Shared by holytaco
Most Powerpoint Presentations we deal with each day are about things that are really, really boring. So we made a Powerpoint about
something we all really want to learn about. Enjoy! (Hit the big right arrow button to see the next page.)
Written by BillShrink Guy
We are often told that the current financial meltdown is the most serious since the Great Depression. And while that may be true, comparing today’s times to such an awful and demoralizing crisis has the effect of scaring people, thereby making the situation worse. This is the wrong way to react to the situation. Rather than passively absorbing fear and uncertainty, we would do well to remember that some people managed to stay afloat during the Great Depression – and to learn how they did it. In that vein, here are 16 Depression-era money saving tips and how they can be utilized today.
Without a good-sized chunk of money stashed aside, there is literally nothing standing between you and financial disaster. While you may manage to chug along the way things are now, the slightest change (a sudden spike in credit card rates, temporary loss of income, etc.) could send you reeling. That being said, it’s no surprise that paying yourself first by continuing to save was a common trait of people who survived the Great Depression. You should do the same today, no matter how uncomfortable or counter-intuitive it feels at the time.
Together with regular savings, buying only necessities forms the bedrock of the Depression mentality to surviving economic turmoil. You can bet that when people were jumping out of skyscrapers because their net worth evaporated overnight, the people who held it together were not blowing their money on excesses. Similarly, until you conduct a thorough inventory of your spending habits, methodically eliminate waste and ensure that you are only buying what you truly need to survive, you will not be as fortified from disaster as you could be.
Another defining characteristic of Depression survivors was their relentless spirit of bargain hunting. When money is scarce and the future uncertain, there is simply no excuse for paying full sticker price on any of your purchases. Such times call for a different mentality, one of price comparisons and serious research into where the cheapest prices can be found. Luckily, the Internet makes this task far easier for today’s consumers than Depression-era bargain hunters. A few minutes of research before making any major purchases will usually assure you of getting a better deal.
Today’s recession (much like the Depression of the 1930’s) was caused by excessive borrowing and debt. That being the case, it would be utterly foolish to exacerbate the problem by going into debt yourself (especially if you already have outstanding debt in the form of credit cards or loans.) Going into debt during a recession takes you from the frying pan into the fire, exposing you to the full wrath of collections agencies, ruined credit scores, and possibly even bankruptcy. Rather than allowing this to happen, adopt the Depression mentality: see debt as a plague to be avoided at all costs.
It is well known by psychologists that one’s environment has a great deal of influence on their behavior. Interestingly, a survey of Depression survivors by the Healthcare Council of Illinois revealed that many of those survivors promptly threw away mail-order catalogs and other enticing advertisements as soon they arrived. It was (and still is!) much easier to stay on your chosen path of frugality when you are not constantly surrounded by ads for things you don’t really need. Heed this advice today and you will be less tempted to splurge!
Notwithstanding trust fund babies and lottery winners, people who survived the Great Depression didn’t do it by accident. One of their strengths was a refusal to accept any expense without tirelessly scrutinizing it. Only when it was determined that they were spending the least possible amount of money would they rest easy and pay it. You should adopt this same attitude with regard to any kind of services or ongoing fees that you pay, be it for insurance, home security systems, warranties, Internet connections, and even electricity. Haggle, negotiate, and shop around until you know it would be impossible for someone to spend less and still get what you’re getting.
One of the familiar stories of the Depression era is homeowners who turned their home thermostats down and bundled up in coats and sweaters around the house. It’s uncomfortable to imagine going to that extreme and no one gets excited about using less of something to save money. That said, there is no faster, more straightforward way to save money so far discovered. Rather than seeing it as a painful sacrifice, make a game out of it. See how much less of everything you can use without making life unbearably worse. You might be surprised at how frugal you can be (and how much you can save) with heating, lights, and gas!
It’s no secret that buying in bulk can save you money by enabling you to take advantage of volume discounts. Unfortunately, it can also be taken too far, such that it actually costs you more money. Without careful discretion, you might wind up buying things you don’t actually need in bulk, because it’s in bulk, rationalizing that after all, you’re “saving money” on it. This completely defeats the purpose of buying in bulk, which is saving money on things you need to buy. Avoid this pitfall by only bulk buying necessities (ie, nutritious food) and not excesses (ie, 50 gallon drums of shampoo.)
