The idea behind this exercise is to find gaps in column 2 that might be filled by innovative technology and invention. (Work in progress)

TAG TENNIS: Organizer’s journey

*Listening to Manchester Orchestra – Mean Everything To Nothing*

Scouring the internet recently gave me an idea that could make the world a better place, a place where words have their full allotted amount of letters and, even- god-forbid- apostrophes. It shouldn’t be too difficult to bring into practice, all it really requires is a few thousand people keeping their eyes open in the world they spend their most time.

This world, is Facebook of course, and all these Freedom Fighters would be looking for is those people who have an innate inability to spell, or more importantly, people who feel the need to omit letters that have been comfortably in their place for many a moon now.

All I am asking for is a button that appears under everyone’s status updates, maybe three buttons. One could be labelled “Annoyingly bad” another saying “I’ve just punched my screen” and a third saying “Shoot this person.” (User discretion is required). [probably best not to link to a picture too...]

Individual errors will carry their own penalties, an incorrect there or you’re would be most heavily punished, possibly by confiscating any form of internet and instead giving them a Key Stage One English textbook. Use of the words Woz, Does’nt, Kool or Iz also will come hand in hand with a chunky punishment too, purely for sheer stupidity and needlessness.

When this Facebook experiment goes well- because it will- it will be spread down the whole length of the Inter-highway. The sooner the better too, because I just read this – “is there left midfielder any good cause i think that might be the key today.” Not even a hint of a question mark, let alone the right their. Battlestations at the ready.

If your business has been essentially the same size for several years, inertia has probably become a much stronger deterrent to the growth of your company than any economic downturn.

Where’s the incentive for bright, ambitious younger people to want to work for your company? 

What’s the impetus for investing in new technology, systems, and approaches?

Why would a prospective customer realistically expect that you would be able to handle a big account/project? (trust you?) (believe you could?)

What will prevent you from becoming bored someday after doing essentially the same job (tasks) year after year after year?

If these questions resonate for you, ask yourself what size your company would need to be to

• be more exciting, less routine?
• require that new skills be acquired and new ideas learned?
• generate markedly increased net profit (income) for you and others?
• attract interesting well paying customers/projects?
• provide career opportunities for hard working dependable employees?
• increase your options for succession when the time comes?
• help momentum replace inertia? 

The transformation from inertia to momentum often involves expansion of the leadership team for an infusion of energy. Start there. Imagine the leadership team that you would need to truly break inertia. Do the math. What would their compensation packages add up to? What percentage of the company’s budget should be invested in executive/management compensation? OK. What size will your company need to be to have replaced inertia with momentum?

I’ll bet it isn’t incremental change like the +2-5% goals in many annual business plans.

Intel Health Guide Brings Virtual Doctor Visits to the Mainstream | Sustainability | Fast Company.

It may sound a little creepy, but Intel thinks that virtual doctor visits are the future of health care for the elderly. The Intel Health Guide, launched in the U.S. last year, is a simple white box with a screen that includes a video camera for doctor-patient communications, on screen reminders for scheduled sessions, and connectivity for a variety of vital sign monitoring machines (glucose meters, blood pressure monitors, etc. Essentially, the Guide keeps patients out of the doctor’s office by helping to detect potential medical events before they happen.

We can see how enlightned this person isn't

It seems there are a lot of people out there, mainly older people although there are a few young people on this insane band-wagon, who are against both technology and technological advancement. They are stubborn to the core about their beliefs to the point that they will not even allow you to argue with them, often interrupting you or changing the subject to avoid having their beliefs challenged. These people represent a dying breed of relics from the past trapped in a mindset denser than stone. According to the techno-haters, technology has “taken over and is thinking for us” This article is aimed at those people, although I believe the people like us – that’s the reasonable and rational people – will get a good kick out of this too.

