More photos from another amazing event. This one of a kind event is held every year out in the desert in the middle of nowhere in Nevada. It encourages and promotes self expressions, experiments with the concept of communities and group behaviour. It attracts all kinds of crazy and talented artists, free thinkers and people after a good time. This is just a sample of some of the amazing things to experience out there in the desert…
Some of the best snaps so far… more to come in part two – stay tuned Burning Man fans!
Last night, after a long battle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer, Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs died peacefully in his home in the Silicon Valley of California. The death was announced by Apple, reminding the world of his brilliance, passion, and energy that allowed for the technological innovations that changed the world for the better. He revolutionized the world with his ideas, always focusing on sleek designs to make devices that were completely user-friendly.
I myself first found out when I was checking Twitter on my MacBook Pro and talking to my dad on my iPhone. He then headed to the internet on his iPad and read the news for himself. This small anecdote just shows exactly how influential Jobs was, as his products permeate our homes and have made their way into our everyday lives.
Reaction Around the World
Statements regarding Jobs’ death were made by such world leaders as Microsoft founder Bill Gates, George Lucas, The Walt Disney Company’s Bob Iger, and U.S. president Barack Obama. Recognized as one of the world’s most powerful and influential people, Jobs’ death sent Apple fans straight to the internet to send their condolences and share their stories.
Many quoted a speech Jobs made to a graduating class at Stanford University as a huge source of inspiration for their lives. He spoke of death, and how it is “the most important tool” to help make big choices in life. ”Remembering that you are going to die,” he said, “is the best way to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” Jobs asked for forgiveness for sounding a little dramatic, but he wanted to remind the students to “have the courage to follow your own heart and intuition.”
News Hits Many Hard
I guess his death wasn’t really a surprise, since he had been battling cancer for months, but it still hits hard. I didn’t know Jobs personally– of course I didn’t, as only a small number of the millions of Apple users really did– but I still feel a sort of connection with him. He will surely be missed, and I hope the Apple brand doesn’t suffer because it lost an amazing, creative genius.
What is the secret to financial independence? Having read several books on the topic as well as having talked to successful people, I have determined for myself that the common theme among those who are financially independent seems to be that they are, for the most part, frugal people.
Those coins will add up!
It does not take an expert researcher to figure out that we live in a consumer society. Everywhere you turn, you are being offered the latest, greatest thing to spend your hard-earned dollars on. The question is – Do you really need it? In my case, the answer is almost always “NO!”. I have not always been this way; I recall a time when I, too, used to spend money on things that I really did not need. For me, the items in question were musical instruments. I would spend $1000 to $1500 on the latest musical keyboard, only to sell it on eBay 6 months later for 1/2 or 1/3 of that price. Where is the financial wisdom in that?
Having spoken with those who are successful, I have come to the conclusion that in order to eventually achieve financial independence, once must make every attempt to keep unnecessary expenditures to an all time low. This does not mean you should deny yourself everything and count every penny. What it does mean is that a more enlightened approach to understanding where one’s money goes and thereby curtailing the purchase of things we do not really need is a big step towards the ultimate goal of financial independence.
Let’s take automobiles as an example. Some people such as myself buy an automobile to take me from point a to point b. For others, an automobile is a status symbol – One that requires a lot more financial upkeep and maintenance. I am not suggesting that one buy a 20 year old clunker that doesn’t even make it off fo the dealer’s lot. However, with so many good, reliable automobiles these days selling for a very reasonable price, why would I spend thousands of dollars more? I think it is by far more impressive and wise to set aside the money that would have been spent on this more expensive car on an eventual down payment on a property instead.
I enjoy cultivating the discipline of requiring myself to be frugal and spending wisely. It helps me understand where my money is going, even when I do not always do the right thing and do purchase an item I may not need. Understanding my spending habits is a big step in the right direction. Being aware of what I am spending my hard-earned dollars on is essential in my goal towards financial independence. Right now coupon sites are big business with discount codes on offer for all kinds of products. Some people will tell you it is “cheap” to use them but I have to ask you – if they are giving away free money would you say no? If it is as simple as typing in a code to save hundreds of dollars on one purchase you would have to be crazy to pass it up. Last week I needed a new phone and saved well over $200 on my purchase by using a verizon promo code. I think many people don’t realize that they can actually save money on regular expenses like cell phone bills by using promo codes – you can even use a straight talk promo code if they are the provider you want to go with.
