Lov-3

Forget love, I want the money

‘What is love?’ may have been the most searched term generally, but money topped the list for small businesses.

Making a buck was top of mind for small businesses using Google this year, according to new results from the search giant.

The term ‘make money’ came in at first place for those interested in small business, followed by ‘business for sale,’ ‘small business’ and ‘franchise’.

The dollar also featured heavily in the fastest rising small business searches for 2011, with ‘find unclaimed money’ and ‘income at home’ topping the list.

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While ranking highly on Google has becomes increasingly important for small businesses, Kate Conroy, advertising products specialist for Google Australia, says the little guy should have nothing to fear.

“One misconception is that only big businesses can appear at the top of the Google page. Google uses two factors to decide which ads to show at the top of the search results page. One is the cost-per-click an advertiser is prepared to bid.

“The second is something called ‘quality score’ which measures how relevant the ad is to the keyword searched for. This second factor allows small businesses to compete with big businesses despite having a smaller marketing budget.”

The results show Australians are increasingly looking for information on the go, making it ever more important for small businesses to adapt.

According to Google, more than half of Australians now own a smartphone, and one in three of all searches are local.

“A lot of small businesses assume that if most of their business comes from foot traffic, then no potential customers would be searching for them online and they do not need a website or an online marketing strategy,” says Conroy.

“However, Google gets thousands of searches each day for exactly these kinds of businesses. For example, there are as many searches done each month for ‘bakery’ than for ‘Lady Gaga’.”

Another way to compete is to provide products that aren’t available from big retailers.

“The fastest rising search terms indicate that Aussies are shopping much more overseas right now than in the past,” says Ross McDonald, Google Australia’s head of retail.

“A lot of searches that we see at Google include goods connected with apparel and overseas retailers simply because they can’t find local retailers who are selling those products. And some of those who do could use online tools better to tell people what brands and products they sell.”

Top small business searches for 2011

9. Starting a business

Fastest Rising Small Biz Searches 2011

1. Find unclaimed money

Dec. 8: John Lennon Shot, Killed 1980

1980 John Lennon Killed

The Beatles‘ musician John Lennon was shot and killed outside of his New York City apartment on the night of Dec. 8, 1980. Lennon and wife Yoko Ono were returning from the recording studio to their home at The Dakota when 25-year-old crazed fan Mark David Chapman shot him at close range. Earlier in the day Chapman had been hanging around The Dakota with other fans and asked Lennon for an autograph.

When The Beatles broke up in 1970, John Lennon focused on humanitarian and social activism. After the 1975 birth of his son Sean, John Lennon retreated from public eye to concentrate on his family. John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s 1980 “Double-Fantasy” album was planned to be his comeback in the music scene. Lennon was murdered just weeks after “Double-Fantasy” was released.

The "Imagine" mosaic is shown, in this Dec. 7, 2000 file photo in the area known as "Strawberry Fields" in New York's Central Park. (Spencer Platt/Newsmakers/Getty Images)

Fans pay tribute to Lennon at Central Park‘s “Imagine” sign, located at the Strawberry Fields region. Strawberry Fields opened on what would have been Lennon’s 45th birthday, Oct. 9, 1985.

Large crowds gather each year for a vigil on the anniversary of his death, but on any given day visitors will find roses laid around the sign and fans snapping photos of themselves with the iconic image.

Explore John Lennon’s legacy and leave your own tribute at the Imagine Peace Website.

2000 Mark David Chapman Interview

Twenty years after Lennon’s death, Barbara Walters revisited her 1992 interview with Mark David Chapman. This was the killer’s first televised interview.

Chapman was sentenced t0 20 years to life for killing Lennon and is serving his time at New York’s Attica Prison. He is one of the many infamous killers said to have carried a copy of J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” with him.

When Barbara Walters asked why he did it, Chapman replied with a straight face, “I thought by killing him, I would acquire his fame.”

Jump back to Dec. 7: Day in History.

View more videos from This Month in History: December.

GPA Calculator use: Study Tools being used for Exam

Free online GPA calculator for college, university, and high school (hs) classes. Cumalative school GPA calculator works with any scale, including the 4.0 scale. Author: facemark.

