NYTimes: Collect Now, or Later? Timing Your Social Security Benefits

Collect Now, or Later? Timing Your Social Security Benefits

By TARA SIEGEL BERNARD

Waiting until full retirement age or even later to collect benefits can result in a larger check — but sometimes collecting early makes more sense....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/11/your-money/11retire.html

NYTimes.com: Music Labels Reach Royalty Deal With Online Stations

I've always wondered how much it costs to stream songs over the internet: Now I know - a quarter of a cent. You can read about it in the following article:

TECHNOLOGY / INTERNET | July 08, 2009
Music Labels Reach Royalty Deal With Online Stations
By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER
Many of the online radio stations had argued that the old rates were so high they were being forced out of business.

Very cool homemade carbon fiber recumbent trike

http://www.manytracks.com/Recumbent/Poste.HTM

I emailed this enterprising builder, and he wrote back his improvements since the web page above was written, and attached the second photo.

Many thanks for the compliments. As you will see from the attached pic I have added a "Tail" box which carries tools, light shopping, and a battery for an LED lighting system. Also note the front fairing. I added this to create a more "finished" look but it has also definitely improved top speed and it is extremely light in weight. While the picture doesn't make it obvious the main frame has been completely redesigned to reduce the number of parts and increase stiffness. Yes I have finished making carbon fiber Kingpins for the steering assembly however just haven't had time to install them yet.
The steering is a horizontal movement fore and aft. From lock to lock is approximately 6". This makes for a highly responsive steering that requires only about 1/4" movement to switch lanes.

Snarge - a word for what remains after a bird strikes an aircraft

I never knew this word until this article...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/science/25birds.html?scp=3&sq=bird%20strike%20&st=cse

"...a staff of four in the Feather Identification Lab took in samples from 4,600 bird-plane collisions, or bird strikes, last year. Arriving mostly in sealed plastic bags, these included birds’ feet, whole feathers... known as snarge"

NYTimes: How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains

From The New York Times:

WELL: How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains

By TARA PARKER-POPE

"A recipe for indulging: salt, sugar and fat, mixed many ways. But we can fight it...."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/health/23well.html

TE: Now I see why that combination of fat, sugar, and salt is so hard to resist!

Fwd: FW: NYTimes.com: Frugal Traveler: Travel Web Sites: A Click-On Showdown

NYT: TRAVEL June 17, 2009 Frugal Traveler: Travel Web Sites: A Click-On Showdown By Matt Gross "From booking airfares to securing hotel rooms, the Frugal Traveler puts websites to the test." Here are the sites recommended in the article: http://www.mobissimo.com/search_airfare.php http://www.vayama.com/ http://www.sidestep.com/ http://www.dohop.com/ http://www.cfares.com/ - member only, $50/yr "I'll pick my seat using SeatExpert.com, not SeatGuru.com, my old standby. As queenofcooking put it, SeatExpert lets you find the best (and worst) spots on a plane with "better accuracy and the ability to search by carrier/date/flight number, if you don't know the aircraft type." Venere.com, which focuses on hotels throughout Europe. "Also suggests you check out TripKick.com, which he called the SeatGuru for hotels. It's a pretty nifty site, outlining which rooms in a particular hotel are bigger, with better views or more spacious bathrooms " AitaiJapan.com, for example — a site that connects visitors to Japan with locals who want to show them around "WheresCool.com, suggested by SS, is a site for travelers "who are young, broke and looking for recommendations they will actually use " AtlasObscura.com, which I discovered recently on BoingBoing.net. As a co-founder, Joshua Foer, put it, the site is a catalog of all the "wondrous, curious, and esoteric places" that don't make it into your average guidebook. Like the world's biggest manmade hole in eastern Siberia. Or the Sonorous Stones of Ringing Rocks Park, in Pennsylvania. Or the Pigeon Towers of Isfahan. Or Carhenge in Nebraska..." Also, from Consumer reports, 2 sites: www.airfarewatchdog.com http://www.hotwire.com/hotelratereport.jsp

Too Many Online Friends? Time to Delete - NYTimes.com

Here's the article that highlights the social dilemma and social
awkwardness of 'unfriending' someone on facebook.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/fashion/29facebook.html?scp=8&sq=facebook%20friend%20social%20problem&st=cse

