Quote of the day

A man is not old as long as he is seeking something.
- Jean Rostand

French and English Idioms of the day..

One of my personal development goal is to be fluent in at least five languages in the next 5 years. I realized this is quite an ambitious goal, but I believe this is possible if you put your mind and energy into it... I also realized that the more languages you speak the easier it gets.

Sans vous faire trop attendre, voici la premiere lecon :) :

abandonner la partie - to call it quits
Fatigues de la longue lutte, ils ont decide d'abondonner la partie. Tired of the long struggle, they decided to call it quits.

102 Personal Finance Tips Your Professor Never Taught You

Investing

65. Be wary of mutual funds. Few mutual fund managers can beat both the market and the expense fee that they charge.
66. Don't try to pick stocks. Picking stocks can be a very dangerous game, unless you know what you're doing.
67. Avoid fees. With long term investing, fees are a primary factor in total return. Avoid brokers who take high commissions and avoid funds with high management costs.
68. Stocks are high risk, high reward. Over the long term, stocks have historically outperformed all other investments. But over the short term, they can be risky if they lose a lot of value in a short period of time. So, do invest with stocks, but only with funds you won't need to withdraw over the short term.
69. Stocks first, bonds later. Invest in stocks when you're young, and then move into bonds are you grow older. Stocks are a good long-term investment strategy. If you're still young when the market turns south, you'll have plenty of years left ahead of you to make it up. As you get older, invest in bonds. They're less risky.
70. Past performance is not a guarantee of future success. Just because a stock has been up for the last six months does not mean it will continue to go up tomorrow.
71. Diversify your portfolio. Never invest more than 10% of your portfolio in any one company. Even if it's a "sure thing".
72. Build a nest egg that is 25 times the annual investment income you need. Don't think you can rely solely on social security.
73. If you don't understand how an investment works, don't buy it. Research an investment vehicle thoroughly before you get into it.
74. Don't borrow from your 401(k). Think of it as robbing yourself. You'll get hit with high fees and taxes, too.
75. Invest for the long term. There is no such thing as a guaranteed get rich quick scheme. And in investing, there is no high reward without a high risk. Use caution and diversify your portfolio for the long run.
76. Seek professional help. Don't feel the need to turn yourself into a day trader. Hire a personal financial advisor if you can afford to.
77. "Fee-only" is your friend. Go with a fee-only financial advisor, not a fee-based or a commission-based. Only fee-only advisors are legally obligated to act in your best interests.
78. Index funds are your friend. Index funds are passively managed and are generally cheaper and more tax-efficient than actively managed funds.

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17 New Rules for Successful E-Commerce Websites

E-commerce has, for the most part, evolved far beyond the late 1990's cliches of hair-wrenching, sanity-shattering slogs through yet another "clever" designer's take on how shopping on the web should be. Standards prevailed, usability won out, and we're now free to spend our collective $107 billion (Census.gov e-commerce stats) per annum.

That said... It can still get better. Online shopping is in, if not infancy, at least a toddler stage. The advances that brought us here have made the process simpler and easier than ever, but some sites still haven't caught on.

Since I've been doing an inordinate amount of online shopping recently (thanks to the theft last weekend and my upcoming lengthy trip to China), I feel uniquely qualified to share a few e-commerce site design tips - 17 tips, actually. Enjoy.
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#1 - Tell Me Where I Am
Whenever a user is navigating inside a store with more than 1 sub-level of navigation, it's critical to show them where in the site structure they are. This should be accomplished with headlines, sub-headers (when necessary) and breadcrumbs (e.g. Home > Category > Sub-cat > Product).

#2 - Let Me Remove Narrowing Options
When a user starts to "narrow" their navigation inside a particular category (in this case by selecting the designer "Ted Baker"), it's only right to allow them to remove those navigation selections rather than forcing the use of repetitive "back button" clicks.

