Japan Pushes Forward on Plans for a Giant Solar Power Farm in Space

Japan Pushes Forward on Plans for a Giant Solar Power Farm in Space



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And I thought Back to the Future was all fiction!!!!!!!


Nov. 5, 1955: A Flux of Genius

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Nov. 5, 1955: A Flux of Genius

• By Daniel Dumas and Jon Snyder
• November 4, 2009 |
• 8:00 pm |
• Categories: 20th century, Culture
• 
  

1955: A clock, a slippery toilet seat and a severe concussion lead to the invention of time travel.

Dr. Emmet Lathrop Brown is known for being a member (unverified) of the Manhattan Project, a physics professor at Hill Valley University, and a talented entrepreneur and handyman. But it’s his contribution to the field of temporal physics for which he is best remembered.

According to archival footage, Brown was standing on his toilet seat on the evening of Nov. 5, 1955, attempting to hang a clock in his bathroom, when he slipped and slammed his head on the side of the sink. Upon regaining consciousness Brown reported having “a revelation, a picture, a picture in my head.” A picture which he crudely scrawled down on a piece of paper and subsequently spent 30 years of his life and family fortune to build.

That picture, of course, was the flux capacitor. And as every high school physics student knows, it’s the device that makes time travel possible.

The main hurdle Brown faced with the flux capacitor was delivering enough power to make it function. The capacitor required a staggering 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to generate a time-displacement field. Brown first surmised that meeting the capacitor’s power needs could be accomplished in two ways: either by channeling a nuclear reaction or harnessing a bolt of lightning. Lightning as it turned out, was pretty much out of the question, because it’s impossible to determine when and where a bolt will strike.

Brown decided to go for the nuclear option. He hypothesized that within 30 years, material like plutonium would be easily obtainable — probably available in corner drugstores. It turned out he was dead wrong.

By 1985 Brown had squandered his family fortune and allegedly committed several acts of insurance fraud to finance his time machine. Built from a Delorean DMC-12 (whose stainless steel body had a direct and influential effect on flux dispersal), it was fitted with a working flux capacitor that was powered by a nuclear reactor. Desparate for fuel, Brown duped a group of Libyan terrorists into providing him with weapons-grade plutonium.

At 1:21 a.m Oct. 25, 1985, Brown (with the help of his protege, Martin McFly) was able to successfully — and safely — send his dog and then McFly backwards in time. After a series of setbacks resulting from the first temporal displacement, Brown and McFly would travel to the years 1955, 2015 and 1885.

Unfortunately, because of a railroad accident near Hill Valley’s Eastwood Ravine a day later, Brown’s DeLorean along with its flux capacitor was destroyed. Despite repeated requests from the media and scientific communities, Brown has declined interviews and refuses to share or replicate the flux capacitor’s technology.

The incidents leading up to the time machine demise also served as the basis for the award-winning documentary, Back to the Future.

Source: Fictional

Photo: Ernest O. Lawrence, Emmet L. Brown, and J. Robert Oppenheimer in early 1946 at the controls to the magnet of the 184-inch cyclotron, which was being converted from its wartime use to its original purpose as a cyclotron. Jon Snyder/Wired.com

(Noticed how close they look alike, the guy in the movie & the guy in that ancient picture?)

Cheers! :-)

THE POWER OF LINUX

Beautiful...!

Enjoy! :-)

Tomatoes of Google!

From Engadget.com:


"WHERE ARE THE TOMATOES?"

"THEY HAVEN'T ARRIVED FROM LEBANON YET...!"

I knew what country was that ;-)

Cheers! :-D

How Google is working on its new OS

Just like that!

Cheers ;-)

25 Years of Tetris: From Russia With Fun!

Sputnik burned up in the atmosphere, Berlin is now one city, but 25 years later, the Soviet-designed Tetris remains one of the most popular and ubiquitous video games ever created. It has sold over 125 million copies, been released for nearly every video-game platform of the past two decades and even been played on the side of a skyscraper. Yet creator Alexey Pajitnov almost never saw a ruble for his creation.

