- "Pride is stupid, but it is necessary"
Jacques Villeneuve is proud to be able to run flat-out through Eau Rouge, 2005
- There's a Chinese saying, "with a new king comes new followers".
- H.P. Lovecraft
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown"
- H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature
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"Do we really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear? Many of us cling to our fears, doubts, self-loathing or hatred because there is a certain distorted security in familiar pain. It seems safer to embrace what we know than to let go of it for fear of the unknown.
(Narcotics Anonymous Book/page 33)"
- Narcotics Anonymous
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"Sometimes painfully lost people can teach us lessons that we didn't think we needed to know, or be reminded of---the more history changes, the more it stays the same."
- Shannon L. Alder
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/fear-of-unknown
- C. JoyBell C.
"You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles."
- C. JoyBell C.
C. JoyBell C.
"People have to forgive. We don't have to like them, we don't have to be friends with them, we don't have to send them hearts in text messages, but we have to forgive them, to overlook, to forget. Because if we don't we are tying rocks to our feet, too much for our wings to carry!"
- C. JoyBell C.
Marvin J. Ashton
"Be the one who nurtures and builds. Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them."
- Marvin J. Ashton
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/forgiving
- In the realm of law, the RSS wants the passage of a stringent nationwide bill that would ban religious conversions. In the public sphere, it has arrogated the right to pronounce not just on the future of minorities in India but that of India's Hindu majority as well. In the war of the religions, it seeks to spread the news that there is now a Hindu fundamentalism eager to goad and trump well-established Christian and Islamic fundamentals in India and around the world. And among its own vast cadre, it has generated the sense that it, much more than the government of the day or the diverse institutions of civil society and business, holds the key to India's future.
...
As a Hindu, I have some sympathy with this viewpoint. Missionary activity has always seemed to me unacceptably crude and arrogant, not only in its conviction that there is a single truth that must be propagated, but also in its contempt for two of the forces that most strongly influence religious belief: The accident of birth in a certain religion, which is then followed by many years of socialisation into its worldview.
http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/a-new-vision-of-india-that-is-100-hindu-1.1433102
- "It is not conversion, it is reconversion," said the professorial Abdeo, national secretary of Vishva Hindu Parishad, a pro-Hindu organisation. "A thousand years ago, all the Muslims and Christians in India were Hindu. They were converted by the sword. We are just bringing them back to their original faith."
Hindu fundamentalists, saying Christian missionaries and Muslim conquerors converted Indians by force centuries ago, have for years quietly sought to win them back. This year, seemingly invigorated by the rise of a right-wing Hindu government in New Delhi, they have organised mass reconversion "camps", including some where people have alleged they were duped or threatened into changing faiths.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/hindu-activists-organise-mass-reconversion-camps-in-india-20141229-12et35.html
- "When we start to doubt ourselves, when we start questioning our own identity, when we start distrusting everything, we cannot win, including against extremists, those who want to destroy who we are, threaten our values, turn France into something it is not".
http://www.france24.com/en/20150105-france-fran%C3%A7ois-hollande-media-offensive-tv-radio-2015-sarkozy/
- Khomeini himself put it this way: "Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious."
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A solemn and dignified Ramadan indeed. Sometimes it takes a clown to speak the truths that others won't face.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/islam-is-no-laughing-matter-20150109-12kzr3.html
- Yun's quest - a modern version of the age old dream of tapping the fountain of youth - is emblematic of the current enthusiasm to disrupt death sweeping Silicon Valley. Billionaires and companies are bullish about what they can achieve. In September 2013 Google announced the creation of Calico, short for the California Life Company. Its mission is to reverse engineer the biology that controls lifespan and "devise interventions that enable people to lead longer and healthier lives". Though much mystery surrounds the new biotech company, it seems to be looking in part to develop age-defying drugs. In April 2014 it recruited Cynthia Kenyon, a scientist acclaimed for work that included genetically engineering roundworms to live up to six times longer than normal, and who has spoken of dreaming of applying her discoveries to people. "Calico has the money to do almost anything it wants," says Tom Johnson, an earlier pioneer of the field now at the University of Colorado who was the first to find a genetic effect on longevity in a worm.
