"I can’t begin to imagine how hard it would be to leave my family for months at a time, especially if my destination were Iraq or Afghanistan. And I don’t know how I could deal with my wife being deployed overseas. These reunion videos—for me, at least—shed a tiny beam of light on how emotionally draining being a military family can be. They’ll also make you want a dog."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
"For the first time, 25-year-old researcher Robert Thomas reveals to Gawker how earlier this year he and Richard Heene drew up a master plan to generate a massive media controversy using a weather balloon. To get famous, of course."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
"When author Barbara Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was bombarded with wildly optimistic, inspirational phrases. But a cheerful outlook, she argues, does not cure cancer. In her new book, Bright-Sided, Ehrenreich explores the negative effects of positive thinking, and the "reckless optimism" that dominates America's national mindset. "We need to brace ourselves for a struggle against terrifying obstacles," Ehrenreich writes, "both of our own making and imposed by the natural world. And the first step is to recover from the mass delusion that is positive thinking.""
- April Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
It's not such a question of 'positive thinking' as it is to delete 'negative' thoughts which only attract more negativity. I had breast cancer as well. I should worry or be ready for another occurrence of breast cancer? I don't think so. IMO.
- Myrna
What I took away from her interview is that there shouldn't be one formula in coping with breast cancer or any disease (or unfortunate circumstances in general). She was angry and rightly so. But the people from whom she tried to get support basically just told her to think happy thoughts, put on a smiley face and shut up. I have never had cancer and I can only imagine how difficult it can be, but I found it tragic that it seemed that she was denied in coping in her own way.
- April Buchheit
I was going to read the book "The Power of Positive Thinking" and then I thought, what the hell good would that do?
- J.D. Deutschendorf
LOL at J.D. - I agree with Myrna that worrying does no good, but often it is frustrating (and annoying) to feel that people are saying, if you just tried harder to think good thoughts, you would feel better. (And I'm also interested in what she has to say about issues bigger than my own problems, of course!)
- Amy℠
Oh April, that is sad. She should have known me at the time. I used several alternative therapies like acupuncture, Chinese herbs, meditation, essential oils in bath. I remember I used to walk around with a peppermint soaked tissue when I had nausea. During radiation I remember discussing an herbal therapy with another woman having radiation. One of the aids heard me and told me not to interfere and leave that up to her doc. Jeeeze...
- Myrna
Which is worse: paying $140 for a required meningitis shot at the doctor and waiting an hour OR paying $4 for a required meningitis shot and waiting two and a half hours?
Oh, we went the $4 route, but forgot to mention the lady with three kids that she kept raising her arm to. Zoe was sympathetic to the one little boy who kept getting hit for real.
- Trish Haley
"The particular setup for this was sound activated. The lens was destroyed but the camera survived this one despite being severed from its ratchet straps and thrown to the ground. The sound device used for this one disconnected from the camera and was thrown about 200 feet backwards into the pad perimeter fence.
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
"Eight years after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, we remember and here, take a look back, and a look at the present."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
"Sure, the ads can be picked apart, and someone with a keen eye can probably guess how some of the effects were achieved. But for the most part, the astoundingly realistic spots have viewers thinking, "Did I really just see that?" There's Washington tight end Chris Cooley, busting his hands through drywall on a construction site and blindly catching a pass thrown on the other side of the wall."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
Hear Us Now : a project of Consumers Union (the folks who publish Consumer Reports) - Tell Congress to change the wireless market, and free our phones so we can shop around for the phones, technology and service deals we want - https://secure.consumersunion.org/site...
"The giant telecom companies are at it again! Now they’re keeping customers from shopping around for the best deal on wireless service by shackling phones with “exclusivity deals” – meaning you can only get service for your phone from one company. If you want an iPhone, you have to use AT&T. If you want a Blackberry Storm, you're stuck with Verizon. In fact, nearly all of the most popular wireless handsets are locked down to one service provider through these schemes. So if you’re unhappy with your service or how much it costs, you’re basically stuck – or your phone is virtually worthless! Tell Congress to change the wireless market, and free our phones so we can shop around for the phones, technology and service deals we want."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
When negotiating with prostitutes in Thailand, double check the 'gender' selection on the birth certificates. 'Post-Op' is not the same as 'born as'.
- Morgan Haley
If everybody puts down both the seat and the lid, then everyone picks something up, and everyone puts something down. Also: then kids can't throw things in, and kitties and puppies won't drink from it or drown in it.
- Ladybug Heather
WASHINGTON — Federal authorities have issued an unusual flurry of bulletins to police departments across the country warning that sports stadiums, entertainment complexes, hotels and transit systems could be targets of terrorist attacks.