Recently my grandmother had to move into an assisted living facility because my grandfather passed away and she is simply too old to be living on her own. I flew across the country to help her move in to the facility, which is close to where my sister lives and is attending university. A large part of the moving process was having to clean out my grandmother’s old house. This was no simple task because after all she had been living there for over sixty years and had definitely accumulated a ton of stuff. Memorabilia and knick knacks from my parents’ childhood overflowed the bedrooms and the attic, and it took several days of packing for it to look like we had even made a dent in the workload.
I really shouldn’t complain too much about the work it took to pack everything up, though, because it was incredibly interesting to look back at the antiques and the junk and see history. She had old typewriters, radios, televisions– just about anything you could think of from the 1920s on.
My favorite thing that I went through was her old jewelry box, whose contents included some of the most beautiful pearl necklaces and diamond earrings from the early days. Along with this set were the platinum rings she received as a gift when she graduated from high school, with three tiny diamonds set in the stone. When I stumbled upon the jewelry box and opened it up to see these rings, I gasped. They were truly breathtaking.
As I was going through more things with my sister, we found another treasure, hidden in the pocket of an old coat of my grandfather’s. It was his old tungsten wedding bands that he wore before his passing. The wedding band was quite heavy but it still looked just as good as new– that’s the special, powerful durability of tungsten, though. You could own a ring for eighty years and it will still not have any dents or signs of corrosion on it.
I offered the ring and the jewelry box to my grandmother herself, to see what she wanted me to do with it. She suggest I take what I want from it, then offer it to my younger sister. After my sister went through it, Grandma told us to just sell the rest to strangers.
Between my sister and me though we had basically cleared out every item. I grabbed my grandmother’s platinum ring to use as an engagement ring when I meet that special woman, and I also slipped the tungsten ring over my finger as a reminder of my grandfather. At first I thought it was going to be a pain to fly 3,000 km to help clean out a three-story house, but finding those items and hearing the stories attached to them from my grandmother made it all worth it. I definitely plan on passing on the rings as well as the historical anecdotes on to my future children and grandchildren, and I’m sure my sister will do the same.
This its your tool to lose weight with.
When you live in a town with a slow or nonexistent music scene it can be hard to get out there and jam with a lot of talented people. Sure, there may be a few wayward souls that are out there rocking out and doing their own thing, but often times you really need that personal connection to really put out some of your best stuff when playing with someone. If you just can’t seem to find that in your town the next best option is to pick up a rhythm machine.
Boss pedals makes a really great one called Dr. Rhythm that I’ve used for a while now when I don’t want to get out and jam with real people. Sometimes it’s just more comfortable to jam along with the person you know best – yourself.
The DR-880 is a massive machine with more options than you could ever explore in your own personal time. If you took all of that time you might as well join the Boss pedals development team because you’ll probably know as much as they do! Anyways, it’s got over 1,000 patterns, 500 of which are preset. The remaining 500 are up to you to create, and they make it easy to do so with a super simple interface that just breeds creativity. It’s so easy to sample a track, slice it up and then put down a beat over it. Then you can plug in the guitar and lay down a couple licks or riffs over it and maybe throw in a bass line or some synth and you’re off to the races.
Without a rhythm machine, those of us who are more proficient in stringed instruments would be pressed for luck when it came to coming up with a fully fleshed out sound. What would you do without percussion, especially if you didn’t know any solid drummers in your town? You’d probably have to go to some program like Fruity Loops and mess around with that, but then you’d be dealing with very poor quality samples and wouldn’t be able to play them yourself. You would have to program them which ends up sounding robotic and uninteresting. There is just something about being perfectly on time that is off putting to the professional musician’s ear. I know it is to me, at least.
