So how do you respond when someone brings you into the conversation? How do you answer when they ask you for your opinion or who you’re going to vote for?
You could always just doodle on a receipt like this one from J. Barker 🙂
Sharon Schweitzer, an international etiquette expert, author and founder of Protocol & Etiquette Worldwide, says you have options.
Has politics become a reality TV show?
You don’t want to respond
Keeping your opinion to yourself can be difficult; however, it is possible. Say something like, “In the midst of such a contentious political season, I feel it’s best to keep my opinion to myself. I do appreciate your interest and wish you the best in your political decisions.”
By acknowledging and thanking them for their genuine interest, you are able to get out of sticky political conversations but retain your well-mannered and ever sophisticated demeanor.
If they push again
If they keep pushing for a response, you can play the undecided card and change the subject.
“I’m still evaluating the candidates and the issues and haven’t made up my mind yet. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
To get them off the topic for good, ask them about something meaningful to them that they will want to talk about. “I hear your son got accepted to Ohio State. Congratulations!” “Great job on closing that account. How did you do it?” “Tell me about your trip to the mountains a few weeks ago. I hear it is beautiful this time of year.”
You want to respond
If you would like to express your beliefs, the best way to do so is to cite research and concrete reasons why your views align a certain way, as this will encourage more of an intellectual conversation than a possible war of opinions. Just as you want to express your beliefs, be courteous and let the person you are speaking to express his or her beliefs, even if you disagree.
If you disagree
It’s inevitable that disagreements will arise, but when they do, handle them with grace, dignity and respect. Say something like, “That’s an interesting way to look at it and you bring up some valid points; however, I feel that…” Never raise your voice, show anger, abruptly walk away or make it personal.
Either way
Whether you decide to respond or not, be tactful, polite, and remember that educated responses will help you either to cordially engage, or graciously decline whenever these inevitable conversations cross your path. For the Silo, Alex Smith.
Concrete workers are unsung heroes. Their work doesn’t end, even when winter hits and the temperature drops.
Unlike people who work in the warmth of an indoor space, they may not have the luxury of avoiding the harsh weather.
Without the right precautions, they may suffer from problems such as hypothermia, frostbite, or trench foot. The wet weather can also increase their risk of injury. If the weather is extremely harsh, then work can be called off for safety reasons.
However, workers who are trained and experienced to work in cities that experience colder climates usually adapt well. For example, if you need someone to help you with concrete cutting in Calgary – then you can easily find a reputable and professional locally owned and operated company that’s been serving clients in cold climates for decades.
Here are a few ways concrete contractors adapt to the winter:
#1 They Pay Attention to the Weather Forecast
When working outside, contractors pay attention to the weather forecast. They identify potential weather-related issues so that they can prepare in advance. They also try to use daylight to their advantage and have artificial light to help if necessary.
#2 They Protect Their Body
When working in the cold, concrete contractors usually wear multiple layers. Some also wear insulated clothes, which shield the skin from moisture, and thermal undergarments. The outer layers are waterproof and quickly removable. On their heads, they may wear a wool liner under their hard hat.
In the winter, contractors may take more short breaks to warm up their bodies or their clothes. They may also try to get the most work done during the warmest part of the day. The buddy system also comes in handy during the winter, where partners can look out for each other.
#3 They Protect Their Hands
Gloves are especially important in the winter. Many contractors prefer leather gloves because they’re more resistant than cotton gloves, which can get damp. When the temperature drops to less than 20 C, they may switch to mittens. However, mittens aren’t always practical for work.
#4 They Protect Their Feet
Waterproof boots are a must in the winter. Contractors may treat their leather boots to waterproof them further and wear insulated socks. They may also wear multiple layers of socks, with the outer sock being the largest size. Some carry extra socks in case they need to work outdoors for longer periods.
#5 They Protect Their Equipment
After donning the proper equipment, concrete contractors also take precautions with their equipment. They avoid using cold tools because this can lead to problems. Instead, the tools are warmed up before they can contact concrete.
Tools with metal handlebars are treated with extra caution. Metal handles are covered with an insulating material to protect workers. Usually, contractors only use equipment that’s designed to be handled with gloves or mittens. Contractors may also use powerful tools that are integrated with dust collection to avoid cutting wet.
These are a few ways concrete contractors adapt to the winter when doing outdoor work. With the right precautions and appreciation from their clients, they get the job done correctly and safely.
The Montecito mansion, where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle filmed much of their Netflix documentary Harry & Meghan, is on the market at $33.5 million. Fit for royalty, the Mediterranean-style, six-bedroom home with 13,599 square feet includes ocean and mountain views, multiple terraces, and a regal great room chandelier and arched windows – where Meghan was extensively filmed for the show’s interviews. The home was built in 2006.
The home’s exterior includes two acres of lush grounds with romantic walkways and year-round flowers, soaring palm trees and accent vines, a vegetable garden, citrus orchards, and even a chicken coop for fresh eggs. Amenities include a pool, hot tub, bar, gym, game room and a theater. A picturesque guest house is perfect for any king or royal relative who might drop by for the beautiful Southern California weather.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex moved to Montecito in 2020 where they lived for a few months at Tyler Perry’s home before buying their own $14.7 million mansion. The six-part Harry & Meghan docuseries follows the couple from the early days of their courtship up to their well-publicized resignation from the royal family and move from England, and is setting television viewership records.
Montecito has long been a favorite escape for the wealthy, including John and Jacqueline Kennedy’s honeymoon in 1953, and increasingly drawing Hollywood types such as Oprah Winfrey, Kim Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ariana Grande.
The home is listed with Ryan Malmsten of Santa Barbara Brokers. Photos by Jim Bartsh.
Until quite recently, the field of early modern history largely focused on Europe.
The overarching narrative of the early modern world began with the European “discoveries,” proceeded to European expansion overseas, and ended with an exploration of the fac-tors that led to the “triumph of Europe.” When the Journal of Early Modern History was established in 1997, the centrality of Europe in the emergence of early modern forms of capitalism continued to be a widely held assumption. Much has changed in the last twenty years, including the recognition of the significance of consumption in different parts of the early modern world, the spatial turn, the emergence of global history, and the shift from the study of trade to the commodities themselves.
Sometimes conferences disappear from view as soon as the delegates disperse.
Other times, when the papers are published in an edited volume, conferences come to be seen as important milestones in the historiography. The two volumes edited by James Tracy, entitled The Rise of Merchant Empires and The Political Economy of Merchant Empires published in 1990 and 1991, respectively, move through their various stages of production, ownership, transmission and transformation .
Moreover, those stages are overlapping, circulatory and contradictory; objects move in and out of collections, as they move in and out of fashion, and meanings are never stable. When a feathered crown is produced in Spanish America, for example, it has a very different meaning from when it enters into a cabinet of curiosity, and when it is taken out of the cabinet to appear in a spectacular performance in the street or in the theatre, it once again takes on a different meaning.
Objects gain biographies; earlier meanings of objects are never erased but reshaped and translated to new circumstances, as Leah Clark showed in her study of the circulations of gems and jewels through the hands of a variety of owners in quattrocento Italy. Have we lost this meaning connection with mass produced items from China?
Such insights have benefitted not only from the global turn but also from developments in the fields of anthropology and art history, making the field more interdisciplinary than it was when the study of the trade in goods focused more on their trade than on the goods themselves.
The Founding of a New Journal
Despite Tracy’s efforts, European actors continued to hold central stage in the field. When the Journal of Early Modern History (JEMH) was established in 1997, a decade after the Minnesota conference, the centrality of Europe in the emergence of early modern forms of capitalism, for example, continued (and still continues) to be a widely held assumption. In part, this can be explained by the powerful legacy of giants in the field like Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein.
1 James Tracy, ed.,The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350-1750, Studies in Comparative Early Modern History (Cambridge, 1990); James Tracy, ed., The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, Studies in Comparative Early Modern History (Cambridge, 1991).
2 Herman Van der Wee, “Structural Changes in European Long-Distance Trade, and Particularly in the Reexport Trade from South to North, 1350-1750,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires, 14-33; Niels Steensgaard, “The Growth and Composition of the Long-Distance Trade of England and the Dutch Republic before 1750,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires, 102-52; The importance of comparative methodologies is also spelled out in the short editorial that accompanies the first part of the first volume of the JEMH. See James D. Tracy, “From the Editors,” Journal of Early Modern History 1 (1 January 1997):3
Braudel’s concern was entirely with European history over the longue durée; Wallerstein’s 1976 study identified Europe as one of the core regions in the modern capitalist economy as it emerged in the sixteenth century. Regions like Central Africa, India and China were designated as peripheries, meaning that their natural resources and low-skill, labor-intensive production sustained the economic growth of the core region. Wallerstein’s framing of the relationship between the early modern European core and its peripheries formed the base for much of the scholarship of the past decades, including numerous studies of the long-distance or intercontinental trade between core and periphery.
Much that was written also continued to identify long-distance trade as the preserve of either the various East India Companies associated with individual nations, or of the specifically named merchant communities such as the Armenians, the Jews, Wang Gungwu’s Hokkien merchants, or the Bajaras and Banyas merchant communities.
Such groups appear in the literature as having a clear identity that separates them from other groups and an often marginal status that makes them especially suited to the life of the itinerant merchant who covers vast distances.
And for much of the 1990s and beyond, the emphasis continued to be on commodities traded over long distances, from Asia to Europe via land or sea routes, including luxury items that justified the high cost associated with their transport. Precious metals were sent from the Americas to Asia, silks and spices arrived in the Levant via overland trade routes, and once the Europeans had rounded the Cape of Good Hope, luxury goods like porcelains, precious stones, and exotic hardwoods were shipped across the oceans along with silks and spices. Long-distance trade as it appears in Tracy’s two volumes on merchant empires was undoubtedly seen as important, but as essentially different from the bulk trade in grains, timber and salt that, for example, underpinned the growth of the early modern Dutch economy.
3 Fernand Braudel,Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, trans. Siân Reynolds, 3 vols. (Berkeley, 1992); Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1976). At least 23 research articles published between 1997 and the present in JEMHquote Braudel’s work, and a further five quote Wallerstein.
4 Gungwu Wang, “Merchants without Empire: The Hokkien Sojourning Communities,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires, 400-422; Irfan Habib, “Merchant Communities in Precolonial India,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires, 371-99.
In other words, when the JEMH was founded, the centrality of Europe in shaping global trade relations, the separation of agents into distinct nation-based groups, and the classification of goods over long distances as luxuries of less importance all still had a very strong presence.
One major change did occur, however, more or less between the appearance of The Rise of Merchant Empires in 1990, and the establishment of the JEMH in 1997.
John Brewer and Roy Porter’s 1993 Consumption and the World of Goods was one of those transformative collections of articles that inaugurated a whole new way of doing history.6 Brewer and Porter were not the first to use the title; Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood had already published a book with a very similar title in 1979. But Brewer and Porter, and many others who went on to publish in the field of what we might call consumption studies, took the study of the consumer in a new direction, away from the eighteenth-century European debates over whether the consumption of luxury goods was morally justifiable, and towards sophisticated studies of the complex contexts in which people desired goods and in which that desire and demand for goods went on to transform society, culture and the ………… to continue reading click here for full document in PDF format.
For the Silo by Anne Gerritsen, University of Warwick. Paper courtesy of academia.edu
During the busy holiday season, nothing is more exhausting than being on the go – whether jet-setting for work or a tropical Christmas family get together or leisure, avoiding the “same box, different city” syndrome can reduce fatigue by making travelers feel like they’ve arrived to a glamorous second home, rather than a bland stopover in a new location. For example: tiny hotels can be structured as houses, lodges or camps, letting guests feel fully enveloped in beautiful landscapes or big city living, slipping into local life with total ease.
When it comes to hotels, bigger isn’t always better.