Let’s start with the “gadgets” technology. This would include things like cellphones with mp3 players, web browsing, cameras, etc or onboard computers in cars along with GPS navigators and the like. I’ve heard a lot of criticism for these things since, unfortunately for me, I live with a technology hater who’s also a purist. I grant that GPS – provided you can use the fsucking thing – does negate the need for reading a map book, but is that a bad thing? I’ve seen many drivers trying to read a map book lying on the passenger seat whilst trying to drive. Now that’s an accident waiting to happen. As far as the augmentation of cellular phones is concerned, the implementation of a camera was very good practical thinking. You don’t take your camera everywhere but you do take your cellphone. How many good photo opportunities were missed before this idea? As for web browsing, it’s very convenient knowing that one can look up some important information on the go rather than having to seek the nearest internet café and pay ten times what the cost of the data fees would have been to look it up or, god forbid, make a trip down to the library which entails looking through countless reference books to even find a scrap of information on what you’re looking for. Finally, built-in mp3 players. This is the best idea yet. You no longer need to purchase an mp3 player on top of the costs of the phone and you get to listen to music anywhere. What’s so bad about that?

Now we’ll tackle the issue of computers themselves. I’ve heard all kinds of things besides “destroying our humanity”, “thinking for us”, “making us stupid”, “destroying literacy” and “computers are evil” but we’ll deal with these ones for now. All the relics of the past perceive computers as toys. Well, as a writer of a book and several short stories, I’d disagree as I find it very disconcerting writing on paper. I haven’t got a fancy set up because I use my PC predominantly for writing, and watching/reading things. I play few games these days because I’m somewhat disappointed in the gaming industry over the last two years so my computer is definitely, to quote Geoffrey Leonard, “not, not NOT!” a toy.

As far as “destroying our humanity”, I’d like to point out that people who spend large amounts of time in front of a computer were anti-social to begin with. At least now they have an outlet. Prior to computers, these are the types of people who would have become obsessive above something else, reading books perhaps or maybe building figures out of soapstone – who knows? The point I’m making is that a person is anti-social to begin with; computers did not make them so and these machines are merely a more popular outlet in modern times. People who claim “internet addiction” or “computer addiction” are a bunch of sad morons who crave attention and would have found a different “addiction” were they born before the advent of computers.

Computers do not “think for us” except if the user is a complete moron and merely follows the computer’s instructions (and in that case, it’s just as well he/she doesn’t try to think for themselves). I realise that calculators have made us lazy and spell-checkers have made it a lot easier to proofread things, but is that bad? Since when is accomplishing a task the easy way automatically the wrong way? I am a firm believer that the means are irrelevant so long as the ends are the same (Providing it isn’t harmful to anybody of course). Secondly, on the subject of spell-checkers, they are not always accurate and quite often require the user to think for him/herself. Now before I hear anymore about “oh but computers keep databases and we don’t think, we just type in numbers at the work place” etc, let me point out that there is no difference between having a shelf full of paper files or a database except the access speed. The only thing that has changed is that now the user doesn’t have to manually search for the file. I didn’t know being good at looking for files on a shelf was such a note-worthy ability.

“Making us stupid” is a favourite of mine and actually relates a lot to the paragraph above. Let me just explain “stupid” here. A person is, as far as we know, born stupid (Although there are schools of thought that tend towards the idea that upbringing and stimulus during infancy plays a large role in mental development). Just because we no longer have to sit for hours to plot a graph or calculate a problem doesn’t mean we can’t if needs must. All it means is: why the fsuck should we? So, let’s get our terminology right here. Computers do not make us “stupid”, they make us “lazy”. Good, I’m a lazy person and proud of it. I won’t hold back when it comes to stuff like hygiene (personal or other) on account of my laziness; that would make me a slob. A slob is somebody whose laziness has taken control of them and led them to live in a manner which, viewed by most sane people, is disgusting. The interesting thing you relics reading this article may want to know is that lazy people and slobs existed as far back as the cavemen.

I love this one: “destroying literacy”. That’s just golden. “Literacy” has been under threat since the advent of motion pictures and comic books. Just as an aside, the word “literacy” actually refers to the ability to read, which computers, if anything, have aided and encouraged. For some reason people associate “literacy” with the interest in books and while the two are related, they are not mutually inclusive. Now, bearing in mind that television has done more to destroy the interest in books than computers ever did, I’d like to point out that the internet has given rise to many communities of readers and writers around the world who discuss books they like, exchange poetry and even post entire novels for their fellow readers/writers to judge. One could go so far as to say that the internet is actually the beginning of a sort of semi cyber-renaissance.

