Marine Protected Area – MPA – saving our coasts with science and conservation

Marine Protected Areas are regions in which human activity has been placed under some restrictions in the interest of conserving the natural environment.

This can include limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings, bans on removing or disrupting marine life of any kind.

In some situations MPA’s also provide revenue for countries, often of equal size as the income that they would have if they were to grant companies permissions to fish.

As of 2010, the world hosted more than 6,800 MPAs.

via Wikipedia

In the United States there are nearly 2,000 MPAs and in 2008 a new federal framework was established, which aims to:

Enhance protection of marine resources, build partnerships to address issues affecting MPAs, and improve public access to scientific information and decision-making about marine resources.

While MPAs have been established throughout the U.S. for decades, there has not been an overarching mechanism to coordinate effective ecosystem management. About 100 federal, state, territory and tribal agencies manage the nearly 2,000 MPAs across the country, often with no coordinated strategy.

via NOAA blog

You have probably visited one before:

Chances are you’ve visited a marine protected area and don’t know it. If you’ve gone fishing in central California, diving in the Florida Keys, camping in Acadia, swimming in Cape Cod, snorkeling in the Virgin Islands, birding in Weeks Bay, hiking along the Olympic Coast, or boating in Thunder Bay, you’ve probably been one of thousands of visitors to a marine protected area (MPA).

via NOAA

 

Learn more at www.mpa.gov

10 Netflix instant streaming recommendations from Roger Ebert


Continue reading “10 Netflix instant streaming recommendations from Roger Ebert”

Buy cool t-shirts from an online community of graphic designers, via Threadless

Threadless is an online community of artists and an e-commerce website based in Chicago, Illinois. In 2000, co-founders Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart started the company with $1,000 of their own money.

Designs are created by and chosen by an online community. Each week, about 1,000 designs are submitted online and are put to a public vote. After seven days the staff reviews the top-scoring designs. Based on the average score and community feedback, about 10 designs are selected each week, printed on clothing and other products, and sold worldwide through the online store and at their retail store in Chicago.

Designers whose work is printed receive $2,000 in cash and $500 in Threadless gift cards, which can be exchanged for $200 cash. Each time a design is reprinted, the respective artist receives $500 cash. Threadless keeps rights to the design on clothing; designers keep the rights to their designs on all other media.

via Wikipedia

Continue reading “Buy cool t-shirts from an online community of graphic designers, via Threadless”

Baseball’s thriving start-up, MLB Advanced Media, could determine the future of TV sports

Launched in 2000, MLB.com was funded by the clubs in an agreement that had them each investing $1 million a year over four years. The cost was targeted at $120 million. To the joy of the owners and MLB, the Website started generating excess revenue in only the second year of its existence, allowing them to invest only $70-$75 million before beginning to see a return on their investment.

When the decision to launch MLB.com occurred, MLB moved all of its Internet rights into a centralized location. No longer were team Websites controlled by individual clubs; now they were under a single umbrella. This was the start of a focused effort to completely control and centralize all products and services provided on the Internet by MLB.

To put just a few numbers into the discussion, from 2004 to 2005 sales on MLB.com rose 220% from the year prior with a 200% increase in sales through just the MLB.com Shop. MLBAM revenues for 2005 are expected to rise 88% to $260 million, and annual revenue is expected to jump 30-50% over each of the next five years. A huge cash cow for the 30 owners in MLB that get to split the profits. Last year, the MLBAM inked a deal with Microsoft and AOL to stream MLB games live onto PCs. That deal totals as much as $40 million over two years from just Microsoft alone. AOL’s deal totaled $9 million over the same period.

But where MLBAM has been extremely savvy has been in the diversification of holdings under the Advanced Media’s umbrella. Not counting the season’s $9.5 million in online ticket sales, MLB.com will still rack up an estimated $25 million this year in sales and auctions of licensed merchandise and collectibles.

In November of 2004, Tickets.com was acquired by MLBAM. This allowed for broader control of and centralization of MLB related ticket transactions. It made good sense, as MLBAM had inked a three-year deal in 2003 to cover the lion’s share of ticket sales for MLB.com and was the exclusive online partner, providing service to 20 of the 30 franchises.

via Hardball Times

This year the start-up is expected to rake in $500 million in revenue, and that makes them a player in the TV market.

While the other major leagues are blundering around the internet, MLB is defining the future and everyone is following. You can see this with online streaming of games, where MLB pioneered the concept and every league has copied.

The next step is in TV deals where the majority of league money comes from. Right now those deals are TV first and internet a distant second, and sometimes ignored altogether.

Only ESPN is aggressively dealing for the internet with its “best available screen” strategy, but they have to fight their own maker to achieve that. The cable companies, like Comcast and Time Warner, don’t want to pull customers away from their cable subscriptions.

It’s a confusing mess for everyone involved and that is why MLB Advanced Media is so critical. They have a clear determined strategy for growing baseball, from simplifying ticket sales to offering technology to watch four games at once. Their business is growing by leaps and bounds and driving the market.

