How is it that our best intentions are nearly always beaten? We want to be focused and productive, exercise and eat healthy foods, stop smoking and learn to get rid of debt and clutter, but we just can’t.

The answer lies in something extremely simple, but something most people aren’t aware of:

We don’t know how to cope with stress and boredom in a healthy way.

The bad habits we’ve formed are often useful to us, in dealing with stress and boredom. Consider the bad habits that fit this bill:

• Smoking
• Internet procrastination
• Eating junk food
• Drinking
• Being rude/angry/depressed
• Watching TV or playing video games (if you become addicted & sedentary)
• Shopping (getting into debt, building clutter)
• Procrastinating on finances, paperwork, clutter (too stressful)
• Inactivity (avoiding exercise is a stress avoidance technique)
• Biting nails, chewing hair, clenching jaw

This isn’t a complete list, but all of these habits fill a strong need: they are ways to cope with stress and/or boredom. We have formed them as coping mechanisms, and they stick around because we don’t have better ways of coping.

So what if instead, we replaced them with healthier ways of coping? We’d get rid of the problems of these bad habits, and start getting the benefits of better habits.

Better Coping Habits

How can we deal with stress and boredom instead? There’s no one answer, but the habits we form should be ones that lead to healthier results. Some ideas:

• Walk/run/swim/bike
• Do pushups, pullups, squats
• Yoga/meditation
• Play with friends/kids
• Create, write, play music, read when we’re bored
• Learn to enjoy being alone, instead of being bored
• Take a daily walk and enjoy nature
• Deal with finances, clutter, paperwork immediately, in small steps, so that it doesn’t get stressful
• Take control of a situation: make a list, get started in baby steps, so things don’t get stressful
• Learn to be mindful of your breathing, body tension, stressed-out thoughts
• Get some rest
• Learn to savor healthy food that you find delicious
• Slow down
• Take a hot bath
• Learn to live in the present

These are some good examples. Each habit above will help cope with or prevent stress or boredom. If you replace the bad habits with these, your life will be less stressful and healthier. You’ll have less debt, less clutter, less fat, less disease.

Changing the Habits

The old habits of coping didn’t build up overnight, and they won’t go away overnight either. We built them up through years of repetition, and the only way to change them is also years of repetition.

But an important start is to realize why we do them — stress and boredom, largely — and realize that there are other ways to deal with these two problems. We need to be aware when stress and boredom start to kick in, and instead of being afraid of them, realize that they are problems easily solved by other habits. Let’s take the fear out of stress and boredom. Let’s learn that we can beat them simply, and prove that with repeated good habits.

Once you have that realization, follow the steps to changing a habit:

1. Pick one habit at a time.
2. Start very small – just a minute or two, if you want it to stick.
3. Use social motivation like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or email.
4. Be very conscious of your triggers, and do the habit consciously every time the trigger happens.
5. Enjoy the new habit. You’ll stick with it longer if you do.

We have been crushed by the habits we’ve formed out of fear of stress and boredom. We can fight back, by learning to breathe, to smile, to go slowly. We can humble these giants that crush us by turning them into mere gnats to be shooed away with a smile.

Source

Think about it: instead of having to send crews to asteroids, now we know that they come to us—they orbit Earth and we can intercept them to learn more about the origins of our solar system. All with a small price tag.

What has been discovered?

Cornell University’s Mikael Granvik, Jeremie Vaubaillon and Robert Jedicke have calculated the population of “irregular natural satellites that are temporarily captured” by Earth.

They say these secret moons come and go quietly and without notice, but at least once we detected one. In fact, their calculations were confirmed by this observation: a mysterious titanium white object that was discovered rotating around Earth by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona, back in 2006.

Our results are consistent with the single known natural [temporarily-captured orbiter] 2006 RH120, a few-meter diameter object that was captured for about a year starting in June 2006.

That object was actually a small asteroid captured by Earth’s gravitational field. It rotated as a second moon until June 2007, when it left our home planet’s orbit. This study demonstrates that, even while they are not easily detected, these little moons come and go often, staying around for about ten months to about three spins around Earth and then wave goodbye.