http://geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/01/12/can-silicon-valley-fix-the-aging-problem/
- But let's remember that central bank quantitative easing (QE) of the kind that Europe is now embarking on is always just a Band-Aid on economic troubles, not a solution to underlying structural issues in a country (or in this case, a region). Just as the Fed's $4 trillion QE money dump bolstered the markets but didn't fix the core problems in our economy--growing inequality, a high/low job market without enough work in the middle, flat wages, historically low workforce participation--so the ECB QE will excite markets for a while, but it won't mend the problems that led Europe to need this program to begin with.
http://time.com/3679154/european-union-quantitative-easing/
- Europe's future was "not the future of austerity - it is the future of democracy, solidarity and cooperation," he added.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/25/greece-election-vote-austerity-leftwing-syriza-eu?google_editors_picks=true
- "Medicine doesn't happen very much in breakthroughs. It happens in lots and lots of little steps, and we still have a long way to go."
http://www.smh.com.au/national/dr-jeremy-chapman-receives-australia-day-honour-20150125-12uze3.html
- "It is wrong to imagine that we can only gain and grow from revelling in past glory," he said. "True patriots don't shrink from historical truth -- they welcome it, they learn from it.
- "The problem is he just wants to pour that additional money into the broken, existing system -- which a lot of people graduate with AA degrees that don't lead to anything but another four-year degree that may not lead to a job," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida -- a prospective 2016 presidential candidate -- suggested recently on CBS' Face the Nation. "What we need to do is create competition with alternative methods where people can acquire certification programs that take less than two years, and get you to work right away as a welder, electrician, and airplane mechanic. I wish he would spend more time on that, and less time trying to raise taxes and pour money into an outdated model that no longer works in the 21st Century."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/state-of-the-union-finally-an-agenda-for-the-21st-century/
- The test was anything but scientific - it says as much about my proficiency with the different input methods as it does about the input methods themselves - but the results were interesting and not at all what I expected. Swype, the keyboard you use by drawing lines over the letters without lifting your finger, was by far the slowest for me, due to the fact it coped very poorly indeed with longer, not-so-common words in the text. Next slowest was the handwriting recognition on Samsung's Galaxy Note 4, using its stylus, due to the fact it kept capitalising words that shouldn't be capitalised. I really thought it would be one of the faster ones. Then came the stock Android keyboard, then second fastest was the keyboard on the iPhone, thanks to its uncanny auto-correction ability that lets you type at an insane pace and still have near perfect accuracy.
But fastest of all by some margin, twice as fast as Swype and 30 per cent faster than the iPhone, was the keyboard on the Classic. Not only that, but it was the only input device that allowed me to take my eyes off the keyboard and look at the stopwatch while entering text. It's so easy to use, and so fast.
http://www.afr.com/f/free/technology/digitallife/blackberry_classic_is_faster_than_7uzwvj1NNSc2gwMgq042pM
- In this day and age confidence is king. You can embark on all of the education you like but if you can't back yourself, or make it clear to others that you're up for the fight then others will pass you by. Nick Kyrgios is definitely letting everyone know he's not holding back, and he's having one hell of a crack.
