Bikini Blues Teaser from Tim Aldridge on Vimeo.

The Pinterest effect on e-commerce sites continues: online wine retailer Wine.com, a company with $67 million in annual revenue, is adding a social shopping component to its website which not only looks like Pinterest, but is also powered by Facebook. Wine.com says it’s using technology provided by Sociable Labs, a San Francisco-based startup which introduced its licensable “EverShare” product suite earlier this year.
But while Wine.com’s change is a notable one for them, the bigger story here is the traction that Sociable Labs is seeing, thanks to the “Pinterestification” (not a real word!) of e-commerce.
As a refresher, EverShare lets companies host their own Pinterest-style product pages on their websites, while also connecting with Facebook APIs to allow things like purchases, comments, and reviews to be shared with customers’ Facebook friends. It’s the kind of thing that could have been a Pinterest platform app, if Pinterest had a public API. But instead, the service gives sites the “Pinterest feel,” as well as the Facebook graph – an interesting and insanely practical combo.
On Wine.com’s site, for example, the implementation of Sociable’s technology allows visitors to visually browse through products, and, if they’re also connected to Facebook, they can instantly share their activity through Facebook’s Open Graph and see what their friends have recently purchased. There are also some handy customizations provided by Sociable Labs. For example, purchases with a gift message are never shared to Facebook so the surprise won’t be ruined. And there’s a box on the order confirmation page that lets customers post directly from checkout to Facebook.
But rollouts like this are risky. Wine.com didn’t do a big announcement, because the implementation is in beta. As I go to publish this, the EverShare-enabled Live Feed is down (the company says it’s doing “PCI compliance scans.” Oops.) Still, what do Wine.com’s customers think when a big part of the website is dead? Ideally, the best bet may be to make visual, social shopping a core part of the business, like Fab.com has, as opposed to a third-party integration. But not all merchants have the time or resources to make that happen. And maybe they’re not convinced that they should.
Sociable Labs’ CEO Nisan Gabbay says his company now has over 20 customers deployed or in process of deploying the EverShare feature set. And it’s not always e-commerce sites, as it turns out. “We’ve seen equally great response from prominent media companies, in addition to online retailers,” he notes. “As a result, we’ve doubled the size of our sales and services team over the last few months,” Gabbay says. However, because of agreements with customers, most don’t allow Sociable to publish specifics. The only others besides Wine.com which Gabbay could share are Charlotte Russe, Sole Society, Glyde, Rue La La, and Totsy.
The average monthly license fee for the EverShare software and accompanying analytics service is $6,000 per month, Gabbay tells us, and is determined by customer size. If visual browsing is the future of e-commerce and beyond, companies like his could be a big deal.

Should Retailers Go “Pinterest-Like” Or Pinterest Proper?

But retailers are going to soon have to make some tough decisions. Should they build visual, social shopping in-house, integrate directly with Pinterest and use third-party analytics offerings, or should they integrate a third-party Pinterest-like technology (like EverShare and its accompanying analytics reporting)? What’s the right answer?
EverShare, remember, launched in February, so it’s a very new product – those 20 some brands are definitely early adopters here.
Meanwhile, Pinterest itself is proving hugely influential in consumer online shopping behavior. According to new data from Compete, in a small survey, 31% of shoppers said that seeing a “pin” on Facebook influenced them to consider a brand and 25% said that seeing pins on Pinterest said it was used for discovery. Meanwhile, 8% on Pinterest and 5% on Facebook said the pin actually led to purchase.

But Compete points out that brands have been slow to engage on Pinterest, and wondered what the holdup may be. The lack of a proper API platform is likely a good guess. This stuff is difficult track. And, as with TV or magazine ads, it’s hard to know when exposure to imagery and content inspires a purchase further down the road…or even a “good feeling” about a brand. Measuring the true ROI of “pinning” behaviors, whether Pinterest proper or Pinterest-like (e.g. EverShare), is going to take some time. It’s the wild, wild west out there.

Workarounds For The Pinterest Problem

However, workarounds for the Pinterest problem are already starting to emerge. Curalate and Pintics offer analytics, for example. Lexity is introducing a new app tomorrow that lets merchants see how the products they carry are trending on Pinterest, and which are most popular. It’s also helping to discover the top influencers on the platform, as related to the products they sell. (Other apps have already emerged in the “pinfluence” space, like Pinclout and Pinpuff.) But Lexity’s offering lets retailers really start taking action on Pinterest – businesses and brands can download top pins, influencers, find and follow the right people and the right boards, pin their top products automatically, track revenue generated by pins and more.
However, the “right” strategy, like most things in this space, is not going to be a one-size fits all solution, though. For some, EverShare could be an easy way to boost social engagement, while others will want to engage more directly on Pinterest itself. And for others still, they may go for a mix of solutions. Whatever the result, “Pinterestification” of shopping, and maybe even discovery itself is coming.

Source : http://goo.gl/hTUIJ / techcrunch.com/

Mysterious bacteria near Easter Island statues offer cure for Alzheimers

• Easter Island
• Alzheimer's disease
• Sirolimus
• University of Texas at Austin
• Mouse

 Please don't
 forget to:

July 4, 2012 - A natural drug discovered in the soil of Easter Island could improve the memory of older men and women - and even treat Alzheimer's, researchers say.

In tests in mice, the drug halted the decline in brain function as they got older, and supplied hope that it could also treat depression.

The drug - rapamycin - is a bacterial by-product discovered in the shadows of the island's popular statues.

It is named after Rapa Nui, the Polynesian name for Easter Island, which sits isolated in the Pacific ocean - 2000 miles from anywhere.

