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"OpenCourseWare" Online Education. (Wikipedia) Open Source Education
     ... Online Universities: Why They Still Don't Measure Up, Cormac Foster November 9th, 2012

• Online universities like the University of Phoenix, Kaplan University, AIU, and Ashford are fully accredited, and thanks to heavy marketing pushes, they're becoming household names
• The most common, most quantifiable criticisms lobbed at online universities concern lackluster graduation rates, test scores and post-graduation employment statistics.  
• [E]ven Harvard was already offering blended learning degrees,

     OpenCourseWare(OCW) is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials for colleges and universities. 

      3 Free Online Universities To Help You Get By Without A Degree (MakeUseOf.com):
No Excuse List, University of Reddit, University Of The People,

• Computer Science E-1 Understanding Computers and the Internet (Harvard)
• CourseRa a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.
• Khan Academy:  is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.
• "MIT OpenCourseWare is developing a set of courses called Scholar, which are designed for self-learners. We recently published 6.00 (or Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in normal speak). There are lecture videos, recitation videos, handouts, slides, code files, homework assignments (with sample solutions), and even an explanation on how to set up Python on your computer.  
• No Excuse Lists: The best place on the web to learn anything, free.  (links)
• The Physics Textbook: Motion mountain.
• Texbook Revolution: the web’s source for free educational materials.
• University of Reddit is the product of free intellectualism and is a haven for the sharing of knowledge. Teachers and students are free to explore any subject that interests them
• University of the People (UoPeople.Org) is the first tuition-free online university and is backed by United Nations Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technology and Development (GAID). UoPeople is non-profit organization and aims to provide higher eduction to people in all countries regardless of their financial means and geographical location.
  
   

List of the best of 2005 lists

• BitTorrent is an easy-to-use implementation capable of swarming downloads across unreliable networks.
• Post blog/RSS Remix Use washingtonpost.com RSS feeds to experiment with different applications using washingtonpost.com
• Watts Up Power meter
  
• Wolfram tunes

Corruption in Government

   Note: one of the useful discusions is what is the meaning of the word "CORRUPTION" and what other words can be used to indicate diffeent Money interactions with Politics.
   Wikipedia: Political   (Corruption in general)

•  Political: Forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, graft, and embezzlement.  

• In economy, corruption is payment for services or material which the recipient is not due, under law. This may be called bribery, kickback, or, in the Middle East, baksheesh.
•  In government: it is when an elected representative makes decisions that are influenced by vested interest rather than their own personal or party ideological beliefs.

But there are other situations where Money that helps a Candidate (or Political effort) can be spent in order to increase the  probability of passing or interpreting a result that benefits or is supported by the spender.

This "Monetary Influence" is not corruption or Quid Pro Quo, i.e. in legal usage: indicates that an item or a service has been traded in return for something of value

Varieties of Monetary Influence:

• Corruption, Bribery (Bilateral): When the Money is spend, offered, or requested, on the basis of an understanding, Written, or Reasonably understood that a bill or interpretation will be done for the benefit of the spender  and that it would not be done if the money was not spent.
• Unilateral: When the Money is spent... with no understanding but just an expectation of benefit.
• Electoral: When the Money is spent... to increase the probability of election of an individual who has committed to favor the benefit. (of course this can be either Bilateral or Unilateral)
• Moral: When the money is spent... to favor a position that is not economically beneficial by is preferred by the spender.

In all these cases money is spent to influence the outcomes of government and the Richer have more capability and it costs them less (in hourly effort) than to Poorer to express this influence. It is of course, a matter of judgement as to whether our democracy is improved or degraded by having it being monetarily influenced in these ways rather than being a more equal "representation" based more on a One Person, One Vote model.

09/11/2012 ... Return on Investment! (2,000%)

Government (and federal) employment

[G]overnment employment is down under Obama. here’s what has happened to government employment per capita: (Krugman 9/9/2012)

Exploding Government: total and federal government employment per capita over time 1990-2012; federal employment is a small part of the picture and per capita is at a historic low; there are blips every 10 years for the census; and overall government employment has fallen in an unprecedented way under Obama.  (Krugman 09/11/2011)

U.S. Office of Personnel Management www.opm.gov

 

     Total Government Employment Since 1962, But Federal government has gone up 
         Year     Executive   Military Legislative ...     Total Federal personnel (thousands)
         1962          2,485     2,840             30        5,354 
         2010          2,776     1,602             64        4,443 (Includes temps for the decennial census)

      Executive Branch Civilian Employment Since 1940

•   Graph that depicts the number of federal employees since 1940.

09 Sept sites

The Weatherman Is Not a Moron  By NATE SILVER NYT, September 7, 2012

The World Future Society

• Wright's Law: A Better Predictor of Technological Progress than Moore's Law 
• Too Many Choices for the Future? Consumers Want Fewer "Flavors"

The Heart of the US Election 

CBO on 'fiscal cliff': newest estimate is gloomiest yet (Christian Science Monitor) (CBO Report) Sept, 2012

• The CBO, Congress's budget watchdog, warns that the US economy will 'probably' slide back into recession, if the tax hikes and spending cuts mandated for year's end take effect.

• Baseline -- Allowing fiscal cliff-like fiscal policy to continue for the next decade would lower US deficits to just 0.9 percent of GDP in 2022 with the nation's overall debt falling... to 58 percent in 2022. 
•  Alternate -- [I]f current tax laws are extended and spending cuts are eliminated, a deficit averaging 5 percent of GDP over the next decade with America owing 90 percent of its GDP in debt come 2022.

New Report on Getting the Best Care

• Two charts explain why.

At the National Conventions, the Words They Used (Dynamic)

Orszag: IPAB Will Promote Higher-Value Health Care
Independent Payment Advisory Board Will Help Reduce Health Costs, Repealing IPAB Would be Unwise 

Obama and Romney Tackle 14 Top Science Questions
Are you more (or less) liberal than President Obama? Take our quiz!

Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital By Matt Taibbi,  How the GOP presidential candidate and his private equity firm staged an epic wealth grab, destroyed jobs – and stuck others with the bill

• The Federal Bailout That Saved Mitt Romney: Government documents prove the candidate's mythology is just that

A Look Behind the U.S. Decline in Global Competitiveness

• The global debt clock: Our interactive overview of government debt across the planet

Republicans Are Wrong on Call for Gold Standard

• Long-term inflation charts reach back to 1872
• Long term  (Real) Gold Prices 1334-1994
• Short term Gold Prices 1960-2012 (From: Wikipedia: Gold as an investment)

Wealth doesn’t trickle down – it just floods offshore
9 bad decisions people make because of the sunk cost fallacy

Customizable Shortcuts -- Allows to customize Firefox shortcu

Bill Clinton’s Speech: Read the Full Text Here (Barack's 2012 nomination)

•  How Bill Clinton does it (Politico)
• Fact checking Bill Clinton’s speech and other Democrats at the convention in Charlotte (Washington post)

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Tech: 7 Important Features Your Wireless Router Has And You Should Be Using
Astronomy Photographer Of The Year Competition: Selected Images From The Royal Observatory Greenwich's Competition
We decided to test alkaline, lithium and zinc-chloride cells to find the best AA batteries you can buy for your money on the highstreet and online.