(Read the rest in the link ;-) )

25 Years of Tetris: From Russia With Fun!

What if Google was "there" 130 years ago?

:-D

Cheers! ;-)

Contacted by a Publishing Press in Hong Kong!

I got this e-mail in my Flickr account:

Dear Sir,

We are one of the major educational book publishers in Hong Kong specialised in the publication of textbooks on various subjects across the spectrum of the Hong Kong secondary school curriculum.

We plan to publish 4 textbooks for the local secondary school students and teachers namely:
1. Liberal Studies in Life (Senior Forms)-----Module 6 Issue Explorer (English Edition)--Student's Book
2. Liberal Studies in Life (Senior Forms)-----Module 6 Issue Explorer (Chinese Edition)--Student's Book
3. Liberal Studies in Life (Senior Forms)-----Module 6 Issue Explorer (English Edition)--Teacher's Guide
4. Liberal Studies in Life (Senior Forms)-----Module 6 Issue Explorer (Chinese Edition)--Teacher's Guide

We would be grateful if you could grant us permission to reproduce the following high resolution photo as teaching material in the books. Acknowledgement will be given to you in due course. Please kindly inform us the photo credit line and we will include them in the books to point out the photo source accordingly.

Description of the photo: Sunway Lagoon in Malaysia

The high resolution photo can be downloaded online from the link upon receipt of your approval:
www.flickr.com/photos/qassoom/347048057/

As the books are going to be published soon, your earliest attention to this matter is much appreciated.

Yours sincerely,


Lo Cheuk King
Photo Permission Editor
Educational Publishing Division
Times Publishing (Hong Kong) Ltd
(Unit B2, 6/F, Eastern Sea Industrial Building
48-56 Tai Lin Pai Road, Kwai Chung
New Territories, Hong Kong)
(tel: 852-29457276)


& this was the photo:

WOW! NEVER THOUGHT ONE OF MY PHOTOS WOULD MAKE IT OUT OF MY CYBERSPACE ACCOUNTS! :-D

Worry not, I told them to include my name in the credit, plus I would see if it is going to be used for commercial purpose, where I would ask them for a financial compensation! :-D

Way to go! :-D

Cheers ;-)

From
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2009/tc2009047_031301.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

Putting a Price on Social Connections

Researchers at IBM and MIT have found that certain e-mail connections and patterns at work correlate with higher revenue production

By Stephen Baker

(Editor's note: This is the first in a series, Value of Virtual Friends, exploring the ways our lives are affected—financially and otherwise—by the multiplicity of online social and professional contacts.)

Messaging with the boss much? Maybe you ought to be. Workers who have strong communication ties with their managers tend to bring in more money than those who steer clear of the boss, according to a new analysis of social networks in the workplace by IBM (IBM) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The research, released this week, even assigns a dollar value to e-mail interaction with an employee's managers. Among the group studied, several thousand consultants at IBM, those with strong links to a manager produced an average of $588 of revenue per month over the norm.

The results represent an early attempt to understand the value of the broadening variety of personal connections afforded by the Web. Users of social media rack up LinkedIn contacts, Facebook friends, and Twitter followers by the hundreds, if not thousands. But figuring out how big a difference all those contacts make in a person's life, financial or otherwise, is a far murkier matter.

That's why leading tech companies, including IBM, Microsoft (MSFT), and Yahoo! (YHOO), are hiring economists, anthropologists, and other social scientists to map and classify new types of friendships—and put a value on them.

Researchers at IBM Research and MIT's Sloan School of Management found that the average e-mail contact was worth $948 in revenue. To unearth that and other data, they used mathematical formulas to analyze the e-mail traffic, address books, and buddy lists of 2,600 IBM consultants over the course of a year. (Their identities were shielded from researchers, who viewed them only as encrypted numbers, known as hash codes.) They compared the communication patterns with performance, as measured by billable hours.