Easter Island heads: It is named after Rapa Nui, the Polynesian name for Easter Island, which sits isolated in the Pacific ocean - 2000 miles from anyplace

It is already utilized in transplant patients to avoid organ rejection and now scientists in journal Neuroscience say it can increase understanding and assist treat cognitive decline.

It could even treat situations like Alzheimer's, they believe.

A team from the University of Texas added the drug to the diet of healthy mice and discovered it enhanced learning and memory in young mice and memory in elder rodents.

Professor Veronica Galvan said: ‘We made the young ones discover, and bear in mind what they learned, far better than what is standard.

‘Among the older mice, the ones fed with a diet plan like rapamycin really showed an improvement, negating the normal decline that you see in these functions with age.’

The team also identified three ‘happy, feel-good’ neurotransmitters - serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine - had been higher in the mice treated with rapamycin.

This could help clarify the effects on memory, she said, and helped back up earlier research which showed Alzheimer's like syndromes had been lowered in mice treated with the drug.

‘This is super-intriguing and one thing we are going to pursue in the lab,’ she stated.

It also lowered anxiety and depressive-like behaviour in the mice, she said.

Her colleague Dr Jonathan Halloran utilized a series of elevated tunnels that led to a catwalk to examine the behaviour of the rodents.

Mice prefer tunnels to open spaces and had been watched on the catwalk.

Dr Halloran mentioned: ‘All of a sudden the mice are in open space.

‘It's pretty far from the floor for their size, sort of like if a particular person is hiking and suddenly the trail gets steep. It really is pretty far down and not so comfortable.’Mice with much less anxiety were a lot more curious to discover the catwalk, he stated.

He explained: ‘We observed that the mice fed with a diet containing rapamycin spent significantly a lot more time out in the open arms of the catwalk than the animals fed with a regular diet plan.’

Similarly, when mice had been handled by their tails they would struggle, but depressed mice would struggle less.

‘So we can measure how considerably and how typically they struggle as a measure of the motivation they have to get out of an uncomfortable circumstance,’ said Dr Galvan.

‘We discovered rapamycin acts like an antidepressant - it increases the time the mice are attempting to get out of the scenario. ‘They don't give up they struggle far more.

Sources and more information:
• Mysterious bacteria found in soil near Easter Island statues could offer cure for Alzheimers

A natural drug discovered in the soil of Easter Island could improve the memory of older people - and even treat Alzheimer's, researchers say. In tests in mice, the drug halted the decline in brain function as they got older, and offered hope that it could also treat depression. The drug - rapamycin - is a bacterial by-product discovered in the...

• Does Easter Island hold the secret of reversing Alzheimer's Disease? [Neuroscience]

The drug rapamycin comes from bacteria found in the soils of Easter Island. It's helped save lives for over a decade by preventing rejection in organ transplants, but that might just be scratching the surface of what it can do. Rapamycin takes its name from Rapa Nui, the island's name in the native Eastern Polynesian language.

• Does Easter Island Hold Alzheimer's Cure?
• Easter Island may hold the key to curing Alzheimer's
• Rapamycin Raises Cognition Throughout Life Span In Mouse Model
• Does Easter Island Hold Keys to Solving Alzheimer? 

Source : http://www.disclose.tv/news/Mysterious_bacteria_near_Easter_Island_statues_offer_cure_for_Alzheimers/85496

Pinterest – The Value Of Pinterest to Hotel Sales & Marketing

April 19, 2012 By staywyse

Is Pinterest just latest ‘shiny new toy’ or will it have staying power?
In February Pinterest drove more traffic to websites than Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn (LNKD), and YouTube combined. (HotelMarketing.com, 3/26/12). Couple that statistic with the fact that 93% of its users are females, and you have a powerful tool for the leisure and social market. It only took 9 months for Pinterest to go from 50,000 users to 17 million – it took Facebook 16 months. (commsource)
Pinterest formerly told its users to not use the site for self promotion and pin stuff they found on other sites. This lead to a potential copyright infringement issue as many photos are copyright protected to their photographers. Pinterest changed its user agreement to encourage ‘pinners’ to post their own photos and other ‘stuff’ thus opening the flood gates for business use. (WSJ, 3/26/12)
In an article entitled Is Pinterest the New Facebook (Jessi Hemple, Fortune Magazine, 3/22/12) differentiated the two in the following manner. “People use Facebook and Twitter to talk to each other, not necessarily to discuss things they might want to buy. In contrast, Pinterest users are more often in a shopping mindset when they are using the service. If you’re keeping a pinboard called “Spring handbags I’m considering,” there’s a good chance you’ll click through and make a purchase.”
What you pin on Pinterest should support and enhance your brand. Pinterest is all about envisioning an experience and that dovetails nicely with the emphasis in hospitality on creating guest experiences rather just ‘selling’ them a room. It also is purely visual which eliminates the marketers’ adjectives in copy that the customer has long since stopped believing. Pinterest creates a sense of place and helps visitors to the site visualize experiences they may have at the hotel – they can put themselves in the pictures.
However, like all social media, a strategy for what the property wants to accomplish with the page needs to be in place prior to engaging and not just ‘pinning’ everything from the web site or Facebook. Pinterest to be used well should also focus on the destination as well as the property. “ When it comes to pinning, the breakdown will be approximately 70% about the city and 30% about the hotel, (Kelli) Crean (ecommerce manager for the Roosevelt Hotel) said.” (HotelNewsNow, 3/28/12)
Pinterest is perfect for all types of properties but it, like Facebook, levels the playing field between the boutique, lifestyle and independent hotels and the large chains.
Source http://staywyse.org/2012/04/19/pinterest-the-value-of-pinterest-to-hotel-sales-marketing/

