What makes the ouija board move

The mystery isn’t a connection to the spirit world, but why we can make movements and yet not realise that we’re making them.

Ouija board cups and dowsing wands – just two examples of mystical items that seem to move of their own accord, when they are really being moved by the people holding them. The only mystery is not one of a connection to the spirit world, but of why we can make movements and yet not realise that we’re making them.

The phenomenon is called the ideomotor effect and you can witness it yourself if you hang a small weight like a button or a ring from a string (ideally more than a foot long). Hold the end of the string with your arm out in front of you, so the weight hangs down freely. Try to hold your arm completely still. The weight will start to swing clockwise or anticlockwise in small circles. Do not start this motion yourself. Instead, just ask yourself a question – any question – and say that the weight will swing clockwise to answer “Yes” and anticlockwise for “No”. Hold this thought in mind, and soon, even though you are trying not to make any motion, the weight will start to swing in answer to your question.

Magic? Only the ordinary everyday magic of consciousness. There’s no supernatural force at work, just tiny movements you are making without realising. The string allows these movements to be exaggerated, the inertia of the weight allows them to be conserved and built on until they form a regular swinging motion. The effect is known as Chevreul’s Pendulum, after the 19th Century French scientist who investigated it.

What is happening with Chevreul’s Pendulum is that you are witnessing a movement (of the weight) without “owning” that movement as being caused by you. The same basic phenomenon underlies dowsing – where small movements of the hands cause the dowsing wand to swing wildly – or the Ouija board, where multiple people hold a cup and it seems to move of its own accord to answer questions by spelling out letters. The effect also underlies the sad case of “facilitated communication“, a fad whereby carers believed they could help severely disabled children communicate by guiding their fingers around a keyboard. Research showed that the carers – completely innocently – were typing the messages themselves, rather than interpreting movements from their charges.

The interesting thing about the phenomenon is what it says about the mind. That we can make movements that we don’t realise we’re making suggests that we shouldn’t be so confident in our other judgements about what movements we think are ours. Sure enough, in the right circumstances, you can get people to believe they have caused things that actually come from a completely independent source (something which shouldn’t surprise anyone who has reflected on the madness of people who claim that it only started raining because they forget an umbrella).

You can read what this means for the nature of our minds in The Illusion of Conscious Will by psychologist Daniel Wegner, who sadly died last month. Wegner argued that our normal sense of owning an action is an illusion, or – if you will – a construction. The mental processes which directly control our movements are not connected to the same processes which figure out what caused what, he claimed. The situation is not that of a mental command-and-control structure like a disciplined army; whereby a general issues orders to the troops, they carry out the order and the general gets back a report saying “Sir! We did it. The right hand is moving into action!”. The situation is more akin to an organised collective, claims Wegner: the general can issue orders, and watch what happens, but he’s never sure exactly what caused what. Instead, just like with other people, our consciousness (the general in this metaphor) has to apply some principles to figure out when a movement is one we’ve made.

One of these principles is that cause has to be consistent with effect. If you think “I’ll move my hand” and your hand moves, you’re likely to automatically get the feeling that the movement was one you made. The principle is broken when the thought is different from the effect, such as with Chevreul’s Pendulum. If you think “I’m not moving my hand”, you are less inclined to connect any small movements you make with such large visual effects. This maybe explains why kids can shout “It wasn’t me!” after breaking something in plain sight. They thought to themselves “I’ll just give this a little push”, and when it falls off the table and breaks it doesn’t feel like something they did.

This is my column for BBC Future from a few weeks back. The original is here. It’s a Dan Wegner tribute column really - Rest in Peace, Dan

View the original article here

Don’t Pay Your Bills

What if you really want to quit your job and go independent, but you’re worried about paying your bills?

Today I’m able to enjoy the best of both worlds. My bills are easily paid from my passive income streams, and I get to do work I love and enjoy tremendous freedom. But when I was first starting out, it was often an either-or situation. Sometimes I had to not pay credit card bills, legal bills, utilities, rent, etc. Many times I just didn’t have the money.

Obviously not paying bills creates consequences. My credit rating was trashed for many years. I had to sell off a bunch of my stuff for food money. I lost my office. I got kicked out of my apartment. I had to declare bankruptcy. But I wasn’t willing to get a job to remedy any of that. Better to lose an apartment than check into a cage.

I never stiffed individuals, but I certainly stiffed some corporations. They took a risk on me and lost. It was their risk to take. I doubt any corporate employees lost sleep over my unpaid accounts.

Eventually I learned what I needed to learn. But in the beginning, I was too inexperienced to earn enough money without a job to cover my bills. I picked the wrong strategies for earning income and got dismal results. So I didn’t pay all my bills, and I accepted the consequences of that.

A bill is just a number. It has no meaning other than what you assign to it. You may determine that not paying a bill is a deplorable act of dishonor. To me it’s simply a learning experience — a lesson. It’s a small oops.

If my bills ever get in the way of my path of growth, the bills lose.

Do you know how many bills I didn’t pay in order to pursue the path I’m on? Dozens, maybe hundreds if you include all the late notices. At least $150,000 of bills were never paid. That was many years ago, long before I started blogging, and of course I had to deal with some consequences.

Negative consequences can be great teachers, but don’t assume that they’re punishments that must be avoided at all costs.

Not paying a bill gets you a slap on the wrist. My wrists have been slapped many times. Wrist slaps are nothing to be afraid of. You get used to them. If you’re committed to a path of growth, expect your wrists to be slapped many times.

Most of the time when I didn’t pay a bill, the first wrist slap came in the form of an overdue notice. Ouch! Those RED ALL CAPS LETTERS make me quake in fear. Or I could just toss it in the trash and go on about my day.

Sometimes I’d get phone calls from collection agencies… up to 10 of those per day. A good solution there is to not pay the phone bill too.

Initially I truly did find these consequences stressful. But when it became such a flood because I was so ridiculously in debt that it just didn’t matter anymore, I discovered a newfound freedom on the other side. I stopped worrying and just accepted the consequences for what they were. The fear was much worse than the reality. I realized that my overdue accounts were being processed by a corporate machine. And the psychology employed to try to get me to pay was all based on fear, shame, and guilt. Collection agents would try to make me feel like a loser for not paying. Once I realized what they were doing, I stopped letting them treat me that way, and the debt collectors became much less powerful. Sure they could mess up my credit rating, but they couldn’t make me miserable or worried or stressed without my permission.

Eventually the whole thing became like a game to me. All this fuss over a number in a database? When collection agents would call, I’d ask them about their personal lives, or I’d come up with silly answers to “When can you make a payment?” When I got kicked out of my apartment, I moved to a much cheaper one. When I didn’t have much furniture, I used a large cardboard box as a table. I realized that my stuff was vulnerable to loss, but my attitude didn’t have to be so weak and timid, despite my screwed up financial situation.

This was an amazing time of growth for me. I learned to be a lot less attached to money and possessions. I learned to stand up for myself and my right to make mistakes without being treated like a loser for screwing up. Those lessons have stayed with me ever since. Now that I do have some money flowing through my life, I don’t fear losing it. Money has no power over me like it once did. I’m not afraid of going broke again.

Earning money also became much easier. Since I was already broke, I decided to focus on doing what I enjoyed, expressing my creativity, and making a contribution without worrying about how much I’d earn. Ironically, that’s exactly the kind of attitude that can generate abundant income. Every year since then has been financially abundant (almost 15 years now). Go figure.

One reason employee culture often leads people to be so afraid of wrist slaps is that such cultures are often fear driven. That’s how people are kept in line and conditioned to do work they’d rather not do. Sometimes it’s really hard for me to have interesting connections with long-term employees because so many of them are afraid of their own shadow. It’s like talking to someone via one of those prison visitation phones. Some are scared of being reprimanded for placing the wrong type of item on their desks. Last year I wrote up a mock version of such a conversation in an attempt to point out just how absurd the employee mindset sounds to an independent.

My independent friends never seem to ask, “But how will I pay my bills?” My independent friends know that if they can’t pay their bills, the bills won’t be paid, they’ll deal with the consequences, and life will go on just fine. But my employee-minded friends have often been conditioned to believe that not paying a bill is the worst sin imaginable — a massive failure to be avoided at all costs.

Am I suggesting that you become wildly irresponsible and spend money like a crazy person? Not at all. But don’t be so afraid of betting on yourself and taking some risk. You’re going to lose some of those bets. That’s okay. Just dust yourself off, and try again. How else are you going to learn if you don’t make the attempt? And you get more than one attempt — a LOT more!

