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Business China Education Finance India Life Science Social Technology

Skilled Immigrants on Why They’re Leaving the U.S.

A long wait for a green card, coupled with the soft U.S. economy, is prompting an exodus of some of the best and brightest — Lured by the prospect of climbing to the top of his field, New Delhi native Swaroop Ganguly came to the U.S. 10 years ago and earned a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2005. He became an expert in an emerging technology called spintronics, used to power semiconductors, and worked at several chip companies, including Freescale Semiconductor. But Ganguly, now 32, is moving back to India this summer. Although he has been doing postdoctoral work at the University of Texas, he figures his prospects for research and professional development are probably better in his home country. “I feel quite excited about going back,” he says.

Read the article: Skilled Immigrants on Why They’re Leaving the U.S. – BusinessWeek

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Education Innovation Life Productivity Science

The Cone of Learning

Something very interesting, slightly questionable, but beautifully summarises how different ways of learning can affect retention of information. Taken from Robert Kiyosaki‘s book ‘Financial IQ’, the diagram is inspired by but a highly convoluted version of the second graph below known as the ‘Cone of Experience’ originally conceived by Edgar Dale in 1969 (notice that it did not have any numbers).

The Cone Of Learning by Edgar Dale
The Cone Of Learning (source Financial IQ by Robert Kiyosaki)

‘Cone of Experience’ originally conceived by Edgar Dale:

Original Cone of Experience Edgar Dale
Original Cone of Experience Edgar Dale

Verbal Symbols < Visual Symbols < Recordings Radio Still Pictures < Motion Pictures < Educational Television < Exhibits < Study Trips < Demonstrations < Dramatized Experiences < Contrived Experiences < Direct Purposeful Experiences.

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Education History Politics Science Technology

Moon landing tapes got erased, not lost

The original recordings of the first humans landing on the moon 40 years ago were erased and re-used, but newly restored copies of the original broadcast look even better, NASA officials said on Thursday.

“The good news is he found where they went. The bad news is they were part of a batch of 200,000 tapes that were degaussed — magnetically erased — and re-used to save money.”

Read the article: NewsDaily: Moon landing tapes got erased, NASA admits

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Art Business Education Finance Life Social

If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened

If you wish to be rich, however, you must grow a carapace. A mental armour. Not so thick as to blind you to well-constructed criticism and advice, especially from those you trust. Nor so thick as to cut you off from friends and family. But thick enough to shrug off the inevitable sniggering and malicious mockery that will follow your inevitable failures. Not to mention the poorly hidden envy that will accompany your eventual success.

Read the article: If you want to be rich, first stop being so frightened

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Business Innovation Productivity Technology

Google to launch operating system

Google is developing an operating system (OS) for personal computers, in a direct challenge to market leader Microsoft and its Windows system.Google Chrome OS will be aimed initially at small, low-cost netbooks, but will eventually be used on PCs as well. – BBC

Read the article: Google to launch operating system

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Business Education History Innovation Productivity Technology

Proprietary software vs. Open-source software vs. Cloud + SaaS

Open-source software has won the argument. Now a new threat to openness looms with the advent of “Cloud computing” — the delivery of software as a service (SaaS). Moving from one service provider to another could be even more difficult than switching between software packages in the old days. For a foretaste of this problem, try moving your Orkut profile to Facebook without manually retyping everything. The obvious answer is to establish agreed standards for moving data between clouds.

Read the article: Unlocking the cloud

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Uncategorized

Google Wave: New way to communicate

Google Wave is a new model for communication and collaboration on the web, coming later this year. Although slightly more complicated that using simple email, it is really simplistic for what it does. Email, chats, blog posts and comments, photos – all in one place.

Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009 video:

A sneek peak:

Official Website: About Google Wave

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Energy Finance Innovation Life Technology

10 Tools To Save on Electricity Bills

“Smart meters installed at homes can unleash data about the fluctuating price of electricity throughout the day, enabling consumers that have energy management tools to shift energy consumption to the time of day when power is cheapest. The utility-focused tools use smart meter info to provide a deeper dive into energy analysis and can even control smart appliances for utilities to implement demand response events.” – earth2tech.com

googlepowermetergreenenergyoptions

My picks: Google PowerMeter and Green Energy Options. (Both pictured above)


Read the article:
10 Monitoring Tools Bringing Smart Energy Home

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Business Education Life Productivity Social

The Brand Called You

“Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.” (via Fast Company)

Read the article: The Brand Called You

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Business Innovation Science Technology

Breakthrough Can Put 100 DVDs on a Disc

A disc that can store 500 gigabytes (GB) of data, equivalent to 100 DVDs, has been unveiled by General Electric. The micro-holographic disc, which is the same size as existing DVD discs, is aimed at the archive industry. But the company believes it can eventually be used in the consumer market place and home players. More here.

Read the article: Optical disc offers 500GB storage