Cutting down on restaurant meals means eating more meals at a home, but if you have to buy all your food ready-made, you still wont be saving as much as you could be. That’s why many Depression survivors kept backyard gardens to grow fresh fruits and vegetables. While there is still the cost of seeds and maintenance (ie, water costs), this is far cheaper than buying from stores and ensures that food costs are kept to the absolute minimum
A tragic fact of the Depression is how many people suffered by staying in stagnant areas when they could have (perhaps at a high cost) moved somewhere more prosperous. Don’t make that mistake today! Many of those who came out of the Depression financially intact had the prescience to see that the job outlook at home would only get worse and the courage to move somewhere else. If you have the opportunity to do the same, take advantage of it.
It wasn’t called the Great Depression for nothing, but the gloom and doom we associate with it overshadows the fact that not everyone was hurting. Amidst all the mass suffering and despair, a small minority of people actually managed to thrive by diversifying and developing multiple income streams. You can do the same! Whether it’s investing (Warren Buffet says to be greedy when everyone else is fearful), starting a business, or picking up a second job, anything you can do to spread your risk across more than one thing will make you safer and more secure.
A hallmark of Depression-era spending habits was spending less to entertain yourself. Rather than spending gobs of money on extravagant nights out on the town, people found joy in life’s simpler and less expensive pursuits – exercise, reading, or enjoying the great outdoors. While you may not be ready to cut all entertainment expenses out of your budget, you can at least buy your thrills wisely. Fly during non-peak times of the year, see matinee showings of movies, and split entertainment costs with friends in a group.
Buying used clothing is an extreme that many are unwilling to consider, regarding it as “going too far” and scoffing at the idea of ever doing it themselves. But the bare, crass fact is that new clothing is expensive, and when times are tough, the difference between spending $50 or $500 for a similar outfit could mean the difference between keeping the lights on or not. Depression survivors bought used clothing without shame, and if you are feeling the crunch, perhaps it’s time to consider following suit.
While it’s true that nothing is truly “free” (there is the opportunity cost of your time to consider), in recession, it often makes sense to do yourself what you would normally pay others for. This includes everything from haircuts to lawn care to accounting and tax preparation. If you have an abundance of free time, spend it on tasks like these and avoid shelling out money for them.
You would be amazed how far a little ingenuity and resourcefulness will go in preparing your own food, stitching your own clothes, and making other things that you would usually buy. In addition to saving the money you would’ve spent, you will have the satisfaction of using the things you yourself created!
People who lived through the Great Depression will tell you that your mindset and overall attitude was just as important (if not more so) than the specific money-saving strategies you used. It took a pervasive mentality of penny-pinching and getting as much from what you had as possible. The best way to cultivate this mentality? Just pretend that you’re broke. Even if you are not technically on the brink of financial ruin, pretending that you are will force you to make decisions differently and more prudently than if you assumed a more comfortable state of affairs.
Written by Meghan Ahearn
We all grew up with sayings that were intended to frighten us into being good or convince us to eat better. Looking back, some of these childhood proverbs don’t even make much sense. (Ever hear the claim that swallowed gum stays in your stomach for seven years? Uh-huh, sure.) However, there are quite a few axioms out there that people still believe in. That’s why we decided to investigate 10 common old wives’ tales to see how they hold up under scientific scrutiny. From the moon’s affect on crime sprees to the true causes of colds, this list is sure to surprise even the most enlightened among you.
1. Sitting too close to the TV will ruin your eyes.
False: Couch potatoes around the world will feel vindicated to learn that this warning isn’t true. According to WebMD.com, the worst thing that can happen as a result of sitting too close to the screen is a nagging headache.
2. Taking a swim less than one hour after eating will give you life-threatening cramps.
False: Countless kids were scared into thinking that if they went back in the water less than 60 minutes after eating, they would cramp up and drown. But according to MayoClinic.com, it’s perfectly safe to swim after you eat a light meal or snack. The site does recommend taking a break after eating a big meal, however–not because of cramping, but due to lethargy.
3. Chocolate causes acne.
False: All those years of teenage angst weren’t caused your weakness for Hershey’s Kisses after all. The American Academy of Dermatology says acne is not caused by any specific type of food, including chocolate. The adolescent affliction is, in fact, beyond your control, since it’s linked to the levels of testosterone in your body.
4. Feed a cold, starve a fever. (Or is it starve a cold, feed a fever?)
False: According to WebMD.com, starving is never a good idea–under any condition. When you’re ill, your body requires nutrients from all the different types of food in a well-balanced diet, including fruits, vegetables, yogurt, protein and, of course, chicken soup.
5. Carrots improve your eyesight.
Partially True: The American Optometric Association found that 48% of Americans still believe carrots are the best food for eye health. And though the root vegetable does have beta-carotene and Vitamin A, which are good for night vision, even healthier for the eyes are dark leafy greens like spinach, which contain lutein and zeaxanthin. Popeye was on to something, after all.