As for “computers are evil”, I’m tempted not to even dignify that with a response but I will, just for fun. First of all, there is no such thing as an evil inanimate object. An inanimate object is only as good or evil as the person using it (weapons included). I mean if you allow for the idea of inanimate objects being evil, you could start calling rocks evil too because they can be used to kill with. Think about it. Secondly, if computers are so evil, then why so many religious groups have websites these days? Have you seen the number of Christian sites out there (*Shudder*)? Yes, it’s very easy to call something evil if it inconveniences your group by enlightening the ignorant and causing them to start asking questions. Television and science were considered evil once upon a time (although there are some sects who maintain this belief even today – very sad). Thirdly, I’d like to know how many people out there screaming “computers are evil” have ever had to go to hospital in their lives because hospitals run on computers as do all those life-saving machines they use.

Finally, I’m going on an all-out attack here…

“The rise of computers has caused piracy”. No, it’s increased it and made it easier but piracy is as old as the first artist who learned to copy another artist’s painting precisely. Piracy became very popular with the advent of the cassette tape and people have been doing it in abundance since long before computers were a standard household item or the advent of the internet.

“The internet has made child pornography so rife”. Wrong! Before the internet was around, it was still going on just as much. The only difference was that it was done behind closed doors. Be grateful to the internet because at least now when some idiot uploads a picture of him with his penis in a kid, it gets out there and there’s some, little as it may be, chance of tracing it and apprehending him.

“The only significant contribution the internet has ever made is that it has given credibility to the uninformed opinion” – Michael Crichton. A little right but very wrong. The web has given credibility to many uniformed opinions, you just have to look at many of the blogs out there (not this one though, lol) to realise this. But then again, are the history books any better? History books have been written in a very subjective fashion for centuries now. Here’s just one example: In South Africa under apartheid, history books actually contained dreamed up facts and outright lies intermingled with the odd truth that was, of course, manipulated to suit the government. What it actually boils down to is the individual’s ability to be discerning. If you believe everything you read without researching it, be it a book or a blog, then you’re an idiot. As far as “making no contributions” is concerned, the internet has allowed many very informed people to collaborate online. It has allowed the truth to reach a lot of people living under isolated regimes. The net has allowed us to meet people from diverse cultures and backgrounds and gain better human understanding. It has made research quicker and easier than before and has helped the average man expand his mind. It has even brought romance to the lives of countless people who may have otherwise died alone (I knew a guy who married a girl he met online).

“Computers are used for fraud and all kinds of other crimes that would have otherwise been impossible”. That is a good point; sadly it is a very one-sided take on things. All levels of progress involve negative side effects. From the first monkey that picked up a bone and used it as a club to the first book ever published. Yes, even books had negative side effects like the rise of fanatic religions or how about non-graphic pornography? There were plenty of insane and filthy publications out there at one stage (Although there still are a fair share today). The knife, while a brilliant tool, has spilled more blood than can be counted. The brilliant form of transport, the aeroplane, is an integral part of war. Nuclear energy is responsible for the most awesome destructive force ever unleashed on the planet. The list goes on.

Attack completed. Gained 1000exp and 500 GP.

Let’s just look at everything on the whole. If there was no technology, there’d be no television, no books, no medicine, no hygiene, no transport, no defence from the elements and no civilisation. We’d be running around killing each other (more so than we do today), nobody would be safe and we’d all be dying at ages of 30 – 40 years. We’d have no knowledge of the cosmos. We’d never ponder existence. Why? Because creativity, to a greater or lesser degree, exists in us all and it is creativity that gives us the ability to question. Creativity and technological advancement are inseparably interwoven because technological advancement is a by-product of creativity and technological advancement is also the inspiration for a lot of creativity.

Just to clear things up, I’d like to say that I’m not all pro-technology. I will happily concede that there is an overwhelming amount of frivolous technology out there. But just because it is new and it is a “gadget” does not automatically make it bad, neither does the fact that it saves time or effort. I also admit that I’m a rampant “consumer”. But I’m a discerning one too. I do not automatically want it because it is latest or because it is the best. I do, however, want it if it has features that I have a genuine use for. I would also like to admit that I often see new technology in development or just being released and I say to myself “No!” because I too do not wish to see my world erased by that of the next generation. Sadly, it is inevitable.

Luckily there will always exist in society, an element that respects the past and the origins of what they have today. It is that sect of the populace that protect and preserve each previous generation’s styles, music and movies.

What I’m ultimately getting at is that we should not fear change and we should not scorn the past. We must embrace both sides of everything for balance is the only way any intelligent person can live. Anything else simply reflects ignorance and lack of understanding.

