Larry and Sergey dress up as ‘Ghoul’gle

YouTube’s is simple and very effective, a pumpkin replacing half the logo:

If you don’t have Flash, you’ll see this simpler static image:

Ask Halloween Theme

Our Preview Of Halloween & Search Engine Industry post from yesterday wondered if Ask was going to go with ghosts, but it went for pumpkins, instead:

Live.com? No logo spotted, so far. However, Exalead has one:

And need to learn more about Halloween? Ask has a nice smart answer you'll find for a search on halloween:

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Ask US is sporting pumpkins, but Ask UK and Ask France is sporting this theme:

Also, as noted yesterday, the animated theme is live at the Search Engine Roundtable and looks like this:

New Google logo for Halloween !

Google has made a new logo to celebrate this Halloween Holiday on their hompage

Snoopy!

What is Your Intelligence Type?

About twenty-five years ago, Dr. Howard Gardner came up with a new theory about intelligence. He proposed that people were much more complex than what could be revealed in an IQ test or any other standardized testing model. He argued that different people have different strengths (i.e. intelligence types).

Before this time, it was generally believed that intelligence was a single entity that was inherited. Today, most researchers believe the opposite; that there exists a multitude of intelligences that are quite independent of each other. It is also now believed that each of these intelligence types comes with its own strengths and constraints.

Dr. Howard Gardner built a model of eight different intelligence types, including linguistic and verbal intelligence, logical intelligence, spatial intelligence, body/movement intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence, and naturalist intelligence. Each one of these intelligence types is located in specific regions of the brain. However, a person can be strong in several intelligence types.

Linguistic and Verbal Intelligence

A person strong in this area is good with words. They are often good at writing, reading, and talking about things. This group often includes writers, poets, lawyers and public speakers.

Logical and Mathematical Intelligence

A person strong in this area is good with math and logic problems. They often enjoy solving mysteries, reading about scientific discoveries, and like to figure out how things work. They are also usually good with computers and a variety of other gadgets.

Spatial Intelligence

A person strong in this area is good with pictures and images. They are often good at putting puzzles together. They appreciate art and photography, like to draw or doodle, notice details, prefer geometry over algebra, and are good at directions.

Body and Movement Intelligence

A person strong in this area is good with sports and movement. They often talk with their hands, like to build things, clown around in class, have great balance, and are good at a variety of sports.

Musical Intelligence

A person strong in this area is good with music and rhythm. They can often read music, remember old songs, notice patterns, and can naturally figure out how to play a tune on an instrument.

Interpersonal Intelligence

A person strong in this area is good with people. They are good listeners, can read body language, hate injustice, can see through people who aren’t being honest, hurt when others hurt, enjoy deep conversations, and often reach out to others who are hurting. Educators, counselors, salespeople, religious and political leaders all need a well-developed interpersonal intelligence.

Intrapersonal Intelligence

A person strong in this area is good at analyzing things. They often think a lot and are highly aware of their strengths and weaknesses. They also often keep a journal and think deeply about life.

Naturalist Intelligence

A person strong in this area is good at understanding nature. They enjoy the wilderness and like to read about nature. They also categorize things, collect things, and enjoy studying plant parts.

Schools often favor verbal-linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligences. This is because most
schools are centered around verbal lectures and a core curriculum that puts a lot of importance on science and math. To cater to all types of learners, schools must strive to find a balance that incorporates the arts, self-awareness, communication, and physical education.

By teaching students in a variety of different forms, we allow them to become holistic learners.

After reviewing this list, which areas are you strongest in? Please feel free to share them in the comments section.

Make Google logo Black

Just easy, go to google.com and type the words "make Google logo black and white" then hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button... It's awesome!

10 Tips to Study Smart and Save Time !

Is it just natural talent? Perhaps. I’ve always had a knack for understanding concepts and learning new ideas. But I also believe the way I learned the information played a role. Instead of cramming last minute or memorizing details, I try to organize information in a way that makes it easier to recall.

This strategy of organization I label holistic learning. Holistic learning is simply the process of organizing information into webs, that interconnect ideas. Instead of forcing ideas into your skull, you focus on the relationships between information. Linking ideas together to see the whole, instead of just the parts.

Building an Understanding

Learning is a process similar to building a house. You aren’t fed the complete picture. Limitations on communication prevent the instantaneous transmission of knowledge. Instead you listen to lectures, read textbooks and take painstaking notes to try and comprehend a subject.

You are fed building supplies, bricks, mortar and glass. It is up to you to assemble the building. Unfortunately, most learning strategies fall into two basic types:

1. Memorization - Instead of building anything you simply stare at each brick for several minutes trying to record its position.
2. Formulas - This is the equivalent to being blind, fumbling around a new house. You can’t see the building itself but you learn to come up with simple rules to avoid walking into walls.

There is nothing particularly wrong with either of these strategies, assuming they aren’t your entire strategy. The human brain isn’t a computer so it can’t memorize infinite sums of knowledge without some form of structure. And formulas no longer work if the questions they are designed to solve change scope.

