Friday, August 28, 2009

Is a dream worth $1??


The jackpot drawing for tonight’s Mega Millions multi-state lottery is a whopping $333 million, the second largest prize in North American lottery history. The ticket is $1. Should you buy in?

So tonight, i was riding around chicago with a few friends, and this mega jackpot comes up in one of our conversations. I was trying to explain to one of my friends who was raving about what he would do with 333 million. I was telling him how,with a single ticket, your odds of winning are only about 175 million to 1. THEN if you will taxes will take half of whatever that is. So if you only buy one ticket and you’re the only winner, you’ll get net winnings of about $163 million. You would need to get more than $175 million to justify taking 175-million-to-1 odds. The question remains: is a dream worth a dollar?






The most effective pick up line?


It may be, “I’m taken.” The New Scientist reports today on a Journal of Experimental Social Psychology study finding that single heterosexual women prefer men who are identified as taken by a wide margin over men identified as single. Single men were far less picky in their choices generally, but their preferences were not affected by whether or not a woman was single. Big Think has enlisted several experts to weigh in on the mysteries of relationships.

Elizabeth Gilbert settled down in the wake of her bestseller Eat, Pray, Love. She delivered a memoir about her romance to be released in January, and gave Big Think a preview of the relationship tale.

Last year, Rachel Resnik, author of Love Junkie, a memoir of her lifelong attraction to unsuitable men, told some guys over at Big Think what kind of men attract love addicts like herself. Meanwhile, for the mathematically inclined, Yale economist Barry Nalebuff discussed game theory’s applications to relationships.



Do lost people really walk in circles?


Finally, something from the movies that actually jibes with science: when people are lost and have no landmarks for direction, they walk in circles.

There’s only one sound scientific way to test this hypothesis: handing a bunch of people GPS trackers and dropping them off in the middle of nowhere. So that’s what scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen did—deposited one group of subjects in the Sahara Desert, another in a German forest.

If the sun or the moon was out, no problem; participants could keep to a more or less straight line. But with no heavenly bodies and no other recognizable landmarks to guide them, the study subjects simply wandered around aimlessly without realizing they were doing it.

So why do we do it? Is that we all favor one leg over the other and start veering off in that direction? The researchers thought this might be the case, and beyond the testing in the desert and the forest, they also blindfolded some subjects to see if they could stay straight.

However, rather than favoring only one direction, people would wander one way and then the other, and end up nowhere. The researchers hypothesize that the real cause of walking in circles is simply losing track of “straight ahead” and overcompensating.

So if you’re hiking around in the desert—or planning to appear in a horror movie—please, take a compass. Your senses deceive you.




Marijuana and Sex??

This would make me never want to pick up a blunt..... Could it be? A new study suggests that men who smoke marijuana daily are four times more likely to have trouble reaching orgasm than men who don’t. Smokers experience premature ejaculation at almost three times the rate of non-smokers. The experiment, conducted by scientists at La Trobe University in Melbourne, tested 8,656 Australians

But on the bright sideeven though male smokers appear to have more problems in bed, they don’t have much problem getting to bed. Pot users were twice as likely to have had two or more sex partners in the previous year than non-smoking men. Female performance doesn’t appear to be affected by the drug.

To be fair, the study definitely has its shortcomings— one being that it doesn’t show a clear cause-effect relationship between smoking marijuana and sexual performance. There are many other factors that have to be taken into account, like age and alcohol use. But there’s clearly a correlation. What it is, we’ll have to wait and see.




My Heaven

after my final breath escapes
when my heart beats no longer
once decision is made for my flesh to enter grave
my heaven awaits

i see gold and gold only
different shades and tints of this majestic hue
it is the coat of all translucent souls
Ancestors covered in glow that shines much louder

love, the only word uttered from spirits’ lips
joy, the only thought we share
melodious drum beat accompanies word and thought
adore i do, the sound of paradise, and its echo

perfumed and flowery scents surround me
waves of fresh bouquet travel, even in absence of a medium
aroma of the sweetest of fruits visit often
to feed the appetites of those who reside here

elation through movement, our ritual
feelings of delight and bliss captured in every shift
connected are all souls in this place
i am now spirit and we are one
in my heaven

Source: Speakbeliefs.com



Good Morning

golden dawn kisses sable skies
dreams ending…eyes opening
lids blinking flickering fluttering
sister sun and i emerging
rising together
ivory and taupe cumulus scatter
consequence is calmest weather
gold embracing blue
azure hue now in clear view
greeting morning star with salutations
acknowledging each other
knowingly aware of my purpose and i of hers
we pause
we reflect
now parting ways to shine on today
good morning
Source: Speakbeliefs.com



You can have whatever you like....