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Some are saying Nick is one of the most exciting sporting prospects Australia has seen in a long while, so lets not cook the golden goose, instead let it run wild, and who knows what will eventuate.
http://www.theroar.com.au/2015/01/27/let-nick-kyrgios-run-wild/
- Canada's number one problem in personal finance is not lack of saving, he said, but people spending beyond their means. "Eric and Ilsa show us that it's a problem uniting people of all backgrounds. This couple is you and me, only with a higher income."
http://www.news.com.au/finance/money/barely-getting-by-on-25k-a-month-couples-plea-for-financial-advice-draws-scorn/story-e6frfmcr-1227194539834
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/mortgages/debt-doubts-cast-a-shadow-for-this-professional-couple-with-five-kids/article22496585/
- The most successful companies need a vision, and both Apple and Microsoft have one. But Apple's was more radical and, as it turns out, more farsighted. Microsoft foresaw a computer on every person's desk, a radical idea when IBM mainframes took up entire rooms. But Apple went a big step further: Its vision was a computer in every pocket. That computer also just happened to be a phone, the most ubiquitous consumer device in the world. Apple ended up disrupting two huge markets.
...
Mr. Cihra noted that Microsoft already dominates its core businesses, leaving little room for growth. But, he said, "Apple still doesn't have massive market share in any of its core markets. Even in smartphones, its share is only in the midteens. Apple's strategy has been to carve out a small share of a massive market. It's pretty much a unique model that leaves plenty of room for growth."
http://www.afr.com/p/technology/how_apple_left_microsoft_for_dust_8DjgBmV0XlDq44KQX5JpQI
- The new administration said the sackings of the heads of the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund will put an end to "close-out sale" privatisation policies, Greek media reported. From now on, privatisations will take place when they create new jobs and generate economic growth, the government said.
Privatisations of state companies are an important part of a reform program the previous government agreed to with its international creditors in return for a EUR240 billion ($350 billion) bailout. Interest from investors for the state offerings, however, has been low, and the revenues from the sales have come in sharply below expectations.
...
"The wind of change is starting to blow in Europe," party leader Pablo Iglesias, a 36-year-old former university professor, said in Greek and Spanish as he addressed supporters. "We dream but we take our dream seriously. More has been done in Greece in six days than many governments did in years."
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Born out of the "Indignants" protest movement that filled Spanish squares in 2011 with demands for change, Podemos says it wants to prevent profitable companies firing workers, promote fully state-controlled healthcare and enact a "significant" minimum-wage hike.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/greece-puts-privatisations-on-ice-as-antiausterity-wave-arrives-in-madrid-20150201-1332aw.html
http://www.france24.com/en/20150131-tens-thousands-rally-support-spain-anti-austerity-party-podemos/
- The team carried out the research using astero-seismology -- listening to the natural resonances of the host star which are caused by sound trapped within it. These oscillations lead to miniscule changes or pulses in its brightness which allow the researchers to measure its diameter, mass and age. The planets were then detected from the dimming that occurs when the planets transited, or passed across, the stellar disc. This fractional fading in the intensity of the light received from the star enables scientists to accurately measure the size of the planets relative to the size of the star.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/science/Solar-system-with-5-Earth-sized-planets-dicovered/articleshow/46034238.cms
- In DJ parlance, a break is where all elements of a song (e.g., pads, basslines, vocals), except for percussion, disappear for a time. This is distinguished from a breakdown, a section where the composition is deliberately deconstructed to minimal elements (usually the percussion or rhythm section with the vocal re-introduced over the minimal backing), all other parts having been gradually or suddenly cut out.[1] The distinction between breaks and breakdowns may be described as, "Breaks are for the drummer; breakdowns are for hands in the air".[1]
In hip hop and electronica, a short break is also known as a "cut", and the reintroduction of the full bass line and drums is known as a "drop", which is sometimes accented by cutting off everything, even the percussion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break_(music)
- Mobile users are increasingly driving traffic to Facebook, and advertisers have responded by purchasing large numbers of mobile ads. More than $1 in every $5 spent on Facebook advertising now goes to mobile, even though mobile ads command a premium cost-per-click rate of $1.38 -- compared to $0.81 for desktop ads. Also of note: The majority of tablet users access Facebook using an Apple product, but when it comes to phones, the Android operating system drives more traffic. -- AllFacebook
http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/225499
