<< Tumblelog - January 2009 | Tumblelogs | Tumblelog - March 2009 >>

See you again | 6th Annual Photo Contest | Smithsonian Magazine
Don Norman on 3 ways good design makes you happy | Video on TED.com
Visceral, behavioral, reflective. Nice, short talk about how design affects our actions and feelings.
New gel offers controlled drug delivery - MIT News Office
BBC NEWS | UK | Wales | Scientists create 'portable lung'
More Americans say they have no religion
The Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments
20 cynical project management tips | IT Leadership | TechRepublic.com
  1. Projects with realistic budgets and timetables don't get approved.
  2. The more desperate the situation the more optimistic the progress report.
  3. A user is somebody who rejects the system because it's what he asked for.
  4. The difference between project success and failure is a good PR company.
  5. Nothing is impossible for the person who doesn't have to do it.
  6. Every failing, overly ambitious project, has at its heart a series of successful small ones trying to escape.
  7. A freeze on change melts whenever heat is applied.
  8. You understood what I said, not what I meant.
  9. If you don't know where you're going, just talk about specifics.
  10. If at first you don't succeed, rename the project.
  11. Everyone wants a strong project manager - until they get him.
  12. Only idiots own up to what they really know (thank you to President Nixon).
  13. The worst project managers sleep at night.
  14. A failing project has benefits which are always spoken of in the future tense.
  15. Projects don't fail in the end; they fail at conception.
  16. Visions are usually treatable.
  17. Overly ambitious projects can never fail if they have a beginning, middle and no end.
  18. In government we never punish error, only its disclosure.
  19. The most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.
  20. A realist is one who's presciently disappointed in the future.
Barack Obama's speechwriter Jon Favreau captures the president's voice -- chicagotribune.com
The secret of long life? It's all down to how fast you react | Mail Online
People's reaction times are a far better indicator of their chances of living a long life than their blood pressure, exercise levels or weight, researchers have discovered. Men and women with the most sluggish response times are more than twice as likely to die prematurely.
MilkandCookies - Religion from Danny
Ouch, that's a bit mean.
Atheism Examiner: The inhumanity of the Catholic church
A nine year old Brazilian girl was pregnant with twins. Her pregnancy was discovered after her mother took her to the local hospital in Pernambuco after she complained of stomach pains. She had allegedly been sexually abused by her step father for the three years prior to her becoming pregnant.

It was decided that because the girl was raped and because her life was at risk because of the pregnancy, she would be allowed to have an abortion. According to Brazilian law, only one of those conditions has to be satisfied for an abortion to be permitted.

So, it happened that the girl had an abortion on Wednesday but not without the Catholic church trying to stop it. They failed.

In the aftermath of the tragic experience of the little girl, a spokesman for the church "says all those involved, including the child's mother and the doctors, are to be excommunicated." The little girl would not be excommunicated however, because of her age.

Apparently it doesn't matter to the church that the little girl was raped or that the pregnancy put her life at risk. The bottom line for the church and Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, according to a report, is "that the law of God [is] above any human law."

Further evidence that the Church is a terrible source of morality.
Response to: God is the Source of Morality | Conversational Atheist
Religion is an awful source of morality. Look at how the the Catholic Church ranks sins, where sins that offend God are considered more grievous than sins that torture or kill human beings. Ridiculous. Religion is an awful source of morality.
YouTube - How to paint the MONA LISA with MS PAINT

BBC NEWS | Health | Enzyme behind cancer spread found
LOX (lysyl oxidase) works by sending out signals to prepare a new area of the body for the cancer to set up a camp. Without this preparation process the new environment would be too hostile for the cancer to grow....[T]he first time one key enzyme has been identified as responsible for effectively allowing the cancer to spread. "If we can interrupt the body's ability to prepare new locations for the cancer to spread to, we can effectively prevent cancer metastasis.
Rep. Conyers wants science to be secret¦ or you will pay | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine
Twitterfall
ISBSPb - Research of aspirin and others salicylates side effects on the energetic metabolism
The Essential von Mises
Libertarian Press, Inc. - The Essential von Mises
Learn prolog now
A Life Revealed - National Geographic Magazine
YouTube - cowboys herding cats
Hilarious!

