Posts Tagged ‘syndicated’
March 9th, 2010
2000: The Nasdaq hits 5,048.62, the high-water mark of the dot-com boom. It’s all downhill from here.
The boom is more accurately described as a bubble, since it rested largely on wild stock speculation and freewheeling venture-capital investment that resulted in the often ludicrous overvaluation of sketchy internet companies. Established business practices — for example, asking questions like “What do you guys actually do?” — were being ignored by investors and VCs hoping to cash in quick on new models that often were no models at all.
The frenzy was built on what seemed to be the limitless potential of the internet as a cash cow for those daring enough to take risks. In the end, e-commerce did become a big deal, but it has evolved pretty much along conventional business lines.
Big companies predominate and smaller entrepreneurs with a solid plan can thrive. The Jolt Cola kids, and their skateboards and Foosball tables, have largely passed from the scene.
On March 9, 2000, however, the sky was still the limit. But the euphoria, built as it was on smoke and mirrors, couldn’t last. And it didn’t.
On March 10, the Nasdaq Composite index peaked, more than doubling its value of a year before. But then the slide began, and it was a precipitous drop, which is why March 10 is generally considered the day the bubble burst.
Source: Various
Photo: Charles Molineaux delivers a live broadcast from the Nasdaq MarketSite on March 9, 2000, showing the Nasdaq composite index’s first — and so far, only — close above 5,000.
Stuart Ramson/AP
This article first appeared on Wired.com March 10, 2007.
See Also:
- 10 Years After: A Look Back at the Dot-com Boom and Bust
- March 10: Jefferson the Paleontologist, Lincoln the Inventor
- March 10, 1876: 'Mr. Watson, Come Here … '
- Jan. 6, 2000: Computer Glitch Fouls East Coast Air Traffic
- Feb. 7, 2000: Mafiaboy's Moment
- May 3, 2000: Geocaching Gets Geeks Into the Great Outdoors
- June 10, 2000: A London Bridge Is Swaying Hard
- June 24, 2000: President Goes Live on Net
- Aug. 17, 2000: Internet Crosses 50-Yard Line in U.S.
- Oct. 9, 2000: Ozone Hole Exposes Chilean City
March 7th, 2010
1955: Computer pioneer Doug Ross demonstrates the Director tape for MIT’s Whirlwind machine. It’s a new idea: a permanent set of instructions on how the computer should operate.
Six years in the making, MIT’s Whirlwind computer was the first digital computer that could display real-time text and graphics on a video terminal, which was then just a large oscilloscope screen. Whirlwind used 4,500 vacuum tubes to process data.
The Whirlwind occupied 3,300 square feet and was the fastest digital computer of its time. It also pioneered a number of new technologies, including magnetic core memory for RAM.
Another one of its contributions was Director, a set of programming instructions on paper tape that is regarded as the predecessor of operating systems in computers. The Director was designed to issue commands to the 4-year-old Whirlwind machine.
The idea was to eliminate the need for manual intervention (.pdf) in reading the tapes for different problems during a computing session.
The Director tape would communicate with the computer through a separate input reader. That means different tapes with various problems to be computed would be recognized and appropriately processed. A Director tape would make a complete run possible by pushing a single button.
Programmers John Frankovich and Frank Helwig wrote the first Director tape program. The software concept was to connect a Flexowriter — a mechanical, heavy-duty tape reader — to a newer, faster photoelectric tape reader.
This allowed the team to feed the spliced-together paper tapes directly to Whirlwind, without having a separate human operator.
Lead programmer Doug Ross finally demonstrated it in 1955.
The Director tape was also probably the first example of a Job Control Language–driven operating system. JCL is a scripting language used on mainframe operating systems to instruct them how to run a batch job or start a subsystem.
The Whirlwind is credited with leading to development of the SAGE, or Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, system used by the U.S. Air Force. It’s also said to have influenced most of the computers of the 1960s.