The first thing that will contribute to reaching your goal is that you simply want to reach it badly enough. You must learn how to desire with sufficient intensity if you want success.

When you have the desire, you have the power to attain success. You can really have most anything that you want, if you go after it. But you have to want it.

As a drowning soul desires air, so must you feel that intense, eager, insistent, demanding, ravenous desire for your success.

Your desire for success must be so strong within you that it becomes the very breath of your life. It must be your first thought when you wake up, and your last thought when you go to bed at night.




Saturday, August 15, 2009

50 questions that will free you!!

These questions have no right or wrong answers.

Because sometimes asking the right questions is the answer.

1.How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
2.Which is worse, failing or never trying?
3.If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
4.When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
5.What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?
6.If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
7.Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?
8.If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
9.To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
10.Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?
11.You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified. What do you do?
12.If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?
13.Would you break the law to save a loved one?
14.Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?
15.What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
16.How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?
17.What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? What’s holding you back?
18.Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?
19.If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why?
20.Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?
21.Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
22.Why are you, you?
23.Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?
24.Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you?
25.What are you most grateful for?
26.Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones?
27.Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
28.Has your greatest fear ever come true?
29.Do you remember that time 5 years ago when you were extremely upset? Does it really matter now?
30.What is your happiest childhood memory? What makes it so special?
31.At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive?
32.If not now, then when?
33.If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose?
34.Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever?
35.Why do religions that support love cause so many wars?
36.Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?
37.If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job?
38.Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing?
39.Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before?
40.When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?
41.If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today?
42.Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
43.What is the difference between being alive and truly living?
44.When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?
45.If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
46.What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
47.When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing?
48.What do you love? Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love?
49.In 5 years from now, will you remember what you did yesterday? What about the day before that? Or the day before that?
50.Decisions are being made right now. The question is: Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you?



Why trying to please people sucks!!

See, the issue isn’t the ‘please everybody’ part.

The real issue comes right before that. The ‘try’ part.

When you’re trying to please other people. When you’re trying to make people like you. When you’re reacting to others… you’re not staying true to yourself.

You’re not being real.

And people can feel that. And it gives them the frikken heebie-jeebies.

When do you try to make people like you? When you want something from them.

And trying to make people like you doesn’t just mean supplicating – ya know, buying them stuff, trying to impress and doing what they want.

Nope.

Trying to make people like you goes deeper than that.

Every time you don’t do what you want. Every time you don’t do what you feel. Every time you censor that inner awesome… you’re living for others instead of yourself.

Sure, you might get some validation but deep down, way deep down, beyond all your BS excuses and rationalisations, deeper than the need for approval and control and all that stuff, deep deep deep down, you know that you’re not being real and you’re not being true to yourself.




Thursday, August 13, 2009

Just a few more reminders


■I’ve heard “you have not because you ask not.” Maybe we should append ”you have not because you don’t appreciate.”
■Trite yet forgotten wisdom: it’s not about what you say, but what you show. Actions really do speak louder than words.
■Everyone who is in your life has the option to be there or not. Respect their decision and appreciate it accordingly.
■“Life is a theater. Invite your audience carefully.” - DJ Krush

■If you don’t live up to your potential, what difference does it make that you had it to begin with?
■Insecurities can be lethal. Release yourself and others from the shackles of your insecurities. Be happy.
■The outer world reflects the inner world. So much of what we strive for is really an inside job.
■You can start over any time you choose.
■Self-check: what percentage of your thoughts are dedicated to harping on problems versus creating solutions?
■Love involves freedom. It is loving the being of someone, not the having of someone.
■Laugh, love, and live.
■“Love the life you live so you can live the life you love.”
■The sun is always shining…even if you can’t see it. Find it.




Quick note to self










How to go back to time!!