Archief Roodbont: Omega-3 (statins)
Amazon.com: Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life: Neil Strauss: Books
Otzi the prehistoric iceman goes online allowing users to virtually tour his body | Mail Online
10 Things To Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS | How-To | Smashing Magazine
The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard
Memento Mori by Jonathan Nolan
eMedExpert Blog » The Power of Placebo
Nerd Paradise : Good ol' Mountain Dew
Yumbo! I don't touch the stuff and now I see why.
BBC NEWS | UK | England | Cornwall | High fat diet gives girl new life
A four-year-old Cornwall girl with a severe form of epilepsy is free from blackouts thanks to an 80% fat diet. Sarah Laslett's diet includes cream, butter, nuts and eggs and is devised by Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London. As Sarah burns off the fat her body produces ketones which protect the brain against seizures. Sarah, from Morval near Looe, no longer suffers scores of blackouts and seizures every day.
Colon Screening: 5 Things You Need to Know - US News and World Report
What are the alternatives? While the colonoscopy is held up as the gold standard of screening for colorectal cancer, you do have options if you want to be screened—but just not that way. Last year a handful of medical groups, including the American Cancer Society, updated their list of most recommended tests. The preferred alternatives: flexible sigmoidoscopy (in which a flexible tube is inserted in the rectum but not as far into the bowel as with a colonoscopy) every five years, double-contrast barium enema every five years, or virtual colonoscopy every five years. (There are other tests that look for signs of cancer in the stool, but the other three are preferred because they can find both cancer and precancerous polyps.)
New Vaginal Gel Stops AIDS Virus
A new kind of vaginal gel prevents sexual transmission of the AIDS virus in monkey studies. I hope the Catholic Church doesn't find some reason to object to this approach. I am totally disgusted by the Church's position on condoms--a mortal sin of policy if there ever was one, if you look at the policy's impact on the spread of AIDS and unwanted pregnancies.
Ricky Gervais on Religion - Big Think
Orangutan Outreach
Willie Smits restores a rainforest | Video on TED.com
http://redapes.org/
Why Skilled Immigrants Are Leaving the U.S. - BusinessWeek
As the debate over H-1B workers and skilled immigrants intensifies, we are losing sight of one important fact: The U.S. is no longer the only land of opportunity. If we don't want the immigrants who have fueled our innovation and economic growth, they now have options elsewhere. Immigrants are returning home in greater numbers. And new research shows they are returning to enjoy a better quality of life, better career prospects, and the comfort of being close to family and friends.
GOOD 013 - Transparency - Burning Fuel
5 Ways Your Brain Is Messing With Your Head | Cracked.com
Why I Discarded Christianity « Unreasonable Faith
Milesigo
March's blog: Dr. Bob's Nightmare | Blogs & bloggers | writing to survive
Dilbert.com - The Official Dilbert Website with Scott Adams' color strips, Dilbert animation, mashups and more!
Pagophagia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pagophagia is a form of pica involving the compulsive consumption of ice or iced drinks.
How an Amazonian tribe turned a missionary into an atheist
...story of a missionary who was charged by an American missionary group with taking the Gospel to the little understood Pirah's tribe in the Amazon, only to realise how ridiculous his faith in Christianity was.

