articles interesting

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/05/29/where-are-they-now
http://news.slashdot.org/news/08/05/30/1435256.shtml
10 companies from dot com boom & their CEOs

Top 10 most important technologies, by Garner
http://businessofit.blogspot.com/2008/05/gartner-reveals-top-10-technologies.html

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/2008/05/28/gartner-identifies-top-ten-disruptive-technologies-for-2008-to-2012/

* Multicore and hybrid processors
* Virtualisation and fabric computing
* Social networks and social software
* Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
* Web mashups
* User Interface
* Ubiquitous computing
* Contextual computing
* Augmented reality
* Semantics

That's all

$1.45 a week, and I love it.

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/07/24/turks/index.html
"I make $1.45 a week and I love it"
On Amazon Mechanical Turk, thousands of people are happily being paid pennies to do mind-numbing work. Is it a boon for the bored or a virtual sweatshop?

>>> this is what I need to make the point system into, EXACTLY the same thing

http://www.thesheepmarket.com

NYT article on MMA

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/30/sports/othersports/30fight.html?hp

Thanks Cale!

Wanderlei Silva

Wandy is back

I cant find entrance music / video of him, but it is a site to see

-------------------------- fav comments:
Mr. Joshua
May 26, 2008 at 9:42 am
Bad stoppage. Jardine was so stunned about the early stoppage that he just layed there in shock and thought about the early stoppage.

Morgan
May 26, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I was at the fights live…
The entire arena errupted into pandamonium. Everyone was jumping out of their seats, screaming. I nearly fell over the guy in front of me.

Personally? I thought Wand fricking killed him. It doesn’t show it so well on camera, but like the last punch that Wand landed on Jardine, jolted Jardine’s legs out like he had been hit with a pair of shock paddles. Jardine’s legs were quivering…

Ivan Bueno
May 27, 2008 at 1:52 pm

Wand’s initial punch that put Jardine down didn’t look impressive, but the barrage of punches that follow afterward are relentless. Wand’s killer instinct is off the chart.

Some say the fight is boring because it finished early, and less techniques were displayed. I say bullshit. Win or lose, Wand is always exciting to watch.

Morgan
May 27, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Anyone who was in the arena that night would say that fight was awsome.

The electricity in the air at the ending of that fight, was rediculous, I don’t think it was even surpassed by when BJ knocked out Sherk, and there were SO MANY people there rooting for BJ it was sick.

Even with all of BJ’s fans there, the reaction to Wand’s knock out of Jardine was absolutely the “moment” of the night.

----------------- double knockouts:
http://blog.ronin5.com/

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

basic > complex
Life needs (Physiological)
Safety needs
Social needs (Love and Belonging)
Esteem needs
Growth needs (Self-actualization)

Physiological needs
These are the basic human needs for such things as food, warmth, water, and other body needs.
In opposite order of importance:
* Excretion
* Eating
* Drinking
* Breathing
If some needs are not fulfilled, a human's physiological needs take the highest priority. Physiological needs can control thoughts and behaviors, and can cause people to feel sickness, pain, and discomfort.

Safety needs
Primarily concerned with survival:
Safety needs include:
Basic Safety:
* obtaining adequate food, clothing, shelter
* seeking justice from the dominant societal groups

High level Safety:
* Personal security from crime
* Financial security
* Health and well-being
* Safety net against accidents/illness and the adverse impacts

Once physical needs are relatively satisfied, the individual's safety needs take over and dominate his behavior. These needs have to do with man's yearning for a predictable, orderly world in which injustice and inconsistency are under control, the familiar frequent, and the unfamiliar rare. In the world of work, these safety needs manifest themselves in such things as a preference for job security, grievance procedures for protecting the individual from unilateral authority, savings accounts, insurance policies, and the like.

For the most part physiological and safety needs are reasonably well satisfied in the first world. The obvious exceptions, are the poor and the disadvantaged. If frustration has not led to apathy and weakness, such people still struggle to satisfy the basic physiological and safety needs.


Social needs
After physiological and safety needs are fulfilled, the third layer of human needs is social. This psychological aspect of Maslow's hierarchy involves emotionally-based relationships in general, such as:
* friendship
* intimacy
* having a supportive and communicative family

Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large social group (such as clubs, office culture, religious groups, professional organizations, sports teams, gangs) or small social connections (family members, intimate partners, mentors, close colleagues, confidants). They need to love and be loved (sexually and non-sexually) by others. In the absence of these elements, many people become susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety, and depression. This need for belonging can often overcome the physiological and security needs, depending on the strength of the peer pressure. e.g. an anorexic ignores the need to eat and the security of health for a feeling of control and belonging.

