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Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor had an opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: One morning, she realized she was having a massive stroke. As it happened — as she felt her brain functions slip away one by one, speech, movement, understanding — she studied and remembered every moment. This is a powerful story about how our brains define us and connect us to the world and to one another.

Awesome and gripping TED Talk. Too floaty and Woodstocky on some parts, but as a whole- deeply captivating talk.

If the video does not work, please click here

Lifestyle god Tim Ferriss (author of the 4 hour workweek) talks about productivity with a large size monitor.

Size does matter, absolutely- but numbers matter more.  

According to University of Utah researchers, using a larger monitor could save you 2.5 hours per day.

Specifically, test subjects completed everyday tasks like editing documents and massaging spreadsheets 52% faster when using a 24-inch monitor than they did with an 18-incher.

Why they used an 18″ screen is beyond me, 17″ was to small and 19″ to big? But If a large screen monitor could save 2.5 hours a day. Imagine a multi-monitor setup (with or without large monitors).

There are 2 huge advantages with a multi-monitor setup over big single monitor setups. One is that it has a larger screen real-estate then most large screen monitors. Simple math: 2 monitors running 1280 have an total width of 2560px. Triple have 3840px (Triple are not as rare anymore) Another big advantage is the way you work with multi monitors and the window positions on it. It’s easier to order the windows that you have open onto multiple screens.

For example having your website code on one screen, and the result on the other in your browser sized to normal using size is alway’s open is better then to switch back and forth.  Another example is if you do Office work, you don’t need to print out those sheets in order to process them. Just have Excel open in one monitor and word in the other and glance back and forth.

If you have everything open on one screen it’s easier to lose track of what is where, plus it’s clutter! Get rid of it. Get a couple of monitors (19 inchers are not expensive anymore) , hook them up to a multi out videocard (changes are, you already have one with 1 VGA and 1 DVI card) and enjoy multi-monitor bliss…

Heres one how-to with alot of links to manufacturers, and heres a video demonstration

Ad network site Bla.st has put it’s site up for sale on Sitepoint.I have used Bla.st in the past (no pun) and actually thought it was a great and viable business idea. How it works is that you can post your ad (a square banner) on the Bla.st site for free, if you wish to ‘upgrade’ to a better position, you can pay via paypal. The amount you pay per day is equal to the position (near the top) of the site. So the more you pay, the more visible you are.

It’s currently going for 25.000 dollar which is in my opinion a very good price. (although I don’t have it laying around). I think with a couple of good partner deals it could make one a profit pretty quick. The concept is solid in my opinion, the barrier of entry zero. Go get it- with the current euro-dollar rates it’s a steal! (14.000 euro’s)

The Next Web award nominees are in. From the Next Web Conference site:

Best European Entertainment site
Last.fm
Weewar
Floobs
GamesGames
Dailymotion

our projected winner: Last.fm (or maaaybe Dailymotion)

Best European Company
Moo
Dailymotion
Hyves
eBuddy
Bebo

our projected winner: Dailymotion

Best European Social site
Hyves
Dopplr
Xing
StudiVZ
Netlog

our projected winner: Xing

Web Celeb
Loic LeMeur
Niklas Zennstrom
Stefan Glaenzer
Marc Samwer
Tariq Krim

our projected winner: Loic LeMeur

Best European Technology Weblog
Frankwatching
Loogic
TechCrunch UK & France
D.I.Y. startup news
Dutchcowboys

our projected winner: Techcrunch (is that even a contest?)

Rookie of the Year
Glubble
Sellaband
Wakoopa
Fring
QuotationsBook

our projected winner: Fring

Best on-stage start up (during The Next Web conference)
eBuddy
Wakoopa
Netlog
Twingly
andUNITE
CoComment
Backbase
Lookery
Webnode
Bemba
Goojet
Radionomy
Beezbox
Symbaloo
Wauw.fm

our projected winner: Twingly

The Next Web Conference, april 3 and 4- is the premium web 2.0 conference in Europe.
Held in Amsterdam the Netherlands, among many startups and industry leaders- confirmed speakers will be Kevin Rose (Digg, Pownce) , Leah Culver(Pownce) , Robert Scoble(scobleshow ,fastcompany.tv) , Kris Loux (JS-Kit) and more. Confirmed Startup-talks by among others; Ebuddy, Netlog, Lookery, Backbase and Twingly.

Last years speakers where among many more notables, Jason Calacanis (former Netscape, Mahalo) ,Tariq Krim (Netvibes) and Micheal Arrington (Techcrunch).

We plan on going and blog the entire event here, on our tumble blog and on Pownce.

There seems to a big argument going on in the blogosphere about the terms ‘Social graphs’ or ‘Social networks’

check out: My shared Google Reader for some muzings.

IF i have to take sides, I have to take the side of Scoble instead of Whiner. A social network are those people your connected to that you know and interact with (your friendslist). The social graph extends much further- those are the people you are connected with passively though your friends, but mostly don’t know or interact with…But I also agree that it’s just semantics, and the debate really doesn’t mean shit outside of commercial/marketing space.

I wrote another Google gadget. It uses the Pownce public api and you can follow the public feed, or someone’s feed.

It is really still a work-in-progress. For now I have IE working, but not perfectly- it seems that the gadget API does something smelly to the app itself. It works like a charm in Mozilla though… If someone can knows what the Gadgets api does different to sessions (or get requests?) in an Rails app when visiting with IE, please leave something in the comments or contact me directly (or pownce me at codemonk)

so….add the gadget below…