Month: November 2007

Categories
Education Innovation Life Productivity Social Technology

Wondering which blogs to read?

With a plethora of blogs available on the web these days, one is often left wondering which ones to read.

An algorithm developed at Carnegie Mellon University called Cascades identifies the top 100 blogs at a given time. The algorithm can be seen in action on their project website. (via EurekAlert).

Other services, that follow popular or hottest discussions /stories in the blogosphere include Techmeme and Tailrank. Google news (my favourite) essentially does the same for traditional mainstream news sources.

For more of our favourite blogs, check the links on the sides. Needless to say, the above is not a substitute for the cool stuff you find on WastedMonkeys 🙂

Categories
Business Innovation Productivity Technology Travel

Kindle, e-reader from Amazon

Today Amazon launched an electronic reader to read books, magazines, blogs etc. on the move. 3 years in production, the look and feel gives the impression that it has been in production for 30 years without any recent updates. You can buy books via Amazon’s book store from anywhere using the inbuilt wireless technology used by mobile phones. Amazon must be hoping to replicate the revolution for books as ipod did for music. I very much doubt it due to the fact that it is far from being ‘cool’ and I find it of little use to me. But then I am not an avid reader of books.

arrow_blue_small Kindle: First Impressions

Categories
History Life Meta Science Social

The Consumer Paradox

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases.

“The only reason a great many American families don’t own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.” 🙂

arrow_blue_small The Consumer Paradox: Scientists Find that Low Self-Esteem and Materialism Goes Hand in Hand

Categories
Health Life Productivity Social

How to survive a burnout at work

IF, it seems impossible to do basic work you know you’re capable of, you find it hard to relax, everything seems gray and pointless, what was once fun and challenging feel stupid and annoying or perhaps the things that used to motivate or move you don’t resonate at all, you might be suffering a ‘creative burnout’. This essay points out how to identify the root cause, how to cure it and/or how to face it. [via LifeHacker]

arrow_blue_small How to survive creative burnout

Categories
Business Finance

PetroChina becomes world’s biggest company by Market Cap

This year recorded the biggest opening for a movie ever as Spider-Man 3 (~$60 million), biggest opening for a video game as Halo 3 (~$170 million) and now the biggest opening for a stock market IPO as China’s PetroChina with a market capitalization of $1.1 Trillion!

PetroChina Co. almost tripled on its first day of trading in Shanghai, becoming the world’s first company to be valued at $1 trillion, more than Exxon Mobil Corp. and General Electric Co. combined [next two in the rankings].

arrow_blue_small PetroChina’s Value Tops $1 Trillion, Surpassing Exxon

Related Post: World’s biggest public companies

Categories
Business Finance Social Technology

Upcoming: Google’s Mobile OS

“Google, owner of the world’s most popular Internet search engine, today will announce the 30-member Open Handset Alliance, which includes Sprint, T-Mobile and phone makers Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the deal isn’t public yet.” – Bloomberg

(Google stock price has risen 2% on the news today to be at the current price of $725.)

arrow_blue_small Google to Introduce Mobile-Phone System, People Say

Categories
Business Finance History Social

What’s happening to the Dollar?

The plummet of the dollar — The Chinese are sitting on too many dollars to divest; they would lose too much. The Europeans are taking advantage of the Chinese position, selling off greenbacks, forcing the dollar down faste.

arrow_blue_small Sinking Currency, Sinking Country

Related: China threatens to trigger US dollar crash

Categories
Education Innovation Science Technology Travel

Robotic Cars race it to the end

The team from Carnegie Mellon University finished first in the DARPA Urban Challenge where robotic cars were to complete a fully autonomous 60-mile journey including turns, intersections, overtaking and flat out cruising. Stanford came in second with Victor Tango in third place. MIT finished sixth. (via Scobleizer)

arrow_blue_small Carnegie Mellon and GM’s Boss Wins DARPA Urban Challenge