Daniel Everett, 57, a linguist in the Departmental Chair of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Illinois State University, told presenter John McCarthy on the Excess Baggage programme, that he had travelled to the Amazon in the 70s to bring the tribe the joy of faith, only to discover that they were a deeply contented people. In fact they seemed far better contented than he was.
Former PM offers his thoughts on the world economy
Fascinating and frank.
YouTube - James Randi Speaks: Carl Sagan

Burning Incense Is Psychoactive: New Class Of Antidepressants Might Be Right Under Our Noses
Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. An international team of scientists, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain to alleviate anxiety or depression. This suggests that an entirely new class of depression and anxiety drugs might be right under our noses.
Sci-Fi - Six Word Stories
Natural logarithm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In simple terms, the natural logarithm of a number x is the power to which e would have to be raised to equal x (where e is an irrational constant approximately equal to 2.718281828) -- for example the natural log of e itself is 1 because e1 = e, while the natural logarithm of 1 would be 0, since e0 = 1.
Isaac Asimov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bad News for Teachers: Research Says Doodling Boosts Concentration | 80beats | Discover Magazine
Doodling isn't the distraction it's commonly thought to be, researchers sayin' fact, it aids concentration, and memory. A new study suggests that doodling takes up just enough attention to keep the brain from wandering further afield
YouTube - Flight 1549 with Audio
Used a flight simulator to reenact US Air's flight 1549 amazing landing....Air traffic audio dubbed over the sim. Very interesting how fast this all happened.
Superhuman: The secrets of the ice man - life - 24 February 2009 - New Scientist
I'm lazy...What's it to you?
carlin_memletter.jpg (JPEG Image, 622x625 pixels)
IVONA Text-To-Speech by IVO Software
YouTube - Barack Obama attacks religion
Not attacks, but puts religious beliefs in context with government policy. Excellent statement from Obama that surely made the religious right cringe.

Questioning Authority: A Rethinking of the Infamous Milgram Experiments
Milgram wrote, "When an individual wishes to stand in opposition to authority, he does best to find support for his position from others in his group. The mutual support provided by men for each other is the strongest bulwark we have against the excesses of authority."
The Core of the Teachings - J. Krishnamurti Online
J. Krishnamurti Online, the online repository of the authentic teachings of J. Krishnamurti
Usability Analysis of Apple.com: Why is it so Good? | Spoonfed Design
YouTube - MICKEY ROURKE ACCEPTS SPIRIT AWARD
This will probably be removed due to language, but it is a wonderfully notorious acceptance speech.

The Silver Bear Cafe
Auto Prices About To Crash...With unsold cars stacking up by the day, demand falling faster, and bailout silliness getting sillier, I have three easy to make predictions.
  1. Hundreds of dealerships are headed for bankruptcy in 2009
  2. The Fed Is Destined To Become World's Largest Auto Dealership
  3. Cars are going to get cheaper, much cheaper. Auto prices will crash. Liquidation sales later this year after the 2010 models come out are going to be fabulous.
It makes no sense to buy a car now, no matter how good the deal looks. The deals will get progressively better as the year rolls on.
7 Free Resources for Eye-Popping Graphics and Animation
Breakthrough as scientists develop one-shot jab that WILL beat flu | Mail Online
A superdrug that protects against all the most deadly types of flu has been developed by scientists....A single injection of the anti-viral medicine can fight off everything from a common winter virus to a life-threatening strain of bird flu, researchers say.
YouTube - Meerkat Pups make an Appearance at Taronga Zoo

LendAround -
The Future of Netflix is All About Streaming - HotHardware
Right and left bundle branch block
Right and Left Bundle Branch Block
Bundle Branch Block - Texas Heart Institute Heart Information Center
How to undelete any open, deleted file on linux. | final cog
Potassium Rich Foods
How To Choose Potassium Rich Foods | How To Do Things.com
Eating Your Veggies: Not As Good For You?
If you're still not buying the whole "organic-is-better" argument, this study might convince you otherwise. As Davis points out, more than three billion people around the world suffer from malnourishment and yet, ironically, efforts to increase food production have actually produced food that is less nourishing. Fruits seem to be less affected by genetic and environmental dilution, but one can't help but wonder how nutritionally bankrupt veggies can be avoided. Supplementing them is problematic, too: don't look to vitamin pills, as recent research indicates that those aren't very helpful either.
Fastball | Futility Closet
At the 1939 World's Fair, San Francisco Seals catcher Joe Sprinz tried to catch a baseball dropped from the Goodyear blimp 1,200 feet overhead. Sprinz knew baseball but he hadn't studied physics -- he lost five teeth and spent three months in the hospital with a fractured jaw.
The 32 Totally Essential (and Free) Apps for Every New PC | Maximum PC
Stay Hungry, Live Longer: the Science Behind the Calorie Restriction Diet
Video - CNBC.com
Interesting take on the stimulus package from a news guy in the pit of Chicago exchange (I think). Are they right?
Is Yelp Extorting Businesses?
If the story is genuine, wow!
YouTube - Serenity bar fight rehearsal
Here is the stunt rehearsal footage and the final scene footage. Interesting.