Learning Holistically

The alternative strategy is to focus on actually using the information you have to build something. This involves linking concepts together and compressing information so it fits in the bigger picture. Here are some ideas to get started:

1. Metaphor - Metaphors can allow you to quickly organize information by comparing a complex idea to a simple one. When you find relationships between information, come up with analogies to increase your understanding. Compare neurons with waves on a string. Make metaphors comparing parts of a brain with sections of your computer.
2. Use All Your Senses - Abstract ideas are difficult to memorize because they are far removed from our senses. Shift them closer by coming up with vivid pictures, feelings and images that relate information together. When I learned how to do a determinant of a matrix, I remembered the pattern by visualizing my hands moving through the numbers, one adding and one subtracting.
3. Teach It - Find someone who doesn’t understand the topic and teach it to them. This exercise forces you to organize. Spending five minutes explaining a concept can save you an hour of combined studying for the same effect.
4. Leave No Islands - When you read through a textbook, every piece of information should connect with something else you have learned. Fast learners do this automatically, but if you leave islands of information, you won’t be able to reach them during a test.
5. Test Your Mobility - A good way to know you haven’t linked enough is that you can’t move between concepts. Open up a word document and start explaining the subject you are working with. If you can’t jump between sections, referencing one idea to help explain another, you won’t be able to think through the connections during a test.
6. Find Patterns - Look for patterns in information. Information becomes easier to organize if you can identify broader patterns that are similar across different topics. The way a neuron fires has similarities to “if” statements in programming languages.
7. Build a Large Foundation - Reading lots and having a general understanding of many topics gives you a lot more flexibility in finding patterns and metaphors in new topics. The more you already know, the easier it is to learn.
8. Don’t Force - I don’t spend much time studying before exams. Forcing information during the last few days is incredibly inefficient. Instead try to slowly interlink ideas as they come to you so studying becomes a quick recap rather than a first attempt at learning.
9. Build Models - Models are simple concepts that aren’t true by themselves, but are useful for describing abstract ideas. Crystallizing one particular mental image or experience can create a model you can reference when trying to understand. When I was trying to tackle the concept of subspaces, I visualized a blue background with a red plane going through it. This isn’t an entirely accurate representation of what a subspace is, but it created a workable image for future ideas.
10. Learning is in Your Head - Having beautiful notes and a perfectly highlighted textbook doesn’t matter if you don’t understand the information in it. Your only goal is to understand the information so it will stick with you for assignments, tests and life. Don’t be afraid to get messy when scrawling out ideas on paper and connecting them in your head. Use notes and books as a medium for learning rather than an end result.

27 free games to keep your kids Entairtained on a road trip !

Taking the kids out on the road can be a blessing and a nightmare. Also, from their perspective, it can be quite boring.

So to let restless kids have a little fun makes sense; but it shouldn’t cost you the price of in-car monitors and gaming consoles! Here are 27 great [and free] games you and the kids can play anytime, anywhere.

27 Free Games to Keep Your Kids Entertained on a Road Trip (travel hacker )

Google Health 2008

Google’s Marissa Mayer, who replaced now ex-Google employee Adam Bosworth as manager of the Google Health product team, said Google Health will officially appear in early 2008. (Screenshots of the product already circulated.) It’s still unusual for Google to announce products instead of just going live in test mode, though it happened before with Google Presentations. According to the Information Week article, Marissa, speaking at a San Francisco get-together, explained:

If you look at health care, there’s already a huge user need, people are already using Google more than any other tool on the Web to find health information ... And the health care industry generates a huge amount of information every year. It’s a natural core competency fo us, to understand how to organize all that data. ...

The goal for a lot of doctors is how many patients can they see in a day ... That means their minutes per patient has got to go down, and the less time they have to spend finding and going over patient records the better. Ultimately we will design a product that’s useful for users, and also helps doctors do their job more quickly and more efficiently.

Ah, “minutes per patient”... doesn’t that just scream personal, caring service, and, for a change, some true human attention in this busy world!

Google search Tricks

*Tip Number One:

The first thing you must do to generate a productive search is think. You need to think about what it is you really want. You really have to search Google for the words or phrases that will be *on the page you want, not for a description of the page or website. So if you are looking for a comparative review of wireless telephones, you will probably get more results from a list of names such as SmartPhone, Audiovox, Motorola, and so on, than the words "comparative review of wireless phones".

*Tip Number Two:

Use Quotation marks to force finding a specific phrase. When you surround your phrase with quotation marks, the search engine will only return results exactly matching the entire phrase. This is an extremely powerful search technique, and yet it is not used by the majority of web searchers. If you search on the two words George and Washington, you will get over 8 million results. If you put quotation marks around the entire name, your results will be restricted to about 3 million. And if your search is on "George Washington" "Cherry Tree", you will only get about 12,600 results. You get the picture. This is especially important if your search contains what are called "stop words" - words that Google is designed to ignore, such as "and" "of" and "the". By including these inside your quoted phrase, you will get more targeted search results.

*Tip Number Three:

Use the Plus (+) and Minus (-) Signs. The plus sign just before a search term means "This MUST be found in the search". Conversely, if you find a lot of search results that include a specific product, word, phrase, or item that you do not want to see, you can put a minus sign before that word or phrase, and those results will be excluded from your search. You can even exclude domains or top-level domains from your search - see the site: command below.

