Sunday, July 31, 2011

Study Compares IQ With Browser Choice

Amplify’d from www.pcworld.com

AptiQuant, a "psychometric consulting" firm that provides hiring exams for businesses, gave online IQ tests to more than 100,000 people. Visitors arrived either through organic searches or through advertisements on other sites, and Aptiquant made a note of which browser each test taker was using.

On average, Internet Explorer users fared the worst, with IE6 users at the bottom of the pile and IE8 users performing slightly better. Firefox, Chrome and Safari fell in the middle with little difference between them. IE with Chrome Frame and Camino landed on top, along with Opera, whose users scored the highest (on average).

"The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual's cognitive ability and their choice of web browser," AptiQuant concluded. "From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers."

See more at www.pcworld.com
 

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Invalid Truths of the Republican Rhetoric

Amplify’d from www.nj.com
Debt ceiling rhetoric by GOP misleads and endangers the nation
boehner.JPG

The first “invalid truth” is that if wealthy Americans are given tax breaks, their savings will “trickle down” to those below them in the economy through greater investments and the creation of jobs. The “trickle-down theory” hoax, first advanced by Ronald Reagan, was resurrected and repackaged under George W. Bush. The problem was that Bush’s administration gave huge tax breaks as well as multibillion-dollar bail-outs and simultaneously saw the largest loss of American jobs in decades — a loss from which we never recovered.



The second collective “invalid truths” advanced by Tea Party Republicans are the hollow arguments against raising the debt ceiling. That same debt ceiling was raised 18 times under Reagan and seven times under the last Bush, with not a whisper of opposition. Suddenly, under Obama, it is critical to cap spending and the national debt and risk defaulting on outstanding obligations even when doing so could disrupt the already-fragile American and world economies. In addition to capping the debt ceiling, conservative Republicans also seek drastic, class-lopsided budget cuts that would hurt those already reeling in this economic crisis: the rapidly dwindling middle class.



Since we know the Republican plan is based on invalid truths, where is the truth?



The answer is simple and obvious: The conservative agenda is to unseat Obama at all cost — even if it imperils the American and world economies. Truth be told, the presidency of this brilliant, good-looking, articulate, African-American role model has never been accepted by conservatives despite the fact that the American people duly elected him. They called him a socialist, stonewalled every Obama initiative, and even denied his legitimacy as an American. Now, in desperation, they’ve upped the ante by holding Congress hostage to advance their reverse Robin Hood economic agenda. The end goal is for Tea Party (a euphemism for neo-right wing) conservatives to seize long-term power by not only unseating Obama, but dismantling all that he represents as well, thereby turning back the clock.



Propagation of ”invalid truths” is not unlike another infamous concept advanced by Vladimir Lenin: “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” The comparison should be sobering to those who love America’s ideals. The Republican Party has been hijacked by its powerful conservative branch and held hostage by hollow promises of political longevity. To date, mainstream Republicans have lacked the intestinal fortitude to extricate themselves from the grips of the mean-spirited and egocentric within their ranks. This will change if Americans of all political persuasions demand sane government from their congressional leaders. The demand should be to place the good of America ahead of the party and its deep-pocket, special-interest supporters.





Darrell A. Jackson, Ed.D., is an educational consultant. An educator for 40 years, he is a retired principal from the Ewing school district.

Read more at www.nj.com
 

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Genius Like Playlist Creation in Spotify

Amplify’d from lifehacker.com

Spotibot


How Can I Get Genius-Like Radio Stations on Spotify?Spotibot is incredibly simple: just plug in an artist (or number of artists), tell it how many tracks you want it to return, and it'll spit out a playlist of similar songs for you to try out. From there, you can just drag and drop the playlist right into Spotify and start listening. If you don't want to limit your recommendations to a certain band, you can even link Spotibot with your Last.fm profile and just have it create generic playlists based on all the music you listen to. The playlists can be up to 50 songs in length, and you can even tell it to favor more popular tracks if you so wish, as well as remove tracks or add more similar tracks with the plus and "x" buttons.


That alone is very cool, but Spotibot has a few other features that go above and beyond the call of duty: you can mention them on Twitter with the name of a band (e.g. "@spotibot similar to John Mayer") and it'll reply back to you with song suggestions ("Try 'Realize' by Colbie Caillat"). You can also install a Greasemonkey script that will redirect all Spotify links to a page with more information about the tracks contained with that playlist, as well as the ability to import your loved Last.fm songs into a Spotify playlist of their own.


TruShuffle


How Can I Get Genius-Like Radio Stations on Spotify?TruShuffle pulls data from Last.fm to create a personalized recommendation playlist in Spotify. Its main advantage over Spotibot's similar Last.fm functionality is that you don't have to import anything more than once, you just need to scrobble tracks to Last.fm. TruShuffle will share a playlist with you in Spotify and add tracks to it based on your listening habits, which is awesome. You can adjust settings on their web page, like how similar you want the music to be, and you can also grab their desktop client for more settings and statistics.


You have to create an account for TruShuffle, but it takes about two seconds and doesn't even require an email address. Just plug in the username and password you want, connect it to your Last.fm username, and it'll give you a playlist to subscribe to in Spotify. You don't have to ever visit the site again, if you don't want to—once you've set it up, your TruShuffle playlist will keep updating as you listen to more music on Spotify (though the settings on their site are pretty handy).


Spotiseek


How Can I Get Genius-Like Radio Stations on Spotify?Spotiseek is very similar to Spotibot, with some slight interface changes. You can type in any artist to generate a playlist of similar music, then drag that playlist into Spotify. However, on the playlist page, it has two handy "more artists" and "new tracks" buttons, which will re-generate the playlist for you in one click—either with new similar artists, or new tracks from the same artists. You can also replace single tracks by clicking on the "Replace" button next to a song. Like Spotibot, you can prioritize popular tracks as well. The two services are quite similar, with very minor differences. For example, Spotibot lets you create playlists based on multiple artists, but Spotiseek gives you a bit more control over generating new playlists. Personal preference will determine which of these you use, so give them both a look.

Read more at lifehacker.com
 

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Debt Ceiling - Truth

Amplify’d from www.politifact.com
Obama


"President Reagan did it (raised the debt ceiling) 18 times.  George W. Bush did it seven times."

Read more at www.politifact.com