So the answer to the question “What if I quit my job and can’t pay my bills?” is pretty straightforward. If you can’t pay your bills, don’t pay them. Rest assured that if you don’t pay some bills, the universe will not actually explode.

Is this against the rules? Yes, it’s against the rules.

If you don’t pay your bills, it obviously means that you’re a dishonorable, rotten scoundrel, and you’re surely going to hell. But I’ll be rotting there right along with you, in that extra toasty domain of hell reserved for rule breakers. You should be able to find me if you look for the bonfire of overdue notices, with a bunch of crazy folks dancing around it in celebration of their freedom. The rising smoke from our bonfire will probably annoy all the obedient collection agents playing their harps in heaven, and whatever RED LETTER NOTICES they send us in response can be used to keep the fire going.

P.S. Thank you, WordPress, for including bubble-help with the names of the colors over the color squares. It makes it possible for a color blind person like me to know which color in the palette is actually red.

Discuss this post on Google+

Steve Recommends
Here are my recommendations for products and services I've reviewed that can improve your results. This is a short list since it only includes my top picks.

Site Build It! - Use SBI to start your own money-making website
Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes
Paraliminals - Condition your mind for positive thinking and success
The Journal - Record your life lessons in a secure private journal
PhotoReading - Read books 3 times faster
Sedona Method (FREE audios) - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
Life on Purpose - A step-by-step process to discover your life purpose

If you've found Steve's work helpful, please donate to show your support.
Get Steve's Free Newsletter to stay in touch and receive the newest updates

View the original article here

Ways to Spend Less Money on Back-to-School Shopping

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

TEDWeekends talks innovation for the Global South

Global Issues

Malaria kills about 2,000 people every day. The mosquito-borne disease has ravaged the equatorial areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia, where a combination of poverty and climate make a dangerous breeding ground for disease. There is currently no vaccine.

But Nathan Myhrvold has a solution. In his talk and demonstration from TED2010,  Myhrvold offers a silver bullet to prevent malaria in Africa — a mosquito laser zapper. His lab has developed a laser beam that can detect whether a mosquito might be malarial, and then zap it mid-air. This exciting innovation shows much promise in the fight to prevent malaria.

This week’s edition of TED Weekends on The Huffington Post explores the risks and rewards of innovating high-tech solutions for the Global South. In addition to an article from Myhrvold providing updates on his work, HuffPo features two other essays discussing tech innovations in the Global South. Below, some highlights from these pieces to pique your interest.

Nathan Myhrvold: Striking Down Malaria … With A Laser?

So, to the critics who say we’ll fail, I offer this: You’re absolutely right. But that’s part of being an inventor. What’s more important is that we learn, keep trying and make sure our successful inventions have a meaningful impact. At worst, we’ll get people thinking about important problems in new ways. At best, we’ll invent technology that transforms life for the people who need it most and, in the process, inspire more technology companies to work their magic for the developing world. Either way, I’d consider that a success. Read the full essay »

Larry Hollon Rev. Larry Hollon: The Astounding Impact of Innovative Technology in the Developing World

Even technology that’s far more accessible than what Myhrvold describes is changing the game in Africa — not only aiding in the fight against malaria, but opening a whole new world. Mobile technologies make it possible to have access to information that is transformative, whether it’s tracking disease outbreaks or educating children. Read the full essay »

Stuart Rennie: The Less ‘Glamorous’ Side of Invention

For decades, public health professionals have warned against ‘magic bullet’ approaches to disease control. Developing a technological innovation (be it a drug, device or a machine) is generally not enough in itself to make a significant impact on a disease on a population level. This is painfully evident in developing countries, whose citizens often do not have access to medical inventions (like antibiotics or MRIs) that were developed decades ago and currently standard of care in more affluent settings. In order to effect real change, you need more than inventors: You need implementers. Read the full essay »

View the original article here

How to Fix A Phone That Fell In Water

Dropping your phone in the toilet is admittedly embarrassing, but you’re not alone. In fact, 1 out of 10 people have made the blunder at some point. When you have to fix a phone that fell in water, it’s important to do it right or you could do more damage. Of course, if it fell in the toilet after you used the toilet, you might want to risk a quick soap or spray it with Lysol before you worry about fixing it.

This fantastic infographic is a great guide on how to fix a phone that fell in water. The biggest key is to dry it in rice, which will pull all the moisture from it. Don’t turn it back on or charge it until it is dry and don’t use a heat source like a blow drier to fix a phone that fell in water because you might damage the electronic components.

It was Dr. Anthony P. Witham who once said “children spell love…T-I-M-E.” He was definitely onto something. Unfortunately, if you are like most parents, time is a precious commodity that often eludes us 5 Ways to Spend Time with Your Kids When You Have No Time

Jill Harness is a freelance writer, amateur chef, and a sucker for animals. She writes for a number of websites, including Rue The Day, InventorSpot, Oddee and Mental Floss. While not typing on her computer, Jill spends her time playing video games, cuddling with her dog and visiting Disneyland and the San Diego Zoo.

View the original article here

Improve Your Credit Score By Avoiding These Top Credit Blunders All Americans Make

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

The deafening silence

All silences are not equal, some seem quieter than others. Why? It’s all to do with the way our brains adapt to the world around us, as Tom Stafford explains

A “deafening silence” is a striking absence of noise, so profound that it seems to have its own quality. Objectively it is impossible for one silence to be any different from another. But the way we use the phrase hints at a psychological truth.

The secret to a deafening silence is the period of intense noise that comes immediately before it. When this ends, the lack of sound appears quieter than silence. This sensation, as your mind tries to figure out what your ears are reporting, is what leads us to call a silence deafening.

What is happening here is a result of a process called adaptation. It describes the moving baseline against which new stimuli are judged. The way the brain works is that any constant simulation is tuned out, allowing perception to focus on changes against this background, rather than absolute levels of stimulation. Turn your stereo up from four to five and it sounds louder, but as your memory of making the change rapidly fades, your mind adjusts and volume five becomes the new normal.

Adaptation doesn’t just happen for hearing. The brain networks that process all other forms of sensory information also pull the same trick. Why can’t you see the stars during the daytime? They are still there, right? You can’t see them because your visual system has adapted to the light levels from the sun, making the tiny variation in light that a star makes against the background of deep space invisible. Only after dark does your visual system adapt to a baseline at which the light difference created by a star is meaningful.

Just as adaption applies across different senses, so too does the after-effect, the phenomenon that follows it. Once the constant stimulation your brain has adapted to stops, there is a short period when new stimuli appear distorted in the opposite way from the stimulus you’ve just been experiencing. A favourite example is the waterfall illusion. If you stare at a waterfall (here’s one) for half a minute and then look away, stationary objects will appear to flow upwards. You can even pause a video and experience the illusion of the waterfall going into reverse.

It’s a phenomenon called the motion after effect. You can get them for colour perception or for just lightness-darkness (which is why you sometimes see dark spots after you’ve looked at the sun or a camera flash).

After-effects also apply to hearing, which explains why a truly deafening silence comes immediately after the brain has become adapted to a high baseline of noise. We perceive this lack of sound as quieter than other silences for the same reason that the waterfall appears to suck itself upwards.

So while it is true that all silences are physically the same, perhaps Spinal Tap lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel was onto something with his amplifier dials that go up to 11. When it comes to the way we perceive volume, it is sometimes possible to drop below zero.

This was my BBC Future from last weekend. The original is here.

View the original article here

Four Things to Consider Before Accepting a Job Offer

So you’ve gone to a job interview for a position you’re interested in, it went well, and now the company has offered you the job. Good news! Before you accept a job offer, there are some things that you should consider.

You’ve gotten an offer for a position you applied to. There must have been some reason you applied for the position. Perhaps it was for a company you wanted to work for, or maybe you just wanted a job in the industry and it was what was available.

An important consideration to make before you accept a job offer is whether the position is really what you want to do. Why were you interested in this position? Do you need a job as soon as possible and are willing to take anything? Are you taking the job just because you have done a similar role before but want to move on from it?

The reasons for taking a job will depend on your desires and your circumstances, but these are points worth considering. It may be OK to take a job that isn’t something you really want to do right now, if it allows you to get into a better position in the future.

That brings us to the next question…

Most of us know what we want to do. If you don’t have a plan, I suggest [developing one for your career]. It lets you know where you want to go and how to get there.

A consideration to have for this job offer is if it will allow you to get to where you want to go with your career. Is it on the path of where you want to go? Does it allow you to improve and develop the skills for progressing your career? If not, then why did you apply for this position?

