“I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.” .. (Albert Camus)
“I should like to be able to love my country and still love…
Month: January 2015
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Augmented Reality App “Lego X” Simplifies 3D Modeling
Imagine forgoing time-intensive 3D modeling programs to instead create 3D printable models by playfully stacking censored LEGO bricks. This reality isn’t far from fruition, as the London-based studio Gravity has released plans for an augmented reality app that uses location-mapping and gyroscopic sensors to generate digital (and scalable) models of your creation in realtime. The program, “Lego X” uses an algorithm to intuitively smooth out edges and join corners, allowing for easy modifying and seamless 3D printing.
See the program in action, after the break.
Click here to view the embedded video.
As you can see in the demonstration video below, Gravity is currently testing their idea on Duplos. However, it is hoped that the app’s next version will allow models to be built with standard LEGO-sized bricks. This could potentially revolutionize the way we build (and print) our building models.
There has been no indication that Gravity is in anyway associated with LEGO.
News via 3D Printing Industry, Dezeen
Augmented Reality App “Lego X” Simplifies 3D Modeling originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 28 Jan 2015.
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Connect Your iPhone to Your Mac Like Never Before with Pushbullet
With Apple’s Yosemite build of Mac OS X came Continuity, a feature that has allowed us to connect our mobile devices to our computers, letting us access apps, send text messages, answer phone calls, and more while seamlessly switching from one device to the other.
Pushbullet, finally available for Mac OS X, looks to advance the features that Continuity has to offer by connecting our devices so that we can view our smartphone’s notifications on our computer, as well as share text, links, and files, and even copy and paste text between the two.
Video: .
Connecting Pushbullet on Your Mac & iOS… more
How To Not Fear Public Speaking
Have you ever stood in front of a crowd, shaking in terror, breaking out in a cold sweat, and barely able to get a word out? I have.
No, you are not getting tried for murder nor berated in front of your college class. Instead, you are trying to speak to very sympathetic and interested listeners in a large but casual group setting about a topic for which you have a great passion. You have stage fright.
I know how you feel. I know your pain. In fact, I have been there myself. Would you like to know how you can overcome your fear of public speaking so that you can comfortably address a group of people in both a casual and a formal setting? Then read on.
Always be prepared
Here are three excellent ways to always be prepared for both scheduled and impromptu public speaking:
Know the subject
This should be easy for you. After all, you are most likely not going to take a public speaking assignment unless you are passionate about your subject – it might even be your life’s work. You are also probably not going to be asked to explain something to a group of people in a casual setting if you do not supposedly already know a lot about the subject.
However, it is a good idea to constantly be keeping up to date on your chosen field. It will ease your nervousness when you are called upon.
Stay organized
If you know that you are going to have to speak in public, whether it is a speech that you have been asked to give, or you are going to a gathering where you know you might be asked about your passion, then keep a few important points in your mind. These three points should pertain to the subject of your passion. That way you can always have a readily available knowledge base to draw upon, even under pressure and stress.
If you think that you are not preparing well and your productivity is low, you can read tips how to increase productivity here.
Create an elevator speech
An elevator speech is, essentially, a 30 second speech (something that you can give in the time an elevator takes to travel just a few floors) that describes your purpose, your mission, or the essence of your passion. Having an elevator speech that you can draw on will let you overcome your initial fear of public speaking if you are called upon to speak in a casual setting.
For, while giving your elevator speech, you can think about what to say next.You can read more at website if you would like to learn how to create your own elevator speech.
Haste makes waste
Do not hurry through your speech. It might appear that if you hurry, you can be finished with your speech faster and escape your fears more quickly.
However, what are you really afraid of when you speak in public? Most likely, the two things that make you the most afraid of public speaking are:
- The fear that your audience will laugh at you and think you are a fool
- The fear that you will stumble over yourself and your words and not be able to get a word out.
If you hurry, you will lose your audience’s attention for sure. They will sense your fear and nervousness, feel pity for you, and not pay attention to what you are actually saying.
Also, if you hurry, you will be much more likely to stumble over your words and make mistakes. So, please do not hurry. You will make your fears come true.