Source: Wikipedia, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Photo: Stephen Dodd, Jay Forrester, Robert Everett and Ramona Ferenz test Whirlwind in 1950.
Courtesy Mitre Corp.
See Also:
March 6th, 2010
Every year music lovers from across the country head to Austin, Texas for SXSW, and for the past six of those years, SXSW has offered hundreds of DRM-free tracks from artists playing at SXSW—and it's all available via BitTorrent.
Just head to the Home of the Unofficial SXSW torrents to grab the first torrent, featuring 646 tracks and weighing in at 3.35 GB. These songs are all freely available on the official SXSW web site, but this handy site wraps them all up into a much more convenient torrent. A second torrent is on the way (with over 200 more free and legit tracks). The site also hosts every collection since SXSW 2005, so if you're in the mood for some new music or just free (and legitimate) music, head on over and get your download on.
March 5th, 2010
If you're a huge fan of abstract wallpaper but you don't have the software or the know-how to make one you'll definitely want to try Flame, a web-based drawing tool that makes creating abstract doodles easy and fun.
Using Flame you can create a variety of shapes and patterns and the user interface is simple. You have a palette which is black by default, white is the only other option. You have an adjustable brush, customizable in size, softness, and other variables, and you can select your colors and the level of opacity and saturation.
One of the best ways to create really soft and flowing lines is to move the mouse quickly. The faster you move the mouse the "wider" the brush stretches and the softer and more diffuse the lines are. If you move the mouse slowly you get a laser-focused beam of intense color, move it quickly and you get a wide swath of gossamer-like color.
You can save your pictures to your computer, the default size is 1680px × 1050px with no ability to select other sizes—a feature we'd love to see implemented for creating crazy triple-screen wallpaper and other sizes. If you make a particularly awesome wallpaper, share it in the comments below. Have a neat tool for making your own wallpaper? We want to hear about that too.
March 4th, 2010
Next time an out-of-control pen wreaks havoc on your clothes or furniture and you don't have a spot remover on hand, try a little hairspray. Reader Shelley says it worked wonders after her two-year old used her couch as a canvas.
Photo by gilesclement.
Last week my two year old drew all over my (brand new!) cream fabric sofa with a red ballpoint pen. I was horrified. However after some googling I discovered that you don't need expensive chemicals—good old-fashioned hairspray will do the trick PERFECTLY!
Just spray the hairspray directly onto the ink, wait 30 seconds and then simply wipe the ink away with a damp cloth. You can actually see the ink coming to the surface! My sofa now looks good as new. Apparently it works on all fabric for all types of ink, so next time your pen leaks in your shirt pocket, don't bin the shirt, just use hairspray to remove it. It doesn't even matter if the ink has dried, and you can use the cheapest of cheap hairsprays too.
Now all I need to discover is how to remove crayon from the TV screen... ideas anyone?
The fact is that yes, actual cleaning products will also do the trick, but sometimes you've got to use what you've got on hand. We did some checking around and it looks like alcohol-based hair spray is key, and the hairspray trick works better on polyester blends. (About.com offers a few more tips for using hairspray to remove stains.) If you've used hairspray as a quick stain remover in a pinch, let's hear how it worked for you in the comments. Thanks Shelley!
March 2nd, 2010
Managers have been known to tear their hair out in frustration of why employees can't change behaviors, and discard old habits. Recent brain research gives us more accurate reasons as to why and what managers need to do about it. The bottom line is that you can't force anyone to change. Any kind of pressure will produce more resistance and could end up being counterproductive.
Habits help us do everything, every day. Our unconscious mind eliminates the need for us to think consciously about each small step and action involved in everything from making a latte to operating the photocopier. Our mind wants to make a memory and make the thinking and behavior automatic so our conscious mind can deal with more immediate and complex things. That's the good news. The bad news is that habits can also have a negative grasp on our mind and behavior. Bad habits die hard, are easy to resume, even when we think we've stopped them, as many reformed smokers or alcoholics will attest to.