The Dropa Stone Discs

The Dropa Stone Discs

As humanity searches for its extraterrestrial roots, amount the enigmatic objects found along the way are the Drop Stones of Tibet.
Who were the Dropa? The Dropa (also known as Dropas, Drok-pa or Dzopa) are, according to certain controversial writers, a race of dwarf-like extraterrestrials who landed near the Chinese-Tibetan border some twelve thousand years ago. Skeptics note, however, a number of problems with the case (and a lack of corroborative evidence), which offers significant doubt as to the reality of the more sensationalistic Dropa claims. Mainstream critics argue that the entire affair is a hoax.
Alleged Discovery -- Chi Pu Tei, a professor of archaeology at Beijing University, and his students were on an expedition to explore a series of caves in the pathless Himalayan mountains of the remote Bayan-Kara-Ula in Qinghai on the border of China and Tibet. The caves may have been artificially carved to be a system of tunnels and underground storerooms. The walls were squared and glazed, as if cut into the mountain with great heat.
They found many neat rows of tombs with short 4 ft 4 in inch skeletons buried within. The skeletons had abnormally big heads, and small, thin, fragile bodies. A member of the team suggested that these might be the remains of an unknown species of mountain gorilla. Prof. Chi Pu Tei was said to respond, "Who ever heard of apes burying one another?"
There were no epitaphs at the graves, but instead hundreds of one foot wide stone discs ("Dropa Stones") were found having 3/4 inch wide holes in their centers. On the walls were carved pictures of the rising sun, moon, stars, the land, mountains, and lines of pea-sized dots connecting the earth with the sky. Along with the discs, the cave drawings had been determined to be about 12,000 years old.

---

Photos of the Dropa Stones

Each stone disk was reportedly inscribed with two fine grooves spiraling from
the edge to a hole in the disk's center, perhaps not unlike the Phaistos Disk.

---

The disks were labeled along with other finds of the expedition and stored away at Beijing University for 20 years, during which deciphering attempts were unsuccessful. When the disks were closely examined by Dr. Tsum Um Nui of Beijing around 1958, he concluded that each groove actually consisted of a series of tiny hieroglyphs of unknown pattern and origin. The rows of hieroglyphics were so small that a magnifying glass was needed to see them clearly. Many of the hieroglyphics had been worn away by erosion. When Dr. Tsum deciphered the symbols, they told the story of the crash-landing of the Dropa spaceship and the killing of most of the survivors by local people.
According to Tsum Um Nui, one of the lines of the hieroglyphs reads, "The Dropas came down from the clouds in their aircraft. Our men, women and children hid in the caves ten times before sunrise. When at last they understood the sign language of the Dropas, they realized that the newcomers had peaceful intentions." Another section expresses "regret" by the Ham that the aliens' craft had crash-landed in such a remote and inaccessible mountain range and that there had been no way to building a new one to enable the Dropas to return to their own planet.
Dr. Tsum's report supposedly appeared in a professional journal in 1962. He was subsequently ridiculed to the point of self-imposed exile in Japan, where he died. The Peking Academy of Pre-history never allowed him to publish and never speak of his findings.
"Tsum Um Nui" is not a real Chinese name, and critics suggest that Dr. Tsum may not have actually existed. However Tsum Um Nui is a Japanese name adapted to Chinese language. There is no evidence of him beyond the Dropa allegations.

Further research In 1965, Professor Chi Pu Tei and four of his colleagues were finally given permission to reveal their theory. They published it under the title "The Grooved Script concerning Space-ships which, as recorded on the Discs, landed on Earth 12,000 years ago".
The records, some 716 grooved discs later uncovered in the same caves, tell an astonishing story of a space probe sent by the inhabitants of another planet. After landing at the Bayan-Kara-Ula mountain range, the scripts allegedly say, the peaceful intentions of the aliens confused the members of the Ham tribe, inhabitants of the neighboring caves, who hunted down and killed the extraterrestrials.
Photos claiming to show Dropa Disks are in fact Bi Disks, thousands of which have been found throughout China, mostly in the Southeastern Provinces. Bi Disks range in size of a few inches to several feet, and are most commonly made of jade or nephrite, with a round or square small central hole.
Most Bi Disks date to the Neolithic Period (c. 3000 BCE), but are found up to the Shang Dynasty Period. Bi Disks beyond the Shang Period are usually more ornate, carved with dragons, snakes and sometimes fish, and used in ritual ceremonies.
Most Neolithic Bi Disks were found in gravesites, buried beneath the head or feet of the deceased. It is theorized that this was to assist the deceased's spirit. No Bi Disks have been found to contain writing or spiral grooves as described in the Dropa story by authors such as Hartwig Hausdorf.
The Dropa Disks are said to be only 12 inches in diameter. However, one black and white photograph claimed by Hausdorf and others to display a Dropa Disk clearly shows the disk resting on a seat, and it is clearly several feet in diameter and has no markings whatsoever.

Russian Research Russian scientists asked to see the discs and several were sent to Moscow for examination. They were scraped free of rock particles which had stuck to them and then put through chemical analysis. To the surprise of the scientists, the disks contained large amounts of cobalt and other metallic substances. What is more, when placed on a special turntable, according to Dr. Vyatcheslav Saizev, who described the experiments in the Soviet magazine Sputnik, they vibrate or "hum" in an unusual rhythm as though an electric charge is passing through them. Or as one scientist suggested, "as if they formed some part of an electrical circuit." At some time, they have clearly been exposed to extraordinarily high voltages. "They seem like ancient hard disks, spinning like the hard disks we have now days. Perhaps if we could read these ancient hard disks, we would find more answers."