*Tip Number Four:

Use the Asterisk (*) As a WildCard search term. Yes, you can insert an asterisk in your search phrase and it will act as a wild card matching any word in that place in the phrase. Not only that, but you can insert more than one asterisk in place of more than one word in your search phrase, up to the limit of ten search words - and the wild card markers are not counted toward this ten word limit.

*Tip Number Five:

Use the site: command. If you are interested in finding examples of the term XMLHttp, but only on eggheadcafe.com, then you can create a search like this: site:eggheadcafe.com XMLHTTP This will restrict your search to only pages belonging to that web site. You will notice that in regular Google searches, if there are more than two results from that site, the second result will be indented and there will be a link "More results from ..." - this automatically uses the site: qualifier. Also, you can search or exclude whole domains. For example, you can search for tampopo dvd site:co.uk or tampopo dvd -site:com (Tampopo is a wonderful Japanese noodle western spoof by director Juzo Itami that is sure to be enjoyed by Americans. If you really want to get educated IMHO, try to avoid watching films out of Hollywood, as they generally stink).

*Tip Number Six:

Use the operators. Besides the site: command, Google understands a range of operators that include filetype: (eg doc, xls, or pdf), intext: and allintext:, intitle: and allintitle:, inurl: and allinurl:, author: (in Google Groups) and location: (in Google News). Google also understands a logical OR, provided it is upper case. This means you can search for a bar in Orlando OR Miami for example. It is useful when targets of searches have alternative or variable spellings: outsourcing bombay OR mumbai. The OR command can be shortened to a vertical bar (|), as in outsourcing bombay | mumbai. Another way of adding alternatives is to use a tilde character (~). Thus if you search for ~food, Google also searches for cooking, cuisine, nutrition, recipes and restaurants. You have a lot of power and flexibility; you just have to make some notes and learn the language that the search engine understands so that you can speak to it. The search engine doesn't get mad or take offense - provided that you know its language, it will do exactly what you tell it to!

*Tip Number Seven:

Use the Advanced Search Page. Fortunately, you don't need to memorize all of the above tricks, since they are conveniently offered to you in various combinations in the Advanced Search option which is always available from the main Google search page.

*Tip Number Eight:

Use Google Groups. Google has the most complete archive of usenet and other news posts going back over 20 years. By simply switching tabs from Web to Groups, your search term(s) will be repeated on the Groups archives. I cannot stress how valuable this can be- many, many times when I have not found a proper result on the web, by simply switching to Google Groups I've been able to find exactly what I was looking for.

*Tip Number Nine:

Use new advanced search features. Google has a number of new features including Google Local, Google News (news items from newspapers and other publications around the globe), Froogle - which searches for the best prices on products, and the Dictionary - to get the spelling and / or definition of a word. In fact, if you may have misspelled a word in your search, Google's dictionary will remind you with a link that says "Did you really mean XXX?" and clicking that link will correct your search. Google also provides an Images search facility that brings back results filled with actual images on web pages that match your search terms. One of the lastest new offerings as of this writing in October, 2004, is a mobile SMS search that allows you to send an SMS message to google with your search terms for a restaurant and zipcode, somebody's name and address, or whatever, and get back the results to your cellphone in seconds.

Ten steps Toward for better Writting

Writing well is easily one of the most sought-after and useful skills in the business world. Ironically, it is one of the rarest and most undervalued skills among students, and few professors have the time, resources, or skills to teach writing skills effectively. What follows are a handful of tips and general principles to help you develop your writing skills, which will not only improve your grades (the most worthless indicator of academic progress) but will help develop your ability to think and explain the most difficult topics. Although directed at students, most of this advice applies equally well to any sort of writing; in the end, good writing is not limited to one context or another.

1. Pace yourself. Far too many students start their papers the night before they are due and write straight through until their deadline. Most have even deceived themselves into thinking they write best this way. They don’t. Professors give out assignments at the beginning of the semester for a reason: so that you have ample time to plan, research, write, and revise a paper. Taking advantage of that time means that not only will you produce a better paper but you’ll do so with less stress and without losing a night of sleep (or partying) the evening of the due date. Block out time at the beginning of the semester — e.g. 2 weeks for research, 2 weeks for writing, 2 weeks to let your draft “sit”, and a few days to revise and proofread. During your writing time, set aside time to write a little bit each day (500 words is incredibly doable, usually in less than an hour — a short blog post is that long!) and “park downhill” when you’re done — that is, end your writing session at a place where you’ll be able to easily pick up the thread the next day.
2. Plan, then write. For some reason, the idea of planning out a paper strikes fear deep into the hearts of most students — it’s as if they consider themselves modernist artists of the word, and any attempt to direct the course of their brilliance would sully the pure artistic expression that is their paper. This is, in a word, dumb. There is no successful writer who does not plan his work before he starts writing — and if he says he does, he’s lying. Granted, not every writer, or even most, bothers with a traditional formal outline with Roman numerals, capital letters, Arabic numerals, lowercase letters, lowercase Roman numerals, and so on. An outline can be a mindmap, a list of points to cover, a statement of purpose, a mental image of your finished paper — even, if you’re good, the first paragraph you write. See the introduction to this post? That’s an outline: it tells you what I’m going to talk about, how I’m going to talk about it, and what you can expect to find in the rest of the paper. It’s not very complete; my real outline for this post was scribbled on my bedside notebook and consisted of a headline and a list of the ten points I wanted to cover.