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Top Useful Firefox extensions

There are thousands of add-ons and everyone will have some that they like or find useful. Some integrate search and bookmarking, others provide ways to view and take notes, some make minor, but wonderful adjustments. Here are the top useful of them...

StumbleUpon - allows you to discover and share great Web content matched to your personal preferences. Whether it's a website, video, picture, game, blog, or wiki, StumbleUpon helps you find interesting pages recommended by like-minded people with a single click of the Stumble button. After installing the plug-in, which adds a toolbar to your browser, you choose one or more topics of interest: astronomy, politics, television, and so on. Click the Stumble button and you're instantly delivered to a related site that others have given the thumbs-up. Likewise, when you "stumble upon" a site you like (*cough* Unlimited*cough), click the "I like it" button to share the page with others. The more sites you rate, the better your Stumbles will match your tastes. If you rate a site that isn't in the StumbleUpon database yet, you can enter some basic information about it so others can stumble onto it.

GMail Manager -allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail notifications. Displays your account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.

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Software mogul Ray Hopewood bid for the White House

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How to Start Up a New Business

"

Starting a new venture can be very confusing as well as exciting. To help you make it as simple as possible, we have included the following checklist.

Step One - Prepare Business Plan

Planning is key to success. Prepare a Business Plan. The Business Plan will serve two purposes. It will help you make sure you have researched and thought out all the aspects of running the business so you don't have any big unpleasant surprises. Also, the plan will help convince a bank or potential investors that you are worthy of receiving some help in funding this new venture. Remember that the plan itself will NOT get you funding, since new startup businesses are very difficult to find capital. As the business owner, you should expect to have to supply all the startup capital necessary from your savings or from a bank loan based on income other than the business.

Step Two - Business Form, Taxes, Licenses, and Permits

Check with your Secretary of State - almost all states now are online - and look for the Corporations Division to find the form for either Articles of Incorporation (to form your own corporation) or Articles of Organization (to form a Limited Liability Company). Most entrepreneurs today are forming a LLC since it requires less paperwork to maintain it.

While you are waiting for the Secretary of State to send you the charter, contact each of our city, county and state tax departments. Ask each of them if they require any of the following:

Business or Occupation License,

Business Personal Property Tax registration,

other specialized licenses for the type of business you are starting.

Requirements will vary widely, with some states having county personal property taxes (like Ohio or North Carolina) but many other states having none, while other states may have a city license or tax (such as Philadelphia or New York) but no county tax on businesses, to just a state license, etc. Some businesses will have more licenses than others, such as a restaurant that may have to get a local or county business license, a food or health department license, and a liquor license from the city or county (or both), and possibly a city fire inspection or occupancy license. Some state departments of taxation (or revenue in some states) may have a booklet or checklist on what tax registrations are required, and a few states offer booklets or checklists from their Secretary of State, Corporations Division.

Also, contact your state Department of Revenue (or Taxation) to register for sales tax (if you plan to make retail sales of tangible items, or if you live in Florida you must pay sales tax even on services), and to register for state income tax withholding (if you plan to have employees, including yourself as employee of your own corporation, if you live in a state that has an income tax).

If you will have employees (including yourself as an employee of your corporation) contact your local state unemployment office, and ask for the forms to register for state unemployment taxes. Most states now offer these registration forms online.

Step Three - Employer Identification Number (EIN)"

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The Thief Of Fulfilment

"One of the biggest problems we can encounter when we consider making changes to our life is fear. Even though the changes we want to make will bring more happiness by considerably enhancing our lives, fear will still raise its head to try and stop us in our tracks.

Why does this happen?

It’s all to do with the way the subconscious perceives survival. It knows that you are in a safe position and that survival is more or less guaranteed if you carry on in the same way. As soon as you start to consider making changes to your life, your subconscious mind will play the fear card. You are leaving the comfort zone and boy-oh-boy, does it not like it! Not one little bit!

