Ten Rules for Being Human
1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Ten Rules for Being Human
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Ten Tips for Killer Eye Contact
Until then, here are ten tips to focus on.
1. When you make eye contact with a woman you don’t know, let her look away first. Practice holding eye contact with people longer. Start with your friends. Then start giving more eye contact to strangers. If you meet eyes with a woman, try to let her look way before you do.
2. When you break eye contact, don’t look back for a fraction of a second. People with low-confidence tend to look at a person, look away, and then look back again momentarily. This is a “checking” motion. It shows neediness because you are checking to see what the other person is doing rather than being confident in yourself.
3. Relax and have a pleasant look on your face. When you do make eye contact with someone lighten up your face. Put on a hint of a smile or at least relax your face as much as possible. You want it to look warm, inviting and pleasant, perhaps how it would look if you were talking to a friend. If women are getting creeped out, it’s likely you are either too intense or too scared.
4. Give as much eye contact as possible when in conversation. When you are in a conversation and the other person is talking, look them in the eye 100% of the time. It’s okay to look away a bit more if you’re talking. When you are talking, look the other person in the eye 70-100% of the time. It’s also okay to look away when you are joking around with her or teasing her.
5. When in a group, always look at whom ever is speaking. You don’t always have to be the center of attention. It’s okay to give other people the spotlight. But you want to make sure that you look at whom ever is speaking at the time. If you are looking elsewhere, you come across as reclusive.
6. Getting eye contact is about what you do with your whole body. How much eye contact you get from women will have more to do with your body language than the way you move your eyes. If you are walking with a confident swagger, you will get more eye contact. Women notice you from a mile away, probably before you even notice them. And what they see is how you move. They see how you carry yourself.
I like to visualize that I own the place, that I’m walking around making sure everyone is having fun. I also sometimes visualize that I’m a police officer, that I own the road and I’m looking past all these civilians for something important. Basically the idea is that you are a very important person.
7. Get Comfortable Being Seen. Eye contact is dependent more on how you react to people when they look at you, rather than how you look at other people. Confident guys are normally the leaders of their group. Everyone in the group is looking to them to see what’s going to happen next. The confident guys absorbs the gaze of those around him. He enjoys it. You can practice getting comfortable being seen by taking up a lot of space.
When walking I like to visualize is that I’m not letting people get past me on the sidewalk. How would you walk if you didn’t want people to pass you? You would make yourself bigger. When I walk into a room, I walk through the center of it, even if it’s empty. If I’m sitting with a group of people, I opt for the middle of the group.
8. Keep your eyes at the horizon level or above as opposed to looking down. Looking down is associated with shame and deference to a superior. Picture children when they get in trouble and an adult is yelling at them. They hang their head in shame and look down. You want to do the opposite of this. When you break eye contact with people, don’t look down, look to the either side.
9. When approaching a woman, don’t stare at her. When walking over to a woman to talk to her, try not to focus too much on her. This is simply because it’s intimidating. She can feel you staring at her. When I do it, I act pretty as if I were looking around for where I’m going and am about to ask her for directions. Even if she’s not looking at you she can feel someone’s eyes boring down into her. It will freak her out. You definitely want to give her eye contact when you get to her. But try looking away before you get to her.
10. Do not wait for eye contact to approach. If I waited for eye contact before I approached, I would never approach anyone. I was never good at the eye contact game and I approached and dated many many women. I began to get a lot more eye contact after I started approaching. The approaching made me confident and women could sense that. They were attracted to that. Learn as much as you can about eye contact but don’t rely on it. If you are still learning the signals you will still need to approach to find out if you are reading the signals correctly.
There are really no hard and fast rules when it comes to eye contact. Try some different things and see what works for you. Every person is different.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Top 10 Websites to Download your Music legally for Free
If you’re a big fan of downloading tracks from the internet then check out the following websites that will provide you free downloads for your favorite song.
1. Jamendo
Jamendo is your one stop to unlimited and legal downloads. You can find music by artist’s name, song name or album name. Currently there are 12541 published albums along with 67398 album reviews and around 417100 members. Join Now
2. Artist Server
Artist Server has the tools and services to help you promote, distribute and track your music online. You can even have your own blog, radio station, favorites list, Website friends list and more.
