Did you know you could make Google search for faces only, by adding a small bit of code? When you go to Google Image Search, enter your query and then add "&imgtype=face" (without the quotes of course) to the end of the URL. It will give you similar results as facesearch above., You'll find more information about this hidden Google feature in this article published on Ars Technica.
PicTriev - Face Recognition Search Engine
PicTriev goes one step further by actually searching for similar faces. So what you do is upload a portrait shot or any face photo in .jpg or .jpeg format, with a size no larger than 200KB, and the search engine will return matching images found online. You can also run a demo with a selection of famous photos., For demonstration purposes, I used one of my funny photos. The approximate age of 20 is very flattering and I'm happy that PicTriev recognized that I was mostly female. Unfortunately, however, my face matches mostly with that of males. Surprisingly, it didn't come up with any pictures of me that are available online.
It works much better with celebrity images.
3 Google Tricks When You Don’t Know What to Search For
1. Wildcard Search Operator
Search engines may treat a wildcard (*) differently. Google substitutes it for one or more words that would normally occur in the phrase. Thus, if you, for example, search ["reliable * provider"], search results will include: “reliable television provider”, “reliable webhosting provider”, “reliable VoiP provider”, etc.
Possible Usage
- Use it when you remember the phrase but can’t remember the word;
- Use it to research various word combination with one or more base words (for keyword research or language learning);
Practical Example
Now, a more creative way to use it is to get some (content) inspiration. I described the method in my earlier post on finding linkbait inspiration: use a wildcard in between classic Digg headings to find which articles are being created to target social media sites. Examples include:
- [amazing * swimming pools] for more ideas on swimming pool designs;
- ["what kind * are you"] for more viral quiz ideas;
- ["top weird *"] just for something bizarre.
2. ~ Synonym Search Operator
The Google ~ operator allows you to broaden the scope of your search to related terms and synonyms.
Possible Usage
The operator may turn particularly handy when:
Your search term is very broad and you are unsure which of the related words is used to describe the phenomenon.
You want to research related terms excluding the one you use (e.g. [~search -search])
Practical Example
When searching for guest post opportunities, the synonym ~ operator lets you include all possible blog topics in one search:
3. Related: URL Search Operator
The Related: search operator allows to find more similar pages to the provided one. It used to be strictly based on co-citation: it looked for pages with the same set of backlinks to the above one. But since then it has been noticed that it also applied some thematic relevance.
Possible Usage
It is thus clear that the search operator should be used when you need to find more similar pages (especially when you can’t formulate the contents or define the concept of the current page).
Practical Example
The operator may turn very useful for bloggers who often create tool lists and overviews (for a website like MUO). As an example, here are the related results for a popular broken link checker: Xenu’s Link Sleuth.
Also, be sure to check out Tina’s overview of all Google search operators to get more creative search ideas.
How to Start Using Procedure Checklists for Flawless Task Execution
There's a good chance you're either using checklists to record and strike through one-off tasks or you're not using them at all. Either way, you're missing out on an enormous boost in productivity and efficiency if you're neglecting the humble procedure checklist.
Last year we shared a checklist template with you from the design desk of Daryl Furuyama. Daryl had made a procedure checklist which he used not for writing down future tasks that he wanted to complete and cross off but for routine tasks that he frequently repeated.
Prior to coming across Daryl's template, I had limited my use of checklists to one-off tasks in need of completion but never as a guide for routine tasks. Since we published the post highlighting Daryl's procedures checklist, I've created and tweaked procedure checklists for both personal and professional procedures and been extremely pleased with the return on my investment. Today we're going to look at why you need to start using procedures checklists and how to go about creating them.
In Defense of the Humble Procedures List
Making a checklist and following it is not a glamorous affair. It is, however, a very efficient affair and one that you would be well served to incorporate into your workflow. I'm a busy person, you're a busy person, and it's quite likely we're not going to be getting any less busy in the foreseeable future, right? Who has time to add in one more thing to their day? The question would be better rephrased as "Who has the time to make easily avoided mistakes?"
We all make mistakes and forget steps even in tasks we've been doing for years. Procedural checklists serve as concrete reminders of what tasks we need to perform, what order we need to perform them in, and as springboards for tweaking our routines and making them more efficient.