Dr. Rhythm solves all of these problems by being the tool you need to accompany yourself. Even if you had a drummer in town you’d need to get the beat in your head into his hands and there’s no telling if that’s ever going to happen exactly the way you want it. This tool allows you to do that with total control – something an artist is very familiar with, but often does not get. It’s hard to argue against the Boss Dr. Rhythm. If I had to say one thing I would mention that it’s a bit costly but in my mind it’s a price worth paying for the best digital friend you’ll ever hav
I’ve decided to start a time-lapse photography project where I hope to capture a whole bunch of cool time-lapse segments and then compile them into one video. I’ve got a bunch of ideas in mind and it will probably take a few months to finish, but I did start shooting my first time-lapse segment tonight–12 hours on a clock whizzing by in 20 seconds. I decided to put together a little tutorial to explain the process of creating a time-lapse video if anyone else wants to give it a try. Enjoy!
What is time-lapse photography?
In case you aren’t familiar with time-lapse photography, think of the discovery channel when they show flowers blooming in fast motion–time-lapse is when you take photographs of an event over a long period of time and then squish them together and flip through them really fast to create motion (like a flip book). By doing this, you can create some cool effects by turning something that would normally take hours or days to occur into a video that lasts a matter of seconds.
How do I make my own time-lapse?
So, how do you go about creating a time-lapse video? Well, the easiest way is to set your camera on a tripod or desk and face it at the object you want to record. Then, set the camera to take a picture of that object every X seconds. Depending on how long you want your video to be and how long it takes for your event to occur, the number of seconds between shots will vary.
How do I calculate how many pictures I need and how often I need to take them?
Let’s use my clock time-lapse as an example. I want to show 12 hours going by in 20 seconds. Since most videos are about 20-30 frames per second, I chose 30fps. That means my video will show 30 pictures per second to create the illusion of motion. Ok, so now that I know my video will play at 30fps for 20 seconds, I can figure that I need 600 pictures (20 seconds x 30 frames per second). With this in mind, it’s time to find out my shooting interval, or how often I need to take a picture. I know that my event lasts 12 hours; to turn that into seconds I go like this: 12hrs x 60mins/hr x 60s/min = 43,200. Alright, so in 12 hours there are 43,200 seconds. Now, I just divide that by 600 and I find out that I need to take a picture every 72 seconds. Confused? Maybe this will clear it up:
Ok, I’ve figured that out; now what?
Ok, I hope you’re still with me because the hard part is over. Now you’re set up with your camera pointing at your object knowing that you need to take a picture every 72 seconds for 12 hours. Do you really want to sit there and press the shutter button every 72 seconds for the next 12 hours? I don’t think so. What is one to do? Well, some cameras have a nice time-lapse feature built into them where you can tell the camera what to do, walk away, and then come back 12 hours later and start making your video. If you aren’t so fortunate as to have this ability, join the rest of us. Most cameras don’t have this feature built in, so there are other options:
Phew, I’ve taken my pictures, now how do I make my video?
For this part, either iMovie or Window’s Movie Maker (both of which come pre-installed on the respective operating systems) will work. Just import all of your images, set the interval and away you go. In my case, I would import my images and then use an interval of 0.0333s (1/30) since I want to flip through 30 pictures every second. Good Luck!
As well as shooting events (like Burning Man) I also pay the bills doing product photography. Doing good product shots is an unappreciated art form – most people don’t realise how important it is when selling their stock. I came across some nice examples of some jewelery product shots on the Chamilia site – definitely worth taking a look at.
Printing out quotes by great people and putting them somewhere you can see them first thing every morning is one way I like to get myself motivated each day. Today’s quote of the day is by one of the greatest of great men – Abraham Lincoln who once said:
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
This is a guest post by an anonymous learning and development professional with over 15 years experience in the industry. In it, our guest examines whether the outdoors setting popular for much training and team building activities these days is in fact an improvement over the usual class room based styles of teaching and training.
Using the non-traditional setting of the outdoors has become common currency, and not merely for young kids. Such experiential training includes both danger and safety, though providers assure that agility, physical fitness and strength are not prerequisites of such courses. The challenge and the risk lie in going from the ‘comfort zone’, trying out new behavior, moving out the limitations of the regular and extending expectations.
