The lies of “I’ll do it tomorrow”, Moral Licensing and “being good by association”.
Seeing the healthcare situation in other countries makes me appreciate our health service, paid for as it is through pay-as-you-earn contributions so it’s always there when and if you need it without having to worry about whether you can afford the treatment or whether insurance will cover it. Healthcare should be a universal basic human right in the 21st century.
Martha Burk
Money Editor, Ms. magazine; director, Corporate Accountability Project, National Council of Women’s Organizations
Women’s health has been under attack to an unprecedented degree for the past year — until Thursday. In upholding the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Roberts Court threw a hand grenade at those who are waging an unrelenting “war on women” using access to health care as the main battering ram. The decision may not stop the war, but it surely feels good to win such a decisive battle.
While preserving the law will benefit virtually all Americans, women will gain the most. Big wins:
Birth control will be covered as a preventative measure, without co-pays. Yes, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will continue their assault on this basic service, but they’re now less likely to prevail. Other very important but less visible preventative services like pap smears, mammograms, and domestic violence screenings will…
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This is good advice, personally I like to go and stand by the river to think.
Hello everyone, today I want to write about my point of views on spending alone time with yourself, and I believe it is very good for you. I spend a lot of alone time whether its in the car driving, or just walking around, going to the mall, and just relaxing and thinking about life and everyone in it. I believe that when I spend alone time with myself, I discover new things about myself, I create new recipes from the top of my head to cook dinner for my family, I think about life decisions, and how things progress in life. I remember when I went out and got some food to eat, and I was just alone and reflecting on my life and where I have got to so far. Yes its great to surround yourself with people all the time, but someday you need to just unwind…
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Depression in Young Adults
December 14 2007 day 64 – Depression (Photo credit: DeathByBokeh)
The Prince’s Trust’s annual survey of 16 to 25 year-olds has found that one in ten young people can’t cope with daily life, with those not in work, education or training twice as likely to feel depressed.
The pressures of life can be overwhelming for many and although the survey has shown slight changes in overall confidence and happiness it it often a lack of a support network that can cause a downward spiral as feelings of hopelessness, that things can’t be any better take an ever deeper hold.
[BBC]
Thinking In Computer
BBC Key Pins (Photo credit: barnoid)
In recent years computer makers have strived to make interfaces more “user friendly” but they have in fact been trying to hide the workings behind the facade. With this change has also come a change in learning as the emphasis has been on teaching the use of the software, the assumption being that skills in spreadsheets and wordprocessing, email etc being the valuable skills.
As a report by the BBC shows software is now part of the architecture of modern life and as with spoken languages understanding the underlying concepts is important, as they put it, being able to write in computer (creating) as well as reading it (by using it). In order to be able to innovate you need to be able to fit concepts into the the way computers work and to do this you need to understand more than the vocabulary of the language.
The misunderstanding of how computers work is often the reason for many people’s frustration with things that don’t work as they expect them to no matter how hard developers try to simplify things. As the article says our world is ‘computer assisted’ and the more we live with computers and their innate complexity the more people should understand how they work in the same way that some knowledge of how a car works can make someone a better driver and less likely to exceed the limits of what it can do.
[BBC]
An Automated Happy New Year
Happy new year (Photo credit: Amodiovalerio Verde)
Two years ago I wanted to send a “Happy New Year” message to someone I’d started seeing at Christmas but couldn’t be with at midnight on New Year’s Eve. This was important to me, I felt she was someone special. I sat on a sofa in a local pub away from the other revellers counting down to zero. I hit send on my phone with a few seconds to spare.
Nothing. The message just sat there in my outbox. It hadn’t gone by the time I got home. By one o’clock in the morning it was still there. “She’s going to think I don’t care” my mind kept saying over and over, pacing up and down the length of my apartment. I wrote on Facebook that the network were crap, a friend agreed and that she was having the same problem texting her parents. Since then me and my friend vowed to never be “lulled into a false sense of security” by said network *cough* Orange *cough* ever again.
Sorry, that should be EE. Ahem. Everything Everywhere – that night it was Nothing Anywhere.
Thing is that it wasn’t just Orange. It was the first time I’d encountered the fact that everyone tries to text the same message at the same time and most networks just collapse.
I’ve been prepared since, if I send greetings the recipients get them at half-past ten and they can like it. Just don’t open it til midnight.
Now though Facebook have the answer – though it wouldn’t have helped me, the object of my undying love wasn’t on Facebook – in their Facebook Stories app and it’s ability to automatically send a message to all your friends on the first dong of Big Ben, or when the ball drops depending on your continent. This has since been found to be less than private so be careful what you say.
So there, problem solved and it shows you care, it’s not like you’re sending some kind of automated new year spam is it?
Snap Judgements
Speed dating (Photo credit: ☺ Lee J Haywood)
It’s New Year’s Eve and many people will be going out to bars tonight to see if they can meet someone to see the new year in with but how will they choose?
Well it’s been assumed that the initial snap judgement is based on physical attractiveness and research using a speed-dating group does confirm this but also found that a second part of the brain – the rostromedial prefrontal cortex – was active when choices were being made. This is a part of the brain that deals with choices where apparently equal options are available, it considers other people’s opinions and the similarities to others and it’s shown that when activated a person would choose a candidate that they considered to be more likeable than other people did.
The choices are still based on quick initial impressions but there is more going on than previously thought.
[Futurity]
Book Exchange
English: A woman cuddling a pile of digital devices: laptops, smartphones, tablets, ebook readers etc. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
With new rules saying that book publishers should basically price ebooks fairly in relation to the fact that there is no physical object to manufacture I’ve had an idea.
Maybe someone has already had it but anyway let’s say, like me, you have a large bookshelf, some of the books you want to keep because of their aesthetic appeal, or sentimental value, maybe they’re signed. Others you keep for reference and would be happy to have as searchable ebooks.
You’ve already paid for the paper version so you’re reluctant to pay the same price again for the ebook version. What if you could send your good condition paper version to either a charity or a company like Amazon and they’d exchange it for the digital version and then sell the paper book second-hand to cover the cost of your ebook. You could save space and the charity/company could still make money. Even if they charged you a pound to do it it would still be worth it surely?
Longfellow's 21st Century Lunch 
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