Why is this a cool discovery?

Now that we know they come and go, and there’s always one around, astronomers can work in detecting them. Once we detect one, we can send a few astronauts to analyze it instead of getting a full crew to a distant one. While they wouldn’t be able to land on it, they could certainly study it up close.

The data about the formation of the solar system that we can obtain from these asteroids—without having to spend a lot of money—could be amazing.

That’s the argument put forward by Princeton researcher Iain Couzin and his team, who make the argument that a fully informed electorate would collapse into an unworkable hodgepodge of minority factions or risk being dominated by a single forceful minority group. But if most voters don’t really think about the issues, they will just tend to side with whoever is popular, allowing majority rule to continue and democracy to keep functioning. Yeah, you might want to check your last shreds of political idealism at the door for this one.

Couzin and his team argue for what we might call a sweet spot of ignorance. There needs to be just enough people who know anything about the issues to act as leaders for everyone else, but the majority disintegrates if there are too many viewpoints pulling in different directions. And while that seems to pretty aptly describe the last decade (at least) of American political discourse, I’d feel better if I knew just how the researchers arrived at their conclusions.

Why, by studying the behavior of fish, of course. Specifically, they looked at golden shiners, a species that is naturally attracted to the color yellow. The researchers took a bunch of these fish and trained most of them to act against instinct and swim towards a blue target, while the rest were trained to follow their natural preference and go for a yellow target.

When the researchers placed just these two groups together, the smaller group of yellow-seeking fish was able to dominate the blue-seeking fish, making them all swim to the yellow target 80% of the time. This is because their natural instinct gave them a stronger desire go after the yellow target than their counterparts. But then, when fish with no prior conditioning were added to the mix, the influence of the yellow-seeking fish quickly dropped away, and the initial, blue-seeking majority regained control. Couzin describes the strange role these uninformed fish play:

“Adding those individuals dramatically changes the outcome of group decision-making. They inhibit the minority and support the majority view, and this allows the majority to be heard and that view to dominate. We thought, ‘Wow, that’s kind of interesting,’ because you don’t normally think that adding uninformed individuals to decision-making processes would have that sort of democratizing effect.”

The next question, of course, is whether this phenomenon applies to humans as well. While we can’t say for certain, Couzin and his team found that the phenomenon does hold up in computer simulations of typical human behavior. In the simulations, there is a similar threshold where adding in uninformed people can swing the general sentiment from a passionate minority to a less engaged majority view. The researchers want to further investigate this by performing experiments with human volunteers.

There is, however, a limit to this phenomenon. Couzin found that if you have twenty uninformed people and only one or two with strong opinions, there’s too much noise and the whole process breaks down. And, of course, all this really shows is that uninformed people are necessary for the smooth operation of majority rule – and while the will of the majority is a part of a working democracy, there are plenty of situations where the more passionate minority actually has the best idea.

Having the Awkward Conversation

How to Have an Uncomfortable Conversation with a Problematic Coworker (Without Being an Asshole)Before you speak to your problematic coworker, you should check your employee handbook to see if your company has a specific point of view on proper employee conduct. You may also want to make your immediate manager or supervisor aware of the problem in advance and seek their advice so you don’t get yourself into trouble in the event the coworker is upset by the conversation. Once you’ve covered your bases sufficiently, the hard part begins: actually saying what needs to be said.