Yeah yeah, another post about time travel. I just cant get it out of my mind. there are so many things i want to go back and do, go back and change, but i just can tfigure out how?? Its a constant thought running through my head. I mean,ever since Einstein, physicists have regarded the universe as four- dimensional. In addition to the three physical dimensions -- length, width and height -- there exists time, which is treated mathematically as though it were equivalent to the other three. But there is one important difference: while humans can travel freely in any physical direction -- up and down, left and right, back and forth -- they can go only forward in time, never backward.

Still, there is nothing in the laws of physics that says time cannot run backward.
Einstein's equations of motion work equally well, mathematically, when the direction of time is reversed. Yet no one has ever been able to travel back in time. Theoretical physicists find the situation intriguing: if the laws that govern nature really permit time reversal, there should somehow be a way to achieve it. Now a theorist at Princeton University has come up with a way that travel into the past might, in principle, be accomplished, even if it may not be practical.

J. Richard Gott's calculations, which appear in the prestigious journal Physical Review Letters, create an imaginary time machine that takes advantage of an Einsteinian concept: that both space and time are distorted in the presence of very large masses or when objects are moving at speeds approaching the velocity of light. Gott is not the first to take this tack; in 1988 a Caltech physicist, Kip Thorne, and two colleagues constructed their own theoretical time machine and wrote about it in the same journal.

The Caltech machine involved travel through a wormhole, a bizarre object that physicists believe might exist at the core of a black hole. Under the infinite density and gravity at the black hole's center, space could be so profoundly warped that a tunnel would form, far narrower than a subatomic particle, that might reach to some distant part of the universe. Anyone or anything entering the tunnel would appear instantly at the other end and, under special circumstances, would essentially travel into the past.

It is hard to see how this particular time machine could be of much use. The time traveler would have to survive the crushing pressure inside a black hole and somehow squeeze through an opening smaller than a single atom. Moreover, since a wormhole tends to collapse a fraction of a second after it forms, some means would have to be found of propping it open.

Still, says Gott, "it is an ingenious concept, and it got me thinking about other ways you might achieve time travel." Gott's idea is simpler than Thorne's. No black holes, no wormholes -- just a spaceship traveling at near light speed, and a peculiar object called a cosmic string. Like wormholes, cosmic strings may or may not exist; they are at present just theoretical constructs.

In this case the theories are those that describe the energy fields of the very early universe, shortly after the Big Bang. Under the right circumstances, physicists believe, very long, very thin strings of pure energy might have survived in their original state rather than cooling off with the rest of the universe. These cosmic strings would be infinitesimally thin but unbelievably dense, with a thousand trillion tons of mass for every inch of length. The enormous mass would warp the region around a cosmic string so that space itself would act like a distorting lens. Two light rays from a single source -- a star, for example -- could travel by two totally different paths, one on each side of the string, and still end up at the same place. The significant part of this theory is that these two paths could be of different lengths, depending on the position of the light source. And because light always travels at the same speed, one of the light rays would thus take longer than the other to reach its goal.

It is this difference in travel time that sets up Gott's time machine. Imagine a rocket ship moving at 99.9999% of light speed and taking the shorter of the two paths. In principle it could reach the far side of a string at exactly the same moment as a light ray traveling the longer path. In essence the ship would be moving faster than light, and under the peculiar logic of special relativity, it would thus go backward in time. For complex reasons, the ship has to make a complete loop around the string, and thus a single string will not do; there must be two strings -- passing each other at nearly the speed of light -- for the trick to work. But work it apparently does. Says Gott: "I've gotten enormous interest from other physicists and astrophysicists about this idea."

The reason is not that physicists really believe time travel can ever actually occur. But the fact that it appears possible in principle challenges the very foundations of physics. What does it mean if an effect can theoretically precede a cause? What if, to use a theme from science fiction, a person could go into the past and kill his or her grandmother at an early age? Such a concept appears to make no sense, yet it must have some meaning if Gott's and Thorne's ideas are correct, as they appear to be. Says Gott: "At some point physics will have to find some mechanism by which these things are forbidden, or else learn to live with them." With two examples in hand, the paradox can no longer be ignored.






Thursday, August 6, 2009

Stone Vs. Apple iPhone 3g


Soo since they have so much in common. Why dont we pay so much for our iPhones?







Wednesday, August 5, 2009

When life gives you rain... Play in it!!