For those of you who have adopted David Allen's Getting Things Done system—or any other system that stresses ubiquitous capture of information—you likely had an initial "I can't believe how well this works!" epiphany when you realized how much you really did forget on a day-to-day basis and how much capturing everything helped in boosting your productivity and efficiency. If you start tracking your procedures and evaluating the steps that go into them you'll experience a similar epiphany regarding routine tasks as you did regarding capturing ideas. Just like you couldn't believe you were relying totally on your memory before adopting ubiquitous capture you won't be able to believe you were relying, especially during a busy and stressful day, on basic memory recall to make sure everything was done right.
You may have trouble believing that something as simple as writing down the steps of the routine tasks you do every day, evaluating them, and then codifying them into a procedure list could be that revolutionary. Use the following tips and insights to get started and see for yourself.
Record What You Do, Not What You Think You Should Do
There are two methods of approach when it comes to creating procedure lists. The first method is to look at a given situation and create a best-practice procedural list, where you lay out a perfect sequence of events based on the ideal situation in which they would play out. While this method of procedure list creation can work, it's more efficient to go the second route: start making a procedure list based on what you are currently doing.
Why base your list on what you are presently doing? You don't want to deny yourself an opportunity to see what works in your current system. You may not being doing absolutely everything perfectly or at 100% efficiency, but you're certainly doing a lot right—or else you'd have died of food poisoning, been fired, or succumbed to some other fate by now. Creating your list based on what you're currently doing allows you to see exactly what goes into the procedure you're trying encapsulate and to sit back and evaluate it. When was the last time you wrote down everything you did in a given day, step by step, and then checked to see if you were missing important steps or doing things inefficiently? Probably never, and you're not alone in that.
I read a cookbook years ago where the author highlighted how unquestioned procedures can lead to inefficiency. The author's husband asked her why she always cut the roast in half and cooked it in two separate dishes. She told him that was how her mother did it, so she called her mother to ask why. The mother said that it was how the grandmother did it, so the author then called the grandmother and asked her why she cooked her roast in two pans. The grandmother laughed, explaining it had nothing to do with better cooking and everything to do with being too poor to buy a big roasting pan. Three generations of women, who could now presumably afford a bigger pan, had been adding in an extra step and an extra pan to clean, all because nobody had stepped back and asked, "Why are we doing this? Is this the most efficient way?"
Fix that with your own routine, and start right now. What are you doing at work? What routine task are you undertaking? What do you do at the end of the day when it's time to close up shop and go home? All of these things are procedures, even if you haven't looked at them as such before. Get a legal pad and a pen and write down, on alternating lines, the steps that go into whatever routine set of tasks you're working on. You can use a computer to compile the list, but I've found that for the first-generation list it's helpful to be able to write freely, scribble notes, and carry the list around with you as you brainstorm and track the procedures around your workplace or home.
Try to be as specific as possible, even if a step seems mundane or "obvious". It's the obvious things that often get overlooked. Examining even the mundane steps of a procedure gives you a chance to see if that step should be in a different spot, done differently, or dropped all together. Remember to list only items that are specific and actionable. Write your procedure list as though you were writing it for someone else.
Evaluating Your Procedure List
Once you've written down what you do in given procedure—cleaning your office once a week, preparing client proposals, assembling a monthly report for your boss—it's time to evaluate the procedure list. Evaluating procedure lists is a two-part process: the initial evaluation and a continual review. For your initial evaluation, you'll want to ask the following questions:
Is this step necessary? Why is this step included?
Is this step in the right place? Should it come sooner or later in the procedure?
Are the steps clear enough that I could give this procedure list to another person without explanation?
Is each step a concrete action that can be completed and checked off?
Let's use something as simple as cleaning your bathroom as an example. What if, upon writing down the procedure you currently use, wiping down the light fixtures above the sink comes after cleaning and polishing the sink? Cleaning the light fixtures is a clear enough step, it's certainly actionable—nothing theoretical or abstract about wiping the dust off something—and if you don't do it, you'll have dirty and dusty light fixtures. So far so good, we'll keep it in the list. It's completely in the wrong place, however, and it needs to be moved. If you clean the light fixtures which are above the sink, after you've already cleaned the sink, you'll just be knocking dust, dirt, and possibly dead bugs all over your freshly cleaned sink. Moving the cleaning of the light fixtures—and anything else up high—farther up the list than cleaning the sink and counter tops saves you from unnecessary work. Photo by Dominik Gwarek.
Perhaps you've long since gotten the concept of "clean from high to low" down pat, but you work in a lot of rooms, if you catch the meaning. You'd be a rare specimen to go through all your daily procedures and not find a multitude of spots where things could be tweaked and tightened up. Every little thing you find, like cleaning steps in the wrong order, is a micro-investment in your future efficiency and free time.