6. Cracking knuckles causes arthritis.
False: Here’s another parental fear tactic that isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. John H. Klippel, MD, Arthritis Foundation President and CEO, recently told USAToday.com that he doesn’t “know of any evidence that suggests that cracking one’s knuckles actually can cause arthritis.”
7. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Partially True: This saying has been around since before the discovery of an apple’s vital nutrients: Vitamin C and polyphenols. Regardless, the core of the matter is that while this fruit will help keep you well, it’s not always enough to keep you out of the medical danger zone.
8. Lightning never strikes the same place twice.
False: According to the National Weather Service, lightning can strike the same place numerous times. In fact, the Empire State Building is hit an average of 25 times a year–the reason why it was once used as a lightning laboratory.
9. Going out in the cold with wet hair causes sickness.
False: Neither wet nor dry hair significantly increases your chances of getting sick. WebMD.com says colds are solely caused when viruses are passed from one person to another, so you should be more concerned with how often you wash your hands, not your hair.
10. More crime occurs during a full moon.
False: Many interesting things are thought to increase during a full moon: emergency room visits, accidents, fertility, werewolves. Almost all these phenomena are attributed to the Lunar Effect, which tries to link deviant behavior and the phases of the moon. However, according to myth-buster and syndicated columnist, Cecil Adams, there is no truth at all behind the theory.
Written by Joe Crawford
/ol>
Written by Mark Jacob
As if the Obama administration didn’t have enough trouble, First Lady Michelle Obama was criticized over the ticket sign-up system for the White House’s Easter Egg Roll. In these scrambled times, let’s examine some incredible but true egg facts:
1 When the Bulls’ Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were in their prime, Jordan liked to say that they were “ham-and-egging.” Which meant that one of them would start strong and the other would finish strong. And opponents were toast.
2 At breakfast, President Woodrow Wilson drank two raw eggs in juice.
3 To demonstrate his versatility, the Japanese master artist Hokusai sometimes painted using the stick end of the brush, or with his fingers, or with chicken eggs.
4 Paul McCartney came up with the melody for “Yesterday” long before he had the words. While searching for just the right lyrics, he and John Lennon referred to the song as “Scrambled Eggs,” which had the same meter as the eventual title. “We called it ‘Scrambled Eggs’ and it became a joke between us,” Lennon said. “… Then one morning Paul woke up and the song and the title were both there, completed. I was sorry in a way, we’d had so many laughs about it.”
5 A common numbers racket in the ’30s and ’40s was called “butter and eggs.” Gamblers would bet on the closing commodity prices for butter and eggs. Before that, a “butter-and-egg man” was slang for a visitor with a lot of money, a yokel ready to be separated from his funds.
6 In golfing slang, a ball half-buried in a sand bunker is called a “fried egg.” In diner slang, if you want to order scrambled eggs on toast, you say, “Adam and Eve on a raft, and wreck ’em.”
7 Nobody seems sure about the Benedict who was honored by eggs Benedict. According to one story, LeGrand Benedict, a customer at the famed New York restaurant Delmonico’s, asked the chef to invent a new egg dish. But a rival story says the dish was inspired by Harry Benedict, a customer at the Waldorf Astoria in New York who wanted a meal to help him overcome a hangover.
8 The Easter bunny must have been wearing jackboots in Tumwater, Wash., in February 2006. Residents found neo-Nazi leaflets taped to plastic Easter eggs and scattered on their front lawns. The ethnic slurs were appalling, but residents found the Easter motif to be particularly offensive. “They shouldn’t be doing the eggs,” said Shirleyann Westman. “That’s not right at all.”
9 Joseph Coyle, who ran a small newspaper in the 1910s in British Columbia, quit the news business after inventing a different paper product: the egg carton.
10 Birds generally lay eggs that are 1 to 10 percent of their body weight. But the kiwi produces a single egg that is 20-25 percent of its weight. The San Diego Zoo’s Web site compares it to a 120-pound human female giving birth to a 24-pound baby.
SOURCES: “Hokusai: Life and Work” by Richard Lane, “The Berghoff Family Cookbook” by Carlyn Berghoff and Nancy Ross Ryan, “Eggs, Nests and Baby Dinosaurs” by Kenneth Carpenter, “Woodrow Wilson” by Arthur Walworth, ” The Beatles Anthology” by the Beatles, “Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang” by Jonathon Green, Seattle Times, Hiway 16 Magazine, king5.com, doubletongued.org, mygolfrounds.com, sandiegozoo.org and Tribune news services
Written by AN Jay
As we all know that Firefox is the fastest growing popular web browser and its growing more and more every day. There are too many handy options provided by the firefox and this is the main reason for its popularity. You can easily find lots of free downloadable extensions and add-ons that are available on the internet for firefox, we also featured few of them before and there demands are increasing. In this post, I am listing down The 7 Time Saving Firefox Add-Ons To Make Your Lives Easier.