For some, there’s something appealing about mega-resorts with seemingly endless activities, numerous dining and drinking options, and pools as far as the eye can see. But for those looking for a more intimate, personalized and under-the-radar experience, here are five to consider from smallest to largest.
Ignacia Guest House, Mexico City
Perfect for design aficionados and those looking to blend into to daily life in the beloved Colonia Roma neighborhood, Ignacia Guest House is a trendy eco-friendly bed and breakfast. Featuring just five unique suites, the hotel’s namesake is Ignacia, the housekeeper who took care of this 1913 colonial mansion for more than 70 years. Led by architects Factor Eficiencia and interior design studio A – G, the restoration of this casona blends Mexican tradition with history and contemporary design. Opened in 2017, artists, architects, designers, photographers from all over have been drawn to the property for its internationally acclaimed award-winning design, décor and style.
The hotel can only host 10 guests at a time,
so guests can expect privacy, personalized attention and truly superb
concierge service. The chef modifies menus to include personal
specifications, from vegan to lactose-free. Each morning, the chef
prepares fresh-baked breads, and complimentary signature breakfasts like
Chilaquiles, Molletes and Sopecitos are made from scratch – as is
freshly squeezed orange juice and homemade orange marmalade from the
garden’s two old-growth citrus trees, planted by Ignacia herself. All
ingredients (fruits, vegetables, legumes, coffee, eggs, dairy,
tortillas) come from small local producers, which guarantees their
freshness and quality, as well as supporting the local community. Guests
return home to a complimentary garden cocktail hour, where the chef
creates custom drinks, such as a mango-and-mezcal concoction and more.
Fun Fact: Guests can peruse
the library, where a curated selection of Mexican design books and
magazines live, along with a growing collection of cookbooks, books,
poetry and photography from past artistic guests.
Insider Tip: Ignacia Guest House recommends learning about the street food scene with an insider tour by Eat Like a Local Mexico City, taking an authentic Mexican cooking class upstairs in Casa Jacaranda or venturing on a hot air balloon ride over the Teotihuacan Pyramids. Or, join an adventurous itinerary curated by Wild Terrains, women-only group trips to Mexico City where guests support local, female-run businesses and creative activities – along with a stay at Ignacia Guest House (also female-owned).
If you go: All guests receive complimentary Wi-Fi, breakfast, daily cocktail hour in the garden and more. Nightly rates for the suites range from $440 – $315USD.
Kichuguu Camp, Tanzania
Opened in June 2017, Chaka Camps’ newest lodge Kichuguu Camp’s 11 Tents are situated in a quiet woodland between the Tarangire River basin and Silale Swamp, which provides excellent game viewing.
Kichuguu (‘termite mound’ in English) Camp is
a thematic representation of the termite mounds that dot the Tarangire
landscape. The hidden details and patterns of the intricate mounds
appear in items like the bedside lamps, which resemble spires and tables
and lamps are shaped like carved tunnels. Organic materials and shapes
are used in artwork and overhead lighting, while open chimneys and vent
holes replicate termite mounds’ ventilation.
Kichuguu Camp was inspired by the way
termites use the surrounding environment to build a home and partnered
with sustainable design company Dunia Designs to recycle Arusha’s waste
plastic into flooring, mirror stands and furniture filling. Along with
distinctive décor, the camp features gourmet Swahili cuisine and warm
Tanzanian hospitality. The Chaka Camps boutique collection includes
three sustainable luxe tented camps: the original Chaka Camp, Kiota Camp
and Kichuguu Camp – all deliver extraordinary wildlife experiences with
comfort and style.
Fun Fact: Guests of Chaka Camps can find a small library at the camps with Africa’s traditional musical instruments – and test out the mbira, a wooden board with metal tines for plucking.
Insider Tip: June-October
is dry season, the best time to visit Tarangire National Park. During
that time, the Tarangire River and Silale Swamp are among the only
sources of fresh water in the region, drawing dense populations of
wildlife including elephant, impala, giraffe, lion, buffalo, zebra and
wildebeest. Additionally, with more than 550 bird species, Tarangire is a
birder’s paradise. Night game drives are also available.
If you go: Rates start at $400USD per double per night. Includes all food and beverage, bottled drinking water and snacks, nightly fireside evenings with a mobile bar, complimentary Wi-Fi, toiletry supplies and more. Bush breakfasts and private dinners under the stars are also available. Full package safaris can also be arranged through partner company Duma Explorer, an adventure travel outfitter based in Arusha.
Les Ilets de la Plage, Saint Barths
Saint Barths: full-speed glamour without the
typical hotspot pretense. The island features plenty of ultra-posh
hotels, but there are also down-to-earth, accessible private villa
options for those looking for the privacy and relaxation of a beach
escape.
An affordable way to vacation on the beautiful of St Barths, the intimate, family-owned beach resort of Les Ilets de la Plage offers 12 private villas with direct access to the white sand beach and azure sea. Secluded yet central, Les Ilets de la Plage has been a well-kept secret for years, many guests return year after year to the same villa, leaving luggage and personal items with the staff for their next stay.
Beachside and garden villas offer luxe accommodations and all the amenities you’d expect from a hotel, combining the privacy and serenity of a villa with concierge service…at an affordable price. The attractive studio, one-two and three bedroom villas are perfect for a romantic couples’ retreat, solo travelers, a friends’ getaway, or a relaxing family holiday.
In addition to gorgeous private beach access,
there’s a private pool with cabanas and a sun deck. They also have full
concierge service—fresh croissants, bread, pain au chocolats delivered
to your door each morning, lunch and dinner reservations, grocery
shopping, even childcare is easily arranged.
Fun Fact: Les Ilets de la Plage is
a pet-friendly resort, so if you don’t want to leave your furry friend
at home, find out what is needed to bring your pooch to Saint Barths.
Pet amenities include cushions, bowls and treats to make furry visitors
feel right at home!
Insider Tip: Want to stay active
during your vacation? Their wellness experience combines relaxation with
healthy initiatives like daily yoga, aqua Pilates and /or island spa
treatments. Hike the beautiful surrounding hills, power walk along the
beach at dawn, swim in the ocean or do laps in the resort pool. Paddle
boarding tones up muscles well, but guests can also have unlimited
access to a state-of-the-art gym in Gustavia with superb facilities and
classes. Enjoy healthy, delicious lunches or dinners using the freshest
Caribbean ingredients supplied by Mayas-to-Go.
If you go: All villas have full kitchen facilities, air conditioning in the bedrooms, satellite TV, complimentary Wi-Fi throughout, a daily maid service and delivery of fresh breads and pastries right to the door.
Adler Lodge Ritten, Italy
Opened in June, 2019, ADLER Lodge Ritten, a sister to established properties like ADLER Thermae in Tuscany and ADLER Lodge Alpe, is a new 20-room hotel in the Dolomites region. The hotel is set on the Ritten plateau, a popular weekend getaway for city dwellers, and will overlook some of the Dolomites’ most majestic mountain peaks, such as the Rosengarten and the Latemar. ADLER Lodge Ritten is committed to an eco-conscious existence, thanks to its sustainable construction and locally inspired cuisine (here, farm-to-table isn’t a buzzword, but truly part of the chef’s philosophy).
The hotel consists of a spacious main building with reception area, lobby, bar, restaurant and spa. There are two additional structures, with 10 junior suites. Also scattered throughout the property are 20 one- and two-story chalets, some set around a small natural lake. All rooms have private bio saunas, balconies or terraces, and chalets that feature wood-burning fireplaces.
Fun Fact: ADLER Lodge Ritten has two saunas deep in the forest with a heated pool. (actual forest bathing), reached only by a short narrow path into the forest. Glistening peaks and old larch trees surround fragrant saunas and the steaming pool.
Insider Tip: Renon’s historic narrow-gauge railway, the Rittnerbahn, stops just 200 meters from the hotel at the Stella station, so rental cars aren’t needed. The thriving city of Bolzano is just a 12-minute ride away via cable car. Activities are designed to highlight the distinctive beauty of each season and might include skiing, snowshoeing, Nordic walking, wine tasting or cycling (the hotel offers complimentary electric-bike rentals). Or, if you can extend your vacation, from the dreaming meadows of the south Tyrol to the towering spires of Tre Cime, On Foot Holidays‘ self-guided walk in the Dolomites of northern Italy is a longtime favorite.
If you go: Rates start at 240€ per day per person or from 1,670€ per person for a week. The all-inclusive room rate includes all meals, soft drinks, wines and spirits.
Calabash Cove Resort and Spa, Saint Lucia
Where an ocean view room really means RIGHT THERE. Calabash Cove Resort and Spa is one of the most popular all-inclusive, adults-only boutique hotels in Saint Lucia, a Caribbean treasure offering seclusion, beauty and mesmerizing views. With just26 suites (only three are identical), old Caribbean charm is coupled with modern luxurious resort amenities. Highlights include the Windsong restaurant and lively C-Bar overlooking the infinity pool, and the peaceful Ti Spa. Chef Paul Odle leads the culinary team at Windsong Restaurant and accommodates any dietary needs and personal requests including vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, lactose-free and more. The unconditional all-inclusive covers all meals and beverages including room service, daily food specials including a daily lobster dish (when in season), premium drinks, a stocked in-room bar (with full size bottles), over 20 wines from the wine list by the bottle for breakfast, lunch or dinner, gratuities/tips and Wi-Fi. The only restriction is the “Reserve du Patron” section of the wine list. Calabash Cove has a small Cybex cardiovascular fitness center and provides kayaks, paddle boards and snorkeling gear free of charge to guests.
Fun Fact: Saint Lucia is a magnet for destination weddings and honeymoons. Unlike other hotels on island, Calabash Cove only confirms one wedding on any given day. A bride and groom will never have to wait for a gazebo to become free from the wedding prior.
Insider Tip: The hotel concierge can arrange an all-day private climb of Mount Gimie, Saint Lucia’s highest peak, a volcano covered in a lush tropical rainforest (3117 ft). With
a few days advance notice guests just need to bring good hiking gear
and a backpack and Calabash Cove will arrange a private guide, lunch and
a transfer to and from the mountain. The tour includes approximately
5-6 hours of hiking in steep terrain. This is not a run-of-the-mill
experience, with guests trekking through two valleys, along a small
creek and up and down on a barely visible trail.
If you go: Rates for the all-inclusive start at $295.50USD including taxes and service charges per person per night based on double occupancy. The resort also offers a rate for room with breakfast only. For visits of 7 paid nights or longer booked with the resort directly, Calabash Cove offers guests private car airport transfers. For the Silo, Katherine Han.
Personal power is a core leadership competency that everyone needs to develop before they can lead others. It has to do with being able to
lead yourself.
“Personal power is the ability to achieve what you want,” according to Frederick Mann, a successful entrepreneur and author of The Economic Rape of America.
“More than anything else, it is personal power that brings you success and happiness. The biggest barrier to success in almost
any endeavor is powerlessness, negativity, helplessness, and inertia. They belong together. The problem is not only our own powerlessness, but also the powerlessness of those around us.”
We can help harness and learn to use our personal power by understanding and working on our Emotional Intelligence (EI) skills.
Not long ago, when I worked in a corporate environment, there was a strong push to incorporate EI into the organization’s leadership
training curriculum as an array of skills and characteristics that drive leadership performance.
EI is “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide
one’s thinking and actions,” according to psychologists John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey, who co-developed the concept and were two of the three authors of the Emotional Intelligence Test.
a. Pay attention to the feedback of friends and co-workers, good and bad. Train yourself to repeat the behaviors that get positive feedback and work on eliminating those that make people react negatively.
b. View constructive criticism as just that. When we become defensive, we don’t hear what can be very helpful feedback.
c. Learn to handle conflict and confrontation from a perspective of compassion and caring.
Personal coaching can be very helpful in learning to be more diplomatic in your interactions with others.
