I happened to read Time Magazine on April 27 which is talking about "free education" on YouTube.
All Ivy League courses on You Tune Education website are free, whenever and wherever you like, just log-on the website to take some non-credit courses, from Finance, Business, Economic, Relation, Cooking...etc, you name it!

All courses over there are for free!
http://www.youtube.com/edu
I wish you do enjoy the convenience bring via GREAT internet!!! It's SUPER!

By Andrea Ford Thursday, Apr. 16, 2009

UC Berkeley biologist Marian Diamond, a legendary lecturer.

Kathrin Miller for TIME

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1891740,00.html

"Do you know what the most complex mass of protoplasm on earth is?" Marian Diamond asks her students on the first day of anatomy class as she casually opens a flowery hatbox and lifts out a preserved human brain. "This mass only weighs 3 lb., and yet it has the capacity to conceive of a universe a billion light-years across. Isn't that phenomenal?"

Diamond is an esteemed neuroanatomist and one of the most admired professors at the University of California, Berkeley. It would be a privilege for anyone to sit in on her lectures. And, in fact, anyone can. Videos of her popular course are available free online, part of a growing movement by academic institutions worldwide to open their once exclusive halls to all who want to peek inside. Whether you'd like to learn algebra from a mathematician at MIT, watch how to make crawfish étouffée from an instructor at the Culinary Institute of America or study blues guitar with a professor at Berklee College of Music, you can do it all in front of your computer, courtesy of other people's money. In March, YouTube launched an education hub called YouTube Edu, dedicated exclusively to videos from the more than 100 schools--ranging from Grand Rapids Community College to Harvard Business School--that have set up official channels on the site. Liberated from the viral stew of pop-culture vlogs and silly cat videos, the collection highlights how much free education is out there. (See TIME's special report on paying for college.)

Why is YouTube going high-brow? The answer involves revenue (the Edu hub has room for one or two ads on its home page), social relevance and perhaps a bit of rivalry. More than 170 schools offer content free to the public on Apple's iTunes U, which originated in 2004 as a way for colleges to distribute content privately to their own students. The partnership has been a win-win: universities get a cost-cutting distribution tool, and Apple's products become must-haves on campus.

The bigger question is, Why have colleges started posting all this stuff at no charge? "Schools have always wanted to have their own area where they could be among their peer institutions and help with the discovery of their content," says Obadiah Greenberg, who leads the project at YouTube.

But producing content for global consumption can be hugely expensive. MIT, an open-courseware pioneer that since 2002 has published text materials such as lecture notes and syllabi for about 85% of its curriculum, spends more than $10,000 per course to compile, publish and license text materials; classes with videos cost twice as much.

Yet MIT's Steve Carson, who serves as president of the OpenCourseWare Consortium, says it's worth the expense, since the online content attracts prospective students, keeps alumni connected and encourages innovation. Schools have decided that these benefits outweigh the concerns about cost, intellectual property and devaluation of élite degrees. After all, the free material does not add up to a diploma, and viewers can't interact with the faculty. (See pictures of the college dorm's evolution.)

The volume of YouTube Edu's content, which includes campus tours and other nonacademic material, can be overwhelming, but the view-count sorting feature helps users quickly locate must-see videos, which they can comment on and rate on a five-star scale.

Another new site, AcademicEarth.org lets users give lectures letter grades. (Diamond's brain-in-a-hatbox episode, posted there as well as on YouTube Edu, got an A average.) The much smaller, more closely edited site also assembles playlists of related lectures, like one titled "Wars Throughout History." Richard Ludlow, 23, came up with the idea for the site when he was struggling with an algebra course at Yale and discovered helpful Web lectures by the author of his textbook, MIT professor Gilbert Strang. Ludlow thinks every school should play more to its strengths and not be shy about letting a professor rely on a rival's superstar lectures. "That way, the students get a great lecture experience, and the professor has more time for question-and-answer," he says.

There is clearly a big appetite for all kinds of online lectures, as shown by the popularity of sites like TED.com which broadcasts talks given by innovators in the fields of technology, entertainment and design. But one of the most interesting consequences of open courseware may be its impact on teachers, who have a new way to get feedback--and exposure.