You are welcome to share more firefox add-ons that you think will be useful and feel a better browsing experience that our readers/viewers may like.
Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
Foxmarks is the essential bookmarking add-on. Just Install Foxmarks on each computer you use, and it works silently in the background to keep your bookmarks and (optionally) passwords backed up and synchronized. If you’re away from your computer, Foxmarks allows you to access your bookmarks online by logging into my.foxmarks.com. Foxmarks’ Suggested Tag feature helps you stay organized by recommending relevant tags as you add bookmarks in Firefox 3.
If you use any site like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, Google Gmail, StumbleUpon, etc you’ll likely enjoy having Shareaholic by your side. This add-on enables you to quickly, and very easily share, bookmark, and e-mail web pages via a wide array of your favorite web 2.0 social networking, bookmarking, blogging, and email services.
You can drag, drop and arrange pictures adding photo titles, and create albums by multi-selecting photos, and then upload to one of a selection of online photo services – all of this without interrupting your Internet browsing with Fotofox.
This extension lets you organize websites by day and open them up simultaneously as part of your daily routine. This is really handy if you read sites that update on a regular schedule (like SmashingApps, CNN, Digg, webcomics, weekly columns, etc.).
ReminderFox displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s. ReminderFox does not seek to be a full-fledged calendar. In fact, the target audience is anybody that simply wants to remember important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, bills, etc) without having to run a whole calendar application. ReminderFox makes sure you remember all of your important dates via easy-to-use lists, alerts, and alarm notifications.
Sxipper makes interacting with the Web simpler by keeping track of an unlimited number of usernames, passwords and personal information such as name, address, phone numbers, etc. Presented as you need it, Sxipper securely stores this personal data on your computer.
The tab sidebar extension, if you haven’t heard of it already, provides a sidebar in the browser that can act as a replacement to the main tab bar, complete with always visible preview thumbnails and in tab navigation buttons. Just got to View – Tab Sidebar to see it.
Written by Jacob Gube
Image editing software has become ubiquitous in this digital age. Whether you’re creating a web interface or simply cropping and enhancing your family photos – you’ll need your favorite image editor to do it.
In this article, you’ll find the top image editing applications currently out in the market.
Last week, readers of Six Revisions were asked what they thought was the best image editing software. Over 150 people responded and here, you’ll find the pick of the litter.
Pixelmator is a fast and powerful image editing software for the Mac operating system. With its intuitive and beautiful Graphical User Interface (GUI), support for layers to organize your document, a large assortment of painting tools, and simple-to-use photo correction tools – Pixelmator is an excellent pick for Mac users who don’t quite need the features (and price tag) of Photoshop.
Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor much like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, and Xara X. Its default file format is web standards compliant Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) under W3C’s specifications. Want to learn more about what Inkscape has to offer? Check out this list of articles and presentations about Inkscape.
If you’re interested in finding more open source and free alternatives to Photoshop, you may want to read this list of ten open source and free alternatives.
Fireworks is Adobe’s image editing software for the web designers. It excels in several areas over its big brother Photoshop, namely in high-fidelity prototyping of sites and a workspace environment that’s optimized for web designers. It is also a raster and vector hybrid, being able to work with raster-based images and vector-based graphics better and more symbiotically than Photoshop.
Fireworks is a popular tool of choice for many web designers and was once voted as one of the top tools for web designers.
GIMP – which stands for the GNU Image Manipulation Program – is a feature-packed and powerful open source image editor that can be used in all major operating systems (Linux, Mac, and Windows). It has a customizable interface so that you can easily set the view and behavior of GIMP.
It has a huge set of retouching tools that will allow you to perform advanced image retouching and manipulation. The GIMP outputs your work in many common formats like JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, and even PSD (Photoshop’s native file format).
Here are a couple of articles you may wish to take a look at if you’re interested in learning about the GIMP:
Not surprisingly, Photoshop is the winner by a landslide, garnering over half of all the total votes. Photoshop is what comes to mind when image editing is involved there’s very little that can be said about it that hasn’t been said already.
With an insurmountable amount of features that help you manipulate and enhance photos as well as create web graphics, all while helping you manage your workflow and image editing environment – Photoshop comes in at numero uno as the best image editing software currently in the market.
If you’re interested in learning more about Adobe Photoshop, here are some excellent articles for Photoshop beginners and aficionados:
Written by Bryan Nelson
The current rate of extinction is 100 to 1000 times higher than the average, or background rate, making our current period the 6th major mass extinction in the planet’s history.