The point I’m making is this, and I hope you will think on this further if you are to have any hope of having a life again. Most things on this site are NOT a top secret and NOT above it or below it. Fact is, most of it doesn’t exist at all! The CIA or whatever government entity is all over this site and others like it. Injecting tid bits of World-Ending conspiracies to create fear in the herds of people who think they are getting to the “bottom of things”. And they have succeeded in lowering the vibrational state of the remaining smart people who learned that T.V. media is ful of B.S. Well…….GOTCHA!!!!

Stop listening to any news that is negative AT ALL. STOP listening or reading ANYTHING negative whatsoever and RAISE your bodily vibrations back to where it should be. The higher you vibrate, the closer you are to the source of white light that gives life to all. The angrier or depressed or agitated you are, the lower your body vibrates and the weaker you become. They are killing you from the inside out and you’re falling for it.

Please wake up, let go of your flesh and come to the light. There is much more in our world then what you see and touch. Don’t let them make you scared or angry at ANYTHING!

Anger, depression anxiety is Kryptonite my fellow humans.

I’m making my own little attempt on this site to save some lives. Brighten your vision and go back to loving everything in your life and loving your creator. You are not a monkey, and you’re not a mistake. The ancient civilizations have tried to communicate this to us, but our educational system has destroyed it’s importance.

Pull your kids out of public

.

Ayooh

I’m tired of using technology,

I need you right in front of me..

(Milow – Ayo technology)

.

New technologies in the future will make it easier for people to contact each other. Everybody can send a lot of  information in a variety of easy, efficient ways.

Is this video just a technological dream or the real future?  

New technologies and social networking sites aim to have people connect. Social interation is the main promotion. However, the more and more advanced technology may be doing the opposite. When people are on facebook, twitter, even skype to a certain extent, they may be interacting with one another, but the lack of physical confrontation makes it so impersonal. These sites have a nobel goal. But, when social interactions are reduced to sitting alone in a room on your computer, it’s not really making personal connections.

It is likely that extreme technological interactions will be the future. Not confronting a person face to face makes life more comfortable. When someone is able to talk to other people without leaving the comfort of their own homes, eventually, they will become lazy enough to never want to leave at all. It is a slippery slope to have more and more people paying more attention to their blackberries and laptops that what’s going on the actual, non-virtual world surrounding them.

Adam van der Kuchen

A young genius

His name is Pranav Mistry and he is the perfect model of new stunningly brilliant Asian students who are busy reshaping our future.  He is currently studying in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab.  Before joining MIT he worked as a UX Researcher with Microsoft. He received his Master in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Master of Design from IIT Bombay.

But, above all,  he is the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the digital world.

And now, he is developing an unbelievable number of new projects like a programming language for children or sticky notes that are understood by your computer…  You can find all this on his website : www.pranavmistry.com

In this jaw-dropping video, he tells us how we use objects in the real world and how we can create bridges between the real world and objects and/or data from the numeric realms. And how he was led to create his strange but true invention…

The Asian Gold Rush

I wanted to introduce Pranav Mistry to you, not only because he is one of the most brilliant and creative minds of his generation, but because he is the perfect illustration of a interesting phenomenon : Asia is sending more and more students to America.

The three major “sending countries are India, with 103,000 students (up 9 percent from last year); China, with 98,000 students (up 21 percent), and South Korea, with 75,000 students (up 9 percent).” (Source : Miami Herald, 21-11-2009).

From last year, “The total number of Asian students rose more than 9 percent, while the total number of Latin American students rose by 5 percent. The number of European students rose by 4.5 percent, including a 5 percent increase from Spain.”

More and more, highly trained and skilled students are leaving their Asian homeland to study in the US and contribute to the development of science and technology.

But this trend is also good news for the business sector because the most brilliant Asian students who are staying in the US will facilitate future contacts between Asian and American companies and universities.

The other side of this story is that “the gap among developing nations is widening : While Asian countries are sending more students to some of the world’s best colleges, Latin American countries are lagging behind. (…) South Korea, with a population that is less than half that of Mexico, is sending more than five times more students to U.S. colleges than Mexico. And Vietnam, a poor but increasingly globalized Communist-ruled country with a population that is less than half that of Brazil, is sending more than twice more young people to U.S. universities than Brazil.”

Moreover, most of these Asian student graduate in science and technology.