Esteem needs

All humans have a need to be respected, to have self-esteem, self-respect, and to respect others. People need to engage themselves to gain recognition and have an activity or activities that give the person a sense of contribution, to feel accepted and self-valued, be it in a profession or hobby. Imbalances at this level can result in low self-esteem, inferiority complexes. People with low self-esteem need respect from others. They may seek fame or glory, which again depends on others. However confidence, competence and achievement only need one person and everyone else is inconsequential to one's own success. It may be noted, however, that many people with low self-esteem will not be able to improve their view of themselves simply by receiving fame, respect, and glory externally, but must first accept themselves internally. Psychological imbalances such as depression can also prevent one from obtaining self-esteem on both levels.

Self-actualization
Self-actualization — a concept Maslow attributed to Kurt Goldstein, one of his mentors — is the instinctual need of humans to make the most of their abilities and to strive to be the best they can. Working toward fulfilling our potential, toward becoming all that we are capable of becoming.

In Maslow's scheme, the final stage of psychological development comes when the individual feels assured that his physiological, security, affiliation and affection, self-respect, and recognition needs have been satisfied. As these become dormant, he becomes filled with a desire to realize all of his potential for being an effective, creative, mature human being. "What a man can be, he must be"[1], is the way Maslow expresses it.

Maslow's need hierarchy is set forth as a general proposition and does not imply that everyone's needs follow the same rigid pattern. For some people, self-esteem seems to be a stronger motivation than love. Mussolini, for example, alienated his closest friends by undertaking reckless military adventures to achieve status as a conqueror. (This example can also be used to illustrate the means-to-an-end dilemma of human motivation. That is, Mussolini may have reached for status as a means to gaining the affection of Adolf Hitler. More will be said about this problem later.) For some people, the need to create is often a stronger motivation than the need for food and safety. Thus, the artist living in poverty is a classic example of reversing the standard hierarchy of needs. Similarly, persons who have suffered hunger or some other deprivation for protracted periods may live happily for the rest of their lives if only they can get enough of what they lacked. In this case, the level of aspiration may have become permanently lowered and the higher-order, less prepotent needs may never become active. There are also cases of people's martyring themselves for causes and suffering all kinds of deprivations, particularly in the physiological, safety, and sometimes social categories, to achieve their goals.

Maslow writes the following of self-actualizing people:

* They embrace the facts and realities of the world (including themselves) rather than denying or avoiding them.
* They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions.
* They are creative.
* They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others. Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives.
* They feel a closeness to other people, and generally appreciate life.
* They have a system of morality that is fully internalized and independent of external authority.
* They have discernment and are able to view all things in an objective manner.

To further confound the problem of understanding motivation, Maslow points out that motives are not always conscious.[1] In the average person, he believes, they are more often unconscious than conscious — showing the influence on his thinking of Freudian psychologists who have long been concerned with the hidden causes of human behavior.

In Maslow's theory, then, human needs are arranged in a hierarchy of importance. Needs emerge only when higher-priority needs have been satisfied. By the same token, satisfied needs no longer influence behavior. This point seems worth stressing to managers and administrators, who often mistakenly assume that money and other tangible incentives are the only cures for morale and productivity problems. It may be, however, that the need to participate, to be recognized, to be creative, and to experience a sense of worth are better motivators in an affluent society, where many have already achieved an acceptable measure of freedom from hunger and threats to security and personal safety, and are now driven by higher-order psychological needs.

In short, self-actualization is reaching one's fullest potential. However, to further clarify “There are certain conditions which are immediate prerequisites for the basic need satisfactions.” “Such conditions as freedom to speak, freedom to do what one wishes so long as no harm is done to others, freedom to express one's self, freedom to investigate and seek for information, freedom to defend one's self, justice, fairness, honesty, orderliness in the group are examples of such preconditions for basic need satisfactions.” [1]

According to Maslow, the tendencies of self-actualizing people are as follows:

1. Awareness
* efficient perception of reality
* freshness of appreciation
* peak experiences
* ethical awareness

2. Honesty
* philosophical sense of humour
* social interest
* deep interpersonal relationships
* democratic character structure

3. Freedom
* need for solitude
* autonomous, independent
* creativity, originality
* spontaneous

4. Trust
* problem centered
* acceptance of self, others, nature
* resistance to enculturation - identity with humanity

Maslow discovered that healthy individuals are motivated toward what he termed self-actualization, and noted that Self-actualizing people had strikingly similar characteristics. He described self-actualization as:

“an episode or spurt in which the powers of the person come together in a particularly and intensely enjoyable way, and in which he is more integrated and less split, more open for experience, more idiosyncratic, more perfectly expressive or spontaneous, or fully functioning, more creative, more humorous, more ego-transcending, more independent of his lower needs, etc. He becomes in these episodes more truly himself, more perfectly actualising his potentialities, closer to the core of his being, more fully human. Not only are these his happiest and most thrilling moments, but they are also moments of greatest maturity, individuation, fulfilment - in a word, his healthiest moments.

