There is no good or bad - just what you make of it

From a post by Leo at ZenHabits,

Hamlet said, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’
He was right. Without the human mind, things just happen, and they are not good or bad. It’s only when we apply the filter of our judgment that they become good or bad, beautiful or ugly.
A weed is only a weed when we don’t like it. Children are only naughty if we don’t like their actions. Life only sucks if you judge it as bad.
But what about truly horrible tragedies, like a plague or tsunami or the Holocaust? Surely those are bad? Sure, through the lens of the judgment we’ve been raised to make, they are terrible. But then again, remove the judgment, and then … they simply happened. Death and cruelty will probably always make us sad, but they’ve always happened and always will, whether we like them or hate them.

Full post.

So the lesson to take from this is to acknowledge that everything just is. Life happens and your interpretation of it and judgment based on that interpretation is what makes it good or bad.

I'm not suggesting to not interpret events around - that's too passive and hippy for me.  Just realize what you are doing, you might learn something about yourself when you understand why you are reacting the way you are.  And when your reaction is intentional, that's when you are in a powerful position.

History of M&M's

After Forrest Mars, Sr. witnessed soldiers eating bite-sized chocolates covered in a sugar coating during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, he brought the idea back to the United States and started manufacturing his own version, called M&M's. In 1941, M&M's were included in U.S. soldiers' rations during World War II because they "melt in your mouth, not in your hands" (the tagline didn't actually appear until 1954). Good in nearly any environment, including hot summers, M&M's became very popular. The little candies were sold in cardboard tubes until 1948, when the packaging changed to the brown bag that we still see today. The imprint of an "M" on the candies first occurred in 1950 first in black, but later changed to white.

But why call them M&M's?
In 1941, Forrest Mars Sr., of the Mars candy company, struck a deal with Bruce Murrie, son of famed Hershey president William Murrie, to develop a hard shelled candy with chocolate at the center. Mars needed Hershey’s chocolate because he anticipated there would be a chocolate shortage in the pending war, which turned out to be correct.

As such, the deal gave Murrie a 20% stake in the newly developed M&M; this stake was later bought out by Mars when chocolate rationing ended at the end of the war, in 1948.

The name thus stood for “Mars & Murrie” the co-creators of the candy. Tada!


Bonus trivia:
At the time of his death at age 95 in 1999, Forrest Mars, Sr. had grown his father’s company to the point where he now had amassed a fortune for himself of over 4 billion dollars. At that time, he ranked 30th on the list of richest Americans, with his sons Forrest Jr and John ranking 29th and 31st. He left the company to his children who still exclusively own it today (it is not a publicly traded company).

I want to do this! - Water Cup Prank

As I don't live in a dorm I need to find a place to work where I can perform the prank outlined on Instructables.

Funny, (mostly) harmless, funny, and just a damn good prank.  Below is an embedded version:

The Official Not-It Rules

The Definition:
· "Not it" exempts a person from performing a deed provided he or she is not the last person to call "not it"
· The last person to call not it must perform the deed at hand, provided he or she lies in the realm of responsibility

The Realm of Responsibility
· Any person who is present and falls into the realm of responsibility must call not it or perform the deed
· The realm of responsibility applies to anyone who might reasonably be expected to perform the deed in question (parents do not usually fall under the realm of responsibility, e.g.)

The Extent of the Game:
· Once one person has called "not it" for a specific deed, the game comes into effect
· Once the game is in effect, all must play or perform the deed
· Once and only once, each person may claim not to understand the concept of "not it." That person will then read the rules or have them explained to him or her, and upon the next invocation of "not it" he or she must participate or perform the deed.

The Call:
· A person must say aloud the phrase "not it" and touch his or her nose before all others present have also done so after it has been announced that the deed in question must be done.

The Situation:
· "Not it" may be called in group-settings with more than two people (for two people settings, a best of three game ofrock, paper, scissors is employed)
· The call for a task does not exempt one from having to call "not it" (see exceptions)

The Announcement:
· In sibling situations, the announcement is made by a parent/guardian (see exceptions)
· Anyone may announce the deed, however, unless he or she is an exception, he or she must also call "not it"

Exceptions
· Parents, when calling, are usually exempt from the realm of responsibility


Courtesy of everything2.com

Worldmapper - squishing the world 1,395+ different ways

You:

What would the world look like if it was mapped according to the relative populations?

Me:

Glad you asked that! Here it is:

This is the result of WORLDMAPPER: The world as you've never seen it before.  Where there are literally hundreds of different maps that display the world geography as a relative measure of something.  There's everything from % of population making <$1/day to internet usage. This is an awesome way to display a helluva lot of information so it can be easily processed and understood by a viewer.

As far as I can tell all this does is assigns a grid to a standard map and then each vertex of the grid is given a value relative to a neutral position.  Example: a geographic point which is known to have $2/year income is going to be 2 pixels away from any neighbouring pixels.  The coloured map just stretches or pinches as the grid moves, kinda like stretching a blanket.

If only this could be setup to display on a digital picture frame.  Each image would have to be a picture of the map with a description explaining the relationship it's adjusted for.  Who's up for making images of each and adding the label so I can use it in iPhoto?
Not it!

OK fine.  We'll just all use it as a total time waster at work like everybody else.

Water going uphill? Cool!

CrunchGear is reporting on research just published by some scientists from the University of Rochester.  They've been able to get water to naturally go UPHILL.  Yup, no extra power or assistance required.

How'd they do it?  Well basically they made a silicon surface more attractive to water molecules than to themselves.  So each molecule is basically fighting to get closer to the silicon than the others.  The result is speeds of up to 3.5 per second.

The best part is that they used lasers to do it! Hell yeah, more lasers is always a good thing.
Oh, don't expect this to be commercialized any time soon. But that means we can dream!


From CrunchGear.

Cool T-Shirt - SublimI'mAwesomeinal

I'd totally wear this.  It's just low-key enough to not get noticed by most. But funny because it only makes fun of me.

From threadless.