added, but often if you pay the stated price, essentially you're paying a convenience fee not to haggle.

ELECTRONICS, APPLIANCES AND FURNISHINGS

Electronics and appliances are some of the priciest home goods with some of the highest markups, making them ripe for haggling, said Bell, who negotiated roughly $2,000 off a high-end television.

According to a May 2009 Consumer Reports survey, 71 percent of those who tried to haggle on electronics and furniture got a better deal.

"Managers do have some wiggle room on pricing," said Jill Nezworski of Best Buy. "But customers should expect to pay the price on the tag."

While Best Buy did not elaborate, experts suggest consumers are in the best position to negotiate for electronics and appliances at the end of a quarter or month (when a store might need to meet a quota). Haggling may be more effective on higher-priced goods, products that received negative reviews, floor models and when bundling together.

"Try to buy in bulk," Purohit said. If you need a vacuum cleaner when your dryer goes out, buy them at the same time.

Price matching is another form of negotiation, Purohit said, so watch competitors' listed prices and advertisements.

Whether at an estate sale or a large store, furniture is often ripe for negotiation, too.

Interior designer Susan Prestia says that most furniture can be discounted roughly 40 percent from the manufacturer's suggested retail price.

New shipments of furniture usually arrive in January and June at large furniture stores, Prestia said, so look for the best deals at sales around Memorial Day and Christmas.

But if you don't want to wait for a sale, it doesn't hurt to ask for a discount now.

That's particularly true with mattresses, which have among the highest markups, Daugherty said.

"Half-price sales are frequent, and it's a good area to bargain." Even on top of a sale, he said, ask for more off and free delivery.

SERVICES

Akin to buying in bulk, teaming up with one or more neighbors is a great way to cut costs on landscape and snow-removal services, said Sean Baxter, owner of Lawn and Landscape Solutions in Overland Park, Kan. "With maintenance, volume brings discounts."

Baxter says in several instances he has lowered a customer's cost when a neighbor has hired his services.
Servicing a homeowner's association is the best example, Baxter said, because it's viewed as one big piece of property. An individual mow might amount to just a few dollars if there are enough homes in the mix.

But even servicing just two neighbors' lawns instead of one reduces customer costs.

"One big expense that's eliminated for us is drive time," Baxter said.

"There is always leeway in prices," said Rick Bradford, who owns Complete Home Management, a home care services business in Liberty, Mo., that offers cleaning, pest control, lawn care and more. "If I have a set price for something and someone asks me to do it for less, I'll probably says yes."

Bradford says his company has the most leeway with maid service and the least with lawn care because of the cost of chemicals and other products.

"In this economy, I'm not going to turn away much business."      Source: Seattle Times




Professional Hosting from Just Host
Share

Friday, July 2, 2010

Super Green & Fast Computers

For those of you who like your supercomputers fast AND green, the latest list of the most energy-efficient ones in the world has just been published. The ranking is a twist on the well-known Top 500 supercomputers list; the green slice on this list ranked using the measure of FLOPs per watt.

The greenest system listed is a QPACE system that uses the IBM PowerXCell 8i processor. There are actually three tied for the greenest-fastest performance. They are housed at the Julich Supercomputing Centre, University of Regensburg and the University of Wuppertalare. All three produce 773 millions of floating point operations per second (Mflops) per watt.

IBM is also behind the list’s most energy-efficient x86-only cluster. The cluster, ranked 9th, is housed at Mississippi State University.

IBM actually dominates the Top 20 of this energy-efficiency, claiming 17 of the top 20 positions. The exceptions include three systems from China: the Nebulae at the National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen, China, (which shows up as No. 4); the Mole-8.5 Cluster Xeon system at the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 8) and Tianhe-1(TH-1) at the National SuperComputer Center in Tianjin/NUDT.

IBM used the list’s publication to publicize the fact that its Aquasar, a hot-water-cooled supercomputer design, is now live in a deployment at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. The technology produces about 450 Mflops per watt. It makes innovative use of the system’s waste heat.