Earlier this week it began raining while my friends and I were standing on the porch. But not one of us ran away. How many times do you get the chance to play in the rain? Not everyday right? So why not take the risk?

I was thinking....There was something so calm and soothing as if all my worries where being washed away. A feeling I used to get so long ago as I played in the rain while my mother would sit and watch.

As my friends were joking around... I thought to myself “why can’t we always go through life like this?” Why can’t we stay in the game, rain or shine. At times we give up on things because they get difficult, and we are too afraid to continue so we run away from it. It is when life gives you rain that you grow and learn. How else will you improve?

You can’t be afraid to fall or fail. If you do, you pick yourself back up and hope that you don’t fall again.

Have you ever played in the rain? Do you give up or stay in the game when things get difficult?





Moving towards positivity and possibility



Change starts with us; it starts within. I started Premium Hype Magazine out of a desire and a need to continually see positivity and positive progression. That external change begins internally. There’s a reciprocal relationship between people and culture; each shapes the other. However, culture only changes when the people interacting with that culture change. If we desire to see a more sustainable, positive, and progressive culture, we need to become sustainable, positive, and progressive people, individually and collectively.
In his Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Brazilian educator Paulo Freire argues that the fully human act upon and transform their world. He, at great length, discusses the cyclical nature of oppression as manifested via current pedagogies. Oppressed people oppress. Their idea of the fully human individual is their oppressor, so in an attempt to realize their full humanity, they become what they despised. Just like with oppression, there is a cyclical nature to negativity, positivity, and possibility. Negativity begats negativity, positivity begats positivity, and possibility begats possibility.

As evidenced by the several converging crises the world is faced with, we cannot maintain a wistful and passive desire for change. We cannot assume that change is impossible and do nothing. We cannot maintain the cynical “search and destroy” perspective that offers nothing of constructive value. We must be intent on finding the good. It has to be a continuous action that infiltrates every area of our lives. We must also become those who create the good. Those that inspire, that connect, comfort, heal, and transform into an even greater and grander version of ourselves than we thought was possible. Because it is possible.

There is commonly a disconnect between who we want to be and who we are. Please take time to seriously investigate who you’d like to be, who you are, and what you can do to bridge the gap. Live by your ideals.






Soooo.. Why do People write?


It’s a question every writer asks themselves, either in the midst of sorting through overdue bills, during the dead hours of a suffocating block, or upon receipt of another rude rejection: why do I do this? Ta-Nehisi Coates, who discussed the subject with Premium Hype, recently posted about the unhappy vocation and has been leading many bloggers to engage in writerly soul searching. Is good writing a product of endless practice, God-given talent, or is it something else altogether?
Mr. Strauss suggest that writing does require an inherent trait, but it isn’t talent: it’s the inability to stop writing. It’s hard to argue that that’s not part of the mix, but as the editorial assistant tasked to read many massive novels of somehting less than quality, there’s more involved. Not every hypergraphia sufferer becomes worth reading, even if they get published.

Billy Collins offered Premium Hype a unique perspective on the question: writers, and artists in general, are people who retain the unfettered brilliance and creativity of their childhood throughout their lives. Modern workshops and competitive structures, he claims, do more harm than good. In fact, he claims, what writers need is less production and more confrontation with the blank page.

What do you believe are the traits that all successful writers share?




Being happy is... bad?


If you hope to live a really, really long life, turns out it’s better to be conscientious than optimistic. As The Daily Beast reports, Psychologists have created something called the “Big 5,” a criterion used to comprehend a human’s personality. The five aspects areagreeableness, openness, extroversion, conscientiousness and neuroticism, with each given a ranking to form a personality understanding. The more conscientious a person, the longer he or she is likely to live. So, wipe that smile off your face and get to work!




Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The Science of Happiness


How happy are you, on a scale of 1 to 10? If you don’t know how to answer that, you’re not alone. Surveying people about their happiness is notoriously problematic, even for psychologists. It requires researchers to reach some definition of the term that matches how their research subjects define it, and for people to self-report honestly, which is always a crapshoot. Still, surveys of the world’s happiest countries pop up all the time, but some researchers have devised what they call a more rigorous way to sense the national mood.
The New York Times reported today on an attempt by University of Vermont researchers to study American happiness not by asking Americans how happy they are, but rather by what we say to each other through speeches, blog posts, and song lyrics. These are more honest measures of well-being, they say, free from the self-censorship that survey subjects impose in order to seem “normal” to the person in the white coat with the clipboard.

