Group items tagged

# As social networks proliferate, they are changing the way people think about the Internet, from a tool used in solitary anonymity to a medium that touches on questions about human nature and identity. # If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populous in the world, just behind the U.S. Almost half of its users visit every day. # Nielsen Online reports that social networking (and associated blogging) is now the fourth most popular online activity. Time spent on social-networking sites is growing at three times the rate of overall Internet usage, accounting for almost 10 percent of total time spent online. # Social networks can lessen loneliness and boost self-esteem. But they can also have the opposite effect, depending on who you are and how you use these forums.

cumon jack...this place Blows twine away. If Kanye were here, he'd say "I'mma letchew finish, but Diigo is the best social bookmarking service EVER."

Absolutely, FishMan! It SO DOES blow Twine away. But, I'm thinking out-into-th-future! There's something on the horizon that will blow Diigo away, ... but, for the moment, it's only a fantasy. I have lots of fantasies, so, ... don't spend any time letting it worry you! LOL, FishMan!

"SoulPancake is a place to speak your mind, unload your questions, and figure out what it means to be human."

Amazing... 1995 is just a few years ago

Human contact is what it's all about!

"Charles Babbage is cited as the father of modern computing - although perhaps "uncle" would be more accurate, since his designs never actually saw completion and computing is based on totally different principles. But his idea of a "difference engine," a hand-cranked device that could solve mathematical problems, is essentially the first instance of a computer in human history. numbersUnfortunately, the device, designed to tackle the huge amount of calculation involved in tracking the British navy, was never completed. After 10 years of tinkering, the project was aborted and the prototype melted down. But Babbage's plans and a few pieces of the Difference Engine remained, and just recently someone decided they'd finish what he started. Now there is a complete and working Difference Engine at the Computer History Museum down in Mountain View. It was put together by Doron Swade, a former curator at London's Science Museum, and a team he assembled over the last two decades. There is another working Difference Engine being kept at that museum, and this one will only remain in Mountain View for a year before it heads out to Seattle to enter a "private collection." I'm guessing Ballmer's (actually, Nathan Myhrvold, former MS CTO. Close, though). So go see it while you can, startup guys! There's more info at NPR, where you can, as always, have it narrated to you. I love that. I'm going to make some coffee and listen to it again. Update: A commenter at NPR notes that the Harvard Mark I was a functioning difference engine, but relied on electricity rather than clockwork. It was completed in 1944."

orchid hypothesis David Dobbs tells us about a new theory in genetics called the orchid hypothesis that suggests that the genes that underlie some of the most troubling human behaviors -- violence, depression, anxiety -- can, in combination with the right environment, also be responsible for our best behaviors.

Love this! This is going to be one of the ways forward as traditional universities lose their grip on student's imaginations!

This Chelsea restaurant has gone from brasserie to brassiere. Chef Daniel Angerer is letting diners at Klee Brasserie munch on cheese made from his wife's breast milk. "It tastes like cow's-milk cheese, kind of sweet," he told The Post. The flavor depends on what the cheese is served with -- Angerer recommends a Riesling -- and "what the mother eats," said Angerer, who once bested Bobby Flay on TV's "Iron Chef." Breast milk doesn't curdle well due to its low protein content, so a little moo juice has to be added to round out the texture, Angerer said.