3. GarageBand
GarageBand covers a wide range of genres and offers a large number of tunes for download. The majority of artists will be unknown to most people, due to the nature of the site, but the review and rating system makes it easy to pinpoint and listen to the most popular tracks.
4. Live Music Archive
Live music archive contains a large collection of live recordings from a wide range of artists. Please note that the site runs a policy which does not adhere to any particular set of laws, and states so in its Terms and Conditions, and makes the user responsible for making sure that the content is legal in their own country.
5.Epitonic
Epitonic also has a large number of online radio stations based on several genres and subgenres that are worth a listen. The site is a little confusing at first, but once you work out where the genre and artist lists are, its fairly simple from there
6. Download.com
I’m pretty sure we are all familiar with Download.com already. The music is generally from unknown and unsigned artists, but the range and quantity of material here is staggering. Currently it’s offering more than 80,000 free MP3s!
7. Freemp3Mail
FreeMp3Mail is a Free legal download system in which the user creates an account by giving the site an email address and a password. It is a great source for free music downloads. The best part about it is that all of the music is 100% legal and yours to keep.
8. AltSonunds
AltSounds is an alternative online music community. It gives listeners a place to find the best new music available in an environment that works for them and with them. Like the sites I’ve mentioned above it also offers free legal streaming and downloads.
9. SoundClick
Soundclick is one of my personal favorite websites. I’ve been using it for a long long time now. Not only you get to download your favorite track but there are so many versions available for most of these songs created by other users. You can even buy or sell music there.
10. Amazon
Last but not the least Amazon is one of the biggest websites out there that offers free music downloads for it’s users. The popular one-stop-shop has a small selection of tracks available for download for free. These are changed regularly, but are often by known artists.
http://techcityinc.com/2008/10/14/top-10-websites-to-download-your-music-legally-for-free/
Indian author Aravind Adiga wins Man Booker Prize 2008
Young Indian writer Aravind Adiga is one of the two first-time novelists on the 2008 Man Booker's shortlist of six. The other is Australia's Steve Toltz.
Only two other debut novelists have achieved this in the past - D B C Pierre in 2003 for his novel Vernon God Little and India's Arundhati Roy in 1997 for The God of Small Things .
33-year-old Adiga, who wanted to be a novelist since he was a boy, was born in Chennai and now lives in Mumbai.
The White Tiger is a "compelling, angry and darkly humorous" novel about a man's journey from Indian village life to entrepreneurial success. It was described by reviewers as an "unadorned portrait" of Indian scene "from the bottom of the heap".
Adiga is the fourth Indian born-author to win the prize, joining compatriots Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai who won the prize in 1981, 1997 and 2006 respectively.
A fifth winner, V S Naipaul is of Indian ancestry. Adiga's The White Tiger is the ninth winning novel to take its inspiration from India or Indian identity.
Today's win is a first for publisher Atlantic; although they had books shortlisted for the prize in 2003 with The Good Doctor by Damon Gaigut and in 2004 withBitter Fruit by Achmat Dangor.
Peter Clarke, Chief Executive of Man Group PLC, presented a cheque of 50,000 pounds to Adiga at a gala dinner in the Guildhall here.
Michael Portillo, Chair of the judges, said "The judges found the decision difficult because the shortlist contained such strong candidates. In the end, The White Tiger prevailed because the judges felt that it shocked and entertained in equal manner.
"The novel undertakes the extraordinarily difficult task of gaining and holding the reader's sympathy...dealing with pressing social issues and significant global developments with astonishing humour."
Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives 2,500 pounds (USD 4,357) and a designer-bound edition of their book.
The judging panel for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction comprised: former MP and Cabinet minister Michael Portillo, editor of Granta Alex Clark; novelists Louise Doughty, founder of Ottakar's bookshops James Heneage and Hardeep Singh Kohli, a TV and radio broadcaster.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Aravind_Adiga_wins_Man_Booker_Prize_for_White_Tiger/articleshow/3596800.cms
27 Reasons to Visit Spain
Practicing your Spanish is a great reason for visiting Spain, but who wants to do that?
Oh, that’s right, you do and I do.
But in addition to that, there are other great reasons. I’ll let the following pictures take the place of about 27,000 words.
