I first became aware of the New Guineans’ attitude toward risk on a trip into a forest when I proposed pitching our tents under a tall and beautiful tree. To my surprise, my New Guinea friends absolutely refused. They explained that the tree was dead and might fall on us.
Yes, I had to agree, it was indeed dead. But I objected that it was so solid that it would be standing for many years. The New Guineans were unswayed, opting instead to sleep in the open without a tent.
I thought that their fears were greatly exaggerated, verging on paranoia. In the following years, though, I came to realize that every night that I camped in a New Guinea forest, I heard a tree falling. And when I did a frequency/risk calculation, I understood their point of view.
Try to keep up as the lyrics for popular songs go by. The only one I could do was Creep by Radiohead.
You Can’t Do Your Job if You Don’t Sleep – Tony Schwartz – Harvard Business Review
You always hear about the effects of diet and exercise on cardiovascular health, but why not sleep?
… sleeping less than 6 hours a night increases the risk of developing or dying from heart disease by an astonishing 48 percent.
and:
There is no single behavioral change we’ve seen in our work with thousands of executives that more quickly and powerfully influences mood, focus, and productivity than a full night’s sleep.
Cool Down With A Hot Drink? It’s Not As Crazy As You Think : The Salt : NPR
I’ve been told this is why Indian food is so spicy. Looks like science can explain what a billion people figured out intuitively.
So when you eat or drink something hot, these receptors get that heat signal, and that tells the nerve to let the brain know what’s going on. When the brain gets the message “It’s hot in here,” it turns on the mechanism we have to cool ourselves off: sweating. Yes, the hot drink makes you hotter … but it does something else, too. “The hot drink somehow has an effect on your systemic cooling mechanisms, which exceeds its actual effect in terms of heating your body,” says McNaughton. One other interesting thing. These TRPV1 receptors respond to hot heat, but they also respond to chemicals in chili peppers, which is why chili peppers seem hot. “That’s probably why chili peppers are so popular in hot countries because they cause sweating and activate a whole raft of mechanisms which lower the temperature,” he says.
http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=xiC__IjCa2s
100 Riffs (A Brief History of Rock N’ Roll) (by chicagomusicexchange)
via Entertainment on msnbc.com
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Ricky Gervais: Life’s Too Short to Go With the Flow
And remember: just because someone is offended doesn’t mean they’re in the right.
You have the right to be offended, and I have the right to offend you. But no one has the right to never be offended.
It’s easy to forget.
We’ve probably all heard the saying “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Well, there is a great deal of research concerning the link between social power and morality, and most of it suggests that absolute power is not required to change people’s morals; sadly it tends to show that more power leads to less care for others, and less moral behavior.
The iPad as a Keyboard-Centric Device – Tao of Mac
Using an external keyboard with an iPad lacks the navigation keyboard shortcuts that Mac OS has. But again by using some accessibility options, you can get most of the way there.
How to work around your iPhone’s broken home button
On your phone: Settings > General > Accessibility > Assistive Touch (turn on)
After you do this, a small square with a circle in it will show up at the bottom right of your phone’s screen. When tapped, this button will open a menu with a few shortcuts, one of which is the home button.
If the Assistive Touch button is in your way, you can simply drag it to another place on the screen. It will snap to corners, or to the long edge of the screen.
This little tip can make a practically unusable phone usable again if your home button dies, like they eventually tend to do.