The US Debt Clock which was installed on the face of a Manhattan building made headlines months ago because this second generation version of the original US debt clock had run out of capacity: it only had room for 13 digits (not including cents!). Since the US national debt surpassed $10 trillion, there are plans to replace it with a new version. There is an online version of the US debt clock which keeps track of the debt on a real time basis and also features a whole slew of metrics such as the debt per person, the amount of debt...
MoreNew Delhi, October 14: Throughout her 30 year career, Gayla Bentley has been on a mission making fashion accessible to women of all shapes and sizes. Leaving the judgments and stereotypes of the fashion world behind, she formed The Gayla Bentley Fashion Design Group and set out to bring fashionable, desirable, modern clothing to women of all sizes and shapes, a rarity in the world of fashion. Gayla spent 10 years at Saks Fifth Avenue as Director of The Fifth Avenue Club, their exclusive personal shopping service. With a desire to learn more about style and expand her horizons, Gayla left...
MoreGoogle is set to make changes to its search ranking algorithm to combat the spate of links leading to malicious web pages appearing at the top of Google’s search results, according to an inside source. Over the past few months, cybercriminals have been using blackhat SEO techniques to manipulate search rankings. When it first began, they were marginally successful at following Google Trends to find buzzy search queries and elevating a newly created targeted webpage. But after a short period of time, these same gangs appear to have become disturbingly effective. Last week, when researching a news story, I found the top...
MoreNEW YORK - Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley said Thursday they'll try to raise billions in fresh capital, becoming the first major banks to scramble for money after the government said 10 large financial institutions need $75 billion in new funds. Meanwhile, American Express Co. became the first major financial institution to formally request permission to return federal bailout money provided under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Wells Fargo & Co. said it's seeking to raise $6 billion by offering common stock to investors. The San Francisco-based bank announced the plans after the government's stress test results showed that Wells...
MoreFirst, let me please wish Emily and family all the best on the birth of her second child, the most precious gift imaginable. And thank you to all at The Planetary Society for the opportunity to guest blog from the Kennedy Space Center press center and launch facilities on the imminent and exciting shuttle flight to Hubble. Previously it was my privilege to report to you all on the successful blast off of the Dawn Asteroid Orbiter in September 2007 and which recently flew past Mars, my favorite planet, for a gravity assisted boost towards Vesta. The final Space Shuttle flight...
MoreI’ve been a long time Yahoo! Messenger (YM) user. Yahoo was my first e-mail account and most of my contacts are Yahoo!. I won’t make the intro long. So here’s what’s I want to post. There are times before where I receive an instant message from an unknown Yahoo! ID. Well, simply, that was spamming. I suspect the spammers were able to get my email address from forums or at the Yahoo! Chatrooms. But then lately (I believe it started last year), I am receiving “wierd” IMs from my yahoo buddies (those are my friends). The first one, as I recalled,...
MoreThis week, Peter Travers boldly goes where all critics are soon headed: the new Star Trek movie. There have been 10 ST films and many iterations of the TV show, which could lead to Trek fatigue - but Lost's J.J. Abrams has made something spectacular: the summer blockbuster Wolverine should have been. The movie is an origin story that tracks James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) as they are just starting their careers. Winona Ryder is solid as Spock's human mother (OMFG, says Travers about the casting), but Pine and Quinto are standouts. And Quinto manages...
MoreMajor League Baseball announced Thursday that Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez has been suspended for 50 games for violating its drug policy. The commissioner's office didn't announce the specific violation by Ramirez, but in a statement Thursday provided by Major League Baseball, Ramirez attributed the violation to medication he had been prescribed by a doctor. "Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me," Ramirez said. "Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility....
MoreChalk it up to the fact that the Curve is available on the four biggest U.S. carriers, not to mention a two-for-one sale on Verizon Wireless. Also in the top five for the first quarter of 2009: The Storm and the T-Mobile G1.The NPD Group just released its U.S. smartphone sales numbers for Q1, and according to their numbers, RIM had BlackBerrys in three of the top five positions, and managed to topple the iPhone 3G from the top of the list. Despite its early launch woes, the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm appears to be selling strongly, coming in a No. 3...
MoreThe focus of the paid search world, if you measure it by tweets, blog posts and conference sessions, has turned squarely to Google’s AdWords Quality Score over the past few months. Google first introduced Quality Score years ago, but changes they rolled out in August of 2008 recently increased visibility of the score in the AdWords interface and via their API, and a great new video by Google Chief Economist Hal Varian has pushed the discussion to a fever pitch. Part of the appeal clearly is the fact that it’s a numeric value judgement Google is making about our keywords and account...
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