Even though it may not be the ideal job you want, there are jobs we need to do along the way to improve our skills to the level they need to be at, and to gain the experience we need.

There’s more to the job than the position and the money you’re getting paid. We should consider the company that’s offering you the position as well. Are they a good company to work for? Do they share your values and priorities? If not, does this matter to you?

We can’t all work for the same company, and each company is different. Try to picture yourself working for this company and imagine if you’d be happy there. Work out what you want in an employer, and how important it is, and see if this is satisfactory before you accept a job offer.

The reputation of a company and other factors may or may not be important to you, but it’s probably something to consider anyway.

One of the most satisfying parts of the job for many people is that the job challenges them. It allows them to think and focus on problems and solutions for companies. It’s more than just a desk job.

Are you someone that needs to be challenged at work? The amount of challenge that a position brings varies between all of us. Some of us like a little bit of a challenge, some of us like to be “thrown in the deep end” and many are in the middle.

You should work out how much of a challenge you need at work, and assess if the new position meets that criteria, before you accept a job offer. This will help your satisfaction in both the short and long term.

Again, your circumstances may mean this is more or less important to you. For example, if you really just need a job, or if it’s only a two month contract, then the challenge of the job may not be as important. However, it’s still something we should consider.

All of that said, getting a job offer is still a great thing and you must have done a few things right to get there. Congratulations!
What other points should we consider before accepting a job offer? Share your thoughts in the section below.

Even if you’re gainfully employed right now, you’re probably keeping an eye on job listings in your field and news about your industry. 10 Job Listing Sites With Unique Opportunities

Featured photo credit: a pen near stack of papervia Shutterstock

Business analyst and software developer. Passionate about helping others improve their IT careers by providing advice and information.

View the original article here

No more citations for curbside veggies in Los Angeles

News Ron Finley proudly stands beside his curbside vegetable forest during a gardening party the week after TED2013. Photo: Nick Weinberg

Planting a vegetable garden beside a road is no longer a fineable action in Los Angeles.

In a major victory for TED speaker Ron Finley, otherwise known as the renegade gardener of South Central, the Los Angeles City Council voted 15-0 on Tuesday to allow the planting of vegetable gardens in unused strips of city land by roads. The council is opting to waive the enforcement of a city law that requires sidewalks and curbs to be “free of obstruction” in the case of vegetable gardens designed for community use. The city will stop enforcing this law immediately.

Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LAOn the TED2013 stage, Finley described getting a citation for planting a vegetable garden on his curb.

“I live in a food desert, South Central Los Angeles, home of the drive-thru and the drive-by,” he said. “So what I did, I planted a food forest in front of my house. It was on a strip of land called a parkway. It’s 150 feet by 10 feet. Thing is, it’s owned by the city. And somebody complained. The city came down on me, and basically gave me a citation saying that I had to remove my garden, and the citation was turning into a warrant. And I’m like ‘Come on, really? A warrant for planting food on a piece of land that you could care less about?’”

After getting the citation, Finley circulated a petition. And the number of signatures he collected made an impact on Council President Herb Wesson. Last week, after two more urban gardeners were issued citations, Wesson raised the motion to amend the ”Residential Parkway Landscaping Guidelines” and stop fining for vegetable gardens. Many of his fellow council members agreed. As councilman Mike Bonin put it to the Los Angeles Daily News, “We deal with a lot of big issues, but this is one that helps shape community character.”

Finley himself was very happy with the change, and that he got a personal shout-out during the council session. ”I was pretty elated. It’s beautiful,” he tells the TED Blog. “It goes to show that one person can make a difference.”

His next battle: pushing for more vacant lots to be turned into community vegetable gardens, so people can learn the self-sufficiency of growing their own food. “It shouldn’t be abnormal,” says Finley.

View the original article here

Paint and Light Your Way To Productivity

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

How To Totally Rock Your Goals…Even If You’ve Failed At Them Before

Ever get that feeling that no matter how much you do, there is always a continuing onslaught of things you need to get done?

You had dreams, ideas, things you wanted to try out, and business concepts you know would put cash into your bank account…If only you could get round to doing them you would totally rock your goals!

But then, nothing ever changes. Just as you think you’ve got one time-draining activity out of the way, something else comes along to take its place. It’s almost as if the harder you work and the faster you climb, the steeper the hill gets.

Maybe you can relate to the idea of being on a treadmill at the gym. Each time you have a little success, someone hits the incline button to make you run at a steeper angle! I remember a busy mom describing this as one of her recurring nightmares.

If you’re in this situation, it’s not your fault. You got here because you had the best of intentions.

The reality is, though, the thinking that got you onto this treadmill is not the same thinking that will help you get off of it.

Thinking that you just need to get more stuff done, work harder, or work smarter is still treadmill thinking. It’s not going to fundamentally change anything. All that happens if you apply this logic is that you end up working harder, but still having more stuff come in to fill those precious little gaps in your schedule.

Real change comes from a new approach. Getting off the treadmill depends on starting from somewhere else – away from the treadmill – and applying a new logic.

You see, the treadmill mentality focuses on dealing with incoming demands and getting through a to-do list. What you need to do to break free of the treadmill is start from:

what you really want out of your life, andhow you want to spend your time.

The first item – what you want out of your life – is fairly straightforward. For most movers and shakers, they’ve got this pretty well defined from the material through to their relationships and their inner world. I’m going to assume you know what you want.

What is normally overlooked, though, is the second thing: how you want to spend your time.

The truth is, this is just a paradigm, a way of thinking and seeing the world. However you see the world determines the rules you allow yourself to play by. If you think having what you want has to be hard work, guess what? It will be!

By contrast, if your view of the world is that you can have your life the way you want it, and that you just need to be a bit savvy around how you go about it, you’re playing a whole different game. One in which you open up the possibility that achieving your goals is fun, interesting and taps in to you doing what lights you up…as part of the process, not just the end game.

“This is all very well,” you may be thinking. “Throwing away the to-do list, and just do what I feel like. But I have responsibilities: a job to do, a business to run.”

Quite right! I agree entirely, so let me clarify something, and then give you a method that you can use to operate in the ‘real world’.

Firstly, this isn’t about shirking your responsibilities. There are still going to be things that you need to spend time doing. However, if you start from the premise that you should only do what you do best, and can re-delegate or outsource or swap with someone to get rid of the things that are frustrating you, then so much the better.

Here’s the method to get real-world results, whilst refusing to get on the treadmill. Three bubbles a day keeps the treadmill away!

Decide on what you really want out of each area of your life. Maybe set a goal for your work, a goal for your relationships, one for your family and one for your health and/or spirituality. Make sure you write these down somewhere you can keep referring back to them.Each week spend some time working on these things. Let’s use the work category as an example. Imagine your goal is to get more clients. Before you start your normal work or open you emails, take a piece of paper and write on it what you want to achieve that day in terms of finding more clients. It may be that you want to call up some old contacts, or send out an email to your list, or write a few letters to prospects. Whatever it is, put one or two items on the sheet of paper in bubbles around the goal “get more clients”. Now look at everything else you need to make happen that week, and decide what category they fit into: maybe managing staff, maybe delivering presentations, maybe renewing your car insurance. Whatever they are, they fit into a category. Write those on the piece of paper too, and see what category you can assign them to.Here’s the tough part. Each day you want to limit yourself to three categories at the most: this is where the three bubbles comes from in the method name.You see, you lose so much time and momentum by constantly switching your focus and you want to minimize this. Only working on two or three categories a day seriously amps up your ability to be productive and stay in your flow. Select your categories for today now. One of these categories should include that first thing you chose that you really wanted to achieve, but probably wasn’t already on your ‘treadmill list’.Each day, you do the same thing: only ever working on two or three categories (you can pick different ones each day). Sure, there may be a number of tasks in one category, so it’s OK to plug through each of those (just have them on spokes that come out of the category bubble, like a mind map).

The key thing to remember is there is a magic that happens when you apply all your thinking and attention to just one area you want to crack.

If you follow this method, what you’ll end up doing is making incremental progress on only the things that matter to you – and not the things that just take up your time. Sure, you may get the odd thing that takes you off track that you need to respond to, but as long as you have this bubble diagram of your main categories for the day, you can always have traction on the things that are important.

What’s more, you will always remember the things that are meaningful and important to the direction you want to go in. If getting more clients is important, by using this method there is no way you are going to miss or forget about an opportunity to make some progress in this area. You will flat out get this done!

This is a million miles away from the treadmill to-do list you may be using at the moment. What you can probably see already is that it takes the overwhelm out of making progress on something that is important to you, whilst still juggling the other stuff that needs doing. Focusing on just your elected categories for the day allows you to park the others, guilt-free, until their allocated day.