Self-actualising people, those who have come to a high level of maturation, health and self-fulfilment, have so much to teach us that sometimes they seem almost like a different breed of human beings.”

The following descriptions have been compiled from the writings of Maslow and others.

1. Clearer perception of reality. Self-actualizing people perceive reality more effectively than others and are more comfortable with it. They have an accurate perception of what exists rather than a distortion of perception by one's needs, and possess an ability to be objective about their own strengths, possibilities and limitations. They judge experiences, people and things correctly and efficiently, and have an unusual ability to detect the spurious, the fake, and the dishonest. They are not afraid of the unknown and can tolerate the doubt, uncertainty, and tentativeness accompanying the perception of the new and unfamiliar.

2. Acceptance of self, others, and nature. Self-actualizing persons are not ashamed or guilty about their human nature, with its shortcoming, imperfections, frailties, and weaknesses. They can accept their own human shortcomings, without condemnation. Nor are they critical of these aspects of other people. They respect and esteem themselves and others. Moreover, they are honest, open, genuine, without pose or facade. They are not, however, self-satisfied but are concerned about discrepancies between what is and what might be or should be in themselves, others, and society.

3. Spontaneity. Self-actualizing people are relatively spontaneous in their behaviour, and far more spontaneous than that in their inner life, thoughts and impulses. Self-actualising persons are not hampered by convention, but they do not flout it. They are not conformists, but neither are they anti-conformist for the sake of being so. They might act conventionally, but they seldom allow convention to keep them from doing anything they consider important or basic. They are not externally motivated or even goal-directed; rather their motivation is the internal one of growth and development, the actualization of themselves and their potentialities.

4. Problem-centering. Self-actualizing people have a problem-solving orientation towards life instead of an orientation centered on self. They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others. Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives. They commonly have a mission in life, some problem outside themselves that enlists much of their energies. In general this mission is unselfish and is involved with the philosophical and the ethical.

5. Detachment and the need for solitude. Self-actualizing people enjoy solitude and privacy. It is often possible for them to remain above the battle, unruffled and undisturbed by that which upsets others. They may even appear to be asocial. It is perhaps, related to an abiding sense of security and self-sufficiency.

6. Autonomy, independent of culture and environment. Self-actualizing persons are not dependent for their main satisfactions on other people or culture or means-to-ends, or in general, on extrinsic satisfactions. Rather they are dependent for their own development and continued growth upon their own potentialities and latent resources. The meaning of their life is self-decision, self-governing and being an active, responsible, self-disciplined deciding person rather than a pawn or a person helplessly ruled by others.

7. Continued freshness of appreciation. Self-actualizing people have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again the basic pleasures of life. They experience awe, pleasure, and wonder in their everyday world, such as nature, children, music and sexual experience. They approach these basic experiences with awe, pleasure, wonder and even ecstasy.

8. The mystic experience, the oceanic feeling. Self-actualizing people commonly have mystic or `peak' experiences or times of intense emotions in which they transcend self. During a peak experience, they experience feelings of ecstasy, awe, and wonder with feelings of limitless horizons opening up, feelings of unlimited power and at the same time feelings of being more helpless than ever before. The experience ends with the conviction that something extremely important and valuable has happened so that the person is to some extent transformed and strengthened by the experience that has a carry-over into everyday life.

9. Oneness with humanity. Self-actualizing people have deep feelings of identification, sympathy and affection for other people, and a deep feeling of empathy and compassion for human beings in general. This feeling is, in a sense, unconditional in that it exists along with the recognition of the existence in others of negative qualities that may provoke occasional anger, impatience, and disgust.

10. Deep interpersonal relations. Self-actualizing people have deeper and more profound inter-personal relationships than most adults, but not necessarily deeper than children. They are capable of more closeness, greater love, more perfect identification, more erasing of ego boundaries than other people would consider possible. One consequence is that self-actualised people have especially deep ties with rather few individuals and their circle of friends is small. They tend to be kind or at least patient to almost everyone, yet they do speak realistically and harshly of those whom they feel deserve it — especially the hypocritical, pretentious, pompous, or the self-inflated individual.