The conclusion is this : Asian countries are investing in very high standards  of education while some other regions of the world are not focusing on the training of their new generation. On the long run, this will make the difference…

]]> http://eclinik.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/the-worst-enemy-against-new-technology-1-skepticism/ Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:17:26 +0000 eclinik http://eclinik.wordpress.com/2009/11/21/the-worst-enemy-against-new-technology-1-skepticism/

Skepticism is good if you are just suspending your judgment until you have fully understood the underlying principles and issues aided by empirical evidence or absence thereof. The worse than can happen is when you just reject a new idea outright without giving yourself ample time to study and dissect what is put forth on the table, and you found out later on that, that is the only option you have. The consequence of this is more pronounced in a life and death situation.

Case 1 : Liver Cancer Patient with One Week to Live

One day, a man and a woman knocked on the gate to eClinik to inquire about the treatment and check the facility. After being told that the only thing that’s required of the patient is adequate water intake to help both the liver and the kidney in the detoxification process, they raised the alarm that the patient couldn’t take any more water and is already in pain.

I always believe that for every problem there’s always a number of solutions. But before I could propose the idea of ozonizing the water to raise its potency before feeding it to the patient, they were already raising so many side issues which were absolutely irrelevant to the subject at hand. They even refused to test the equipments that will be used for treatment, so that they can have a full grasp of what could have been their best option, if not the only option they’ve got, considering they have been through to the best of the best hospitals around.

Consequently, after a week had passed, I was told that friends and relatives were coming in and out of the patient’s residence all day. We can only speculate at this point as to what had happened exactly. But if the worst had come, we can’t blame the patient himself, but those who have the task of saving him may have failed to go the extra mile – to at least give him that “fighting chance”.  After all, they were already at the point where alternative approaches should have been tried.

But they never did.

China has been in the news often, especially since President Obama’s visit this week.  There has been  much news-worthy information about China.  They have developed a “Top-1000 Energy Consuming Enterprises Program”, which focuses on energy-efficient improvements in large enterprises.  So far they have produced more than 10,000 energy saving projects.  At the rate they are going, they will be able to exceed their goal of saving 100 million tons of coal – an emissions reduction of about 250 million tons of CO2.  China generates 80% of its electricity from coal, the least “friendly” fossil fuel.  China burns more coal than any other nation. and they are pioneering technologies in CCS.  China is taking steps to capture carbon.  CCS is “carbon capture and storage”, and is one approach to curbing global greenhouse gas emissions.  The idea is to capture CO2 produced by coal-fired power plants and store it underground.  China is starting storage experiments – some in partnership with the US.

China’s cities also are an environmental concern, but they are trying to correct this through a range of policies designed to improve building efficiency, mass transit and energy use.  They are already seeing improvements.  Real progress is possible in the future.  China is developing systems for collecting accurate energy and emissions data.  This week China and the US announced agreements to tackle climate change and grow our respective economies through clean energy.   It looks like they are already on their way toward that goal.              sustainable business update  Nov 09             China FAQ.org

As I said I would do, I made the first few videos of a series (of about 55-60) related to providing extra help for the writers in my history class.  You’re actually getting to see them first, because I’m also posting them to the student’s user page, but if I know this particular student, he won’t check his history wiki page until the end of the Thanksgiving break at this point.

When he does, these three videos will be waiting for him.

This is a different kind of model for extra help, though.  It used to be that we had to give a kid a pass to come to extra help in the afternoons, and then hope he’d show up (if sports or extracurricular activities weren’t somehow more interesting or pressing).  These videos ‘belong’ in a sense to this particular student, though. They’ll reside on his homepage on our classroom wiki, and he’ll be able to review them as many times as he needs; if he deletes them, they’re gone, and he’s no longer troubled by them.

Can every teacher in America deliver this kind of “pushed” extra help? Maybe, maybe not.  But it’s a different model of correction and assistance, and one that bears at least a little experimentation.

You may not be aware but there are hundreds of business networking groups in the UK. There are different types but the main format is that you attend a meeting of local business people from all different businesses and sectors. You then have the chance to talk to whoever you wish to establish if there are any common areas of interest. A local Accountancy firm may be there to find new start-up businesses looking to appoint a firm of accountants. A start-up marketing agency business might be there looking for new business and looking to appoint a firm of accountants.

