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POPSFree software to use after Windows reinstallation One day all software will be free, is the message at the top of the page, and the Author created the page/site after reinstalling windows clean, and outfitting the system with free and open source software. He goes through his installation step by step, and there are user comments under his post, with feedback and other freeware suggestions by users.
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POPSThe way it's going to be on clipmarks.com I've done a lot of talking and writing lately about the type of environment we're trying to create here on clipmarks. I hope/think that i've been very clear. I know i've given it a great deal of thought. Please click through to the source and read the entire blog post to know where i stand. I want to be 100% clear. I am going to begin disabling accounts of users who i feel consistently violate the spirit of what this is all about.
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POPSAwesome research/ Homework resource I only found this the other day and mostly I'm clipping it for my own uses; however, it's a great resource and I thought I'd share. The site itself has pretty cool info too. 'Hope you guys like the clip.
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POPSDon't Write Like An Idiot This is a reclip of an older clip that Invictus made. His original exceeded the current clip limit so I couldn't revive it. Refresher everyone.
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POPSSteal my content, please!
I completely agree with Scoble on this one, although I can understand why people who make their living directly from their creations have a hard time letting go of the fear of giving away at least some of the rights to their content. Cory Doctorow began releasing all of his literary work under creative commons licenses years ago, allowing people to freely download and distribute his work under some light provisos. I downloaded and read "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" on my palm pilot, freely and legally, and was hooked. Because of that, I've read a huge amount of his writing, become a mammoth fan, and will likely purchase every book he publishes. I've also published everything I've written, shot, and produced under a similar license. While that certainly hasn't brought me traditional commercial success, it has definitely accelerated serendipity countless times for me, and if you trace out the effects of those 'lucky' events, it's helped shape both my career and life.
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POPSAncient Blueprints of Calculus Uncovered in Archimedes Text Details have been released from the nine-year-long reconstruction project to recover the Greek mathematician's writings from this one-of-a-kind find and the results are fascinating. Buried beneath the surface of this gilded palimpsest, researchers discovered more extensive demonstrations of concepts such as infinite series, approximations, limits, and integral calculus than had been known to exist in ancient times. Archimedes wrote The Method almost two thousand years before Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz developed calculus in the 1700s. Reviel Netz, an historian of mathematics at Stanford University who transcribed the text, says that the examination of Archimedes' work has revealed "a new twist on the entire trajectory of Western mathematics."
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POPSWhy George Orwell wrote 1984 Orwell served in Burma as a member of The Indian Imperial police, saw poverty and failure, but the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Hitler, and the NAZIs, gave him a political direction, and his work after 1936, was to warn against the establishment of a totalitarian state. There is more at the site, with more background. Orwell died Seven months after 1984 was published, due to the effects of tuberculosis, and an allergic reaction to a new medication. While he was in Hospital, writing 1984 they took away his typewriter, but he continued to write longhand with a ballpoint pen, despite his failing health
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POPSLeonardo Da Vinci's 10 Best Ideas I had never heard of his scuba gear designs. From the source page: "Da Vinci's fascination with the sea spurred many designs for aquatic exploration. His diving suit was made of leather, connected to a snorkel made of cane and a bell that floated at the surface. Proving the artist was also practical, the suit included a pouch the diver could urinate in."
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POPSMe, Myself and I The generally accepted linguistic explanation for the capital “I” is that it could not stand alone, uncapitalized, as a single letter, which allows for the possibility that early manuscripts and typography played a major role in shaping the national character of English-speaking countries. So what effect has capitalizing “I” but not “you” — or any other pronoun — had on English speakers? It’s impossible to know, but perhaps our individualistic, workaholic society would be more rooted in community and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of ourselves as a small “i” with a sweet little dot. There have, of course, been plenty of rich and dominant cultures throughout history that have gotten by just fine without capitalizing the first-person pronoun or ever writing it down at all. There have also been cultures that committed atrocities even while capitalizing “you.”
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POPSHomosexual behavior due to genetics and environmental factors “Overall, genetics accounted for around 35 per cent of the differences between men in homosexual behavior and other individual-specific environmental factors (that is, not societal attitudes, family or parenting which are shared by twins) accounted for around 64 per cent. In other words, men become gay or straight because of different developmental pathways, not just one pathway.” For women, genetics explained roughly 18 per cent of the variation in same-sex behavior, non-shared environment roughly 64 per cent and shared factors, or the family environment, explained 16 per cent. The study shows that genetic influences are important but modest, and that non-shared environmental factors, which may include factors operating during fetal development, dominate.
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POPSA writer is a person who cares about words. When I was struggling as a freelance writer, this quote was my mantra. Often when I told people I was a writer, their response was, "What have you written?" Later, when I was conducting memoir writing and personal history, I used the quote again to convince my students they were writers.
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POPSThe Sarcasm Mark Mulleflupp's Punctuation clip] This is an interesting idea, and this new punctuation mark could definitely have some usefulness, but the great fun of written sarcasm, for me, is in the detection. The element of uncertainty stimulates the brain, and a fine-tuning of one's perception.
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POPSTwenty science fiction novels that may change your life Cryptonomicon (2000), by Neal Stephenson The Mount (2002), by Carol Emschwiller Perdido Street Station (2002), by China Mieville Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003), by Cory Doctorow Pattern Recognition (2003), by William Gibson Newton's Wake (2004), by Ken MacLeod Glasshouse (2006), by Charles Stross