It’s amazing how freeing this is. Just try it and see!

OK, so over to you now. What categories are you going to select to work on today? Share in the comments below. It is super motivating to share, and see how others are applying these insights.

Start to work on it now! Why You Should Stop Trying and Start Doing

Featured photo credit: Winding staircase via Shutterstock

View the original article here

A detangler for the net

I’ve just finished reading the new book Untangling the Web by social psychologist Aleks Krotoski. It turns out to be one of the best discussions I’ve yet read on how the fabric of society is meshing with the internet.

Regular readers know I’ve been a massive fan of the Digital Human, the BBC Radio 4 series that Krotoski writes and presents, that covers similar territory.

Untangling the Web takes a slightly more analytical angle, focusing more on scientific studies of online social interaction and theories of online psychology, but it is all the richer for it.

It covers almost the entire range psychological debates: friendships, how kids are using the net, debates over whether the net can ‘damage the brain’, online remembrance and mourning, propaganda and persuasion, sex, dating and politics. You get the idea. It’s impressively comprehensive.

It’s not an academic book but, unsurprisingly, given Krotoski’s background as both a social psychologist and a tech journalist, is very well informed.

I picked up a couple of minor errors. It suggests internet addiction was recognised as a diagnosis in the DSM-IV, when the nearest things to an internet addiction diagnosis was only discussed (and eventually relegated to the Appendix), in the DSM-5.

It also mentions me briefly, in the discussion of public anxieties that the internet could ‘rewire the brain,’ but suggests I’m based at University College London (apparently a college to the north of the River Thames) when really I’m from King’s College London.

But that was about the best I could do when trying to find fault with the book. It’s a hugely enjoyable, balanced treatment of an often inflammatory subject, that may well be one of the best guides to how we relate over the net that you’re likely to read for a long time.

Link to more details about Untangling the Web.

View the original article here

30sec Tip: You Can Make Any Choice You Want

You can make any choice you want if you are willing to accept the consequences that come with it.

With every choice comes a decision, and from the moment you wake up to when your head hits the pillow each night, you are faced with endless choices.

When life is stressful, plates are overflowing, and your brain, living space and work space are cluttered, making a decision (even a simple one) can seem overwhelming. So what do you do? You make the decision not to make a decision.

How Living Clutter-free Will Make You a Better Decision Maker

Featured photo credit: BaileyRaeWeavervia Flickr

Brian is a Lifehacker who covers all sorts of tips for life. He is also fascinated with new technology. Contact him at brian@lifehack.org

View the original article here

10 Simple Strategies to Wake Up Early

After almost 30 years of being an avid anti-morning person (I almost had protest signs made), I now wake up early every day – at 6am to be exact (including weekends!) While my attitude toward mornings changed overnight, getting to a point where I could wake up early without wanting to cry has taken over a year to accomplish.

It all started when I read Laura Vanderkam’s What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast. This was at a time where I was fed up with my hectic lifestyle – a lifestyle we’re all made to feel we “should” want – so I began spending every spare moment learning various ways to get out of my rut. I learned not only who out of the insanely successful wake up early, but why, and how they spend that time. It sounded glorious!

So that settled it: I was going to become a morning person. Clearly you’d like to do the same or you wouldn’t be here. So, without further ado, here are 10 simple strategies to help you successfully wake up early:

Like me, you’ve probably spent years cultivating your “mornings are evil” attitude: hitting the snooze button 37,256 times, dragging yourself out of bed just to grunt like a cave person until your coffee’s ready, and sharing every “I hate mornings” meme you can find on Facebook.

Let it all go. Throw away every misconception embedded in you since school and start this process with a clean slate. The only way you’ll succeed is if your mind remains open and free of negativity.

This is one of those rare situations where you actually can make your fantasy a reality. Picture yourself as the morning person you want to become: what do your mornings consist of? Are you quietly drinking your coffee on the patio? Reading a book? Doing yoga?

Also, what’s the atmosphere like? This will help you lay the groundwork for what will later become your morning routine. For example, if you want to drink your coffee on the patio but your dog won’t even spend time on it, use days off to create an environment you’d want to wake up to.

At first, only share the changes you’d like to make with those you live with, since they too have to adjust to your new routine. Don’t tell anyone else until you’ve made considerable progress. Otherwise, their attitude toward mornings might negatively impact your frame of mind – or worse, their lack of follow-through in their own lives might rub off on you.

Don’t do what I did and attempt to set a deadline for when you’d like to wake up early – it won’t happen. You never know what circumstances will get in the way of your progress, whether it be emotional resistance, or personal or professional setbacks. Take your time.

Focus on one act at a time: take note of what time you wake up now and when you’d like to wake up from now on. Set your alarm for 15 to 30 minutes earlier, and once you’re comfortable getting up at that time, set it earlier again, and again, until you’re comfortably waking up at your new early time.

Some people have no problem with alarm clocks, but I find the beeping to be unnerving. I’m more comfortable waking up to the radio – it’s less abrupt and helps me transition into waking up, as opposed to startling me into an anxiety attack. Test out various alarm options and see which works best for you.

One thing we tend to lose as adults is the feeling of freedom we had as kids. When we had no sense of schedule, deadlines, goals, or pressure, we were always emotionally available and our imaginations made us feel like anything was possible. I’m not sure when this became “uncool,” but it’s truly the best way to start your day.

What are the things you always want to do but never get to do? Establish what you love to do into your morning routine and stop feeling guilty about it! Not only will you start your work day refreshed and motivated, you’re more likely to wake up early when you’re excited to do so. When I started doing exactly what I wanted to do in the morning, my attitude toward everything changed and I became better equipped to handle future stress and challenges.

There’s no better feeling than creating a protected pocket of time when you can do what you love for no other reason than you want to.

As you continue to adjust your sleep cycle, some days will be harder than others. There will be mornings where you’ll do everything to justify shutting off your alarm and going right back to sleep. Sometimes it will work, and you’ll want to slap yourself later for letting it happen.

During this rough patch, do what you can to make your mornings easier: if you’re so tired you even dread making coffee, program your coffee maker. If your home is cold in the morning, leave your housecoat and slippers beside your bed. If your mind flat lines when you try to decide on breakfast, decide the night before and prep the ingredients. Eventually, your abilities to wake up early and function will happen at the same time, but for now, throw yourself a bone.

I’m sure you’ve heard of the productivity hack “break the chain,” where you consider each day you accomplish your new habit a “chain link.” If you miss a day, you break the chain. It’s a great (and simple) way to stay motivated and push through the mornings you’d rather bathe with a toaster than wake up early.

One of the biggest motivators to continue waking up early is keeping track of what you accomplish when you first get up. By 9am, I have all of my major work accomplished while everyone else is just getting started. It gives a sense of calm to the rest of my day, because I don’t have to worry about interruptions or distractions preventing me from accomplishing my goals – they’re already met. Game. Set. Match.

If you’re struggling to break up with your snooze button, try this: during the day, setup your bedroom as if it’s early morning and your alarm’s about to go off. Set your alarm for a few minutes from now, and practice getting up when it goes off sans snooze button. Alarm goes off, stand up. Alarm goes off, stand up, and so forth. This practice will eventually translate into you waking up early – and successfully.

To successfully wake up early, changes to your sleep habits are also necessary: 10 Common Sleep Mistakes to Avoid

Featured photo credit: black alarm clock and man via Shutterstock

Krissy Brady is a freelance and screenwriter. She writes for and about women who are a smorgasbord of emotional baggage (you know, like her). Get in touch with Krissy through her website and follow her stream of consciousness on Twitter.

View the original article here

Learning To Accept Yourself As An Introvert

If you identify as a natural introvert like myself, you’ll understand the problems and obstacles we sometimes have to face. Whether it is pressure we put on ourselves or stigmas created due to remarks made by others, it can often feel as though we are expected to be different. As though being quieter than our extroverted counterparts is a bad thing. At times it can feel like, due to repetitive demands from others to be a little more outgoing, you are expected to start climbing on tables swinging a microphone around your head shouting all of your daily activities. Or that one might just be me.

Here, Louise Watson of Tiny Buddha explores her journey to accepting herself as the natural introvert that she is:

“You’re too quiet.”

This comment and others like it have plagued me almost all my life. I don’t know how many times I’ve been told that I needed to come out of my shell, to be livelier, or to talk more. As a child and teenager, I allowed these remarks to hurt me deeply. I was already shy, but I became even more self-conscious as I was constantly aware of people waiting for me to speak. When I did, the response was often, “Wow! Louise said something!” This would make me just want to crawl back into my shell and hide. I became more and more reserved.