   Whatever form it takes, an effective outline accomplishes a number of things. It provides a ruler to measure your progress against as you’re writing. It acts as a reminder to make sure you cover your topic as fully as possible. It offers writing prompts when you get stuck. A good outline allows you to jump back and forth, attacking topics as your thinking or your research allows, rather than waiting to see what you write on page six before deciding what you should write about on page seven. Finally, having a plan at hand helps keep you focused on the goals you’ve set for the paper, leading to better writing than the “making it up as you go along” school of writing to which most students seem to subscribe.

3. Start in the middle. One of the biggest problems facing writers of all kinds is figuring out how to start. Rather than staring at a blank screen until it’s burned into your retinas trying to think of something awe-inspiring and profound to open your paper with, skip the introduction and jump in at paragraph two. You can always come back and write another paragraph at the top when you’re done — but then again, you might find you don’t need to. As it turns out, the first paragraph or so are usually the weakest, as we use them to warm up to our topic rather than to do any useful work.
4. Write crappy first drafts. Give up the fantasy of writing sterling prose in your first go-around. You aren’t Jack Kerouac (and even he wrote some crummy prose) and you aren’t writing the Great American Novel (and Kerouac beat you to it, anyway). Write secure in the knowledge that you can fix your mistakes later. Don’t let the need to look up a fact or to think through a point get in the way of your writerly flow — just put a string of x’es or note to yourself in curly brackets {like this} and move on. Ignore the rules of grammar and format — just write. You can fix your mistakes when you proofread. What you write doesn’t matter, what you rewrite is what matters.
5. Don’t plagiarize. Plagiarism is much more than lifting papers off the Internet — it’s copying phrases from Wikipedia or another site without including a reference and enclosing the statement in quotes, it’s summarizing someone else’s argument or using their data without noting the source, it’s including anything in your paper that is not your own original thought and not including a pointer to where it comes from. Avoid ever using another person’s work in a way that even suggests it is your own.

   Be sparing in your use of other people’s work, even properly cited. A paper that is essentially a string of quotes and paraphrases with a minimum of your on words is not going to be a good paper, even though each quote and paraphrase is followed by a perfectly formed reference.

6. Use directions wisely. Make sure your paper meets the requirements spelled out in the assignment. The number one question most students ask is “how long does it have to be?” The real answer, no matter what the instructions say, is that every paper needs to be exactly as long as it needs to be to make its point. However, almost every topic can be stretched to fill out a book, or condensed down to a one-page summary; by including a page-count, your professor is giving you a target not for the number of words but for the level of detail you should include.

   Contrary to popular opinion, writing shorter papers well is much harder than writing longer papers. If your professor asks you to write 8 - 10 pages, it’s not because she doesn’t think you can write more than ten pages on your topic; more likely, it’s because she doesn’t think you can write less than eight.

7. Avoid Wikipedia. I admit, I am a big fan of Wikipedia. It is generally well-researched, authoritative, and solidly written. But I cringe when students cite Wikipedia in their papers, especially when they use the worst possible introductory strategy: “According to Wikipedia, [subject of paper] is [quote from Wikipedia].” Wikipedia — and any other general-purpose encyclopedia — is really not a suitable source for college-level work. It’s there as a place to look up facts quickly, to gain a cursory understanding of a topic, not to present detailed examinations of academic subjects. Wikipedia is where you should start your research, but the understanding that forms the core of a good academic paper (or nearly any other kind of paper) should be much deeper and richer than Wikipedia offers. But don’t take my word for it: Jimmy Wales, one of Wikipedia’s founders, has very openly discouraged students from using his creation as a source.
8. Focus on communicating your purpose.Revise your paper at least once, focusing on how well each line directs your readers towards the understanding you’ve set out to instill in them. Every sentence should direct your reader towards your conclusion. Ask yourself, “Does this sentence add to my argument or just take up space? Does it follow from the sentence before, and lead into the following sentence? Is the topic of each paragraph clear? Does each sentence in the paragraph contribute to a deeper understanding of the paragraph’s topic?” Revising your paper is where the magic happens — when you’re done with your first draft, your understanding of your subject will be much greater than it was when you started writing; use that deeper knowledge to clarify and enrich your writing. Revision should take about the same time as writing — say 15 - 30 minutes a page.
9. Proofread. Proofreading is a separate thing entirely from revision, and should be the last thing you do before declaring a paper “finished”. This is where you’ll want to pay attention to your grammar — make sure every sentence has a subject and a verb, and that they agree with each other. Fix up all the spelling errors, especially the ones that spell-checking misses (like “there” and “their”). Certainly run your word processor’s spell-checker, but that’s the beginning, not the end, of proofreading. One good trick is to proofread your paper backwards — look at the last word, then the second-to-last word, then the third-to-last word, and so on. This forces your brain to look at each word out of its original context, which means that your memory of what you wanted to write won’t get in the way of seeing what you actually did write.
10. Conclude something. Don’t confuse a “conclusion” with a “summary”. The last paragraph or two should be the culmination of your argument, not a rehash of it. Explain the findings of your research, propose an explanation for the data presented, point out avenues for future research, or point out the significance of the facts you’ve laid out in your paper. The conclusion should be a strong resolution to the paper, not a weak recapitulation tacked on to pad out the page count.

