Blog Writer - (Anywhere)
Backblaze is an online backup company that backs up a person's laptop or desktop computer for $5/month for unlimited storage. It's secure, easy to use and simply awesome.
We are looking for a writer that has the gift for making sentences...using words and punctuation stuff. You can be a unrecognized poet. Or a college student who took one creative writing course. Or the next big author with an upcoming appearance on Oprah's book list.
You will be researching topics and trends in online backup and writing blog posts, top 10 lists, how-to-guides, etc.
Requirements:
� Work anywhere in the US remotely.
� Have a Paypal account so we can pay you.
� Legally be able to work in the U.S.
� Have excellent communication and writing skills
You will be compensated $10 per article written between 400 and 600 words. Send us your resume if you think you are a good fit. To be put at the top of the list for consideration, please take a look at our blog at: http://blog.backblaze.com/ and send us 5 ideas you think may be great blog posts promoting Backblaze.
More information here.
Reply to: gigs-t6ygq-2233546698@craigslist.org
Creative writer needed to ghost write blog articles.
Topics: Social media marketing, user experience design, web design, mobile applications, etc.
The topic ideas can be provided or you can select your own. 300 to 500 words with a few relevant links. Be witty, creative, sophisticated and opinionated.
2 to 5 articles per month. Flexible.
Reply with a background info.
Location: Remote
Compensation: 10.00 to 15.00 per post
More information here.
NetbookReviews.com is hiring mobile technology writers with a specific emphasis on covering upcoming major news in the mobile technology space (netbooks, tablets etc).
As a NetbookReviews.com content writer, you should be able to write on a variety of technical topics with a focus on helping others find the right netbook to meet their needs. You will be required to input affiliate links where appropriate and taught the best way to do this. Articles should be news oriented with a larger focus on products available right now (as opposed to products that are concepts and may or may not be available for several months). Typical article length is 500 words or less in length and will generally include 1 applicable picture (Can easily find these from Amazon.com).
Qualifications:
We are looking for the following from our applicants:
� Demonstrated knowledge of mobile technology topics
� Experience writing on mobile technology related topics
� Ability to do 10 - 15 articles per month
� Independent and trustworthy
� College degree or seeking a degree a plus
Benefits:
� Work when you want to
� Receive editorial guidance and feedback
� Monthly payments for all published articles
� Typical assignments pay around $10 per article
How to apply
Email chris@netbookreviews.com with links to previous blogs and a couple of paragraphs that highlight relevant qualifications (e.g., education, blogging experience, mobile technology knowledge, etc.)
More information here.
Increasingly, as technology becomes more personalised, it will also become more personalisable. By this I mean that not only will users be able to tailor the technology (apps, backgrounds, appearance, functionality) to their own needs, but it will also be used increasingly to appeal to their senses, and even to adjust their perceptions and behaviour. Watching a re-run of the 2002 sci-fi movie Minority Report, reminded me of this. The central character, a Pre-Crime Officer by the name of John Anderton is walking down the street, and animated advertising images are calling him out by name as he passes by: "John Anderton - you need this product today!" We assume that the embedded technology within the advertising hoardings are detecting some personal feature that identifies him - possibly the irises in his eyes - and can then call him by his name. Such advertising, if it were technically feasible (and some would argue it already is) would be very powerful, because as all advertisers know, it is the personal message that is the most powerful.
The Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser had plenty to say about how ideological messages influence the perceptions of individuals. Objects, music, art (and I would add media and technology) can all be used to 'hail' the individual and make them feel as though they are personally being addressed. This process of interpellation could be exemplified in Lord Kitchener's World War One poster 'Your Country Needs You', and all of the subsequent imitations by other governments to encourage young men to enlist in the military to protect and defend their country. His stern expression and the stark message said it all. The eyes of the interpellator followed you wherever you went, and there was apparently no escape from the fact that Lord Kitchener was calling you personally to join him in the struggle against evil. It is highly likely that such interpellative technologies as those seen in Minority Report will be realised sooner rather than later. But it is the context aware systems and their ability to educate learners that I am most excited about. Such systems will be at the core of the Smart eXtended Web, and equipped with the appropriate handheld or wearable technology, learners will be able to interact with their environments in ways never before achievable. All of this will also be very personal, and will facilitate new and exciting forms of education.
Inspired by a Twitter conversation with Manish Malik @manmalik, Simon Brookes @Pompeysie and Pat Parslow @patparslow.
You've been hailed by
Steve Wheeler is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Description
TaintedGreen.com is searching for 1-2 bloggers who obsess about green technology and who understand how to identify topics that both create interest and serve relevant advertising.