A lot of students are wrapping up a semester's worth of hard work right now, and many of them are searching for a GPA calculator to map out their final grade point average. Use this website to find out yours. Serving Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks

D Well, I don't have a financial calculator, I got by and made an A in my finance class using a regular TI calculator. There was a lot of present value,

Online, the Office of the Registrar gives simple instructions on how to figure out your GPA for the semester and directions for how to find your cumulative GPA on your transcripts. The advising department also provides a very easy to use GPA calculator

Mastering the Cosmos in Four Hours or Less: Meet the Interstellar Answer Man

Brian Green, host of the PBS series The Fabric of the Cosmos

WGBH

It turns out that Brian Greene isn’t all that different from you or me. Sure, he’s a top-flight theoretical physicist on the faculty of the ultra-prestigious Columbia University. And yes, he specializes in string theory, which uses such advanced and difficult math that even many physicists can’t follow it. In one crucial way, however, Greene really is like the rest of us.

“If I just look at mathematical equations,” he says, “I don’t feel I truly understand what’s going on. I have to create a running visual in my mind.” (Read about Greene’s The Fabric of the Cosmos.)

Those visuals turn out to be a very good thing for all of us nonphysicists, since the pictures Greene paints for himself he also paints for us. He’s done it with words in his best-selling books The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos and The Hidden Reality. And now, for the second time, he’s turned one of those books into a documentary series: The Fabric of the Cosmos ran on PBS through November. You can still see all four segments on the Web, but hurry. Failing that, they’re available on iTunes or on Nova’s website.

No matter how you catch the series, it’s worth it. Nova’s computer-graphics wunderkinder combined with Greene’s brilliance at explaining concepts that would normally make your head explode bring surprising clarity to ideas that contradict common sense at every turn. Empty space, for example, isn’t really empty, and it isn’t just a passive container in which galaxies and planets and light beams move around: it warps and undulates; it stretches and squeezes; it crackles with its own invisible energy, which affects everything within it.

Time, meanwhile, doesn’t necessarily flow from what-was through what-is and toward what-will-be. It may not flow at all: past, present and future could all be right here, right now — it’s just our perception, plus the laws of thermodynamics, that makes it seem some other way. And by the way, what we call the universe may be just one of a zillion parallel universes, some like ours, some totally different, but all of them eternally cut off from each other. (Read about the Higgs boson, the “God particle.”)

There’s also the riddle of quantum mechanics, invented in the early 20th century to make sense of how subatomic particles behave. The great physicist Richard Feynman once said of quantum theory, “Don’t ask how it can be like that. Nobody knows how it can be like that!” Greene, nonetheless, takes a stab at explaining things. Imagine, he says, that we could shrink to the size of particles. Imagine further that we’re in an otherwise familiar situation — a bar, but one whose patrons obey quantum principles. That attractive woman you’re chatting up? She’s suddenly on the other side of the room, and you are (or Greene himself, who is on-screen most of the time, is) sitting on a different stool. The mix of familiar setting and crazy action — which becomes vividly real through those seamless special effects — makes a far more powerful impression than some old-fashioned diagram or animation ever could.

The Fabric of the Cosmos is in many ways the direct heir of Carl Sagan’s popular Cosmos series, produced by Nova in the 1980s — and Greene is quick to acknowledge Sagan’s influence. “He was a trailblazer, and he’s been a model for me. Lots of us who are interested in explaining science to the public view Carl as an iconic hero.”

It wasn’t just Sagan’s genius at explanation that laid the groundwork for scientist-popularizers like Greene and his astronomical counterpart, Neil deGrasse Tyson. It was also his willingness to go where no scientist had gone before — specifically, late-night TV, where he was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Other scientists were appalled: Sagan’s ventures outside the ivory tower ultimately kept him from being elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. But Greene routinely shows up on TV to match wits with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and nobody seems to think it’s a problem.

Greene is also like Sagan in that he keeps his prime mission in mind — and that mission isn’t just to entertain you. “These ideas are so vital to a full picture of reality,” he says, “that even though they’ve been explained before, people haven’t really absorbed them.” It matters, he says, because “everything from climate change to nanotechnology to genetically modified foods to costly spaceflights involves scientific issues. I think we can help create a cultural shift where science isn’t seen as an esoteric subject but rather as part of a full life, central to participation in the democratic process.” Greene is serious enough about this mission that he co-founded the annual World Science Festival, which attempts to bridge the science-culture divide when it is held in New York City every spring.