Too Many Cooks?

To be sure, not all networking yields dividends. The IBM-MIT study found that consultants with weak ties to a number of managers produced $98 per month less than average. Why? Those employees may move more slowly as they process "conflicting demands from different managers," the study's authors write. They suffer from "too many cooks in the kitchen."

Findings like that may not be news to management consultants. But now, with the explosion of social media in the workplace, researchers have a chance to study office communication as never before. As they do, of course, workers can be expected to game the systems devised by researchers. This might mean taking steps to create strong links to managers—or efface signs of costly weak ties to higher-ups.

For IBM, research into the networked behavior of its employees promises insights about teamwork, innovation, and the transmission of knowledge and ideas within the company. This is especially important for global companies—say, where experts in New York might be unaware that colleagues in Singapore are untangling a similar problem. IBM researchers fine-tuned management of industrial supply chains a half-century ago; now their challenge is promoting the flow of knowledge throughout the workforce.

A key laboratory for this research is the company's internal social network, Beehive. The 55,000 employees who choose to use it exchange everything from family photos to the algorithms they use to resolve complicated work-related problems.

In another study to be released this week, an IBM team at the company's Cambridge (Mass.) labs analyzes methods to introduce employees to colleagues they haven't yet met. The idea, says researcher Werner Geyer, is to create new connections within the global workforce and to encourage employees to share knowledge. "We want to incent people to participate," Geyer says. He notes that participation in the network has doubled in the past year.

Matchmaking Allies

One key is to alert people to potential friends and allies at the company. Much the way companies like Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon (AMZN) study past Web-surfing patterns to recommend books and movies, Geyer and his team are digging for signs of shared interests and behaviors among their colleagues.

In their matchmaking efforts, the IBM team tried a variety of approaches. One used a tool favored by Facebook, recommending friends of common friends. Others analyzed the subjects and themes of employees' postings on Beehive, words they use, and patents they've filed. As expected, some of the systems lined up workers with colleagues they already knew. Others were better at unearthing unknowns. But fewer of them turned out to be good matches. To the frustration of the researchers, some of the workers noted that recommendations looked good, yet they didn't bother contacting the people. "They put them aside for future reference," Geyer says.

The research, he concedes, is at an early stage. But as the economy struggles, more companies are sure to study the company we keep—and even attempt to calculate how much each friendship is worth.

Baker is a senior writer for BusinessWeek in New York.

ONE HELL OF A DEVICE!

ENJOY PEOPLE! :-D

Did You know????

Enjoy! :-D

And oh... What does that mean to us, Arab-world residents?

That we will be in deep darkness after 4 years!!

a 1.57 GIGA Pixel Camera picture!

http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee899496648c2b4b06233c

Check... It... Out!

Imagine what you can do with such camera! :-D

Cheeeeeeeeeers! :-D

Maged down below, Me up there!

Maged down below, Me up there!
Originally uploaded by Qassaam

Some of the greatest dudes I ever met ;-)

Cheers to all of them! Each & ever member / employee in 2Connect ;-)

Thanks for making the day-out so great, :-)

And another big thanks to whom participated in organizing such day! :-)

Love ya all! :-D

THAT was funny!

Look what I got in my e-mail! :-D

Houston, February 2^nd, 2009

QASIM A.RASOOL - THE DAILY QASSOOMS

Attention,

General Manager

It is our pleasure to congratulate you for obtaining the most prestigious Business Award in the world, “THE BIZZ AWARDS 2008.” This honor will be given to your company, for being one of the best companies from your country.

This award not only acknowledges business excellence but also distinguishes the magnificent leadership from successful businesses leaders like you.