The 20 Best Free PC Games
Buddhist temple built out of one million beer bottles - Telegraph
Harold Meyerson - China and the United States - the Dysfunctional Duo
The solution for East Asia, and China in particular, is to change its economic strategy. Instead of relying so heavily on exports, China will have to increase its domestic consumption. It will have to invest in upgrading its infrastructure and establish social insurance programs so that its citizens, instead of hoarding money, will be able to spend more. It will have to allow wage levels to rise, creating a more stable domestic market for its goods.

Devising a successful economic strategy for the United States is a good deal trickier. When our economic elites offshored much of our manufacturing sector to East Asia and other cheap-labor lands, and took arms against union labor here at home, they ensured that most of the American jobs created over the past quarter-century would come in retail and service sectors that paid less than manufacturing. Every year for the past couple of decades, we've added lots more sales-clerk, cashier and fast-food jobs than we've created in high technology or energy. Yet Americans have been able to maintain middle-class living standards -- not through rising income but through rising debt, available to us because China has funneled the immense revenue it amassed selling us goods back to us in the form of loans that we can no longer repay.
Giz Explains: Why More Megapixels Isn't Always More Better
One Fashion Model - Five Aging looks - 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 years old looking photos. - DigitalPixels.net - Photography Blog
Aptana
iStylr - Online CSS Template Generator
Pencil - a traditional 2D animation software
11 Free And Useful Open-Source Alternatives For Designers - Opensource, Free and Useful Online Resources for Designers and Developers
OpenOffice.org: 7 Things You Didn't Know You Could Do - Solutions by PC Magazine
Where is Your Money Going? | Recovery.gov
Mind Hacks: It was planted on me
People growing own fruit and vegetables to beat recession as Good Life returns - Telegraph
"There has been an enormous drive towards grow your own," he said. "Saving money is the least of it, people want to know where their food comes from and that it is not doused in chemicals."
Ratings for movie trilogies (loosely defined)
10 Easy Steps To Advanced Photography Skills | How-To | Smashing Magazine
Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom | Video on TED.com
Study: Biofuels May Accelerate, Not Slow, Climate Change | Consumer Energy Report
A biofuel boom, which would cause farmers to seek more space to plant crops, can do more harm than good for the environment, says a Stanford University researcher.

“If we run our cars on biofuels produced in the tropics, chances will be good that we are effectively burning rainforests in our gas tanks,” warned Holly Gibbs of Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment.

She fears that farmers will raze tropical rainforests in an effort to cash in on the upsurge in demand for biofuels.
Polar bear through the window
YouTube - Playing For Change: Song Around the World "Stand By Me"

