Introduction to "Voila" Madonna Radio

Hello,

Firstly i’d like to tell you that www.MadonnaRadio.com is dedicated to Madonna and her fans, playing Madonna’s music, live performances and interviews. The remixes are currently the main focus on Madonna Radio and all of the associated social networking sites. This blog is personal thoughts and experiences journal while producing the sites during the year of 2010. I’m excited to share this experience. I consider this “The People’s Madonna Station” and i’m here to give a face to this project so that you understand, though joyful and rewarding, i’m not a machine, this is challenging, time consuming, demanding and is somewhat expensive, much like a balanced performance (totally worth it, it’s my bliss). Directing the music selections on Sirius XM Satellite Radio is the next step.

This project is pure passion and, already a dream come true. Not only do I listen to each and every piece before it is live and playing for you, finding the right balance of genre is challenging.  Relying on the listeners is the most important part, your feedback posted in Facebook (and Twitter) is the most important.

The launch of Madonna Radio has many credits. My name is David Voila and I began this project in February 2005. Humberto, who lives in Venezuela and runs Madonna-Latina.com designed the Avatar in 2008, based on Tom Munro’s photo from the Give It 2 Me video. The Logo for Madonna Radio was created by Dens54 and he remixes music in France, producing Dens54.com, Dens54 is a featured remix artist within the suite of sites associated with Madonna Radio. Ben, who lives in France and runs Madonna Downloaded, and Zack who lives in France and runs Absolument Madonna, are two people who indirectly influence the content within the site. Claire, who lives in the UK and runs Madonnalicious, helped give me wings to launch the site and her community helps direct the site’s music choices. Anthony, who lives in France and runs Madonna-ConneXion, helped give me wings for Madonna Radio during it’s conception phase during Madonna Confessions Tour, we met in Paris. Madonna Radio is what it is today because of these people as well as the 200,000 + listeners, many of whom interact within Facebook.com/MadonnaRadio.

Madonna is the most inspiring woman and it’s like she’s with me, every step of the way on this journey, both in regards to this project and in my every day life. She helps me to help myself and, ultimately, help other people with her art and actions. Her truth rings true in my heart and in the millions of people’s lives that she has touched. Madonna gave me purpose, since i was a little kid, listening to Lucky Star on my cassette tape in my bedroom believing she was singing to me.

When I feel inspired I listen to her music to and dream a little brighter. When I feel down, i watch her interviews and lift my spirits. When I feel my daily happy self, I watch her concerts and dance along.

To say the least, I feel privileged to produce Madonna Radio and collaborate with the many people who give input into what makes this site into a dream for many. Dreams come true and you’re a piece of this history.

Thanks for reading, the daily posts in this blog is a journey journal for inspirational reading.

Dreams come true.

[Via http://madonnaradio.wordpress.com]

How to leave MySpace forever

If you outgrew MySpace (or just want to migrate to FaceBook and become part of its 350-million strong netizenry), read this wiki for tips on how to remove your MySpace trail.

Un-MySpace Yourself – Wired How-To Wiki

You used to find your MySpace account quite useful. But now it’s gathering dust, and maybe even causing you heartache. And, although it sounds like fun, you don’t want to start a band so that your profile can have a use. Don’t fret, there’s hope. Keep reading and you’ll learn how to take charge of your MySpace account — or get rid of it altogether.

[Via http://webpageauthority.wordpress.com]

Mythbusters regular Erik Gates & James Owen Sullivan, Avenged Sevenfold drummer...DEAD...

Mythbusters regular Erik Gates dies in freak accident

Erik Gates, a regular on the popular show MythBusters, has died following a thirty foot fall in a work-related accident.

Gates, 47, owned Gateco Electric and was working at a site when he fell through a skylight. Gates suffered blunt force chest injuries and died on Sunday. In an even sadder twist, Gates’ brother Dirk Gates is president and CEO of Xirrus, Inc.- the company that owns the site where his brother was killed. Xirrus’ CFO commented on the tragedy to the Ventura County Star:

“He was a good guy,” Steve DeGennaro, Xirrus Inc.’s co-founder and chief financial officer, said Monday. “He survived cancer, he jumps with parachutes, he base jumps. He’s an active guy who was used to taking precautions. This was a freak accident that shouldn’t have happened.”

Erik and Dirk Gates were active in rocketry and operated a website, Gates Brother Rocketry. It was Gates’ expertise in rockets that initiated his involvement with MythBusters. On the MythBusters official Twitter feed, condolences were expressed for Gates earlier today:

(1 of 2) Team MB wishes to express our deepest sympathies on the passing of our beloved rocket expert, Erik.

(2 of 2) You were an honorary MythBuster and will be sorely missed.

Erik Gates appeared on four episodes of MythBusters as the shows “Amateur Rocket Expert.” He appeared on the initial pilot for the show in 2003, and in subsequent episodes Ming Dynasty Astronaut (2004,) Bullet Proof Water, 360 Degree Swing (2005,) and Confederate Rocket (2005.)
Drummer for Avenged Sevenfold found dead at home

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif.—Police say James Owen Sullivan, a drummer and backup vocalist for the Southern California band Avenged Sevenfold, has been found dead at his home in Huntington Beach.

Lt. John Domingo says the 28-year-old Sullivan, who went by the stage name The Rev, appears to have died of natural causes on Monday.

The Orange County coroner’s office is investigating the death.

Avenged Sevenfold formed in Huntington Beach in 1999 and won Best New Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2006. According to their MySpace page, the five-man metalcore band was working on their fifth album.

The band released a statement Monday expressing their sadness and calling Sullivan “one of the world’s best drummers,” and “our best friend and brother.”

[Via http://ctpatriot1970.wordpress.com]

Turbo stalking

Ever get the urge to find people you haven’t thought of/hate/not sure if you care about them anymore? Obviously it’s really easy to find said people with all the faces and spaces, but I’m not so sure it’s such a great idea.

I had a really bad room mate for awhile and I just looked her dumb ass up, only to find that she’s living a really great life in Brooklyn and knows some of the same people out there I do. What a bummer! I was hoping she’d be stuck in a shitty job somewhere equally shitty because she treats people like shit. So much for karma.

I kind of hate having a lot of time on the internet, it makes me think of doing things like cyber stalking and then I start thinking about if people ever look me up? What kind of silly ego trip is that? Why should I give a fuck if some ex boyfriend/former BFF/shitty room mate wants to see what I’ve been up to? But for some reason I do. Maybe I should just delete the whole kitten-caboodle and breathe the fresh air of being a mystery. hmmmm we’ll sleep on that. Maybe when I get my new computer I will save the pictures I have and then BAM myspace you are dead to me.

[Via http://sciencehighfive.wordpress.com]

7-Eleven Hack From Russia Led to ATM Looting in New York

Flashback, early 2008: Citibank officials are witnessing a huge spike in fraudulent withdrawals from New York area ATMs — $180,000 is stolen from cash machines on the Upper East Side in just three days. After a stakeout, police arrest one man walking out of a bank with thousands of dollars in cash and 12 reprogrammed cards. A lucky traffic stop catches two more plunderers who’d driven in from Michigan. Another pair are arrested after trying to mug an undercover FBI agent on the street for a magstripe encoder. In the end, there are 10 arrests and at least $2 million dollars stolen.

The wellspring of the dramatic megaheist turns out to be more prosaic than imagined: It started with a breach of the public website of America’s most famous convenience store chain: 7-Eleven.com.

In his most-recent plea agreement, filed in court Monday, confessed hacker Albert Gonzalez admitted conspiring in the 7-Eleven breach and fingered two Russian associates as the direct culprits. The Russians are identified as “Hacker 1″ and “Hacker 2″ in Gonzalez’s plea agreement, and as “Grigg” and “Annex” in an earlier document inadvertently made public by his attorney.

The Russians, evidently using an SQL injection vulnerability, “gained unauthorized access to 7-Eleven, Inc.’s servers through 7-Eleven’s public-facing internet site, and then leveraged that access into servers supporting ATM terminals located in 7-Eleven stores,” the plea agreement reads. “This access caused 7-Eleven, Inc., on or about November 9, 2007, to disable its public-facing internet site to disable the unauthorized access.”

At the time, there were 5,500 Citibank-branded ATMs at 7-Eleven stores around the country. According to SEC documents, 7-Eleven ran its own transaction-processing server to handle 2,000 of them: advanced models called Vcom machines, manufactured by NCR. The 7-Eleven Vcoms support special functions like bill payment, check cashing and money-order purchases. For two weeks in September 2007, anyone who typed a PIN in one of these was exposed.