Problem-solving and team-building are two of the approaches of training applied. One a day-long vacation was included by programme young managers example by canoe along several miles of tube in the wilds, followed by a pattern ride or walk to a particular town hall. Players were given brief coaching in the paddling of the canoes, and staff popped up at factors along the way to provide confidence.
They did not mention that there have been about 13 gates along the route or did they mention that canoes could not be taken through locks but must be portaged (maintained) around them. Additionally they neglected to say that housing for the night was on the ground of the town area. As a means of requiring people to notably, to cooperate with each other and, address their responses, anxiety was, in short, intentionally included in the workout.
Yet another easy process usually used is to change or remove the hierarchies of title and position among players. Jr staff are devote fee of, or on a level with owners and managers. Office and shop-floor employees are confused together. This reduces boundaries of habit and expectation. Such routines present realistic, innovative and actual tests as seen in corporate team building perth. Success depends upon using the attributes and abilities of personal business friends to accomplish the best collective outcomes.
Players in outdoor instruction study equally difficult capabilities (such as rockclimbing and caving), and comfortable or life capabilities. Night walks, orienteering, bridge-building, mock raft-building, saves and adventurous treasurehunts often function in the programmes. The components of experiential learning such as the certificate iv frontline management perth contain the inescapability of learning enforced by the course style, feedback from others, contact with settings, new people and problems, and statement, analysis.
Instance is also an effective traction to attaining. I was once on a program helping out a young girl of about 14 years. She reported herself ‘sh*t-scared’ to abseil down a cliff and ultimately was persuaded to i want to go ahead of him and stay aside. Next issue I believed, she was standing at the end of the ledge. Over lunch that day, she explained to the people that he wasn’t likely to let ‘a bleeding guide writer’ do something and not dare to do it herself.
Representation throughout or after activity is a vital component of outside instruction – it acts as an aid to transferring individual and cultural increases such as confidence, trust and management and staff abilities straight to the workplace and, less right, within the property environment. Doing this depends upon the efficiency of the debrief, which may contain mentoring, the identification of lessons considering variables at work that may stop or help move and discovered. As Peter Honey has written the secret is, isn’t to allow the tail of experience wag the blockage of understanding.
Newer outdoor students such as merit applicants might be necessary to prepare an option, allowing for contingencies and issues to write down a pair of policies for living under material and venturing through the environment without harming it to create a signal of team conduct that features assisting each other and talking truthfully but without imposing injured and to produce a risk assessment for an outside task.
3d Tv In Action
There are many toys and gadgets out there in the electronics world. In first world countries I think it’s safe to say that the latest technology and electronic toys are probably the biggest area that people are spending their discretionary income. CEOs of companies that produce these products are revered as legends and heros. Think of what happened when Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, passed away just last month. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was devastated. There has never been a time where the passing of a consumer electronics CEO has ever garnered such an outpouring of love and support.
You may not have actually seen this for yourself, but news reports today are flooding in about a suspected Facebook hack or exploit that has enabled some people to inundate the popular social networking site with offensive and graphic images as well as videos. It is alleged that the images are being distributed ‘virally’ as part of some kind of spam application that spreads across individual’s social networks when they click certain links.
Apparently this has so enraged some users that they have deleted their accounts and left the site completely. As Facebook faces increased pressure from competitors such as Google+ this has to be a worrying trend. Official responses from the company so far say that they are investigating and addressing the reports but there has been no indication that the source of the problem has been identified, neither has there been any assurance that hack has been fixed and the exploit closed. Is it possible a whole bunch of people discovered how to hack a facebook account at once? Or is this the work of one malicious individual hacker?
Part of the appeal of Facebook is how safe it is for users to browse no matter their age or personal beliefs – if this kind of material continues to pop up on the site and dramatically affect their user’s quality of experience it could become a massive problem for the site. Once user bases start moving away from a site it can be a very difficult trend to reverse – Myspace anyone?
