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POPSQuotes from Voltaire Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher known for his wit, philosophical sport, and defense of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform despite strict censorship laws in France and harsh penalties for those who broke them. A satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize Christian Church dogma and the French institutions of his day. -- From Wikipedia
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POPSSpeaking whales Uplifting is on its way... :) I wonder when will us humans learn some things from the whales?
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POPSStudy: 93% Of People Talked About Once They Leave Room "As well as their breath, body odor, speech patterns, and the way they walked, not to mention general discussion based on the perception that the participant who had left the room was most likely a world-class prick." According to the data, 89 percent of volunteers appeared to listen attentively to the subject's receding footsteps, 47 percent raised their eyebrows and smirked as the subject left, and 23 percent mouthed the words "what the fuck" to others in the room as the door was closing, which usually triggered bouts of stifled giggling Perhaps most exciting was the 9 percent of volunteers who silently flipped the subject off as they left the room, Phillips said the lower-order cognitive functions responsible for knee-jerk gossiping may have played an ancient role in survival by encouraging those in proximity to band together.
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POPSOn Architecture and Elegance bridge is endowed with a subcategory of beauty we can refer to as elegance, a quality present whenever a work of architecture succeeds in carrying out an act of resistance—holding, spanning, sheltering—with grace and economy as well as strength; when it has the modesty not to draw attention to the difficulties it has surmounted. From philosophical historian Alain de Botton's inimitable The Architecture of Happiness , itself a paradigmatic illustration of the aesthetic elegance of well-engineered minimalism (be it architectural or textual). The NYRB's synopsis of de Botton's work makes note of this: The simplicity of his writing is not the product of a simple mind.... In The Consolations of Philosophy (2000) he remarked that "there are...no legitimate reasons why books in the humanities should be difficult or boring; wisdom does not require a specialized vocabulary or syntax."
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POPSbeautiful simplicity He doesn’t find the need to try and make things look cool. “Whenever I try to make something “cool” it tends to just look like crap.” He lets the beauty take care of itself.<<
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POPSYep again! So true...so very damn true! You wonder why our military is stretched too thin...why we need Asia and the Middle East to bail out our banks...why we haven't embraced alternatives to oil like Asia and Europe have...why we haven't caught Bin Laden... Maybe it's because we keep electing people that seem cool to hang out with but aren't capable of leading the world's most powerful nation. How about George Bush and Sarah Palin start a tv show called "politicians that seem fun to hang out with" and we start electing more boring but gifted people as President.
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POPSExpressions that define cultures 9. Maningue Nice, Mozambique A cross between a purely national term and a flair of English, maningue nice means “very nice” and is the closest thing to a slogan in Mozambique. Scream it from the tallest buildings whenever fortune favors you. 10. Bahala Na, Philippines Come What May. A Cross Cultural Theme When I started researching these expressions, I was expecting to find similarities based on geography: patterns in Asia, South America, Western Europe, etc. I was surprised, however, to find a cross-cultural theme; many of these phrases are used in response to circumstances beyond people’s control. How each culture is epitomized in these terms is indicative of how they react to unfortunate or unavoidable events. The Japanese and French suck it up; the Thais, Kiwis, Aussies, and others shrug it off; Arabs put the responsibility to a higher power.
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POPSThe Things We Remember Outstanding. Familiarity is a double-edged sword: It’s comfortable, but it can also be boring. Novel experiences combat the dull edge of routine and make for enduring, positive memories... Make a habit of really listening to each other’s stories... Giving over your full attention conveys love and respect and strengthens family bonds. Recency. We also tend to remember events and experiences that happened most recently, so it’s wise to bring special attention to the last interactions we have with family each day. Close the day with your family just as you started it: with loving words and sweet sentiments. Personal Association. We all want to be appreciated for our uniqueness. Recognizing and celebrating each family member’s individuality fosters feelings of connection and intimacy. With mindfulness and a willingness to shift our behaviors to play to the power of memory, we can create our own rituals to bring more intimacy to our closest relationships.