This luxurious ceremony will be held on April 1^st, 2009 at 8:00pm in the only seven stars hotel in the world, the BURJ AL ARAB located in the city of Dubai. The event will take place during a glamorous gala dinner that we would prepare for you -only like you, as world leaders, deserve.

It is important to inform you that as a winner, you will be eligible for unique benefits: presentation of awards to your company and its directors (trophy, medals and certificates) in an unforgettable ceremony; publicity (national and international press campaign as well as inclusion in the book of memories); and the best tools for new business opportunities (WORLDCOB Business network, Business Conventions and events).

Our organization is a worldwide leading business association accredited internationally by the Better Business Bureau (BBB), which certifies the integrity and trustworthiness of American companies. In addition, we have as sponsors the most important chambers of commerce in the world. Finally, our best endorsements come from the members of our Confederation which are all top businesses in the world.

An important letter was sent by mail a few weeks ago congratulating you for your nomination. Attached to this letter was graphic material about the Confederation, however, to this date we have not yet received a response. For this reason, we are listing on this letter all the existing benefits. We currently offer an “early bird” special with a closing date of February 12^th, 2009. For this reason we urge you to contact us as soon as possible.

I want to take this opportunity to encourage you to look at our introductory video which has some images from our 35 events worldwide. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlpAvPR4Nfw

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me. I will be expecting your phone call at (713)339-9900 U.S. or your email jmoran@worldcob.org

As we share the happiness and joy of this achievement, I look forward to congratulating you in person.

Sincerely,

Jesus J. Moran
Chief Executive Officer

WORLD CONFEDERATION OF BUSINESSES

Address: 2825 Wilcrest, Suite 163 - Houston, TX 77042
Telephone: (713) 3399900, Fax: (713) 3399323 (USA)

www.worldcob.org

www.thebizzawards.com

BENEFITS

I. AWARD, MEDALS AND CERTIFICATES

1.1 The Bizz Awards 2009 trophy engraved with the winner’s name as the highest recognition granted by World Confederation of Businesses.

1.2 Admission for two people to the majestic gala dinner and award ceremony Bizz Awards 2009 to be held on April 1^st, 2009 at the BURJ AL ARAB in Dubai, with an attendance of over 600 guests.

1.3 Excellence in Business Leadership medals honoring the Directors of the winning company.

1.4 Excellence in Business Management medals recognizing the General Manager of the winning company.

1.5 Excellence in Quality Management medals recognizing the Quality Manager of the winning company

1.6 Excellence in Marketing Management medals recognizing the Marketing Manager of the winning company.

1.7 A certificate recognizing the company as a World Business Leader.

1.8 A certificate that recognizes the participant as an Honorary Partner of the World Confederation of Businesses.

1.9 A certificate recognizing the Chief Executive Officer of the organization as a World Leader Businessperson.

II MARKETING AND ADVERTISING

2.1 A 1/3 page ad in The Bizz Awards 2009 Memory Book which will include your business profile and a picture of your company representative receiving the award. This book is published and delivered at no charge, with a distribution of 50,000 copies through over 30 countries.

2.2 The rights to use of the award logo, trophy image, photographs, press notes and all of the advertising tools we make available for publicity and marketing in mass media: newspapers, magazines, radio and television.

2.3 Recognition through a press campaign arranged by the most distinguished public relation agencies in your country, thanks to the agreements between WORLDCOB with such agencies.

2.4 A 10 minute interview about your company’s history, achievements, and vision. This interview will be recorded and edited with those of other winners and will be distributed along with The Bizz Awards 2009 Memory Book

III MANAGEMENT AND CORPORATE RELATIONS

3.1 Admittance to the Business Convention EXPOBIZZ which includes Managerial Coaching Workshops, Business Matchmaking and the Business Showcase.

3.2 Membership to the WORLDCOB Business Network. This system can be accessed by a username and password that will be assigned to you as soon as you confirm your registration. Through this network you can contact other businesses and schedule a meeting at EXPOBIZZ.

