Rich Snippets give users convenient summary information about their search results at a glance. We are currently supporting data about reviews and people. When searching for a product or service, users can easily see reviews and ratings, and when searching for a person, they'll get help distinguishing between people with the same name. It's a simple change to the display of search results, yet our experiments have shown that users find the new data valuable -- if they see useful and relevant information from the page, they are more likely to click through. Now we're beginning the process of opening up this successful experiment so that more websites can participate.

It seems that the Kauffman Foundation folks are trying to lure venture capital up to Michigan.

As Mr. Gregg rightly points out -- the answer to spurring entrepreneurship is not throwing money or support bureaucracies at the problem.  From Gregg's editorial:

But in the midst of this enthusiasm about entrepreneurship, we risk forgetting that entrepreneurship's capacity to create wealth is heavily determined by the environments in which we live. In many business schools, it's possible to study entrepreneurship without any reference being made to the role played by factors such as rule of law, property rights and low taxes in stimulating wealth-creating entrepreneurship.

I could not agree more!  We need to educate entrepreneurs not only to be technically good at what they do, but informed citizens who can speak up about the issues that effect their business ventures.

The most ironic finding is that a very effective treatment has only a very short demonstration period, so it's very unlikely to spread unless the user continues to demonstrate it after they recover. In fact, if treatment abandonment rates are sufficiently low, harmful practices are the most effective in spreading through a population.

. . .

It also helps me understand why the meme of vaccine damage has spread. There are literally no demonstrators for the effectiveness of vaccination, making social learning difficult.

Is there a way to increase the resolution of digital photos so that they can be used for print advertising?

I have some unique colour images that are 72 to 200 DPI. These need to be made large than a standard photograph (i.e. to 8 1/2" x 5 1/2") and the resolution needs to be increased to 300 - 400 DPI so that they can be used for print advertising. Is there any way to do this? Are there any organizations that can provide this service?

Hi there,

I believe the answer to your question is probably yes - you can resize an image up to a higher DPI and size so long as the image is a good quality colour photograph.

At first I assumed that the answer to this would be No, that you wouldnot be able to resize; but I took a random photo of mine here, scaled it down to loose resolution and then rescaled up - going down to 20% of the size, and then back up to full size to compare how well the image stood up to this abuse. The result was far better than I expected.

Of course, you will loose quality, but so long as you resize using a photo editing program - I used Paint Shop Pro for this test and Photoshop may do a better job even - then you may get away with it.

I have only checked quickly with one photo, and there is a quality loss naturally, but the final answer will lie in you doing this on the photo(s) that you want and your own judgement as whether the quality is acceptable or not.

And the best answer would be to retake the photo's at the highest possible resolution; but then you probably already knew this option!

The music industry made the mistake of trying to destroy digital distribution in order to protect the physical distribution of CDs. Not only did they not have an answer to digitally distribute music in the Napster era, but they STILL DO NOT !. Fortunately for them, they have finally recognized that for the most part the CD is dead, but where revenue is being generated by their music, they deserve their cut. Imagine if they had established a digital distribution portal for audio and video, ala Hulu, that could at least attempt to compete with ITunes and Youtube. They would be in far better shape. Instead they are reinventing their business model. The CD was doomed to die, no matter what happened. Trying to protect it was a mistake.

The newspaper industry tried to protect the physical distribution of their papers. That was a mistake. Their problem was not only that they lost their ability to differentiate from content on the net, but they also lost their ability to differentiate their value to advertisers from the net. There is no inherent advantage to reading the news or advertisements via the paper vs the internet, it has become a personal or business preference. Unfortunately for the local newspaper industry, it doesn’t appear any of their publishers are creative enough to come up with options to attack digital.

Black Hole SEO employs a technique that causes the normal laws of Google Physics to break down. Link juice flows into a massive body, but can never escape. When employed on a massive body, it tends to dominate the SERPs.

A black hole site is created when an tier 1 authority site ceases to link out to other sites. If a reference is needed, the information is rewritten and a reference page is created within the black hole. All (or virtually all) external links on the site are made nofollow.

The first example of a black hole site was the wikipedia. The internal links formed a network that passed link juice from one page to another allowing obscure articles with no external links to rank number 1 in the SERPs. This #1 ranking begets natural links from external links. When a webizen wants a quick reference, they consult Google and link to one of the top results. This causes more link juice to flow into the black hole and the body’s trust becomes more and more massive over time.

1. Link juice flows in, but it can never escape.
2. External Sites lose link juice at the expense of the black hole.
3. The relative link juice mass of the black hole expands exponentially.

Other Google Physicists realize what is happening and are now modeling their sites and networks to become black holes as well. One example of a burgeoning black holes is The New York Times. They will not link out even when relevant to the article. All links in any of their articles will go to a “Times Topics” page.

Business Week is following suit and their practices will soon mirror the New York Time’s. However, because Business Week is not yet massive enough, they cannot yet be classified as a black hole.

The modern nation-state is in a secular decline, made inevitable by the rise of a global market system. Even developed nations, like the US, are not immune to this process. The decline is at first gradual and then accelerates until it reaches a final end-point: a hollow state. The hollow state has the trappings of a modern nation-state ("leaders", membership in international organizations, regulations, laws, and a bureaucracy) but it lacks any of the legitimacy, services, and control of its historical counter-part. It is merely a shell that has some influence over the spoils of the economy. The real power rests in the hands of corporations and criminal/guerrilla groups that vie with each other for control of sectors of wealth production. For the individual living within this state, life goes on, but it is debased in a myriad of ways. . . .

As the deprivation becomes commonplace, people turn to primary loyalties for support and services -- loyalties to a corporation, tribe, gang, family, or community. These groups, energized by new levels of loyalty but deeply obligated to reciprocate this loyalty with support, become extremely aggressive in pursuit of their survival.

MIAMI, Nov. 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In an unprecedented move, Royal Caribbean International has officially seceded from land and declared itself The Nation of Why Not, in the first new integrated advertising campaign for the global cruise line in nearly ten years. Created in partnership with Royal Caribbean’s lead agency, JWT NY, and a group of WPP agencies, including Mindshare and RMG, the campaign will be rolled out today in North America and globally in 2009 and includes print and online advertising, television commercials, collateral, as well as a new social networking website -- www.nationofwhynot.com.

The Nation of Why Not kicks off with two television commercials (30-second and 60-second versions) inviting vacationers to secede from land and become citizens of "the nation."