Wegerer's Photos In 1974, Ernst Wegerer, an Austrian engineer, photographed two disks that met the descriptions of the Dropa Stones. He was on a guided tour of Banpo-Museum in Xian, when he saw the stone discs on display. He claims he saw a hole in the center of each disc and hieroglyphs in partly crumbled spiral-like grooves.
Wegerer asked the managers of Banpo-Museum for more information on the pieces in the showcase. The manager knew nothing of the stones' history, though she was able to tell a complete story about all the other artifacts made from clay. She only knew that the stone discs were unimportant "cult objects".
Wegerer was allowed to take one of the discs in his hand. He estimated their weight at 1 kilogram or 2 pounds, and the diameter at one foot. The hieroglyphs can't be seen in his photos, because they have crumbled away partly, and his camera's flash washed out the fine detail, such as the spiral grooves.
A few days after his visit, the manager was called away from her job without telling her why. She and the two stone discs vanished, according to Professor Wang Zhijun, the Director of the Banpo-Museum in March of 1994.

Corroboration In the years since the discovery of the first disc, archeologists and anthropologists have learned more about the isolated Bayan-Kara-Ula area. Much of the information has been interpreted as corroborating the story recorded on the discs.
Legends supposedly still preserved in the area speak of small, gaunt, yellow-faced men who "came from the clouds, long, long ago". The men had huge, bulging heads and puny bodies and were so ugly and repellent that they were shunned by everyone. "Men with the quick horses" hunted down the ugly dwarfs. Strangely, the description of the "invaders" is said to match that of the skeletons originally discovered in the caves by Professor Chi Pu Tei.

Criticism Critics have largely rejected the above claims, arguing they are a combination of hoax and urban legend. For example, writer David Richie notes that the Dropa tales intrigued Gordon Chreighton, a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Society and Royal Geographical Society. Upon investigation, Chreighton judged the sensationalistic Dropa-Extraterrestrial allegations to be "groundless," and detailed his findings in an article for Flying Saucer Review.
No traceable, credible evidence for this theory exists, or can be proven to have existed in the past. Proponents of the Dropa-stones story claim that this is the result of social disruption caused by the Chinese Cultural Revolution and of a conspiratorial coverup by Chinese authorities. However this story goes well beyond China. Its opponents claim it is long proven to be a forgery by Erich von Daniken.
Below is a detailed rebuttal of most sensationalistic Extraterrestrial/Dropa claims:

1. The discovery. There are no mentions of 'Tsum Um Nui' anywhere; as he is supposed to have fled China and died in Japan in the 1960s this cannot be negated by Cultural Revolution, Communist coverup theory. Also, there is no mention of the 1938 archaeological expedition to the Banyan Kara Ulla range. No "Peking Academy of Pre-History" ever existed. 2. Early Sources. The earliest mention of the story is in Erich von Damien�s infamous 1968 book, Chariots of the Gods. The book has been widely criticized as unreliable; in fact, the vast majority of names and sources appearing in the book cannot be corroborated, and no existence of the following Soviet or Chinese scholars can be found anywhere outside this story: Cho Pu Tei, Tsum Um Nui, Ernst Wagener, Vyatcheslav Saizev, and Sergei Lolladoff. Most tellingly, D�niken gives his main source for the story as a Soviet science fiction writer Alexander Kazantsev; however Kazantsev himself disagrees with D�niken's account and says that it was D�niken who told him the story, not the other way around. 3. Later Sources. The 1978 book Sungods in Exile "edited" by David Agamon, appeared to lend support to the story of the Dropa, but Agamon admitted in the magazine Fortean Times in 1988 that the book was fiction and that its alleged author, a British researcher named Dr. Karyl Robin-Evans, was imaginary. Some websites claim to show a photo of Dr Robin-Evans with the Dalai Lama. A frail, old man assisted by the current Dalai Lama, the photograph is quite recent and can not be Dr Robin-Evans -- he died in 1978, according to Hartwig Hausdorf. 4. Translation. There is absolutely no precedent for an unknown language being successfully deciphered. All lost ancient languages have been rediscovered only because they survived in forms familiar to scientists. Even in such cases, deciphering and understanding these older language forms and their scripts has usually taken decades for multiple teams of highly competent linguists, and their findings are constantly being debated and updated. Many ancient scripts (notably Linear A from the island of Crete and Rongorongo from Easter Island), have defied deciphering precisely because they cannot be linked to any known language. Given these facts, there would be even greater difficulties in translating a truly extraterrestrial language. It is therefore highly unlikely that a single Chinese scholar with no reported background in linguistics could single-handedly decipher an alien script or language in his spare time. 5. The Disks. All that exists of the supposed alien disks are several wide-angle photographs. The disks photographed, firstly, do not match the described "12-inch disks"; the disks photographed are very large. Secondly, the photos show none of the supposed deep grooves. Finally, absolutely no photos, descriptions, analyses or any other evidence of the actual 'alien script' appear anywhere at all. 6. The Evidence. The disks were supposed to be stored in several museums in China. None of these museums have any traces of these disks, nor can any be found of the ones supposedly sent to USSR for analysis. 7. The Dropa Tribe. While reported to be a tribe of feeble dwarfs, in actuality the Dropas are nomadic herders who inhabit most of the northern Tibetan Plateau. The Ham are also inhabitants of Tibet, and traditionally have supplied Tibet's warriors: many of the 13th Dalai Lama's bodyguards during his escape from the Chinese invasion were Ham Tibetans. The word "Dropa", according to Chrieghton, describes the nomadic residents of Tibetan highlands, and can be roughly translated as "solitude" or "isolated". Furthermore, Chreighton described the Dropa as not resembling "troglodytes", or as stunted; on the contrary, they tend to be rather large and sturdy, befitting their occupation as herders. (Richie, 95-96)

Dropa Stone Discs Wikipedia

...Remember when Mark Zuckerberg called his users ''dumb f****''?...