Although fossil reconstructions or pictorial representations can sometimes be difficult to connect with, it’s impossible to ignore the experience of seeing a photograph of an animal on the brink of extinction.
Thus, what follows is a list of 11 extinct animals that were photographed while still alive.
The last Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, known to have existed died in the Hobart Zoo, in Tasmania, Australia, on September 7th, 1936. Despite being the last of its kind, the animal (named “Benjamin”) likely died due to neglect after being locked out of its sheltered quarters during extreme weather.
Although commonly referred to as ‘tigers’, and despite having the look of a canid, the Thylacine isn’t remotely related to cats or dogs. Rather, it was the largest carnivorous marsupial of modern times, meaning it carried its young in a pouch. Its closest living relative is the Tasmanian Devil.
The biggest cause of their extinction in the wild was a massive hunting campaign instituted by the Tasmanian government from 1888 to 1909, justified because the Thylacines were believed to be a threat to sheep and hens. The last known wild Tasmanian Tiger was killed by a farmer named Wilf Batty in 1930, after spotting the animal around his hen house.
The Quagga was a unique variety of Plains Zebra, marked by having stripes only on the front of its body, with hair color transitioning toward a light brown or tan along its rear and underbelly, until becoming white along its legs. This picture represents the only Quagga ever to have been photographed alive, taken at the London Zoo in 1870.
Its unique hide made the Quagga a target for hunters and poachers, and the last known wild Quagga was probably killed in the late 1870’s. The species went extinct on August 12th, 1883, when the last specimen died at a zoo in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The story of the Passenger Pigeon is one of the most tragic extinction stories in modern times. As recently as around 200 years ago they weren’t anywhere near extinction. In fact, they were actually the most common bird in North America, and some reports counted single flocks numbering in the billions.
During some migrations, the flocks flying overhead would stretch for over a mile and could take several hours to pass. It would have been impossible to imagine a North American skyline without them. Yet somehow the species went from being one of the most abundant birds in the world to extinction in only about 100 years. What happened?
Colonial hunters happened. The pigeon meat was commercialized and recognized as cheap food, especially for slaves and the poor, which led to a catastrophic hunting campaign on a massive scale. Furthermore, due to the large size of their flocks, the birds were seen as a threat to farmers. In fact, in 1703 the Catholic bishop of Quebec actually excommunicated the entire species.
The last known Passenger Pigeon, named “Martha”, died in captivity on September 1st, 1914, in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1896, the last flock of 250,000 birds were slaughtered by hunters despite the knowledge that it was the last flock of that size left.
The first recorded account of the Golden Toad was by herpetologist Jay Savage in 1966, and the last sighting of the species was made in 1989. The toad, showcased by its brilliant golden orange colorization, was native to the tropical cloud forests which surround Monteverde, Costa Rica.
Their extinction symbolizes a large scale decline in amphibian numbers worldwide over the last several decades, which has likely been caused by global warming and climate change. In fact, famed Australian biologist Tim Flannery has described the extinction of the Golden Toad to be the first demise of a species due primarily to global warming.
The Caribbean Monk Seal was the only known seal which was native to the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. It is also the only species of seal to go extinct directly due to human causes. It was officially declared extinct just last year, on June 6th, 2008, although the last recorded account of the species was made at Serranilla Bank between Honduras and Jamaica in 1952.
Their eventual demise, brought on by human hunting, was symbolized during Columbus’ 1494 voyage, when the tiny seals were described as “sea wolves” and 8 were recorded to have been killed and slaughtered for their meat.
The Pyrenean Ibex has one of the more interesting stories among extinct animals, since it was the first species to ever be brought back into existence via cloning, only to go extinct again just seven minutes after being born due to lung failure. Here at Ecoworldly, we reported on the event, which happened in January 2009.
The last naturally born Pyrenean Ibex died on January 6th, 2000, after being found dead under a fallen tree at the age of 13. That animal’s only companion had died just a year earlier due to old age. Although the recent effort to resurrect the Ibex was short-lived, the event does bring optimism, and raise serious debate, about whether extinct creatures should be given a second chance.
The Bubal Hartebeest was a magnificent, tough beast which was once domesticated by the ancient Egyptians as a food source and for sacrificial purposes. The creature was even mentioned in the Old Testament.
Although it once roamed throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East, the deep-rooted mythology which surrounded the animal was not enough to save it from European hunters who began hunting them for recreation and meat. The last Bubal Hartebeest was probably a female which died in the Paris Zoo in 1923.
