5 Ways to Build Better Relationships With Everyone

Humans are social beings. We enjoy being understood and accepted; feeling that we belong. Maybe that’s why our friends, family and romantic partners are so important to us.

Unfortunately, Western culture values individual achievement over personal relationships. We’re good at finding career success but less than stellar at connecting with other people. As a result, our relationships often suffer.

But wouldn’t you love to rekindle the spark you once had with your significant other? Be respected and understood by your friends? Admired for who you are by your family?

If you want to make all these things happen, this post is for you.

Here are 5 ways to build better relationships with everyone.

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/5-ways-to-build-better-relationships-with-everyone/

Business-Vokabular für Trainees No Excuses!

Der Break-Even ist nah! Du fängst demnächst als Trainee bei BayerSiemensBoschTelekom oder irgendeinem anderen Global Player an? Dann ist der folgende Brief Pflichtlektüre: ein Leitfaden zum perfekten Business-Vokabular.

http://www.spiegel.de/karriere/berufsstart/leitfaden-fuer-trainees-zum-perfekten-business-vokabular-a-827080.html

Facebook: is it really worth $100bn?

In The Social Network, the Oscar-winning film about the rise of Facebook, Sean Parker, the company’s founding president, tells another investor: “A million dollars isn’t cool – you know what’s cool?” The scene cuts to Parker in a different meeting. “A billion dollars,” he says.

By 2006, two years after those scenes were set, prospective buyers were reported to be offering $2 billion to buy Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder, said no. Tomorrow, Facebook will float, an event that is expected to value the business at around $100 billion. It seems that even Hollywood wasn’t thinking big enough when it comes to this behemoth of the web.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/9269818/Facebook-is-it-really-worth-100bn.html

Non-Hispanic white births the minority in US

Children from racial and ethnic minorities now account for more than half the births in the US, according to the latest US census.

Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other mixed races made up 50.4 percent of births counted in the 12 month period ending in July 2011.

It puts non-Hispanic white births in the minority for the first time.

Sociologists believe the economic slowdown has contributed to a greater decline in birth rates among whites.

The US Census Bureau recorded 2.02m babies born to minorities in the year to July 2011, making just over half of all births, compared with 37% in 1990.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18100457

M&S diamond jubilee knickers? I can give you worse memorabilia

Never since Jeremy Paxman railed against the inadequacies of men's pants a few years ago has so much attention focused on Marks and Spencer's underwear output. This morning the high street retailer is launching in its (serious face) Marble Arch boardroom a new range of underwear (slightly less serious face), the M&S jubilee lingerie collection.

Does anything express your patriotic royal pride than wearing royal knickers, ideally over your union flag leggings? The question was rhetorical. Are you imagining size zero lingerie models disporting themselves on the boardroom table in sensible bras and big pants made from royal purple fringed with corgi fur? Well stop that – treason remains a capital offence, sonny.

Astoundingly, the jubilee lingerie collection isn't the apex of absurd memorabilia. Here are some other contenders.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/16/marks-spencer-diamond-jubilee-knickers-memorabilia

Italian university switches to English

From opera at La Scala to football at the San Siro stadium, from the catwalks of fashion week to the soaring architecture of the cathedral, Milan is crowded with Italian icons.

Which makes it even more of a cultural earthquake that one of Italy's leading universities - the Politecnico di Milano - is going to switch to the English language.

The university has announced that from 2014 most of its degree courses - including all its graduate courses - will be taught and assessed entirely in English rather than Italian.

The waters of globalisation are rising around higher education - and the university believes that if it remains Italian-speaking it risks isolation and will be unable to compete as an international institution.

"We strongly believe our classes should be international classes - and the only way to have international classes is to use the English language," says the university's rector, Giovanni Azzone.

Italy might have been the cradle of the last great global language - Latin - but now this university is planning to adopt English as the new common language.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17958520

US town's police ban pedestrians texting and walking

Police in the US town of Fort Lee, New Jersey, have started a battle against texters who aren't looking where they're going.

Anyone caught texting whilst walking is fined for "jaywalking", an American term for walking on the road instead of the pavement.

The crackdown is all about safety, say police in Fort Lee.

More than 20 of their pedestrians have been hit by cars in 2012. In just six weeks, they've fined 117 texters.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/18056565

Is Buckingham Palace ugly?

Buckingham Palace will be a focal point in the Queen's Jubilee celebrations, 250 years after work started to make it into a royal residence. But is this famous landmark an attractive building or a carbuncle, asks Sophie Robehmed.

Taj Mahal. Empire State Building. Sydney Opera House. Buckingham Palace feels at home in that list of the world's most recognisable buildings.

Every year countless tourists flock to have their picture taken in front of its cast-iron gates.

But how does the palace - originally named Buckingham House when built in 1705 as a residence for the Duke of Buckingham - stand up next to other classic British buildings like the Palace of Westminster and St Paul's Cathedral?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18056612

9 Lessons on Power and Leadership from Genghis Khan

On one end of the leadership spectrum, there is Machiavelli–conniving, ambitious and ruthless. On the other there is Cyrus the Great–humble, generous and loyal. Along this spectrum of great leaders and motivators, used so often in business books, speeches and anecdotes, there is one unmentionable: Genghis Khan. A man so evil, unwashed and bloodthirsty that he is impossible to learn from.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholiday/2012/05/07/9-lessons-on-leadership-from-genghis-khan-yes-genghis-khan/

8 Tools for the Online Privacy Paranoid

It’s hard to use the Internet anymore without being watched. Tracking cookies follow your every move, so advertisers can figure out what to sell you. Social networks keep you constantly signed in, in part so they can see what other websites you visit. Phone and tablet apps may be gathering information about you, including your contacts list or your camera roll.