"It used to be that research was No. 1. Now people are working harder to be better teachers," Diamond says. Sifting through e-mails, the 82-year-old professor reads over messages she's saved from students and teachers who watched her lectures from as far away as England and Egypt. "At this time of life, when everybody else is retiring and stepping aside, thinking they've done it all, you're getting this worldwide connection. It's beautiful."

Dear 舅公,

2009年全世界最適合居住的城市, 維也納再度得到No. 1!

舅公真是最幸福的台灣人, 可以住在世界第一的城市裡!!!

我們很想念 '07春天的維也納, 希望明年春天再去找舅公!!! --- Ally

No. 1: Vienna, Austria

Mercer score: 108.6*
2008 rank: 2
GDP: $325 billion (2008 est.)**
Population: 1,664,146 (total city); 8,210,281 (total country)
Life expectancy: 79.5

*The rankings are based on a point scoring index established by Mercer Consultings 2009 Quality of Living Survey, with Vienna scoring 108.6 and Baghdad scoring 14.4. Cities are compared with New York as the base city, with an index score of 100. The quality-of-living survey covers 215 cities and is conducted to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments. The survey also identifies those cities with the highest personal safety ranking based on internal stability, crime, effectiveness of law enforcement, and relationships with other countries.

**The World Factbook.Gross domestic product is denominated in international dollars, which is based on Purchasing Power Parity.

No. 2: Zurich, Switzerland

Mercer score: 108
2008 rank: 1
GDP: 309.9 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 1,307,567 (total city); 7,604,467 (total country)
Life expectancy: 80.85

No. 3: Geneva, Switzerland

Mercer score: 107.9
2008 rank: 2
GDP: $309.9 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 438,177 (total city); 7,604,467 (total country)
Life expectancy: 80.85

No. 4 (tie): Vancouver, Canada

Mercer score: 107.4
2008 rank: 4
GDP: $1.3 trillion (2008 est.)
Population: 2,285,900 (total city); 33,487,208 (total country)
Life expectancy: 81.2

No. 4 (tie): Auckland, New Zealand

Mercer score: 107.4
2008 rank: 5
GDP: $116.6 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 1,303,068 (total city); 4,213,418 (total country)
Life expectancy: 80.3

No. 6: Dusseldorf, Germany

Mercer score: 107.2
2008 rank: 6
GDP: $2.86 trillion (2008 est.)
Population: 581,858 (total city); 82,329,758 (total country)
Life expectancy: 79.2

No. 7: Munich, Germany

Mercer score: 107
2008 rank: 7
GDP: $2.86 trillion (2008 est.)
Population: 1,300,000 (total city); 82,329,758 (total country)
Life expectancy: 79.2

No. 8: Frankfurt, Germany

Mercer score: 106.8
2008 rank: 7
GDP: $2.86 trillion (2008 est.)
Population: 662,000 (total city); 82,329,758 (total country)
Life expectancy: 79.2

No. 9: Bern, Switzerland

Mercer score: 106.5
2008 rank: 9
GDP: $309.9 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 962,983 (total city); 7,604,467 (total country)
Life expectancy: 80.85

No. 10: Sydney, Australia

Mercer score: 106.3
2008 rank: 10
GDP: $800.5 billion (2008 est.)
Population: 4,336,374 (total city); 21,262,641 (total country)
Life expectancy: 81.6

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol324/issue5926/index.dtl

Reports

Subducting Slab Ultra-Slow Velocity Layer Coincident with Silent Earthquakes in Southern Mexico

Teh-Ru Alex Song,^1,* Donald. V. Helmberger,² Michael R. Brudzinski,³ Robert W. Clayton,² Paul Davis,⁴ Xyoli Pérez-Campos,⁵ Shri K. Singh⁵

Great earthquakes have repeatedly occurred on the plate interface in a few shallow-dipping subduction zones where the subducting and overriding plates are strongly locked. Silent earthquakes (or slow slip events) were recently discovered at the down-dip extension of the locked zone and interact with the earthquake cycle. Here, we show that locally observed converted SP arrivals and teleseismic underside reflections that sample the top of the subducting plate in southern Mexico reveal that the ultra-slow velocity layer (USL) varies spatially (3 to 5 kilometers, with an S-wave velocity of ~2.0 to 2.7 kilometers per second). Most slow slip patches coincide with the presence of the USL, and they are bounded by the absence of the USL. The extent of the USL delineates the zone of transitional frictional behavior.