Brain science research explains why. The human brain processes four hundred billion bits of information every second but you are consciously aware of about two thousand. The unconscious brain stores the rest away. Most of our habitual thinking and behavior is unconscious and automatic. The brain wants it that way, so our conscious mind has to deal with only a few things in the present moment.
We've learned a lot about habit forming from the research on addictive behavior, in areas such as alcohol or drugs. In normal people, the brain drug, dopamine plays a major role in motivation and reward. Domainergic pathways connect the limbic system, responsible for emotion, with the hippocampus, etching rewarding behaviors into the brain by creating strong, salient memories. The problem arises when the memory and the craving to recapture it takes over a person's life. As the dopamine surge repeats, it gains speed, but the brakes, located in the brain's frontal lobes, and responsible for inhibitory control, begin to fail. So ultimately, a war goes on in our brain between the hijacked neural pathways that push a person to addictive behavior and the frontal lobes' attempt to inhibit.
Bad habits operate in much the same way as addictive behavior in that memories of how to think and behave have been well established in the brain and a reward is obtained by repeatedly revisiting those neural pathways. Breaking the habit then is not only difficult; the brain sets up defense mechanisms to prevent you from changing what is automatic and unconscious. One study of heart patients who were heavy smokers or seriously overweight, showed that even after quadruple bi-pass surgery, a majority of the patients returned to old patterns of lifestyle behavior
The Quantum leap in neuroscience in the past decade can best be summed up in the word neuroplasticity, or simply put, our ability to make new brain cells and new neural connections. And this ability doesn't stop at adolescence, it continues until death. Every time you have a new thought, you are creating new pathways in your brain. And every time you have the same thought, or recall a memory, you make that pathway stronger and more dense A study by MIT's McGovern Institute, published in Nature magazine, described how important neural activity patterns in a specific regions of the brain change when new habits are formed, and change again when habits are broken but quickly re-emerge when something rekindles the memory of the old habit. The activity occurs in the region critical to habits, addiction and learning, the basal ganglia. The researchers concluded that the brain seems to retain a memory of the habit context, and this pattern can be triggered if the right cues occur.
No wonder bad habits are hard to break! So what's the answer for people who want to change their thinking or behavior. Again the answer lies in brain science and new approaches to psychotherapy.
Part of the answer is a matter of perspective. University of California researchers conducted a series of studies that provide the first experimental evidence of the benefits of taking a detached perspective on your problems. Kross says, "reviewing our mistakes over and over, re-experiencing the same negative emotions we felt the first time, tends to keep us stuck in negativity." Their study, published in the July, 2008 issue of Personality and Social Psychology,
The other part of the answer is not focusing on the problematic habitual thinking or behaviors and trying to get rid of them, but rather replacing them with new thinking, creating new neural pathways.
Dr. Steven Hayes, a renowned psychotherapist, and author of Getting Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life. Hayes has been setting the world of psychotherapy on its ear by advocating a totally different approach. Hayes and researchers Marsha Linehan and Robert Kohlenberg at the University of Washington, and Zindel Segal at the University of Toronto, what we could call "Third Wave Psychologists" are focusing less on how to manipulate the content of our thoughts (a focus on cognitive psychotherapy) and more on how to change their context--to modify the way we see thoughts and feelings so they can't control our behavior. Whereas cognitive therapists speak of "cognitive errors" and "distorted interpretation," Hayes and his colleagues encourage mindfulness, the meditation-inspired practice of observing thoughts without getting entangled by them--imagine the thoughts being a leaf or canoe floating down the stream.