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
"At the time, psychologists assumed that children’s ability to wait depended on how badly they wanted the marshmallow. But it soon became obvious that every child craved the extra treat. What, then, determined self-control? Mischel’s conclusion, based on hundreds of hours of observation, was that the crucial skill was the “strategic allocation of attention.” Instead of getting obsessed with the marshmallow—the “hot stimulus”—the patient children distracted themselves by covering their eyes, pretending to play hide-and-seek underneath the desk, or singing songs from “Sesame Street.” Their desire wasn’t defeated—it was merely forgotten. “If you’re thinking about the marshmallow and how delicious it is, then you’re going to eat it,” Mischel says. “The key is to avoid thinking about it in the first place.” In adults, this skill is often referred to as metacognition, or thinking about thinking, and it’s what allows people to outsmart their shortcomings. (When Odysseus had himself tied to...
more...
- Paul Buchheit
from Bookmarklet
This is an interesting quote because it implies that "will power" is more about mental strategy, not some kind of mental strength for forcing yourself to do something. I have the same strategy with food -- I eat whatever I see, so in order to not eat something I just need to put it out of sight.
- Paul Buchheit
effectively "out of sight, out of mind"
- alphaxion
This is where the magic of science is: you spend time and resources to prove a proverb.
- .i.m.a.r.s.o.r.a.m.a.
"The child who could wait fifteen minutes had an S.A.T. score that was, on average, two hundred and ten points higher than that of the kid who could wait only thirty seconds."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
Sometimes I worry my metacognition is slowing me down because I'm spending less time just cogniting. (that oughtta be a word.) But no, in all seriousness, I think something, then realize the thought was there before I subvocalized it, and then I go in a circle several times subvocalizing those same thoughts as I examine the process of thinking. Frustrating!
- Andrew C
Some friends and I refer to this study often, pointing out when we've failed the marshmallow test. Staying up late is my most common mashmallow test failure (sacrificing morning time to enjoy a few more bleary hours NOW), but it's easy to spot this sort of behavior and fun to have a standard vocabulary to highlight its ubiquity.
- Seth
As a parent, I consciously used this strategy to distract my children whenever they got in mischief, behaved badly or acted out. As a grandparent, I often send a box of tricks, things like super balls, an "uno" deck, paints, a book, a yoyo or top, for my daughter to use with my grandchildren when they are driving her crazy and need to think about something other than running around screaming.
- Phil Boiarski
OK, that makes sense, but let's flip this on its head - How do you instead keep your mind on something and prevent yourself from getting distracted? You can't distract yourself from your distractions. Andrew C, the word you're looking for is cogitating.
- Mr. Gunn
Mr Gunn, thanks. Though I think 'cogniting' is a touch funnier.
- Andrew C
Some chimpanzees use this strategy as well, though not all of them.
- Björn Brembs
i think bhudda had some theory on this too...:/
- Paul Moss
I'm going to marshmallow-train my kids!!
- Jess Lee
Today my 4yo daughter was having trouble waiting for a treat, so I told her (and my wife) about reading this article last night. I talked about the ability to distract - and I thought I was doing a pretty good job of explaining it in 4yo terms. When I was done with my paraphrase/lesson, I asked her if she understood. "Uh-huh," she said. Then after a few moments, she asked if we could stop and get some marshmallows on the way home. All I could do is laugh!
- Gary Walter (gwalter)
I read a different writeup of this experiment a couple years ago, when our daughter was about 1 year old. Its something that can be taught, and encouraged. She's now very good at distracting herself from something which she knows she shouldn't do or would get into trouble over. She's not easily distracted in general: she can focus quite well on something she wants to do (and is allowed to do).
- DGentry
"State revenue agents have begun nabbing scofflaws by mining information posted on social-networking Web sites, from relocation announcements to professional profiles to financial boasts."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
Wilson's behavior was "totally disrespectful," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said on CNN. "There is no place for it in that setting, or any other, and he should apologize for it immediately."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
from CNN: "Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, also denounced the heckling. "Certainly, I respect the office of the president, and I think that's not the kind of thing that is appropriate in that kind of setting especially," he said. "I don't know who said it, but my sense is most people don't think it was a good idea it occurred. And I happen to be one of those."" - http://www.cnn.com/2009...
- J.D. Deutschendorf
"Windows did not shut down successfully" displayed on the new Cowboys stadium marquee right before the OU/BYU football game.
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
Can we have support for linebreaks in comments, please? It'd make it so much easier to read and compose long comments, or ones where "special" formatting would be helpful... Thanks.
I'm not sure I need line breaks (as I use separate comments to achieve this) but some very basic HTML support in the first comment would be most welcome. This would aid us in using FF as a basic blog platform.
- Kol Tregaskes
It might also help with times when BackType stuff gets imported, and the result is so long that nobody in the right mind could scan through it quickly.
- Tyson Key
True. It certainly would be beneficial for imported comments, say from an custom RSS feed. I'd like to see the paragraphs broken up instead of being one long sentence. Good point, Tyson. :-) I still wouldn't like it as native support. ;-)
- Kol Tregaskes
Now that I think about it, it could work as one comment-per-paragraph, but it'd just create confusion if people decide to start injecting other comments in-between each paragraph, as they're imported, or if we ever got the much-requested threaded/nested comments support.