Think about all the things you’ve used your Internet for in the past 24 hours. You’ve probably checked your email, updated your Facebook status, paid some bills through online banking, read up on the latest news, and took the time before bed to video chat with a far-flung childhood friend. Even after logging out and turning off your computer, the information you’ve just accessed or created continues to wander the great plains of the World Wide Web. This information that we leave behind about ourselves on a daily basis is known as our digital footprint.
Like stepping in wet concrete, these trails we unwittingly leave behind can be tough to erase. With the rise of identity theft, corporate tracking, and the ability of “Big Brother” to access our private data, it is more important than ever for Internet users to be aware of how past and future data can be erased and controlled more effectively.

How Big is My Footprint?

To truly understand just how big your digital footprint is, there are several tools available that can be easily accessed and added to your computer for constant monitoring and control.
Google is one of the most commonly accused mediums for collecting our data, and rightfully so. That ad that just popped up on your GMail page for cookbooks does indeed have something to do with your search for a killer Spam recipe for last Sunday’s tailgate party.

On a daily basis Google pings your browser for information about browsing history, allowing the search giant to improve their search algorithms and target advertising. Interested in seeing just how often this is happening? Download the free software offering Google Alarm, created by F.A.T. Labs, which is available for both Firefox and Chrome browsers. This add-on will notify you each time you are sending data to Google. Just make sure you disable the sound option for this. I jumped out of my chair the first time the (very loud) alarm went off, and kept going off almost every time I visited a new site. Unless you have a serious love for air horns or are trying to induce a heart attack don’t forget to do this!

Another way to measure your digital footprint is to see how much advertising companies have been allowed to track your browsing habits. “But I never gave any companies permission to know about sites I visit” you insist. The sad reality is that simply visiting certain sites allows advertising companies to place what are known as “tracking cookies” on your computer. Cookies are small chunks of data created by web servers that are delivered through a web browser and stored on your computer. They allow websites that you often frequent to keep track of your online patterns and preferences, creating a personalized experience.
Leading the fight to raise awareness and provide solutions to this issue is the Network Advertising Initiative, a coalition of cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies committed to “building consumer awareness and establishing responsible business and data management practices and standards.”
According to the NAI, “Most of the advertising online today is provided by 3rd party ad networks. These networks use tools such as cookies to track your Web preferences and usage patterns in order to tailor advertising content to your interests. What you may not realize is that information gathered at one website may be used to direct ad content at another site.”
To combat this, the NAI has created a service that scans your computer to identify those member companies that have placed an advertising cookie file on your computer. The results from running this simple diagnostic can be eye-opening about how much your internet habits are being monitored.

Another method of obtaining a simple estimate about your digital footprint is by using the Digital Footprint Calculator, provided as a service from the EMC Corporation. The software download, which is available for both Windows and Mac, measures user input about the frequency of emails, photo and video uploads, phone usage, web browsing, and where in the world you live. After submitting your estimates, the calculator will provide you with an actual file size of your presence on the Internet. The software also ironically provides an option of creating a ticker widget to share your results on a web page, thus expanding your footprint in the process.
Looking for a quick way to determining digital shoe size? Write down every site on the Internet you have created a user account for. Sound impossible? For most of us, we have cast such a wide personal net across the web, that it is insurmountable to go back and accurately pinpoint where we’ve left information about ourselves. Attempting to complete this exercise may bring on the realization that caging the Internet beast that is your personal information is next to impossible, and for the most part, it is. Fortunately, there are organizations and free software offerings that can help you bring your data monster into submission.

Erasing Your Digital Footprint

Now that you’ve had the chance to measure just how big your footprint is, what steps can be taken to try and erase it? Let’s start with cookies.
A simple way to ensure safe browsing without a trail is to make sure you are cleaning out your cache of cookies on your computer. Accessing the preferences option in any browser and clicking the “delete cookies” option can easily do this. A word of warning though: those users who enjoy auto-login and personal customization and personalization of sites you frequent will be deleted.

If you would like a more thorough method of cleaning up cookies, as well as Internet history and other tracking tools, there are free options available. A popular software offering (and a MaximumPC favorite) for Windows users is CCleaner. CCleaner, which is available as a free download or pay version (if you want technical support included), cleans all Internet history, cookies, auto-complete forms, and index files from your computer. Supported browsers include IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari.
Another option to clean cookies on your computer, particularly flash cookies, is a freeware program called Flash Cookie Cleaner. Flash cookies are simply cookies created by Adobe Flash plug-ins on websites that perform the same snooping tasks as regular cookies. Flash Cookie Cleaner works to eliminate these files, but also contains options to save cookies to sites you trust and wish to keep information on.
Another easy way to erase your digital footprint is to make sure you are deleting accounts to websites you no longer frequent. Sites can often employ difficult account cancellation practices, which can discourage users from going through the trouble. Smashing Magazine writer Cameron Chapman has compiled an excellent article on how to delete your account from popular websites. This can be one of the quickest ways to erase your personal data, making it unavailable to be used by one company or sold to another. Still have your Friendster, MySpace, or Bebo account active? That data is still available for others to see!