Javan Tigers are a subspecies of tiger which were limited to the Indonesian island of Java. The last specimen to have been seen was sighted in 1972, although there is evidence from track counts that the animal had lingered into the 1980’s. The last track counts to yield evidence of the tigers was held in 1979, when just three tigers were identified.
The leading cause of their extinction was agricultural encroachment and habitat loss, which continues to be a serious concern in Java.
There are some who believe that Javan Tigers could still be alive in some of the island’s few remaining forested regions, although even so, the tiger’s numbers would be so low that the species would still be functionally extinct. The region most likely to contain a tiger today would have to be the Meru Betiri National Park, although even that area is now being threatened by mining companies after the discovery of gold nearby.
The Tecopa Pupfish has the unfortunate distinction of being the first species to be declared extinct under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The official de-listing of the animal came in 1981.
The fish were first discovered in the Tecopa Hot Springs in California in 1942, and their decline followed shortly thereafter, as the Hot Springs were canalized and replaced with bathhouses. The final nail in the coffin came when hotels and trailer parks were built nearby to allow for more comfortable recreation for tourists.
The Syrian Wild Ass was likely extinct when the last known captive animal died at the Schönbrunn Zoo in Vienna, Austria, in 1928. It once had a wide range throughout Mesopotamia, where reports were common of large herds which used to roam wildly in the mountains and desert steppes of the Middle East.
Although already threatened beforehand, it is said that the Syrian Wild Ass completely collapsed during World War I, when their habitat was overrun with heavily armed Turkish and British troops. One account remarked that “it could not resist the power of the modern guns in the hands of the Anazeh and Shammar nomads, and its speed, great as it may have been, was not sufficient always to escape from the velocity of the modern motor car which more and more is replacing the Old Testament Camel-Caravan.”
The inevitable appears to have arrived for the Baiji River Dolphin, a peaceful, majestic dolphin which had inhabited China’s Yangtze River for at least the last 20 million years. The dolphin was declared functionally extinct after an expedition late in 2006 failed to record a single individual after an extensive search of the animal’s entire range.
Although unconfirmed sightings have come out since then, it’s unlikely that any living individuals, should they still exist, would be able find each other and breed. This tragic demise makes the Baiji Dolphin the first recorded extinction of a cetacean in modern times.
The population had been declining rapidly in recent decades since the rise of Chinese industrialization, which has utilized the Yangtze River as one of its primary arteries. The river is now one of the worst polluted major waterways in the world, being heavily relied upon for transportation and hydroelectricity. Roughly 12% of the world’s human population lives and works within the river’s catchment zone.
Traditional Chinese tales refer to the Baiji as a symbol of peace and prosperity. However, that traditional veneration was denounced during China’s “Great Leap Forward”, which called for hunting the animal in the name of redefining Chinese prosperity.
Regrettably, the Chinese may have got what they called for. Now that the dolphin is extinct, it’s difficult to avoid drowning the kind of prosperity it once symbolized along with it.
Image Credits: Ibex photo by José M. Gómez under the GNU Free Documentation License; Baiji Dolphin photo copyright by the baiji.org foundation, Steven Leatherwood; All other images are public domain via Wiki Commons
Written by skelliewag
Photo by paintMonkey.
A ‘personal brand’ is in many ways synonymous with your reputation. It refers to the way other people see you. Are you a genius? An expert? Are you trustworthy? What do you represent? What do you stand for? What ideas and notions pop up as soon as someone hears your name?
If you’ve been around for a while you’ve probably already developed a personal brand. People recognize your name, what you’re working on, what you offer and what you’re about. That being said, your personal brand might be a little weak and disjointed. If you’d like to make it stronger, I’m going to help give you the tools by outlining what I believe to be the components of a strong personal brand.
If you don’t feel like you have a personal brand yet, this post will show you how to go about building one. But first, it might be worth talking a little about the value of your personal brand and why we might want to create one in the first place.
Your personal brand has the potential to last longer than your own lifespan. While the projects you’re working on might get sold onwards or shut down, your personal brand will persist and (hopefully) add value to each new project you create. If you consider yourself to be in this particular game for the long-haul, whether it’s online business or just online creativity, a good personal brand is the single most valuable investment you can make. People will follow your brand from project to project if they feel connected to it.
One example from my own experience that highlights the long-term importance of a personal brand occurred when I launched my second blog. I announced it on this one, hoping to give it a little head start but expecting to build up an audience mainly from scratch. Instead I found the second blog had accumulated over 1,100 subscribers in under five days.
When launching new projects, your personal brand has the potential to guarantee you never have to start from scratch again.
Because your personal brand is built from the thoughts and words and reactions of other people, it’s shaped by how you present yourself publicly. This is something that you have control over. You can decide how you would like people to see you and then work on publicly being that image.