Dr. Salovey (left) and Dr. Mayer (right)
My EI training and its practical applications to my work team environment still resonate in my personal life. They became skills that I now methodically apply to current situations in both personal and entrepreneurial pursuits.
There are several EI models, but the one to which I ascribe is the mixed model introduced by Daniel Goldman, a combination of ability and traits. Here are Goldman’s five main EI constructs, and my views on how each of us can develop them:
1. Self-awareness: the ability to know one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives, values and goals and recognize their impact on others while using gut feelings to guide decisions.
In order to become self-aware, you need to conduct an honest self-assessment to determine your strengths and weaknesses, such as powerlessness and inertia, and determine the root causes. You then need to create a plan that will help you overcome your fears, which are barriers to courage and stand between you and your successes.
While I am a big proponent of using my intuition to guide my decisions, whenever it is appropriate, I need to caution that unless your gut
feelings are often more right than wrong, you cannot make decisions solely based upon intuition. You need to use a balanced combination of intuition and logic.
2. Self-regulation: involves controlling or redirecting one’s disruptive emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.
Simply put, you need to exercise self-discipline and know how to control your emotions and be flexible in order to adapt to changing
situations. You cannot continue on the same trajectory or keep the same plans when the circumstances or facts have changed. Your plans need to be modified accordingly.
3. Social skills: managing relationships to move people in the desired direction.
Your social skills refer to your interpersonal skills or your ability to relate and connect with people, which can motivate them to deploy discretionary efforts to help you achieve goals that are best accomplished via partnership and collaboration.
Here are some tips for improving your social skills:
a. Pay attention to the feedback of friends and co-workers, good and bad. Train yourself to repeat the behaviors that get positive feedback and work on eliminating those that make people react negatively.
b. View constructive criticism as just that. When we become defensive, we don’t hear what can be very helpful feedback.
c. Learn to handle conflict and confrontation from a perspective of compassion and caring.
Personal coaching can be very helpful in learning to be more diplomatic in your interactions with others.
4. Empathy – considering other people’s feelings, especially when making decisions.
Some people believe empathy cannot be learned, but I believe just the opposite. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and try to see
situations from their perspective. Might they be feeling fear? Shame? Guilt? How do those emotions make you feel? Understanding and addressing the concerns of others is essential to EI.
Always consider intent versus impact, and how your actions or decisions may affect the individuals or groups involved.
5. Motivation – being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement.
Simply put, what motivates you? What are your benchmarks for success? Once you achieve certain levels of success, you need to consistently
set new benchmarks to keep chasing personal excellence!
Practice your EI skills on yourself first, and you’ll develop greater personal power. That can lead to achievements you may never have dreamed possible. For the Silo, Lynda Chervil.
Lynda Chervil is the author of “Fool’s Return,” http://lyndachervil.com/, a new novel that incorporates valuable life lessons in a page-turning tale that touches on technology, the green movement, and other aspects of contemporary society.
Like other authors who write about innovation, I love Thomas Edison stories. He was an inventive genius and found the code to serial innovation more than 120 years ago.
That code is still in use by companies like IDEO who’ve learned his lessons and both improved upon them and added to them. But the basic core is still the same.
Less well known is Edison’s entrepreneurial side. He put financiers, government officials, politicians and inventors like himself together in an inspired coalition that built the first electrical grid in New York City. After all, what good is a light bulb if you don’t have a source of electricity to power it?
But his inventions were not always successful, nor were his attempts to market and sell them.
For example, very few people today know about Edison’s talking doll. Expected to sell during the 1890 Christmas season, she was a marketing failure.
Creepy even for the 19th Century
I think she looks like the “Bride of Chucky” and is more than a little spooky. Talking, animated objects are commonplace today, but Edison was the first to have the idea and execute it.
Click on any image to hear Edison’s doll speak.
What gave her voice was a tiny version of the phonograph – another of his inventions. He thought it would be novel to make a talking doll and hoped it would catch on. The doll market was already thriving, so a talking doll could potentially reach the top of the heap.
But not all of Edison’s creativity turned into cash, and his Bride of Chucky was a dismal failure. The little talking machine went inside the doll with the handle protruding from her back. Edison produced 2,500 of the dolls but only 500 sold. They were $10 each — two weeks of the average pay back in 1890 – and many of those sold were returned for quality problems.
Edison quickly turned his back on her.
I particularly like this story because it shows the critical difference between innovation and entrepreneurship. Great ideas are not always great opportunities. Opportunities possess five characteristics that differentiate them from great ideas:
Durability – They keep creating value over time.
Sustainability – The organization has the willpower, manpower and resources to sustain the idea through failure, rethinking and reformulation.
Defensibility – The potential return on investment makes it worth the time, resources and risk that accompany all new ventures, thus making it worth doing this over doing something else.
It creates value – It creates value for the person willing to reach into their pockets for money to pay for the intangible form and thus it creates value for the company.
It is compelling – The Innovation is differentiated in some critical way that makes a customer segment just have to have it.
Entrepreneurs differ substantially from innovators because they have the discipline to determine whether a great idea is also a great opportunity. This takes a lot of work, failure, rethinking and, most of all, passion to get you through all of this vetting. Many innovators lose interest after the idea stage and don’t understand that innovation without value creation may be fun – but it’s also folly.
Edison, like many other inventors, fell in love with his baby and he built a bunch of them, assuming a slam dunk in the market. In fact, these dolls were not just spooky looking, they were big and heavy and cost a lot of money.
Edison’s enthusiasm for his ability to make a talking doll was not counterbalanced by the discipline necessary to determine whether the idea was just that or a real opportunity. He was so eager to produce them that he didn’t ask if the market wanted such an invention and at what price.
I am sure that Edison was OK with failure, as he once said that he had not failed in his efforts to create the light bulb, but rather found a thousand ways that didn’t work. For the Silo, Neal Thornberry, Ph.D.
Life insurance is commonly regarded as an investment that should be considered much later in life, when you are older. Young investors frequently favor high-risk, high-reward investments such as equities and commodities. Even the most conservative millennials prefer investments such as fixed deposits or debt mutual funds. Insurance is being replaced by investment options that promise greater monetary returns sooner.
However, the fact remains that investing in life insurance early has numerous benefits.
You’ll understand why investing in life insurance plans early in your career should be an important part of your retirement planning once you’ve learned the benefits. So, here are 3 of the many benefits of purchasing a life insurance policy at a young age.
You will pay lower premiums
Purchasing life insurance at a young age can save you money in the long run. The insurer frequently considers factors such as the applicant’s age and general health condition when determining the premium payable. People in their twenties and thirties are generally in better health.
As a result, premium charges are less expensive than those charged to older investors. Another reason why buying life insurance at a young age is less expensive is that your risk of dying is much lower. To take advantage of this provision, it is best to purchase life insurance early in life.
Your money has enough time to grow
When you purchase a life insurance policy at a young age, your money has more time to grow. As a result, investing in your twenties increases the death or maturity benefits payable at the end of the policy’s term.
For example, if you purchase a life insurance policy at the age of 25 and continue to pay premiums until you are 60, your money will have 35 years to accumulate into a retirement corpus. If you buy the same life insurance at 40, you only have 20 years to make your money grow. Investing early can thus increase your investment’s cash value in the long run.
The future of your family is secure
Most people, by the time they reach retirement age, will have amassed a sizable corpus to help keep their family financially secure. Most people’s children would have graduated from high school or have a job by the age of 50 or 60. When you’re younger and just starting out in your career, your family may be in a more vulnerable position.
In the unfortunate event that you die, your spouse and young children will struggle to cope without a financial safety net. Investing in a life insurance policy at a young age can provide your dependents with this benefit.
As you can see, investing in life insurance at a young age can be a really big deal if you want to save money in the long run. It will also protect you and your dependents no matter what if you had to die unexpectedly. If you need any advice, you should contact a professional that will help you choose the right life insurance according to your needs.
New customers are essential to long-term business growth. The more customers you attract, the easier it will be for your company to grow. But how to attract new customers every day? Here are some ideas for gaining new customers.
Understand your customers
To gain new clients, you must first understand who your ideal customers are. This allows you to target and nurture them into making a purchase. So, before you do anything else, make sure you have accurate information about the customers you want to reach. Creating a buyer persona is a great way to improve your targeting.
Find the best channels for attracting new customers
When you know your customers, it’s easier to find them in the places they frequent the most. This could be done on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Or at your physical store. Analyzing your current customers to understand where they came from is the best way to know where you are likely to gain more customers.
Wall mounted prisma-print makes for a perfect outdoor display sign.
If you got them through mail or social media, you’re likely to get more if you target the same channel. However, if most of your customers discovered you with your physical store, you should focus on an outdoor display sign for example.
While it is acceptable to focus on one channel, especially if it is promising, a multichannel marketing strategy is recommended. Keep in mind that one channel can backfire.
Set objectives for attracting new customers
Setting goals motivates you to stay on track. Consider the following for the best experience when and after setting goals:
Make a list of everything you want to accomplish.
Analyze and prioritize your objectives.
Set a time limit to meet those objectives.
Begin with short-term objectives.
Recognize the purchasing procedure
How do customers contact you to make a purchase? If you know the answer to this question, it will be much easier to make the necessary changes to attract new customers. For example, if you discover that the majority of your customers are completing purchases on your site (which is not mobile-friendly), you can speed up the improvement process to attract more people.
Create compelling content
There is no other way to put it. Simply ensure that every piece of content you publish or share with your prospects establishes you as an expert in your field. This will encourage more people to interact with your content. You can even hire someone to create content for you if you find the DIY route too difficult.
Nothing can stop you from gaining new customers if you create content that your target audience is looking for and do it well. Remember that people enjoy reading and sharing rich content.
Having side cash from time to time, or even better continually, is a great source of wealth.
Not only that it enables you to collect money for something that you really need, but it really can boost your emergency fund, or just let you spoil yourself from time to time.
To get extra money and get it fast you can do several different jobs from ride-share services to doing some online surveys – they all pay differently, but they all will get you extra money.
Here are some of the best ways to earn money quickly this year.
Start With Home Care Services
You will be surprised to learn that additional help in-home care areas are always more than welcome.
With Boomers retiring and Millennials taking over the job market, it seems only logical for Millennials to provide additional care for senior citizens. Not only that you can find home care services jobs in Canada easily and fast, but next to quick money this type of job will also bring you a safe working environment, great companionship, and also provide you with a flexible work schedule, and an opportunity to learn new skills.
Sell Your Used Items
This is an old one, but a gold one.
Use well-known offline and online marketplaces, such as Craigslist, to sell items that no longer serve you.
You may not enjoy them anymore, but someone will be more than happy to welcome an original lamp from the 19th century or a preserved CD from ’90.
Do your best to present the product well:
Take great photos
Provide an accurate and brief description
Post items online
Pro tip: High-quality clothes and perfumes are the first to sell
Think also about selling old electronics, including tablets, fitness trackers, game consoles, and laptops.
The great thing about electronics is that if you cannot sell them, you can always trade them and get something that you can actually sell.
Freelance Online
Use large platforms for freelancers such as UpWork and Fiverr to get an online gig.
These sites are more than packed with different opportunities for people of various skills to land a job. Think about a position such as a virtual assistant, or a data entry assistant.
Good to know: It may take a while to get your first job, but in the long run this can be an ongoing source of additional money.
Can you guess how these gift cards tie in?
10 Ideas On How To Make Money Quickly
Sell unused gift cards
Be an affiliate marketer
Take online surveys
Tutor students
Delivery
Sell on eBay
Sell photos
Teach English online
Pet sitting
Dog Walking
There are dozens of different ways to earn money quickly and continually.
Before you start, be honest and know how much time you can invest in working on the side.
Once you determine that know what skills you can actually use to get that extra money. From there, find a place where your skills can be put to good use and sold.
In the meantime, check your loft and see what you have around collecting dust and sell.