As a result of one of the consultancies I am involved with at present, I needed to find law firms that utilise a particular computer system to introduce an “add-on” product that is a very attractive – but completely unknown at this time. I have therefore attended a number of these business networking events.

I have been able to meet about 10 law firms at 6 different events. I have been able to arrange proper meetings with 3 of these firms and as a result and we now have the market intelligence we needed and have at least 2 potential new clients for a £10,000 sale. In addition, one of the law firms is now handling the subscription agreement for my client’s new investment partners.

Most of these meetings are timed as “breakfast meetings”. Often they start at 8.00am and are finished by 9.30 – so they really don’t take much time out of the working day and can be very profitable.

Nick Dickson, Sales Assyst

This is PART II of a 3-part series. You can read the intro here:

3 facebook questions everyone asks when starting out… 

OR Part I: The ROI of Facebook – the Value of Creating Community

Part II: Facebook-itis: Addressing the fear of facebook head on! AKA Should my site(s)/apartment community(s) ”do” facebook? - This is usually asked by someone who realizes that they NEED to be on Facebook – because everyone ELSE is thinking about it or already “DOING IT.” Heard the buzz, now wondering…

This is a great question. And the answer is as simple as YES.

KNOW THIS: In the Multi-family residential industry, we know who our typical renter demographic is - the biggest group of renters is ages 18-30. (Demographic information from NMHC - to see more demographic information, click here.) Our second biggest group, ages 30 – 44, and then 3rd largest demographic age group is 45-64, and then 4th is 65+.

KNOW THIS: Facebook demographics, as reported by istrategylabs.com as of 07/04/09, reported that the largest demographic of facebook users, ages 18 – 34 years old, totalled over 36MILLION users. The 2nd biggest demographic age group reported was 35-54 years old - totalled over 20MILLION users. The 55+years old user group totaled over 6MILLION users. The 55+ group was growing at a rate of 513% from the first half of 2009. (For complete istrategylabs.com statistics on facebook-click here. To see facebook’s statistics click here.) If your renter or prospect isn’t already on facebook, they WILL be. Will you be there to welcome them?

Technology continues to change, and with change comes new technology. Stay current with the new technologies – that’s how today’s business is done. (And for the most part, they can make life easier!)

If you think facebook maybe a fad – so what? A fad that has the attention of over 62MILLION U.S. users. WOW. GET IT while the gettin’s good. And if something else comes along, you can get GET THAT too.

And what about fear? Let’s address those fears quickly: Fear that you maybe exposing yourselves to liability? Fear that you may project the wrong image? Or fear that you may say the wrong things? Or fear that this might be too much work?

Well, to quote one of John Mayer’s recent tweets, ” …life may continue to be hard for you.” (For John Mayer’s full tweet/quote in its original context, click here and look at November 7th, 2009’s tweet.)

-Hey, I’m just being real. Agree? Disagree? LOVE IT? HATE IT? Still undecided? Want to chat? Leave me a comment!

Don’t Get it? RENT SODA. GET IT!

-Daisy Nguyen

CEO

Web: RentSoda.com

Email: Daisy@RentSoda.com

Blog: RentSoda.WordPress.com

Does the brand of contact solution really matter?  Everyone in my home uses something different; we have my roommate (the bargain-hunter) who always insists on ReNu (and leaves the bottle open) and then myself, who strictly abides with Alcon’s Opti-free.  I have “contact issues” which reflect in my previous posts, so I find a sort of comfort in “high-quality” solution.  But every time I hound the Optometrist for inside-news, they look at me with a puzzled expression, “It’s how you take care of them, not what you use.”  I suppose this refers to the type of solution: multipurpose and no-rub.  Except you’re supposed to actually rub the “no-rub” for at least 10 seconds (read the small print, kids).  These uninformative answers suggest that the perfect contact solution must be found through trial and error, so I did a little research on the brands we keep around.

ReNu is a multi-purpose, no rub solution that cleans contact lenses daily.  It isn’t fancy, contains basic chemicals that are in generic brands, and my roommate loves it.  It is manufactured in the USA, while Alcon doesn’t disclose its location other than the label being printed in Texas.

Pros:

• Contains Hydranate®, an ingredient that removes protein deposits, suggesting that you mustn’t rub your contacts.
• Provides safe lens-storage for up to a month.
• Contains Hydroxyalkyl-Phosphonate as a main cleaning agent, which is said to be “safer” than many other chemicals in solutions.
• Cheaper than Alcon, it comes in a pack of two for $16.99

Cons:

• Directions claim that you have to rub your contact “for 20 seconds.”
• The packaging is subpar to Alcon.