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POPSSweden's Ultra-Modern Underground Data Center
When asked the motivation behind Pionen, Jon Karlung, CEO of Bahnhof said “Rather than just concentrating on technical hardware we decided to put humans in focus. Of course, the security, power, cooling, network, etc, are all top notch, but the people designing data centers often (always!) forget about the humans that are supposed to work with the stuff.” “Since we got hold of this unique nuclear bunker in central Stockholm deep below the rock, we just couldn't’t build it like a traditional – more boring – hosting center,” he said. “We wanted to make something different. The place itself needed something far out in design and science fiction was the natural source of inspiration in this case – plus of course some solid experience from having been a hosting provider for more than a decade.” Regarding the design of the facility, he said “I’m personally a big fan of old science fiction movies. Especially ones from the 70s like Logan’s Run, Silent Running, Star Wars...
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POPSJust for the Love of It: Riches beyond Cash
It's about sharing your tools so you all can have access to all the tools under the sun without it costing the earth. It's about using any free space you have to either benefit positive, ethical and local projects, or to enable volunteers to keep doing their amazing work for free. It's about sharing the land you don't need in order to facilitate a local food community. It's about freeconnecting neighbours. It's about learning to help each other again. It's about getting ready for a post peak oil world. It's about making dinner for a friend who was yesterday a stranger. It's about keeping money out of the equation. It's about communicating face-to-face and phasing out technological communication. It's about putting the soul back into society. It's about helping each other not for profit, but just for the love-ofit. What is a Freeconomy? A Freeconomy is a moneyless society in which no money changes and there is no duality between giving and receiving; here they are seen as
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POPSA Recipe for Motivation "The findings were remarkable. Those who had read the exercise instructions in an unadorned, accessible typeface were much more open to the prospect of exercising: They believed that the regimen would take less time and that it would feel more “fluid” and easy. Most important, they were more willing to make exercise part of their day. Apparently, the students’ brains mistook the ease of reading about exercise for ease of actually doing the pushups and crunches, and this misunderstanding motivated them to actually think about a life change. Those who struggled through the Japanese brushstrokes had no intention of heading to the gym; the reading alone tired them out".
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POPSNothing Lasts Forever, Not Even Belgium Belgium: the country where other European countries go to fight their apocalyptic wars. Flemish: Somehow not quite Dutch, but only they can tell the difference. Waffles: Yum. Endives: Not as boring as lettuce. White asparagus: whiter than regular asparagus, I guess. Eels in garlic sauce: okay, now that's taking it a bit too far... Yes, for those who thought you could take things for granted, and who just assumed that such a stalwart pillar of modern nationhood as Belgium would be around forever: prepare for extreme-right xenophobic "Flemish" nationalist Filip (Philip to those filthy Wallonians) Dewinter to rock your world: "It's 'bye-bye Belgium' time!" Indeed, it is a sad day for humanity, and a bitter personal defeat for me, being as I had long argued that Chocolate and Beer were in fact enough to keep a nation of feuding and indistinguishable ethnic groups together. Guess I can't be right all the time!
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POPSDo you have the right stuff to be a NASA Pillownaut? The effects of lying in bed for months on end aren’t pretty. Our bodies are used to being used. Astronauts and “pillownauts” as some study participants call themselves, experience muscle atrophy and even some mild bone-density loss. They also can experience headaches, nausea and a host of other unpleasant symptoms. It can take astronauts weeks or months to readjust to the Earth’s gravitational force. “If I hadn’t done it, I would have just gotten another IT job, probably,” Archuletta said. But she’s a space lover and wanted to contribute to humanity’s return to the moon and Mars. And maybe do a little something different. “Something unique, something not in an office environment,” she said. “It was a chance to confront stillness in a way.”
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POPSCooking and Cognition: How Humans Got So Smart We started innovating. We tried different materials, such as bone, and invented many new tools, including needles for beadwork. Responding to, presumably, our first abstract thoughts, we started creating art and maybe even religion. To understand what caused the cognitive spurt, Khaitovich and colleagues examined chemical brain processes known to have changed in the past 200,000 years. Comparing apes and humans, they found the most robust differences were for processes involved in energy metabolism. The finding suggests that increased access to calories spurred our cognitive advances, said Khaitovich, carefully adding that definitive claims of causation are premature. The research is detailed in the August 2008 issue of Genome Biology.
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POPSRevolutionary materials reflect ancient forms Because crystals and quasicrystals comprise different material classes with differing physical and chemical properties, the observed intermediate structure is striking. "The combination of crystalline and quasicrystalline structural elements will likely lead to novel material properties"
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POPSRules Kids Won't Learn In School "This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it or you'll sound like a baby boomer."
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