This is no joke. It happens to millions of people and this fear ruins their dreams for a better life. And here’s the danger of giving in to this fear: You can feel as though you’re stuck in a rut – kind of like life is passing you by. As the years pass, these feelings can become magnified and you can become filled with regret over opportunities you didn’t grasp.

I don’t know about you but the last feeling I want before I breathe my last is that I didn’t take advantage of opportunities because I gave in to my fears. Because let’s be honest here, we can generate excuse after excuse to save face and gain sympathetic understanding from our families and loved ones. But we can’t fool ourselves. Deep down inside, we know the truth."

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Why the future doesn't need us.

Superb essay written by Bill Joy and published in Wired Magazine in 2000.

"Our most powerful 21st-century technologies - robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech - are threatening to make humans an endangered species.

By Bill Joy

From the moment I became involved in the creation of new technologies, their ethical dimensions have concerned me, but it was only in the autumn of 1998 that I became anxiously aware of how great are the dangers facing us in the 21st century. I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.

Ray and I were both speakers at George Gilder's Telecosm conference, and I encountered him by chance in the bar of the hotel after both our sessions were over. I was sitting with John Searle, a Berkeley philosopher who studies consciousness. While we were talking, Ray approached and a conversation began, the subject of which haunts me to this day.

I had missed Ray's talk and the subsequent panel that Ray and John had been on, and they now picked right up where they'd left off, with Ray saying that the rate of improvement of technology was going to accelerate and that we were going to become robots or fuse with robots or something like that, and John countering that this couldn't happen, because the robots couldn't be conscious.

While I had heard such talk before, I had always felt sentient robots were in the realm of science fiction. But now, from someone I respected, I was hearing a strong argument that they were a near-term possibility. I was taken aback, especially given Ray's proven ability to imagine and create the future. I already knew that new technologies like genetic engineering and nanotechnology were giving us the power to remake the world, but a realistic and imminent scenario for intelligent robots surprised me.

It's easy to get jaded about such breakthroughs. We hear in the news almost every day of some kind of technological or scientific advance. Yet this was no ordinary prediction. In the hotel bar, Ray gave me a partial preprint of his then-forthcoming bookThe Age of Spiritual Machines, which outlined a utopia he foresaw - one in which humans gained near immortality by becoming one with robotic technology. On reading it, my sense of unease only intensified; I felt sure he had to be understating the dangers, understating the probability of a bad outcome along this path.

I found myself most troubled by a passage detailing adystopian scenario:"

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Linux LiveCD list

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Physical theories as women

"

0. Newtonian gravity is your high-school girlfriend. As your first encounter with physics, she's amazing. You will never forget Newtonian gravity, even if you're not in touch very much anymore.

1. Electrodynamics is your college girlfriend. Pretty complex, you probably won't date long enough to really understand her.

2. Special relativity is the girl you meet at the dorm party while you're dating electrodynamics. You make out. It's not really cheating because it's not like you call her back. But you have a sneaking suspicion she knows electrodynamics and told her everything.

3. Quantum mechanics is the girl you meet at the poetry reading. Everyone thinks she's really interesting and people you don't know are obsessed about her. You go out. It turns out that she's pretty complicated and has some issues. Later, after you've broken up, you wonder if her aura of mystery is actually just confusion."

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The 7 Money Mistakes to Avoid

"

WE ALL MAKE FINANCIAL mistakes, and they add up.

Consider: From 1986 to 2005, the Standard & Poor's 500 returned 12% annually, but thanks to overzealous trading, the average investor in stock mutual funds made just 4%, according to Dalbar, a Boston-based financial-services research firm. Homeowners pay high insurance premiums to keep deductibles low, but only 7% report claims each year. And 74% of Americans overpaid their taxes in 2005 — essentially giving the government an interest-free loan.

Also See Take our quiz and find out how mistake-prone you are with your money.

Why? A developing discipline known as behavioral economics seeks to answer that question, but it boils down to this: Academic research tells us that emotions and experiences can distort our financial decisions. While our mistakes are rarely the result of a single mental error, our feelings can make us fumble. Below, seven big financial mistakes and the psychology behind them.