The best way to improve your writing is to write, as much as you can. The tips above will help give you direction and point out areas where you are likely to find weaknesses that undermine your written work. What tricks have you come up with to make the process of writing more productive and less painful?

How to study

The brain is a tangled web of information. We don’t remember single facts, but instead we interlink everything by association. Anytime we experience a new event, our brains tie the sights, smells, sounds and our own impressions together into a new relationship.

Our brain remembers things by repetition, association, visual imagery, and all five senses. By knowing a bit about how the brain works, we can become better learners, absorbing new information faster than ever.

Here are some study tips to help get you started…

Flashcards

Our brains create engrained memories through repetition. The more times we hear, see, or repeat something to ourselves, the more likely we are to remember it.

Flashcards can help you learn new subjects quickly and efficiently. Flashcards allow you to study anywhere at any time. Their portable nature lends them to quick study sessions on the bus, in traffic, at lunch, or in the doctor’s office. You can always whip out your flashcards for a quick 2 to 3 minute study session.

To create effective flashcards, you need to put one point on each flashcard. Don’t load up the entire card with information. That’s just overload. Instead, you should dedicate one concept to each card.

One of the best ways to make flashcards is to put 1 question on the front and one answer on the back. This way, you can repeatedly quiz yourself into you have mastered any topic of your choice.

Commit to reading through your flash cards at least 3 times a day and you will be amazed at how quickly you pick up new information.

As Tony Robbins says, “repetition is the mother of skill”.

Create the Right Environment

Often times, where you study can be just as important as how you study. For an optimum learning environment, you’ll want to find a nice spot that is fairly peaceful. Some people can’t stand a deafening silence, but you certainly don’t want to study near constant distractions.

Find a spot that you can call your own, with plenty of room to spread out your stuff. Go there each time you study and you will find yourself adapting to a productive study schedule. When you study in the same place each time, you become more productive in that spot because you associate it with studying.

Use Acronyms to Remember Information

In your quest for knowledge, you may have once heard of an odd term called “mnemonics”. However, even if you haven’t heard of this word, you have certainly heard of its many applications. One of the most popular mnemonic examples is “Every Good Boy Does Fine”. This is an acronym used to help musicians and students to remember the notes on a treble clef stave.

An acronym is simply an abbreviation formed using the intial letters of a word. These types of memory aids can help you to learn large quantities of information in a short period of time.

Listen to music.

Research has long shown that certain types of music help you to recall information. Information learned while listening to a particular song can often be remembered simply by “playing” the songs mentally in your head.

Rewrite your notes.

This can be done by hand or on the computer. However, you should keep in mind that writing by hand can often stimulate more neural activity than when writing on the computer.

Everyone should study their notes at home but often times, simply re-reading them is too passive. Re-reading your notes can cause you to become disengaged and distracted.

To get the most out of your study time, make sure that it is active. Rewriting your notes turns a passive study time into an active and engaging learning tool. You can begin using this technique by buying two notebooks for each of your classes. Dedicate one of the notebooks for making notes during each class. Dedicate the other notebook to rewriting your notes outside of class.

Engage Your Emotions.

Emotions play a very important part in your memory. Think about it. The last time you went to a party, which people did you remember? The lady who made you laugh, the man who hurt your feelings, and the kid who went screaming through the halls are the ones you will remember. They are the ones who had an emotional impact.

Fortunately, you can use the power of emotion in your own study sessions. Enhance your memory by using your five senses. Don’t just memorize facts. Don’t just see and hear the words in your mind. Create a vivid visual picture of what you are trying to learn.

For example, if you are trying to learn the many parts of a human cell, begin physically rotating the cell in your minds eye. Imagine what each part might feel like. Begin to take the cell apart piece by piece and then reconstruct it. Paint the human cell with vivid colors. Enlarge the cell in your mind’s eye so that it is now six feet tall and putting on your own personal comedy show. This visual and emotional mind play will help deeply encode information into your memory.

Make Associations.

One of the best ways to learn new things is to relate what you want to learn with something you already know. This is known as association, and it is the mental glue that drives your brain.

Have you ever listened to a song and been flooded by memories that were connected to it? Have you ever seen an old friend that triggered memories from childhood? This is the power of association.

To maximize our mental powers, we must constantly be looking for ways to relate new information with old ideas and concepts that we are already familiar with.

You can do this with the use of mindmapping. A mind map is used to diagram words, pictures, thoughts, and ideas into a an interconnected web of information. This simple practice will help you to connect everything you learn into a global network of knowledge that can be pulled from at any moment.