We aren�t the first place to talk about green news, instead we�re focused on unearthing the truth about green. That means analyzing new product launches or marketing blitzes with a critical eye and forming an opinion that readers will either resonate with or disagree with � the end goal being to create meaningful conversation.
Here are a few specifics:
- Research and choose your own green technology topics
- 2 posts per week on scheduled days
- 2 posts to the Tainted Green forums per month to connect with teammates
- 300 words per article
- $10 guaranteed compensation per post for the first three months with unlimited growth through revenue-sharing. Traffic is great but we�re looking for someone who is also able to assess whether or not a topic is going to generate dollars in parallel.
- Excellent writing and grammar skills required � after an initial onboarding process you�ll be able to publish live to the front page.
- Willingness to accept feedback and adapt writing style to fit with the Tainted Green culture
- Demonstrated experience in the blogging or related space, especially meshing relevant topics in an interesting way where advertising dollars exist
- Minimally we�re looking for a 6 month commitment
How To Apply
Send e-mail. Please include your resume as a link or an attachment along with a writing sample in your initial response.
More information here.
A reader flipped me a review of Taiwan's renewable energy policies and industries, looking at solar, wind, and ocean:
If Taiwan's PV success is likely to stay centred around exports, it has significant ambitions for its most obvious natural asset � the oceans that surround it and the winds that blow there.
Offshore wind power is central to Taiwan's renewable energy project, says a spokeswoman for the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), the Taiwanese government's technical arm. 'Renewable energy in Taiwan for the most part will be offshore wind power,' she adds.
The nation's industrial sector announced its offshore ambitions at the end of 2010 with the formation of the Taiwan Offshore Wind Power Alliance � made up of 18 companies from the region's energy, engineering and manufacturing sectors � and plans to set up Taiwan's first offshore wind farm in Changhua County, according to local reports. Commercial operations are due to begin in the second quarter of 2013 with its first two 5 MW turbines. If all goes to plan, these will be joined by a further 122 machines by the end of 2016.
Late 2010 also saw the Taiwanese government unveil its own plans for an 8 MW offshore wind demonstration project off the Penghu Islands, to be operational by the end of 2012. Penghu � a cluster of 90 small islands off the western coast of the Taiwanese mainland � is set to become something of a showcase for the country's renewable and low carbon credentials.
The government has pledged support to turn Penghu into Taiwan's first low-emission county by 2015. Plans include 96 MW of onshore wind capacity, solar energy initiatives and the creation of recharging infrastructure for electric mobility. According to Taiwan's Council for Economic Planning and Development, this should enable 56% of Penghu's energy needs to be met from renewable sources by the end of the five-year programme.
Penghu will also play a major role in Taiwan's efforts to harness ocean energy, a high priority technology for the government and ITRI. The national target is for a 200 MW installed capacity by 2025.
With around 1500 km of coastline and a sub-tropical environment, Taiwan has been investigating two main strands of ocean energy development since 2005, when its National Energy Conference formally decreed it a priority.
One is Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), in which the country is at the forefront of global research thanks to ITRI's collaboration with Lockheed Martin of the US. The second focus of Taiwan's ocean push is to unlock the considerable potential of the waves and tidal currents around its shores. According to ITRI, studies have shown that the north-east offshore region of Taiwan has a wave energy potential of several hundred megawatts, while the east coast's Kuroshio path and the Pescadores Channel (off Penghu) have tidal current energy that could theoretically be tapped at gigawatt scale.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion is
described in this Youtube video. Unlike fossil fuels which are environmental poisons, OTEC can have an interesting by-product if you live on a tropical island: fresh water.
Wiki notes:
OTEC can also supply quantities of cold water as a by-product . This can be used for air conditioning and refrigeration and the fertile deep ocean water can feed biological technologies. Another by-product is fresh water distilled from the sea.
The article also discusses the state of Taiwan's PV tech producers relative to the market -- the old Taiwan story of being good at producing stuff but not at the service side -- installing, distributing, etc. Between them Taiwan and China control around 60% of the global PV market.
There's a map of Taiwan's wind machines
but it locates some things in the wrong places, like the four windmills on Datun 12th Street in Taichung city. Oops.
This paper in Renewable Energy discusses the island's wind power potential. At present about 40% of Taiwan's energy comes from coal, a policy that is insane from both an environmental and energy security policy standpoint.
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Daily Links- Chinese rag runs article about KMT legislators complaining about Americans getting biased reporting from the Taipei Times.
- DPP working on cross-strait policies for election and beyond. Can we please stop writing "remarks certain to rankle Beijing." Let Beijing speak for itself; it has Xinhua for that. Quit playing to the propaganda that the DPP provokes Beijing.
