Thanks to MSNBC

The cost of coverage: Two award-winning journalists killed while covering rebel forces in Libya.

Something to laugh about? Democrats mock GOP of Medicare cuts.

Placing the blame: BP sues oil rig manufacturer in Gulf Oil Spill.

American Idol is here to stay. Recent increases in ratings point to a solid future for the 10-year-old reality show.

And, a 140-character love life?

Thanks to POLITICO

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama picked an unconventional setting for a town hall promoting his deficit reduction plan…Facebook.

The discussion was broadcast through the website from Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, CA and moderated by Facebook CEO and President Mark Zuckerberg (who wore a tie!).

Obama took questions submitted online along with a few from the audience made up of the company’s employees.

Though maybe not the intent, the event highlighted the importance of Internet-based companies like Facebook and YouTube.

Facebook has promoted Obama’s visit as a major honor, a validation of the firm’s influence as a communications platform. The White House has boasted that the audience it will reach through Facebook’s live video broadcast is comprised largely of middle class, typically younger Americans who would be harder to approach through traditional media.

In the 2008 campaign, Obama used social media in ways no campaign had ever see before. As 2012 quickly approaches, the question becomes, will he still have the advantage?

1 Corinthians 10:23-24; 10:31-11:1 (NIV 2010)
23 “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. 24 No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.

31 So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 32 Do not cause anyone to stumble, whether Jews, Greeks or the church of God— 33 even as I try to please everyone in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved.

1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

Reflection:
What do we do with ‘the advantage’ (or our freedom) we have with being in Christ? How do we live out all that Christ has done? Paul not only invites us, but also challenges us to recognize again the blessing of our ‘eternal advantage’ in Christ and to examine what that looks like here among us in the way we relate to each other. As we follow the example of Christ, we can live in the humble way of Christ.

Responding to the Transmission:
As we follow Christ’s example, let us be mindful of one another and seek the good of others, once again taking upon ourselves the calling to be servants. Let’s pray for sensitivity and awareness so that we will not cause anyone to stumble; but rather, we will honor the Lord with our doings.

Spring 2011 Information Systems Distinguished Lecture

Working Together Apart

Dr. Judy Olson

Donald Bren Professor of Information and Computer Sciences
University of California, Irvine

12:00pm Friday, 29 April 2011, ITE Lecture Hall VII

Our research group has been investigating the factors that make long distance teamwork work. I will review that work and talk about the issues that remain, the factors that technology and social practices can't solve–cultural differences and different timezones. And, I will introduce our "theory made practical," our turning the theory into an online assessment tool.

Judith Olson is the Bren Professor of Information and Computer Sciences in the Informatics Department at the UC Irvine, with courtesy appointments in the School of Social Ecology and the Merage School of Business. She has researched teams whose members are not collocated for over 20 years, summaries of which are found in her most cited paper, “Distance Matters,” (Olson & Olson, 2000), and in her key theoretical contribution in the book Scientific Collaboration on the Internet (Olson, Zimerman, and Bos, Eds., 2008). Her current work focuses on ways to verify the theory's components while at the same time helping new scientific collaborations succeed. She has studied distributed teams both in the field and in the laboratory, the latter focusing on the communication hurdles distributed teams have and the consequent underutilization of remote team members skills and the reduction in trust. She is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and with her husband and colleague, Gary Olson, holds the Lifetime Achievement award from the Special Interest Group in Computer Human Interaction.

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"No matter who you are, chances are you know someone whose life has been affected by cancer.

Two University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) students, Omar Bukhari and Adam Gerber, have decided to do something to help support the cause.

Bukhari and Gerber are both officers for the Pre-Medical Society at UMBC and decided to sign up for the ride together when  4k For Cancer visited the UMBC campus."

___________________________

Read the full article on the Patch website below:

http://catonsville.patch.com/articles/two-umbc-students-will-bike-four-thousand-miles-to-fight-cancer

Help us raise money for those who can not pay for cancer treatment.

Save a life today. :)

Omar Bukhari:

Adam Gerber:

Former professional mountain biker Marla Streb, who earned her M.S. in Marine Estuary Environmental Science from UMBC in 1991, is featured in the Baltimore City Paper’s “bike issue” this week.

To quote the article:

She became a world-class contender in single-track downhill—in which, just as in downhill ski-racing, “you start at the top of a mountain and they time you as you go down, one at a time, a very treacherous course with jumps, and you get to the bottom in about five minutes,” she says. In her 16-year career, she won three national and two world championships, broke 24 bones, and wrote two books about it—a training guide and a memoir, Downhill: The Life Story of a Gravity Goddess.

Since returning recently to Baltimore with her family, Streb says she plans on working with city planners to make biking more accessible to all.

Read the full story in the Baltimore City Paper.

Former professional mountain biker Marla Streb, who earned her M.S. in Marine Estuary Environmental Science from UMBC in 1991, is featured in the Baltimore City Paper’s “bike issue” this week.
To quote the article:

She became a world-class contender in single-track downhill—in which, just as in downhill ski-racing, “you start at the top of a mountain and they time you as you go down, one at a time, a very treacherous course with jumps, and you get to the bottom in about five minutes,” she says. In her 16-year career, she won three national and two world championships, broke 24 bones, and wrote two books about it—a training guide and a memoir, Downhill: The Life Story of a Gravity Goddess.

Since returning recently to Baltimore with her family, Streb says she plans on working with city planners to make biking more accessible to all.
Read the full story in the Baltimore City Paper.