Author: kaushik

Quote of the week

12 rules to live by Benjamin Franklin

1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Nationalisation: Uruguay’s solution to its drug problem

It also marks the latest chapter in the region’s gathering rebellion against Washington’s “war on drugs”, launched in the 1970s by President Nixon. Many Latin Americans resent being blamed for producing coca – cocaine’s key raw ingredient –when impoverished peasant farmers are largely responding to demand from the US and Europe.

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Source : The Independent

How depression people use the internet

Another example: the Internet usage of depressive people tended to exhibit high “flow duration entropy” — which often occurs when there is frequent switching among Internet applications like e-mail, chat rooms and games. This may indicate difficulty concentrating. This finding, too, is consistent with the psychological literature: according to the National Institute of Mental Health, difficulty concentrating is also a sign of depressive symptoms among students.

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Source : NYT

Why are food is making us fat

Hank Cardello, the former head of marketing at Coca-Cola, tells me that in 1984, Coke in the US swapped from sugar to HFCS (In the UK, it continued to use sugar). As a market leader, Coke’s decision sent a message of endorsement to the rest of the industry, which quickly followed suit. There was “no downside” to HFCS, Cardello says. It was two-thirds the price of sugar, and even the risk of messing with the taste was a risk worth taking when you looked at the margin, especially as there were no apparent health risks. At that time, “obesity wasn’t even on the radar” says Cardello.

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Source : The Guardian

Special offer our readers 1500 year for life

Once again, if you’re a rugged individualist, or organization averse, let us emphasize that you don’t have to be a member of a union to benefit. For example, taking a look at one business, “for a 10% increase in local union densities in the supermarket industry it is estimated that the wages of union employees in that labor market will increase by 5.3% and by 1.2% for nonunion.” So if you’re not in a union, but union membership rises, especially if it’s in a profession like your own, yours will likely rise, too.

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Source : The Nation

Alone with your phone

In reality, someone hunched in the corner of a room on their smartphone, looks anything but popular and connected. To the real life onlooker we’re not giving off that vibe of glamour and easy charm previously associated with smoking. Though we may Tweet ‘Just arrived. Know no one. Beers are £7! #WTF’, we are nonetheless putting out strong physical signals that say ‘I am busy, I am important, I am focused, do not approach me’.

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Source : Eye Magazine

Alan milburn / social mobility

 Yet, in an example of the increased social exclusivity of the top echelons in Britain, Milburn found that while 30% of members of parliament were privately educated in 1997, that proportion increased to 35% in 2010. In the Labour government’s last cabinet, 32% were privately educated but this increased to 59% in the coalition cabinet that entered Downing Street in May 2010.

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Source : The Guardian 

Why working clas people vote conservative

As marriage rates plummet, and globalisation and rising diversity erodes the sense of common heritage within each nation, a lot of voters in many western nations find themselves hungering for conservative moral cuisine.

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Source : The Guardian 

The end of drug discovery?

Chas Bountra, professor of translational medicine at Oxford University, says: “We don’t understand enough about human disease or enough about the mode of action of existing drugs. Take paracetamol for example. We all take it but we don’t know how it works, we don’t know what the site of action of paracetamol is.

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Source : BBC