Only time will tell how it all plays out but having a major player in the market focused on the internet is surely going to change the game.

Baseball's thriving start-up, MLB Advanced Media, could determine the future of TV sports

Launched in 2000, MLB.com was funded by the clubs in an agreement that had them each investing $1 million a year over four years. The cost was targeted at $120 million. To the joy of the owners and MLB, the Website started generating excess revenue in only the second year of its existence, allowing them to invest only $70-$75 million before beginning to see a return on their investment.

When the decision to launch MLB.com occurred, MLB moved all of its Internet rights into a centralized location. No longer were team Websites controlled by individual clubs; now they were under a single umbrella. This was the start of a focused effort to completely control and centralize all products and services provided on the Internet by MLB.

To put just a few numbers into the discussion, from 2004 to 2005 sales on MLB.com rose 220% from the year prior with a 200% increase in sales through just the MLB.com Shop. MLBAM revenues for 2005 are expected to rise 88% to $260 million, and annual revenue is expected to jump 30-50% over each of the next five years. A huge cash cow for the 30 owners in MLB that get to split the profits. Last year, the MLBAM inked a deal with Microsoft and AOL to stream MLB games live onto PCs. That deal totals as much as $40 million over two years from just Microsoft alone. AOL’s deal totaled $9 million over the same period.

But where MLBAM has been extremely savvy has been in the diversification of holdings under the Advanced Media’s umbrella. Not counting the season’s $9.5 million in online ticket sales, MLB.com will still rack up an estimated $25 million this year in sales and auctions of licensed merchandise and collectibles.

In November of 2004, Tickets.com was acquired by MLBAM. This allowed for broader control of and centralization of MLB related ticket transactions. It made good sense, as MLBAM had inked a three-year deal in 2003 to cover the lion’s share of ticket sales for MLB.com and was the exclusive online partner, providing service to 20 of the 30 franchises.

via Hardball Times

This year the start-up is expected to rake in $500 million in revenue, and that makes them a player in the TV market.

While the other major leagues are blundering around the internet, MLB is defining the future and everyone is following. You can see this with online streaming of games, where MLB pioneered the concept and every league has copied.

The next step is in TV deals where the majority of league money comes from. Right now those deals are TV first and internet a distant second, and sometimes ignored altogether.

Only ESPN is aggressively dealing for the internet with its “best available screen” strategy, but they have to fight their own maker to achieve that. The cable companies, like Comcast and Time Warner, don’t want to pull customers away from their cable subscriptions.

It’s a confusing mess for everyone involved and that is why MLB Advanced Media is so critical. They have a clear determined strategy for growing baseball, from simplifying ticket sales to offering technology to watch four games at once. Their business is growing by leaps and bounds and driving the market.

Only time will tell how it all plays out but having a major player in the market focused on the internet is surely going to change the game.

The new movie studios – $2.6 billion built from internet ads and online streaming

As 2012 rolls in…it appears the geeks have finally won. Multiple “internet-built studios” have announced they are committing big money to making movies and TV shows:

That’s $2.6 billion from internet based business, built off those digital pennies (instead of analog dollars). Plus, if you project forward growth looks strong for all three companies, while traditional studios are tightening their budgets.

The future is now?

Who’s having a fantastic struggle? Show me your struggle. That is something that should be rewarded. (changing praise in schools)

For decades, the prevailing wisdom in education was that high self-esteem would lead to high achievement. The theory led to an avalanche of daily affirmations, awards ceremonies and attendance certificates — but few, if any, academic gains.

Now, an increasing number of teachers are weaning themselves from what some call empty praise. Drawing on psychology and brain research, these educators aim to articulate a more precise, and scientific, vocabulary for praise that will push children to work through mistakes and take on more challenging assignments. Consider teacher Shar Hellie’s new approach in Montgomery County.

To get students through the shaky first steps of Spanish grammar, Hellie spent many years trying to boost their confidence. If someone couldn’t answer a question easily, she would coach him, whisper the first few words, then follow up with a booming “¡Muy bien!”

But on a January morning at Rocky Hill Middle School in Clarksburg, the smiling grandmother gave nothing away. One seventh-grade boy returned to the overhead projector three times to rewrite a sentence, hesitating each time, while his classmates squirmed in silence.

Via Washington Post: In schools, self-esteem boosting is losing favor to rigor, finer-tuned praise

 

Martin Luther King’s Legacy for Today

It is wonderful that an African American leader is honored on the Mall, near the Lincoln, Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt memorials. But it means even more that a nonviolent leader, a man of peace, is represented alongside America’s greatest presidents.

That will help young people understand that nonviolent leadership can make history and transform our nation.

No doubt, future generations will look upon this monument and ask, Who was this man and why do we honor him today?

(1)

The answer should begin by noting that Martin Luther King Jr. was the leader of a great social movement for equality for African Americans — a nonviolent struggle against segregation to make the promise of the Declaration of Independence a reality.