In a nation where so many people deny evolution and think vaccines cause rather than prevent disease, Greene’s got a big job ahead of him. But if he keeps churning out compelling videos like The Fabric of the Cosmos, he might actually get people to understand at least a little bit of modern physics — and a bigger bit of the world it makes possible.

Read about Amazon.com striking a deal to carry PBS programs.

Read about a Nova episode regarding the Pearl Harbor events.

The Geminid annual meteor shower to peak Tuesday night

The Geminid meteor shower, billed by NASA as the best of the year, is expected to peak on Tuesday night.

Shooting stars appearing to originate from the constellation Gemini are expected to streak across the skies between Dec. 12 and 16, peaking between Dec. 13 and 14, the U.S. space agency says.

Between 80 and 120 shooting stars per hour are regularly seen during the peak of the annual celestial show. Unfortunately, this year the sky will be lit brightly with a nearly full waning gibbous moon, making some of the meteors hard to see. Even so, sky watchers may be able to see up to 40 shooting stars per hour during the peak if skies are clear, NASA predicts.

The Geminid meteor shower takes place in mid-December each year as the Earth passes through a stream of debris from an object called 3200 Phaetheon. Astronomers aren’t sure whether it is a comet or an asteroid, since it has an asteroid-like orbit, but brightens like a comet as it approaches the sun.

This annual meteor shower was first reported in the 1830s, and since then has increased from a peak intensity of 20 meteors per hour to up to 120.

“It is now the best annual meteor shower,” NASA said on its website.

NASA is holding a public online chat with three meteor experts at its Marshall Space Flight Center from 11 p.m. ET Tuesday to 5 a.m. ET Wednesday.

Quadrantids: Visible each year in early January, this meteor shower appears to originate within the constellation Bootes. The meteors are often bright blue, and peak at an hourly rate of about 40.

Lyrids: This shower begins every year in mid-April. The Lyrids can sometimes produce fireballs with smoky trails that can linger for a few minutes. They appear to come from the star Vega, in the Lyra constellation.

Perseids: Debris left behind from the 109P/Swift-Tuttle comet, which passes through the inner solar system every 130 years, is responsible for the Perseid meteor showers. The event begins in mid-July, but peaks in mid-August.

Orionids: Known to produce fireballs, these meteor showers will peak in late October with a maximum hourly rate of about 20. The yellow and green meteors are fast moving and come from fragments left behind by Halley’s comet.

Leonids: The Leonids are visible every year around mid-November when Earth passes through the debris field left by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. Leonids hit the Earth’s atmosphere at 70 kilometres per second, or 255,600 km/h. That’s about 133 times faster than an F-18 fighter jet can fly at top speed.

Geminids: The Geminids are known for their multi-coloured streaks and moderate speeds — they travel at half the speed of the Leonids — making them easy to spot. The shower peaks in mid-December, with an average maximum rate of 50 meteors an hour.

Has Matisyahu left Judaism?

The artist formerly known as Matisyahu has given up his beard and, it seems, all pretenses of Orthodoxy. He is also no longer calling himself Matisyahu and intends to rebirth himself as a secular, albeit spiritual, musician.

Matisyahu's million-plus Twitter followers were in for quite a surprise this morning (Dec. 13), as the Hasidic rapper posted a cryptic message and links to photos of himself without his trademark — and religiously significant

Matisyahu posted a clean-shaven photo of himself, and soon followed with a blog post on his official website that proclaimed, No more Chassidic reggae superstar.

Geminid Meteor Shower Video: Annual ‘Shooting Star’ Show Seen From Joshua Tree

If you’re lucky enough to see the Geminid meteor shower, which peaks Tuesday night, it most likely won’t look like this. After all, Henry Jun Wah Lee, a filmmaker and photographer from Los Angeles, spent three days and two nights with his camera in Joshua Tree National Park to capture video and photos featured in the film below. VIDEO BELOW But camping out under the stars for those few nights resulted in an amazing time-lapse video of last year’s Geminid meteor shower, juxtaposed against a backdrop of the enchanting landscape found in Joshua Tree. According to the Los Angeles Times, the annual display is called the Geminids because the meteors appear to be emitted from the constellation Gemini. Wah Lee explains on his website that not all of the streaks of light are meteors — the flashes lasting longer than one or two frames are airplanes. According to his Vimeo page, the video is set to “Happiness,” from Jónsi & Alex’s album “Riceboy Sleeps.” But even though the video is spectacular, Wah Lee writes on his website that “watching this doesn’t beat the experience of actually sitting underneath the stars yourself.” So if you have the chance (and the sky is clear), grab your jacket, hat and scarf and get away from the city lights to take some time to stare at the sky Tuesday night. Be sure to check out Wah Lee’s site for his explanation of why he titled the film “Fleeting Light: The High Desert and the Geminid Meteor Shower” and for details about how he shot it. In the mood for some more time-lapse? Check out this one from the Chilean desert featuring some of the stars and constellations of the Southern Hemisphere. For all the details about how to see the Geminid meteor shower,