Obviously there is a deep desire in every man to use the body that has been given to him. I know that I personally have had this desire for most of my teenage and adult life. There’s no reason that I can’t achieve these goals, but it’s extremely important to make sure that you have the right tools for the job. Without equipping yourself with both knowledge and the supplements, workouts, and nutrition that you need, you’re not going to get anything done at all with regards to gaining muscle mass.
This is my muscle goal.
Why do we value a strong body? Maybe it’s because in the past, those who were strongest were most likely to survive the harsh climates and situations that pre-modern life presented to us on a daily basis. Not strong enough to fight off that sabertooth tiger? You’re dead. Not fit enough to outrun a potential predator or enemy? That’s right, you’re dead again. In today’s society a lot of these dangers have been completely removed by technology, science, and our collective culture. We have people that are trained to protect us from danger, and we have the tools we need to make sure that no one or no animal can kill us.
So, what’s the point of building muscle and perfecting your body? It is our natural state. We were BORN to be like this – all of us have just fallen from our natural state of being. As such, we need to do some extra work to make sure we get ourselves back on track. That’s where protein powder comes in. Sure, you can lift all the weights in the world and eat well, but if you want to put on pounds of pure, raw strength you’re going to need all the help you can get.
There are millions of brands of protein powder out there as you might already know, but there are some that have been highly recommended by almost everyone I personally know, as well in the court of public opinion on review sites and sites like BodyBuilding.com. The one I’m using currently is IsoFlex. The best part about these powders is that they’re so ridiculously simple to use, even a cro magnon man could figure it out. Grab some water, grab a scoop of powder, put the scoop in the water, gulp it down before, during and after a workout, and watch as your muscles and body overflows with strength.
Add some fruit to your HydroWhey for the tastiest smoothie you will ever drink.
Of course it’s not an immediate fix – nothing worth gaining ever is. Using protein powder such as the popular HydroWhey is much faster than simply doing it through exercise and diet. Consider protein supplementation as supercharging your diet for quicker and better results. You’re not going to be sorry you tried it out when you’re suddenly able to lift more weight than you ever have been able to in the past. You’ll be well on your way to creating the physique of our ancestors.
I might be buying into that great American dream of buying my own home, but it is a daunting prospect and I still haven’t completely made up my mind about it.
Everyone wants to buy a home, but not everyone can afford it. In fact, if people were forced to pay for their homes like they pay for most things in life (in cash), then almost no one would be able to afford a home. Housing prices have risen to be substantially more than the average yearly income of a family, and stockpiling that much cash is seen as impractical in today’s times. We can thank the advent of credit cards for this belief.
The use of credit has made it possible to do what the average person would not be able to do: fund large purchases. Everyone needs to have a way to get around, and everyone needs to have a place to live. Unfortunately, both of these costs are very large – for most, they are the biggest expenses that they will have to pay in their entire life. Here is where credit comes into play. Your credit is a way for the bank who lends you the money for your house, or the car dealership who lends you money for that nice SUV, to determine whether they think you can pay back the money or not. They take a look at your credit score to judge your “creditworthiness.” Based on this score, they assign an interest rate to your loan.
Do you know your credit rating?
If you have a high interest rate, this means that they think it is less likely that you will be able to pay back your loan, and must collect extra money to safeguard against that situation. On the contrary, if you are given a very low interest rate, you probably have very good credit and they don’t feel the need to protect their loan as much. So, it is obvious how much having a very good credit score can help your life. When you’re looking at home and car purchases, the difference in a percentage point or two in interest can literally mean tens of thousands of dollars over a 30 year mortgage or 10 year car payment loan.
So, it is vital to pay attention to your credit score. You can get a free credit score report from various places, and it is highly recommended by both experts and financial planners alike to make sure and take advantage of this opportunity to get better acquainted with your credit score. Once you are able to find out what your score is, you can then go about either improving it if it is bad, or maintaining it if you have been responsible enough to be blessed with a good credit score.
While there are many things that go into a good credit score, one of the ones that is completely controllable is timeliness of payment. Making sure to pay bills on time is one of the best ways to improve a credit score dramatically. Taking advantage of the revolving credit of a credit card can not only increase a credit score, it instills a sense of responsibility for the money that is being loaned to you every time you make a purchase.