The Vermont scientists compiled their findings by analyzing more than 200,000 song lyrics and more than 2 million blog posts, and rating their happiness content from 1 to 10: 1 being total misery, 10 jubilation. Some of the findings weren’t too surprising—teens were angsty, people over 70 worried about illness, and the rest of us are apparently too busy working to escape emotional mediocrity.

The real question is, how much can you take from analyzing speeches, songs and blogs? The Vermont study confirmed a lot of things we already knew, like that the nation was sad on Sept. 11 and happy when Obama was elected President, lonely on Valentine’s and feeling guilty for overeating and overspending at Christmas. However, national well-being is just an average. There were certainly people who weren’t happy when Obama won the election, and who were terribly happy last Valentine’s Day.

This study technique might very well lead to interesting derivatives when researchers get the chance to slice and dice the data some more. But enough about the psychological state of the nation—it’s a tool for pointless lists and meaningless comparisons between countries, not a useful metric.




A Real Estate rebound?!


More encouraging news has flooded the real estate sector as the National Association of Realtors recently reported that home resales increased by a better-than-expected 3.6% in June. This pushed purchases to an annual rate of 4.89 million, but does this mean that housing has bottomed out and is in rebound mode?

This most recent outperformance was primarily driven by the following 3 factors: the federal government’s tax incentives to first-time homebuyers, low prices caused by the surge in foreclosures, and relatively low borrowing costs.

These driving forces are a far cry from the driving forces that are needed for a rebound -- namely, a surge in demand and the ability for consumers to obtain mortgage loans.

Home inventories are at all-time highs, consumers are saving and deleveraging wealth, consumer debt numbers are skyrocketing, unemployment rates continue to rise, and those that do have jobs are witnessing negative wages. Until these issues are addressed, it's very difficult to say that a bottom in the real estate markets has been hit.

Regardless, the sector has seen a nice uptrend, as seen in the performance of the following equities:

1. iShares Dow Jones US Real Estate Index (IYR), which saw a March low of $22.21 to bounce back nicely and close at $33.15 on July 22, an increase of 49%.

2. SPDR S&P Homebuilders (XHB) rebounding nicely to close at $12.89 on July 22 from a March low of $8.25, a jump of 56%.

3. Equity Residential (EQR), up 24% after witnessing a March low of $16.71 to close at $20.71 on July 22.

4. HCP Inc. (HCP) which saw a March low of $16.08, has gained 43% since then, to close at $22.92 on July 22.

If one does consider playing the real estate sector, keep in mind the risk involved with doing so. To mitigate these risks, an exit strategy utilizing stop losses is key. According to the latest data from www.SmartStops.net, the upward trend in the previously mentioned equities might be coming to an end at the following price points: IYR at $31.48; RTH at $78.36; EQR at $19.42; HCP at $21.76. Keep in mind that these triggers change as the markets fluctuate.





The power of Positive thinking!

Positive thinking is a mental attitude that admits into the mind thoughts, words and images that are conductive to growth, expansion and success. It is a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health and a successful outcome of every situation and action. Whatever the mind expects, it finds.


Not everyone accepts or believes in positive thinking. Some consider the subject as just nonsense, and others scoff at people who believe and accept it. Among the people who accept it, not many know how to use it effectively to get results. Yet, it seems that many are becoming attracted to this subject, as evidenced by the many books, lectures and courses about it. This is a subject that is gaining popularity.

It is quite common to hear people say: "Think positive!", to someone who feels down and worried. Most people do not take these words seriously, as they do not know what they really mean, or do not consider them as useful and effective. How many people do you know, who stop to think what the power of positive thinking means?





Word of advise...






when less is more…the story behind dr. seus’ green eggs and ham


Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss’ editor, bet him that he couldn’t write a book using 50 words or less. The Cat in the Hat was pretty simple, after all, and it used 225 words. Not one to back down from a challenge, Mr. Geisel started writing and came up with Green Eggs and Ham – which uses exactly 50 words.

The 50 words used are:a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.




Some people....

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality…AND THEN there are those who turn one into the other…which one are you???