You should plan your personal brand based on your aims. If you want to sell an expensive course in watercolor painting you’ll need to be seen as someone with the authority to teach others on the topic. If you want to get work for high-end design clients you’ll need to be seen as a runaway talent with a professional attitude. Two useful springboard questions are:
The second question is an important one, but a tricky one. Your personal brand is composed of your public actions and output in three main areas:
1. What you’re ‘about’. Seth Godin is about telling stories, being remarkable. Leo Babauta is about simplicity and habit forming. Jonathan Fields is about finding ways to build a career out of what you love doing. Think about the key ideas you would want people to associate with you.
2. Expertise. Every good brand involves the notion of expertise. Nike brand themselves as experts in creating quality and fashionable sportswear. Jeremy Clarkson (host of Top Gear) is an expert on cars. Even if you’re not interested in marketing your advice you need to create the perception that you are very good at what you do.
3. Your style. This is not so much what you communicate about yourself, but rather, how you do it. Are you kind and unusually enthusiastic, like Collis Taeed? Are you witty and raw, like Naomi Dunford? Are you confident and crusading, like Michael Arrington? Hopefully you’re none of these, or at least, not in the same way. Your style of delivery should be as unique as any other aspect of your personal brand. This doesn’t mean you need to sit down and brainstorm how to be different. If you don’t actively imitate anyone else, it will happen naturally.
Even without a large following or audience you can build a strong personal brand. A few people talking about you a lot is better than lots of people not talking about you at all. Here are the steps I’d recommend for creating your brand:
You should be running a blog or website that is all you. It doesn’t matter if it’s not your first priority, or even your second priority, but it gives people a place to develop a stronger connection with you. (You might already be doing this!) A good example is Gina Trapani’s new blog Smarterware. Gina is most well known for editing one of the world’s most famous blogs, Lifehacker, but is an author now and probably would like to build a stronger brand in her own right.
Help people learn about the person behind the projects they enjoy. Include a mini-bio at the end of each post, put time and effort into your About page and use it to paint a picture of your ideal personal brand. One About page that does this very confidently but very well is Chris Pirillo’s ‘About’ page.
Don’t just agree with other people you admire. In doing so, you’re building their personal brand, not yours. Focus on topics where you have something new to say or some more value to add.
Think about the most important thing you have to say and become known for that (it needs to be something new, or an old thing in a new way). Truth be told, most people do the latter. What Tim Ferris is ‘about’ is not new (the idea of working less) but it’s communicated in a new way via The Four-Hour Work Week idea. Gary Vaynerchuk’s ‘hard work trumps all’ message is thousands of years old, but the ‘Hustle 2.0? message makes it seem new and relevant to the web.
Keep adding layers, keep it fresh. The two people I mentioned in the previous point risk seeming stale and repetitive if they don’t continue adding new elements to their brand. You can’t ride one idea forever. Keep adding new layers to what you represent.
Never be hypocritical. Don’t let people know when you’ve done something that goes against what you advocate. Don’t let people know if you fail in your area of expertise. Failing in new areas is OK, because you’re not trying to be an expert in those. That’s the difference between when you should and should not talk about your failures. The exception to this rule is when your failures become public despite your best efforts. If this happens, confront the issue and explain it – don’t avoid it, or you’ll seem deceitful. You’d rather people learn about your failure from you than someone with no sympathy.
Keep learning and updating your knowledge, especially if your expertise is based around the online world. The web changes drastically from month to month. If you were an ‘expert’ two years ago but have since stopped learning and challenging yourself, you’re not an expert anymore.
Try to be personally ubiquitous without over-stretching or over-exposing yourself. If people hear your name enough they will check you out (maybe not the first, second or third time, but they will). Participate in social media but only on services you enjoy. I focus on my Twitter and StumbleUpon and try to use these both in a way that helps me reach out to more people while also being enjoyable.
Help your projects become ubiquitous by writing viral content and guest-writing. Try to make sure your voice is unique and that you’re not imitating someone else (the only way to do this is by reading widely and writing a lot). If there’s one writer you love and read all the time, you’re probably going to ape them a little bit unless you catch yourself. We all do it.
People will only remember a few things about you, so focus on telling the story that contributes most to your brand. Use your personal story as the basis for your expertise. The best example of a personal story doubling as credentials that I can think of is Darren Rowse. An expert in how everyday people can earn a living through blogging, Darren was an ordinary Aussie bloke before becoming a decidedly richer ordinary Aussie bloke through blogging. I suggest you read Darren’s ‘About’ page as an example of this method.
Which three things in your life (personally or professionally) add to your personal brand more than anything else? Use interviews as an opportunity to tell this story. As you become better known, you’ll get interviewed more often.
