Article1Society.com

There’s so much talk about China busting the United States, and alarm bells are sounding all over the place (politically and otherwise) about how Americans have, are, and will continue to fall behind but for all the jeremiads there is a very simple answer: Twitter.

Yes, the social networking medium that has taken the world by storm, constantly making the news insofar as people are constantly using it under unexpected conditions (such as kidnapping victims and the like) or the people using it are famous people saying the darnedest things (Sarah Palin’s “refudiate” even made Oxford University Press’ Word of the Year for 2010).
Now don’t get me wrong; Twitter by itself won’t be the answer to China’s rapid rising strength in economic, diplomatic, and cultural affairs worldwide.
But it’s what the service represents that’s intriguing – and a hint of hope that Americans need not continue to fall behind – or have had done so to begin with.

For can the Chinese ever produce such a thing?
Sure, it’s an ancient civilization whose scientific and technological achievements warranted a twelve-volume Cambridge encyclopedia by Sinophile biochemist Joseph Needham – but that the last such creativity was around a complete century ago.
Has the Chinese produced anything as beneficial as Twitter recently?

Yes, it’s a basic idea.
And it probably won’t change the world the way rice, tea, paper, gunpowder, glasses, umbrellas, buttons, the magnetic compass, and the whole host of inventions cataloged by Needham’s “Science and Civilization in China.”
But an important development nonetheless – crucial, indeed.
And the fact that such things as these – Google, Microsoft, Apple – have no true Chinese counterpart speaks much about where the fount of development still lies for the foreseeable future.
Of course, America has serious problems.
But the country has great advantages, too, with quite a monopoly on them!

Due to the gutting of the American economy by its own citizens – both the politicians which enabled it and the voters who set them in office – more and more companies are hiring (when they do at all, for the comparatively few positions still within the country) workers not as employees but independent contractors, those who use a 1099 Form when filing taxes.

From a corporate viewpoint, it makes plenty of sense.
One way to become more profitable is to trim costs, and employees cost far more than independent contractors.
Due to worker’s compensation taxes and added benefits like health insurance and sick leave, an employee costs much more than just wages or salaries suggest.
Additionally, independent contractors may not occasion the kinds of legal headaches that come out of labor law violations and so on.
Basically, when you fill out a 1099 Form, the company is only minimally responsible for you – from your welfare on the job to your actions on the job.

It all sounds so easy.
Independent contractors were first hired only to provide one-time assistance or work.
For example, instead of fielding its own janitorial staff, a company can just hire a committed janitorial services company once every so often.
However, the concept because adopted for more and more job titles, such that in the 21st Century even a big company can outsource critical professional services such as accounting and legal affairs, making just about everyone a 1099 Form filer.

From a specific point of view, the explosion of independent contractors suggests a prevalence of the entrepreneurial spirit.
But the facts are, many such workers are not independent by choice.
And it bodes ill for an economy when the labor force is progressively without health insurance, sick leave, personal days, and all the other great things about a traditional employment model, particularly when looking at legal protections against abuse.

Kinesiology tape has begun making the rounds at local gyms and health clubs.
First produced by Japanese chiropractor Kenzo Kase within the 1970s, they only exploded in popularity once fifty thousand rolls were donated to American athletes at the Beijing Summer Games.
High-profile names such as Lance Armstrong, Serena Williams, and Kerri Walsh have competed in them or often use them as part of their training regimens, so is it any shock that recreational fitness buffs should now follow suit?

Definitely not, but kinesiology tape just isn’t some sort of magical talisman, either.
Proper technique is still key to staying injury-free, as are adequate rest and sound nutrition.
Indeed, recreational non-competitive athletes may mistake what could be a helpful tool for some sort of a magical competitive edge.
Worse still, they could use the tape improperly and cause problems where none existed!

No piece of exercise equipment can substitute for hard work intelligently performed, and while kinesiology tape could have a spot in a relaxation or rehabilitation protocol, their widespread use as simple bandages wrapped around a joint could well be problematic.
Though meant to support such joints, restricting their movement or otherwise attempting to alter it could easily result in injury.

Even expert application is probably not enough, though almost certainly they should be used under the supervision of a professional (or under professional advice and direction, even if only through such means as magazine articles).
And without a doubt, professionals disagree on the matter of joint support: many powerlifters who train mostly for fitness, for instance, often avoid the use of belts which will help them lift more on the grounds that they do not wish for their back muscles to get weak from being accustomed to such support.
Ultimately, it is best to employ tape for the purposes it is designed, which are mainly therapeutic, not ergogenic, in nature.

Even in this economy, Melissa and Doug toys continue being well-known gifts.
Coming from an All-American design team based at company headquarters in Wilton, Connecticut, the upscale educational toymakers have been able to post year after year of growth for almost two decades.
But it’s not all fun and games at Melissa and Doug; the company’s success is the reaction of one of the most astute of business masterminds anywhere, the eponymous husband-and-wife team of co-founders who employ one of the toughest job interviews this side of Silicon Valley to split up the geniuses from the merely talented.

With a move that could seem more suitable for a technology firm or, even, the cut-throat world of high finance, hopeful applicants are put to a grueling timed test created to push their problem-solving skills to the limits.
Even though a toymaker, Melissa and Doug is first and foremost a successful business with global operations and can afford nothing but the best.
Belying its meticulously nurtured image as a good old-fashioned fun American company, it is actually a tough-nosed profit-making darling of Wall Street.
Without a doubt, the brand is famous in part due to the appearance on media from print to television, from The Boston Globe and The Wall Street Journal to The Oprah Winfrey Show.

But it is not only a toymaker any longer, either – though it has stayed close to its roots, now offering classroom supplies and arts and crafts products along with toys and playsets.
After all, what could be more “educational” than playing with objects generally encountered in school!