Domestic and foreign cinema has long been interested in the issue of gambling. The topic is as interesting as the very life of such a gaming establishment as a casino is impressive.
Life, shrouded in many secrets and intrigues, attracts the attention of the most famous screenwriters and directors. In this review we will show the diversity and originality of the approach to the description of the casino theme.
FAMOUS MOVIES OF THE LAST DECADES
Let’s list a few movies of recent years that deserve special attention:
Joueurs, premiered 2018 (France).
This is a film about the underground casinos of France and the life of adventurers-lovers. Adventures turning into a whole drama. The audience will be interested in the intriguing denouement of the plot.
Molly’s Game, premiered 2018 (USA).
The film is autobiographical. The plot was the life of the athlete Molly Bloom.
The House, premiered 2017 (USA).
This comedy will help to get away from the gray everyday life. Enterprising residents of one of the houses in the United States decided to make good money by opening a casino in the basement of their house. If this is the basement of the house, then we know that it is not very convenient compared to today’s opportunity to have fun and relax, say, in the same online slots in Canada. Comfortable, safe and no hassle.
Runner, Runner, premiered 2013 (USA).
In this crime thriller, Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake perfectly played their roles. The intrigue itself will be promised to you.
Killing Them Softly, premiered 2012 (USA).
This criminal detective is quite interesting due to great play of the popular American actor Brad Pitt.
MOST POPULAR MOVIES
These movies have been heard for a long time and do not cease to amaze with their grandeur and scope of the topic. The following ones have the largest rollout:
The Hangover, premiered 2009 (USA).
This wonderful comedy has become the best in this genre. Watch and enjoy the game of famous American actors and the unpredictability of the plot.
Ocean’s Thirteen, premiered 2007 (USA).
This film is the conclusion of the famous American crime comedy trilogy (“Ocean’s Eleven” and “Ocean’s Twelve”).
Casino Royale, premiered 2006 (USA).
The well-known agent 007 James Bond appears before us in all his male attractiveness. Handsome, strong, smart, enterprising and mysterious – why not a hero to follow. Again – a great game of actors catches the eye.
The Cooler, premiered 2004 (USA).
The film, shot in the genre of romantic drama, tells about the life of an outstanding personality – a casino employee. The presence of this employee at the gaming table predicts a clear failure and loss to all players. And this, unfortunately, happens in films.
Pistol Whipped, premiered 2008 (USA).
The plot of this American action movie was based on the story of a police officer who was addicted to gambling and alcohol.
21, premiered 2008 (USA).
The very name of the show speaks for itself. It’s about the popular game of blackjack. The plot of the film is based on real events noted in the casinos of Las Vegas.
There may not be enough time today to even list films with a “casino” theme. All of them are interesting in their own way and, somewhere, even instructive. There is no “easy money” in gambling. To earn “big”, you need hard work and practice a lot. Gambling is loved by those strong in spirit and constant in their aspirations. Carpe diem!
Do you get tired of eating the same or similar food every day? No matter how creative you might be in the kitchen, you cannot avoid repeating some recipes over and over again.
Healthy eating is usually linked with habits, as only in that manner you can keep your health in balance and keep diseases away.
Still, what to do when you get bored eating great all the time? Should you go after that burger? Should you indulge in high-sugar food?
Or you should do something completely unexpected? The answer is very simple as all you should do is vary your meals.
If you eat broccoli on Monday and don’t place it on your plate before Friday again, you are spinning your meals and your body will love it.
Here is how to vary your meals, so you can still eat healthily.
Do Not Ignore Sweets
Healthy eating doesn’t mean that you should completely forget about eating sweets, ever again.
No, eating well is more about balance and finding ingredients packed with high-quality products and no sugar or with a more natural sugary option. This is why vegan frozen desserts are always a great idea when you want to continue eating great, but enjoying that taste that homemade treats offer.
Frozen desserts are always easy to store and great to have around when you have unplanned guests.
Add Greek Yogurt To Your Diet
Ok, this is a life hack. Greek yogurt is not only great to store, and easy to carry with you, but it is also very beneficial when it comes to your health.
Greek yogurt is famous for its creamy and thick texture, making it great for salads or a nice addition to fruit salad.
Greek yogurt can be used alone, as a snack on the go, and you can choose between plain and flavored options.
Increase Your Protein Intake
When you include protein-based food into your diet, you will immediately start eating healthier and more diverse.
Nuts are packed with protein and snacking them throughout the day sounds great, right?
Food that is naturally rich in protein is usually great to eat as a snack, to mix with other ingredients, and serves perfectly for weight loss.
Here are some sources of protein that should make your diet more diverse instantly:
dairy products
nuts
peanut butter
eggs
beans
lean meat
Last But Not Least… Drink Water
Did you know that people are often just thirsty when they need food? This is because when a dehydrated body sends signs that it needs to be filled, the brain doesn’t dissolve immediately if you need water or food.
This is why people tend to overeat and later on realize that they just need more glasses of water.
Plus, drinking water regularly is important for your overall health so stick to it.
It’s safe to say Blockchain technology has disrupted the internet in quite a dramatic fashion.
Despite only being invented about fourteen years ago, cryptocurrency has formed a world of its own and it is now estimated the market will hit well above a $1 trillion USD valuation from four years ago…..
Allowing transactions, alongside other things such as documents and invoices, to be sent across a P2P network, the technology has been praised for its advanced security and anonymity benefits.
The latest infographic crafted by Bitfortune looks into how many ways Blockchain technology impacted the world and various business industries, such as charities and banking.
In the world of cybersecurity, Blockchain can help reduce or eliminate fraud and errors, along with being a more accurate and confidential platform for industry professionals.
For example, REMME is a secure platform that has eliminated the need for passwords and instead uses Blockchain as a form of authentication.
In supply chain management, Blockchain is being used to reduce the number of errors and exposure to potential threats.
The technology also helps reduce time and increase efficiency – a win-win all around, really. FedEx recently announced plans for an internal Blockchain pilot program that will help solve customer disputes while IBM and Maersk are also working together on a new company that will use Blockchain within global shipping supply chains.
Take a look at the infographic below to learn how Blockchain is disrupting other industries around the world for the better and why it’s time to start thinking about how you can incorporate the technology into your lives.
Almost every woman has experienced the debilitating pain of menstrual cramps (dysmenorrhea) at some time. More than 40 percent of all North American women today suffer monthly with debilitating menstrual cramps. More than 10 percent of these women are incapacitated for one to three days each month because of excruciating pain.”
~Dr. Howard H. Smith (via sharecare.com)
Reiki can change your life in so many ways.
I’m Jeff Donovan, I’ve been a Reiki Master since 2003, but this isn’t about me. It’s about women with menstrual cramps and how they can become empowered to help themselves. It’s about Reiki. Reiki is an ancient Japanese art of energy healing. Reiki, loosely translated means, Universal Life Force Energy (or Source energy…whatever you think that source is). A Reiki practitioner can channel healing energy into himself/herself or others. For whatever reason, my clients and student base has a ratio of approximately 90% women to only 10% men. In my experience, women are more spiritually inclined, more open-minded and more willing to try ‘alternative’ methods.
In my early days of practicing Reiki, almost by accident, I saw vast improvement in women who suffer from menstrual cramps and other symptoms associated with their monthly cycles, so I put a small study together…I found 10 volunteers, age 17-50+ who suffered each and every month. Each agreed to try my home study course, practice daily for approximately 20 minutes and report back to me in 30-40 days. Of the 10 volunteers, 9 completed the program and 8 of them showed up to give their reports. 8 out of 8 reported vast improvement in their condition. Three of them stood out in the crowd because of the severity of their condition. Those three also had the most significant results and therefore, told the best stories. Here is my interview with Kristen, a 22 year-old woman who suffered from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome…her story will amaze you
Jeff: Before you knew about Reiki how was your cycle?
Kristen: Well, I’ve always had irregular cycles. About 8 month ago I was diagnosed with polycystic ovaries, which means I’m infertile and I bleed on my menstrual period for 45-60 days straight. And that’s enough in itself to make someone go insane. But on top of it, I have full menstrual symptoms…cramps, bloating, nausea, everything (for) the entire 45-60 days I’m bleeding. So basically, my life was pretty much horrible before finding Reiki. I’ve been to so many different doctors, been on so many medications, which all cause symptoms in themselves…bloating, nausea, everything else going on. It was just beyond me. I’d spend weeks at home, curled up in a ball, crying because I was so frustrated, feeling so helpless. When I came across Reiki, I said “what the heck, it can’t hurt, and it’s something to do.”
Within the first week, I felt my cramps diminish. I didn’t throw up the entire first week of trying Reiki. By the end of the month, when I was finished with the entire Reiki cycle, I still had irregular bleeding, but the bleeding had diminished significantly, so it wasn’t actually like a full period, and my bloating was gone, my headaches were gone, my cramps were gone…I didn’t miss any work, any school anything. It was absolutely amazing!
Jeff: Wow!
Kristen: Yeah, I hated being a girl. Right now I’m still on it (my period), and I’m going on day 72. But at least, I can function normally from not having the cramps. That was the biggest thing. I’m so used to being on my period, that I just wanted to get rid of some sort of symptom. If I could just get rid of the headaches, if I could just get rid of the cramps, if I could just get rid of the nausea…but all those things are gone now. I just have to deal with the bleeding, but I’m happy about having to do that because it’s manageable.
Jeff: Wow…that is awesome. So typically, how much school or work did you miss?
Kristen: Depending on…I’ve been switched to so many different medications. Every time I’m switched to a new medication, all the hormonal stuff going on…I’ve missed, just in the last 8 months of being “treated” I’ve missed probably 2 months of work/school together, just having to take sick leave and…having to take a week off here and there. But the main thing, it was just such a hamper on my social life too, because, you know, I’m young…so telling my friends I can’t go out because I just don’t feel well and being locked up for a month basically, because I’m on my period the entire time was just depressing in itself.
Jeff: And you didn’t miss any school or work this month?
Kristen: No, nothing at all this month.
Jeff: So, the results were basically immediate?
Kristen: Immediately. Like I said…within the first week. And I of course was skeptical too. I’ve been to every single specialist out there and have read every single book on my condition and what can be done, and nothing seemed to work. I was extremely hopeless…extremely, feeling helpless. And it was amazing actually, after the first week…I suffer from insomnia too because of my cramps and everything else going on. Within the first week of using Reiki, I didn’t have to use any of my sleeping medication and I haven’t used it at all this month, and I’ve felt rested.
The thing I am so happy about too, my family and friends have told me that my mood is so much better and I’m not suffering from these severe mood swings or, really depression from having to deal with all these horrible symptoms that go on. I can actually have a somewhat normal life.
Jeff: So in effect, Reiki has helped you with your depression as well?
Kristen: Oh Definitely. Yeah, Reiki has helped me with my depression, feeling like I’m actually taking control and actually seeing something work. And I think, if anything, that’s the best thing…to feel like you have some control over your body when you feel so out of control with all the symptoms going on.
Jeff: Sure. So what kinds of things have you tried in the past to try to help your symptoms?
Kristen: Oh, I’ve tried everything! I’ve been on every single medication out there I’m sure…yoga, pilates, fitness, meditation, aromatherapy. If it was out there, I tried it and nothing seemed to work and the more I looked into trying to find stuff, I actually became feeling more helpless. I actually entered into Reiki thinking that this wasn’t going to work for me at all, because nothing else had. So I was really, really shocked, really, really pleased at the same time too that this worked.
Jeff: So then, you would obviously recommend it?
Kristen: I would definitely recommend it! Without sounding comical, it has completely changed my life because I can actually function and live normally rather than being a hermit and hating being a woman.
Jeff: Wow, that’s awesome…so typically, your pain would be at 8-9 (out of 10, based on pre-study questionnaire she filled out), is that right?