 Building energy efficient computing systems and data centers is a staggering undertaking. In fact, up to 50 percent of an average air-cooled data center's energy consumption and carbon footprint today is not caused by computing but by powering the necessary cooling systems to keep the processors from overheating - a situation that is far from optimal when looking at energy efficiency from a holistic perspective.

Source ZDNet

This video explains on how the technology works:



Professional Hosting from Just Host

Share

E-dentity Disorder, How many do you have? Watch Video

 How many times have you heard a horror story of how debaucherous Facebook photos have ended the chances of a job candidate?

Most of us have numerous online personalities, from multiple email usernames and messenger logins, to private Twitter feeds and social network profiles. It seems every online tool calls for different behavior. Speaking recently at our Most Creative People in Business event, Soraya Darabi, product lead at Drop.io and #53 on our list, called this syndrome "multiple e-dentity disorder."

"I'm very different on Twitter than on Facebook," Darabi told audiences. "I have a professional self on LinkedIn, and a personal self on Tumblr."

According to Darabi, all these professional and personal Internet services create a chasm between our true selves and our online identity. "What social media presents really is an issue of Web literacy," she explained. "We have to first understand what it means to be social online before we can accurately and authentically represent ourselves on each individual platform."

Until then, however, what makes its way to our social network profiles and Twitter feeds often offers a skewed picture of our identities--glimpses that interviewers and HR officers somehow always pick up on. Do you have multiple e-dentity disorder?     Via   FastCompany




Check out Video:



Professional Hosting from Just Host Share

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Jobless aid stalls in Senate; home buyers get more time


The Senate failed once again late Wednesday to advance a plan to restore jobless benefits for people out of work more than six months, leaving millions of unemployed workers in limbo until after the July 4 recess.

The measure fell one vote shy of the 60 needed to end a Republican filibuster. Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) said he was prepared to provide that vote, but that Democrats had rejected his request to pay for at least half of the $34 billion measure with unspent funds from last year's stimulus package.

"Democrats are more interested in having this issue to demagogue for political gamesmanship than they are in simply passing the benefits extension," Voinovich, who is retiring, said in a statement. "I came to the table with a fair compromise and the ball is in their court."

Democrats countered that the 9.7 percent jobless rate constitutes a continuing emergency that, under congressional budget rules, has traditionally been addressed through deficit spending.

"For those who question whether this is an emergency situation, they should talk to the Nevadans who I hear from every day who rely on this assistance to put food on the table and pay the bills while they look for work," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said at a news conference with Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis.

That argument won over at least two Republicans: Sens. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine voted for the stripped-down measure, which would have restored jobless benefits that expired June 2 and extended the deadline for home buyers to claim a tax credit aimed at reviving the housing market until Sept. 30. After the overall bill failed, the Senate passed a separate measure that sent the tax credit to President Obama for his signature.

At Snowe's urging, Democrats had jettisoned numerous other provisions from the jobless bill, including $16 billion for cash-strapped state governments, $1 billion for summer jobs and $32 billion in special-interest tax breaks that expired earlier this year.

But other Republicans -- as well as Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) -- continued to insist that at least a portion of the jobless benefits be paid for, arguing that the nation can no longer afford to add to record budget deficits. When it became clear that the vote would fail, Reid switched sides for strategic reasons, making the final vote 58 to 38.

House leaders were planning to take up the jobless bill Thursday and said they expect it to pass. But its failure in the Senate ensures that more than 2 million people will have their checks cut off before Congress returns to Washington after a week-long break. The Labor Department estimates that more than 1.2 million people already have been affected.

States typically provide unemployment benefits for up to 26 weeks. Congress triggered emergency benefits in 2008 and expanded them in last year's stimulus package. On June 2, the federal programs was providing more than 5 million people with up to 99 weeks of assistance.  Via Washington Post



Professional Hosting from Just Host


Share