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Bike Design ideas

Bike design ideas

http://www.gizmag.com/tag/bike/2/

the 'Batman' of recumbents

http://twobushdesigns.com/predator%20trike/predatorV1.html

Forward triangle design
http://www.cruzbike.com/

Monocoque recumbent patent:

http://www.google.com/patents?id=m_QxAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=United+States+Patent+4773663&source=bl&ots=pF6Vk-3iTa&sig=nyttARGkB2SacByRpOKK38_Wabk&hl=en&ei=gTkWSr_IHJjItAPGrdiSDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#PPA6,M1

Using a cell phone camera chip for medical diagnosis

Saw an interesting piece on using a digital camera chip for remote medical diagnosis. It's a way of getting microscopic analysis without a microscope - the sample just sits on top of the camera sensor chip. The shadows the specimen casts can provide enough information for clinical diagnosis. You can see it online at
http://science.discovery.com/videos/brink-package-micro-cell-phone.html
or read about it at
http://www.photonics.com/Content/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=36533

This large file is one of their academic papers:
http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/newsletters/leos/oct08/22leos05.pdf

and an example of using the technology at
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/31/10670.full

NYTimes.com: Frugal Traveler: Research: The Traveler's Best Friend

Here's a good list of websites (within the article) to research an upcoming vacation.  Seatguru.com was new to me (who has time to put in all that info?) and I've yet to try tripit.com but it sounds handy. TRAVEL   | May 06, 2009 Frugal Traveler: Research: The Traveler's Best Friend By Matt Gross From researching destinations to booking flights and hotels to actually figuring out what to do when I arrive, I have a long list of Web sites and other resources - some well known, others less so - that I use to learn what's new, interesting and inexpensive  "... Google Maps,... search for user-created maps of worthy landmarks. "... Kayak.com, which searches virtually every other booking site, is my first stop: its flexibility, range, speed and ability to filter your results in specific ways are almost unmatched. But I’ve also started to use ITAsoftware.com’s QPX system, which was developed for the airline industry "...[then] go to the airline’s own Web site to simplify the reservation "...[then] check SeatGuru.com, which has seat maps of most major airlines’ planes, to find the best, most comfortable spot available. "...on Trip Advisor,... skip over its hotel listings and change “Property Type” to “Other Lodging,” which turns up pensions, campgrounds, hostels and other accommodations that I often find more intriguing (and usually less expensive) than hotels "...Once I’ve got all my confirmation e-mails, I forward them over toTripIt.com, which automatically turns them into an easy-to-edit itinerary. "...The thing about all this preparation is that it never fully prepares me for the sight of a new place, the smell of its streets and the charmingly surprising behavior of its people — the moments of discovery that inspire us to travel in the first place."

A call for revamping Universities and their structure

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: End the University as We Know It
By MARK C. TAYLOR

If higher education is to thrive, colleges and universities, like Wall
Street and Detroit, must be rigorously regulated and completely 
restructured....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/opinion/27taylor.html

I had no idea there are 15 online photo editors; see them compared CNET

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10170333-2.html

Sent from my iPhone

CPT codes for Anesthesia

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dgsprq5_13nxx733cx&hl=en

Search for CPT codes for by procedure name or eponym.

"You'll have to wait, *Sir*"

I love the witty social observation in this article of how flight attendants say 'Sir.'

"The intonation of that “Sir” will be familiar to many of you, a tone peculiar to American airline companies, one in which resentment, superiority, fear, contempt and impatience are coiled into a venomous parody of politeness — a three-letter expletive really — that stands the notion of service on its head and tells the whole dismal story of U.S. carriers in recent years."

Preschool benefits IQ...even years later

I've long wondered if there was any long-term benefit to the expensive pre-school education many of us provide for our kids. Here's evidence from a long term randomized study that it helped even into the teen years.

"...intensive day care and education from 6 months of age until they left to enter first grade.
By age 5, the children in the program averaged an I.Q. of 110, compared with 83 for children in the control group. Even years later in adolescence, those children were still 10 points ahead in I.Q."
from the Op-Ed article
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/opinion/16kristof.html?em