Kristen: Yes, definitely…the physical pain would be 8-9 and all the emotional pain that went with it would be off the wall.
Jeff: So, you’re better in all areas?
Kristen: Oh yes, definitely!
Kristen and I stayed in touch for awhile. A few months after this interview, she emailed me she was shocked to find out her doctor was a proponent of Reiki, and after just a few months of practicing daily, he had taken her off 13 of the 14 medications she was prescribed.
Reiki can change your life in so many ways…this is only one woman’s story. Anybody and everybody can learn Reiki. We only need to be attuned by a qualified Reiki Master, learn some basic hand positions and some practical application. From the very first day of training, we can begin healing ourselves, our loved ones, our pets and so much more! The possibilities are endless. For the Silo, Jeff Donovan.
“In my personal archaeological research I’ve been focused on the shores of Lake Erie (and a few inland sites) beach and general shoreline lithic retrievals— on the Canadian side of the lake—for many years.”
Top Left- one of the retrieval locations. Top Right- one of the retrieved teeth sent to Dr. Walker. Center- eg’s of stone artifacts discovered in indirect association with some of the teeth.
The surf and weather are odd bedfellows, on one hand revealing and on the other destroying, so it seemed obvious to me that I should keep eyes to the ground, sand, and wave line and to pick up what seemed to me to be artifacts.
Occasionally friable materials turn up such as large, disarticulated bones. Even a basket made from reeds turned up. And then there’s the teeth— found in several varied locations and in indirect association with what look to me like artifacts and pierced pebbles.
I’ve yet, however, to find any of this material in situ, i.e. still buried in its confining sediments.
Some of the teeth seem to have been ‘broken’ perpendicular to the long axes, some seem to have been burned and some show calcified deposits of calculus in the interproximal grooves (I worked in dentistry for several years so have a basic understanding of tooth morphology and deposit identification etc).
Some teeth were found inland quite a few miles away from Lake Erie. I later contacted Dr. Danny Walker, RPA, Wyoming Assistant State Archaeologist at the Comparative Osteology Museum and Zooarchaeology Laboratory. I emailed to him photos and descriptions of the teeth. He kindly offered to study several of the teeth. (Dr. Walker is a co-author of the research paper, Unraveling the sequence and structure of the protein osteocalcin from a 42 ka fossil horse, Geochimica et CosmochimicaActa 2006;70(8):2034-44.)
(Center) Equus Scotti- Pleistocene horse once native to North America.
Along with his graduate students, Dr. Walker identified the teeth that I had mailed to him as Equusscotti—Pleistocene ice-age horse. Now the story begins to resemble somewhat the X-files. The established archaeological community here in Ontario and the Royal Ontario Museum (I made all aware of the teeth, the lithics and the identification offered by Dr. Walker) disputed the finds, the identification and the lithics. The Royal Ontario Museum also told me that if I had the teeth dated and they showed as pre-contact, then they would offer this explanation— that the teeth were deposited on the Lake Erie shoreline after being brought aboard lake freighters from Europe; i.e. that they may have filled their ballast with gravels which could have included the teeth.
Putting aside the low probability of this possibility, as well as the fact that Equus scotti is a North American horse, the skeptics have failed to address the fact that some teeth were discovered inland—many miles away from Lake Erie. For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.
Drinking with friends until late at night is fun, which is why lots of people do it especially on weekends. You get to talk with friends about your romantic problems and work issues, or you may enjoy watching live games in sports bar with other fervent fans. But what can you do after the bars close? Many take things easy and wind down with one of the excellent erotic massages in Montreal. That seems like the perfect way to end a fun night.
However, there are other ways to continue having fun even when the bars all seem closed late at night. Discuss matters with your friends, and see if any of these suggestions suit their fancy:
Drink Coffee
Haven’t you noticed how many of these specialty coffee shops are open 24 hours? That’s because they know that when people are done drinking but they don’t want to go home yet, they get coffee to continue their story-swapping activities.
Coffee is perfect for those who have been drinking, since it can keep people from just sleeping. Your friends will hate you if they have to drag your sleeping body home. So drink some coffee, and afterwards hire a cab back to your place. Just don’t drive! You may be awake, but you’re still drunk!
Eat Something
Lots of people experience the “munchies” when they’ve been drinking. So once the drinking is done, it may be time to continue the night with some fast food treat like a nice juicy burger or some hot pizza. You may also want to try shawarma.
Scientific studies have confirmed that alcohol can really make you feel hungry. It’s been found that alcohol fires up a type of brain cell that’s also active when you’re starving. So when you drink, your brain thinks you haven’t eaten for a long while.
Play Video Games
In some cities like Montreal, you may find arcade places where you can play various video games even at 3:00 AM. You can play Tekken and other fighting games if you’re one of those inclined to violence after a bit of drinking—at least this time, no one gets really hurt!
You can also try any of the racing games, and you may find out why it’s a bad idea to drink and drive. Of course, even if you do well in these games it doesn’t mean you’re ready to drive home for real.
Sing Some Karaoke
You may be a shy wallflower type when you’re sober, but you may be a performer yearning to break free once you’ve imbibed enough alcohol. You’re not alone, so why not join other would-be singers and have some fun belting out your favorite tunes?
The nice thing about being drunk is that it makes you brave enough to try this, and you’re also drunk enough to think you’ve done justice to that Bon Jovi song you’ve always liked. Most people in these places are non-judgmental, so even if you’re off-key they won’t mind. Not that you’d know you were off-key…
Go Bowling
Bowling is another activity that somehow seems a lot more fun when you’ve been drinking. It also shows you exactly how drunk you are—if your bowling ball can’t hit any of the pins every time, then it may be time to call it a night. Bowling is something you can do if the bar you went to closed early at 1AM or so, as some bowling places may close at 3AM.
Try Your Luck at a Casino
You better believe that if you’re a well-behaved drunk, the casino will love you. You get to enjoy yourself playing blackjack, while the casino plies you with drinks as they happily take your money! For the Silo, Dimitry Karloff.
Emerging soon- the Cecropia caterpillar takes two months to develop before forming their cocoon which has to last an entire winter.
The Cecropia Moth is North America’s largest native moth and is a member of the giant silk moth family. It can be found in all Canadian provinces except BC and Newfoundland. The wings are reddish brown, and crossed in the middle with a white band. In the middle of each wing there is a crescent-shaped white spot bordered with red. The moths can have a wingspan up to 160 mm (6 inches!)
Females have a large abdomen for egg production, and males have hugely feathered antennae to detect the pheromones that the female emits. The male is capable of smelling the female from over a kilometer away.
Once mated, the female will lay her eggs near host trees. Typically they choose maple trees for their host, but they can also be found on other trees like Birch, Alder, Apples and Willow. The eggs will hatch in about 2 weeks and the newly born caterpillar will eat its eggshell.
Young Cecropia larva are shedding their ‘skin’. image: courtesy www.wormspit.com
The Cecropia larva (caterpillar) has two rows of blue tubercles along each side, two rows of yellow tubercles down its back, and two pairs of large red tubercles on the thorax. It takes the caterpillar approximately 2 months to reach full size at which time they will find a dark secluded place to attach themselves to a branch or stick and form their cocoon. This cocoon will overwinter and the adults will emerge the following spring.
Adult Cecropia moths do not have mouth parts and thus are unable to eat. As a result, the lifespan for an adult is generally only about 7-10 days. For the Silo,Dixie Greenwood.
“YOUNG WOMAN SCAMS LOVE STRUCK ELDERLY MAN OUT OF $200,000” Headlines like this would be comical if they weren’t so sad – and numerous.
“Just Google and you’ll find all kinds of news stories about men who willingly give up their cash, their luxury cars, even an ex-wife’s diamond ring,” as in the Elk Grove case, says Charles D. Martin, author of “Provocateur,” (www.provocateurbook.com), a novel about smart, beautiful women and the power they wield over men.
Approximate net worth at time of marrying? $500,000,000usd
“As men, we never like to admit that we may be outsmarted by a woman – but the truth is, it is happening all the time!” And it’s getting worse, for men.
“Women are far outpacing men in numbers of college degrees. They now outnumber men, earning almost 60 percent of college degrees,” Martin says. “And while that doesn’t necessarily make them ‘smarter’ than men, it sure does add to their advantage.” In addition women have other (obvious) advantages.
Taking the power back! Author Charles D. Martin
“In the presence of a sexy woman, men lose their ability to think or act rationally,” Martin says. “
That’s an enormous advantage for women! Men do not realize that it is women that are in charge of the mating process.” How can men level the playing field? Martin has some suggestions:
• Recognize the predator –and the prey. If you are an older gentlemen, particularly one with some status or affluence and a young, attractive woman comes on to you be on guard. She probably has nefarious, not amorous, motives. Keep your pants zipped and your wallet stowed until you are totally persuaded that her affection for you is genuine.
• Remember, they don’t have to be young to be dangerous. The woman arrested in the Elk Grove, Calif., case was 30 years old. There are also recent news stories about a 54-year-old woman stealing more than $85,000 from a 93-year-old man, promising him a “big payoff.” In another case, a 45-year-old woman had a 60-year-old man paying for her elective surgeries, limousines, even a $1,000 dog. She was arrested in December. “They may be moms or grandmoms, but they’re still women,” Martin says.
• Even if you are happily married, you are still vulnerable. Beware the “perfect storm,” which occurs as a man ages and tries to hang on to his virility, just as his high school sweetheart is also showing signs of wear. That makes him vulnerable to a younger female with ulterior motives. If a sexy woman comes on to you, get away fast. These “Provocateurs” can get the best of you in a nanosecond.
About Charles D. Martin
Charles Martin runs a hedge fund, Mont Pelerin Capital, LLC, and serves on the investment committees of prominent universities. An established business writer, his first novel focuses on the intrigue that often exists between alpha females that take on – and conquer – dominant males. Martin lives with his wife in a coastal town south of Los Angeles. For the Silo, Ginny Grimsley.
IRVINE, Calif. – Waaaay back in Summer 2011, BenQ America Corp. announced that as the official gaming monitor sponsor of Major League Gaming (MLG), the world’s largest competitive video game league, it would be supplying monitors for the then upcoming 2012 MLG Pro Circuit Summer Championship that were held in Raleigh, North Carolina. At the tournament, hundreds of the top gamers from around the world competed using BenQ’s RL2450HT and GL2450HM monitors, designed specifically for professional gaming and engineered to meet the specific needs of eSports athletes. The GL2450HM was also featured in the Virtua Fighter(TM) 5 and Skullgirls(TM) Exhibition Tournaments, alongside the Pro Circuit competition.
At the 2012 MLG Pro Circuit Summer Championship, gamers — including BenQ-sponsored Team Dynamic and Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen — competed for their share of nearly $215,000 in prizes playing the real-time strategy (RTS) games StarCraft(R) II: Wings of Liberty and League of Legends(R) on PC, and fighting games Mortal Kombat(TM) and SoulCalibur(R) V on the PlayStation(R)3 (PS3(TM)).
[Then] 26 year old Dutch professional videogamer Manuel “Grubby” Schenkhuizen and friend Cassandra. How good is he? Check out- http://www.sk-gaming.com/player/90-Grubby image:courtesy MechWarrior onlineThousands of spectators watched the tournament at the Raleigh Convention Center, and hundreds of thousands of fans watched the action online at www.majorleaguegaming.com/live.
For those retro system fans, there was even a Summer Championship that let fans get in on the action with Virtua Fighter 5 and Skullgirls Exhibition Tournaments, played on the good old PS3.
Anyone with a Raleigh Spectator or Competitor Pass could participate in these tournaments, which were sponsored by PlayStation. Winners of the best-of-three matches held the station until defeated and could re-enter as many times as they wished. The two players for each game with the longest winning streaks battled it out for $2,000 per tournament in the Finals on the
Fighting Games Main Stage.