Words give brain handle on feelings: U.S. researcher | Science | Reuters
"When you put feelings into words, you are turning on the same regions in the brain that are involved in emotional self-control,"
Premature ventricular contraction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Quoting Rowan Atkinson
"To criticise a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous but to criticise their religion - that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticise ideas--any ideas even if they are sincerely held beliefs--is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. And the law which attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed. It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended. The right to ridicule is far more important to society than any right not to be ridiculed because one in my view represents openness - and the other represents oppression." Well said, Mr. Bean.
Baby atheists
I suppose that gets to the point. Add this to Arkansas amendment to their state constitution banning atheists from public service and what does it tell you?
Federal obligations exceed world GDP
forwardOn: Amazing billboards
Scaling Digg and Other Web Applications | High Scalability
Configuring GIMP 2.6 to Replace Adobe Photoshop - LaptopLogic.com
Splenda… Splendon't, please! | MRStep
Evidence indicates that a 12-wk administration of Splenda exerted numerous adverse effects, including (1) reduction in beneficial fecal microflora, (2) increased fecal pH, and (3) enhanced expression levels of P-gp, CYP3A4, and CYP2D1, which are known to limit the bioavailability of orally administered drugs.
Man appears free of HIV after stem cell transplant - CNN.com
Rachel Maddow's Star Power (Extended Interview) | Mother Jones
Make Yourself Depression Proof in the Economic Crisis | ThoughtRocket Blog
Hamilton College - Science & Technology - Science Explained: Evolution
Seed: The Evolution of Life in 60 Seconds
Corporate executives overpaid, undertaxed - Columns - Belleville News-Democrat
Average full-time workers made $41,198 in 1973 and $37,606 in 2008, adjusted for inflation.
Founding Father, Entrepreneur: The overlooked business career of George Washington - Reason Magazine
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Specify your canonical
Build a new 2008 Toyota Corolla 4dr Sdn Auto CE near San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose
"That's not bipartisanship"
The White House - Blog Post - Apply for a job
Nice touch. This White House blog is a good idea, carrying over just one of the techniques from the campaign that kept people informed.
The Great Debate
Cognitive Traps and the Economy - earthling.concerned
Good Samaritans are born not raised, new study suggests - Telegraph
Researchers believe that the ability to understand and share the feelings of others is at least partly innate and built into our bodies at birth.

While upbringing and the environment can modify our behaviour, scientists believe that in extreme cases the gene or lack of it could play a key role in conditions such as autism where the ability to empathise is often non-existent.
Experts: We're in Vitamin D Deficiency Crisis | NBC Bay Area
Science In Action: Why Is Urine Yellow?
Mac OS X - Bookmarks
What Alabamians and Iranians Have in Common
Are Americans among the most religious people in the world? The answer depends on which "world" you're talking about. If you're referring to the entire planet, the answer is plainly "no." In 2006, 2007, and 2008, Gallup asked representative samples in 143 countries and territories whether religion was an important part of their daily lives. The accompanying map shows religiosity by country, ranging from the least religious to the most religious on a relative basis. Across all populations, the median proportion of residents who said religion is important in their daily lives is 82%. Americans fall well below this midpoint, at 65%.
Louisville test will try to regrow heart muscle | courier-journal | The Courier-Journal
The University of Louisville and Jewish Hospital & St. Mary's HealthCare will conduct a clinical trial using adult cardiac stem cells to try to regrow dead heart muscle after heart attacks -- research that's especially relevant in a state where cardiovascular disease kills at one of the highest rates in the nation.
Difference between first class and coach
In bad taste...and if anyone died during this crash landing it wouldn't have a chance of being funny...maybe still true.
Really? - The Claim - Never Blow Your Nose When You Have a Cold - Question - NYTimes.com
Blowing your nose to alleviate stuffiness may be second nature, but some people argue it does no good, reversing the flow of mucus into the sinuses and slowing the drainage....*sniff*
Hack Attack: Turn Your Windows PC into a Media Center Powerhouse On the Cheap
Jonah Lehrer: In your brain, a tug of war with every purchase | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Opinion: Points
They discovered that when subjects were first exposed to the item, a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) was turned on. The NAcc is a crucial part of our dopamine reward pathway - it's typically associated with things like sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll - and the intensity of its activation was a reflection of desire for the item. If the person already owned the complete Harry Potter collection, then the NAcc didn't get too excited about the prospect of buying another copy. However, if he'd been craving a George Foreman grill, then the NAcc flooded the brain with dopamine whenever that item appeared.