#1 Saving with the right hand and spending with the left

DIAGNOSIS: Mental accounting
SYMPTOMS: Keeping a savings account that pays 5% interest while paying Visa 15%; thinking a tax refund equals mad money; obsessing over the price of a new car, but failing to monitor the weekly grocery bill.

Another way to think of "mental accounting" is separating money into buckets, each with a different purpose. It's not always a mistake — it is the premise behind budgeting, for example — but looking at your finances in parts without seeing the whole picture can hide costs and charges you could otherwise avoid. Consider a $5,000 tax refund. Woo-hoo! Right? Wrong. If you put your overpayments in a high-interest savings account throughout the year, you would net about $135 in interest instead of giving an interest-free loan to Uncle Sam.

#2 Playing it too safe

DIAGNOSIS: Loss aversion
SYMPTOMS: Quick to sell winning stocks but slow to sell losing ones; putting too much cash in money-market funds and not enough in stocks; reluctance to trade away what you already have, even for something more valuable.

No one likes losing money — a truism that economists call "loss aversion." Because we can avoid only losses that we recognize, we tend to focus on immediate costs, while ignoring more subtle costs and even savings. For example, we should recognize that getting a $4 discount is worth as much as avoiding a $4 surcharge. But most of us would rather avoid that surcharge. By being "loss averse," investors open the door to a more insidious cost, the toll that inflation will take on their savings.

"

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Cellular Automata

"The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature.

---T. H. Huxley

Take a board, and divide it up into squares, like a chess-board or checker-board. These are the cells. Each cell has one of a finite number of distinct colors --- red and black, say, or (to be patriotic) red, white and blue. (We don't allow continuous shading, and every cell has just one color.) Now we come to the "automaton" part. Sitting somewhere to one side of the board is a clock, and every time the clock ticks the colors of the cells change. Each cell looks at the colors of the nearby cells, and its own color, and then applies a definite rule, the transition rule, specified in advance, to decide its color in the next clock-tick; and all the cells change at the same time. (The rule can say "Stay the same.") Each cell is a sort of very stupid computer --- in the jargon, a finite-state automaton --- and so the whole board is called a cellular automaton, or CA. To run it, you colors the cells in your favorite pattern, start the clock, and stand back.

Now that (I hope) you have a concrete picture, I can get a bit more technical, and more abstract. The cells don't have to be colored, of course; all that's important is that each cell is in one of a finite number of states at any given time. By custom they're written as the integers, starting from 0, but any "finite alphabet" will do. Usually the number of states is small, under ten, but in principle any finite number is OK. What counts as the "nearby cells", the neighborhood, varies from automaton to automaton; sometimes just the four cells on the principle directions, sometimes the corner cells, sometimes a block or diamond of larger size; in principle any arbitrary shape. You don't need to stick to a chess-board; you can use any pattern of cells which will fill the plane (or "tessellate" it; an old name for cellular automata is "tessellation structures"). And you don't have to stick to the plane; any number of dimensions is allowed. (Well, any integer number of dimensions. I doubt a fractal CA makes sense.) You do need to stick to discrete time, to clock-ticks; but CA have cousins in which time is continuous. There are various tricks for handling the edges of the board; the one which has "all the advantages of theft over honest toil" is to assume an infinite board."

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Mental Heuristics

A heuristic is a "rule-of-thumb", advice that helps an AI program or human think and act more efficiently by directing thinking in an useful direction.

Some of these heuristics are age-old wisdom, bordering on cliche, but most are actually helpful.

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If you want something done, do it yourself

Comment: Obviously true, and doing it is usually very good for your self esteem. A surprising amount of work can be done this way, and experts are not always necessary. However, there is a risk of becoming overworked if you try to do everything yourself - we all need other people after all.