Now... "The Daily Qassooms" is Bahrain's top firm that won International recognition and shall be honored in Dubai's Burj Al-Arab...

Wow! :-D :-D :-D

Cheers! :-D

My story with ZAIN – Part 1

I have such a story with this so-called company Zain that goes back to 2005 – when it was known at that time with “mtc Vodafone” before the latest re-branding in 2007 that made it called what it is called.

Zain in Arabic means “good”. But my experience with them is far from zain and close to mo-zain (unfortunate) than any other phrase that can describe such thing.

In 2005 while I was taking my Bachelor’s in Mobile Phone Technology & Computing, our University decided to send some of its best – but mainly specialized in such field – to take an internship in mtc Vodafone to complete their B.Sc requirements, and it happened that I was one of 3 along with two other girls to get training there. I was the only “technical” personal in the time the one of the girls were placed in the Accounting Department & the other one in the Human Resources.

In the induction session the presenter was astonished by my specialization and told me immediately “that I will be taken after I graduate at once” due to their need, but informed him that I had 2 years to go until then. In the NOC (Network Operation Center) in MSC-02 (Mobile Switching Center 2) I spent 2 months side by side with the technical team that was “monitoring” all mobile activities in the Kingdom of mtc Vodafone with over 9 42” Plasma screens showing all alerts & warnings of any outage in any location with many other monitoring tools on the workers screens & machines. I was there along with another girl taking a B.Sc in BIS (Business Information Technology) & another in statistics.

The head of the NOC turned out to know my cousin – who at that time was a Marketing Office, known by many of the staff there – and recognize me through that, although I did not disclose to anyone my relation to any employee in mtc Vodafone. There was another lady who was Egyptian and was responsible for us – the trainees – and our assessment although none was reported back to our University by a certain person from the University itself according to a schedule set by Zain themselves but not implemented as well.

That Egyptian lady was kind of strict with me, but she wasn’t bad at all, but she got a girl in our little group recognized more than the rest because her sister was an executive secretary for one of the directors there. I remember her getting shocked when I went to say hi to my cousin in the very last day of the training in the cafeteria – in which was a Wednesday and at that time Wednesdays were the last days of the week before they were changed to Thursdays – where there was a big breakfast and had me asked… “Where did you know her from?!?!??!!!”… “She’s my cousin” with exclamation marks all over everyone else!

I remember during my traineeship period there when I was asked for my contacts by that Egyptian lady and I started mentioning a 3 then a 9 I heard her saying in whisper “traitor…”. Of course she was kidding as she was referring to my Batelco number and she said to me in a clear phrase “Boy, if you want to stay here get yourself a number from us!” surely that was all acceptable as that time the fierce competition between mtc Vodafone and Batelco lead to bone-breaking stages where mtc Vodafone was able to get a 30% market share after 2 years of establishment in Bahrain! My cousin later on helped me get a nice number from them & I am still using it as my primary phone number till this very day.

Anyways, that was my joyful 2005 experience, but the nice things simply stop here.
After completing my Bachelor’s subjects & having my final project as the only requirement left for me to get my full B.Sc in Mobile Phone Technology & Computing I decided to work for Ahlia University for all the good things they did for me for all these years, but surly working in the Admission & Registration Office was NOT my proposed career path as I decided to stay for a few month for help & spending time till I get myself a proper job in my field. Few days later I received a phone call – right after the rebranding to “Zain” & moving the HQ from Kuwait to Bahrain – from a girl working there telling me that there is an urgent vacant for a “NOC Technician” that I am eligible to apply for & that I should attend the interview for such position next day at 12 pm.

Unfortunately, I have already booked tickets, made reservations and confirmed with my family days & days before that – and struggled with management personals to get such vacation that I needed badly as I started working right after the graduation ceremony day – but she insisted that I must attend tomorrow’s interview or I won’t get the job. I told her if you called me some days before that I would arrange it, but now it’s almost impossible! I hanged up the phone to get another call from my cousin who insisted that I should cancel my trip tomorrow & take the interview instead!