But then came the price tag. When the subjects were exposed to the cost of the product, the insula was activated. The insula is associated with aversive feelings, and is triggered by things like nicotine withdrawal and pictures of people in pain. In general, we try to avoid anything that makes our insula excited. Apparently, this includes spending money.
Urban Gardening: You Can Grow Food, No Matter Where You Live | EarthFirst.com
An Old Dog, a Leopard, and a Monkey
Depression Dramatically Raises Risk of Death From Heart Attack, Stroke
Doctors have long noticed that depression dramatically increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and death after a heart attack, but for years they have been lacking the pieces of the puzzle that would explain why.

Now, researchers at Loyola University Health System in Maywood, Ill., may be on the verge of filling in key pieces of that puzzle. In a study just published, the researchers find that depressed patients have higher levels of inflammatory substances in their blood. Inflammation is the process by which the body responds to infections, injuries or stress.
Scientists Discover Butterflies Wings are High-efficiency Solar Cells
Butterflies are beautiful, fragile, natural, and apparently solar powered. Research suggests that certain scales on butterfly wings are nanobiologically-tuned to absorb heat from sunlight, enabling the insect to survive in colder or higher-altitudes than normal.
Elizabeth Gilbert on genius | Video on TED.com
Really nice talk from the author of Eat, Pray, Love
User Experience Design
Best Wedding Cake Ever
Carmine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Carmine (also called Crimson Lake, Cochineal, Natural Red 4, C.I. 75470, or E120), is a pigment of a bright red color obtained from the carminic acid produced by some scale insects, such as the cochineal and the Polish cochineal, and is used as a general term for a particularly deep red color. Carmine is used in the manufacture of artificial flowers, paints, rouge, yogurt, cosmetics, food additives, and crimson ink.
Yosemite Stock Photographs
Op-Ed Contributor - Please Raise My Taxes - NYTimes.com
I'm the chief executive of a publicly traded company [Netflix] and, like my peers, I'm very highly paid. The difference between salaries like mine and those of average Americans creates a lot of tension, and I'd like to offer a suggestion. President Obama should celebrate our success, rather than trying to shame us or cap our pay. But he should also take half of our huge earnings in taxes, instead of the current one-third.

Then, the next time a chief executive earns an eye-popping amount of money, we can cheer that half of it is going to pay for our soldiers, schools and security. Higher taxes on huge pay days can finance opportunity for the next generation of Americans.
The simple truth - What love means to a man and a woman
Charlie Rose - Jen-Hsun Huang
NVIDA co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang discusses how the GPU (graphics processing unit) is changing computing and where it fits in the future. Very interesting talk.
Ordinary Day - by Emilie Mover - Lyrics
The Misshapen Mind: How the Brain's Haphazard Evolution Left Us with Self-Destructive Instincts
A kluge, Marcus tells us, is an improvised engineering response to a problem. It is the product of a tinkerer playing around with odds and ends and creating a functional machine. That, he writes, is what the brain and its package of emotional, intellectual, and logical tools is. It is a series of good but imperfect methods for processing and acting on information, developed over hundreds of millions of years.

Evolution, in other words, produces things that work. That, Marcus argues, is the case with the brain, with how we store memories and how we respond to information. Were our memory systems better designed, they'd store and retrieve memories in the same way computers do. Instead, we rely on context to access snapshots from the past. Moving beyond memory, the logical aspect of higher thought is simply the icing on the cake, Marcus explains -- something that has evolved in an evolutionary microsecond and set up residence in the brain's frontal lobes. The older parts of the brain, call them our reptilian legacy, had much longer to mature. As a result, in many situations, especially when quick responses are demanded, they simply overwhelm our rational side, stampeding us into actions that don't really stand up to serious analysis.