1
They really light up the Agbar Tower at Glòries in Barcelona.
2
The entrance to Gaudi’s Güell Park in Barcelona, looks like an enchanted place. This is one of about 70 municipal parks in the city.
3
If you’re tired of the parks, take a stroll on Barcelona’s beaches.
4
You might also like the beaches of Cádiz.
5
The Aran Valley in Catalonia looks like a really inviting place.
6
The Mosque or Mezquita in Córdoba has some really colorful pillars and arches.
7
You get to fly into one of the most colorful airports I’ve seen. This is the Barajas International in Madrid.
8
La Peñalara is the highest peak in the mountain chain Sierra de Guadarrama.
9
The Metrópolis building, on Gran Vía.
10
The Puerta Alcalá at the entrance to a park called El Retiro.
11
The Alcazaba, an 8th centruy Moorish fortification stands over a Roman theater in Málaga.
12
The Castillo Gibralfaro, on a hill next to the Alcazaba in Málaga.
13
The harbor at Málaga.
14
A Roman theater in Mérida.
15
The Pyrenees.
16
Roman aqueduct in Segovia.
17
The Puente Alamillo in Sevilla.
18
The Romans sure built a lot of aqueducts and theaters in the Iberian Peninsula. This one’s in Sevilla.
19
City Hall behind a fountain in Valencia.
20
This rounded glass building known as L’Hemisfèric is an Imax theater, Planetarium and Laserium in the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias in Valencia.
21
La Lonja de la seda, known affectionatly as La Lonja, was built as an oil market and was later used as a silk exchange.
22
A typical narrow street in the old part of town, Valencia.
23
The Aljafería, an 11th century Moorish palace and castle in Zaragoza.
24
La Puerta del Carmen, Zaragoza. Wouldn’t it be interesting to drive down a modern thoroughfare and drive by this?
25
The River Ebro running through Zaragoza. Looks like the setting for a Harry Potter book.
26
A snowy afternoon at Pilar’s square, Zaragoza.
27
Plaza de las catedrales, in Zaragoza.
Picture credit goes to Wikipedia and the volunteers who create it. You can find these pictures by starting at the article about Spain and following links to other articles.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Free group SMSes from Google soon
After SMS-based search, Google Labs in India has launched Google SMS channel – a platform to send free group SMS. Currently, in a pilot phase, Google is testing the product in India and intends to launch it to global audiences later. It supports English, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada languages. No commercial date for the launch has been announced.
The SMS channel was fully conceptualised by Google India Labs. Prasad Ram, head (R&D), Google India, says, “The SMS channel is in line with our endeavour to connect the 250-million mobile subscribers who have no access to information.”
Unlike other group SMS providers, Google’s SMS channel does not add any advertisement on the message footer, so group publishers get full 160 character messages to post. But Prasad is not ruling out monetary opportunity from embedded advertisements during the commercial launch. “Banner advertisement and contextual marketing can be among many ways to monetise this channel.”
At present, Google allows publishers to create individual channels and publish content that other users can subscribe to after registering with valid mobile numbers. Google expects non-governmental organisations (NGOs), corporates and schools among others to create groups over SMS for communication and regular updates.
Ram says, “Google foresees a large uptake for similar mobile services and will continue to work from our India labs to deliver such products for both international and domestic markets.”
As of now, one can subscribe to a maximum of 30 channels and by default receive a maximum of 10 SMSes per day, which can be changed later. Subscribers can even define the time slot for receiving SMS. A content publisher doesn’t need a mobile phone to send an SMS to his group as there’s an option in Google SMS channel that lets him compose and send SMS via the web itself.