100 Websites you should Know and Use !

The Web is constantly turning out new and extraordinary services many of us are unfamiliar with. During TED University at this spring's TED2007 in Monterey, Julius Wiedemann, editor in charge at Taschen GmbH, offered an ultra-fast-moving ride through sites in many different areas, from art, design and illustration, to daily news, blogs and curiosity. Now, by popular demand, here's his list of 100 websites you should know and use >>

CURIOSITY & KNOWLEDGE
reuters.com
research.philips.com
readme.cc.png
podtropolis.com
papertoys.com
new7wonders.com
lipsum.com
thomasedison.org
beelinetv.com
useit.com
submarinechannel.com/titlesequences
visual-literacy.org
cartype.com
captology.stanford.edu
bannerblog.com_au
ge.com
curiosityshoppeonline.com
creativecommons.org
lawsofsimplicity.com
gnu.org
digg.com

GRAPHICS, MUSIC & ARTS
yugop.com
vincent-vella.com
uva.co.uk
tutorialblog.org/free-vector-downloads
tate.org.uk
squidfingers.com/patterns
sohodolls.co.uk
radioblogclub.com
photogravure.com
netdiver.net/illustration
mine-control.com
matthewmahon.com
marcelod2.com.br
magwerk.com
kraftwerk.blocmedia.net
headbangers.tv *
grupow.com/circulo
creaturesinmyhead.com
bernhardwolff.com
arturofuentes.com
alennox.net

E-COMMERCE EXPERIENCE
colette.fr
imaginemusicstore.com
canyon.com
coft1.com
heftyrecords.com
ourtype.be
freddyandma.com
nikeid.nike.com
feelthepower.biz
shopcomposition.com
oneill.com
agentprovocateur.com

SEARCHING & FINDING
trendwatching.com
thefwa.com
springwise.com
scirus.com
scholar.google.com
podcasts.yahoo.com
msdewey.com
maps.live.com
chacha.com
books.google.com

ONLINE RESOURCES
infopresse.com/prixboomerang
rjnet.com.br/2velocimetro_php
vixy.net
kuler.adobe.com
wikitravel.org
thinkingwithtype.com
dominiopublico.gov.br
madehow.com
icp.org
howstuffworks.com
dafont.com
dictionary.reference.com
gutenberg.org
nationmaster.com
en.proverbia.net
del.icio.us
touchgraph.com

TOP INTERACTIVE EXPERIENCE CREATORS
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Luciano's Pavarotti's birthday Google logo !

Luciano Pavarotti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 12, 1935 – September 6, 2007) was a celebrated Italian tenor in operatic music, who successfully crossed into popular music becoming one of the most beloved vocal performers. Known for his televised concerts, media appearances, and as one of The Three Tenors, Pavarotti was also noted for his humanitarian work benefiting refugees, the Red Cross, and other causes.

He was born in Modena to a baker and a factory worker. After abandoning the dream to become a professional football (soccer) goalkeeper, and spending seven years in vocal training, Pavarotti began in 1961 as a tenor in Italy, then sang in houses in The Netherlands, Vienna, London, Ankara, Budapest, and Barcelona. The young tenor earned both valuable experience and significant recognition while touring on the invitation of soprano Joan Sutherland and during his 1965 US debut in Miami on her recommendation. His position was solidified in the years between 1966 and 1972, during which Pavarotti first appeared at Milan's La Scala, other major European houses, and - in 1968 - NYC's Metropolitan Opera (Met) to great acclaim.

By the mid-1970s, the tenor became known worldwide, famed for the brilliance and beauty of his tone, especially into the upper register. His "high C" became one of his trademarks. The late 1970s and 1980s saw Pavarotti making significant appearances in the world's opera houses and establishing himself as one of the great singers of the era.

Popular stardom came at the 1990 World Cup in Italy with the performances of Nessun Dorma from Turandot and as one of The Three Tenors in their famed first concert held on the eve of the final match of the tournament (repeated at later Cups). Pavarotti sang together with fellow star tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras and brought to the much wider audience hits previously confined to the opera world. Appearances in advertisements and with pop icons in concerts around the world furthered his influence. Unlike many crossover artists, Pavarotti always maintained his identity as an opera star.

The later years brought a decline in ability to perform on stage due to a weight gain and lack of mobility. Pavarotti's final appearance in an opera was at the Met in March 2004. The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy saw him performing for the last time. Pavarotti sang Nessun dorma, with the crowd as its Chorus, and got a thunderous standing ovation. In 2007, he died at home in Modena from pancreatic cancer.
See more his biography at Wikipedia.

What is Jamboree-on-the-Air ?

The JOTA is an annual event in which Scouts and Guides all over the world speak to each other by means of amateur radio contacts. Scouting experiences are exchanged and ideas are shared, via the radio waves.

When Scouts want to meet young people from another country they usually think of attending a World Jamboree or another international gathering. But few people realize that each year about half-a-million Scouts and Guides "get together" over the airwaves for the annual Jamboree-on-the--Air (JOTA). Modern communication technology offers Scouts the exciting opportunity to make friends in other countries without even leaving home.....

Since 1958 when the first jamboree-on-the-Air was held, thousands of Scouts and Guides have "met" each other through this event. Not only is it fun to talk to Scouts from other parts of the world but it provides also a chance to find out about other countries and about Scouting elsewhere. Many contacts made during the JOTA have resulted in penpals and links between scout troops that have lasted for many years.

With no restrictions on age, on the number that can participate and at little or no expense, the JOTA provides an opportunity for Scouts and Guides to contact each other by amateur radio. The radio stations are operated by licensed amateur radio operators. Many Scouts and leaders hold licences and have their own stations, but the majority participates in the JOTA through stations operated by local radio clubs and individual radio amateurs. Today some operators even use television or computer linked communications.