Joseph Le Doux, in his book, Human Emotions: A Reader, describes new recent brain research that has shown that emotions are the driver for decision-making, which includes aspects of motivation. In a study by Hakwan Lau and Richard Passingham published in the Journal of Neuroscience demonstrated that the influences we are not aware of can hold greater sway than those we can consciously reject. We make countless decisions each day without conscious deliberation, a process called "biased competition," in which we decide among many options. The best kinds of biased decisions that are unconscious are habitual choices such as driving a car. Other unconscious influences are generally emotional or motivational, and take place continuously in our unconscious mind. In making complex decisions, legitimate factors sometimes make choices influenced by prejudice, so bias is hard to detect. Recent research by psychologist Eugene Caruso at the University of Chicago shows that people are willing to sacrifice quite a lot to fulfill their unconscious biases.
How long does it take to form a new habit? If you Googled the question, most likely the answer would be 21 days, based on the work of plastic surgeon Dr. Maxwell Matlz in 1960. Recent research shows this is was not accurate. Research by Phillippa Lally and colleagues at the University College of London and published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, showed that repeated behavior for 66 days converted that day to an automatic or unconscious behavior status; but the range was 18 to 254 days. In other words, it could take you up to 2 months of daily repetition before a behavior becomes a habit.
So what does all this research mean for the practical manager who is trying to change the thinking or behavior, and bad habits of employees? Here are some conclusions that should inform managers about better approaches:
- Habitual thinking and behavior are a result of powerful neural pathways in our brains, and memories that are automatically and unconsciously accessed; we get brain chemistry rewards every time we access those memories;
- Unconscious thought processes can predetermine, without an individual's awareness, decision-making bias and actual decision-making;
- Emotions are the key driver to decision-making, not logical, analytical thought; our logical processes are often only rational justifications for emotional decisions;
- Your brain will put up defensive mechanisms that will try to protect you from change;
- Because the brain operates in a quantum environment, our perceptions and self-talk alters the connections and pathways in our brains. Whatever we focus our "attention" on changes or creates new brain connections;
- Managers should focus on desired new patterns of thinking and behavior to help employees change, not analyzing and trying to fix the old patterns because the latter will only reinforce the problems.
Managers would do well to become thoroughly acquainted with brain science research as it impacts the performance of their employees.
March 1st, 2010
If you've ever been in that frustrating situation where you find yourself with some unexpected down time but don't know how to fill it at a moment's notice, lifestyle blog Life Scoop suggests putting together a possibilities calendar.
Blogger Asha Dornfest says she often runs across events or activities she'd like to attend, but aren't necessarily important enough to carve out special time for. She created a "possibilities" calendar in Google Calendar and now, instead of relying on her memory to remind her of an art showing or movie she wants to check out, she simply parks the details on her calendar and pulls it up when she finds herself with some unplanned free time.
Dornfest keeps this special calendar stocked with things like movie and gym class schedules, museum hours of operation, open swim times at the local pool, and so on. Since she uses Google Calendar to organize her life, Dornfest keeps her Possibilities calendar hidden from view until she needs to consult it in order to avoid cluttering up her daily schedule.
Even if you don't use Google Calendar, this idea can be adapted to just about any calendaring system. Dress it up with tags, categories, or contexts, to make it that much more accessible. You can even use it with a paper-based calendar by writing events in a specific color—or invisible ink.
What activities would you add to a possibilities calendar? Brainstorm in the comments.
February 27th, 2010
Think about your friends and associates. Each one probably has a very useful function. One person may make any situation more fun or tell lots of jokes. Another may keep ‘juicy' secrets you have to get off your chest. Someone else may always be willing to play a game of tennis, a few holes of golf or run a trail with you. Another may always be in the know about what's happening in your locale.
On a slightly more serious note, why are people attracted to you? What makes people want to work or conduct business with you? Why would people want to become a part of your inner circle or you to become a part of theirs? What makes you memorable and makes people excited to see you? Why would someone want to have the "insert your name" experience again?
In other words, what is your hook and how do you use your hook(s) to improve your business and social relationships?
It is really rather simple. To attract, gain access or to be invited again into the business or social circles you are interested in, you have to discover and develop the character traits or qualities that other members will consider valuable to their group. It may seem calculating, but in certain areas of our lives the stakes require it. By understanding this concept and increasing your ‘hook value' you can increase your current worth to groups you already belong to and ones you are seeking to enter.