Court records from the New York–area Citibank cases show how that single breach from Russia trickled over the internet and down to the streets of New York.

The first break in the case had its roots in a Jan. 30, 2008, traffic stop. Westchester County police pulled a car over for speeding on the Saw Mill River Parkway in Dobbs Ferry, New York. The driver, 21-year-old Nue Quni, was driving on a suspended license, so the officers decided to have the vehicle impounded. While they waited for the tow truck, they conducted a routine “inventory search” of the car.

Inside, police found $3,000 in cash, a laptop computer, a magstripe writer — which is used to reprogram cards — and 102 blank, white plastic cards. They also recovered receipts showing cash withdrawals from ATMs in Manhattan and the Bronx, and more showing wire transfers.

Facing federal access-device-fraud charges, the passenger in the car, 22-year-old Luma Bitti, began cooperating with the FBI. She explained that she was hired over the internet in December 2007 to program cards with the stolen information, then withdraw money from ATMs and wire it to other people. With Bitti’s consent, an FBI agent took over her IM and e-mail accounts, and began corresponding with the person who hired her.

Citibank ATM plunderer Yuriy Ryabinin is shown in a 2003 photo taken at a ham-radio convention.
The FBI arranged in April 2008 to meet the man in Manhattan, supposedly to provide him with a magstripe writer. An FBI agent, still posing as a fraudster, showed up at the meeting with a magstripe writer in hand.

But the man, who is identified in one court record by the initials “DK”, double-crossed the undercover agent, and sent two proxies in his place: 21-year-old Andrey Baranets and one Aleksandr Desevoh, according to an FBI affidavit. When the agent refused to hand over the magstripe writer, Desevoh took a swing at the agent, who ducked the blow and ran away.

The two men gave chase through the streets of Manhattan, before they were grabbed by other FBI agents who’d been watching the scene. In pleading guilty last February, Desevoh said DK had told him to “take this device using force.”

Federal prosecutors in New York had by then charged three more people in the ATM-cashing conspiracy, including 32-year-old Ukrainian immigrant Yuriy Ryabinin, aka Yuriy Rakushchynets, and 30-year-old Ivan Biltse.

In addition to looting Citibank accounts, Ryabinin had participated in a global cybercrime feeding frenzy that tore into four specific iWire prepaid MasterCard accounts, issued by St. Louis–based First Bank, in the fall of 2007. On Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 — just two days — the iWire accounts were hit with more than 9,000 actual and attempted withdrawals from ATM machines around the world, resulting in $5 million in losses.

At the time of the ATM capers, FBI and U.S. Secret Service agents had been investigating Ryabinin for his activities on Eastern European carder forums. Ryabinin used the same ICQ chat account to conduct criminal business, and to participate in amateur-radio websites. The feds compared photos of Ryabinin from some of the ham sites to video captured by New York ATM cameras in the Citibank and iWire withdrawals, and determined it was the same man — right down to the tan jacket with dark-blue trim.

When they raided Ryabinin’s home, agents found his computer logged into a carding forum. They also found a magstripe writer and $800,000 in cash — including $690,000 in garbage bags, shopping bags and boxes stashed in the bedroom closet. Another $99,000 in cash turned up in one of the safe-deposit boxes rented by Ryabinin and his wife, Olena. Biltse was also found with $800,000 in cash.

Ryabinin’s wife told investigators that she witnessed her husband “leave the couple’s house with bundles of credit cards in rubber bands and return with large sums of cash,” a Secret Service affidavit (.pdf) reads.

Two of the ATM scammers arrested by the FBI filled in the bureau on the details of the operation, explaining how, beginning in December 2007, they began working with a ringleader in Russia, who provided them with ATM account numbers and PINs. The deal was straightforward: They’d use the information to encode fraudulent ATM cards and withdraw cash, sending 70 percent of the take to the Russian and keeping 25 percent for themselves. Another 5 percent went for expenses.

The duo initially used Western Union money transfers to get cash to their boss in Russia, according to an FBI affidavit. Later, they exploited a relationship with 30-year-old Ilya Boruch, an “exchanger” for the site WebMoney, a PayPal-like internet-payment system.

Exchangers are normally legitimate businesspeople who swap cash for WebMoney’s internet currency. But according to the feds, Boruch had gone bad and become a money-laundering service for the Citibank ATM heists, transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars to the ringleader in Russia, without reporting the transactions to the government, as required by U.S. law.

Through his business, Bidding Expert, Boruch allegedly funneled as much as $80,000 to $100,000 a week on behalf of the two fraudsters, who delivered the cash to Boruch in person, sometimes by tossing envelopes into an open window in his car.

One of the FBI informants, identified as co-conspirator 1, or CC-1, in court documents, held this instant-message exchange with Boruch on Jan. 10, 2008, according to the FBI. (Punctuation is added).

CC-1: Need more wm [WebMoney] …

Boruch: How much?

CC-1: 60 [$60,000]

Boruch: Wow. OK. Listen, is everything OK?

CC-1: So far. Why?

Boruch: Well, you need so much wm! It’s just kinda strange

CC-1: We’re working

Boruch: OK. Drop it off all in 100s …

CC-1: When can the wm be ready?

Boruch: Don’t know

CC-1: Approximately

Boruch: If you pay an additional 0.5 percent then it’ll be ready tomorrow

CC-1: And if not?

Boruch: Then I don’t know. I can buy it from my people, but they’re expensive

Boruch was charged last year with conspiracy to launder money.

The final known arrests in New York came on May 8 of last year. Citibank noticed that a large number of the fraudulent withdrawals were coming through its 65th Street branch, prompting them to put the location under surveillance. When the Citibank official staking out the spot got a call alerting him to a theft in progress, he crossed the street to peer through the vestibule glass, and watched as a man in a baseball cap, jeans and a sports coat put a thick envelope into a briefcase and moved from one ATM to the next.

The official flagged down two nearby NYPD officers who’d already been briefed on the fraud, and the cops arrested 28-year-old Aleksandar Aleksiev. With his consent, they searched his bag and found six ATM-deposit envelopes stuffed with cash, and 12 blank cards with stickers on them and a different PIN code written on each.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/seven-eleven/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wired/index+(Wired:+Index+3+(Top+Stories+2))

[Via http://ramanan50.wordpress.com]

Does Aspartame Cause Tumors and Pose Cancer Risks? The Jury Is Still Out

Aspartame is consumed by over 200 million people in more than 6,000 products — but how many of us are aware of the health risks?

“Sweet taste is a quality of some chemical substances that the human race has always associated with pleasure,” wrote George E. Inglett in the 1984 book Aspartame: Physiology and Biology, about the controversial artificial sweetener marketed in powder form under popular brands like NutraSweet and Equal. Initially approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1974, aspartame is now “consumed by over 200 million people in more than 6,000 products,” according to the Calorie Control Council’s dedicated site Aspartame.org. “As a result, high value has been placed on materials exhibiting sweetness,” Inglett wrote.

Not just high value, but high risk, according to scientists who have watched the hyperconsumptive human race incorporate sugar, and its replacements, more inextricably into their diet than ever before. The jury is already in when it comes to the ravages of sugar, especially in sodas. The escalating use of sugar has engendered diabetes and obesity epidemics worldwide. But after years of intrigue touching on everything from its approval process to its possible carcinogenicity, the jury is out on the still-controversial aspartame. It could be responsible for increases in various cancers and even Gulf War Syndrome, or, it could not. And that uncertainty is fueling both aspartame’s increasing consumption, and possibly its mounting menace.

“Because of a 1970s-era study that suggested that it caused brain tumors in rats, and because it causes headaches or dizziness in a small number of people, a cloud of doubt has long hung over aspartame,” explained Dr. Michael F. Jacobson, executive director of Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington DC.

The main reason for that cloud, according to Jacobson, is the defining lack of research. Even with unassailable data, controversies have a tendency to remain potent. (File under: Climate change.) Especially in a digital age when information and disinformation share the same spread patterns.

“Unfortunately, few independent studies have been conducted since the company-sponsored tests of the seventies,” Jacobson said. “However, a respected Italian laboratory has conducted two lifetime-feeding studies on rats in the past several years. Both studies, which were published in a peer-reviewed journal sponsored by the U.S. government, indicated that aspartame caused tumors. Those findings are of great concern, but the fact that the researchers won’t permit the Food and Drug Administration to examine the original pathology slides raises questions about the reliability of the studies.”