The older I got, the angrier I became. Each time someone told me I was “too quiet,” I wondered what exactly they were hoping to achieve anyway. Did they imagine I had a magic button I could press that would turn me into Miss Showbiz? If only it were that simple, I thought. I felt I should be accepted as I was, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen. There was only one thing for it; I would have to become the extrovert the world wanted me to be, but how?

At 17, I thought I’d found the perfect solution: alcohol. When I was drunk, everyone seemed to like me. I was fun and outgoing; able to talk to anyone with no problems at all. However, it began to depress me that I needed a drink to do this or for anyone to like me.

Another strategy was to attach myself to a more outgoing friend. I did this at school, university, and later when I began to travel a lot in my twenties. Although I didn’t do it consciously, wherever I went I would make friends with someone much louder than me. Then I’d become their little sidekick, going everywhere with them, trying to fit in with all their friends, and even adopting aspects of their personality. Sometimes I just tried faking it.

When I was 24, I began teaching English as a Foreign Language, and a month into my first contract in Japan, I was told my students found me difficult to talk to. I was upset because I thought I had made an effort to be friendly and I didn’t understand what else I could do. After crying all night because once again I wasn’t good enough, I went into work the next day determined to be really lively and talkative. Of course, it didn’t work because everyone could see I was being false. It seemed that I was doomed. I would never be accepted. Being a naturally loud person was the only way to be liked.

Or maybe not.

Over the years, I’ve spoken to several talkative, extroverted people who’ve been told they’re too loud or that they talk too much. It seems whatever personality you’ve got you’re always going to be “too much” of something for someone.

My shyness has made some areas of my life more difficult. It’s something I’ve been working on all my life and I always will be in order to do all the things I want to do. However, I’ve realized I’m always going to be an introvert, which is not the same thing. I enjoy going out and socializing, but I also enjoy being alone. At work I talk to people all day, every day. I like my job, but as an introvert, I get tired after all that interaction, so later I need some quiet time to “recharge my batteries.” I can overcome my shyness. I can’t overcome my introversion, but actually, I wouldn’t want to because I’m happy being this way.

While I’m still shy, I no longer worry about it.  When speaking to new people, if something comes out wrong or I get my words mixed up, I just laugh to myself about my nervousness rather telling myself how weird the other person must’ve thought I was.

In the past I was terrified of any form of public speaking. Now my job is getting up in front of people and talking. After a rocky start in Japan, my students now see me as funny (sometimes!) and confident. So I think I’m doing alright. No, I don’t understand why I can’t just be like that with everyone, but I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’m doing my best and that’s all I can do.

When you’re always being told you’re too much of this or not enough of that, it’s easy to start thinking you have to be grateful that anyone is willing to spend time with you. I used to put up with friends who treated me badly because I thought if I stood up for myself, I’d lose their friendship and I’d end up all alone.

Eventually, in my last year teaching abroad, I did stand up for myself and my worst fear came true. I was left completely friendless. And you know what? It was okay. The time alone taught me to enjoy my own company, and gave me the chance to learn more about myself. This has gradually led to me attracting more positive people into my life.

I’m a good listener, so friends feel able to talk to me if they have a problem and they know I’m not going to tell anyone. I’m an efficient worker because I just get on with the job. I can empathize with shy students in my class. I don’t force them to speak but leave them alone, knowing that they’ll talk when they feel more comfortable.

There’s a reason why you were made the way you are. If we were all supposed to be the same, we would be. I’ve stopped trying to make everyone like me and I’ve stopped trying to be something I’m not. As a result, any changes in my character happen naturally as my confidence continues to grow. The “quiet” comments are also now few and far between. When you learn to accept yourself, you’re likely to find that others will accept you too.

But if they don’t, it really doesn’t matter.

The word ‘introvert’ has a lot of negative connotations today, particularly when we look at the Western culture that deifies extroversion as the social norm 5 Things You Should Know About Introverts

Featured photo credit: susanrm8via Flickr

Siobhan Harmer is a freelance writer who drinks far too much coffee, here to help you hack your way to a happier life.

View the original article here

5 Excuses To Throw an Awesome Party This Summer

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Healthy Eating: 5 Killer Strategies to Lose Weight to Live Longer and Happier

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Unschoolery: My New Blog on Unschooling

One of my favorite topics to talk about is unschooling. I talk about it with every new parent I know.

And so, because it excites me so much, I’ve started a new blog:

Unschoolery:My Undefinitive Guide to Unschooling

In the last few days, I’ve posted nearly a dozen posts. I have another dozen ready to be written this week.

I love talking about unschooling.

Here are some topics I’ve written about already:

I hope you’ll check out the new blog, and join the conversation!

View the original article here

9 classic movies about memory manipulation, and how they inspired real neuroscience

Entertainment TEDx

Total Recall, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Inception. In today’s talk, MIT neuroscientists Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu admit that their latest study Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu: A mouse. A laser beam. A manipulated memory. — in which they located a specific memory in a mouse’s brain and designed a system to activate and deactivate it at will — might remind people of these movies. And there is a good reason for that: because the experiment was, in part, inspired by them.

“We began touching on these ideas mainly because all of us are huge fans of movies like Inception … For me personally, looking to Hollywood is a great source of questions,” Ramirez said in a recent interview with Fast Company Labs, about the study he describes in this talk. “I feel that Hollywood is a repository of all these fantastic ideas, because nobody in Hollywood is limited.”

In today’s talk, given at TEDxBoston, Ramirez and Liu share more about their motivation for studying memory manipulation. They also walk us through the steps of their research which, after being published in the journal Science, made waves in the international media. First, Liu, Ramirez and their team needed to get creative in order to isolate a single memory in a mouse’s brain. Next, they had to figure out a switch for this memory — and they came up with a method that involves a laser beam. Finally, they experimented with activating the memory, even in the wrong context.

Watch this banter-filled talk for more detail on the process, and to hear the fascinating implications of the research. “I see a world in which we can reactivate any kind of memory that we like. I also see a world where we can erase unwanted memories,” says Ramirez in the talk. “I even see a world where editing memories is something of a reality because we’re living in a time where it’s possible to pluck questions from the tree of science fiction and to ground them in experimental reality.”

Ramirez certainly has a point: Hollywood has long been fixated on the mystery of memory, with a heavy focus on what happens when it’s manipulated. Below, a look at just a selection of movies that deal with twists of memory.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Writer Charlie Kaufman and director Michel Gondry dreamed up this 2004 indie classic, in which a man (Jim Carey) and woman (Kate Winslet) attempt to erase the memory of their relationship. Ramirez mentions this movie in his Fast Company interview, pointing out a scientific flaw in it. “One thing Eternal Sunshine got wrong was localizing memories. There’s a scene with Elijah Wood, where they’re going into the brain, and [saying] ‘There’s a memory right here, it’s at point A in the brain’, and boom, they delete it. But in reality, memories are distributed throughout the brain,” he says. “There’s the memory of Kate Winslet, and then there’s the awful underlying, visceral feelings that Jim Carey has when he recalls Kate Winslet: the emotional undertones that color in that memory. The emotional undertones and the memory of Kate Winslet itself are largely mediated by separate brain systems. So you can imagine going into the brain, finding the brain cells that represent that dark feeling of a break-up, and inactivating only those.”

Total Recall. In this 1990 classic, a construction worker visits the company “Rekall,” in order to have the memory of a vacation to Mars implanted in his mind. The procedure backfires. Soon, he learns that he is not who he thinks he is at all — but that he’d previously wiped his memory of an entire life on the red planet.

Memento. The 2000 film Memento, directed by Christopher Nolan, is a story told in two directions — both in reverse and chronologically. In it, a man with anterograde amnesia (Guy Pearce) is not able to store new memories, and thus uses tattoos, notes and photos to give himself bits and pieces of his dark, complex reality.

Inception. Ramirez referred to his most recent study as “Project Inception.” Why? Because in this 2010 movie, also from Christopher Nolan, a corporate thief (Leonardo DiCaprio) sets out on what he believes is an impossible mission: to plant an idea in another person’s subconscious through a dream, a thing referred to as “inception.” The movie is both a visual feast and a complete mind workout.

50 First Dates. In this 2004 romantic comedy, a man (Adam Sandler) attempts to woo a woman with memory loss (Drew Barrymore), who after a car accident wakes up every morning thinking it is October 13, 2002. This means that the man has to charm her on repeat, day after day. A light comedy, yes, but still one Ramirez credits for his interest in the science of memory.