Crowd shot from the MLG #gamerompfest
“The Summer Championship in Raleigh [was] sure to provide an exciting culmination to an amazing summer season, and we [were] honored to have our RL2450HT and GL2450HM in the middle of the action,” said Bob Wudeck, Director of Retail and e-Commerce at BenQ America Corp. “The fast response times of BenQ’s monitors result in high-action competition, while features such as the RL2450HT’s Black eQualizer help eSports athletes not just play the game, but conquer it. In addition, the incredibly low lag of the GL2450HM provides perfect timing in fighting and shooting games.”
Delivering a supreme RTS gaming experience, the RL2450HT was used for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and League of Legends PC games tournaments at the Summer Championship. The RL2450HT was engineered with input from the world-class StarCraft II professional gaming team, STARTALE, which is sponsored by BenQ. For top-level RTS gamers, the monitor features a 60-Hz refresh rate for smooth movement, an LED light engine for great color and low power consumption, and a 2-ms GtG response time with 12 million to 1 contrast ratio.
The RL Series RTS Mode maximizes StarCraft II visibility and optimizes color, while its Black eQualizer enables total visibility by allowing gamers to adjust the screen brightness without over-exposing white levels — revealing critical combat details with improved visibility in darkened areas. The RL Series Display Mode allows gamers to interchange between monitor screen sizes, while the Smart Scaling feature gives them the freedom to scale the screen manually to any custom size — from 17 to 24 inches — depending on their preferences. In addition, the unit’s adjustable height stand allows for optimal screen positioning.
The 24-inch-wide GL2450HM monitor is an ideal choice for console gaming platforms, featuring brilliant LED backlighting, a dynamic contrast ratio of 12 million to 1, and a 2-ms GtG response time that yields high dynamic videos without ghosting or other artifacts.
At a later MLG Summer Championship, console games Mortal Kombat and SoulCalibur V were played on the GL2450HM, in addition to Virtua Fighter 5 and Skullgirls in the Exhibition Tournaments sponsored by PlayStation.
Supporting competitive and competitive retro gaming, BenQ offered the monitors used in the tournament at special discount pricing available to all MLG tournament fans.
Nice, France textile artist Stéphanie Lobry frantically fashions her art with an unexpected yet satisfyingly fitting leitmotiv: feminism.
A Teacher when she’s not at the loft, where she created and exhibited her works, Stéphanie Lobry is busy hanging a crochet. Entitled 1.8 cubic meter, “parce c’est la taille qu’il fait”, lies in the piece, in the middle of a crowd of scattered bodies which share this small space with balls of yarn and needles.
If we pay attention to all red wires that surround and hang throughout her living room, we realize that they are, in fact, a gun.
“I wanted to divert the everyday objects. And to do so with needles and wool. No, no to knitting scarves for her daughters in some kind of ‘good housewife’ role, but rather to rediscover the woman inside, and then to discover humans in general.”
Why crochet? Rolled cigarette in mouth, she passes a nonchalant hand into blond spiky hair. She thinks… “This practice is also ancestral, but has potential for feminist messages and aesthetics when it is diverted from its original use and put towards the service of art. I’ve always been very creative and a little hyper active yet the only compliment I could expect from that was to be commended for being a good mother…”. I got fed up.” Reduced once too often to the status of “the good historical female”, Stéphanie Lobry “lost it”and held her first exhibition.
Our compulsive crocheter remembers having hesitated….stalled somewhere between a choice of direction. Between science and art: “When I started my studies in molecular biology, my mother asked me if I was sure didn’t want to make fine art instead.” Would an academic focus on science bind her passions? In her artistic process, she discovered that there was in fact a synthesis manifested through the act of the creation, which after all, begins with the cells inside the brain. Fittingly, her art work began with a small croqueted skull which “immediately went to Gallery’. The creative process then dissected and took over other parts of the body.
An Ariane of modern times
Sweeping my gaze around her workshop, it stops suddenly on the croqueted heart, “it was a participatory project I created shortly after Charlie.” Surely a way to re – unite people, to reconnect, “everyone needed it.” The artist put out a call using social media, letting all participants know that their name would be displayed at the bottom of the finished work. In a few weeks, she received 763 balls of wool, from more than 120 donors, scattered to the four corners of the world, from Paris to Noumea, the Chile, the Belgium and the Greece.
A Runaway success requires a lot of hard work.
It takes almost a month to sort the fabrics and create a ball that weighs more than 40 kg. As for the hook… 45 days are necessary for the realization of a typical piece of finished work: “the ball weighed a ton! I couldn’t do more than five knots without being exhausted.” It is a technique so grueling and time-consuming, but I feel like I’m really at the beginning, I still have a lot to say.” She seems to have found her way alright and is brimming with ideas to express her commitment.
Worried perhaps about her peers who see their emancipation sometimes as endangered, this knitter doesn’t fail to hang onto a hint of conviction to her works. I remember especially this sort of determined representation that she had given at the Théâtre National de Nice, last May, dressed in a full suit. Knitted of course. Delivering metaphors spun into all of her creations. For the Silo, Marine de Rocquigny originally for Art and Factswww.artandfacts.fr
*photos by Florian Lévy
Stéphanie Lobry accroche l’œil au crochet avec son cœur. Ledit, intitulé 1,8 mètre cube, « parce c’est la taille qu’il fait », gît dans la pièce, au milieu d’une foule d’organes éparpillés, partageant ce petit espace avec les pelotes de laine et les aiguilles.
Pourquoi le crochet ? Cigarette roulée au bec, elle passe une main nonchalante dans ses blonds cheveux en bataille. Elle songe… « Cette pratique aussi ancestrale soit-elle, prend des allures féministes quand elle est détournée de son utilisation pour se mettre au service de l’art. » Car c’est bien avec une volonté libératrice et féministe qu’elle s’est lancée il y a maintenant sept ans : « J’ai toujours été très créative et un peu hyper active pourtant le seul compliment que je pouvais espérer c’était d’être une bonne mère de famille… J’en ai eu marre. » Réduite une fois de trop au statut de BMF, Stéphanie Lobry « pète les plombs » et organise une première exposition.
Alors que les curieux s’aventurent dans ses appartements, elle les reçoit en nuisette, repassant chemise après chemise, la main collée à son fer. Et si l’on prête attention à l’ensemble de fils rouges qui l’entourent et parcourent son salon, on s’aperçoit qu’ils forment, en fait, un pistolet. « J’ai voulu détourner les objets du quotidien. » Elle se munie dès lors d’aiguilles et de laines. Non, pas pour tricoter des écharpes à ses filles en bonne femme d’intérieur, mais plutôt pour redécouvrir l’intérieur de la femme, puis de l’humain en général.
Rencontre logique. La crocheteuse compulsive se souvient avoir longtemps hésité entre la science et l’art : « Quand j’ai commencé mes études en biologie moléculaire, ma mère m’a demandé si j’étais sûre de ne pas vouloir plutôt faire les Beaux-Arts. » Alors autant entreprendre une reconversion qui pourrait lier ses passions et ses connaissances. Dans sa démarche artistique, elle revient donc à la genèse de la création, qui commence avec des cellules. Elle commence avec un petit crâne « tout de suite parti en galerie », puis dissèque et reprend toutes les parties du corps. Du neurone au pied. Du sexe aux poumons.
Une Ariane des temps modernes
En balayant du regard son atelier, elle s’arrête sur le cœur, « c’était un projet participatif que j’ai crée peu après Charlie. » Surement une façon de re-fédérer les gens, de renouer les liens, « tout le monde en avait besoin. » L’artiste lance alors un appel sur les réseaux sociaux, tous les participants verront leur nom affiché au bas de l’oeuvre. En quelques semaines, elle reçoit 763 pelotes de laines, provenant de plus de 120 donneurs, dispersés au quatre coins du monde, de Paris à Nouméa, en passant par le Chili, la Belgique ou la Grèce. Succès fulgurant. Travail titanesque en perspective. Il lui faut près d’un mois pour trier les tissus et constituer une pelote de plus de 40 kilos. Quant au crochet… 45 jours nécessaires à la réalisation de l’organe démesuré. « Les aiguilles étaient énormes et la pelote pesait une tonne ! Je ne pouvais pas faire plus de cinq nœuds sans être épuisée.
Une technique épuisante donc et laborieuse que la « quinqua » ne compte pas abandonner de si tôt: « J’ai l’impression que je ne suis vraiment qu’au tout début, j’ai encore beaucoup de choses à dire. » Sorte d’Ariane des temps modernes. Elle semble avoir trouvé sa voie grâce au fil et regorge d’idées pour exprimer son engagement. Inquiète au sujet de ses consœurs qui voient leur émancipation parfois en péril, cette tricoteuse ne manque pas d’accrocher un soupçon de conviction à ses œuvres. On se souvient notamment de cette représentation qu’elle avait donnée au Théâtre National de Nice, en mai dernier, enfermée dans une combinaison intégrale tricotée comme dans sa condition féminine, attendant qu’on tire sur les fils pendants pour la délivrer. Une cause qui lui tient à cœur, une métaphore filée sur l’ensemble de ses créations. Marine de Rocquigny pour Art and Factswww.artandfacts.fr
It’s almost impossible to play a video game anymore without having to be online. Even single player games on consoles like the Playstation 4, 5 or Xbox One often require you to be connected in order to receive updates or be a part of leaderboards.
The problem with this is that if you don’t have a strong internet connection, then you could be constantly disconnected from your game without meaning to. This can be especially problematic for games meant to be played online like Fortnite or League of Legends.
One minute you’re happily in game and the next you’re disconnected and you’ve lost the match. This can seriously affect your gameplay which is why it’s important that you’re paying more attention to the kind of internet you have as well as who is providing it.
Choose the Right Provider
People often think that as long as they spend the big bucks for a decent computer rig or for a next gen console that they’ll be able to play their games without interruption. In the process, many forget the importance of having a reliable internet connection with a decent amount of bandwidth as well as upload and download speeds.
If you’re looking for unlimited usage with great upload and download speed options, you should check out internet packages in Canada from Poynt 360 for the best deals. They offer FTTN (fiber to the node) as well as cable packages that are both affordable and ideal for gamers.
FTTN stands for fiber to the node (or neighbourhood) and is the term used to describe providing internet to homes using fiber optic lines as opposed to traditional copper wires. Broadband connection and other data services are delivered to a common network box (often referred to as a node), and from there these services are delivered to individual destinations like your home.
One disadvantage of FTTN is that it is not available yet in every neighbourhood, so you may not have this option to begin with. You will need to check with your preferred service provider first to see they have fiber optic wiring in your area.
If You Can’t Get FTTN
If you can’t get FTTN in your neighbourhood you should still be able to get an internet package with cable that works for you. Though it’s possible to experience slowdowns using cable internet, you won’t be likely to notice them, especially if you get packages with the right speeds.
For instance, if you’re a gamer who also likes to stream, check out the option for 75 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload speeds. If you have a large family, consider going higher with your download speeds at 150 Mbps.
Flexible, Affordable Options
When it comes to choosing your internet provider you might be tempted to go with one of the big guys, but they rarely have your best interests at heart. Consider signing up with a third-party provider who can get you the best deals and who will help you choose the best package for all your gaming needs.
Elephants are super smart — as close to humans as apes, yet we are literally killing them to extinction.
And they are obsessed with their death. They understand what is happening to them and their families, even identifying elephant bones and spending hours crying over them. Poaching is so emotionally devastating that it can take a herd 20 years to recover!
100 elephants a day are dying — shot sometimes from helicopters, their faces cut off by machetes often while still alive — just to produce ivory trinkets. What’s worse is that this savagery is managed by organized criminals who help fund some of the most dangerous terror groups in the world.
