Clipmarks | coconutshell's 'people' clips

Lifehacker now using Clipmarks as a source

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 18:03:33 GMT

clipped by: coconutshell
clipper's remarks: Talk about going full circle..

Become more comfy in social situations

Speaking as an introvert here, I might add that the more you get all nervous about interacting with people, the harder it becomes; stay relaxed and just be yourself. Got any other tips to ease those social situations? Thoughts in the comments. — Wendy Boswell

Tags: lifehacker, clipmarks, source

Happiness: Good for Creativity, Bad for Single-Minded Focus

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 06:11:11 GMT

clipped by: coconutshell
clipper's remarks: I thought thinking happy thoughts made you fly. But this is close enough.

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

Happiness: Good for Creativity, Bad for Single-Minded Focus

Happy people are open to all sorts of ideas, some of which can be distracting

by JR Minkel


	Image: © EMELY/ZEFA/CORBIS
	A HAPPY THOUGHT: People in a happy mood perform better than others on a task that requires them to be creative, but do worse when asked to cut through distractions and focus on one thing.

Despite those who romanticize depression as the wellspring of artistic genius, studies find that people are most creative when they are in a good mood, and now researchers may have explained why: For better or worse, happy people have a harder time focusing.

University of Toronto psychologists induced a happy, sad or neutral state in each of 24 participants by playing them specially chosen musical selections. To instill happiness, for example, they played a jazzy version of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3. After each musical interlude, the researchers gave subjects two tests to assess their creativity and concentration.

In one test, participants in a happy mood were better able to come up with a word that unified three other seemingly disparate words, such as "mower," "atomic" and "foreign." Solving the puzzle required participants to think creatively, moving beyond the normal word associations--"lawn," "bomb" and "currency"--to come up with the more remote answer: "power."

Interestingly, induced happiness made the subjects worse at the second task, which required them to ignore distractions and focus on a single piece of information. Participants had to identify a letter flashed on a computer screen flanked by either the same letter, as in the string "N N N N N," or a different letter, as in "H H N H H." When the surrounding letters didn't match, the happy participants were slower to recognize the target letter in the middle, indicating that the ringers distracted them.

Tags: science, research, psychology, people, society

10 things about drugs

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 05:51:47 GMT

clipped by: coconutshell
clipper's remarks: The rest is at the source page.

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

The Top 10 Things I Know About Drugs

By Tony Newman, AlterNet. Posted June 2, 2006.

1. Drugs are everywhere. Despite a $40 billion a year "war on drugs" and political speeches about a "drug-free society," our society is swimming in drugs. Cigarettes, sugar, alcohol, marijuana, Prozac, Ritalin, Viagra, steroids and caffeine. The vast majority of Americans use drugs on a regular basis. People always have and always will.

2. Different people have different relationships with different drugs. My wife is someone who can enjoy an occasional cigarette and only smokes when she drinks. I am an addict who cannot control my cigarette problem. If I have one cigarette, I will end up smoking a pack a day. Some people have serious problems with alcohol and can't enjoy even a single drink. I can handle alcohol and enjoy a drink or two some nights, leave it alone on others, and I rarely have negative experiences with it. Different strokes for different folks.

3. People use drugs for joy and for pain. Many people enjoy using mind- and body-altering substances. How many of us enjoy having some drinks and going out dancing? How many of us enjoy a little smoke after a nice dinner with friends? Many people bond with others or find inspiration alone while high on drugs.

On the flip side, many people self-medicate to try to ease the pain in their lives. How many have us have had too much to drink to drown our sorrows over a breakup or some other painful event? How many of us smoke cigarettes to deal with anxiety or stress?

7. Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse. Locking someone up in a cage for using marijuana or some other drug when no harm has been done to anyone else is cruel and inhumane. People who prohibit clean syringes to reduce the spread of HIV have blood on their hands. Denying financial aid to students who have a drug offense is counterproductive. Many of our country's laws are more harmful than the substances they are trying to combat.

Tags: drugs, health, people, society, addiction, economy, war, policy

More funny quotes...

Sun, 12 Nov 2006 06:54:32 GMT

clipped by: coconutshell
clipper's remarks: I found the first one funny.

Clip Source: www.gsapio.com

"Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Kuwait." --A. Whitney Brown

"In elementary school, in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file line from smallest to tallest. What is the logic? Do tall people burn slower?" --Warren Hutcherson

"I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it's such a beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of her." --Ellen DeGeneres

"Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I'm halfway through my fishburger and I realize, Oh my God....I could be eating a slow learner." --Lynda Montgomery

"What do people mean when they say the computer went down on me?" --Marilyn Pittman

"Why is it that when we talk to God we're said to be praying, but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?" --Lily Tomlin

"Smoking kills. And if you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."
-- Anti-smoker Brooke Shields

"Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas."-- Former Australian cabinet minister Keppel Enderbery

"The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people that make them unsafe."
-- Former Philadelphia Mayor and Police Chief Frank Rizzo

"It is bad luck to be superstitious."-- Andrew Mathis

"Half this game is ninety percent mental."-- Philadelphia Phillies manager Danny Ozark

Tags: humour, quotes, funny

Guide to US Newspapers

Wed, 08 Nov 2006 05:27:28 GMT

clipped by: coconutshell
clipper's remarks:

Clip Source: www.neatorama.com

From Miss Cellania, a guide to US newspaper:

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The New York Times is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The Washington Post is read by people who think they should run the country.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand the Washington Post. They do, however like the smog statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn’t have to leave L.A. to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country, and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who’s running the country either, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure there is a country, or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority, feministic atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are democrats.

10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.

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Posted on Tuesday, November 7th, 2006 at 7:27 pm by Alex

Category: 1 Other Neat Things. Feed: RSS 2.0

Tags: humour, lifestyle, newspapers, articles

Things to ponder...

Sat, 19 Aug 2006 09:20:54 GMT

clipped by: coconutshell
clipper's remarks: True?

Clip Source: www.hemmy.net

Thoughts To Think

If the sky is the limit, then what is space, over the limit?
Are children who act in rated ‘R’ movies allowed to see them?
Can you make a candle out of your earwax?
When French people swear do they say pardon my English?
Aren’t the ‘good things that come to those who wait’ just the leftovers from the people that got there first?
If the swat team breaks down your door do they have to replace it later?
Can a fire truck park in the fire lane?
Can it be cloudy and foggy at the same time?
Can you breathe out of your nose and mouth at the same time?
Are marbles made of marble?
If you pay for a vacation and your plane crashes on the way there, do you get you money back? (Granted you lived)
Isn’t Disney World just a people trap operated by a mouse?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet soup?
Can you get cornered in a round room?
Why do we wash behind our ears? Who really looks there?
Why don’t the hairs on your arms get split ends?
If an atheist has to go to court, do they make him swear on the Bible?
Why is it illegal to park in a handicapped parking space but its ok to use a handicapped toilet?
How come we say ‘It’s colder than hell outside’ when isn’t it realistically always colder than hell since hell is supposed to be fire and brimstone?
Why is it that if something says, “do not eat” on the packaging it becomes extra tempting to eat?
Why are the commercials for cable companies on cable but not on regular television? Don’t they want the people without cable to buy the cable?
“Have you ever noticed that if you rearranged the letters in mother in law, they come out to Woman Hitler?”
Isn’t it funny how the word ‘politics’ is made up of the words ‘poli’ meaning ‘many’ in Latin, and ‘tics’ as in ‘bloodsucking creatures’?

Tags: humour, thoughts, funny, true?