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Never procrastinate anything you can do right now

Comment: Very powerful. There are many things that can be fixed or solved with a minimum of effort, but are often pushed aside as unimportant. Unfortunately they won't go away, and in time the feelings of guilt for not having done them will make you even less likely of fixing the problems.

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When you have several things you could be doing and don't know which to do: Just do any one of them!

Comments: If you cannot decide between two or more possibilities, then there is a good chance that the differences don't matter. However, most people begin to hesitate in this kind of situation (Fredkin's paradox). If you are conscious of this, you can just choose one choice randomly or according to some standard method.

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Always assume that you will succeed

Comments: If you don't expect to succeed in an endeavor, then you will not do your best and will not notice possible solutions, while if you feel that you will eventually succeed you will concentrate all your power at the problem. Of course, there is no point in attempting what you cannot do, a certain amount of self-knowledge is always needed.

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If you can't find a solution, change the rules.

Comment: Remember that there are no no-win scenarios.

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If you cannot do anything about something, there is no point in worrying about it.

Comment: Worrying is stressful, and in most situations doesn't accomplish anything - it just wastes energy. Instead of worrying about things, either do something about them or find ways around the problem. One useful idea is to write down your worries on slips of paper, and then put them away in a box. Regularly, once a week or so, you open the box and see what you can do about the worries that are still relevant.

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Do not rely on conscious decisions for speed - Just Do It

Comments: The conscious mind is surprisingly slow, conscious choices and actions are delayed for a significant time (a reflex acts within some tens of milliseconds, an unconscious reaction to external stimuli circa 100 milliseconds and a conscious choice several seconds). The duty of the conscious mind is usually to inhibit rather than start action, and if you become too conscious of what you are doing in a tense situation you will hesitate or slow down.

It is a good idea to learn to rely on your non-conscious mind, since our conscious mind is slow and has very low bandwidth while the other systems in our brains have a tremendous capacity and actually do most of the real work anyway.

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Don't try to explain away your actions for yourself

Comment: While we often do things we do not want to explain our real motivations for before other people (out of fear of embarrassment, anger or loss of image), it is a bad idea to try to convince oneself that the motivation was anything different from what it was. It will only reduce your self-knowledge with deliberate misinformation, and it is often valuable to understand what motivations you have (even if you dislike them or would never admit them in public).

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Listen to your intuition, but do not believe it unconditionally

Comments: Intuitive or emotional thinking, analogies, "gut feelings" or "flashes of inspiration" can sometimes give fantastic new insights or show problems from a new direction. Unfortunately such thinking isn't always reliable, and quite often completely wrong! Such insights should never be accepted because you admire their beauty or they are intuitive, only because they fit with reality.

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"The Wisdom of the Heart" from the Dalai Lama

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk. When you lose, don't lose the lesson. Follow the three Rs: *Respect for self *Respect for others and *Responsibility for all your actions. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship. When you realise you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. Spend some time alone every day. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality. Be gentle with the earth. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Some Quick Ways to Relieve Stress

© Maureen Fleury

Oct 5, 1999

In my article dated September 21st, I reported the results of a survey on stress. It noted that working mothers experience very high stress levels. As mentioned in the same article, some of my future articles will deal with relieving stress.

In this article, I want to give you some ideas on some stress relievers that don't take much time or money. Let's face it, most of us don't have either! By the time we put in a full workday and tend to our families, we don't much time or energy to do a lot. Take a look and see if any of these ideas can be useful to you.

From Healthline Magazine http://www.healthline.org/articles/hl960...

"Stress can threaten your health and well-being. When you respond to situations with excessive amounts of anger, fear, frustration, resentment, or envy, you place a burden on your body that depletes energy, disrupts your immune system, and impairs cardiovascular health. When you moderate your responses, maintain a strong social support system, and develop healthy ways of coping with stress, you protect yourself from its damaging effects.

You can fight stress with techniques to help you relax and "take a break" from the hectic pace of life. These 10 steps can help you feel more relaxed, laid-back, and low-keyed, thus combating stress.