The Google service looks like an improved version of existing group messaging services such as Zook, SMSgupshup and Mytoday. Zook had recently announced an alert service that enables users to track local shopping deals or movie and content updates such as events, weather, traffic, cricket news among others. Google’s SMS channel can work great for publishers as they get a dedicated marketing hook to keep users engaged, which none of the other services offer. For instance, a neighbourhood bookstore on SMS channel can inform subscribers about new titles and special offers.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Random Photos Worth Looking At
| Random Photos Worth Looking At |
          |
Funny words english vs German
| word | meaning in English | meaning in German |
|---|---|---|
| GIFT | a present | poison |
| DANK | chilly wet | gratefulness, thanks |
| STARK | bare, grim, harsh | strong |
| KIND | nice, generous | a child |
| HUT | small building | a hat |
| ROCK | a stone; to move back and forth | a skirt |
| STOCK | a share in a company | a cane |
| MITTEN | a glove | in the middle |
| SAGE | a wise person | say [first person, present tense]; also a saga |
| LINKS | plural of link, connections | left [opposite to right] |
| TOLL | a charge for road usage | fantastic |
| BOOT | a tall shoe | boat |
| LUNGE | a sudden thrust | lung |
| GUT | intestine or stomach | good |
| MIST | light fog | dung, manure |
| NOT | in no way | an emergency |
| LAST | at the end | freight, burden |
| HANDY | easy to handle | cellular phone [new word] |
| MOST | superlative of many | apple cider [Southern Germany, Austria] |
| RIND | a tough outer covering, of cheese for example | an individual of cattle |
| LOT | a considerable quantity | a plumb |
| TALK | speak | talc |
| BAD | evil, harmful | bath |
| RAT | a rodent | advice |
| TRUNK | the nose of an elefant | a drink (together with some people) |
| LIED | past tense of "to lie" | a song |
| HALL | a large room | a short echo |
| FAST | quickly | almost |
| BRIEF | short | a letter |
| SAME | identical, e.g., at the same time | a seed |
| BALD | lacking of natural covering, e.g., hair | soon |
| SOLD | past tense of "to sell" | a soldier's salary |
| LAG | to fall behind | past tense of "legen" (intransitive verb, i.e., lie) |
| GLUT | an oversupply | embers |
| LACK | to be deficient | lacquer |
| WAR | an armed conflict | past tense of "sein" (to be) |
| TOT | a small child | dead (adverb) |
| TOTE | to carry by hand as in tote-bag | dead (adjective) |
| GRAB | to seize | a grave |
| LIST | a sequence | craftiness |
| JAMMER | one that jams | misery |
| KIPPER | a fish cured in salt | a dump truck |
| STERN | firm and unyielding | a star |
| DICK | short form of Richard; colloquial for penis | stout, corpulent |
| SEE | to behold with your eyes | a lake |
| ART | The production of beautiful forms of sound or shape | a species |
| ANGEL | a spiritual being attendant upon God | a fishing rod |
| BAT | A flying mammal; a wooden club | past tense of "bitten" (to ask for something) |
| HAT | a head covering | third person present tense for "haben" (to have) |
| MUTTER | to speak indistinctly in a low voice | mother |
| LEG | a lower extremity in a human | imperative for "legen" (to lay) |
| LOG | the fallen trunk of a tree | past tense of "lügen" (to lie) |
| TEE | a t-shaped peg to place a golf ball on | tea |
| MADE | past tense of "to make" | a maggot |
| SUCH | As in "such as" | imperative for "suchen" (to search) |
| LURCH | to roll or pitch suddenly | a salamander |
| MARK | a sign or visible impression | marrow (like "Knochenmark" bone-marrow) |
| QUALM | a sensation of doubt, uneasiness ("to have no qualms about it") | thick smoke |
| MAUL | to bruise or tear ("mauled by a wild animal") | the mouth of an animal ("das Maul halten" to shut up) |
| WELT | a ridge or bump raised on the skin by a lash or blow | the world |
Warren Buffett’s 10 Ways to Get Rich
1. Reinvest your profits - this is the only way to take advantage of compound growth, which is money growing on money.
2. Be willing to be different - you follow the herd, you’re gonna get hurt. Going against the herd may be scary, but can pay off if done properly.
3. Never suck your thumb - If you find something good, act. Don’t sit around doing nothing.
4. Spell out the deal before you start - Get all the details in writing before you follow through.
5. Watch small expenses - The article mentions a guy who counted 500-sheet rolls of toilet paper to make sure he wasn’t being ripped off. That seems a bit extreme to me but I see the point of not wasting money.
6. Limit what you borrow - I believe that the only acceptable forms of debt are student loans, car loans (reasonable car loans), mortgages, and possible 0% deals that may pop up every once in a while. Now, don’t mistake that sentence to mean that I think it’s okay to have debt—that’s not what I’m saying. The main thing is to use debt as a tool and use it wisely.