I explained to her how complex the situation is and that I need to cancel many other things and get embarrassed with the family averting such commitment. When she insisted more I told her that I will deliver such thing to my parents & have things discussed. Surly they had a negative response, therefore I went to the Airport next day boarding the plane at 10 am right before something happens to the airplane itself where we were asked to move to the transit hall and wait “until further comment”. When I turned on my mobile phone – with little charge left – she called & told me that I should cease such chance & come! That moment I was thinking in my head “am I this terribly wanted…!?!??!? I mean, why can’t they wait a little?! I’ll be back in less than 10 days!!!” Dad spoke to her this time & asked her to stop calling & call back after 9 days, so that what happened 9 more days, back to Bahrain & a phone call was made to me from Zain. “Mr. Qasim, tomorrow at 10 is fine for you?” This time it was surly fine, as I was able to prepare myself mentally & physically for the interview.

Interview’s day was nice, beautiful with birds singing over some trees outside the building, me wearing a nice suite with high spirits. I reached the room of the interview, and once I placed my “right” foot in the room the NOC manager (not the same dude I spoke of in the first part of my story, but another Palestinian guy I saw once or twice in 2005, forgot his name) simply stood up, pointed his finger on me, and said with a quit loud voice “THIS is the person who would rather take a vocation than attending the interview” and unleashing Armageddon on me from then on…

“What did they teach you in college? What is the Mobile System is made of??? Did they teach you IPv4 Protocol or the OSI Model? (in the time we were taught the OSI Model) What is the structure of the IPv4??? See! His capabilities are not adequate for us and he is not qualified to work in such position! You’ll have to do many reports & work shift-based hours some would be long until sunrise, you will be alone with the Security guard only outside the building… Son, do you know what position are you applying for?? (At that moment with all the confusion of the his altitude & the harness of the situation I was mixed up and said a different but somehow similar position) Look people! He doesn’t know what position he’s applying for!” In the silence of the IT Director – who seemed like a nice person – and the poor HR (different than the one who called me, my cousin’s friend who was the only one holding a colored copy of my CV with a nice framed drew with her pen on my picture – looking down most of the time in shame of what is happening, who asked me whether I am interested in a Business oriented (none technical) job in Zain in which I told her that I prefer an IT-related position rather than a business oriented one.

I got a hint that I will be rejected by what would-be my boss (The NOC manager), and after a week of shaking their hands in the interview right after short-answering my questions and thanking them for their “valuable time”, I received a rejection letter from her explaining the rejection with “finding someone better than me.” I didn’t tell my parents about the letter, but let things move smooth & have such experience forgotten. Somehow I felt that the NOC manager had someone else to get, maybe a relative or so to have him hired in Zain. But all-in-all, literally, it was the most humiliating, not interview but situation I ever got in the whole 22 years of my life back then! By then, I was not able to recall a worse situation not due to what was said by that person, but because I was not able to confront him with the type & way of questions he was asking due to the nature of “corporate interviews” and didn’t want to seem as the impolite person in the room, having my rejection decision justified. I thought that if my major and therefore my job type would necessitate me working with that guy & having him as my boss I would better NOT to work with Zain at all. I really lost all respect to that person since then due to what he made me go through.

Part 2 is to follow. Next, what happened to me when I decided to forget the past & start all over again!

FLAMA-BOOLIA!

OH MY DEAR LORD!

THAT WAS... COOL! :-D

JUMPING OVER A "MOUNTAIN" AND LANDING SAFELY IN THE NEXT VALLY AFTER FLYING OVER THE ROCKS... WITH NOTHING BUT A WINGY-JUMPING SUIT... DAAAM! THAT WAS DARING!

PEOPLE... WATCH IT!