Continue the process of evaluating your procedure lists even after the initial evaluation. Situations change and a necessary step today might be a redundant step next month. If you're already in the habit of weekly and monthly reviews taking the time to evaluate a few procedures with each review will spread out the work and help keep your procedure lists current.
The simple procedure list is a fantastic way to increase the efficiency of and properly evaluate the routine tasks that populate your professional and personal life. Just like writing everything down frees your mind to focus on higher order thinking and important tasks, codifying your routines into a simple list you can reference and check off allows you to focus on more important things than remembering steps. Whether you're building an airplane, mailing proposals, or just trying to get to work on time with a good breakfast and properly packed briefcase, a procedure list can help you do it better and more efficiently.
Have experience with procedure lists? Have a question about crafting procedure lists of your own? Sound off in the comments.
Jason Fitzpatrick used to eschew lists in favor of juggling things in his memory. He has since committed to using lists for nearly everything, freeing up precious cycles and space in his brain for the important things, like trivia storage and an amphitheater for rehearsing his epic space rock opera.
These Are The Top 10 Brands In The Whole Wide World
These Are The Top 10 Brands In The Whole Wide World
For five years, the people at BrandZ (you know they're in branding because of the "Z") have been evaluating customer opinion and awareness of various global brands, and then putting a dollar value on that evaluation for their annual Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands report. Here are the top 10 brands on the BrandZ list.
1. Google "Google is now the number 1 brand by far with a value of $114.3 billion, on the strength of a 32 percent compounded annual growth rate since 2006, when Google ranked number 7, with a brand value of $37.4 billion."
2. IBM "The IBM brand experienced 24 percent compounded annual growth rate during the past five years and now, with a value of $86.3 billion, ranks second in the BrandZ Top 100, having advanced from position number 8."
3. Apple "Apple, now ranked number 3, with a brand value of $83.2 billion, moved up 26 places [over a five-year period] from number 29."
4. Microsoft Microsoft remained unchanged from 2008 with a value of $76.4 billion.
5. Coca Cola With a value of $67.98 billion, the Coca Cola brand remains the top beverage brand by a long shot. The closest on the list is Budweiser at #38. Pepsi ranked #58 on the list.
6. McDonald's The Golden Arches slipped just 1% from last year's value, but it was still the only fast food restaurant in the top 50. Subway, the only other fast food brand on the list was ranked #64.
7. Marlboro At a value of $57 billion, the Marlboro brand actually increased in value by 15% over the previous year.
8. China Mobile The world's largest mobile network is also the highest-rated non-U.S. brand on the list.
9. General Electric GE's brand value slipped 25% from the previous year, but it was still enough to keep the brand in the top 10.
10. Vodafone The UK-based mobile carrier is the highest-ranking European brand on the top 100.
Other brands of note: *Walmart barely missed out on the top 10, with a #13 ranking. *BMW, at #25, is the highest-ranking automobile manufacturer, edging out Toyota -- the world's largest car maker -- which ranked 26th. *The highest-ranking U.S.-based bank on the list is Wells Fargo at #30, with Bank of America coming in at #37 on the list. *While Comcast may be America's largest cable company -- and the Worst Company In America for 2010 -- it is nowhere on the top 100 list. Perhaps the Xfinity rebranding is needed after all?
The 10 Best-Paying College Majors
Methodology Annual pay for Bachelors graduates without higher degrees. Typical starting graduates have 2 years of experience; mid-career have 15 years. See full methodology for more.
Best Undergrad College Degrees By Salary [Payscale.com
New TV Watches You While You Sleep
Snoozing in the flickering light of your TV set could be a thing of the past, if you want it to be -- a new Sony Bravia model uses facial recognition technology to detect when you're sleeping and turns its display off, The Guardian reports. More »
Skip College, Suggest Some Economists
In a country where the mantra "you can be anything you want" is practically a national prayer, it's still kind of shocking to see someone suggest that a high school student should skip college. Some economists and professors, however, argue that college has become too expensive to throw money at if the odds are high that either you won't finish, or you'll go into an industry that doesn't require a degree.
From the New York Times:
College degrees are simply not necessary for many jobs. Of the 30 jobs projected to grow at the fastest rate over the next decade in the United States, only seven typically require a bachelor’s degree, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Among the top 10 growing job categories, two require college degrees: accounting (a bachelor’s) and postsecondary teachers (a doctorate). But this growth is expected to be dwarfed by the need for registered nurses, home health aides, customer service representatives and store clerks. None of those jobs require a bachelor’s degree.