Erasing personal information that has already been made public on the web should be the next step in your clean-out process. Do a basic search of your name on sites such as Spoke, Intelius and WhitePages to pull up what the rest of the world sees about you. From there, it becomes a tedious (but worthwhile) process of filling out online forms and making phone calls with these services to limit or remove your personal information from company databases. For more information on public data companies to check and how to remove your information from them, check out this article from Gizmodo writer Kelly Hodgkins.
If drastic measures are needed to erase your information, companies are ready and waiting to “wash out” your digital footprint: for a price. Reputation.com offers a suite of paid services to protect, promote, and defend their customers’ personal data online. Their tagline?
“Scammers, stalkers and identity thieves prey on private data. Equally harmful are things we call negative content — a bad review of your business, a nasty comment on Facebook, an article about something from your past that’s simply irrelevant now — that could damage your personal life or your livelihood. We can help.”
If an absolute face lift or dramatic reduction of your online information is needed, pay services such as this may be your quickest way to a smaller digital shoe size.

More here 

Source : http://beforeitsnews.com/story/1354/187/NL/How_To_Erase_Your_Digital_Footprint.html?

Dear Friend of Diaspora* - Thanks again for your interest in joining the Diaspora* community, and for your patience. We’re working on getting your invite out to you as quickly as possible, and we’re still committed to getting it to you by the end of October. We’re pushing out hundreds of thousands of invitations as quickly as we can -- thanks for bearing with us. As promised in our previous message, we want to tell you a little more about why we believe so strongly in Diaspora*'s mission: to build a new and better social web, one that's 100% owned and controlled by you and other Diasporans. Diaspora*'s distributed design is a huge part of it. Like the Internet itself, Diaspora* isn't housed in any one place, and it's not controlled by any one entity (including us). We've created software that lets you set up and run your own social network on your own "pod" (or server) and connect your network to the larger Diaspora* ecosystem. You can have a pod all to yourself, or one for just you and your friends, or your family, giving you complete ownership and control over your personal social information (including your identity, your posts, and your photos) and how it’s all stored and shared. Or you can simply join one of more than 20 open pods.[1] This means you can do what you want. You can express yourself candidly, and be your authentic self. You can go by whatever name you like on Diaspora*. Pseudonyms are fine, and this both protects you (if you want to say something your boss or your parents disagree with) and opens the door to real connection. Here’s how one blogger and Diasporan put it: Maybe his kind words mean so much to me because T is someone I've met through a [pseudo]nym -- he got to know the real me's ideals and beliefs, and liked that person... A compliment from [him] is based on my own sincerity, and thus, has a certain purity. It is untainted by perceptions of how I look, what I'm wearing, and so on. Given that, I value it especially highly.[2] This kind of authentic connection brings back the social freedom that made the Internet awesome in the first place. And this is just the beginning. You can make great connections with anyone in the Diaspora* ecosystem, not just the people on your own pod, because the pods are linked together. You can also use Diaspora* as a home base for your outbound posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, writing to them all from Diaspora*. In the future, you’ll be able to monitor your inbound streams from Diaspora* as well. Yet our distributed design means no big corporation will ever control Diaspora*. Diaspora* will never sell your social life to advertisers, and you won’t have to conform to someone’s arbitrary rules or look over your shoulder before you speak. And because your information is yours, not ours, you’ll have the ultimate power -- the ability to move your profile and all your social data from one pod to another, without sacrificing your connection to the social web. Over time, this will bring an end to the indifferent, self-serving behavior that people can’t stand[3] from the walled gardens that dominate social networking today. When you can vote with your feet for the environment where you feel safest, the big guys will have to shape up, or risk losing you. We’re still building this move-your-profile capability, as well as other key features. It’s hard work, but we’re building the future we want to see, with incredible community support. Diaspora* is a genuine community effort. More than 160 people have contributed to our code, putting us in the top 2% of all open source projects tracked by Ohloh.[4] Hundreds more volunteers have translated Diaspora* into 13 of the world’s spoken languages so far, with another 32 translations in progress. Thousands of Diasporans have given us more than 3,000 points of feedback. (We’re listening closely, and building the features you’re asking for as fast as we can.) And of course, thousands of donors have helped pay for our development, and hundreds of thousands of people -- including you -- are patiently waiting for access to try it out. Thanks again for your patience. We can’t wait to see you here, and to build a brighter future together. Sincerely, - Dan, Max, Ilya, Sarah, Yosem, and Peter Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 [1]: JoinDiaspora.com is just one of the pods within the Diaspora* ecosystem. Here’s a directory of some of the others that are open to new users (there are even more out there too, including many that are private, not open). [2]: Excerpts from this blog post by Garidin Winslow. [3]: "Report: Facebook Is Most Hated Social Media Company", Courtney Rubin, Inc. Magazine, July 20, 2011. [4]: http://www.ohloh.net/p/diaspora/factoids/10029264

Detox Campaign Dear friends,  Pressure is mounting on Adidas to one-up the commitments made by Puma and Nike in response to our campaign. Can Adidas catch its rivals by committing to Detox its products and supply chain? Will the sportswear giant come clean about what chemicals it uses and discharges? Please write to Herbert Hainer, CEO of Adidas, today to encourage Adidas to Detox. More than 30,000 people already have since Tuesday: We began the Detox campaign in June with a "Nike vs Adidas" challenge, but Puma was first off the mark with its commitment to eliminate all hazardous chemicals from its supply chain and products. Nike last week committed too, leaving people to wonder what Adidas thinks about its customers and the environment.  According to China's Statistical Yearbook, the apparel, footwear and caps textile industry discharge 805 tonnes of industrial waste water every second[1]. Our latest Dirty Laundry report reveals that the clothes in your local sportswear or fashion outlet may contain nonylphenol ethoxylates, which break down in water to form nonylphenol -- a toxic, persistent and hormone-disrupting chemical.  If you've ever owned an Adidas garment, write to them now  Together we can convince Adidas to not only match Puma and Nike, but even take the lead. Adidas is the world's #2 sportswear brand, but they still haven't earned their Detox stripes.  Sincerely,  The Detox Team Greenpeace International  P.S. Please write to Adidas as soon as you can, as the impact of many thousands of messages from around the world will be greatest if they come in a downpour.  [1] Source: China Statistical Yearbook 2010

In whose image was The Adam the prototype of modern humans, Homo sapiens created?