In other words, there are enough politicized wrinkles in the aspartame controversy to grow old trying to settle it. In that Italian study, conducted by the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences, scientists claimed that FDA’s acceptable daily intake (ADI) of aspartame — 50 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day, approved in 1983 — is potentially carcinogenic. For their part, both the FDA and the industry-friendly Calorie Control Council are compromised by that infamous claim. The latter “represent[s] the low-calorie and reduced-fat food and beverage industry” heavyweights like Coke, Pepsi and more.

The former? Two words: Donald Rumsfeld.

Between 1977 and 1985, the conniving neoconservative — a man whom even Richard Nixon dubbed a “ruthless little bastard” — served as president of G.D. Searle, the pharmaceutical company (now part of Pfizer) that discovered the sweetness of aspartame in 1965, after a chemist heating it in a flask with methanol accidentally licked the substance from his fingers. By 1974, Searle had gotten aspartame approved for use in dry foods by the FDA, but claims of carcinogenicity from neuropathologist John Olney and anti-additive author and lawyer James Turner, as well as grand jury proceedings instituted by the Department of Justice against Searle for drug-study fraud, prevented the company from marketing the artificial sweetener.

Once the deeply politically connected Rumsfeld arrived, those defenses crumbled. Further aspartame studies, reevaluations and influence-peddling quickly took hold. By the time Rumsfeld left Searle in 1985, he had already shaken Saddam Hussein’s hand, sold off the downsized Searle to agri-biz titan Monsanto (netting a cool $12 million in the process), and cleared the way for FDA approval of aspartame use in carbonated drinks.

That clearance, according to some aspartame theorists, could have led directly to Gulf War syndrome. The theory claims that soldiers drinking diet sodas in the desert heat were really ingesting methanol, which is purportedly released whenever aspartame is heated over 86 degrees Fahrenheit. Ergo, Gulf warriors baking in a 120-degree climate near palettes of cans containing the sweet stuff had no chance. They also note that there are nearly direct symmetries of serious side effects from aspartame test subjects and sufferers of Gulf War Syndrome. And then there is, always, Donald Rumsfeld, a sparkly data point on the matrix of aspartame and all things having to do with wars in Middle East deserts.

Mission accomplished. Right? Wrong. There are simply no smoking guns to be had. Yet.

“Bottom line,” Jacobson concluded, “is that there are safety questions about aspartame, and it would be worth minimizing children’s consumption of that additive.”

Good luck with that. The average American swallows approximately 22 teaspoons of extra sugar daily, the American Heart Association warned in August 2009, while the maximum should be six for women and nine for men. And although the Calorie Control Council argues that one benefit of artificial sweeteners like aspartame is that they make great stand-ins for sugar for those suffering from diabetes and obesity, Purdue University’s Ingestive Research Center says the opposite is true. Recent data from its studies “indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity [fat] than would consuming the same food sweetened with a higher-calorie sugar,” its scientists explained in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience. The reasons are simple: Artificial sweeteners are, well, artificial. They excite the taste buds, but don’t sate them, creating a hunger for more calories where there should be satisfaction with less. The result? Instant appetite, as well as possible triggers for increased risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome.

But the science of aspartame, like its politics, are far from finished.

“We would not speculate on why some consider the approval to be controversial,” FDA spokesperson Michael L. Herndon said to AlterNet. “Aspartame has been very well studied. Extensive toxicological and pharmacological studies were done in laboratory animals using far greater doses of aspartame than people could possibly consume. The safety of aspartame has been reviewed repeatedly, not only by the United States, but by other authorities, such as Canadian, United Kingdom, Australian and Japanese regulatory authorities, European Scientific Committee for Foods, European Food Safety Authority, the American Medical Association, and the American Dietetic Association.”

“The overwhelming body of scientific evidence on aspartame is conclusive: aspartame is safe,” added Calorie Control Council spokesperson Beth Hubrich. “It has been reviewed time and time again by regulatory bodies worldwide with the same conclusion: aspartame is safe.”

Hubrich’s probable exasperation on the issue is echoed by Jacobson, with a caveat. “The Internet is loaded with outrageously exaggerated claims about the dangers of aspartame,” he said. “What the controversy deserves is careful new studies, ideally conducted by the federal government, to get to the bottom of the issue.”

More science could go a long way toward annihilating the aspartame controversy once and for all. But it probably won’t, unless it can maneuver around the potential obesity threat of both sugary and diet sodas, candies and other treats that trick us into lives of compromised health. Sweetening the pot are the hard numbers: The artificial sweetener market is annually valued at well over a couple billion dollars. That fact was at the heart of the recent court battle between the old-school titan aspartame (Equal) and the delicious newcomer sucralose (Splenda) for primacy in the market.

And even the FDA has admitted that we have an “obesity epidemic” on our hands, a statement that somewhat contradicts its belief in the safety of aspartame. It’s a safety still in question, especially by states like Hawaii and New Mexico that have tried to ban the artificial sweetener, as well as those like California that are recommending deeper study on aspartame’s carcinogenic quotient.

“If states are considering banning aspartame, they will also have to consider banning milk, chicken, meat, orange juice, tomato juice” and more, said Hubrich. “Because aspartame is made up of components found in everyday foods and beverages. Aspartame is composed of two amino acids, aspartic acid and phenylalanine, as the methyl ester. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Aspartic acid and phenylalanine are also found naturally in protein-containing foods, including meats, grains and dairy products. Methyl esters are also found naturally in many foods, such as fruits and vegetables and their juices.”

Hubrich’s chemistry is relatively sound, although her logic is fallacious. Just because aspartame is comprised of “everyday foods” does not mean a ban on aspartame as an additive or sugar substitute will lead to consideration of bans of any of the foods she mentions. But her concern is valid, given her employer’s industry: A ban on aspartame, in any state, would seriously weaken aspartame’s earnings reports. Especially given that store chains in countries with less disastrous health situations are already moving to ban artificial flavors and sweeteners. Throw in a wider artificial sweetener marketplace with more players, and the Calorie Control Council is right to be worried. If any scientific link between aspartame and obesity, to say nothing of cancer, is ever established, even Rumsfeld probably couldn’t bring it back from the dead.

But the wider lesson of the continuing aspartame soap opera is sweet, not sour: America is a country hooked not just on sweets, but on the idea that sweets are socially acceptable. Our consumption levels have much wider ramifications beyond our bodies, from the invasion of soda machines in elementary schools to a fractured health care system that simply can’t shoulder any more sugar-soaked fat-asses.

“By the fourteenth century,” Inglett noted in Aspartame: Physiology and Biology, “sugar was being refined. It was regarded, however, as a rare delicacy. Today, we accept the presence of sugar as commonplace.”

And it’s been killing us softly with its sweet song, artificial and otherwise, ever since.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/144617/does_aspartame_cause_tumors_and_pose_cancer_risks_the_jury_is_still_out/?page=entire

[Via http://ramanan50.wordpress.com]

Social Networking: a Game Changer for Language Learning?

I recently took a break from research to do a few days of substitute teaching at a local university’s ESL department. One of my duties was to supervise a group of students in their computer writing lab. I personally thought it was a waste of time for both me as a teacher, and for the students who where given a daily scenario about which they were to write a paragraph-long response. I could have understood the merit of such an activity about ten years ago, but obviously the curriculum developers for this program have yet recognize the widespread use of computers among modern university students and their ability to access the internet from their classrooms, dorm rooms, or even mobile phones.

During this exciting hour of supervising the students in the lab, I found one student fidgeting away on Facebook instead of writing his assignment. Now, in dealing with ESL students I have always taken the approach of American higher education — that is, they are students, but they are adults, and thus do not need me to babysit them, give them permission to go to the restroom, or any other such form of coddling (academic or otherwise) afforded school children. Upon noticing my coming around the corner this student quickly shrunk down his web browser and attempted to look gainfully employed in his work before my smile yielded a guilty smirk from him. He seemed amazingly surprised when I told him to go ahead, and that I use Facebook all the time.

