A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience,
Raised a glass of water and asked;
'How heavy is this glass of water?'
Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g.
The lecturer replied, 'The absolute weight doesn't matter.
It depends on how long you try to hold it.
If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem.
If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm.
If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance.
In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it,
the heavier it becomes.'
He continued,
'And that's the way it is with stress management..
If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later,
As the burden becomes increasingly heavy,
We won't be able to carry on. '
'As with the glass of water,
You have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again.
When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden.'
'So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down.
Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow.
Whatever burdens you're carrying now,
Let them down for a moment if you can.'
So, my friend, Put down anything that may be a burden to you right now.
Don't pick it up again until after you've rested a while.
Here are some great ways of dealing with the burdens of life:
* Accept that some days you're the pigeon,
And some days you're the statue.
* Always keep your words soft and sweet,
Just in case you have to eat them.
* Always wear stuff that will make you look good
If you die in the middle of it.
* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be
"Recalled" by their maker.
* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again,
It was probably worth it.
* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to be kind to others.
* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time,
Because then you won't have a leg to stand on.
* Nobody cares if you can't dance well.
Just get up and dance.
* When everything's coming your way,
You're in the wrong lane.
* Birthdays are good for you.
The more you have, the longer you live.
* You may be only one person in the world,
But you may also be the world to one person.
* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
* We could learn a lot from crayons...
Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull.
Some have weird names, and all are different colours,
but they all have to live in the same box.
*A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery
on a detour.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
The 10 Biggest Misconceptions We Learn in School
from: smilepanic.com
1) Einstein got bad grades in school Generations of children have been heartened by the thought that this Nobel Prize winner did badly at school, but they're sadly mistaken. In fact, he did very well at school, especially in science and maths. Jury explains this as being down to Americans interpreting Einstein's 4's as D's. Karl Kruszelnicki, however, explains that it was all to do with changes to the system of marking at Einstein's school (back in1896).
2) Mice like cheese While any young child could tell you this, any mice would (if they could speak rather than squeak) explain otherwise. It appears that mice enjoy food rich in sugar, as explained in the Times, as well as peanut butter and breakfast cereals. So a Snickers bar would go down much better than a lump of cheddar.
3) Napoleon was short He was actually around 5ft 7, completely average for the 18th/19th century.
4) Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Edison invented a lot of things - in fact he's one of the most famous inventors of all time - but the light bulb wasn't one of them. What he did was develop a light bulb at the same time as the British man, Joseph Swan, who came up with it originally.
5) Lemmings throw themselves over cliffs to commit suicide Why do we have such negative opinions of lemmings? The poor old things are sometimes so desperate for food that they do, according to the BBC "jump over high ground into water", but they aren't committing group suicide. Paul Jury blames Disney for showing the lemmings doing this in an early nature film. They've been tarnished ever since.
6) Water flushes differently in different hemispheres No it doesn't. Sorry!
7) Humans evolved from apes Darwin didn't actually say this, but he's been misreported ever since. What he did say was that we, and apes, and chimpanzees for that matter, had a common ancestor, once, a long, long time ago.
8) Vikings had horns/helmets with horns. This may upset an awful lot of people, but it's pure myth. According to the Jorvik Centre, it appears that Vikings may have been buried with their helmets and with drinking horns. When they were dug up by the Victorians, they assumed that the helmets had horns.
9) Columbus believed the earth was flat He didn't, you know. He may not have known how big the world was, but he wasn't worrying about falling off the edge of it.
10) Different parts of the tongue detect different tastes You do have different taste buds on your tongue and some are more sensitive than others. But they aren't divided into perfect, easy-to-teach sections.
1) Einstein got bad grades in school Generations of children have been heartened by the thought that this Nobel Prize winner did badly at school, but they're sadly mistaken. In fact, he did very well at school, especially in science and maths. Jury explains this as being down to Americans interpreting Einstein's 4's as D's. Karl Kruszelnicki, however, explains that it was all to do with changes to the system of marking at Einstein's school (back in1896).