The educational toy business is almost guaranteed to make a profit as no parent can avoid the urge to splurge on something that claims to help their kids develop their smarts.
With two hundred employes in the United States and another one thousand around the world, this is one company that’s poised to keep making toys and money!

Given the name, one could be forgiven for presuming that products marketed as so-called educational toys would be centered on some theory of cognitive development or other.
In relation to such matters, the name of Jean Piaget is one of those which spring most instantly to the mind of an informed observer.
A Swiss developmental psychologist, he made his mark by emphasizing the significance of education on children.
His work has many implications for fields as diverse as philosophy, evolutionary biology, and even artificial intelligence in computers.
So how may someone who subscribed to these theories view the educational toys accessible on today’s market?

Piaget proposed four stages of childhood development.
They are really the sensorimotor stage, lasting from birth to about toddlerhood.
Then comes the peroperational stage that gets to about seven years of age.
The third is the concrete operational stage that lasts until about eleven, and lastly there is the formal operational stage leading to adulthood.
As can be dreamed, good educational toys should take appropriate account of the details of each stage.

Do they?
The first stage of development, the sensorimotor, involves hand-eye coordination, favoring toys that can be grabbed and pulled.
This would manage to make just about any object on earth a “toy!”
And in fact, the vast majority offerings labeled as “educational” are only very useful for this first stage, such as dolls and building blocks.
Next up, the preoperational stage, calls for toys – and now, games and puzzles also – that allow for a specific amount of role playing also – conceptual matters, in other words.
In the concrete operational stage, those so inclined may be amused by such things as robot kits and so on.
Of course, only a child in the formal operational stage should be given a full-fledged programmable robot – unless you have a prodigy on your hands!

It is a controversial idea, the small business tax. For whatever reason, small business owners find it too high even though it is only at thirty percent in most cases – and that’s before all of the tax breaks are figured in. It is a rare business indeed whose accountants cannot find some bit of municipal, county, state, or federal tax policy that could be exploited. For example, many businesses are able to claim their losses against their taxes. Then there are several tax credits that may be applied which also decrease the tax burden. And there are special provisions of all kinds for veterans, women and minorities. And not to mention the fact that many “cash-and-carry” businesses routinely under report their earnings as a matter of course!

But you constantly find individuals complaining about this small business tax or that, as if that money wasn’t going to pay for anything. People, such as many businessmen, fail to understand how extensively they benefit personally, as individuals, by contributing to the common good through their tax payments. It’s as if they really feel that they live on an island, cut off from the wider society at large!

It’s not hard to decry one’s small business tax, however the rhetoric almost never bears out under closer scrutiny. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, one self-described “Joe the Plumber” even accosted then-candidate Obama in order to assail his suggestion at moderately increasing the tax rate for small businesses by three percent if and only if they had more than $250,000 in revenue annually. In reality, ninety-eight percent of all the businesses in America generate less than that level of annual income. Yet the complaints never cease from many business owners concerning their unfair burdens, and Joe the Plumber became quite the campaign fixture in the waning days of the 2008 Presidential campaign.

Acquiring a Used Macbook is simpler than ever before now that Apple has introduced new models in the series, which should drive down not only prices on new units of previous versions but flood the market with a good quantity of used ones.
As it may seem hard to imagine any Mac fanboy acquiring a used Macbook because a big part of getting anything Apple will involve aesthetics and “new” is much more attractive than “used,” typically, given the cachet associated Apple Macintoshes even informal computer users are fascinated and it is this market in particular that many a used Macbook winds up serving.
Indeed, the company has gone to great lengths to emphasize the Mac’s user-friendliness over Windows-based Intel machines, and despite the traditional “snob appeal” of the platform Apple has effectively embellished its image to involve a relaxed non-technical everyday vibe.
And it is this “casual audience” of “soft-core” users that generally drive a lot of the sales of used Macbooks.
Interestingly, this is the demographic that may be driving a good deal of the Mac’s market progress, although fanboys and “evegelists” will always be crucial to the company’s accomplishment.

Speaking of accomplishment, there is no higher compliment than imitation, and several Windows-based Intel computers have been redesigned to look a lot more like Macs.
The fact is, Microsoft’s operating systems have always been accused of looking a lot like Apple’s latest efforts!
For those attracted to the Apple aesthetic but realistic regrading the quality of ordinary PCs, it is possibly only a matter of time before they can have the best of both worlds, as common PCs become more and more Mac-like while Macs incorporate long-standing PC traditions like using Intel microprocessors and a two-button mouse!

However, in the meantime, there are gently used Macbooks for sale.

Making money is hard, not even for a store like Lafnac Computer Store, located as it is at a retailer’s paradise, just a few blocks from Times Square in the heart of midtown Manhattan. Sure you can count on voluminous stages of foot traffic, and foot traffic that’s rather well-heeled, for that matter, given that a tourist by meaning is well prepared to shell out money – but perhaps if you lied straight up to your customers and scammed them, it may be a challenge just to break even, difficult to make even just a modest profit. How is this possible? One word: rent.

In sync together with the development of wireless telephones over the past 30 yrs are the mobile networks giving them their title, despite the fact that there are plenty of problems regarding cellular phone networks – from coverage and service to unlocked cell phones and contracts – few individuals have an understanding of exactly what a cellphone network is, or how it works. The network itself is basically a network of fixed location transceivers called cell sites or base stations based at fixed physical sites over a broad area. The range affiliated with an individual base station where a cell phone can reliably connect differs hinging on many elements. Even so it is at all times the case that the closer you are to a cellphone tower the superior your wireless phone service will undoubtedly be.