Thus, we see an act of violence in the media (whether it be a single person being kidnapped and murdered, as with the 1993 celebrated Polly Klaas case in California, or mass slaughter, as with September 11), and we respond with a potpourri of inchoate fear, panic, and rage. We feel that the certainties governing our lives have been shattered. Rarely do we successfully step back and analyze the likelihood or unlikelihood of such an event impacting us.
Obama snowball fight - take two
Another version of this sequence featuring a different target in the third frame....I wonder what other targets will be inserted.
Bloomberg.com: Arts and Culture
His investment advice for this prolonged recession: Hang on to cash and invest in gold or Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, or TIPS. If he had to invest in stocks, he would put his money in China.
Scientists Confirm Algae Is the Most Effective Alternative Energy Source
Barack Obama - The Action Americans Need - washingtonpost.com
This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.
Life at Wal-Mart - Boing Boing
The job was as dull as I expected, but I was stunned to discover how benign the workplace turned out to be. My supervisor was friendly, decent, and treated me as an equal. Wal-Mart allowed a liberal dress code. The company explained precisely what it expected from its employees, and adhered to this policy in every detail. I was unfailingly reminded to take paid rest breaks, and was also encouraged to take fully paid time, whenever I felt like it, to study topics such as job safety and customer relations via a series of well-produced interactive courses on computers in a room at the back of the store. Each successfully completed course added an increment to my hourly wage, a policy which Barbara Ehrenreich somehow forgot to mention in her book.
Scratch Beginnings
How his project began with $25 and the clothes on his back in a randomly chosen city with no education and no contacts.
Listening Is Powerful Medicine : NPR
I believe listening is powerful medicine.
How to Change the World: Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job
Lyrics for Ordinary Day by Emilie Mover | Starry_Liz's Xanga Site - Weblog
Speak up, sonnyboy! on Flickr
PostSecret
Think Fast - Be Happy
Rapid Thinking Makes People Happy: Scientific American
Lousy day? Don't try to think happy thoughts -- just think fast. A new study shows that accelerated thinking can improve your mood. In six experiments, researchers at Princeton and Harvard universities made research participants think quickly by having them generate as many problem-solving ideas (even bad ones) as possible in 10 minutes, read a series of ideas on a computer screen at a brisk pace or watch an I Love Lucy video clip on fast-forward. Other participants performed similar tasks at a relaxed speed.

Results suggested that thinking fast made participants feel more elated, creative and, to a lesser degree, energetic and powerful. Activities that promote fast thinking, then, such as whip­ping through an easy crossword puzzle or brain-storming quickly about an idea, can boost energy and mood, says psychologist Emily Pronin, the study’s lead author.

Pronin notes that rapid-fire thinking can sometimes have negative consequences. For people with bipolar disorder, thoughts can race so quickly that the manic feeling becomes aversive. And based on their own and others’ research, Pronin and a colleague propose in another recent article that although fast and varied thinking causes elation, fast but repetitive thoughts can instead trigger anxiety. (They further suggest that slow, varied thinking leads to the kind of calm, peaceful happiness associated with mindfulness meditation, whereas slow, repetitive thinking tends to sap energy and spur depressive thoughts.)
YouTube - Steven Pinker: The stuff of thought

Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of Psychology: Scientific American
Some evolutionary psychologists have made widely popularized claims about how the human mind evolved, but other scholars argue that the grand claims lack solid evidence.
Divorce, antidepressants, or weight gain/loss can add years to your face | Science Blog
Unique university coming to Bay Area this year
Singularity University, which will be housed on the NASA Ames base near Mountain View and begin classes in June, is the brainchild of Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. The two world-renowned scientists were expected to unveil their plans at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference beginning in Long Beach today.
Shortcuts: Michael Brooks on five mysteries of the universe | Science | The Guardian
The Great Corn Syrup Caper - allvoices.com
On Monday, January 26, the scientific journal Environmental Health published the results of two (not one, but TWO) studies conducted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. The study tested high fructose corn syrup and found that "almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient."

<< Tumblelog - January 2009 | Tumblelogs | Tumblelog - March 2009 >>