Category: Here & There

You 2.0: How To Become A Self-Starter

An interesting and motivating article on Psychology Today, under the name “You 2.0” shares tips on how to become a self-starter and radically improve your life.

The article kicks off with this:

You may feel bound to your timid demeanor, your stifling job, or your rancorous relationship, but there is one realm over which you unquestionably have control: your own head.

I totally agree with that, and I think that any change, no matter how big or small it is, starts from within your own head, from how you think of things and how you perceive them.

The whole article is really worth reading, but to sum it up, the main points to change and improve your life are as follows:

– Ask yourself: Is the problem in you or your world?
– Overcome your fear of failure
– Embrace risk and novelty
– Create a new internal vision of yourself
– Expect and try to even enjoy discomfort to reach your goals

For the full article and more details, read: You 2.0 – (Psychology Today)

[Via: LifeHack]

10 Unconventional Diet Tips

Kyle from LifeHack has published a list of 10 diet tips, that aren’t what you’re used to reading in diet programs. I think the list is quite interesting and could work for a lot of people looking to lose some weight.

The list goes as follows:

– Buy a digital scale
– Weigh yourself everyday
– Drink 8 glasses of water everyday
– Make your diet public
– Don’t diet on the weekends
– Don’t sacrifice your life for your diet
– Make the small changes
– Gain perspective by understanding the fractions
– Rationalize your workouts
– Have a red flag weight

For more details, check the full post: 10 Unconventional Diet Tips: How to lose 50 pounds in three months.

Want To Be A Manager?

After some years of work experience, some people’s natural professional progression or aim is to become a manager, sometimes it’s a decision they have to take, and some other times it’s something that the company wants because they believe in them, even though it wasn’t something they were planning for.

Erin Malone from Boxes and Arrows shares some excellent insight and ideas about the various things you need to consider when moving into management.

The post is from a designer’s point of view, but it applies to everyone from every field really. I’ll try to sum it up for someone from the IT field, with my experience in management in mind.

– You can

Racists Have Lower IQs

Studies going back over 50 years have repeatedly arrived at the same conclusion — racists have lower IQs than non-racists. The average intelligence quotient (IQ) of all members of the human race is 100 on the Stanford-Binet scale, as illustrated in the bell curves in the figure below. The average IQ of racists is up to 4 IQ points less than this.

The reasons this is true are not entirely clear. Does racism attract the unintelligent or do the unintelligent default into racist mentalities?

Racism IQ

[Source: Students and Youth Against Racism]
[Via: Hou-Hou Blog]

What My Birth Date Means?

I came across another one of those thingies that tell you what this or that means based on nothing but pure bullshit, and here’s what it says my birth date (March 11) means:

Spiritual and thoughtful, you tend to take a step back from the world.
You’re very sensitive to what’s going on around you, yet you remain calm.
Although you are brilliant, it may take you a while to find your niche.
Your creativity is supreme, but it sometimes makes it hard for you to get things done.

Your strength: Your inner peace

Your weakness: You get stuck in the clouds

Your power color: Emerald

Your power symbol: Leaf

Your power month: November

Whatever, whatever, whatever!

[Via: And Far Away, Sand Monkey]

This Eid Ul-Adha, You Can Sacrifice Animals Online

Eid Ul-Adha is just around the corner and will be coinciding with the end of the year this time around.

This Eid marks the end of the Hajj (pilgrimage) each year to Mecca and is known as the feast of sacrifice. Muslims who can afford it buy and slaughter animals and distribute the meat among the poor and relatives.

However, many Muslims in Western countries are unable to perform the ritual because of the laws of the countries they live in.

A number of Pakistani groups are offering these Muslims a “solution”: they can now buy an animal over the Internet and even watch it being slaughtered, before its meat is given away.
Animals are available on the Web sites for between $100 for a goat and $450 for a cow.

I don’t know what to think about this really; I know a lot of people could end up using this, and it’s somehow funny too, but on the other hand it just feels a bit weird and somewhat wrong; I guess the only reaction I have for the time being is a sarcastic smile and a shake of the head.

[Source: CNet News]

Esata, A New Language

While surfing around the net, I came across this new language called Esata.

Esata is a newly designed ‘constructed language’, developed by Pafu. It is a bare bones version of the English language, which has also been internationalized to a high degree. In the target language, Esata is a ‘phrase word’ meaning ‘know (how to) speak.’

In Esata a compromise is being sought between the now globally dominant English, and the rest of the world’s major languages.

There are several features of Esata that should interest researchers in the area
of artificial languages. It is regular and highly compact, with text lengths considerably shorter than those of English.

A novel feature is the use of ‘phrase words’ abbreviated forms allowing definition of new vocabulary and concepts, both from English and from all the world’s major languages. Esata also contains an (optional) new alphabet, which can represent up to 4 normal letters in a compact yet easy to read matrix.

Words are formed from syllables of consonant plus vowel. The normal English
alphabet is used, but vowels have only one sound, and some consonants have
different sounds (c as ch, x as sh).

For more about Esata, check the following links:
– Esata
– Esata Language Description
– Esata (Lang Maker)

It’s interesting how some people still think we need more and more languages to communicate, when I think the problem is not in the lack of languages but rather in our unwillingness to communicate and listen to each other.

Making A Living From World of Warcraft Gold Trade

Wow…
This is incredible…

“… an astounding half million Chinese now make a living – about $100 a month – from the acquisition and sale of WoW (World of Warcraft) gold to US and EU gamers. Why is this is the future of work online? Consider the numbers, youth, and low wages of the gold farmers, and the growing interest in outsourcing tasks online.

[…]

… these gold farms indicate that the game platform has the potential to engage more people in Internet-driven economy. The gaming workers in China don

Women Talk Three Times As Much As Men

It is confirmed…

It is something one half of the population has long suspected – and the other half always vocally denied. Women really do talk more than men.

In fact, women talk almost three times as much as men, with the average woman chalking up 20,000 words in a day – 13,000 more than the average man.

Women also speak more quickly, devote more brainpower to chit-chat – and actually get a buzz out of hearing their own voices, a new book suggests.

[Source: Daily Mail]

So I guess we men shouldn’t feel that guilty when women accuse us of not being good listeners, they simply talk too much, we could never keep up, no matter how much we try.

Plus, the same study says that what the male brain may lack in converstation and emotion, we more than make up with our ability to think about sex. It estimates that men think about sex every 52 seconds.
How are we expected to focus?

Oh whatever…

[Via: Leilouta]