One other interesting point from the article: employers are looking for entry level workers with social skills that college courses don't necessarily teach, and that aren't being taught in high school either. These include problem solving, decision making, conflict resolution, cooperation, and active listening.
"Plan B: Skip College" [New York Times]
Rapping Your McDonald’s Order Is Not A Crime
A Utah teenager who was arrested after rapping his order at a McDonald's drive-through was found not guilty of disorderly conduct,after a judge ruled that his behavior was not threatening and didn't create any unreasonable noise. The judge didn't rule on the skills of the teen, who was attempting to imitate the YouTube classic "Fast Food Freestyle" (aka "The McDonald's Drive Thru Rap"). More »
WhatIsThatFile.com - Identify unknown files and processes
The TruePower U-Socket has two USB charger ports next to two standard power outlets, right in a standard sized electrical wall plate. No external gadgets needed. Supposedly, it's quite easy for people to wire for their own homes, and the company hopes to make this standard issue for hotels and offices. Once UL approved, it will be available for $20, hopefully by the end of March, 2010.
UPDATE from the manufacturer's website: Please also note that the USB ports only draw power when something is physically connected to the port. We didn't want a vampire port that continually sucks and wastes power when not in use so this was one of the features on the top of our priority list during the design phase.
For those of us who haven't yet joined team e-reader — or for those of us with old, dusty copies of Dune lying around in need of a place to call home — designers Colleen and Eric have created a chic shelf for all of your paper and hardback display needs.
The Hold on Tight shelf is a modern, minimalist dream, and its approach to storage includes a built-in, adjustable bookend that looks pretty hot… for a shelf. It's actually an oversize, cube-shaped wing nut that can slide back and forth to make room for all of those classics you've been neglecting.
The Hold on Tight shelf is available for purchase, but there's no price listed onthe site, so you should just e-mail Colleen if you want one.
Bulk Breakfast Burritos: Convenient, Cheap, Healthy, and Easier Than You Think
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
” - Mark Twain (submitted by itherainbow)
the Copper Alloy Association (CDA) approached us at Pensa with the problem of encouraging hospitals, CDA's target market, to adopt copper alloys. Studies proving that these materials kill microbes faster and more effectively than any other antimicrobial material on the market and an EPA registration permitting health claims about these properties were not enough, so the CDA asked that we identify and design compelling hospital products that would inspire designers and manufacturers to use copper alloys wherever there was a need to fight infection.
Antimicrobial effectiveness: copper vs. the competition. Copper alloys have also been proven to kill Staphylococcus aureus, Enterobacter aerogenes, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and E. coli, in under two hours.
Copper's tenacious mythology The silver color on a quarter is a copper alloy—but hardly anyone knows it. In fact, nearly every designer and engineer we spoke to said the same thing about copper alloys: they're not hard, not strong, they tarnish, and they look old-fashioned. Architects feared using copper would result in a 'steampunk' hospital. But in fact, there are registered copper alloys that resist tarnish and rival steel in strength and hardness. These come in colors ranging from silver to yellow to red, and include nickel silver, brass, bronze, and copper nickel.
Copper Touch Our insights and analysis led to Copper Touch (pdf), a system of touch point hardware—doorknobs, light switches, grab bars, wall guards, drawer pulls, etc.—punctuated with sani-stations dispensing alcohol gel. Imagine how different Stefanie's experience would be if she went to a Copper Touch hospital: When Stefanie first enters the hospital lobby, she sees a standing sani-station. She uses some hand-sanitizer and germs naturally come to mind. This makes the sani-station the perfect place to inform her about the importance of hand cleaning, antimicrobial copper alloys, and the safe-to-touch hardware throughout the hospital that shares the same style and logo. As she walks throughout the hospital, she sees more sani-stations on the walls that enable her to clean her hands and that remind and enable others to clean their hands as well.
Assorted Copper Touch hardware, made mostly of nickel silver ( a copper alloy that has a steel-like finish) with details in copper nickel (a pale peach alloy) to remind users of the copper content.
Search Craiglist Using a Boolean OR
voicemail
1, * an
if you press 1, * and #, pausing between each key, you can skip the voicemail instructions of most major carriers.