7. Be persistent - Always remember the saying: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
8. Know when to quit - You have to know when to say, “when.”
9. Assess the risks - Do some worst-case-scenario analysis before you proceed. In other words, count the costs before you begin.
10. Know what success really means - I love the fact that Buffett is not on an ego trip with his giving. According to the article, Buffett does not want any buildings named after him. That’s soooooo cool! I really respect that about him.
Anyway, there’s a quick summary of the article with my thoughts added. You can read the article here.
http://allfinancialmatters.com/2008/09/09/warren-buffetts-10-ways-to-get-rich/
Thursday, October 2, 2008
10 Overused Words in Writing
All words are good words. Some, however, are overused without adding value to what you write. As a result, they reduce the readers’ interest, make text seem redundant, and cause the writer to appear amateurish.
We have created a list of 10 overused words, based on the documents we have edited over the last 5 years. We don’t recommend that you remove these words from your writing. Instead, we recommend that you become aware of how often you use them and that you revise your documents to limit their use.
1. There
When writers are not sure about the subjects of their sentences, they will often use this word as the subject. This results in weak writing. (For advice on correcting this problem, see our article “Where Is There?”)
Example: “There was no one at home.” This can be revised as “No one was at home.”
2. You
Writers often use this word when referring to general or reoccurring situations. “You” rarely refers to the reader and should be avoided.
Example: “Our grandmother was nice. She always gave you candy.” This can be revised as “Our grandmother was nice. She always gave us candy.”
3. If
Although “if” is a fine word, it is overused by writers trying to describe options and thought processes.
Example: “If she took the bus, she wouldn’t have time to stop by the grocery store.” This can be revised as “Taking the bus would leave her too little time to stop by the grocery store.”
4. When
Readers realize that actions can occur at the same time, which is what the word “when” indicates. Thus, “when” is usually unnecessary.
Example: “When she opened the door, she saw blood on the floor.” This can be revised as “She opened the door and saw the blood on the floor.” Some writers use “when” to describe actions that cannot occur at the same time, as in “When she woke up, she made coffee.” Actually, she first wakes up and then makes the coffee. This can be revised as “She woke up and made the coffee.”
5. As
We once worked on a book in which the author used this word repeatedly to describe the timing of actions, often 3 or 4 times in one paragraph.
Example: “He was shouting ‘Follow me!’ as he ran down the road.” This can be revised as “He ran down the road shouting ‘Follow me!’ ”
6. Very
Mark Twain made this comment about using “very”: “Substitute ‘damn’ every time you're inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” “Very” is a crutch for finding the right word to describe what you mean to say. Find the right word.
Example: “He was very old.” This can be revised as “He was ancient.”
Also, in this example, you can simply write, “He was old,” and then provide text to further explain what you mean by “old.” For example, you could write, “He was old. He walked hesitantly, knowing that his brittle bones would surely break were he to stumble over an unseen obstacle.”
7. Really
Generally, this word can be removed without changing the meaning of a sentence. Anything that is true is also really true.
Example: “He was really nervous about speaking in public.” This can be revised as “He was nervous about speaking in public.” To show a greater degree, use a different word, as in “He was panicky about speaking in public” or “Public speaking scared him.”
8. Am/Is/Are/Was/Were (“to be” verbs)
Action verbs are always preferable to state-of-being verbs. Use words that describe the action occurring. Rather than saying what something/someone is, show the reader what something/someone does.
Example: “I am envious of her success.” This can be revised as “I envy her success.”
Example: “She was dressed in leather chaps and a flannel shirt.” This can be revised as “She wore leather chaps and a flannel shirt.”
9. So
See #7. “So” is also overused as a conjunction.
Example: “Her face was inches from his own, so he leaned forward and kissed her.” This can be revised as “Her face was inches from his own. He leaned forward and kissed her.”
10. Because
This word is overused to provide explanations. To fix this, use the word “and” with action verbs.
Example: “He wanted to go to the fair because his friends would be there.” This can be revised as “He wanted to go to the fair and meet with his friends.”
Example: “I want to leave because I am tired।” This can be revised as “I’m tired and want to leave.”
http://preciseedit.com/Article10OverusedWords/tabid/215/Default.aspx