The Bible asserts that the Elohim said: Let us fashion the Adam in our image and after our likeness. But if one is to accept a tentative explanation for enigmatic genes that humans possess, offered when the deciphering of the human genome was announced in mid-February, the feat was decided upon by a group of bacteria!
Humbling was the prevalent adjective used by the scientific teams and the media to describe the principal finding that the human genome contains not the anticipated 100,000 – 140,000 genes (the stretches of DNA that direct the production of amino-acids and proteins) but only some 30,000+ — little more than double the 13,601 genes of a fruit fly and barely fifty percent more than the roundworm’s 19,098. What a comedown from the pinnacle of the genomic Tree of Life!
Moreover, there was hardly any uniqueness to the human genes. They are comparative to not the presumed 95 percent but to almost 99 percent of the chimpanzees, and 70 percent of the mouse. Human genes, with the same functions, were found to be identical to genes of other vertebrates, as well as invertebrates, plants, fungi, even yeast. The findings not only confirmed that there was one source of DNA for all life on Earth, but also enabled the scientists to trace the evolutionary process how more complex organisms evolved, genetically, from simpler ones, adopting at each stage the genes of a lower life form to create a more complex higher life form culminating with Homo sapiens.
The Head-scratching Discovery
It was here, in tracing the vertical evolutionary record contained in the human and the other analyzed genomes, that the scientists ran into an enigma. The head-scratching discovery by the public consortium, as Science termed it, was that the human genome contains 223 genes that do not have the required predecessors on the genomic evolutionary tree.
How did Man acquire such a bunch of enigmatic genes?
In the evolutionary progression from bacteria to invertebrates (such as the lineages of yeast, worms, flies or mustard weed which have been deciphered) to vertebrates (mice, chimpanzees) and finally modern humans, these 223 genes are completely missing in the invertebrate phase. Therefore, the scientists can explain their presence in the human genome by a rather recent (in evolutionary time scales) probable horizontal transfer from bacteria.
In other words: At a relatively recent time as Evolution goes, modern humans acquired an extra 223 genes not through gradual evolution, not vertically on the Tree of Life, but horizontally, as a sideways insertion of genetic material from bacteria
An Immense Difference
Now, at first glance it would seem that 223 genes is no big deal. In fact, while every single gene makes a great difference to every individual, 223 genes make an immense difference to a species such as ours.
The human genome is made up of about three billion neucleotides (the letters A-C-G-T which stand for the initials of the four nucleic acids that spell out all life on Earth); of them, just a little more than one percent are grouped into functioning genes (each gene consists of thousands of “letters”). The difference between one individual person and another amounts to about one letter in a thousand in the DNA alphabet. The difference between Man and Chimpanzee is less than one percent as genes go; and one percent of 30,000 genes is 300.
So, 223 genes is more than two thirds of the difference between me, you and a chimpanzee!
An analysis of the functions of these genes through the proteins that they spell out, conducted by the Public Consortium team and published in the journal Nature, shows that they include not only proteins involved in important physiological but also psychiatric functions. Moreover, they are responsible for important neurological enzymes that stem only from the mitochondrial portion of the DNA the so-called Eve DNA that humankind inherited only through the mother-line, all the way back to a single Eve. That finding alone raises doubt regarding that the “bacterial insertion” explanation.
A Shaky Theory
How sure are the scientists that such important and complex genes, such an immense human advantage, was obtained by us –rather recently– through the courtesy of infecting bacteria?
It is a jump that does not follow current evolutionary theories, said Steven Scherer, director of mapping of the Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine.
We did not identify a strongly preferred bacterial source for the putative horizontally transferred genes, states the report in Nature. The Public Consortium team, conducting a detailed search, found that some 113 genes (out of the 223) are widespread among bacteria though they are entirely absent even in invertebrates. An analysis of the proteins which the enigmatic genes express showed that out of 35 identified, only ten had counterparts in vertebrates (ranging from cows to rodents to fish); 25 of the 35 were unique to humans.
It is not clear whether the transfer was from bacteria to human or from human to bacteria, Science quoted Robert Waterson, co-director of Washington University’s Genome Sequencing Center, as saying.
But if Man gave those genes to bacteria, where did Man acquire those genes to begin with?
The Role of the Anunnaki
Readers of my books must be smiling by now, for they know the answer.
They know that the biblical verses dealing with the fashioning of The Adam are condensed renderings of much much more detailed Sumerian and Akkadian texts, found inscribed on clay tablets, in which the role of the Elohim in Genesis is performed by the Anunnaki Those Who From Heaven to Earth Came.
As detailed in my books, beginning with The 12th Planet (1976) and even more so in Genesis Revisited and The Cosmic Code, the Anunnaki came to Earth some 450,000 years ago from the planet Nibiru a member of our own solar system whose great orbit brings it to our part of the heavens once every 3,600 years. They came here in need of gold, with which to protect their dwindling atmosphere. Exhausted and in need of help in mining the gold, their chief scientist Enki suggested that they use their genetic knowledge to create the needed Primitive Workers. When the other leaders of the Anunnaki asked: How can you create a new being? He answered:

DNA is rendered as Entwined Serpents

“The being that we need already exists; all that we have to do is put our mark on it.
The time was some 300,000 years ago.
What he had in mind was to upgrade genetically the existing hominids, who were already on Earth through Evolution, by adding some of the genes of the more advanced Anunnaki. That the Anunnaki, who could already travel in space 450,000 years ago, possessed the genomic science (whose threshold we have now reached) is clear not only from the actual texts but also from numerous depictions in which the double-helix of the DNA is rendered as Entwined Serpents (a symbol still used for medicine and healing).

