President Obama’s Weekly Address – 02/26/11
Filed under: Blog Entries, Business, Education, Personal Finance, Technology
The President discusses his recent travels and the examples he’s seen of how America can win the future. He urges Congress to heed these examples in the coming budget debate and to tighten our belts without eliminating investments in innovation, education and infrastructure.
Happy New Year 2011
Filed under: Blog Entries, Education, Life, Society & Culture, Technology
It’s hard to believe 2011 is already here. Last year for the blog was definitely a slow one, but this year I hope to change that. Finding the time to write has been difficult and not much will change this year. But I do have some ideas and over the next couple of weeks, you’ll see them take form.
As for me personally, I try to do something new every year that improves who I am as a person. Something new that allows me to learn new things and hopefully meet new people in the process.
Last year I took up photography and the year before that, chess. Each year it’s something different. Sometimes I continue on with it when the year is over and sometimes I don’t. But it’s really the lessons that I’ve learned that interest me the most.
This year I will focus on reading. My wife bought me a NookColor for Christmas and I plan on using it as much as I can. I’ve decided that the books I’m going to read the most are those that have had an impact on society and black America.
The first book on the list is “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. I’ve always wondered why this book is so highly regarded and so far I can see why. I’ll blog about that later, but I can honestly say I’ve been sucked in to the story and it’s one that I’ll definitely recommend for others to read.
With that, I’d like to wish everyone a blessed and happy new year. Let’s make this a year to remember.
Old School Jet, Ebony and Black Enterprise on Google Books
Filed under: Blog Entries, Business, Community, Education, Entertainment & Sports, Family, General, Politics, Relationships, Society & Culture, Technology, Think Global
When Google announced the release of Google Books, I rushed over and was pleased to see that they’d scanned in some of my favorite magazines. The best part was that I could view them all online for free.
In my searches I was able to find issues for Jet Magazine (1950-2005), Ebony Magazine (1950-2000) and Black Enterprise (1970-2000). While they don’t include the most current issues, it’s great that I can see what was going on before I was I born. If Google keeps this up, I can’t imagine the kind of information my kids will have access to.
This will give those in my generation and forward the ability to research our past and learn more than we’ve ever had about entertainment, politics and society, than we’ve ever had. The odds of me getting my hands on a volume 1 Jet Magazine is one to impossible. But thanks to Google, I have access to it.
We are in the Information Age and I hope everyone is ready to get on board. In 2011, I plan on increasing the number of black history books I read and I’m going to use Google Books to do this. There are a lot of good free books out there for us to read. I as I finish them I’ll blog about them here on the site.
Here’s to a New Year in books.
You Go Bina48!
Filed under: Blog Entries, Education, General, Society & Culture, Technology
Now this is impressive! Bina48 is a human-like robot that lives at the Terasem Movement Foundation in Bristol, Vermont. A replica of the real Bina Rothblatt, who is also the Vice President and co-founder of the Terasem Movement Foundation, Bina48 is the future of what can be done in the world of artificial intelligence.
While it may be a little creepy to have a conversation with a robot, I’m excited to cool advances like this in technology. In a way, Bina48 reminds me of a mix of the Terminator and 2001: A Space Odyssey. While watching the video, I also found myself rooting for Bina and I’m sure the time will come when Bina will be able to have a full conversation with no glitches in speech.
Check out the video and let me know what you think.
President Obama’s Weekly Address – 07/03/10
Filed under: Blog Entries, Business, Community, Obama, Society & Culture, Technology, Think Global
As part of the explosion of Recovery Act projects this summer and as a move towards a clean energy future, the President announces nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments to key solar companies. Learn more from the White House fact sheet.
National HIV Testing Day Webinar
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Education, General, Health, Society & Culture, Technology
On Tuesday, June 22, 2010, from 3:00 pm-4:00 pm (EDT), AIDS.gov will host a National HIV Testing Day (NHTD) webinar for Federal staff and grantees working with domestic HIV/AIDS programs. National HIV Testing Day is an opportunity for us to work together to promote HIV testing in the community.
The webinar, “The Current and Future State of HIV Testing in the United States,” will feature some of the U.S. Government’s leading voices on HIV/AIDS. Participants will be encouraged to ask questions.
To participate, register here by June 18.
Speakers include:
- Dr. Howard Koh, HHS
- Mr. Christopher Bates, PACHA
- Dr. Kevin Fenton & Dr. Bernard Branson, CDC
- Dr. Deborah Parham Hopson, HRSA
- Dr. Carl Dieffenbach, NIH/NIAID
- Ms. Beverly Watts Davis, SAMHSA
- Ms. Barbara Edwards, CMS
- Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, VA
- And other invited guests
Space is limited. Registrants will be joined on a first-come, first-served basis.
One Million Shirts
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Society & Culture, Technology, Think Global
1MillionShirts is a charitable campaign created by Jason Sadler, creator of IWearYourShirt.com, with a goal of gathering one million shirts from people all over the world to give to people in Africa. Some of countries where the t-shirts will go are Kenya, Uganda, DRC, Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan, Swaziland and South Africa.