The Manchurian Candidate. In this thriller from 1952, the son of a political family is kidnapped during the Korean War along with his platoon. He is brainwashed, and programmed to be an assassin — a killer with no knowledge of what he is doing. Over the course of the movie, his war buddies begin to realize something is amiss, and try to figure out what has happened.

Trance. This psychological thriller, released in the spring, is probably too new to be considered a classic. But we’re including it here regardless because of the themes in the Danny Boyle film. The basic plot: an art auctioneer is part of a plot to steal a painting, but receives a blow to the head that leaves him unable to remember where the painting is. He turns to a hypnotist for help.

The Bourne Identity. Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is an incredible assassin — fluent in many languages, a great fighter and quick with weapons. Only, he has no memory of why. In this 2002 Doug Liman film that launched a franchise, Bourne tries to discover who he is, while the CIA tries to take him out.

Dark City. Mysterious men in black coats and top hats come in the night to take people’s memories and replace them with new ones, in this neo-noir film from 1998. The atmospheric movie focuses on one man, accused of murder but sure he didn’t do it. Eventually, he discovers that he has the same abilities to manipulate memory as the so-called “Strangers.”

View the original article here

5 Crazy Ideas To Save The Environment

Climate change is a global problem; it follows that all of us should have a desire to help alleviate the problem, right? Actually we can all take little steps to help. As we all know, the human race continues to waste Mother Earth’s natural resources.

We as good children should take steps to prevent further damage. It’s beneficial to take action now to avoid disasters of catastrophic proportions in the near future.
Today is the best time to start doing something good for Earth; our only home. In the infographic featured here, we can see ideas that could contribute to our goal of saving our planet from total destruction.

Some are absolutely crazy while one is just plain practical. Some are scientific breakthroughs waiting to be confirmed as such. This infographic introduces some promising fresh innovations. However, they remain at a stage where researchers and scientists are waiting for validation. Just the same, these ideas are worth trying.

It’s encouraging to know that caring and committed individuals continue to look for solutions to help save the environment.

Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

For today’s knowledge workers, every distraction is a drain on productivity and sanity. 10 Steps to a Zen-like Working Environment

Anthony is an expert broadcaster/professional blogger who is fueled by cappuccino and jazz music. If he's not busy writing for clients, and churning out ebooks for greenhorn broadcasters and freelance writers, he gives tips to entry level broadcasters and freelance writers on his site The Write Freelance

View the original article here

Top 5 Myths About Apple – the Legendary Brand

A lot of people had taken a bite, and it looks like they cannot seem to get enough of it. Each new release is juicier than the previous one so this explains why a lot of people are going gaga over Apple. No, I’m not talking about the fruit per se. I’m talking about the fruit that has become a driving force in the technology industry. What would the world look like today if Apple did not come into existence?

The name Apple is now a world-reknowned brand, famous for bringing into the world the iMac, iPod, and iPhone. With its name tied to innovation, Apple has been the leading brand in smartphones, mp3 players and user-friendly personal computers. But a huge name such as this one isn’t without its surrounding myths and rumors. Critics have been using these myths about Apple as an opportunity to demean the company’s reputation. More often than not, these critics have been proven wrong. So what are these myths exactly?

Steve Jobs is widely known as the founder and CEO of the company and is acclaimed as a top innovator and a tech guru. One thing’s for sure; Apple wouldn’t be where it is if it wasn’t for him. Critics and fans alike have thought that without him, Apple is going to go under. But with his death in 2011, this myth was proven wrong as Apple is still up and going. Sure they grieved Job’s death, but the company went on with their operations to bring us even more innovations and gadgets.

This myth is probably the most popular as it is perceived that Macs don’t get viruses while PCs do. This is false since no operating systems are invulnerable to malware, including the Mac OS. Macs still have their own share of malware but most developers don’t bother creating ones for Mac since the PC market is larger and more accessible. The malware that affects Macs aren’t focused on the operating system’s faults but more on the gullibility of the user. Sometimes, these malware attacks are disguised as anti-virus programs scattered around as ads. Generally, there aren’t many threatening malware that exists for Macs but the surest way to protect yourself from malware is to keep your Mac updated. Yes, it’s that important.

The most common argument between Mac and PC fans are the incompatibility issues. They say that Mac software isn’t compatible with PCs and vice versa; this is not entirely true however, as a lot of programs are usable in both Macs and PCs such as Microsoft Office, most browsers, Adobe programs, and even iTunes. There are even programs that let Mac users to boot the Windows OS and even PC software to boot the Mac OS. A significant difference between the two would be the availability of games. PCs can play almost every game that is available on the market, and Macs get a platform of their own a few months after the game’s release or maybe not at all.

Two years ago, news circulated that Apple installed a tracking code in their iOS 4 update. This has kept Apple users on their feet, really wary and afraid that Apple is tracking their every move. The rumor was so widespread that it spawned the US Congress to conduct a legal inquiry. But Apple has denied the allegations, saying that the data they collected were about WiFi hotspots and cellular towers that are being detected by the iPhone.

Contrary to popular belief, jailbreaking your iPad and your iPhone is not illegal. Of course, it can affect your warranty negatively but as per the U.S. Library of Congress, jailbreaking your Apple device does not mean you are breaking or infringing copyright laws.

Myth busted?

Busted or not, these myths about Apple are the most popularly known among critics and users. There are probably more popular myths or less popular myths surrounding this widely known gadget giant but it would be too big a list if I were to enumerate and describe them all. More myths may emerge in the future and it would be up to the critics and fans to gauge whether these myths are true or not.

You don't want to miss this if you just love this special fruit: 12 Inspiring Quotes from Steve Jobs That Enrich your Day

Featured photo credit: Jim Trottier via Flickr,marianoinwonderland via Tumblr

This post is written by Marlin Codie who works for tetrabyte.com which is an IT Support company that offers IT services and server support. Marlin also works for hoteltravelexpress.com and lets people check out different cheap hotels in Barcelona and other beautiful places in the world.

View the original article here

Are classical music competitions judged on looks?

Looking at the evidence behind a recent news story

The headlines

The Los Angeles Times: People trust eyes – not ears – when judging musicians

Classic FM: Classical singers judged by actions not voice

Nature: Musicians’ appearances matter more than their sound

The story

If you wanted to pick out the musician who won a prestigious classical music competition would you listen to a clip of them playing or watch a silent video of them performing the same piece of music?

Most of us would go for an audio clip rather than video, and we’d be wrong. In a series of experiments, Chia-Jung Tsay from University College London, showed that both novices and expert musicians were better able to pick out the winners when they watched rather than listened to them.

The moral, we’re told, is that how you look is more important than how you sound, even in elite classical music competitions.

What they actually did

Dr Tsay, herself a classically trained musician, used footage from real international classical music competitions. She took the top three finalists and asked volunteers to pick out the real winner – with a cash incentive – by looking at video without sound, sound without video, or both.

Over a series of experiments she showed that people think that audio will be more informative than video, but actually people are able to pick the real winner when watching video clips. But they aren’t able to do this when listening to audio clips (these test subjects only perform at the level of chance). The shocking thing is that when people get sound and video clips, which notionally contain more information, they still perform at chance. The implication being that they would do better if they could block their ears and ignore the sound.

Follow up experiments suggested that people’s ability to pick winners depended on their being able to pick out things associated with “stage presence”. A video reduced to line drawings, designed to remove details and emphasise motion, still allowed people to pick out winners at an above chance rate. Another experiment showed that asking people to identify the “most confident, creative, involved, motivated, passionate, and unique performer” tallied with the real winners.

How plausible is this?

We’re a visual species. How things look really matters, as everyone who has dressed up for an interview knows. It’s also not uncommon for us to be misled into believing that how something looks isn’t as important as it really is (here’s an example: judging wine by the labels rather than the taste).

What is less plausible is the spin put on the story by the headlines. We all know that looks are important, but how can they really be more important than sound in a classical music competition? The most important thing really is the sound, but this research resonates with a popular cliché about how irrational we are.

Tom’s take

The secret to why these experiments give the results they do is in this detail: the judgement that people were asked to make was between the top three finalists in prestigious international competitions. In other words, each of these musicians is among the best in the world at what they do. The best of the best even.

In all probability there is a minute difference between their performances on any scale of quality. The paper itself admits that the judges themselves often disagree about who the winner is in these competitions.

The experimental participants were not scored according to some abstract ability to measure playing quality, but according to how well they were able to match real-world competition outcome.