Date and duration of the event

The world--wide Jamboree-On-The-Air is organized to coincide with the third full weekend of October each year. The event starts at 00.00 hours local time on the Saturday and concludes 48 hours later at 24.00 hours local time on the Sunday. Each station can choose its own operating hours within this period.

Euro 2008 Qualifying Round 17/10/07

Kazakhstan	1 - 2	Portugal
17/10/07	Grp E	Russia	2 - 1	England
17/10/07	Grp A	Azerbaijan	1 - 6	Serbia
17/10/07	Grp B	Ukraine	5 - 0	Faroe Islands
17/10/07	Grp B	Georgia	2 - 0	Scotland
17/10/07	Grp C	Malta	2 - 3	Moldova
17/10/07	Grp C	Turkey	0 - 1	Greece
17/10/07	Grp E	F.Y.R. Macedonia	3 - 0	Andorra
17/10/07	Grp F	Liechtenstein	3 - 0	Iceland
17/10/07	Grp F	Denmark	3 - 1	Latvia
17/10/07	Grp D	San Marino	1 - 2	Wales
17/10/07	Grp G	Luxembourg	0 - 2	Romania
17/10/07	Grp C	Bosnia-Herzegovina	0 - 2	Norway
17/10/07	Grp D	Republic of Ireland	1 - 1	Cyprus
17/10/07	Grp F	Sweden	1 - 1	Northern Ireland
17/10/07	Grp G	Netherlands	2 - 0	Slovenia
17/10/07	Grp A	Belgium	3 - 0	Armenia
17/10/07	Grp D	Germany	0 - 3	Czech Republic
17/10/07	Grp G	Albania	1 - 1	Bulgaria
17/10/07	Grp B	France	2 - 0	Lithuania

How to read a painting !

Art is a great status symbol in modern society and because of that it can be quite intimidating to the casual viewer. For many the first impulse is to blow it off, to see it as a worthless plaything for the rich and boring. This is too bad, not only because art can be a great source of pleasure in our lives, but because even a passing acquaintance with art can enrich and deepen our understanding of the world around us.

Fortunately, developing a casual understanding of art is not all that difficult. It is true that some people devote their entire lives to studying the minutest details of an artists’ work, but there’s no need to become an expert to have a meaningful relationship with art. All it takes is a moderate attention to detail, a little bit of patience, and a willingness to reflect on your own feelings.

Here, I’ll show you a quick way to approach and appreciate a painting, although the ideas here can be applied to works in other mediums (sculpture, drawing, even architecture and fashion) quite easily. There’s no shortcut to understanding I can give; great art rewards the hundredth viewing as much as he first, and you can spend a lifetime pondering the decisions an artist made in one painting. Instead, I’ll try to give you a process to follow that will help you get the most out of a painting the first time you see it.

While I’m on the subject, a word about “great art”. Andy Warhol said that if you want to tell a good painting from a bad one, first look at a thousand paintings. There are no hard and fast rules about what makes a piece great, mediocre, or bad; remember, Van Gogh’s work was once considered amateurish and forgettable. There are, of course, standards that matter within the professional art world, but you don’t owe the professionals anything, so don’t worry too much about what they think qualifies as “great”.

Take a Look

Art should appeal to you first through your senses. That doesn’t mean a painting has to be beautiful to be good, but it must grab your eye in some way. Give a work a moment to do its thing — some works are intriguing in subtle ways. A work might grab your attention through its subject matter, it’s use of color, an interesting juxtaposition of objects, it’s realistic appearance, a visual joke, or any number of other factors.

Once you’ve gotten an overall look at the painting, ask yourself “what’s this a picture of?” That is, what is the subject of the painting? The subject might be a landscape, a person or group of people, a scene from a story, a building or city scene, an animal, a still life (a collection of everyday items like a bowl of fruit, a pile of books, or a set of tools), a fantasy scene, and so on. Some paintings won’t have a subject — much of the work of the 20th century is abstract, playing with form and color and even the quality of the paint rather than representing reality.

The painting above, by the Dutch artist Breughel, represents the Tower of Babel. Scenes from the Bible or from classical mythology are popular in older work; since the end of the 19th century, scenes of everyday life have become more common. If you know the story, you’re one step ahead of the game, but it’s possible to enjoy the work without knowing the story it illustrates.

What’s That All About?

Look for symbols. A symbol, very simply, is something that means something else. The Tower of Babel is a well-known symbol in Western society, representing both the dangers of pride and the disruption of human unity. Often a painting will include very clear symbols — skulls, for instance, were often included in portraits of the wealthy to remind them that their wealth was only worldly and, in the grand scheme of things, ultimately meaningless. But just as often the symbolism is unique, the artist’s own individual statement. Don’t get caught in the trap of trying to figure out “what the artist meant”; focus instead on what the work says to you.

How’d They Do That?

The next consideration is style, which is essentially the mark of the artist’s individual creativity on the canvas. Some artists follow well-established styles — many Renaissance portraits look almost exactly alike to the casual viewer, for instance — while others go out of their way to be different and challenging. Some artists create closely detailed, finely controlled works, others slap paint around almost haphazardly creating a wild, ecstatic effect.