- Tyson Key
Yep, there would be no problem if the import was quick though, so it still might work like that.
- Kol Tregaskes
Still, I get the feeling that it was intended initially for relatively short "local" comments like "Oh! That LOLCat is so cute! I wish I could hug it", rather than for importing long blog comments quoting parts of "War and Peace" or proposals against porting Dalvik to Windows CE-powered toasters. ;)
- Tyson Key
Thanks for the feedback, Tyson. I've added it to our suggestions list.
- Ross Miller
It would also be awesome for ascii art!
- Geoff Schultz
Just fell for this again - pasting in stuff with linebreaks looks like it's going to work, then does this - http://ff.im/5SqhB
- immaterial
Yeah, that's the biggest problem this issue causes: having to painstakingly edit and split across multiple comments something you should just be able to cut and paste.
- Mark
You have to remember, however, that it *is* convenient now that I can type *and* post without lifting my hands from the keyboard. Just typetypetypetype and press Enter. OTOH, linebreaks *do* make comments easier to read. YOTOH, someone can mis-use linebreaks to type in a comment with, let's say, 100 linebreaks or so... a linebreak vandalism... and that will surely annoy the hell of everybody.
- Pandu ● IT Optimizer
Line breaks wouldn't require you to take your hands off the keyboard. They'd just have to make Shift+Enter insert a line break and Enter to post. As for vandalism, a) it's unlikely, and b) it's trivial to code in protection against that sort of thing.
- Mark
@Mark: Ah, you do have a point there. If all nitpicky stuff like that gets properly handled, then I'm all for line breaks. Yessir :-)
- Pandu ● IT Optimizer
would love to see line breaks, too...there are codes to check for abusive line breaks (i.e. huge blank spaces in between paragraphs...though it may increase server load a bit)...maybe even RichText or Emoticons?
- brainno722 (Peter)
from NoiseRiver
RichText I don't really like. BBCode-style formatting for [b]bold[/b], [i]italics[/i], and [color=black]color[/color] would be welcome, though.
- Pandu ● IT Optimizer
In a way, BBCode is similar to RichText...it would be nice to have bullets (order/unordered), bold, italics, underline, etc...of course, none of these are required, just make writing/reading/organizing easier
- brainno722 (Peter)
from NoiseRiver
I agree. It needs support for italics, bold, strike-through and underline.
- Kittyburgers
Y'all don't need shift-enter to post; you can just use the tab key to switch focus from the text box to the Post button.
- Andrew C
Agree, brainno/Peter. What I was trying to post was, I don't want RichText controls (like those in Gmail) trying to give a WYSIWYG feel to posting comments. Just BBCode support will be enough to make my day. And Andrew... I blush with embarrasment on realizing that >.<
- Pandu ● IT Optimizer
I disagree on displaying emoticon graphics by default. Sometimes, overzealous implementations interpret character combinations as emoticons, when they're unwanted (e.g. when pasting the output of a CLI application in a comment, or anything containing ":P" without being padded by a space).
- Tyson Key
Line breaks, some HTML, etc. (but no emoticons) should be allowed on the first comment, i.e. like a blog post.
- Kol Tregaskes
If a reason against line breaks is that it might be harder to distinguish comment boundaries, using alternating color blocks could address that.
- Andrew C
from Android
I think linebreaks would take something away from FriendFeed. Linebreaks in comments enforce conciseness and "scannability". Like Twitter's 140 chars, but better, because you still can make a coherent argument. I don't have any trouble with this kind of intermediate form between microblogging (twitter) and normal blogging. What we really need is a blogging platform as fast as FriendFeed. :)
- Meryn Stol
"We're having a lot of small animals, dogs, cats, small sheep, small pygmie goats, disappearing," said Tuttle Deputy Police Chief Capt. Bill Boyd."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
Had to insert my middle name to make it effective: "Victor Bernard Kamutzki's anagram name is BUTT RAZOR KIND MAVERICK". Damn. Did I just post that??
- Victor Kamutzki
"If this does not touch your heart then you just don't have one... Can you believe it? This guy wins $181 million in the lottery last Wednesday, and then finds the love of his life just 2 days later..."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
"NewsCenter 5's Gail Huff accompanied Spencer on a shopping trip to the Shaws in Seabrook, N.H. Huff watched as Spencer bought $279 in groceries for 39 cents. "I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it," said Huff."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
"Parasitic infections and other diseases usually associated with the developing world are cropping up with alarming frequency among U.S. poor, especially in states along the U.S.-Mexico border, the rural South and in Appalachia, according to researchers."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet
"During last night's Tennessee-Dallas game, a Titans punter actually hit Dallas's massive 180-foot-long HD screen, creating a bit of a situation: The play isn't reviewable, and there's no provision for a replay. The solution may cost millions of dollars."
- J.D. Deutschendorf
from Bookmarklet