But now there’s reason to hope: China just announced it will phase out its ivory industry and there is legislation in eleven US states calling for a ban on ivory trading. It’s a tipping point moment in this fight for these majestic animals and we can make sure demand everywhere dries up by funding a flood of campaigns in the US, Thailand and Vietnam to kill the biggest ivory markets anywhere.
Elephant hunts are big business and are even organized from outfitters in North America.
Killing elephants is serious business — as wild elephants die out, the price for stockpiles of ivory skyrockets. Now poachers are on a race to kill as many elephants as they can. In 5 years, Mozambique has lost half of their elephant population. The clock is against us and if the current rate of killing continues, in little more than a decade, there may be no wild elephants, only graves.
The news from China could be our best chance to turn the tide and with top notch Avaaz campaigning in 11 states in the US, and in Thailand and Vietnam, we could help stop demand for bloody ivory, while supporting cutting edge anti poaching initiatives on the supply side. Here is what a dedicated global team could do:
Fund hard-hitting ad campaigns in SE Asia and the US to dissolve demand for ivory trinkets;
Launch online sites in SE Asia and the US to inform consumers of the suffering and carnage to help change the culture towards ivory;
Support and ramp up citizen campaigning in the consumer markets in SE Asia and the US;
Back ranger protection programmes in Africa and creative, ground-breaking initiatives like drones to monitor remote parks.
Avaaz has millions of members across the world, from the countries where conservation is critical to the countries where ivory statues are sold. If we each chip in we can finally help put the brakes on this cruel trade and move fellow humans to respect the other species that share this planet with us.
Outfitters and elephant hunters justify their hunts as a form of necessary conservation.
The choice before us is simple: act now or lose African elephants forever. Let’s not let ours be the generation that butchered these regal beings off the face of the earth. Let’s do what our community does best — pick careful battles, fight smart to ban the trade, and spread a culture of compassion.
As people go about their daily lives, there’s a common but hidden scourge: excessive sweating. In fact, a national survey conducted by the International Hyperhidrosis Society (IHhS)—the scholars of sweat—shows multiple millions suffer from extreme, uncomfortable, embarrassing, debilitating, and emotionally-devastating sweating. This type of sweating is a serious medical condition known as hyperhidrosis and nearly 367 million people of all ages struggle with it on their hands, feet, face, underarms, or body.
Hyperhidrosis can be particularly devastating. While many attempt to hide their sweating problems and suffer in silence, the impacts are often hard to cover up. Dramatic sweating in the presence of peers at work, or in extracurricular or social environments, can cause severe embarrassment, stress, anxiety, and other emotional issues. Even when people are alone, away from potential judgements, hyperhidrosis often takes a heavy toll—adversely impacting one’s productivity in a myriad of ways.
Those with hyperhidrosis struggle with disproportionate and random sweating that may drench clothing, ruin papers, damage technology tools, make playing sports and musical instruments impossible, promote hiding and isolation behaviors, degrade self-esteem, and prompt bullying at any age—among kids and adults. The holistic effect on life—workplace, marital, social and otherwise—is thus profound. In fact, research published in Archives of Dermatological Research indicates that the majority of those with excessive sweating confirm the condition has negative impacts on their social life, well-being, and emotional as well as mental health.
Lisa J Pieretti, Executive Director of IHhS, notes, “Excessive sweating is a dermatological disorder that can cause an otherwise healthy person to produce up to five times more sweat than is normal or necessary. The pressures of dealing with a ‘sweating problem’ around peers can be catastrophic to self-esteem and more. Too often, people become anxious about attending work or school, socializing with friends, or being out in public in general. But when those with hyperhidrosis receive support, understanding, and appropriate treatment, their lives can be dramatically changed.”
To that point, IHhS co-founder Dr. David Pariser urges that, while hyperhidrosis is the number one dermatological disease in terms of negatively affecting a person’s quality-of-life, it’s also number one in having the most positive impact when treated. “When hyperhidrosis is caught early, a person’s life can be transformed for the better in a multitude of ways,” he says.
With that in mind, the first step toward providing solutions for those who sweat excessively is to bust some common myths and misconceptions with facts from the experts at the IHhS, including these:
Myth: Sweaty people are out-of-shape, nervous or have hygiene issues.
Truth: The average person has 2 to 4 million sweat glands. Sweat is essential to human survival and serves as the body’s coolant, protecting it from overheating. Many athletes actually sweat more than other people because their bodies have become very efficient at keeping cool. Meanwhile, people with hyperhidrosis (which causes overactive sweat glands) sweat excessively regardless of mood, weather, or activity level—often producing 4 or 5 times more sweat than is considered “normal”.
Myth: Those with hyperhidrosis don’t suffer with workplace-specific activities.
Truth: In a recent 2017 study, 63% of those with hyperhidrosis reported interference in the performance of tasks at work or school due to their condition.
Myth: To have hyperhidrosis, one must be dripping and saturated with sweat.
Truth: Excess sweating can range from severe dripping to moderate moisture. Symptoms of hyperhidrosis can manifest differently and personally. But, what is consistent is the impact on life depending on areas affected. This can include damaged clothing, paperwork and shoes; obvious, embarrassing sweat marks on clothing; unappealing cold wet hands; discomfort due to dripping sweat or constant dampness; and skin slipperiness that gets in the way of sports, music, and day-to-day tasks. Excess sweating of the armpits, hands, feet, face, chest, back, or groin can result in substantial impairment, including limitations at work, in social and physical activities, and during hobbies. Emotional and psychological distress is also common.
Myth: People will grow out of hyperhidrosis.
Truth: Contrary to popular belief, research shows that hyperhidrosis does not go away or decrease with age. In fact, in one recent IHhS study, 88% of respondents said their excessive sweating had gotten worse or stayed the same over time. This was consistent across all the different age groups, from youngsters to older adults.
image: wyldraven-deviantart.com
Myth: Hyperhidrosis is “just” a summer thing, or it’s at least worse during the hot summer months.
Truth: Research from the IHhS also shows that profuse sweating is not simply dictated by the time of year. The majority of patients in one survey indicated that their sweating bothers them equally, no matter the season.
Myth: Kids and young adults are “resilient” and can deal with sweating a lot.
Truth: Medical journal citations substantiate that young people are known to be significantly impacted by emotional sequelae accompanying dermatologic disease and that psychiatric issues inherently accompany dermatologic disease in children and adolescents. Studies further show that most patients with hyperhidrosis—characterized by excessive, spontaneous sweating beyond physiologic, thermal, or stress-reaction body requirements—describe their lives as “bad” or “very bad” due to the disorder.
Myth: Antiperspirants are for underarms only. Truth: Think outside the pits! You can glide, stick, spray, and roll-on nearly anywhere that sweating is a problem (think hands, feet, face, back, chest, and even groin.) Be smart and talk to your dermatologist first before applying an antiperspirant to sensitive areas and test new products on small areas of skin first.
Myth: Like caffeine, antiperspirants are best used in the morning. Truth: Pick a p.m. perk! Skip the bedtime espresso but do use your antiperspirant in the evening as well as in the morning. Sweat production is at its lowest at night, giving the active ingredients in antiperspirants a better chance to get into your pores and block perspiration when the sun comes up and you really get moving.
Myth: Excessive sweating is less debilitating than other skin conditions people have to deal with.
Truth: According to Dr. Pariser, hyperhidrosis has the greatest impact of any dermatological disease. In fact, various investigations show the impact of hyperhidrosis on quality-of-life is equal or greater than that of in-patient psoriasis, severe acne, Darier disease, Hailey-Hailey disease, vitiligo, and chronic pruritus.
The extreme level of sweat production experienced with hyperhidrosis can disrupt all aspects of a person’s life, from academic performance, recreational activities and relationships, to self-image and overall emotional well-being. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are helpful resources available to help people with hyperhidrosis to not just “know sweat,” but to also achieve a more comfortable and happier life. For the Silo, Merilee Kern.
Branding and consumer product trends pundit Merilee Kern, MBA is a wellness industry veteran, health advocate and influential media voice. Her ground-breaking, award-winning “Kids Making Healthy Choices” Smartphone APP for children, parents/caregivers and educators (iTunes) is based on her award-winning, illustrated fictional children’s book, “Making Healthy Choices – A Story to Inspire Fit, Weight-Wise Kids” (Amazon). She may be reached online at www.TheLuxeList.com. Follow her on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/LuxeListEditor and Facebook here: www.Facebook.com/TheLuxeList.
If you notice anything on your drywall that doesn’t seem right, then it may be time to contact a professional who can help you identify the problem and ensure everything is repaired properly.
Here are signs that you need a drywall repair
Cracks and indentations in walls and ceilings
If you notice cracks and indentations in your home’s walls, ceilings, and floors, it could be a sign of bigger problems. Cracks are often caused by settling or shifting. When this happens over time (and it can happen very quickly), there’s usually nothing you can do but patch up the crack as best as possible before continuing with other repairs on your home.
The same goes for indentations—if they’re too deep or wide-spread to fix easily with paint or filler material like spackle (which is designed to fill holes), then they may indicate that something more serious has happened, like water damage from pipes breaking under pressure inside them; this would require professional help from professionals such as an inspector who inspects homes after major storms pass through an area, so he knows what kind of work needs doing before further progress takes place on any given project!
Sticking doors or windows
Check for loose hinges or screws: If your door is sticking, you might notice that the door has been sticking for a while. This could be because of loose hinges or screws on either side of the door.
Look for cracks in the frame: If there are cracks in your frame, they could cause your doors to stick. Look at them close up with a magnifying glass (if necessary). If they look damaged, consider having them fixed by a wall repair professional so that they don’t cause any more trouble later down the road!
Water stains on ceilings or walls
If you notice water stains on your ceiling or walls, it’s a sign of a leak in your home. Leaks can be caused by many different sources, including plumbing and roofing. If you have leaks on both sides of the wall, two leaks are likely happening at once—and both need to be fixed!
If you find that one side of an area has been affected by rainwater and condensation (from heating or cooling), contact an expert to help determine what needs fixing before further damage occurs.
Paint chips easily off drywall
Chipping paint is a sign of drywall damage. If you notice that your paint chip easily, it’s time to call a professional. You don’t want to spend money on repairs when there are signs that could have been caught before the problem occurred.
If you have chipped walls or ceilings and wonder what caused them (and how long ago), pay attention! If the damage was caused by water seeping through cracks in the foundation or other parts of your house, then this is most likely the cause of your chipping paint problems—especially since ceiling panels tend to crack more than wall surfaces do due to their thicker construction material and weight distribution issues with hanging objects like lights fixtures and fans above them.”
Mold growth
Mold growth is a sign of water damage. Water can seep in through the smallest crack and cause mold to grow. If you notice that your walls are covered in black or white spots, it could indicate that your drywall has been affected by mold.
Mold can spread easily because:
It grows very fast; within 24 hours, it may be two feet thick!
It’s resistant to many cleaning products and chemicals (soaps, detergents) that are designed for other purposes, such as cleaning up spills on kitchen countertops or floors where kids have been playing soccer all day long without any protection whatsoever; these products don’t work well against molds because they leave behind residues which support continued growth once again.
Drywall repairs are more complex than you may be tempted to think, and that’s why you need an experienced repair company to do the work. For the Silo, Anna Kendrick.
My head hits the pillow with little regard for the color of the sheets and the stains on the walls. Outside I can hear the bustling streets of Kolkata come to a standstill and in the far off distance I can make out the explosion of more fireworks, another festival. The mind turns to the weeks passed and again I can feel the slow process of realization and change occurring. Guilt is an awful feeling and more so when you are unable to identify that which you have done wrong.
The voices of those in the streets plague me as much as the faces and bare feet of their owners. “Please sir, no money, just milk for my baby.” I ignored the advances of another pleading mother. Why? Do I fear the scam of it? Not believe the legitimacy of such a plea? Not care that in her arms there lay a starving child screaming out from the pains of hunger? Or is it I am too overwhelmed to believe I am capable of doing anything in a country this size with a people this poor?