When, after much trial and error breathtakingly described and recorded in antiquity, a perfect model was attained, Ninharsag held him up and shouted: My hands have made it! An ancient artist depicted the scene on a cylinder seal

When the leaders of the Anunnaki approved the project (as echoed in the biblical Let us fashion the Adam), Enki with the help of Ninharsag, the Chief Medical Officer of the Anunnaki, embarked on a process of genetic engineering, by adding and combining genes of the Anunnaki with those of the already-existing hominids.
And that, I suggest, is how we had come to possess the unique extra genes. It was in the image of the Anunnaki, not of bacteria, that Adam and Eve were fashioned.
A Matter of Extreme Significance
Unless further scientific research can establish, beyond any doubt, that the only possible source of the extra genes are indeed bacteria, and unless it is then also determined that the infection (horizontal transfer) went from bacteria to Man and not from Man to bacteria, the only other available solution will be that offered by the Sumerian texts millennia ago.
Until then, the enigmatic 223 alien genes will remain as an alternative and as a corroboration by modern science of the Anunnaki and their genetic feats on Earth.

Source : http://www.alienufotruth.com/adams-alien-genes

SYMPOSIUM NEWS  MUFON Proudly presents Dr. Paul A. LaViolette as a NEW addition and our 12th speaker for the 2011 MUFON Symposium                    Dr. Paul LaViolette will discuss aerospace propulsion technologies that have been under secret military development for over 60 years. Although he previously had long been interested in UFO's and advanced science his scientific work on gravity control theory actually began in 1985 when he encountered the work of American researcher T. Townsend Brown. That same year he obtained from Wright Patterson Air Force base a declassified copy of the 1956 British think tank report entitled Electrogravitics Systemswhich dramatically changed his perspective on what the military had been up to all those previous years.     For several years prior, LaViolette had been developing subquantum kinetics, a novel physics theory that not only leads to a dramatic shift in scientific paradigm, but also to a major shift in consciousness and world perspective. With 12 of its previously published predictions having so far been verified, this unified field ether theory has outperformed existing standard theories including general relativity.      One finds that most of what we have long been taught in the classroom and fed through the media about physics, cosmology, aerospace propulsion, and energy generation is ludicrously outmoded and fundamentally incorrect.       Based on insights provided by his theory, LaViolette will explain the principle behind the electrogravitic field propulsion technologies of Townsend Brown and Jean-Claude Lafforgue which are able to deliver thrusts hundreds of thousands of times greater than that of the Space Shuttle main engine for an equivalent energy expenditure. These technologies routinely and unashamedly violate both the First Law of Thermodynamics and Newton's Third Law. He will explain how this technology allows us to travel to Mars in less than 5 days. He will further discuss how he came to reverse engineer the propulsion system of theB-2 bomber which is an apparent direct application of Brown's electrokinetic thruster technology.  He will cover the origin and development of Project Skyvault which developed a technology for levitating large aeroforms on microwave energy beams. He will briefly describe the reverse engineering of this technology and how its principles also provide insights into the function of the Arts Parts fragments said  to have come from the hull of a crashed UFO.     LaViolette will discuss how superluminal interstellar spacetravel is a reality and how we already have the technology available to accomplish this using the gravity impulse beam technology developed by professor Evgeny Podkletnov. He will also comment on the existence of a network of radio pulsars which function as a galactic GPS system and are able to serve as a navigation aid to interstellar voyagers. The existence of the pulsar network and its ETI message points to the existence of at least one Galaxy wide ET civilization, or of a federation of such civilizations, that are concerned about our well being and survival of the impending arrival of a Galactic superwave. 　 About the author       Dr. Paul LaViolette has been president of the  Starburst Foundation since 1984, where he has conducted interdisciplinary research in physics, astronomy, geology, climatology, and psychology. He is also a research fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies of the Giordano Bruno GlobalShift University in Tuscany, Italy. He received a BA  in physics from Johns Hopkins, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in systems science from Portland State University. He has conducted occupational safety research at Harvard University, and served as a solar energy consultant to the UN, Fourth Report to the Club of Rome, and to the Greek government. He has also consulted Hughes Aircraft headquarters in LA on ways  to improve company innovation and in 2005 investigated a novel solar desalination technology funded  by the California Energy Innovation Small Grants Program.        In 1993 LaViolette successfully reverse engineered the B-2 bomber's classified propulsion technology and more recently has disclosed and explained the microwave beam technology used to propel vehicles developed in the super secret Skyvault Project. He is the originator of the subquantum kinetics physics paradigm and also discoverer of the galactic superwave phenomenon, the notion that cosmic ray outbursts from the galactic core periodically trigger major shifts in the Earth's climate. In testing this theory he became the first to discover high concentrations of cosmic dust and gold in ice age polar ice.      He is author of six books. His most recent, Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion, is still on his publisher's best seller list. Other of his books include Genesis of the Cosmos (One of the boldest and most exciting hypotheses of cosmology to be put forward in this century; E. Laszlo), Subquantum Kinetics (His book in which he discusses his Model G is a masterpiece; J. Huck), Earth Under Fire (One of the most amazing studies of cosmic cataclysmic cycles ever put into print; A. Canales), Decoding the Message of thePulsars (A book well worth reading, it is both thought provoking as well as profound in its implications for what our future may bring; J. McMoneagle); and Galactic Superwaves and their Impact on the Earth (his Ph.D. thesis update).       Information about his work may be found at the Sphinx Stargate website (etheric.com) and at the Starburst Foundation website (starburstfound.org).