The experiments show that matching the judges in these competitions can be done based on sight but not on sound. This isn’t because sight reveals playing quality, but because sight gives the experimental participants similar biases to the real judges. The real expert judges are biased by how the performers look – and why not, since there is probably so little to choose between them in terms of how they sound?

This is why the conclusion, spelt out in the original paper, is profoundly misleading: “The findings demonstrate that people actually depend primarily on visual information when making judgements about music performance”. It remains completely plausible that most of us, most of the time, judge music on how it sounds, just like we assumed before this research came out.

In ambiguous cases we might rely on looks over sounds – even the experts among us. This is a blow to musicians who thought it was always just about sound – but isn’t a revelation to the rest of us who knew that when choices are hard, whether during the job interview or the music competition, looks matter.

Read more

The original paper: Sight over sound in the judgment of music performance. Tsay, C-J (2013), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Special mention for the BBC and reporter Melissa Hogenboom who were the only people, as far as I know, who managed to report this story with an accurate headline: Sight dominates sound in music competition judging

The interaction between the senses is an active and fascinating research area. Read more from the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at the Univeristy of Oxford and Cross-modal perception of music network at the University of Sheffield

This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.

View the original article here

13 Ideas of Really Cheap Meals for Broke People

We all have to eat. But it doesn’t mean you have to settle for less-than-great food if you don’t have a lot of money. Here are 13 ideas for really cheap meals for broke people:

It isn’t called rubber chicken because it’s rubbery! But rather because it keeps bouncing back for more meals. One whole, large chicken can feed a family of four for at least four meals.

The first meal is to eat part of the chicken. It can be a rotisserie chicken, or one you cook at home either in the oven or a crock pot. Add some veggies and a starch and you have a meal. When you are done, remove all the excess chicken from the bones and put it aside. Also, save all the bones for meal number three.

The second meal will take some of the chicken from meal one and arrange it over a bed of lettuce. Add whichever veggies you have on hand, perhaps some salsa, and you have a nice, main-course salad.

Take the carcass from meal one and put it in a big pot. Cover with water and add salt and pepper. You can also add any vegetables you wish, like onion or celery, for flavoring. Bring to a boil and simmer on low for a couple of hours. Strain out the solids and you have a nice chicken stock. Use the chicken stock as a basis for chicken soup: add vegetables, some pasta or rice, and you have a filling meal.

The last bit of chicken can be wrapped up in tortillas with some warmed beans, leftover rice and a bit of salsa–a great quick meal!

Chicken isn’t the only meat that can bounce back. Beef can also work the same way.

The crock pot is your best friend for cooking inexpensive cuts of beef. The long cooking time will reduce the toughest piece of beef into a tender blend of flavor. The first of the rubber beef meals is the beef roast dinner. Get a cheap roast from the store and cook it in the crock pot with a cup of cooking liquid (water, broth, or wine) and some vegetables. Save the leftover meat for meals six and seven. Or you can use recipes like this one.

Much like the leftover chicken, you can combine the leftover beef into burrito filling. Add rice, a can of black beans and a dash of pepper for some nice sizzle!

Shredded beef lends itself really well to barbecue sandwiches. Just add whatever sauce you wish to the meat, and serve it on a bun. Add homemade coleslaw to the sandwich for extra zing.

Wraps are a great way to go cheap: they provide a source of carbohydrate while holding all your fillings together. We’ve already talked about beef and chicken burritos, but you can go even cheaper…

A very filling and inexpensive meal can be made with tortillas, refried beans and whichever toppings you prefer. Chopped tomatoes, cabbage, lettuce and other shredded vegetables will round this out for a very healthy meal.

Eggs are an excellent source of protein and are extremely inexpensive. Scramble up some eggs with some vegetables, and you have a great dinner (or breakfast!)

When people say “cheap” and “noodles” in one sentence, they generally mean spaghetti. But this doesn’t mean you have to settle for bland.

Sesame noodles can be made with long pasta, sesame paste and a bit of chili sauce, thinned with broth or water. Add a little onion, cilantro and cucumber for bursts of flavor.

The cheapest commercial spaghetti sauces are also the most bland. Hit your dollar store for spices and give that sauce some taste! Garlic, oregano and basil are standard additions, but a zip of red pepper or chili sauce will warm your tummy.

One of the best ways to stretch your food dollar is to make sure nothing gets thrown away. That means you have to have a way to deal with little bits of leftovers that are not enough to make a full meal. Here are two catch-all ideas for using that last bit of food.

Fried rice is extremely flexible and forgiving. Heat up whatever leftover veggies or meat you have in a bit of oil, then add leftover cooked rice. Make a well in the middle and scramble an egg, then mix it all together for fried rice.

If you’re more in the mood for comfort food, you can make Magic Casserole. Take one leftover meat or protein, add one leftover starch (noodles, rice, or potatoes), one binder (a can of ‘cream-of-something’ soup, leftover gravy or sauce), a vegetable (whatever is available) and a crunchy topping (crushed potato or tortilla chips, fried onions or nuts). Mix everything but the topping together, put it in a casserole dish, add the topping, and bake until heated through.

Cheap meals don’t have to be unhealthy, bland or pre-prepared. Cooking from scratch and using every bit of food is the best way to stretch your food dollar.

If you eat healthier, you feel better: 4 Quick And Easy Tricks To Healthier Eating

Featured photo credit: Two women - one is African American - eating hamburger and drinking soda in a fast food diner; focus on the meal via Shutterstock

LJ Earnest is a computer programmer by day, productivity geek all the time. Using the principles of productivity and simplicity at SimpleProductivityBlog.com, she helps people get through the stuff they have to do so they can get to the stuff they want to do. She also runs the Amazon Kindle search site, CheapBooksForKindle.com

View the original article here

Party Planning Advice: How to Plan an End-of-Summer Blow-Out

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

7 Simple Ways to Work 10 Times Faster

If you’re having trouble staying on task and getting the most out of your day, there are actually several simple ways to maximize productivity so that you can go to sleep feeling accomplished and happy with your progress. They won’t require big life changes, only little tweaks, and you’ll be so happy with the results. Here they are:

Successful people swear by waking up early. At that point, the world is quiet. You haven’t been affected by the distractions of the day, and you get a moment to yourself. Use this time to be your most productive or create a plan for your day. If you’re not an early bird, try setting your alarm just 30 minutes earlier each day until you can comfortably wake up at dawn.

Making lists is a great way to feel productive. Keep the list small so that it does not look overwhelming. Make sure to cross things off as you go to keep your stamina up and your motivation strong. Be sure to keep the list in a place that you can reach it easily. There’s nothing worse for productivity than having multiple lists strewn all over the house. Just make one main list, and make sure that you keep it close by.

We can all be more productive if we have something that we’re looking forward to. If you have a goal to eat dinner with your friends at 6:00 p.m., you’ll be more likely to finish the tasks on that handy list that you made. You can even set bigger goals like paying off debt or reaching a specific number of people for your business. No matter how big or how small, you have to set them.

Being productive is so much easier when someone is keeping you accountable. It can be something as small as telling your mom that you want to work out every day or announcing it to the world on a blog post. Either way, telling someone else about your goals for the day will make you more likely to reach them.

It’s human nature to put off the most difficult task. This leads to more procrastination. However, if you start each day by completing the one thing you are dreading, all of your other tasks will seem small by comparison.

When you do have a great, productive day, don’t forget to treat yourself. When times are tough, you have to give yourself a little reward. Even something as small as getting an ice cream will make you feel great about all you have accomplished.

If you have set goals that you want to reach every day, make sure they are visible to you. You can do this by putting your goals on a big dry erase board or writing them on sticky notes that you put on your monitor. The point is that they are supposed to be in a place where you can look when you are feeling unproductive or weak. Those reminders of yours goals should be enough to push you forward to succeed.

Ultimately, there are many ways to become more productive. You can use an item on this list or a combination of them until you find what works best for you. We’re all motivated in different ways, and what’s most important is that you spend some time trying to find out what helps you to get your goals accomplished. Good luck, and if you have any other productivity tips, please leave them in the comment section below.

Here’s a collection of 50 hacks, tips, tricks, and mnemonic devices I’ve collected that can help you work better 50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily

Featured photo credit: Sander van der Welvia Flickr

View the original article here

Find Your Passion: Follow Your Dreams... And Other Useless Advice

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

7 Steps to Beat Your Fear of Flying

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Three-Person Relationships

For the past few years I’ve enjoyed being in an open relationship. This has been a wonderful path of growth to explore. Sure it subjects you to some extra criticism, but most of that gets out of the way in the first day or two, so in the long run it’s negligible. The rewards of this type of exploration are far greater than the drawbacks IMO.