While talking to him, I observed that he was playing a zoo animal game of some sort (he’s probably 20), and chatting with a few friends. One chatbox was filled with his native Kazakhstani, another was an obvious flirt with some girl somewhere in the world but in English, and the third was a chat with another student across the room (who had managed their chat more covertly apparently) also in English. After a few minutes he finally stumbled out an “and you don’t mind the Facebook?” to which I replied of course not. My response seemed to confuse him even more until I explained that he was using an English-language version of Facebook, playing ann interactive game in English, and having two live conversations in English all at the same time. He was learning…he just hadn’t realized it!

As the map above shows, Facebook (light green) has become far more than the college connection it once was.  It’s now a worldwide phenomenon and is growing everyday.  And, websites like Facebook and Twitter are taking the place of what a few years ago would have been a slew of webpages and applications.  Even only 5 years ago just about every country had their own unique online chat program.  They were usually available in only one language, and these different systems rarely allowed users to communicate with those using another service.  Yahoo Messenger and to a lesser extent AIM and Microsoft Messenger seem to have weathered the first decades of the internet, most other smaller services have not been so lucky.  Google and their slew of “killer apps” have taken much of the information realm off the desktop and onto the web, bringing with it handheld data access.  Gmail, Google Maps, and the soon to be release Wave are the game changers of information management that neither users nor Microsoft could have ever imagined a decade ago.

Social Networking

Sites like Myspace, industry leader Facebook, and explosively growing newcomer Twitter are a game changer themselves.  More than merely moving email from Outlook to any internet access point (gmail), these Social Networking sites connect people — people who would have perhaps never bothered with such technology, instantly, continuously, easily and in a dynamic manner that makes staying in touch an integral part of the day.  Just this past week, I realized upon being ‘friended’ by a fellow soldier from my army days that I had lost touch with these 500 or so people I spent so much time with.  So, I started a group for my old unit on Facebook.  Within a day there were 13 other veterans in it.  Within two days that number had reached a hundred, and by the end of this week we were numbering somewhere around 250.  When you think about it, that’s amazing!  Of 500 people I have not seen in years, half have managed to find each other again in a matter of days on Facebook.

Facebook you see, is amazing.  There really is no reason not to promote this product here, because like google, it’s moved beyond the scope of being the property of one company and is now yet another piece of online real estate owned by the world (its upcoming IPO aside).  Like Coca-Cola and Disney, Facebook couldn’t close its doors and drop out of existence today even if it wanted to.  Somebody, somewhere, would keep it going.

The internet changed the world 20 years ago when it connected universities and countries and businesses together.  Suddenly free information exchange became an integral ideal of our modern global psyche.  But the internet, while overall free from control, was not free.  In fact, the cost of access in the early days of the internet precluded many from accessing it.  Then, as webpages became more complex and the quantity of data increased, broadband and other high speed (and high cost) connections became to required conduit for connection.  This meant that if you couldn’t afford DSL, if you didn’t have your own connection, computer, etc that you could not connect and that no matter how much information was out there, it wasn’t for you.

Then, along comes Facebook.  It has a simple interface, requires very little bandwidth, can operate on a slow connection, or even on a mobile phone, and allows anyone with an email address (which thanks to gmail, everyone in the world can now have for free), access to everyone else.  Students now have Facebook pages.  Parents have them, companies, organizations, schools, bands, even favourite foods have facebook pages.  The fact is, anyone and everyone can be on Facebook, and they can all connect, communicate, and converse with everyone else.

That, is a game changer for the Language Learning Industry.  Students, all students, anywhere, can now chat with, send messages to, and share information in English (or any other language).  Finally, the biggest challenge to teachers and students has a solution.  That challenge — an overall lack of language exposure, of contact time, or access to content, is no more.  If your students have a computer, access to an internet cafe, or even a smartphone, they have access to the language they are learning.

—————————————————————————–

The game has changed.  Now, the question is how we, as an industry, will change with it.

[Via http://calleteach.wordpress.com]

Birds flying high.

Yesterday I got bored whilst packing to move out so I downloaded (shhh) lots and lots of new music which I thought would help motivate me to pack more than a quarter of a box a day. I’m talking really relaxing stuff with no vocals. Just instruments. Probably doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, right? It wasn’t mine until I realized how lovely it is to sit down and just think to. Certainly didn’t help with the packing issue. I kept realizing that I’d been sitting in one place for 20 minutes at a time happily getting lost in my thoughts. At least I’ve made it easy for you and done all the research, though I’m guessing more than a few people have already heard of Explosions in the Sky. Anyway, really good to listen to when you need some down time.

The Album Leaf – http://www.myspace.com/thealbumleaf
Unwed Sailor – http://www.myspace.com/unwedsailor
Explosions in the Sky – http://www.myspace.com/explosionsinthesky
I’m Not A Gun – http://www.myspace.com/imnotagunofficial

Well, that’s my post for today. I’ll be honest, it took me a while to come up with a subject. I made it in the end though, that’s what counts.

M.L

[Via http://shopofscars.wordpress.com]

YBTV // Webisode #6 // Rihanna's MySpace Concert

My mother and I went to Rihanna’s Myspace concert in Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom. It was a cool experience if you like waiting in line in the freezing cold for hours just to see Rihanna for about 25 minutes lol sorry but that’s what happened lol yea..anyway I got really tired and sleepy and annoyed so we left early whatever ;0)

Enjoy!! Here are a few pics

[Via http://yoyoblaze.wordpress.com]

Ford Mustang to get 412hp 5.0-liter V8

As it is often the case these days, a lot of details about upcoming cars are released via the internet (Facebook, MySpace or any other site is a possible location for insiders to post their information). So, thanks to one of these insiders we can now reveal that the 2011 Mustang GT will get a massive 5.0-liter V8. This massive engine will get massive power as well – 412 horsepower in fact. Compared to other new muscle cars that’s actually pretty good. Even tough European engineers can squeeze much more power from such an engine, the upcoming Mustang V8 has a decent amount of bhp for a muscle car. The new engine produces 390 pound-feet of torque at 6.5000 RPM. Fuel economy shouldn’t be bad either, amazingly, you should get about 25 MPG. That is ok for such a big monster. You can link the engine to either an automatic or a 6-speed manual gearbox.

That’s where our information ends right now, until Ford releases more info, or another insider feels the need to post upcoming modifications on the internet, we cannot offer more details.

Source: Autoblog

[Via http://theblogofcars.wordpress.com]

More on Facebook...RockYou!

32 million clear-text passwords taken captive through an SQL vulnerability!  RockYou.com, which provides applications and services for social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace was hacked this week – earlier in the week I posted a blog on social networking sites and hackers, mentioning some of the issues with cloud computing as well.  This is the world we’re headed for as more people move to cloud services.  If you’re going to use the cloud, and in some cases this is the only way to go, you have to consider security as a top priority, not price!

If you’re in the business of selling a cloud type service, whether it’s SaaS, hosted email, or online backup, or some managed service that stores data for the client (of any kind),  make sure you move security into first place as part of your value proposition.  These passwords were stored in clear text – and that is the problem.  Every site can be broken into, the question is, will the perpetrators be detected before they get what they want. Security steps such as encryption make stealing much more difficult, to the point that many won’t even attempt it.

Here’s the RockYou article reported by SC Magazine.  http://www.scmagazineus.com/rockyou-hack-compromises-32-million-passwords/article/159676/?DCMP=EMC-SCUS_Newswire

[Via http://davidstelzl.com]

A Year in Review: Kiner Enterprises Inc.'s Top 10 Accomplishments of 2009!

 

1) In Jan. of ‘09, we went national and expanded our dance teacher staffing agency from the New York Metropolitan Area, to the entire United States!

2) We created the first annual, “America’s Best Dance Studio Contest”! The only national dance contest showcasing excellence in dance studio across the country!

3) We started our own blog for dance professionals, dance lovers, and everyone in between!

4) We joined in the world of social media, and created our own, Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace pages!

5) We created our own social networks for Dance Teachers and Dance Studio Owners on Ning!

6) We re-introduced ourselves to the dance world with a brand new logo and website!

7) We published the first annual, “Kiner Enterprises Inc. Dance Industry Report“, highlighting the trends, salaries, and wages for dance teachers in the N.Y. Metropolitan area!

We began offering Social Media Management to dance studios across the country, to help catapult their online presence, and enhance their marketing efforts!

9) In partnership with C. Thomas Coaching, we held our first ever teleseminar entitled “Dance Your Way Into Business Success“!