(2)

But my father also supported human rights, freedom and self-determination for all people, including Latino agricultural workers, Native Americans, and the millions of impoverished white men and women who were treated as second-class citizens. Although he was assassinated before the women’s rights, gay rights and environmental movements reached the national stage, there is no question in my mind that my father would have viewed these struggles as battles for justice and equality worthy of his support.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an impassioned advocate of economic justice as well as social justice. As he said, “The right to sit at a lunch counter is empty if you cannot afford a meal.” He believed that every American family deserved to have decent living standards, including employment, adequate housing, nourishment, health care, education for children and safe, thriving communities. The 1963 March on Washington, during which he gave his historic “I Have a Dream” speech, was a march for “Jobs and Justice,” rooted in the conviction that it is not possible to have one without the other.

(3)

Finally, my father did not see nonviolence as a special tactic limited to the struggle for civil rights. He saw it as a universal tool for achieving justice — for transforming dictatorships into democracies, unjust laws into just laws, oppression into freedom. He called nonviolence a “sword” for all those who struggle for justice, but he deemed it “a sword that heals, rather than a sword that wounds.”

Today we are witnessing the awakening of a third great era of nonviolence. The first was framed by the campaigns of Mahatma Gandhi in India and my father in the United States. The second was the wave of freedom movements that swept across places as diverse as Poland and Eastern Europe, the Philippines and South Africa in the 1980s and ’90s. Recently, nonviolent liberation movements arose in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. The sword that heals is again being deployed for freedom and democracy. Once again, protest leaders are crediting King and Gandhi as sources for inspiration and strategic guidance.

—

These are the three legacies of Martin Luther King Jr. that we must pass down to each new generation. Polished marble can display the nobility of a great leader but not the meaning of his ideas and contributions. Stone may be beautiful but it is mute. It is up to all of us, every American, to give it voice.

By Martin Luther King III

Continue reading “Martin Luther King’s Legacy for Today”

Martin Luther King's Legacy for Today

It is wonderful that an African American leader is honored on the Mall, near the Lincoln, Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt memorials. But it means even more that a nonviolent leader, a man of peace, is represented alongside America’s greatest presidents.

That will help young people understand that nonviolent leadership can make history and transform our nation.

No doubt, future generations will look upon this monument and ask, Who was this man and why do we honor him today?

(1)

The answer should begin by noting that Martin Luther King Jr. was the leader of a great social movement for equality for African Americans — a nonviolent struggle against segregation to make the promise of the Declaration of Independence a reality.

(2)

But my father also supported human rights, freedom and self-determination for all people, including Latino agricultural workers, Native Americans, and the millions of impoverished white men and women who were treated as second-class citizens. Although he was assassinated before the women’s rights, gay rights and environmental movements reached the national stage, there is no question in my mind that my father would have viewed these struggles as battles for justice and equality worthy of his support.

Martin Luther King Jr. was an impassioned advocate of economic justice as well as social justice. As he said, “The right to sit at a lunch counter is empty if you cannot afford a meal.” He believed that every American family deserved to have decent living standards, including employment, adequate housing, nourishment, health care, education for children and safe, thriving communities. The 1963 March on Washington, during which he gave his historic “I Have a Dream” speech, was a march for “Jobs and Justice,” rooted in the conviction that it is not possible to have one without the other.

(3)

Finally, my father did not see nonviolence as a special tactic limited to the struggle for civil rights. He saw it as a universal tool for achieving justice — for transforming dictatorships into democracies, unjust laws into just laws, oppression into freedom. He called nonviolence a “sword” for all those who struggle for justice, but he deemed it “a sword that heals, rather than a sword that wounds.”

Today we are witnessing the awakening of a third great era of nonviolence. The first was framed by the campaigns of Mahatma Gandhi in India and my father in the United States. The second was the wave of freedom movements that swept across places as diverse as Poland and Eastern Europe, the Philippines and South Africa in the 1980s and ’90s. Recently, nonviolent liberation movements arose in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. The sword that heals is again being deployed for freedom and democracy. Once again, protest leaders are crediting King and Gandhi as sources for inspiration and strategic guidance.

—

These are the three legacies of Martin Luther King Jr. that we must pass down to each new generation. Polished marble can display the nobility of a great leader but not the meaning of his ideas and contributions. Stone may be beautiful but it is mute. It is up to all of us, every American, to give it voice.

By Martin Luther King III

Continue reading “Martin Luther King's Legacy for Today”

A great debate on SOPA – understanding new business models and who is really losing money

Today, Wikipedia and hundreds of other sites are blacked out to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act, SOPA.

It is a great effort and getting a ton of publicity, which is exactly what the goal was. The next step is education and progress.

A great place to start is with this debate between Leo Laporte and Nilay Patel. Both are content creators and experts in all things internet (Patel is even a former copyright attorney).

Listening to Leo’s points completely changed my point of view on this topic.

There is also an audio version (mp3).