Your value can be applied in numerous ways. It could be:
Specific Knowledge - Humor - Loyalty - Clutch Performer - Creative Input - Overall Intelligence - Charm - Conversational Ability - Inside Information (legal) - Athletic Ability - Leadership Skills - Networking Ability - Public Speaking Ability - Writing Skills - Marketing Skills - Organizational Skills - Charitable Mindset
Any of these characteristics could be your ‘hook.' They can be natural talents that you further develop or non-talents that you cultivate. Either way, if used sincerely and when it counts, your hook should bring more values to others and your own life. Thereby increasing your options in many areas.
Use your ‘hook' to your advantage.
Bakari Akil II, Ph.D. is the author of Super You! 101 Ways to Maximize your Potential! You can also check out his page on Twitter.
February 25th, 2010
Meetings can be one of the biggest time drains for you as an individual and for a business. A meeting with 7 people all making $20 per hour costs a business $140 per hour. If it is a once-per-week meeting and there are 15 minutes wasted at each meeting, the total yearly waste comes to over $1,800. I don’t know about you, but a one hour meeting with only 15 minutes wasted is actually a pretty good meeting, in my experience. Half of a meeting being wasted is more par for the course, and entire meetings that are unproductive is fairly common.
Here are some ways you can facilitate more efficient meetings and hopefully get more done in less time.
1. Make people show up on time
If people trickle in over a 10 minute period, that is a lot of wasted time. Often people come late because they know the meeting isn’t going to start on time, anyway. This is kind of a “catch 22,” because if you start the meeting with no one there, it is hard to get anything done. If you wait for everyone, then you make it likely that people will come late to the next meeting. Here are a couple ideas:
- Email everyone to remind them a few minutes before the meeting starts.
- Call or run by the office of people you know are often late.
- Go ahead and start the meeting without everyone. When someone comes in late, ask that they catch up with someone else in the group to find out what they missed.
- Hold the meeting somewhere that being late will make them look bad or at least be more noticeable.
- Ask people to come on time. Depending on your role, this might be as simple as making a request, or a bit more strict, like pointing out that they are being rude to everyone else who came on time.
You can find creative ways to help encourage people to come on time, as well. Once I was having problems with a particular individual who always showed up late for our meetings. At one meeting, he was late again. I took everyone that was there down to the cafe, bought everyone a drink and we continued our meeting there. The late individual came in and didn’t know where everyone was. The next time, he showed up on time.
2. Always have an agenda
Ideally, you want something with a specific amount of estimated time allocated to each item. This makes it easy for you to identify things that are starting to drag on longer than they should. Use the agenda to make sure you stay on track. This doesn’t mean you can never discuss something that isn’t on the agenda, but the agenda helps tell you where you should pick back up if you get side-tracked.
Give people the agenda ahead of time. For short meetings, it is probably best to have it in the body of an email. If you send it as an attachment, there is a good chance people won’t read it before the meeting. If you have it in the body, they will probably at least skim it. At the very least, you want to get the meeting agenda into their subconscious mind before they show up.
Having an agenda also helps show that you are organized and have a plan. It sets the expectation that your meeting isn’t going to be a waste of time. It helps put the meeting in the right perspective and makes it carry a more valuable perception.
3. Invite the right people
It is easy to get so many people involved that you can’t get anything done. If you are talking about something that needs to be approved by a number of people, it may be good to have meeting with a small group of people to hash out the ideas and recommendations for the decision makers to look at.
The number of people in a meeting is tricky. You want to avail yourself of everyone’s talent, but you don’t want to have a bunch of dead weight, either. Still, there are other considerations beyond just the contributions of people to the meeting:
- Political – Sometimes you will need to invite someone so they feel important. You can potentially make them feel important without inviting them by scheduling the meeting for a time when they have another meeting scheduled.