Fleeting Light: The High Desert and the Geminid Meteor Shower from Henry Jun Wah Lee on Vimeo.

Russell Simmons, Kal Penn offer support to ‘All American Muslim’ after Lowe’s pulls sponsorship

Russell Simmons. (Cindy Ord – Getty Images) Russell Simmons has offered to purchase the remaining advertising spots for an upcoming episode of “All American Muslim,” after home improvement store Lowe’s pulled its sponsorship of the TLC show.

“Just purchased remaining spots for [‘All American Muslim’] for next week,” the mogul tweeted Monday. “The show is now sold out! keep your money [Lowe’s] and we will keep ours.”

Simmons, who would advertise his prepaid Visa Rush Card with the ad time, later tweeted he was told the spots were sold out: “I’m trying to buy ads during [‘All American Muslim’] airing this Sunday, but now they are saying they are sold out. I will keep trying…”

A rep for TLC confirmed to Celebritology that Simmons did offer to purchase ad time, but said it wasn’t immediately clear if they was any available. Request for comment from UniRush, Simmons’ financial services company, has not been returned.

Lowe’s pulled its sponsorship from “All American Muslim” after receiving complaints from groups including the Florida Family Association, which objected to the TLC show’s positive portrayal of the five Muslim families it follows, as the Post’s Paul Farhi reported. The company claims that “dozens of companies” have also pulled their ads, but apologized to anyone offended by the decision: “We have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, and we’re proud of that longstanding commitment. If we have made anyone question that commitment, we apologize.”

The Florida Family Association has since shut down most of its Web site, claiming it was vulnerable to hackers.

Simmons called Lowe’s actions “Islamophobic,” telling Entertainment Weekly, “This can’t happen in America; [Lowe's] needs to fix this immediately.”

Along with Simmons, actors Kal Penn and Mia Farrow have condemned Lowe’s on Twitter. Penn and Simmons have asked their Twitter followers to boycott the store and to sign a petition that calls for the show’s current sponsors to continue advertising. It has been signed by more than 20,000 people.

This post has been updated.

Candles Light Up Night While Supporting Charity

NORWALK, Conn. – The twinkling in Rowayton’s darkness Sunday night wasn’t just from white Christmas lights – hundreds of candles were lining the roads. David McCarthy, a resident, said it is a southwestern tradition that made its way to Norwalk. “I think most people view Luminary Night as the ‘official’ kick off of the Christmas Season,” he said.

The luminary coincided with the Family Centers’ annual “Hope Lights Lives” fundraiser benefiting bereavement and critical illness support services offered through the Greenwich-based Center for Hope and the Den for Grieving Kids.

McCarthy said he got his candles from the Center for Hope. “For a number of reasons, my wife is a very big supporter of theirs, so I make sure to get them there,” he said. “Normally someone in each neighborhood is their representative. In our neighborhood, I believe that Ellen Rankin puts the slips in mailboxes a month or so earlier and arranges the kit deliveries.”

Luminary kits cost $25 and contained 12 tea light candles, 12 white paper bags and 12 plastic candle holders. Candles lined Highland Avenue, Rowayton Avenue and Wilson Avenue as well as other area roads Sunday night.

“CFH does a really great job in this in a number of ways,” McCarthy said said. “First, having feet on the ground in every neighborhood is amazing. Second, the kits themselves are pretty impressive and yet so very simple. In my experience over the last 10 years the number of people who do it varies, but tends to increase. I was amazed at the numbers in Rowayton on my drive to pick the kids up for car pool (Monday) morning.”

Family Centers is a private, nonprofit organization offering education and human services to children, adults and families in Lower Fairfield County, according to its website. More than 1,700 professionals and trained volunteers work together to provide a range of responsive, innovative programs.