10) We partnered up with some fantastic dance sponsors to make the “America’s Best Dance Studio Contest 2010” better than ever! Check out our YouTube videos for the dance contest!

Well, that’s it for 2009 folks! If you thought we did it big in 2009, just wait and see what we have in store for you in 2010!! Stay Tuned!

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Prosperous, and Blessed New Year to you all!

[Via http://danceprosusa.wordpress.com]

Hasil Selepas Seminggu Join!

Kepada Sesiapa Yang Lambat Join Mysapce Money Buat Duit Online Sungguh Rugi! Kenapa Saya Cakap Begitu? Sebab Lagi Awal Join Lagi Banyak La Orang Bawah Ko orang. Selepas Seminggu Satya Join Saya Dah Maximum Click! Tengok Gambar Di Bawah Ini Saya Ada Sertakan.

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Takepela Setakat Click Gitu Je. Ko orang Masih Boleh Buat Duit Online. Cuma Susah La Sikit Sebab Ada Limit Click. Admin Wat Limit Click Sebab Ada Orang Tipu Main Adsurf, Auto Click, Dan Lain2.

Admin Bukan Saje2 Buat. Harap Ko Orang Paham!

Jadi Apa Tunggu Lagi?

[Via http://buatduitclick.wordpress.com]

untitled 2

once the leaves fall from the trees
outside my 5th story floor window
through the limbs of trees
grown up through pavement
I can see the snow-capped
mountains in the distance
thinking as mountains
looking down at us
from the dragon perspective
all those
microscopic clusterfuck folk
have coalesced and constructed
have changed the natural to their concrete nature
but I don’t want to be a victim
especially when the pain
belongs to someone else
especially when invisibles
need extra blankets
and artificial limbs
dismembered in wars fought to advance
my pregnant notion
the bastard of freedom
his mother a dog
licking the vomit of muddy
epitaphs written by inclusive
fat people on sabbatical
to an unknown region of earth and sky

sky like fire
4 as that bitch burns
it reigns pleasure and seals
the envelope containing the judgment
of our flesh
cast to the Lake of Fire
searing flesh awake
brisk like ice showers
snow in heaps
discarded white shit
as the potential
of flooding waters
catfish tug boats
pilot the bayou
dead body
in tow
mismanaged chicken, pork & beef
rat, hair & roaches
cocked delivered
to the gallows
of usurpation
filmed live
on camera phone
piled along the roadside
of oil and coal
black sand
in crushed relief

[Via http://rodgerpegues.wordpress.com]

Is facebook a has-been?

I won’t forget when I first got facebook. Summer 2006, someone’s home office in Kawasaki, Japan, and two friends made it for me after insisting that I get one. I deleted my myspace account within a month.

Facebook wasn’t the same back then. It wasn’t flashy. There were no games, no status updates, no news feeds. Just friends and photos. And that was all I needed.

Now, facebook is a stalker’s paradise. And since when does facebook feel that it needs to interfere with my social life, suggesting friends, etc., rather than simply providing a forum where I can expand my social contacts?

Andrea Grimes sums up the low points of facebook in 2k9.

Oh divine Internet, please send something new to save me from facebook madness. I’m ready to trade my PS3 in for an N64.

[Via http://lulahbeulah.wordpress.com]

The plan has been adjusted...

You know… I was chatting with a friend that has recently lost quite a bit of weight… over 100 lbs. That friend goes by the name of Mikozuna (Mike OH ZOO NAH) and he did it with the Atkins diet… I know I know, there are a lot of you out there who say “the Atkins diet is dangerous, it’s not healthy!”, but you know, how many things have been healthy one day and a breakthrough the next? The plan, for me, is to start with Atkins for, at the very least, the first 75 lbs of weight loss… The key is to lose enough, quickly, to be able to do more physically. I just can’t do a whole lot in the vein of exercise right now because of my weight. I mean really, I have a hard time standing more than 15 minutes at a time, or walking more than 40 yards before my back and knees are killing me and I am short of breath. All those things are caused by the amount of weight that I am carrying around, as well as the fact that I have smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day for a couple years.

The fact of the matter is, I can’t wait to actually be able to start really working out, whether it be at home or at a gym. I really enjoy going through a regular workout, I used to go to the gym after work almost every night after work when I was in NH working as a banquet chef. Golds Gym had a 24 hr location in Nashua on the way home. It was so satisfying to go there and get a good hour, hour and a half workout, then a little steam and a shower.

It’s really the story of my life, so many things I now really enjoy are things I should have been doing so long ago. One other thing like that is the love I have for learning. I wish that I had that passion when I was supposed to start college. I would have done so much more with my life if I had just been able to focus on being a good student. That even goes back as far as being in high school. I screwed around and didn’t take anything, except band, too seriously. Even band could have been a better experience, though, I don’t take complete responsibility for that. I did, however, care way too much about what other people thought… not in a good way, much to my detriment. So many decisions made for all the wrong reasons.

I have had years to think about all of these things, and one could say that you are who you are because of the choices you’ve made… and apart from being cliché it’s true, for better or worse. Physically and emotionally, right now, I am not in a very good place at all. I mean, really, I am a prime candidate for a heart attack and mental breakdown, though , things are definitely getting better. I am optimistic for the first time in a long time.

“You sharpen the human appetite to the point where it can split atoms with its desire, you build egos the size of cathedrals, fiber-optically connect the world to every eager impulse, grease even the dullest dreams into dollar-green, gold-plated fantasies, until every human being becomes an aspiring emperor, and where can you go from there?” – Devil’s Advocate (John Lomax – Al Pacino)

I find this quote both entertaining and fitting. I say this because, I have always felt that I was meant for something more. I wanted to be this huge musician, a real star. As I get older, I realize that it may never happen. Music is one of the couple things that I know that I do very well. It is the strongest of my passions, followed closely by cooking, which is another way that I have really been able to make others happy. I suppose I am rambling a bit… The point is, the plan has been adjusted… My life has changed, and it is time to take the reins and do what I need to do. I am even planning on getting my student loans out of default so that I can go back to school and make a real push toward making a better life. For now, my passion for learning will be confined to learning and perfecting new languages, starting with Spanish, which is the obvious choice for the area that I live and the base of knowledge that I already have.

I leave you with one though, and a question… I have done so much to try to please those around me, and those I thought really mattered when it was me and my life that were affected instead. Have there been times in your life that a decision was made solely to try to gain the acceptance of a certain person, or group of people, that you now realize didn’t matter at all?

Thank you all for your love and support, I will continue with this blog daily throughout my weight loss, maybe even after. Talk to you later.

Kenny

[Via http://kennyislosingit.wordpress.com]

Report documents widespread frustration, alienation of Pakistan’s youth

It does not come as a surprise.The Pak.Govt.’s approach seems to be an one point agenda in running the administration, that is to engage India either verbally and militarily, at least from the eyes of the Indians.
No developmental activities are noticed.Any development in infra structure seems to be only increase in military hard ware.Politics seems to be a game of saving oneself from cases,and executing vendetta against each other.
Pakistan does not seem to have come to terms with its independence in that it is ambivalent in choosing their rulers,whether it is to be military or civilian.
Add to this frenzied religious extremism,you have a recipe for disaster.
Unless the educated, elite and the media wake up from their slumber, Pakistan will find it difficult to stay as a sovereign nation.
As an Indian, I can definitely say Pakistanis are no less intelligent than us and it pains us to see Pakistan tottering.
I would like to add here many of the comments on various topics in this site, seem to be dedicated to score over another and for vilification of either country.
I believe the forum should be used to promote good will among people of both countries, focusing on their positive aspects.

A new report commissioned by the British Council reveals widespread dissatisfaction and frustration among Pakistani youth. Based on interviews with 1,500 18-29 year-olds from across Pakistan, the report also sheds light on the bleak socio-economic prospects facing the vast majority of young people due to unemployment and underemployment and the lack of basic public services, including quality schooling.

The report warns that unless Pakistan drastically increases access to education and creates millions of new jobs for its young people, social and political upheavals are almost inevitable in coming years.

Currently, Pakistan’s official unemployment rate is about 8 percent, but over 70 percent are employed in the informal sector, where basic labor standards do not apply. The report found that among men who have left school, only 22 percent have full-time jobs. About one-fifth describe themselves as unemployed and most of the rest have unstable jobs. Among women, only 6 percent have a job and the vast majority of the rest describe themselves as housewives.