- Buy in – Related to the political point, sometimes you have to have people in a meeting because they won’t support your conclusions unless they feel like they were part of it. Sometimes you can get around this by having a one-on-one session with them ahead of time to hear their concerns and make them feel like they were part of the process.
There are also some people you want to make sure you don’t invite. I’ve worked in organizations that had high-level employees who never seemed to do much of anything. They seemed to feel that their sole responsibility in life was to play the devil’s advocate and tell everyone why their ideas wouldn’t work. These types of people can’t make a decision, themselves, and usually have nothing to add. Occasionally they will help you steer clear of a potential pitfall, but the signal-to-noise ratio is so high that their input is worthless, for the most part. These are people you don’t want to have at your meetings.
4. Use email effectively
Don’t have a meeting for something that can be better communicated via email. If you just need to distribute facts, use email. If you need to argue about the best way to do something, don’t try to do this in your inbox–hold a meeting. Some people try to avoid distributing information via email because it makes them look more important to do it in a meeting. Giving the statistics from last month isn’t the type of thing everyone needs to sit in a room to listen to. It might make someone feel important, but it is pointless unless the numbers are generating a lot of questions–even then email may be a more effective communication medium.
Have you ever noticed how science fiction shows have someone on the space ship whose job appears to be to repeat whatever the captain said to the computer again? Reading numbers off a spreadsheet is usually just as pointless.
5. Use meetings to argue
This sounds bad, but really, this is what meetings are effective for. Meetings let you get people together and work through differences in person. You can pit various ideas against each other and come up with the best solutions. If you don’t have any arguing going on in your meetings, then you are probably having meetings for the wrong reasons.
You have to learn to argue fair. You are discussing ideas, not personally attacking people. It may take a bit to get a team to open up to the point where they can passionately express their views, but that is what you need for meetings to really become productive.
One common problem is having someone at a meeting that is so important that no one will disagree with him/her. If no one is going to disagree, you might as well just let that person make all the decisions. I had a graphic designer working for me once who would never disagree with me when we were having meetings. I finally asked her about this. She said she didn’t want to argue with her boss. I explained that I was paying her to disagree with me! If I didn’t want her opinion, I wouldn’t have hired her in the first place.
6. Record your decisions
Often decisions are made at meetings, but within a few months, no one remembers why. Taking good notes will help you easily remember not only what was decided, but why it was decided. It also makes it easy for new people to easily catch up and understand the history of a group. For taking notes, I like tools like SubEthaEdit or EtherPad that let multiple people edit the same document simultaneously. I like these tools because they help keep everyone engaged and don’t require a bunch of time creating “minutes” after the fact.
Another advantage of having good notes is that it gives you a way to pass on the meeting’s contents to people who need to know about the discussion, but can’t come (or you don’t want to come). Ideally, having the notes stored somewhere that everyone can search them is a valuable method of knowledge management for your entire company.
7. Kill the Powerpoints
Powerpoint can be a useful tool for doing training, but if you are spending a lot of time with someone at the front of a room flipping through slides, it is a sign that your meetings aren’t very efficient. Powerpoint can be a good way to make sure everyone is looking at the same thing as the starting point for discussion. A good rule of thumb is seven minutes. If the person controlling the Powerpoint is talking for more than seven minutes without being interrupted or asked a question, then the information probably doesn’t need to be presented in the meeting.
8. Get everyone talking
Don’t let people be silent participants. If someone isn’t participating, they may not be comfortable with the format–everyone else may be jumping in but they feel like they need to ask permission to talk or prefer something with more structure. These people need to be included. Usually it is just a matter of saying, “Joe, what do you think?” The point is, you need to make a conscious effort to include everyone. If they aren’t being heard, then it is probably a waste of money for them to be there.
9. End on time
You want people to show up on time for your important meeting. You need to give them the same level of respect and end when you say you will end. If you keep on top of your agenda’s time schedule, ending on time shouldn’t be too difficult and ending early is always a good thing, too.
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