For more information, check out eHow’s guide to selecting contact solution.

I got my google wave invite about a week ago now. here are my thoughts on it as of now.
It is nice that I can just click and drag media (pictures and video) to it instead of the old ways. the way the messaging is managed and how you add people to the convo instead of sending back and forth is really nice esp. with larg group emails.
This program is still very BETA so it is not really ready to use full time. but, I can see it going full time soon! And it will really make street market when you can utilize it to its fullest with every other social program as a one stop shop. I think that the Apps that you can add to this program make this very possible in the near future. it gets overwhelming to keep up with facebook, twitter, email, blogger, wordpress, linkedin, and chatting…and so much more. If you can put all of them in one place to keep up with life would at least be a little easier to keep track of.
As Jordan Liggitt put it “if anyone were to do it, it would be google”

If you want to read more of this great book.

One: code is law
In the way that this book is not written so much for the tech-savvy but for more of a less technologically inclined. It begins with a similar story detailing different states and constitutions being forced on other emerging nations with no real idea why a constitution works for the US. In particular is the case of Russia, the loss of Communism and the emergence of a kind of libertarianism. “Power didn’t disappear – it shifted from the state to the Mafiosi, themselves often created by the state.” Lessig then leaves the metaphor to continue with a brief talk of cyberspace. Often seen as a more extreme version of a freedom from control (gov’t, anarchy, decentralized power etc.). One difference is that this cyber society was “built from the bottom-up” and self-ordering. So then, is the overarching question put forth: “Why was cyberspace incapable of regulation?” In a 1984-esqe way, the word itself denotes a “perfect control” while many celebrate its “perfect freedom.” The unique perspective of the author as a lawyer allows him to look at cyberspace and wonder if it can have its own control. As far as a constitution is a framework for the workings of a government, there is a constitution being laid down with guidance from commerce and gov’t, which will make cyberspace control easy. As the lengthy chapter ends, it delves into a look at understanding how the code that regulates is not laws and legal means but rather through the hardware and software that the Internet is built on.

Two: four puzzles from cyberspace.
This chapter picks up with examples from a game, in which it is suggested that some people, mainly from an older generation, see the Internet as only a source of information and not as having a life of its own. It is tough for someone who doesn’t know what they are missing to realize what they are missing, so this book serves as a good bridge between the printed word and virtual reality. “Second Life” is a game that is very literal for the readers, it functions as essentially a small part of the Internet Cosmos but is a place where its inhabitants have a second life digitally. The first story is about destroying the assumptions that we make in real life, that things have definite and persistent qualities. Things created in virtual reality can have different qualities attached to them. A book can fly (so can people too in Second Life), and death isn’t really death in our real world sense. Other things are the same, people communicate through typed words and speak to each other, get mad and work together. It also shows how code can change rules, like changing code so that a product is only usable by the person who purchases the product/service. Story two is largely about the idea that things do not exist locally in one place. A website about Indiana may be located on servers in Denmark. It begins to show how typical thinking fails to account for this property, especially in regards to the legal system. If a US citizen steals from someone is Europe on a trip, the person is subject to Europe’s laws. In other words, the states’ sovereignty is a fundamental concept that does not exist fully in cyberspace. The third story is about privacy, something we take for granted in most real life cases; it can be destroyed by a clever Internet detective when a person posts in an online community. Because of the way the site is coded, it was not hard in the example to figure out the person’s identity that was posting the stories. The last story is about the reach of a government’s hands into the lives of those on the Internet. We enjoy many freedoms in the US; that if someone from law enforcement searches your house, they need a warrant. On the Internet, a computer can be searched without most users ever knowing and left undamaged afterword. Is it okay for this kind of search to happen without any suspicion? These all serve to open up the readers mind to how the Internet can work. It also parallels ideas that some might not understand, that we work towards nebulous goals in real life too that we cannot touch, just as people in cyberspace. “Is freedom inversely related to the efficiency of the available means of surveillance?”