¹ Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5241 Broad Branch Road N.W., Washington, DC 20015, USA.
² Seismological Laboratory, Division of Geological and Planetary Science, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
³ Department of Geology, Miami University, 114 Shideler Hall, Oxford, OH 45056, USA.
⁴ Department of Earth and Space Sciences, Center of Embedded Network Systems (CENS), University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 595 Charles Young Drive East, Los Angeles, CA 90095–1567, USA.
⁵ Instituto de Geofísica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito de la Investigación Científica s/n, Ciudad Universitaria, D.F. 04510 Distrito Federal, México.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/324/5926/502

DTM News about Alex's latest paper ---

Research on slow earthquakes by Carnegie Fellow Teh-Ru Alex Song is
featured in the 24 April issue of Science. Song and colleagues have found
that a layer of anomalously low seismic velocity at the top of a
subducting plate coincides with the locations of slow earthquakes and
non-volcanic tremors. The presence of such a layer in similar settings
elsewhere could point to others regions of slow quakes.

The group analyzed 20 years of seismic data for southern Mexico, where the
Cocos plate is slipping beneath the North American plate. “We can tell a
lot about the material inside the Earth by the speed, strength, and
interferences of different seismic waves,” Song commented. “Typically,
P-waves are the fastest, followed by scattered waves associated with
variations in seismic wave speed within the medium. We used local
observations recorded within 100 to 150 miles to map the structures at the
top of the subducting plate.” Click here for the CIW press release.

Here is the link --- http://www.dtm.ciw.edu/

CIW Press --- Fingerprinting Slow Earthquakes

The most powerful earthquakes happen at the junction of two converging tectonic plates, where one plate is sliding (or subducting) beneath the other. Now a team of researchers, led by Teh-Ru Alex Song of Carnegie’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, has found that an anomalous layer at the top of a subducting plate coincides with the locations of slow earthquakes and non-volcanic tremors. The presence of such a layer in similar settings elsewhere could point to other regions of slow quakes. More»

=======================#

Oh yes absolutely I feel sooo proud of my hubby especially it's his frist time published on Science Magazine after being with me. It's approved that I didn't destroy his great work from Caltech, just a bit delay I think : )

I look forward the next paper on either Science Magazine again or Nature Magazine very soon in the near future. Now friends joked him as a real "Scientist" since he is on "Science Magazine" already.

Good job babe!!!

Japan is the country soon we are about to move in, that's why Ally extremely want to know more about Japanese culture in anyway.

This is the information my friend Mioko gave to me because we just chatted about the Japanese beautiful “kimono” during our personal Japanese cooking class last week.

Of course Ally would definitely give it a try in the very near future instead of our “Taiwanese” wedding photos.

The price is around US$ 150 per person including the make-up and one traditional dress, say, either Maiko or Geiko.

Please log-on the website for more info in details.

http://www.henshin-maiko.com/index.html

Sounds very interesting huh?

I think homemade cooking is always the best gift to show the love and passion because cooking is all about time and love.

晚餐菜單

前菜
干貝燒魚菠菜煎餃

主菜
黑豚明蝦腐皮捲佐台灣黑豆辣醬
香蕉芒果紅酒燉牛腩佐烤蘆筍沙拉

甜品
巧克力芋泥杯子蛋糕佐Haagen Dazs咖啡冰淇淋

=================================================================

Dinner Menu

Appetizer

Pan-fried dumplings filled with scallop, grilled fish and spinach

Main Dish

Shrimp-pork wrapped by tofu-skin with Taiwanese black-bean chili sauce

Red wine stewed beef shank mixed with banana and mango with asparagus salad

Desert

Chocolate and taro cup cake with Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream

Behind every word, there's a story.

What's yours?

At OneTouch^®, we believe that when we all speak together, our voice will be heard.
That’s why, inspired by The Word in Your Hand™ Project found on Tudiabetes.com^®,
we created the Global Diabetes Handprint.

By writing a word on your hand expressing your feelings about diabetes, and sharing
the story behind it, you’ll become part of a global community that puts a human face
on diabetes for all the world to see.

For our part, we’ll donate $5 to one of two diabetes charities (Diabetes Education and
Camping Association or Taking Control of Your Diabetes) for every hand that comes
our way. Our goal is to donate $250,000 by June 30, 2009. The choice is yours.

We could use a hand.

Please send us yours.

http://www.diabeteshandprint.com/default.aspx