I lay for a long while as the moonlight casts its shadows upon my wall, not quite awake not quite asleep.
I see their waste high faces peering up at me, with no formal education, selling to me, begging me, joking with me. Those who I do speak with paint only the beginning of a picture; a life which I cannot ever fully understand, a life of struggle and hardship which exists to me only in the media and one they only know.
I see them playing cricket in the streets and asking me to join, happy to have a street to play in and a foreigner to practice English with. The simplicity in this humbles me. As a child I remember hearing bed time stories of men on their travels. Now I am a man on his travels imagining the stories of these children. For the Silo, Joshua Winter.
Used and broken electronics such as computers, cellphones, dvd players, washers and dryers still hold intrinsic value because if you were to peer inside these things you’d notice a lot of wire and circuitry. There is a surprisingly substantial amount of copper, silver and gold waiting for “the recycling”.
Consumerism- the acquisition of goods, is largely based today on electronic devices- large screen televisions or smartphones for example. Many of us feel the need to upgrade regularly: bigger screens for our living rooms and faster and more powerful phones. But in broad terms, our discarded electronic goods contain about the same amount of silver, copper, gold and platinum as the new items we are replacing them with.
How much value are we talking about?
It is difficult to determine an exact value of gold and other precious materials in an average cellphone. This is because no two models are exactly alike, no two batteries are exactly alike.
Lux Bringer from reddit.com:
All of a sudden these, “bring your old cellphones to us so we can recycle them for you” campaigns are making a lot more sense. Sneaky bastards.
PtrN from reddit.com:PtrN
I’m not sure. I’m seeing that the average cell phone has 1/8 a gram of gold in it from other comments. At the time of this writing, CNN currently has gold going at $1650USD per troy ounce. I crunched the numbers and am seeing that there is about $6.60USD worth of gold in a cellphone. Not too bad, but I don’t know how profitable it will be after you take into account the costs of transportation and the extraction process itself.
Thoust from reddit.com:
There are other materials in a phone they can salvage besides gold
professor_fatass from reddit.com:
According to the article you also get platinum, palladium, and copper. As well as the glass and plastic which may not be worth much but it can still be recycled.
There is gold and platinum inside computer circuit boards and hard drives. Most of the gold is an alloy or plated over another metal but at highs predicted to reach near $1,8000USD per ounce- a high volume recycling effort will pay off.
Bleepin’ Animinion from bleepingcomputer.com:
Any, true recycling effort that would be of a profitable nature needs to be EPA approved. Due to the multiple hazardous materials mixed in with the minute amounts of precious metals. As well as the highly toxic removal and heavy metals separations processes. Also as an example it would take an average of one ton of random circuit-board waste to generate one pound of gold. Add to that electronic grade precious metals are not the expensive jewelry grade high dollar metals. Therefore looking at the gold market is not the price you would get. So the profit you would make on the precious metals would be eaten up by the fees and expense of waste disposal of the one ton of hazardous useless waste product left behind after you reclaimed the precious and hazardous heavy metals. This is definitely not a a project to undertake on a small scale in your garage.
This last quote is an important thing to consider.
If you are considering dropping off your scrap electronics and appliances ask the receiving party if they are environmentally approved and a member of an Electronic Stewardship. After all, your discarded electronics will earn a tidy sum of money for a large scale salvager. The least they can do is operate within the law and operate with an environmental conscience. But there is some worry.
The salvagers are looking for an uninformed public- they set up their marketing and advertising in a way that makes no mention of the economic benefits they stand to make.
They seldom if ever offer you a small stipend for your ‘donated scrap’ and perhaps even worse, many pose as “good deed” companies ridding us of our “broken goods” destined for the landfill. The Ontario Electronic Stewardship is a non-profit group that overseas responsible recycling of electronics. This Stewardship works with existing legal frameworks put in place by Waste Diversion Ontario and the 2002 Waste Diversion Act. www.wdo.ca
In this file photo from 2001, a migrant child sits atop a pile of unrecyclable computer waste imported to Guiya, China, from other countries.
Basal Action Network
Some players are keeping it real.
Not every electronic device recycling campaign is shady. Increasingly, not-for-profit groups and volunteer fire departments are setting up large recycling bins with signage such as “your donated scrap metal and electronics helps fund X”.
If you are considering dropping off discarded electronics to your local “recycling and scrap drive” ask a few questions. Where are the profits from the salvaged materials going? Is the company operating the drive aware of the Ontario Electronic Stewardship guidelines? What happens to your donated goods at the end of the cycle- are they destined for a landfill or for China?
“I would like to see the sky machine on every corner instead of the Coke machine. We need more skies than Coke.” – Yoko Ono, 1966.
Growing up the daughter of proud, British baby-boomer parents, the name Yoko Ono was not exactly revered in my household. In fact, she was considered a weird, controlling creature that somehow brainwashed John Lennon and systematically broke up the Beatles—the greatest rock and roll band of all time (according to my father). It wasn’t until art school that I began to learn who Ono really was and why she is considered one of the most iconic and mythological people in contemporary society.
Yoko Ono has been in the public eye for over 50 years, and she has been viewed as a muse, destroyer, widow, mother and artist. Granted, the fact that she is a household name is due largely to her late husband’s fame and legacy. However many are not aware of the her own accomplishments, innovations and her impact on the contemporary art world, beginning before her much publicized marriage and continuing until today.
Yoko Ono was born in Japan in 1933 to wealthy parents. Her family experienced much hardship during the Second World War, surviving the great fire bombings of Tokyo in 1945. They lost everything and were forced to beg and barter for food, which Ono credits as being the inspiration behind her imaginary/instructional art works or, as she refers to them, “paintings for the mind.”
After the war her family settled outside New York City, where Ono studied at the prestigious Sarah Lawrence College. In New York she began visiting galleries and art “happenings” (a form of performance-art involving the participation of both artist and audience), and these experiences inspired her own emerging work. In the early 1960s Ono was closely associated with the Fluxis movement, which was more a state of mind than a style of art. Members valued social goals over aesthetic goals and their main aim was to upset bourgeois (ie: middle-class or materialistic) routines of art and life.
The Fluxus incorporated influences from Dadaist theory, a school that originated in Europe after the First World War when founding artists Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Jean Arp felt they could no longer trust reason and the established order of things. The intent of Dada artists was to denounce all previous attitudes and perceptions and to shock the audience. Similar to Dada and often described as anti-art, the Fluxis used mixed-media, mail art, actions and happenings to promote a new culture of performance-based, audience-interactive, and non-commodifiable art.
One of the most iconic pieces of performance art, and the one for which she is most renowned, is Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece” (c. 1964). Performed on several occasions and in a variety of venues, “Cut Piece” featured Ono alone on a stage, dressed in a black garment. Volunteering audience members were given scissors and invited to cut pieces from her dress. Like most performance-based artists, Ono could not have had a set purpose when she performed this work—or if she did it would be pointless—because it depended on the audience/viewer response and action.
For the most part, people were at first hesitant to come on stage, but as they lost their inhibitions participants began to cut bigger and bigger pieces of cloth until the dress was left in shreds (in one performance a young male actually cut off her undergarments).
Depending on where she performed “Cut Piece,” Ono received a different reaction. In Japan the audience was shy and hesitant. In London they became so violent security had to intervene. But even if no one had come forth to snip the dress, the performance would still have made a statement.
This is the strongest, most encompassing element of Ono’s catalogue as a whole: its participatory aspect. Everything she has done has been dependent on her audience or viewer. Her book Grapefruit is an excellent example of this. It contains instructions on how to perform her various imaginary pieces, such as “Painting to be constructed in your head,” and “Conversation piece.” In one of my personal favourites, “Painting for the wind,” the reader is instructed to “cut a hole in a bag filled with seeds and place the bag wherever there is wind” (1961, summer).
It is impossible to discuss Yoko Ono’s work without mentioning her late-husband and collaborator, John Lennon. After their extremely public romance and marriage, Ono found she was somewhat shunned or distanced by the contemporary arts community. But the couple decided to exploit their massive profile to forward their social agenda for peace. On their honeymoon, the two staged a “Bed-in for Peace” in Montreal, knowing the media would eagerly cover something so curious and provocative. John articulated his understanding of the potential of modern media very well; he knew that whatever he and Yoko did would end up in the papers.
“We decided,” he said, “to use the space we would occupy…with a commercial for peace and also for a theatrical event.” Life as art with social goals: very Fluxis.
After Lennon’s devastating assassination in 1980, Ono continued to manage his estate and advocate for world peace, eventually getting back to conceptual art in large galleries. Most recently she has exhibited and performed commemorative shows in honour of the 40th anniversary of “Cut Piece.”
In the movie “Imagine: John Lennon,” Lennon describes how he met his wife: “Yoko was having an art show at the Indica Gallery…I went down the night before the opening. The first thing that was in the gallery was a white step ladder and a painting on the ceiling and a spy glass hanging down. I walked up this ladder and I picked up the spy glass and in tiny little writing it just said, ‘Yes’…” Lennon also once referred to his wife as the world’s “most famous unknown artist. Everybody knows her name but nobody knows what she does.” For the Silo,Eve Yantha.
For further contemplation:
Imagine: John Lennon- A startling film derived from over 200 hours of John’s own film and video footage, as well as stills & heretofore unpublished music from John and Yoko’s personal collection. (1988)
Grapefruit: A Book of Instruction and Drawing by Yoko Ono (c. 1964; 1970)
Lingerie, like any other fashion accessory, has undergone many transformations over the decades. From the agonizing apodesme used in Ancient Greece to the peculiar pantalettes of the 1800’s we have seen it all.
An apodesme was an ancient Greek brassiere made of a band of wool or linen wrapped across the breasts and tied or pinned at the back. The idea was that by tightly banding the breasts, women would prevent the development of large breasts- something the ancients deemed as undesirable and associated with aging.
Sex experts Katie Lasson and Tatyana Dyachenko from Dimepiece LA have created a couple handy infographics which delve into the changing fashion trends of lingerie over the last 100 years. Take a look and learn a bit more about lingerie through the decades.
“What I found most interesting whilst doing the research for the infographic is the concept that lingerie should be visually appealing didn’t come into effect until the late 19th century.” Katie
Lady Duff-Gordon of Lucile was one of the main pioneers for developing lingerie that freed women from the traditional restrictive undergarments such as corsets.
The famous Flappers of the 1920’s further cemented these ideals with their blatant disregard for society standards and desire for more free-flowing lingerie.
Both Katie and Tatyana understand the important role that lingerie plays in a person sexuality and sexual experiences.
The right underwear can transform the way you feel about yourself. It gives you a confidence boost that you never knew you needed.
Katie had this to say “Lingerie is a tool that, when used correctly, can help you to feel more sexy and confident. Everyone deserves to feel good in their own skin and sexy underwear has the power to transform the way you feel about yourself”.
Tatyana says “Remember to wear lingerie for you, if you feel good it shines through and makes you appear more attractive to others. Confidence is sexy so embrace your body, curves and all. It’s time for you to feel good and lingerie can help you achieve that”.
The thing I am so happy about too, my family and friends have told me that my mood is so much better and I’m not suffering from these severe mood swings or, really depression from having to deal with all these horrible symptoms that go on. I can actually have a somewhat normal life.
Why crochet? Rolled cigarette in mouth, she passes a nonchalant hand into blond spiky hair. She thinks… “This practice is also ancestral, but has potential for feminist messages and aesthetics when it is diverted from its original use and put towards the service of art. I’ve always been very creative and a little hyper active yet the only compliment I could expect from that was to be commended for being a good mother…”. I got fed up.” Reduced once too often to the status of “the good historical female”, Stéphanie Lobry “lost it”and held her first exhibition.
Myth: Excessive sweating is less debilitating than other skin conditions people have to deal with.