Think about your personal brand each time you interact with someone – or don’t interact with someone. What impression are you leaving them with? If you don’t want to spend time responding to tweets and emails there’s no reason why you can’t make this part of your personal brand so that people do not expect differently. If you only have the time to answer 1/4 of the emails you get, why not mention this (with apologies) on your Contact page? The greatest source of negative feeling in these situations is disappointment. If you make it clear that you intend to behave in a certain way people have little right to be disappointed when you do so.
Try to build relationships with as many people as possible. Get to know their real names and remember details about them. Not only is this fun and good karma, it leaves a strong impression on the people who interact with you. The ones who you know best and who feel most connected to you will talk about you to others – this is how your personal brand grows stronger.
Build name recognition with influencers. In this instance an influencer is any person with an audience that you want to reach. Comment on their writing, keep track of them on social media, help them when they ask for it, if they have a blog try to guest-post (it must be your best stuff!) Not only do you have plenty to learn from people like this, they are the people who can give you that killer testimonial when you launch your product, who can tweet your links to thousands of followers, who can share the best opportunities with you. That being said, don’t pester them and don’t ask for more favors than you give them. If you are useful and not overbearing these influencers will remember you. View this as a long-term process. You can’t expect to become friends with influencers in a week. It takes months. Tip: try to use non-intrusive forms of communication. Don’t write things that require a response in blog comments, that’s what email/Twitter is for.
There are a number of so-called ‘A-list’ bloggers and web personalities who I consider to have quite weak personal brands (relative to the size of their audience) based on the way they behave and interact with people outside their blog content (arrogantly) and how clearly they communicate what they represent (mainly just ‘making money off people like you’). There are also some people who do not have a huge audience for their projects but have managed to create a personal brand that is ‘bigger’ than what they have built. This is an excellent platform for them to grow their projects into something bigger and better.
How do they do it? By making connections with a lot of people, including influencers. It should be noted, though, that a strong personal brand is not going to provide much benefit unless you have valuable output to pair it with – a great service, a great blog, a great app, great public speaking skills, or something else. You need to spend as much time creating your ‘stuff’ (whether that’s blog posts, videos or artwork) as you do building relationships.
Written by LiveScience
Though pranksters and joke-lovers in many countries will dupe friends and loved ones on April Fool’s Day, no one knows exactly when or why, or even where, this tradition began. 
A giddy spurt of practical joking seems to have coincided with the coming of spring since the time of the Ancient Romans and Celts, who celebrated a festival of mischief-making. The first mentions of an All Fool’s Day (as it was formerly called) came in Europe in the Middle Ages.
Some trace April Fool’s Day back to Roman mythology, particularly the story of Ceres, Goddess of the harvest, and her daughter, Proserpina.
Pluto, God of the Dead, abducted Proserpina and took her to live with him in the underworld. The girl called out to her mother, but Ceres could only hear the echo of her daughter’s voice and searched for her in vain.
Such “fool’s errands,” or wild goose chases, became a popular practical joke in Europe in later centuries.
The most widespread theory of the origin of April Fool’s Day is the switch from the old Julian to the Gregorian calendar (now in use) in the late 16th century. Under the Julian calendar, the New Year was celebrated during the week between March 25 and April 1, but under the Gregorian calendar, it was moved to Jan. 1. Those who were not notified of the change, or stubbornly kept to the old tradition, were often mocked and had jokes played on them on or around the old New Year.
In France, this took the form of pranksters sticking fish on the backs of those who celebrated the old custom, earning the victims of the prank the name Poisson d’Avril, or April Fish.
But the theory can’t explain why the pranking tradition spread to other countries in Europe that did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until later.
In Scotland, the butts of April Fool’s jokes were known as April “Gowks,” another name for a cuckoo bird. The origins of the “Kick Me” sign can supposedly be traced back to the Scottish observance of the day.
In more recent times, radio stations, TV programs and Web sites have set up gullible readers and listeners. One of the most notorious jokes was a 1957 hoax BBC documentary of the annual spaghetti harvest in Switzerland, featuring a family plucking strands of the pasta from “spaghetti trees.” The Italian favorite was still considered an exotic delicacy in Britain at the time, and many listeners were so fooled they wanted to find out how to get a spaghetti bush of their own.
On April 1, 2007 Internet search engine Google announced their new Gmail Paper service, where users of the free email service could save emails to a paper archive which Google would print out and mail for free. Last year, Google invited people to sign up for a Mars exploration project.
So while you’re surfing the web or watching TV today, be wary of what you see and read, or you could end up an April Fool!
source
source
source
source
source
source
source