11. Democratic character structure. Self-actualizing people are democratic in the deepest possible sense. They are friendly towards everyone regardless of class, education, political beliefs, race, or colour. They believe it is possible to learn something from everyone. They are humble in the sense of being aware of how little they know in comparison with what could be known and what is known by others. They are ready and willing to learn from anyone. They respect everyone as a potential contributor to their knowledge, merely because everyone is a human being.

12. Ethical means towards moral ends. Self-actualizing persons are highly ethical. They clearly distinguish between means and ends and subordinate means to ends. Their notions of right and wrong and of good and evil are often not conventional ones.

13. Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor. Self-actualizing people have a keen, unhostile sense of humour. They don't laugh at jokes that hurt other people or are aimed at others' inferiority — unless it is a convention that for some reason they happen to decide to follow in that situation. They can make fun of others in general — or of themselves — especially when they are foolish or try to be big when they are small. They are inclined towards thoughtful humour that elicits a smile, is intrinsic to the situation, and spontaneous.

14. Creativity. Self-actualizing people are highly imaginative and creative. The creativity involved here is not special-talent creativity. It is a creativity potentially inherent in everyone but usually suffocated by acculturation. It is a fresh, naive, direct way of looking at things, rather similar to the naive and universal creativity of unspoiled children.

Quote

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

NYT: Wall Street Exodus: Fear, Panic and Anger

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/business/25pain.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&em&en=17f372cdec3fcbb2&ex=1211860800

The “High Roller” lives on the edge financially and becomes addicted to the thrill of earning large sums of money. But when things go bad, “they feel the greatest frustration both financially and psychologically,” she said in an e-mail message. The most common profile is what she calls the “Entrepreneur,” thriving on ambition but not taking as many risks as the High Roller.

“Denial is a wonderful defense mechanism as it eases the pain,” she said, “but it also delays the day of reckoning.”

A third type is what she calls the “Money Master.” People who fit this profile typically earn less than and take far fewer risks than the other two types and are better prepared to handle market swings and even layoffs, she said.

“They can come out of it feeling even more confident than before if they use their flexibility and figure out a new game plan,” she said.

“I’m in financial planning,” he said. “Isn’t it a sin not to do so for yourself?”

“Since they are expected to be experts, job loss and financial strain can trigger shame and embarrassment,” said Bradley Klontz, a psychologist who specializes in financial matters. “The shame can be similar to a cop who gets mugged.”

“When I got laid off, I felt a sense of panic — what am I going to do next?” she said. But after that initial shock, she grew calm. “I don’t have to get up anymore and go and pretend things are fine when they’re not.”

She spoke on condition of anonymity because she said she feared retribution. She has been looking for jobs, but, as many recruiters say, it is an employers’ market.

She has had trouble sleeping; she has lost weight. She started therapy but wonders whether it is helping. Not having a schedule is disorienting. She was accustomed to leaving the house even before her child woke up and getting home after dark.

“The first thing people ask you is what you do,” she said. “If you don’t do anything anymore, then how do you feel about your- self?”

Food Prices soar. Vegtables? not on the list

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7412817.stm

Interestingly, the most important food, VEGTABLES, is not on the list.

coming soon to a toilet near you

Google's version
http://www.google.com/tisp/install.html


England's version:
H2o-networks.uk.net

H2O Networks is revolutionising the deployment and build of fibre optic links. We have created the FS Focus System (Fibre Optical Cable Underground Sewer System) to meet the demands of 21st Century communications.

Fibrecity deployments are far kinder to the environment than traditional methods of fibre deployment, as the sewer is a ready-made duct which means the expensive and environmentally unfriendly method of digging up the roads is unnecessary and disruption to the road infrastructure is kept to a minimum. In addition, the system is at least 80 per cent faster than traditional methods.

We build bespoke fibre links, utilising the waste water networks, which allows us to be faster and more cost effective than the traditional methods. Not only that, but by using independent ducting, our network is secure and underpins business continuity.

Our methodologies allow us to pass on the benefits to our customers and offer long term (up to 10 years) fixed prices and unrestricted bandwidth.

H2O Networks - using the past to connect the future.