If you want to participate in today’s Internet, and all the apps and services that go with it, you have two choices: Accept that your information is out there and try not to worry about it, or arm yourself with some privacy protection tools. Should you choose the latter path, check out these apps and services to help you stay anonymous online and keep your information out of the wrong hands:



http://techland.time.com/2012/05/04/8-tools-for-the-online-privacy-paranoid/

30 Best Apps for Apple’s New iPad

Part of the fun of getting an iPad is cruising through the App Store for great finds. Still, allow us to help out with some suggestions — 30, in fact. Some of these iPad apps are oldies but goodies, while others are solid apps that take advantage of the new iPad’s Retina display. Click the arrow buttons above to navigate, or use the arrow keys on your keyboard.


http://techland.time.com/2012/03/16/30-best-apps-for-apples-new-ipad/?iid=tl-article-mostpop1#great-ipad-apps-to-get-you-started

How to Best Use Pinterest for Business

Are you trying to use Pinterest to market your small business? Then this article is for you; it explains how to get the most web traffic, customers, and/or sales out of your Pinterest efforts.

http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/socialmedia/a/How-To-Best-Use-Pinterest-For-Business.htm

Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies

At TEDxRainier, Patricia Kuhl shares astonishing findings about how babies learn one language over another -- by listening to the humans around them and "taking statistics" on the sounds they need to know. Clever lab experiments (and brain scans) show how 6-month-old babies use sophisticated reasoning to understand their world.

Patricia Kuhl studies how we learn language as babies, looking at the ways our brains form around language acquisition. 

 Watch the TED video here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies.html

Google Doodle celebrates Keith Haring's pop art

The American artist Keith Haring, who died of Aids-related illnesses in 1990 at the age of 31, is being celebrated in a Google Doodle.

Haring would have been 54 on Friday and no doubt would have approved of the tribute to his brand of pop art, which drew on the New York street styles and dance music scene of the 1980s. An unabashed populist, he delighted in the idea that his work should be available to everybody – not just a clique of gallerists and rich collectors.

He first came to public attention with his chalk drawings on the New York subway in the late 1970s. This cartoonish quality continued in his later work, characterised by vivid colours and bold lines, which influenced the club scene and advertising.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/04/google-doodle-keith-haring-pop

Open Science "Wer Angst hat, dass ihm Ideen geklaut werden, der hat nicht genug"

Nicht erst das Ergebnis, sondern bereits der Prozess von Forschung sollte öffentlich sein, sagt Christian Spannagel. Der Didaktiker findet, Forscher müssen Kritik suchen.

http://www.zeit.de/wissen/2012-05/open-science

‘I Cried’ YouTube Button Lets the Internet Know When You’re Sad

Google already did research to find the funniest YouTube video of all time, but what about the saddest? What videos make you break down like James Van Der Beek on Dawson’s Creek?

Thanks to Project Goodcry, now you can mark YouTube videos as sad with the “I cried” button, available as a plug-in for Google Chrome. Getting choked up when they finally put Rudy in at the end of the game? The plug-in lets you see that 129 people found the clip as much of a tear-jerker as you did. Press the button and you can even rank its level of sadness from one to five tears.

The statistics are then saved and compiled in a database created by project founders Dee Kim and Bistin Chen. Check out the Project Goodcry website and you’ll find a ranking of the Internet’s saddest videos.

http://techland.time.com/2012/04/23/i-cried-youtube-button-lets-the-internet-know-when-youre-sad/

Are We Sliding Backward on Teaching Evolution?

Tennessee was the center of the national debate when it prosecuted John Thomas Scopes for the crime of teaching evolution. Now, 87 years after the Scopes “monkey trial,” Tennessee is once again a battleground over the origins of man. This month, it enacted a controversial new law — dubbed the “monkey bill” — giving schoolteachers broad new rights to question the validity of evolution and to teach students creationism.

http://ideas.time.com/2012/04/23/are-we-sliding-backwards-on-teaching-evolution/

Which Side Is Your Good Side? Here Comes the Science

Whatever you do, accentuate that left cheek of yours: it is your best one. According to a scientific study, there no longer remains a question of which is your best side. Everyone, it seems, agrees that left is best.

Wake Forest University psychology professor Dr. James Schirillo and co-author Kelsey Blackburn published their findings in the journal Experimental Brain Research, stating that we humans prefer looking at the left side of a face, finding it more pleasant.


http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/04/24/which-side-is-your-good-side-here-comes-the-science/

Sleep Gets Better with Age

Study: Sleep Gets Better with Age

Good news for seniors. Contrary to common wisdom, sleep doesn’t get more difficult with age. In fact, according to a new study, sleep quality tends to improve the older we get, with adults in their 80s getting better sleep than any other age group surveyed.

More than a person’s biological age, the study suggests, it’s factors like stress and underlying depression or illness that tend to affect quality of rest. When such influences are taken out of the equation, elderly adults aren’t any more likely to report sleep problems than younger adults in their 20s and 30s.

The results were a surprise to the researchers, who initially undertook the study to show that sleep problems are associated with aging. “This flies in the face of popular belief,” said lead author, Michael Grandner, a research associate at the Center for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, in a statement. “These results force us to rethink what we know about sleep in older people — men and women.”

http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/01/study-sleep-gets-better-with-age/