1MillionShirts has received a lot of criticism, but in a recent blog post the creator, he stated their motives are on the up and up. You are always going to receive criticism when you do something like this on such a large scale, so it’ll be interesting to see how the project turns out. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if this really is a scam, the Internet will make it known. I’ll definitely be watching and might even send a couple of shirts myself. If you have a t-shirt you would like to donate, click here to learn how you can participate. While t-shirts are the focus of the campaign, monetary donations can also be sent when you ship your shirt to help defray any cost they may incur when shipping the shirts to Africa.
I like this idea because it is one person’s way of helping people in need. 1MillionShirts was not created to solve all the economic problems in Africa, but it is a start. They are currently undergoing the process to be recognized by the IRS as a 501c3 organization. Once tax-exempt status is reached, all donations will be 100% tax-deductible.
biomedsearch.com
Filed under: Blog Entries, Community, Education, Health, Technology
I received an email asking me to post about this website. While this post may not be of interest to all of my readers, I thought this was worth posting. While most of the articles were beyond my comprehension, some of the abstracts for the journals were pretty informative. See, I like reading stuff other than tech articles.
BioMedSearch is a biomedical search engine that contains NIH/PubMed documents, plus a large collection of theses, dissertations, and other publications not found anywhere else for free, making it the most comprehensive free search on the web.
BioMedSearch also provides advanced account features that allow saved searches, alerts, saving documents to portfolios, commenting on documents and portfolios, and sharing documents with other registered users. Registering for BioMedSearch is free.
Oprah – There’s An App For That (Her)
Filed under: Blog Entries, Business, Entertainment & Sports, Society & Culture, Technology, Think Global
If you search the internet, you’ll find all types of varying opinions on what people feel about Oprah. But one thing I think everyone can agree on is that she is definitely the queen of the television airwaves. Just last week to increase the amount of face time she has with her viewers, Oprah.com went mobile and released an app for Android, Blackberry, iPhone and Palm devices.
The Oprah Mobile app features allow you to:
- View a weekly calendar of what’s airing on The Oprah Winfrey Show
- Receive alerts and notifications about the availability of reservations for The Oprah Winfrey Show
- Watch video highlights from The Oprah Winfrey Show, including backstage interviews with your favorite guests
- Find out what time and channel The Oprah Winfrey Show is on in your current location in the United States
- Access the latest articles and features from Oprah.com and O, The Oprah Magazine
- Listen to audio clips from Oprah Radio, including Gayle King, Dr. Laura Berman, Dr. Mehmet Oz
- Search by your favorite experts, guests and contributors, including Peter Walsh, Deepak Chopra and more
- Take our latest polls and see how other people are voting in your city and state
- Share your favorite items via email, Facebook and Twitter
- Sign the pledge to make your car a No Phone Zone
- Customize the menu to keep your favorite sections within easy reach
The apps do cost $1.99-$2.99, but according to the review at appolicious.com, there’s a lot of potential for future releases that could increase the social aspect of it.
But there’s more! Yesterday Engadget blogged about her showing off the Sprint EVO on her show while discussing her “No Phone Zone” campaign. Now please note, there is no official release date for this phone (Sprint said Summer 2010)! But if anyone could get a hold of it early, Oprah would be that person.
I can’t wait for this phone to come out and have been anxiously waiting for its release. We all know that when Oprah says go buy something, people do. So I’m curious to see if this affects sales of the EVO when Sprint finally decides to release it.
If anyone reading this is a friend of Oprah, tell her I’ll take the phone if she gets tired of it. Check out the video.
Put People on Blast With Unvarnished
Filed under: Blog Entries, Business, Community, Relationships, Society & Culture, Technology, Think Global
This site has been out for a couple of weeks, but when I heard about it, I knew I needed to share it on the blog. According to the website, Unvarnished is:
an online resource for building, managing, and researching professional reputation, using community-contributed, professional reviews.Unvarnished reviews help you get the inside scoop on other business professionals, providing candid assessments of coworkers, potential hires, business partners, and more.
By contributing Unvarnished reviews, you can share your knowledge of other professionals, giving credit where credit is due, and valuable feedback where needed.
Lastly, your own Unvarnished profile, which you may create yourself or claim one that has been created for you, helps you take control of and build your own professional reputation. Get recognition for your accomplishments and actively manage your career growth.
So basically you can leave comments about someone (good or bad) in a public forum. It’s like having your resume online for all to see and ridicule. The site is currently in beta, so you have to sign up using Facebook Connect and they will put you on a waiting list of people who’ve already signed up. I put my name in for an invitation because I want to know what you all think about me. This is social networking at its best and it will be interesting to see how they plan on managing the site once everything opens up.
PS > If you are reading this and are currently a member of the site, please send me an invite so I can bypass the waiting process. Thanks!
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