Take a catnap: A 10-minute nap virtually anywhere-at home, on the office floor, in the car (providing you're not driving of course!)-can be refreshing

Visualization: Take a quick "mental break" by envisioning a favorite place in your mind-whether it be the ocean, the mountains, or your own backyard. Concentrate on "seeing", "smelling" and "hearing" the things you imagine.

Massage: Close your eyes and use your fingertips to vigorously massage your forehead and the back of your neck. Rub in circles, and rub hard.

Breathing: Increased tension results in rapid, shallow breathing. For better relaxation, inhale slowly, hold your breath, and exhale slowly. Count to eight during each phase.

Abdominal breathing: Lie on the floor with your face up, body relaxed, and eyes closed. Exhale, blowing all the air out of your lungs, and push out your abdomen. Then pull in your abdomen, press down on it with your hand, and inhale deeply. Relax, letting the abdomen return to its normal position. Breathe normally for several minutes; then repeat the cycle.

Get out of the rut: Making up new ways to do old things can be a great reliever of both stress and boredom. Try taking different routes when driving to work, or change the way you do ordinary tasks such as putting on makeup, fixing your hair, or getting dressed.

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SELF ACTUALIZATION

"

Maslow studied healthy people, most psychologists study sick people.

The characteristics listed here are the results of 20 years of study of people who had the "full use and exploitation of talents, capacities, potentialities, etc.."

Self-actualization implies the attainment of the basic needs of physiological, safety/security, love/belongingness, and self-esteem.

Maslow's Basic Principles:

1. The normal personality is characterized by unity, integration, consistency, and coherence. Organization is the natural state, and disorganization is pathological.
2. The organism can be analyzed by differentiating its parts, but no part can be studied in isolation. The whole functions according to laws that cannot be found in the parts.
3. The organism has one sovereign drive, that of self-actualization. People strive continuously to realize their inherent potential by whatever avenues are open to them.
4. The influence of the external environment on normal development is minimal. The organism's potential, if allowed to unfold by an appropriate environment, will produce a healthy, integrated personality.
5. The comprehensive study of one person is more useful than the extensive investigation, in many people, of an isolated psychological function.
6. The salvation of the human being is not to be found in either behaviorism or in psychoanalysis, (which deals with only the darker, meaner half of the individual). We must deal with the questions of value, individuality, consciousness, purpose, ethics and the higher reaches of human nature.
7. Man is basically good not evil.
8. Psychopathology generally results from the denial, frustration or twisting of our essential nature.
9. Therapy of any sort, is a means of restoring a person to the path of self-actualization and development along the lines dictated by their inner nature.
10. When the four basic needs have been satisfied, the growth need or self-actualization need arises: A new discontent and restlessness will develop unless the individual is doing what he individually is fitted for. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write--in short, what people can be they must be."

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Video of the day: futurcar

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The Socratic Method: teaching by asking instead of by telling

" The following is a transcript of a teaching experiment, using the Socratic method, with a regular third grade class in a suburban elementary school. I present my perspective and views on the session, and on the Socratic method as a teaching tool, following the transcript. The class was conducted on a Friday afternoon beginning at 1:30, late in May, with about two weeks left in the school year. This time was purposely chosen as one of the most difficult times to entice and hold these children's concentration about a somewhat complex intellectual matter. The point was to demonstrate the power of the Socratic method for both teaching and also for getting students involved and excited about the material being taught. There were 22 students in the class. I was told ahead of time by two different teachers (not the classroom teacher) that only a couple of students would be able to understand and follow what I would be presenting. When the class period ended, I and the classroom teacher believed that at least 19 of the 22 students had fully and excitedly participated and absorbed the entire material. The three other students' eyes were glazed over from the very beginning, and they did not seem to be involved in the class at all. The students' answers below are in capital letters."

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US States Renamed For Countries With Similar GDPs

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a convenient way of measuring and comparing the size of national economies. Annual GDP represents the market value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year. Put differently:

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