The report begins by highlighting the disastrous and rapidly deteriorating state of the Pakistani economy and its impact on the general population. The report cites a government assessment of the future of Pakistan’s economy which states, “Pakistan’s economy still faces pressures from an uncertain security environment, higher inflation driven by a spike in food prices, acute power shortages, a bewildering stock market, perceptible contracting in large-scale manufacturing and a slowdown in the services sector; lower than anticipated inflows and growing absolute financing requirements.”

Last year Pakistan borrowed $7.6 billion from the IMF after a steep decline in its currency reserves and the resulting loss of confidence in its debt. Now the outstanding loan is over $11 billion which amounts to over 6 percent of GDP. The IMF recently stated, “Pakistan’s economic program is subject to an unusual degree of uncertainty associated with security problems and the depth and duration of the global slowdown.” The IMF says massive external assistance is necessary to increase growth and spending on social services. However, the IMF is demanding Pakistan implement austerity measures that will make day-to-day life even more difficult. One of these measures involves an increase in the power tariff, another the elimination of gas price subsidies.

In a country where 60 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day, the global economic crisis has had a tremendous impact on the lives of working people and has thrown millions more into poverty. The British Council report states, “Blackouts are crippling industry and having a devastating impact on the lives of ordinary people. Without electricity, hospitals cannot function and water cannot be pumped. High food and fuel prices have made the necessities of life increasingly expensive. Around 7 percent of the population has fallen back into poverty due to the combined food, energy, and economic shocks.”

Economic issues are the main concern of the average Pakistani in spite of the worsening security situation across the country. The report notes, “72 percent of Pakistanis say their personal economic situation has got worse in the past year. Only one in ten expect things to get better in the near future.

“Of course, ordinary people are worried about terrorism and the security situation, but their main worries are day-to-day survival.” Most Pakistanis cite inflation, unemployment, lack of energy and water resources, and poverty as the most critical issues affecting their lives.

Access to education is also a serious issue confronting young Pakistanis, particularly the next generation. The report states, “In our survey, a quarter of respondents are illiterate and have never attended an educational institution. For girls, (wherever they live) and rural respondents (whatever their gender), this proportion rises to 36 percent. In Balochistan, nearly half the next generation has had no education at all.

“Cost is the main barrier keeping children out of school. Many children do not live near a government school, while even ‘free’ schooling requires parents to spend money on text books and uniforms. For girls, negative family attitudes to schooling are a major constraint.”

Many young people complain about the corruption and favoritism evident throughout the education system. The report cites one young man from Multan who commented, “There is no education. There is a culture of intercession and recommendations.” Another man from Lahore said, “Here, a student struggles day and night but the son of a rich man by giving money gets more marks than him. This curse has become widespread in society.”

Understandably, when it comes time to enter the labor market, many young Pakistanis do not feel they have the necessary skills to succeed. Around half the youths that were interviewed considered their qualifications to be inadequate and only a quarter of them believe they have the necessary qualifications for the job they desire.

According to the report, “Many have concluded there is little point in becoming educated if there are no jobs. In Narowal, reports one young man, ‘If you have an MA or MBA you do not get a job. People are roaming around with degrees in their hands.’”

The report notes that, “Many people have fears about their employment situation, believing that too few jobs are available and that prospects are getting worse. Almost half of those in work, moreover, took more than six months to find their jobs, while many find their working life disrupted by corruption and discrimination.

“Bias against people based on gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and disability is common, while favoritism is also rife. ‘These days,’ one of the next generation complains, ‘whichever jobs you get are through recommendation.’”

The report cites another young man from Karachi who said, “The environment these days is very bad. There are no jobs. Everything is getting expensive. The poor man’s life has become very difficult.”

Corruption and favoritism are not limited to the education system and the labor market.

Only 10 percent of respondents expressed a high degree of confidence in the national government of Pakistan and the majority of respondents believe the government continues to fail in every capacity. According to one respondent, “In every department of the government there is bribery. Unless you know someone nothing is done.”

There is also a deep lack of trust in the Pakistani courts, police forces, and local governments. The report found that the military is the only Pakistani institution trusted by the majority, but due to mass popular opposition Pakistan’s armed forces were forced to formally cede political power to a civilian government in 2008.

The report states, “Young people feel they have few platforms from where they can express themselves, while a failure to enforce basic civil liberties means that few young Pakistanis feel able to campaign for change. Disengagement from the political process is widespread. Just 2 percent are members of a political party, while only 39 percent voted in the last election and half are not even on the voters’ list.

“The political class is seen as selfish and corrupt: ‘Politicians are busy in their own fighting and no one even cares or bothers about the public,’ says one young man from Narowal, while another criticizes politicians.”

This alienation is further evidenced by the fact that only a small fraction of respondents—14 percent—strongly identify as Pakistanis, considering themselves Pakistanis first and Muslim second.

The report warns that time is running out for the Pakistani elite to collect the country’s “demographic dividend,” which refers to a rise in economic growth due to an increase in the percentage of a country’s population of working-age.

According to the report, “The stakes are high. Pakistan could derive benefits from its young population that will endure into the next century. Or it could miss the opportunity, suffering damage that will take a century or more to repair.” David Bloom of Harvard University adds, “It’s no good turning out educated people if they can’t find work. Nothing is more likely to breed unrest than armies of under-employed young people.”

In order to prevent massive unemployment in the near future, Pakistan must create at least 36 million jobs over the next ten years, but is currently on pace to create only 10 million jobs. The global economic crisis, the lack of basic infrastructure, and the crisis of the Pakistani state, which has become embroiled in the US’s occupation of Afghanistan, make it highly improbable Pakistan will be able to create anywhere near enough jobs.

Pakistan’s GDP is projected to grow by just 2 percent in 2009 and 2010. This is far short of the 6 percent minimum annual growth said to be necessary to create enough jobs for the increasing number of young and working age people.

The British Council report constitutes a devastating indictment of the Pakistani bourgeoisie and its reactionary communal-national project. 60 years after “independence,” life for Pakistani workers and the youth remains defined by poverty and inequality. The decision to partition India into two independent bourgeois states was a betrayal of the mass anti-imperialist movement that swept across the subcontinent in the first half of the 20th century and has done next to nothing to provide basic democratic freedoms and a decent standard of living for the working class and rural toilers. Today, billions of dollars are wasted by the military and looted by corrupt politicians while the elite refuse to provide Pakistanis with the most basic necessities of life.

http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/report-documents-widespread-frustration-alienation-of-pakistan%E2%80%99s-youth/#comment-22979

[Via http://ramanan50.wordpress.com]

Social media queen: Her take on the Internet scene

Avid blogger and media socialite Sholeh Loehle answers questions about her Internet experiences and impressions.

SHOLEH’S SOCIAL MEDIA CRED

• Classmates – 2002
• Friendster – 2003
• Myspace – 2004
• Facebook – 2005
• Flickr – 2005
• Skype – 2005
• Twitter – 2007

Q 1: When new social media spring up, how do you determine whether to use or ignore? Are there some that you use for whatever reason (all your friends do) that you don’t like? Vice versa?

Blogging was my first love, really, and I don’t think I’ll ever give it up.  I’ve been a fairly early adopter for many social networking sites, encouraged by friends who are also early adopters.  I think it is easier to get into this stuff if you have a group of people around you who are enthusiastic about it.

The first thing for me is usability in a site.  If it is clunky or awkward, I generally don’t use a site.  I don’t like paying for services, but I did pay to have a full account on Livejournal for a few years, and I still pay for a Flickr pro account.

I use Facebook, but I have so many friends on the site now that it is information overload.  Quite frankly, I use it more like an address book these days, as I simply don’t have the time to look at everything people post (nor do I care!).

Q 2: Talk about blogging, which you’ve done in some shape or form since early 2001. What kind of evolution have you seen in this trend? How did your early ‘Web log’ experiments prepare you for flickr, facebook, Twitter?

Originally I had a very primitive website where I would write thoughts, but there wasn’t enough room there.  One of my friends who lived in Georgia had a Livejournal, and he suggested that I start journaling there.  In those days the term “blog” was rarely, if ever, used.  We were all very trusting and open.  I still have everything I wrote then, but a few years back I made everything private.  The ramblings of a 17 year old are not something that I necessarily want floating around the internet.