2) Mice like cheese While any young child could tell you this, any mice would (if they could speak rather than squeak) explain otherwise. It appears that mice enjoy food rich in sugar, as explained in the Times, as well as peanut butter and breakfast cereals. So a Snickers bar would go down much better than a lump of cheddar.
3) Napoleon was short He was actually around 5ft 7, completely average for the 18th/19th century.
4) Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. Edison invented a lot of things - in fact he's one of the most famous inventors of all time - but the light bulb wasn't one of them. What he did was develop a light bulb at the same time as the British man, Joseph Swan, who came up with it originally.
5) Lemmings throw themselves over cliffs to commit suicide Why do we have such negative opinions of lemmings? The poor old things are sometimes so desperate for food that they do, according to the BBC "jump over high ground into water", but they aren't committing group suicide. Paul Jury blames Disney for showing the lemmings doing this in an early nature film. They've been tarnished ever since.
6) Water flushes differently in different hemispheres No it doesn't. Sorry!
7) Humans evolved from apes Darwin didn't actually say this, but he's been misreported ever since. What he did say was that we, and apes, and chimpanzees for that matter, had a common ancestor, once, a long, long time ago.
8) Vikings had horns/helmets with horns. This may upset an awful lot of people, but it's pure myth. According to the Jorvik Centre, it appears that Vikings may have been buried with their helmets and with drinking horns. When they were dug up by the Victorians, they assumed that the helmets had horns.
9) Columbus believed the earth was flat He didn't, you know. He may not have known how big the world was, but he wasn't worrying about falling off the edge of it.
10) Different parts of the tongue detect different tastes You do have different taste buds on your tongue and some are more sensitive than others. But they aren't divided into perfect, easy-to-teach sections.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Music Economic Model = Fail
The problem is the economic model no longer works. Here's the quick and dirty process of how things like video games get made and consumed.
Create Data
Create Storage Medium
Put Data Onto Medium
Sell Medium
Let's take music for an example. The difference between recordings from the 20s and those of today is in the medium. Records had their costs based on several factors - materials, manufacturing labor and technology, distribution, and non-replicability.
Compare that to digital data - no materials, no manufacturing, nearly unlimited distribution, nearly unlimited replication. The only cost is the electricity consumed and the computer hardware which it runs through.
Why could record companies charge $20 for a CD fifteen or so years ago? Because you couldn't copy them, or make them yourself. Then people found ways to rewrite discs and to burn their own. Suddenly a CD of music costs mere cents for the discs themselves and the electricity to put data on them.
The costs of artists actually making art hasn't changed. The cost of distribution has dropped. The total cost of producing art has dropped as a result. Consumers simply will not continue to pay the old prices which no longer reflect current costs.
My proposed solution? Artists return to patronage systems. Video game developers are directly paid by gamers to develop their games. Musicians are directly paid to create new music. Cut out the corporate middle-men, send them packing. I'm sure they can find equally underhanded and money-grubbing employment elsewhere. Such as Wall Street.
~D. Walker
DRM Fail
From Cory Doctorow:
DRM has no connection with preventing piracy. Pirates download the DRM-cracked versions. DRM on music is there to reduce the rights that you get in copyright -- the right to play your music on a competitor's device, the right to sell or give away your music, and so on. These rights are enshrined in law, but DRM is a loophole to copyright law, since breaking DRM is prohibited even for people who are making otherwise lawful uses.
The reason people break DRM is that is makes unreasonable, unilateral incursions on your property rights: your right to lawfully enjoy the products you purchase, in lawful ways. The reason I celebrate breaks to DRM is that they show:
1. That the technical hypothesis that DRM will prevent piracy is ridiculous
2. That the public has the capacity to reassert its rights under law and practice and restore the reasonable social contract between creators and audiences
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