You can look at webpage to learn more about how you can slow down and avoid turning your audience away through hurrying through your speech.
Connect with your audience
Most people who have a fear of public speaking absolutely refuse to connect with their audience. Of course they do not consciously refuse to connect. They just do not know how to connect.
It turns out, though, that if you connect with your audience you will see them smile. They will pay attention to what you are saying. In fact, they will even laugh when you want them to laugh, cry when you want them to cry, and applaud when they should applaud. Connecting with your audience will let you see just how well your speech is going, making you feel more confident and making your fear fly away.
So, let’s look at a couple ways you can improve your connection with your audience:
- Look at your audience. This is the most fundamental – the simplest – way that you can engage your audience.
You do not have to try to catch anyone’s eye. In fact, you do not even have to look at anyone’s eyes. Instead, you just need to look in the direction of certain sections of people. Of course, this strategy does not work in a casual setting.
However, if you are in a formal setting, this strategy will help keep your audience engaged. Surprisingly, it will also help calm your fear of public speaking by allowing you to see the pleasure and other emotional responses on your audience’s faces.
- Tell personal stories. People connect with other people.
Stories resonate with people’s subconscious. People are intrigued by stories.
Also, stories, if they are personal, are easy for you to remember and relatively easy for you to tell. After all, isn’t it much easier to tell a personal story about how healthy eating improves all areas of a person’s life instead of trying to remember scientific facts and make your point with those facts?
Of course, the best way to overcome your fear of public speaking, you actually have to get out and speak! Start small. And just do it!
Yohana Petrovic is a writer and blogger. She has 10 years` experience in educating and now she is a proofreader at http://ift.tt/1vBLnn7 . You can reach her on Facebook: Yohana Petrovic or on Twitter: @YohanaPetrovic
The post How To Not Fear Public Speaking appeared first on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement.
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Two Family Vacation House / MOB architects
Architects: MOB architects
Location: Avlaki, Porto Rafti 190 03, Greece
Area: 280.0 sqm
Photographs: N. Daniilidis
Civil Engineer: P. Malandrakis
Electrical And Mechanical Engineering: EMG & associates
From the architect. In an elongated plot of 382,17m2 and of a width of 12m, in Porto Rafti (Attica, Greece), the brief called for a vacation house of approximately 280m2, including two potentially independent residences, common-use outdoor spaces and a garage. The duplex is arranged over two floors and an underground garage, with a northeast orientation, in order to be protected from the sun andon the first floor to take full advantage of the sea view to the north. The south side is nearly compact.
The basic design concept was to create large outdoor spaces facing the garden on all levels, since the house will be used mostly during summer time. The outdoor spaces were joined with the access paths to create two main ‘verandahs’: a partly covered one on the ground floor, and an open-air one on the first floor. A section of the ground floor verandah is enclosed, being surrounded on three sides by either the building volumes or a two storey-high wall. The fourth side is linked to the garden, which is in turn enclosed by tall vegetation, forming a protected enclosed outdoor space, a place for daily activities and gathering. On the contrary, the first floor verandah opens to the sea view, to the sun and wind. Each residence comprises two rooms, a kitchen-living room and a bedroom with bathroom. The two residences are approached through the verandahs and the open air staircase.
Two volumes form the duplex, one comprising the kitchens-living rooms, and the other comprising the bedrooms and staircase. They are connected via an enclosed corridor on the first floor, while on the ground floor the two volumes do not have an indoor connection. The ‘atriums’ formed between building masses form a network with the other outdoor spaces and the garden.
The choice of materials was based on a preference for minimum maintenance requirements: building volumes of exposed concrete, wood flooring, while elements such as the main staircase and the first-floor verandahs are galvanized steel constructions.
Two Family Vacation House / MOB architects originally appeared on ArchDaily, the most visited architecture website on 28 Jan 2015.
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Airlines comeback at jerk passenger
Photo by Mauren Veras
FLIGHT ATTENDANTS HAVE a rough job. Not only do they have to deal with irritated, demanding, and childish passengers, but they sometimes have to deal with sexist jackasses who complain about their physical appearance. Flight attendants of at least one airline, however, have a company that will back them up.