I was on an internet forum back in 2001 that a friend of mine started called Bahaiyouth.com, which was a religious community for young people who were Bahá’ís or interested in the Bahá’í Faith.  It was the early days of avatars and profiles, and I was quite active on the forum.  I made a number of friends around the world through that site, and my communication with them probably made me more inclined to use social networking sites.  Interestingly enough, I can probably name at least 10 people that I knew on the site then that continue to be active social networkers, and who are still friends of mine.

Q 3: What do you think is the future for online social media? How is the direction the technology is moving in decided?

I still prefer blogs.  Maybe I’m “old-fashioned”, but I have a hard time connecting with people through all of the chatter.  I like well thought-out posts, being able to see the evolution of someone’s thought process, and the “permanence” of blogs.  I use Twitter daily, as do many of my friends, but I don’t always like it.

I think that users are moving toward mobile usage.  We all like having things instantly.  I was at a dinner in March, someone asked a question that no one knew the answer to, and 10 people pulled out iPhones to look it up.  The combination of users, companies, and innovative new media is driving our usage.  Could most of us have imagined Twitter in 2006? No, but now it is part of our cultural vocabulary.

Q 5: What role does all your social media play in your life? What role do you think you play in this virtual space?

Embarassingly enough, I do walk around thinking “Oh, that would make a good blog post.” or “I should take a photo of this to post on Flickr.” or “I’m going to tweet that.”  It is pretty well integrated into my daily life.  My friends are all aware that I’m a walking social media network.  As one of my friends said: “If the internet disappeared, Sholeh would also disappear.” –Sarah

According to Malcolm Gladwell, I’d probably be considered a “connector”, at least within a certain social sphere.  I don’t know how this all happened, quite frankly.  However, I get emails/messages/texts/tweets on a daily basis, asking me to make introductions, get information, or trying to find someone to photograph their wedding or babysit their kid.  I sometimes feel like a cross between Google, Craigslist, and Facebook, with a dash of Myspace drama thrown in.

Q 6: Do you consider yourself in any way a citizen journalist?

Not really.  I’m more of a passive information gatherer.  I used to share information and trends more, but I’ve found that there are already people out there doing such things.  My role is more of a…moderator between people, perhaps?  I think that the key is to find something that you’re passionate about, find your niche, and build on it.  Mine is a bit murky, as I don’t seem to write about anything in particular.  I write poetry and prose, I post pictures, and I write about my religion, the Bahá’í Faith.

I do rely on my social contacts to relay information to me.  There have been many significant recent historical events that I found out about when I opened up my social networking sites.

Q 4: Will the Internet ever really start to make money?

Oh, I think parts of it already are.  We’re accustomed to paying extra for certain services, and we will continue to find ways to make money.  Sometimes we forget that the internet has not really been around all that long, and its potential is still being understood.  I have no doubt that people will always find a way to make money.

Q 7: Are there any drawbacks to social media use today? What are they? And what are the positive aspects? Talk about these developments might be a sign of society advancing.

People seem to have very little control over themselves online.  There are things that I have learned about acquaintances that are really quite inappropriate, or just things that I would personally never share.

Early on in my networking life I made a few rules for myself.  I would not write about work, I would not gossip, and I would try very hard not to be critical of people.  There is so much garbage out there, and as I began to study business in university, I realized that all of my social networking was a form of brand management.  I was managing my personal brand in 2003 when I launched my independent blog, carefully maintaining a certain image.  You can Google “Sholeh” and the first thing that comes up is my blog.  I’m lucky that my first name is very uncommon.

I love that I have friends all over the world and am able to stay in close contact with many of them, often on a daily basis.  It is exciting to see people connected to events that are happening thousands of miles away from them, especially in the rather self-involved Western world.  You see this in organizations that address problems in developing countries by using the resources of social networks to fund and manage their projects.  This is very exciting to me, and I hope to see this develop further.  The possibilities for educating people using social networks are many, but I do get frustrated when I see people wasting their time on social networks instead of using them for a higher purpose.

[Via http://newscrucible.wordpress.com]

Overheard @ SF MusicTech

Via Hyperbot -

• Celia Hirshman: “iTunes market share is down from 90% to 69%.”  Is there an opening for more niche stores?
• Updates on MySpace are now fed directly to Google search.
• “If your label and your manager don’t get digital or social media, FIRE them.”
• “Panelist asked how many people still check their MySpace page, and not many hands went up”
• Rhapsody’s Tim Quirk:
• • “People who say ‘musicians should just be artists’ are feeding bullshit to musicians.”
  • “Facebook doesn’t need a music strategy, music needs a Facebook strategy.”
• Steve Jenkins of Third Eye Blind: “Piracy gave our band a second chance” let new generation of fans discover them…

Photo via TechRepublic

[Via http://joetheflow.wordpress.com]

Editorial - Photos of the Day

I was interviewed by a young photo student today on editorial photography doing a project for the Hallmark Institute of Photography.  And I just got an email from a second student from the same school so I guess projects are due this week!

Anyhow, it reminded me of one of my first published stories.  These were the only 2 shots I could find from a big Cover story I had for 944 Magazine.  The photo of the cover I actually had to track down on the model’s Flickr page.  The model is Natasha Komis and you have seen her in some pretty hot American Apparel Ads.  She is now a pretty successful singer and you can hear her music on her MySpace page.

The photo was taken in Times Square with a Hasselblad 503CW camera and an 80mm lens.  I believe I was using Fuji Provia Slide film rated at 400 speed.  My exposure was something like 1/125sec at F4 with a flash into a small umbrella.

Thanks

Michael Creagh

http://www.michaelcreagh.com

.

Buy my Book!

http://www.blurb.com/books/455779

http://highartweddingphotography.com

Check back at http://michaelcreagh.wordpress.com as I update it weekly.

[Via http://michaelcreagh.wordpress.com]

Thankful For: Social Media

I call it cyber crack, the social media that I currently use, because it is addicting.

When I first started using Myspace it was to keep an eye on my then minor children.  I monitored what they posted, if they had too much identifying information on their page, who they had as ‘friends’ and if they were keeping their profiles set private to the outside world.  I quickly found it addicting as I found friends of my own, and family members, to add to my buddy list.  I also enjoyed being able to ‘bling’ my space on the web and make it a bit more unique.

Then came Facebook.  I was a hold out for sometime as I found it less than user friendly compared to Myspace.  I started my Facebook but drifted away for a few months until someone made a comment about how much they enjoyed my son’s status posts on his Facebook.  I decided that I needed to learn the ropes and got back on.  Now I’m addicted to it as well.  It is like a continuous feed newsletter of friends and family, and I’ve reconnected with old friends and neighbors from high school! WOW no one has aged at all! (yeah, right lol)  Little by little I find new connections with former coworkers and even distant cousins I haven’t seen in years.  I enjoy the banter back and forth on someone’s wall when comments are posted to status updates and seeing the latest photos of everyone’s adventures and family.  And of course there are the games I’ve been lured into playing like Mafia Wars and YoVille, the latest of which is Farmville.  I have family members to thank for those because someone needed more mafia members or neighbors and next thing I know I am harvesting crops, buying houses and knocking of rival mafia members.

Twitter was the next cyber addiction.  I was listening to talk radio and the hosts of the Eddie and Tracy show on 700 WLW were talking about it.  Anything Tracy Jones knocks and Eddie Fingers finds amusing  usually turns out to be something of interest, so I checked it out.   I actually enjoy Twitter a lot more than I first thought I would.  Looking at it the tool made little sense to me, it’s purpose being to answer the question “what are  you doing” in 140 characters or less.  But I set up my Twitter account and began searching for others to follow.  My sister tried it at my urging, and next thing I knew my mom was tweeting too.  I’ve come to find it rather useful for following quick headlines in the news, links to interesting blogs or ads for great bargains at the stores, and sport scores.  Sometimes it is bits of inspiration or humor, you just never know with Twitter.  Sometimes it even becomes a little social network with folks who follow answering tweets back and forth, though that can be confusing if you are not following all parties involved.  A really good tweeter will incorporate the information into their tweet for their other followers.  One day I tweeted my adventure of taking my dad shopping and on his errands, complete with pics uploaded for the enjoyment of my followers.  Those that really found the humor, of course, were those that know my dad. I find Twitter to be especially fun for keeping up with family, since several family members are using it now.  I get family/friend tweets to my cell phone, all others I read online.

