While Buddhism Meets Our Spiritual Needs

I must just be having one of those days, but something about turning religion on its head and saying that it meets their spiritual needs sounds to me akin to saying that food does, or drink does, or drugs do, or exercise does - and it is both open and frank and at the same time so person-centered that it realigns the relationship with the divine.

Ah, third eye opens - all is clear now - must get back to work.

 From uk.news.yahoo.com

Three of the 14 members of Japan's kabaddi team at the Asian Games are reportedly monks, while five others have graduated from a Zen Buddhist institute.

"Training in kabaddi makes our bodies stronger and healthier, while Buddhism meets our spiritual needs," the Beijing Daily quoted Japan's team leader Kokei Ito as saying.

Read more at uk.news.yahoo.com

Readability Of Coloured Text

Good for designers - originally from one of the points raised in 100-things-you-should-know-about-people 100 Things

From www.hgrebdes.com

Colour Text Legibility

Experiment with readability of coloured text over a coloured background. Move the sliders to see the effect of colour changes. The ‘seems good’ tick should tell you that the text is legible.

Use the sliders or the colour picker to see the legibility of a text colour over a background colour. For the sliders, thanks to Erik Arvidsson Read more at www.hgrebdes.com

To Serif Or Not To Serif

From alexpoole.info

Which Are More Legible: Serif or Sans Serif Typefaces?

In an effort to get at the truth, I reviewed over 50 empirical studies in typography and found a definitive answer.

What initially seemed a neat dichotomous question of serif versus sans serif has resulted in a body of research consisting of weak claims and counter-claims, and study after study with findings of “no difference”. Is it the case that more than one hundred years of research has been marred by repeated methodological flaws, or are serifs simply a typographical “red herring”? Read more at alexpoole.info

There is no other motivation other than to have the relationships we want.

From www.nomorepencils.com

Why We Do The Things We Do

The point of doing the things we do is to be in the relationships with other people that we want. This applies to obvious things like drinking alcohol and to not so obvious things like whether we become entrepreneurs or work in an office or become a sales rep or a travel agent or a travel guide.

There is no other motivation. Money is not a motivation: It is a route to setting up a scenario where we can have the relationships we want to have.

The only failure is to do nothing. Even here, there may be a scenario we are chasing – the down and out – the dissolute – the hobo – that we may find by doing nothing. Read more at www.nomorepencils.com

47 Mind-Blowing Psychology-Proven Facts

This is too long, too good, and too excellent for me to snap anything other than the intro paragraphs.

I humbly suggest that you read it - it's well worth it - from www.businessinsider.com

47 Mind-Blowing Psychology-Proven Facts You Should Know About Yourself

100 things you should know if you are going to design an effective and persuasive website, web application or software application. Or maybe just 100 things that everyone should know about humans!

a series called 100 Things You Should Know about People. As in: 100 things you should know if you are going to design an effective and persuasive website, web application or software application. Or maybe just 100 things that everyone should know about humans! Read more at www.businessinsider.com

In late October Russian Investigators Seized...

Spammers and phoney pharmacies - from www.economist.com

A great deal out there

The flow of spam is disrupted, briefly

AN OMINOUS message remains on the home-page of Spamit, once one of the world’s prolific sources of junk e-mail: “Le roi est mort! Vive le roi!”. In late October Russian investigators seized computer equipment from the apartment of Igor Gusev, who has repeatedly denied being the man behind Spamit. His whereabouts is unknown.

Spamit’s business model, by contrast, is well understood. Its closure coincided with a steep drop in global e-mail volumes. But outfits of this kind do not themselves clog in boxes. They build legal-seeming sites to take orders and credit-card information. In Spamit’s case these were mostly “Canadian” online pharmacies which in fact shipped bogus Viagra and other popular pills from China or India.

The spam itself comes from “affiliates”—groups of criminal freelancers who are paid a high commission on every sale they generate. They send the spam from “botnets”, networks of hacked personal computers. Some of these were controlled by servers hosted on McColo, a Silicon Valley firm, until internet-service providers forced it in 2008 to shut them down. That briefly cut global spam volumes in half (see chart). Armenian police last month arrested Georg Avanesov, who is alleged to have operated a botnet of nearly 30m PCs.

Such disruptions may cut spam but will not put the lucrative phoney pharmacies out of business. Last year Dmitry Samosseiko, a researcher at Sophos, which sells computer-security equipment, found that the average value of an order was $200. With such money on the table, affiliates will find new ways to get through users’ defences—and the spam king, or a suitably counterfeit version, will be back. Read more at www.economist.com

Deeply Offensive

What a crap thing to say - that a marriage will only last seven years. I don't care who he is - that he is a bishop is irrelevant to me - but why make hurtful comments?

From uk.news.yahoo.com

A Church of England bishop has apologised for saying he believes Prince William and Kate Middleton's marriage would only last for seven years. Skip related content

The Rt Rev Pete Broadbent, Bishop of Willesden, admitted his comments, posted on Facebook, were "deeply offensive".

He said he has passed on his "sincere regrets" to the Prince of Wales and the newly-engaged couple for any "distress" he has caused.

The offending comments contained reference to the Royal Family as "philanderers".

He also described the media furore surrounding the wedding as "nauseating tosh", likening the Prince and his fiancee to "shallow celebrities".

On the day of the royal wedding announcement the bishop also made derogatory comments on Twitter.

His post read: "Need to work out what date in the spring or summer I should be booking my republican day trip to France..."

But in the statement offering his apology, he said: "I recognise that the tone of my language and the content of what I said were deeply offensive, and I apologise unreservedly for the hurt caused.

"It was unwise of me to engage in a debate with others on a semi-public internet forum and to express myself in such language.

I wish Prince William and Kate Middleton a happy and lifelong marriage, and will hold them in my prayers."

"I wish Prince William and Kate Middleton a happy and lifelong marriage, and will hold them in my prayers." Read more at uk.news.yahoo.com