I’m grateful for having tried the monogamous marriage path for more than a decade, but I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life living that way. I feel very appreciative that I’m well along in this new phase of my relationship life now, one that gives me a sense of possibility and abundance.

One area I haven’t explored yet is the idea of three-person relationships. By this I mean a triad of people who consider themselves to be in a relationship with each other to the same extent that a couple might declare themselves to be “in a relationship” together.

As in all relationships, it’s the people in a given relationship who define the scope, structure, and boundaries of that relationship, so just as a two-person relationship could have all sorts of variations, the same is true for three-person relationships.

The two most common forms of three-person relationships are Vs and triangles. In a V-style relationship, one person has individual bonds with the other two partners, but those other partners would not consider themselves to be in a relationship with each other. So the letter V itself is a visualization of that type of relationship, with each person being at one of the three points of the V. A common situation where you might find a V structure is with a couple where one member of the couple also has a lover on the side.

In a triangle type of relationship, all three people consider themselves to be in relationship with each other. You might see such a relationship with one man and two bisexual women, for instance. All sorts of variations are possible, with the structure and parameters being determined by the members.

Polyfidelity is a label that can be applied to relationships with three or more people, whereby the relationship is in some way closed to outsiders. The members of the group may prefer to restrict sexual connections to within the group only, and/or they may not want anyone in the group falling in love with an outsider. This is basically the poly version of a monogamous relationship, so it has its own definition of cheating.

When it comes to exploring open relationships, some people are passively open while others are more actively open. Passive openness means that you’re not actively seeking out new partners, but if an opportunity comes to you fairly easily, you may be inclined to accept the invitation and enjoy it. Active openness means that you proactively invite new connections instead of only passively waiting for them to show up.

Over the past three years, I’ve oscillated between both of these postures. Sometimes I’ve been pretty passive, mainly enjoying my connection with my girlfriend and enjoying an occasional threesome. Other times I’ve felt like being more proactive, so I put out invites for the types of connections I wanted to experience.

If I want more connections, I can hold a more actively open posture and be more flirtatious and inviting. If I feel like being in my own space for a while, I may switch to passive-open or even closed (where I’d turn down new connections when offered).

People normally switch between active, passive, and closed modes with casual social invites, choosing a posture that gives them what they want, and it’s not difficult to extend this dynamic into less casual connections.

I really like blending the benefits of monogamy with the experience of openness. I love having a stable girlfriend and the love, intimacy, and special connection that we share. I also love being able to connect with other women when the opportunity arises or I have a proactive desire to do so. And I especially love playing with Rachelle and another woman together.

When people ask me about my relationship life, I think they sometimes expect to hear stories of drama and problems due to the openness factor, but the reality is that it’s very easy, flowing, loving, and fun.

Recently Rachelle and I have been discussing new ways we could continue to learn, explore, and grow together. One idea that we’re certain about is travel. We love going on extended trips together, so there’s no doubt we’ll keep doing more of that.

A bigger stretch we began talking about recently was the idea of experiencing a three-person relationship with another woman. We’ve played with other women together and have quite enjoyed that. What would it be like to share a deeper level of intimacy with someone else for a longer stretch of time? We can’t answer that question since we’ve never tried this.

That said, as we discussed this possibility, we realized that we’re actually in agreement with what we’d want in another partner if we were to be in a triangle-style relationship (a V-style one doesn’t appeal to us). The other woman would have to be vegan, bisexual, compassionate, growth-oriented, smart, cuddly, honest, responsible, mild tempered, playfully submissive, open to lots of D/s play, and have a love of travel like we do. And obviously she’d need sufficient freedom and availability to enter into this kind of exploration with us in person.

Even this short list of criteria will rule out most women, and that’s fine with us. We wouldn’t want to attempt this with just anyone. She’d have to be someone pretty unusual, just like us.

We could be more flexible, which gives us a higher chance of finding a match, but Rachelle and I agree that we’d rather not compromise. We need sufficient compatibility in our lifestyle desires and values to give us a good base for connecting, but other differences are fine since that’s where we can learn from each other.

So why am I sharing this? Are we taking applications or something? Mainly I wanted to share this because it helps me lean into it and get comfortable with the idea.

As far as ideas go, this one both excites and scares me. I think it could be an amazing amount of fun and a wonderful challenge for the heart and mind alike. But I’d be very selective about letting anyone into this exploration with us in such an intimate way, and Rachelle is very selective too. I’m not into relationship drama, and I don’t want to invite someone in who’d seek to mess up the connection between Rachelle and me.

So at this point my stance is somewhere between passive open and active open. I’m open to the possibility if the right person should pop onto our radar, but I haven’t actively gone out and invited anyone to actually try this with us.

Three-person relationships have some interesting advantages over two-person relationships. Some are practical while others are just about increasing the fun and stimulation.

If the three people live together, then there’s a bit less work for each person in terms of daily tasks like making meals. It’s not that much more work to make dinner for three people vs. two. Similarly, one person could research and make reservations for a trip that all three could take.

Some activities are just more enjoyable with a third person due to the added energy. A good example would be receiving a two-on-one massage. Another would be having a threesome. I imagine you’d want to maintain good physical fitness if you expect to do a lot of that together.

In a monogamous two-person relationship, if your partner declines a certain activity invite, you’re out of luck, unless you want to invite a friend who lives further away. But in a three-person relationship, you can just go and ask the other person, and maybe you’ll get a yes. So for any two-person activities, you have two people you can ask, thus increasing your chances of having someone available.

If you have a problem to solve, you can have a three-way discussion about it, which helps compensate for individual biases. You also have the knowledge, talents, and support of an extra person at your disposal.

Many of the advantages of three-person relationships are the same that arise in families or teams, but some are specific to intimate connections, like being able to cuddle with two lovers at once, or having two people get to know you very deeply.

While a three-person relationship may sound complicated or difficult to initiate, all it takes is for three like-minded people to consent to it. Each person may have different reasons for wanting to invite such an experience, but as long as their desires are compatible, they can create this experience.

If it works out well, wonderful. If it doesn’t work out so well, it will surely be an interesting learning experience.

I don’t necessarily expect such a three-person connection to be super stable in the long run. I figure it will probably be more temporary than a two-person connection, partly because three-person connections are easier to break up (only one in three people has to decide to leave). I think it could be a really fascinating thing to explore even if it doesn’t last long. All human experiences are temporary anyway.

Consent alone, however, isn’t quite enough for me. I’d also want us to have compatible intentions as to why we’d want to explore such a relationship. Mine would be to learn, grow, explore, share love and intimacy, make people feel good, and have a ridiculous amount of fun together. Rachelle and I already have this kind of connection, so while it would be a stretch to invite a third person into this, I think it has a fair chance of creating even more joy for three people, at least for a while.

Whether this type of connection works out well or quickly goes bust, I think it’s worth the risk to try it. Rachelle and I have been enjoying an open relationship since we first got together, so we aren’t coming from a traditional place to begin with. We also have years of practice with open, honest, communication. And we find it very easy to keep connecting from a place of love. I don’t realistically see our connection being threatened by adding another person to it, as long as we hold to our values and select someone like-minded. I think it’s more likely that our two-person connection could morph into something even greater.

I must admit that even to me, this idea feels a bit weird. But I tend to do well with ideas that once seemed weird to me, such as making a living from blogging or moving to Las Vegas. So given my track record with weird ideas, I have the honest expectation that if we do find someone who’s a good match for this, it will probably work out beautifully. And if it happens to go the way of polyphasic sleep, then at least it will make for a tremendous growth experience.

Steve Recommends
Here are my recommendations for products and services I've reviewed that can improve your results. This is a short list since it only includes my top picks.

Food Revolution Summit (FREE) - Learn how to eat for mental sharpness
Feng Shui Fest (FREE) - Learn feng shui to increase peace and prosperity
Site Build It! - Use SBI to start your own money-making website
Getting Rich with Ebooks - Earn passive income from ebooks
Lefkoe Method - Permanently eliminate a limiting belief in 20 minutes
Paraliminals - Condition your mind for positive thinking and success
The Journal - Record your life lessons in a secure private journal
PhotoReading - Read books 3 times faster
Sedona Method (FREE audios) - Learn to release blocks in a few minutes
Life on Purpose - A step-by-step process to discover your life purpose

If you've found Steve's work helpful, please donate to show your support.
Get Steve's Free Newsletter to stay in touch and receive the newest updates

View the original article here