In this face paced life  with all of us going in so many directions at once, I enjoy the social media for allowing me to keep up to the minute  with friends and family.  Critics say it is all rather impersonal but generally I find those to be the people that have never given the forms of social media a fair try.  Connections with the right friends and family members bring it all to life and make it very enjoyable for the user.  While nothing takes the place of in person contact, this does fill the gap nicely until we can all come together again to share laughs around the table or fire pit.

What are your cyber addictions?

[Via http://fyrwife.wordpress.com]

The Afghan-Pakistan Solution by Musharaff-A rejoinder.

Musharaff of all people talks of the authority of civilians inrunning the country,a man who usurped power from civilian govt,one who, it is alleged by Nawaz Sharief ,who was the then PM that Musharaff engaged in in Kargill misadventure with out Sharief, the PM’s knowledge.., a man who systematically ruined democratic institutions.Funny, isn’t it?
He had recognized Taliban, not to ‘reform from within’ but to destabilize Afghanistan and get afoot hold for Pakistan there.
He enters into a deal with disturbed areas in Pakistan-what is the result?
Afghanistan-liberated from Alqeda and Taliban? When?Is he senile or idotic or both?
Terrorists entered into Pakistan-true;Why? you bred them.Your ISI promoted them.
Hiding in London to avoid being prosecuted, do not talk non sense as if you are a statesman.
Story:
By PERVEZ MUSHARRAF

My recent trip to the United States has been an enriching experience, during which I had a very healthy discourse with the American public and an opportunity to understand their concerns about the war in Afghanistan. One question I was asked almost everywhere I went was, “How can we stop losing?”

The answer is a political surge, in conjunction with the additional troops requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Quitting is not an option.

A military solution alone cannot guarantee success. Armies can only win sometimes, and at best, create an environment for the political process to work. At the end of the day, it is civilians, not soldiers, who have to take charge of their country.

U.S. Army and National Guard troops on patrol in Logar Province, Afghanistan.
After decades of civil war and anarchy, the Taliban established control over 95% of Afghanistan in 1996. Unfortunately, the Taliban imposed their strict interpretation of Islam on the country. Nevertheless, I proposed to recognize the Taliban regime, in the hope of transforming them from within. Had my strategy been enacted, we might have persuaded the Taliban to deny a safe haven to al Qaeda and avoided the tragic 9/11 attacks.

Another golden opportunity to rescue the Afghan people emerged after the United Nations sanctioned international military operation launched after 9/11. Having liberated Afghanistan from the tyranny of al Qaeda and Taliban, the U.S. had the unequivocal support of the majority of Afghans. The establishment of a truly representative national government which gave proportional representation to all ethnic groups—including the majority Pashtuns—would have brought peace to Afghanistan and ousted al Qaeda once and for all. Unfortunately this did not happen.

The political instability and ethnic imbalance in Afghanistan after 9/11 marginalized the majority Pashtuns and pushed them into the Taliban fold, even though they were not ideological supporters of the Taliban. The blunder of inducting 80,000 troops of Tajiks into the Afghan national army further alienated the Pashtuns.

Meanwhile, Pakistan forcefully tackled the influx of al Qaeda into our tribal areas, capturing over 600 al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leaders, some of them of very high value. We established 1,000 border checkposts and even offered to mine or fence off the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but this never came to pass. The Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai, had no writ outside of Kabul, and the insufficient ground troops of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) allowed the Taliban to regroup. The 2004 invasion of Iraq shifted the focus and also contributed to the Taliban gaining ground in Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda terrorists who fled from Afghanistan came to Pakistan and settled initially in South Waziristan. Through successful intelligence and law-enforcement operations, we eliminated al Qaeda from our cities and destroyed their command, communication and propaganda centers. They fled to the adjoining North Waziristan, Bajur and Swat regions.

From 2004 onwards, we witnessed a gradual shift in the terrorist center of gravity. The Taliban started to re-emerge in Afghanistan and gradually gained a dominant role. They developed ties with the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas, especially in North and South Waziristan. With a grand strategy to destabilize the whole region, the Taliban and al Qaeda established links with extremists in Pakistani society on the one hand and with Muslim fundamentalists in India on the other. They pose a grave threat to South Asia and peace in the world.

We now have to deal with a complex situation. Casualties suffered by our soldiers in the line of duty will not go wasted only if we are able to fully secure our next generations from the menace of terrorism. The exit strategy from Afghanistan must not and cannot be time related. It has to ask, “What effect do we want to create on the ground?” We must eliminate al Qaeda, dominate the Taliban militarily, and establish a representative, legitimate government in Afghanistan.

The military must ensure that we deal with insurgents from a position of strength. The dwindling number of al Qaeda elements must be totally eliminated, and the Taliban have to be dominated militarily. We must strengthen border-control measures with all possible means to isolate the militants on the Afghanistan and Pakistan sides.

The Pakistan military must continue to act strongly. Operationally, we must raise substantially more forces from within the tribal groups and equip them with more tanks and guns. On the Afghan side, the U.S. and ISAF troops must be reinforced. All of this must be done in combination with raising additional Afghan National Army troops, with significant Pashtun representation. Exploiting tribal divisions, we should also raise local militias.

On the political front, we need an invigorated dialogue with all groups in Afghanistan, including the Taliban. Afghanistan for centuries has been governed loosely through a social covenant between all the ethnic groups, under a sovereign king. This structure is needed again to bring peace and harmony. We have to reach out to Pashtun tribes and others who do not ideologically align themselves with the Taliban or al Qaeda. I have always said that “all Talibans are Pashtun, but all Pashtuns are not Taliban.” Pakistan and Saudi Arabia can play pivotal roles in facilitating this outreach.

Pakistan and Afghanistan were shortsightedly abandoned to their fate by the West in 1989, in spite of the fact that they were the ones who won a victory for the Free World against the Soviet Union. This abandonment lead to a sense of betrayal amongst the people of the region. For the sake of regional and world peace, let us not repeat the same mistake.

Mr. Musharraf is a former president (2001-2008) and chief of army staff (1998-2007) of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107104574569751126911522.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

[Via http://ramanan50.wordpress.com]

3500 Sex Perverts Kicked off Of Facebook...Accounts Deleted

The state of New York has netted over 3500 convicted sex fiends on Facebook and smaller dying competitive site MySpace, in a crackdown on internet predators.

80 per cent of the sexual deviants were on Facebook alone.

Attorney general Andrew Cuomo pushed aggressively for the law, the Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act ,E-stop, in 2008. This is the first time it has been used in this widespread sweep to help clean up the internet.

The names of the pervert have been sent to authorities who will determine if any of them violated the conditions of their parole terms, by using the sites to ”fish” for fresh victims.

The last time the state of New York did a sweep for sexual perverts,…they caught the now former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who was client 9 for an escort service.

It wa reported that he had spent over 60 thousand dollars on a prostitute, and that led to his downfall.

..I bet he got his account deleted,…check it out.

Check out these takes on this story, by clicking the links below…

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/12/01/2009-12-01_sex_fiends_from_facebook_myspace_get_boot_.html

http://gawker.com/5416329/facebook-absolutely-demolishing-myspace-in-the-sex-offender-demographic

[Via http://jerrybrice.wordpress.com]

Before His OPRAH WINFREY Kind/Style Of OPEN MIC At TRIBAL CAFE For AIDS Day, Fred VIDAL, PhD Sings FOR YOU! On The Web To His 164 NEXTCAT Connections, As LiFe Goes In Lalaland And The States!!

Before His OPRAH WINFREY Kind/Style Of OPEN MIC At TRIBAL CAFE For AIDS Day, Fred VIDAL, PhD Sings FOR YOU! On The Web To His 164 NEXTCAT Connections, As LiFe Goes In Lalaland And The States!!

www.nextcat.com/fredvidal

TheY Are LOU REED Oriented, BuT Fred VIDAL WiTh The BAND MUSE, Will Be FOR YOU! InvolveD In A German GIRL StyLe Of SONG (another composition Of Fred KELLY).Like Beatles' NORVEGIAN WOOD.

On TWITTER FV: http://twitter.com/fredvidal

Check out Tribal Cafe – Open Mike at www.Eventful.com http://is.gd/58XXK #EVtriba1201 The Sweet Troubled Soul, music = comedy + poetry!

This EVENING, BeginninG at 8pm, Hosted by Sheng Peng & Sona Ovasapyan! FV SonG Will BE VIDEOTAPED By Team FV YoutubE And For YOUTUBE only!!

www.youtube.com/bramstocker77

[Via http://fredvidal.wordpress.com]