- Banyan at the Economist visits the renovated 2-28 Museum. So far everyone says it's been toned down but not totally whitewashed. Poagao said that much of the old art has been retained. The key thing has been the removal of documents that connect Chiang Kai-shek to the massacre. BTW, Banyan, the original sin of the KMT is being an authoritarian, colonialist party. Everything else, including 2-28, flows from that.
- China Reform Monitor notes (Russia has a Jewish Autonomous Region??):
Russia�s Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports that China is �investing far greater funds in Russia's Far East than the Russian Government� and called the imbalance �Beijing�s clear state policy to assimilate new territories.� The newspaper cites an official Xinhua press report on investment in the Russian Far East claiming that Chinese investors have established 34 special Chinese economic zones in Russia�s Amur Oblast, Maritime Kray, Khabarovsk Kray, and the Jewish Autonomous Region, where they have invested a total of $3 billion mostly in resource extraction. Chinese entrepreneurs also hope to open industrial and agricultural zones in Russia, including processing zones, stock raising, construction, timber cutting, and wholesale markets. To oversee the construction and development of China�s industrial and agricultural zones in Russia, the Heilongjiang provincial administration has created a special leading group. The Russian paper reported that in 2011, Moscow�s total transfers to these regions' � $170 million for Amur Oblast, $74 million for the Jewish Autonomous Region, $234 million for Khabarovsk Kray, and $344 million for Maritime Kray � are under one third China�s investment.
- Blacked Out Korea -- yes, a site dedicated to photos of Koreans blacked out from being blind drunk in public places.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
When Doug Belshaw invited me to write a blog post on the purpose of education for the Purpos/ed project I could see the importance of revisiting this vital question. Your own rationale for becoming an educator should reveal quite a lot about your own personal philosophy on education. For me, it's about making a positive impact on people's lives and inspiring them to learn.
Let's start with the word 'education'. One of the Latin root words is 'educere' which means to draw out (from within). If we practice education properly, we will see that it's not about getting students to perform to standardised tests that bear no resemblance to reality. Standardised tests allow governments to check on the performance of the school, not on individual learning. This is not education, it's schooling.
If we practice education properly we will also realise that it's more about learning than teaching. I often think about what I actually learnt in my school years. I was taught to read and write and to perform elementary mathematical functions so I wasn't ripped off when I visited a shop. But this was nothing compared to what I learnt through my own endeavours, in my own time - the science I learnt through my keen interest in the NASA Apollo Moon missions was far superior to anything I picked up in my physics and biology lessons. I wrote my own 'books', made posters of the moon and models of rocketships, knew all the planets, the star systems. Even now I can tell you the exact escape velocity from the Earth's gravity and can describe the physics of an eliptical orbit in fine detail.
My profound appreciation of music is more down to the long hours I devoted learning to play guitar in my bedroom until my fingers bled. In fact I learnt more about music by self-teaching myself guitar and watching films of my rock heroes than I ever learnt playing repetitive scales on a recorder in school.
I think you can see where this is all going. In school, my teachers (with one or two notable exceptions) actually failed to draw out from within me the desire to learn - to develop the aptitude I already possessed to become a reasonably good musician or the ability to convey my thoughts and ideas in a number of ways including writing and public speaking. I'm at the top of my game now, and I owe most of it to ..... me. Sure, others have inspired me to learn, but this has generally happened in the long years since I left school. All of my professional and academic qualifications were achieved studying part-time, after I reached 30. I studied for 3 degrees and a teaching certificate on the basis that I wanted to do so. I was interested, so it was well worth the sacrifice. And I keep learning now, as often and as much as I can, to stay as close to the leading edge of my profession as I can. Because I want to. I have it within me to do so.
School for me wasn't so much a waste of time, as something I had to endure to become who I ultimately have become. I left with very few qualifications. Some teachers inspired me but many were wide of the mark because they didn't have the time or the interest in me to see my potential. One told my parents: 'Stephen is a very sociable lad, but he will never become an academic.' I didn't have it within me, he assured them. 'Maybe he can find something useful to do with his hands' he advised sagely. Well, I did have it within me, but I had to draw it out of myself in the end.
Schools are not all bad news. There are plenty of good teachers who take time to get to know their students and try to find ways to draw them out. Dispense with the rigid, compartmentalised curricula, and the standardised testing, and let the kids express themselves more creatively through their own means (including the open use of personal technologies in the classroom) and school would be a place where people could be drawn out to achieve their highest potential. Take away government meddling and allow schools to govern themselves, and we might see some positive changes taking place, with children engaged more in learning, and actually eager to get into school every day.
So back to the original question - what is the purpose of education? It is to inspire students to learn to the best of their ability, to draw them out to be the best they can be, and so enable them to aspire to great things. Just make sure you don't confuse education with school.
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I have it within me... by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