Three: is-ism: is the way it is the way it must be
Much of our vocabulary doesn’t apply directly to language found in our laws: “nature, essence, innate.” One of the main points is that right now “there is certainly a way that cyberspace is.” There is no single thing that defines what the Internet it. Many architectures exist within the Internet but the Internet could be made up of many more in the future. The Internet is reflexive and it can mirror the values of the people that are its inhabitants. So if the people that are using a certain network need a high level of control to make sure people aren’t illegally using the Internet, that sort of network would need a fair bit of authentication so that the network operator will know and track everything a user does on the network. Likewise if the network administrator feels that the Internet is not a place that should be regulated, then that network would probably have a lot less authentication. This is inherent to the bias of the design of a network. We use a control to get to the Internet everyday: TCP/IP. It is a set of agreed upon rules that all computers accessing the network will abide. At another level, the protocols require very little authentication, I can still be on the Internet posing as a middle-aged man or as a girl and be neither. This is very different from the real world where we enjoy a different sort of authentication. When I go the bank to cash a check and it is filled out with a woman’s name, and I am clearly male, the teller would naturally ask for ID. The ID is a multi-level authentication, my name would match their records and my picture would match, and most likely in most states, would also have a signature. Put succinctly “…there is no simple way to know who someone is, where they are from, and what they’re doing.”

Four: architecture of control
The original design wasn’t done with control in mind. So people could be anonymous because it wasn’t important to regulate the internet. Part of the problem too, is that most objects in life can be replicated. The same holds true for credentials, I can forge headers in email and make the receiver think they are from the government. I can make my computers IP address appear to be the same as any users (almost). To this end, we have credentials, drivers licenses and passports both give  “…a relatively high level of confidence about the facts asserted…”  that the information is about you. It is true that everyone would benefit from better authentication to prove who a user is on the Internet. We could better control our bank accounts and more efficient business. The problem is that these enable some to exert more control if the architectures are designed in a particular way.  Essentially the Internet was designed to be the way it is today the “network philosophy pushes complexity to the edge of the network – to the applications that run on the network, rather than they network’s core.” This keeps the Internet efficient and free to route traffic versus having to code new versions of the Internet to build things in like IM capability and new media features. It is easy to forget that many different computers are handling our data as it moves end-to-end and thus, can be seen by many eyes. With business looking to capitalize more and more on the Internet, industries like marketing want to link behavior and identity to specific people. There is also growing concern of not just privacy but of how information about users is stored. It would be catastrophic if someone managed to download a list of unencrypted users and passwords from Amazon.com. But the data needs to be in a database (or many) to make it easy for the user to not have to re-type all their purchasing data when shopping. One easy solution to some of the problems is encryption except that it makes things harder to regulate while keeping more inaccessible to prying eyes.

Five: regulating code
Technological advances in regards to Internet commerce have also helped the government with their regulation. One way to help agencies like law enforcement is the CALEA to design one type of network that can be more easily monitored by the government. In this indirect way, the code is being regulated because of the law passed. Another avenue being pursued is through encryption with a twist, a backdoor that the government can use to look at the data being sent. They can regulate encryption systems and indirectly regulate the information people are sending. This is purely because of the way the Internet is designed. No system is perfect but through some laws with limited scope, the bad behaviors and crimes can be better weeded out though these actions. Also introduced by the government is digital ID’s that provide a sort of personal database where only the needed information is provided to a website. Along with this idea is also a visual of the citizen to better facilitate traceability. Then the chapter moves to a sort of summary of how these codes differ, the code of law and the code of the Internet. The problems lie in that we have dealt with security on the web for a drop in the bucket compared to private property, Internet code has about 200 years of catching up to do. The chapter moves on to Z-theory that the terror will incite change, just like the patriot act after 9/11 the increase in incidents involving viruses and security will spurn radical change. As these changes are put in place though, so does the ability to subvert the good intentions. Thus, “we must ask of every exercise of power: Why?” Ideally this works, but as we all have had some exposure to political lobbyists and special interest groups, sometimes people ask question’s a lot later after acting.

although, not every computer will be able to use Chrome due to driver compatibility it is said to come out for public use this week.

GB

“We expect Google will be careful with messaging around the launch, and endorse a small set of devices for installation. EEE PC netbooks, for example, may be one set of devices that Google will say are ready to use Chrome OS. There will likely be others as well, but don’t expect to be able to install it on whatever laptop or desktop machine you have from day one. Google has previously said they are working with Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba on the project.” (Google Chrome OS To Launch Within A Week, Michael Arrington on November 13, 2009)