It may not seem as obvious as the subject and symbolism, but style can also convey meaning to a viewer. For example, Jackson Pollock’s famous drip paintings convey the motion and freedom of the artist in the act of creation, despite being completely abstract. Vermeer’s Milkmaid, on the other hand, is notable for it’s incredibly fine detail and careful application of thin glazes of oil paints (which doesn’t come across in a photograph, alas) which create a luminous quality, imparting a kind of nobility and even divinity to the simple act of a servant pouring milk.

My Kid Could Do That!

A large part of the appeal of art is emotional — some artists go out of their way to inspire strong reactions ranging from awe and lust to anger and disgust. It’s easy to dismiss work that upsets our notion of what art could be, and any visitor to a gallery of modern art is likely to overhear at least one person complaining that “any three-year old with a box of crayons could do that!”

Knowing that an artist may be deliberately evoking an emotional response, it pays to take a moment and question our immediate reactions. If a work makes you angry, ask yourself why. What is it about the work that upsets you? What purpose might the artist have in upsetting you? Likewise, if your feelings are positive, why are they positive? What about the painting makes you happy? And so on — take the time to examine your own emotions in the presence of the painting.

This is by no means a complete introduction to art, let alone a complete course, but it should help get you started in appreciating art. The more you know, the better the experience will become, but you don’t need to know much to get at least something out of a painting. Keep in mind these 4 concepts (I’m trying not to call them the “Four Esses”) — subject, symbolism, style, and self-examination — and pay a visit to your local art museum or gallery and see if you don’t find something worth your time.

Why we remember what we write ?

A few weeks ago I wrote a post on note-taking skills. One common experience many people have, and that several people mentioned in response to that post, is that when they take good notes they remember things well enough that they rarely end up having to look at their notes again.

In fact, it seems that writing anything down makes us remember it better. On the other hand, not writing things down is just asking to forget. It’s a kind of mental Catch-22: the only way not to have to write things down is to write them down so you remember them well enough not to have written them down.

Oy.

Curious about this, I decided to do some research into the psychology of writing and memory. As it happens, I have quite a background in the anthropology of memory, none of which did me any good reviewing the psychological literature. There’s not a lot out there, not that I could easily find anyway (not being familiar with the psychological literature probably hampered my search) but what I did find was interesting. Seems it’s not simply wishful thinking that lets us ignore our notes once they’re written; there’s good evidence that the act of writing itself helps us remember things better.

Not all things, though. What’s especially interesting is that writing things down appears to help us remember the important stuff, and that the better our notes are the more likely we are to remember.

But first, some basic neuropsychology (!). The brain is divided up into several regions that process different kinds of information. There are separate regions that process visual information, auditory information, emotions, verbal communication, and so on. Although these different regions communicate with each other (for example, when we look at a piece of art we often have an emotional response, which we might then transmit to the language center of our brain to share verbally) each of them has its own processes it has to complete first. (OK, this is all a vast over-simplification, but what can I say? I didn’t take notes that day in Neuropsychology 101…)

When we listen to a lecture, the part of our brain that handles listening and language is engaged. This passes some information on to our memory, but doesn’t seem to be very discriminating in how it does this. So crucial information is treated exactly the same way that trivia is treated.

When we take notes, though, something happens. As we’re writing, we create spatial relations between the various bits of information we are recording. Spatial tasks are handled by another part of the brain, and the act of linking the verbal information with the spatial relationship seems to filter out the less relevant or important information.

So here’s what happens: in one psychological test involving students watching a lecture on psychology (psychologists who work in academia have a virtually unlimited supply of research subjects — their students!) students who did not take notes remembered the same number of points as the students who did take notes. That is, the mere act of taking notes did not increase the amount of stuff they memorized. Both groups of students remembered around 40% of the information covered in the lecture (which as a professor makes me sad, but I guess that’s the way humans work). But the students who had taken notes remembered a higher proportion of key facts, while those who did not take notes remembered a more or less random assortment of points covered in the lecture.

What this and other tests suggest is that when we write — before we write, although indistinguishably so — we are putting some degree of thought into evaluating and ordering the information that we are receiving. That process, and not the notes themselves, is what helps fix ideas more firmly in our minds, leading to greater recall down the line.

Which is fine for notes, but what about other kids of writing? Apparently the same thing happens: in building a link between the spatial part of our brain that we need to use in order to make marks on paper that make sense (that is, to write) and the verbal part of our brain that we need to compose meaningful utterances to supply our writing hand with, we strengthen the process by which important information is stored in our memory.

But there’s something else going on, too. When we write something down, research suggests that as far as our brain is concerned, it’s as if we were doing that thing. Writing seems to act as a kind of mini-rehearsal for doing. I’ve written before about how visualizing doing something can “trick” the brain into thinking it’s actually doing it, and writing something down seems to use enough of the brain to trigger this effect. Again, this leads to greater memorization, the same way that visualizing the performance of a new skill can actually improve our skill level.

The first thing just about every personal productivity writer in the world tells us is to write everything down. If you’re a “writer-downer”, you know how important this is, and you know that it works. Hopefully, now you know a little bit about why it works, too.

club penguin new pin

Το νέο pin στο Club Penguin βρίσκεται στο Puffle Shop στο κάτω κάτω μέρος της οθόνης σας.