SATs are getting more difficult

Scientific words and names can become extremely long very easily, but here is an example of the longest name for an enzyme which has been cited in multiple scientific journals and recently on the SAT exam:

methionylglutaminylarginyltyrosylglutamylserylleucylphenylal
anylalanylglutaminylleucyllysylglutamylarginyllysylglutamylg
lycylalanylphenylalanylvalylprolylphenylalanylvalylthreonyll
eucylglycylaspartylprolylglycylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylse
rylleucyllysylisoleucylaspartylthreonylleucylisoleucylglutam
ylalanylglycylalanylaspartylalanylleucylglutamylleucylglycyl
isoleucylprolylphenylalanylserylaspartylprolylleucylalanylas
partylglycylprolylthreonylisoleucylglutaminylasparaginylalan
ylthreonylleucylarginylalanylphenylalanylalanylalanylglycylv
alylthreonylprolylalanylglutaminylcysteinylphenylalanylgluta
mylmethionylleucylalanylleucylisoleucylarginylglutaminyllysy
lhistidylprolylthreonylisoleucylprolylisoleucylglycylleucyll
eucylmethionyltyrosylalanylasparaginylleucylvalylphenylalany
lasparaginyllysylglycylisoleucylaspartylglutamylphenylalanyl
tyrosylalanylglutaminylcysteinylglutamyllysylvalylglycylvaly
laspartylserylvalylleucylvalylalanylaspartylvalylprolylvalyl
glutaminylglutamylserylalanylprolylphenylalanylarginylglutam
inylalanylalanylleucylarginylhistidylasparaginylvalylalanylp
rolylisoleucylphenylalanylisoleucylcysteinylprolylprolylaspa
rtylalanylaspartylaspartylaspartylleucylleucylarginylglutami
nylisoleucylalanylseryltyrosylglycylarginylglycyltyrosylthre
onyltyrosylleucylleucylserylarginylalanylglycylvalylthreonyl
glycylalanylglutamylasparaginylarginylalanylalanylleucylprol
ylleucylasparaginylhistidylleucylvalylalanyllysylleucyllysyl
glutamyltyrosylasparaginylalanylalanylprolylprolylleucylglut
aminylglycylphenylalanylglycylisoleucylserylalanylprolylaspa
rtylglutaminylvalyllysylalanylalanylisoleucylaspartylalanylg
lycylalanylalanylglycylalanylisoleucylserylglycylserylalanyl
isoleucylvalyllysylisoleucylisoleucylglutamylglutaminylhisti
dylasparaginylisoleucylglutamylprolylglutamyllysylmethionyll
eucylalanylalanylleucyllysylvalylphenylalanylvalylglutaminyl
prolylmethionyllysylalanylalanylthreonylarginylserine

Profit

From Russia with Hate

http://current.com/items/84906361_from_russia_with_hate

insanity. They say only 70k people, but these guys are certifiably insane.

13% difference isnt bad though

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aqfhvj9Grgfg&refer=home

Sleep Deficit Linked to Smoking, Drinking, Inactivity (Update1)

By Tom Randall

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- People who slept less than six hours a night were more likely than well-rested people to smoke, drink heavily and avoid exercise, a U.S. government study found.

About 31 percent of adults who got that little sleep smoked cigarettes, compared with 18 percent who slept seven to eight hours, according to the survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

politics video

nothing earth shattering. just another video with facts about what fake president bush says.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/30/gotcha-olbermann-rips-apa_n_99461.html

Personal Religion

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/06/the-meaning-of-life-intro/

Story on growing up Christian/Catholic and why he changed his mind. Anything that requires throwing away all logic and believing something based on "faith" is going to be personal.

If I was so motivated to write something on how/why I converted away from Chrisitanity, it would have been like this. The logic & focus aspects of his personality are very much like mine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My overall religion has effectively become a religion of personal growth. Every year I continue to tweak my beliefs to try to bring them into closer alignment with my best understanding of how reality actually works.

The only reliable means I’ve found for discovering what beliefs are empowering is to test them and compare them to other beliefs.

Yet choosing my beliefs consciously has allowed me access to parts of my potential that I’d never have been able to tap with other belief systems. In most cases I’d have been stuck being way too passive and would have failed to push myself. I’d have been more inclined to accept my given lot in life instead of consciously co-creating it. Because my religion is based on working actively on my personal growth and helping others to do the same, I am driven to take action. Good thoughts or intentions aren’t enough.


Another part of my religion is to strive to become the best me I can become, not a copy of Jesus or Buddha or anyone else. This means spending a lot of time learning about my own strengths and weaknesses and figuring out where I can grow and what I may have to simply accept.


By their words I hear that most Americans are Christian. By their actions I see that most aren’t.
...
If you really believe something, you will act in accordance with that belief — always. If you believe in gravity, you will never attempt to defy it.

..