I spoke with Ed Godin, Chief People Officer at Brightcove (a former employer of mine), who has broken this sort of bad news to many people over the course of his career. The circumstances varied, but his approach was generally the same. We’ll use my friend’s smell problem as an example. Here are the steps Godin suggests following:

1. Take your coworker aside, privately, and let them know that you (and potentially others) have noticed a bad odor when you’re nearby. Let them know that you don’t necessarily know where the smell is coming from, but that you’ve simply noticed it. (Of course, in situations where a coworker is being loud or inappropriate you’ll have to be more specific.)
2. Put yourself in their shoes by sharing a similar experience. For example, you could share that sometimes when you’re at the gym you start to smell less than ideal but you don’t really notice because you’re in it at the time. That smell, however, is far more potent to others.
3. Offer to help. Sometimes your coworker will not be sure how to solve the problem and this opens up the opportunity for a dialogue. Together you can actually look for ways to fix the problem and strengthen your relationship. If you’d rather not put in this extra effort, however, you can talk to your supervisor beforehand and see if they’ll be willing to help. That way you can let them handle the problem and the coworker can still get the help he or she needs.

It’s important to remember not to be condescending or arrogant. We’re all people and, at times, we’re unaware of how our behavior affects others. Most people will never want to want to intentionally hurt other people and will only react negatively to your confrontation because they don’t want to admit to the problem. It will be harder for them to react this way if you’re sensitive, kind, and understanding.

Getting Help for Your Problematic Coworker

How to Have an Uncomfortable Conversation with a Problematic Coworker (Without Being an Asshole)While sometimes your coworker won’t be aware of the issue, other times they will and won’t know how to fix it. This might be a problem with smell, addiction, general social awkwardness, or anything that’s a more deeply-rooted issue than you know. It’s important for your coworker to know that there really isn’t any problem in the world that someone else hasn’t experienced, and there are very few issues encountered at work that are without a solution. Generally “I can’t fix this” means “I don’t know how to fix this” or “I’ve given up on trying.” Your goal is to get them motivated to solve the problem and improve themselves, even if you don’t want to have a direct hand in that process. If you do, Ed suggests chipping away at the issue over the course of small conversations. Sometimes a support system is all your coworker needs.

Alternatively, if you’re not interested or unqualified to handle the problem, your company may have some resources. Often times health insurance can offer counseling and other relevant programs. Additionally, find out if your company has an Employee Assistance Program. This is a dedicated toll-free hotline that employees can call for a confidential conversation with people who are trained to help them find the resources they need to fix whatever issues they are experiencing. This can be anything from a bad smell to a smoking problem to an emotional divorce. It’s a great way for your coworker to get the help that they need and do so while maintaining their privacy.

Sensitive issues can be tough and you may not always be able to solve them yourself, so whenever you’re dealing with these situations always try to find other people at work that you’re comfortable with and trust. Have a conversation about the problem, avoid poking fun, and concentrate on the best ways to actually solve the issue. Most everyone, including yourself, will be confronted about an issue sometime in their life. Be sensitive, treat your problem coworker like you’d want to be treated even if they often cause you grief, and you have a far better chance of solving the problem.

Via : Gizmodo

“This display lets you watch video from 57 different angles. And no matter which angle you’re viewing from, you can see a Full High Definition resolution image. With an ordinary display, the viewing range is basically around 180 degrees, but with this one, it’s 13 degrees, which is very narrow. But within that range, for example if you look from the right edge, and from the left, you can see the picture from different angles. So for example, if you’re looking at a square box, you can see the sides at well.”

To show such a large range of viewing angles, the display uses 57 projectors in an array, with each one specially tuned to create uniform levels of brightness and color balance across all viewpoints.

The 200″ screen weighs 500kg and consists of a condenser lens which focuses the light creating a sharp image, and a special diffuser film which lowers the horizontal diffusion angle, creating a smooth transition between the different viewing angles.

“We’re also working on actual video capture, but we’re not yet at the stage of releasing results. We expect we’ll be able to present results in the near future. We need to film the video using cameras at 2cm intervals. If we used HD cameras they would bump in to each other, so we can’t just place them side by side. In the case of CG however, we can arrange the cameras wherever we like, at intervals of 1 mm or even 0.5 mm, for example.”

In the future, they plan to increase the number of parallax images from 57 to 200 as well as expand the viewing area, with potential commercial applications in fields such as design and digital signage.