Passenger Andres Horacio Pignataro posted a particularly sexist remark on Aerolineas Argentinas’ Facebook page, and got this awesome response from their communications team:
Photo via Nestor Suarez
The translation of his comment is roughly: “What gets my attention is the low quality of the company’s hostesses. They used to be tall, slender, and they commanded respect. Now they are all short and fat and leave much to be desired in appearance in flight.”
Instead of responding by ignoring the dick as they justifiably could have, they chose to respond with their list of requirements for the position of flight attendant: They must be over 18, they must be Argentine citizens, they must have graduated high school, they must have a TCP license, they must be between 5’4” and 5’7” tall for women or 5’7” and 6’1” for men, they must know English, and they must know how to swim. Aerolineas Argentinas finished their requirements with this little barb:
“Prejudice doesn’t fly: we leave it on the ground.”
Well done, Aerolineas Argentinas. Well done.
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27 signs you’re addicted to coffee
Photo: maureen_sill
1. Your coworkers and family members know the exact time to come to you with requests, based on whether or not you’ve consumed your first coffee of the day.
2. You secretly have an oral fixation, and drinking coffee is the only appropriate way to satisfy that.
3. You Instagram your coffee the way people Instagram their pets.
4. You’ve stopped caring about the “quality” of your brew. You will either have one cup of the good stuff, or seven cups of the watered-down coffee you get with your morning croissant. Sometimes, you purposely opt for the latter just to take more coffee breaks.
5. Your body feels physically terrible if you forget to drink your daily brew.
6. PSYCH! You’ve never forgotten to drink coffee.
7. You drink coffee before your workout to energize you, and after to wind you down.
8. You can identify a type of coffee and where it’s grown from a single sip, and comment on its body, flavor enhancements, and other characteristics like some sort of coffee sommelier.
9. You stock up on packs of Orbitz gum and ZOOM! Teeth Whitening Groupons to maintain non-coffee-breath/stained dental hygiene.
10. Caffeine has no effect on your system. It’s like, whatever, I’m just going to be awake my whole life.
11. You secretly worry that you’ll develop ulcers from too much acid intake, and that a cup of coffee is the only thing that will calm your fears.
12. You would totally spend almost $400 to purchase this device.
13. You have a Starbucks secret menu item named after you, and it’s purchased mainly by teenage girls.
14. You’ve curated a mini-gallery showcasing your most creatively coffee-stained paperwork.
15. Coffee is the best relationship you’ve ever had; it’s there for you when you need it the most, it gets you through the day, and most importantly, IT’S HOT!
16. You attribute your best days to how much coffee you drank.
17. You blame your worst days on how much coffee you drank.
18. You’ve graduated from whipped cream-covered Frappucinos to straight up black coffee. The darker and thicker the better.
19. You roll your eyes whenever someone asks if you “like your coffee like you like your men.” But deep down inside, it’s pretty true.
20. You are personally invested in your local coffee house. As in, you bought stock in the company (or at least contributed to a Kickstarter).
21. Coffee-flavored foods are your favorite, but at the same time, feel somewhat like a farce. Coffee is a meal. At least, in your opinion.
22. You own or have owned a Keurig, a Moka pot, a Mr. Coffee, a Chemex, a coffee bean grinder, an espresso machine, a Gene Café coffee roaster, a Handpresso, a French Press, a Hario Bouno Coffee Drip Kettle, and a mug you bought from Spencer’s Gifts.
23. You drink coffee as a comfort thing. It warms your hands as you walk down the street on a cold day, soothes you after a harsh fight, and reassures that you’ll get.shit.done.
24. Fetching coffee as an intern was not a begrudging task for you.
25. If you could just marry coffee, you’d totally do it.
26. You plan your vacations around coffee. Scandinavia and Italy are your favorite choices, with Australia coming in a close second. You avoid places like China, Portugal, and India. Yeah they have Starbucks, but it’s just easier to be surrounded by coffee fiends.
27. You judge tea drinkers. It’s stupid, and totally uncalled for, but you know you do it.
Sig Nordal 