Buy Nonperishables for Rock Bottom Prices at Reclaimed Freight Centers
Hinge Hooks Sneak Semi-Permanent Storage Behind Your Doors
A new study out of the U.K. has some bad news for overachievers: Working 10-11 hours a day on a regular basis can increase your risk of heart disease by close to two-thirds. Out of a group of 6,000 civil servants, the study found 369 cases "where people suffered heart disease that caused death, had a heart attack or developed angina."
A microscopic look at vinyl record grooves
Fig. 1: Location of the asteroids
There are probably over 10,000 asteroids larger than 100 km across in the Solar System, with many millions of smaller ones. Most of these can be found in a belt between the planets Mars and Jupiter.
The first asteroid was discovered as a result of a curious relatonship known asBode's Law. This is not a law at all, and is really only a coincidence. It goes as follows:
Bode's Law
Start with the number series in the first column below...
Add 4 to each number...
Then divide by 10...
S S+4 (S+4)/10 Planet Distance 0 4 0.4 Mercury 0.4 3 7 0.7 Venus 0.7 6 10 1.0 Earth 1.0 12 16 1.6 Mars 1.5 24 28 2.8 ??? - 48 52 5.2 Jupiter 5.2 96 100 10 Saturn 9.5 192 196 19.6 Uranus 19.2 Now compare these values with the average distances of the planets (as known by Bode in 1772) from the Sun, measured in AU...
The Hunt Begins
Alarmingly, Bode's Law produces numbers that are extremely close to the truevalues. But what was at 2.8 AU from the Sun? Surely something should be there, if all the planets fitted the series so well?
A hunt was begun, and in 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi discovered what he thought was the missing planet at 2.76 AU from the Sun. It was named Ceres, but was only about 1000 km wide - hardly a planet. More were soon discovered in similar orbits, and they were named asteroids, meaning like stars.
Read more at www.harmsy.freeuk.com
Bode's Law Doesn't Bode Well for Us
Both photometry and spectroscopy have been used to discover the more than 400 known exoplanets. The photometric light curve of a distant star with a transiting planet, when combined with detailed spectroscopic data, yields the planet radius, mass, and semimajor orbital distance, as well as the mass, radius, and effective temperature of the host star. The holy grail of this impressive scientific endeavor is, of course, to find Earth-like planets (possibly inhabited with Earth-like beings). However, the current odds of achieving such a find are not looking favorable because the trend indicates that Bode's law is being broken by the gaseous exo-giants.
Relative sizes of our planets (distances not to scale)
The standard model has it that our planets formed, under the influence of gravity, out of an accreting disk of interstellar dust, with the bulk of the mass at the center of this disk. The Sun, at the center of our solar system, does account for more than 99% of all the matter. Jupiter, on the other hand, contains more than twice the matter of the other planets combined and is located in the middle of our planetary sequence. The sequence of semimajor-axis distances (A) from the Sun is given by the semi-empirical relationship known as Bode's law:
The standard model has it that our planets formed, under the influence of gravity, out of an accreting disk of interstellar dust, with the bulk of the mass at the center of this disk. The Sun, at the center of our solar system, does account for more than 99% of all the matter. Jupiter, on the other hand, contains more than twice the matter of the other planets combined and is located in the middle of our planetary sequence. The sequence of semimajor-axis distances (A) from the Sun is given by the semi-empirical relationship known as Bode's law:
A = 0.4 + 0.3 (2k),
where k = -∞, 0, 1, 2, ..., 8 and A is expressed in AU. The following table shows a numerical comparison with measured planetary distances. Since Bode's law is a power law, it is appropriate to compare it with the data on a log-scale plot. In Bode's day only six planets (P = 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7) were known.
The discovery of Uranus (P = 8) in 1781 was seen to be in agreement with eqn. (1). The location of the then unknown planet Ceres (P = 5) was predicted by Bode and discovered in 1801. Today, it's a member of the asteroid belt. The fit at P = 1 using k = -∞ is a hack and clearly the outermost planets do not fit; although Pluto has since been officially demoted from planet status by the IAU.
Without getting too exercised over whether eqn. (1) is really a law or a not, let's take it as read that it (or a similar power law) has some statistical meaning in the context of our Solar system, which might ultimately be explained by a more sophisticated planetary formation model. Whether such power laws hold up for exosolar systems remains to be seen. Although Bode's law doesn't predict the mass distributions (only the relative orbital distances), ultimately the planetary masses are related to their distances via Newton's law of gravitation once the planets proper have formed. Getting there from the accreting dust cloud, however, is a gravitational maelstrom.