“In fact, we’re already doing technology transfer. So whether this becomes practical will also depend on what businesses think. But this is how far we’ve come so far.”

via DigInfo.TV

For people, the popularity of tipping has always been something of a mystery. Take restaurant tipping as a typical example. Since the tip is usually given at the end of the meal, what good purpose does it serve? Since the service has already been provided, it can’t by definition affect the quality of the service you received? It would make sense maybe for a repeat customer on the basis that a kind tip would lead to the probability of better service next time.

But researchers have something else to say. As per the researchers, tipping is equally likely to yield same service whether a customer plans to return or not. The consensus seems to be that tipping is best understood as a social norm, a form of charitable giving tied to the provision of a service.

But back to the folks knocking on your door.  Should you be giving them? Why do they expect a tip at Diwali, when you tend to tip them anyway throughout the year, such as when the watchman helps bring up a heavy parcel, or maid comes thrice a day on your request?

During Diwali, Its believed and wise to make necessary pay-outs to avoid sudden disruption of services. So try the formula desribed below and let me know what difference did it make:

1.  Begin with a firm budget. Make sure you have in mind about how much to spend on Baksheesh during the festive season well in advance.
2. Prepare a list of service-providers in descending order of importance. Like Milkman, Sweeper, Maid, Newspaper Wallah, Watchman etc.
3. Divide the service providers into 2 different lists. First, those who need to be motivated and second, those who need recognition.
4. Now divide each list further into 3 parts, depending the importance of work they do for you and your family. The persons in the first list are the most important service providers like the maid, watchman and liftman. If anyone of them is disappointed, it results in immediate fall-out action. The maid will come late, much after your wife or mom has completed half the housework. The watchman will permit hawkers to knock at our door in the afternoons and spoil your siesta. And the liftman will declare that the lift is under repair and ensure that you climb six floors. They, therefore, should be given top most priority.
5. In the second list houses service providers that are not so important but are required alm0st everyday like, the milkman, the washerwoman and the sweeper. Since the milkman and washerwoman are paid on a daily basis, they recognise that we may have some cash-flow problems. They seem satisfied with smaller amounts. The sweeper, however, needs to be handled with care. He has the power to skip a few days’ garbage collection and cause serious nasal disorder.
6. The third list consists of the people that are not so important like, telephone, post and telegraph community. This list does not evoke too much concern. The importance of the telephone lineman has taken a huge dip. A faulty line does not bother people any more in these days of the mobile phone except you are the broadband subscriber. The post and telegraph group too does not attract too much money. The e-mail has made letter-writing redundant. Therefore you may want to keep service providers alike in this list.

A little off topic, there’s a certain irony in being expected to offer a Diwali Baksheesh to someone like the postman who is a government employee and is supposed to do his job without expecting or receiving a tip. Perhaps the double meaning of Baksheesh is fitting here since people have become used to paying bribes for services that they’re entitled to.

I have always remained a keen observer of these Diwali pay-outs over the last so many years and am fascinated by the methods employed by the beneficiaries to gain more handsome pay-outs. Each one carries a list of neighbourhood donors. We know our neighbours well enough to realise that the figures are grossly exaggerated. This is an old technique called Peer Pressure.

I am also intrigued by the fact that the beneficiaries never come in a bunch. They stagger their time of arrival through careful networking, without doubt. All said, the Diwali baksheesh — both the handing and receiving of it — is an interesting exercise in human management.

Thanks for reading. Happy Diwali to you and your familiy in advance.

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The beauty of Guerrilla Mail is that when you visit the URL you’re automatically logged into the inbox of your temporary email address; just don’t navigate away until you’re finished with the email address. There are buttons to extend the address by an hour, copy your temporary email address to your clipboard, and to forget the address. I imagine that last option would be great to use after firing off a scathing anonymous email—when the recipient tries to respond they learn that the address no longer exists.

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I will try to link posts from around the web for your reading purpose categoriezed in various aspects.

Life

Apple

Employees

Ethics

Invention

Also, in case you haven’t ordered your copy yet. Please go ahead and do so by using the links below:

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