This Project, located in Store, Barneveld—a rural area in the eastern parts of the Netherlands—was undertaken by Rotterdam-based architectural studio Instability We Trust and boasts a set of two farm structures that were transformed in order to provide a central space for the meetings of an important local figure. It sports two different areas, each with characteristics that are polar opposites of each other. Notably, one of them is completely..
The post Transformation of Two Farms into Exercising and Relaxation Spaces appeared first on HomeDSGN.
There’s More To Eye Color Than Meets The Eye
Back when you were in high school, your teacher probably told you that you could predict the eye color of your future child’s eyes by knowing which genes are dominant and which are recessive. It turns out that, much like many of the things you learned about in high school, things are a lot more complicated than what is taught in class.
For starters, there are multiple genes that control eye color.
Predicting the eye color of your future offspring using the techniques you learned in high school is about as accurate as choosing the winner of the Super Bowl from the Puppy Bowl predictions. There’s a lot of science behind your eye color and the process is a lot more complicated than you may think.
Here are some eye color facts you should know.
What’s In Eye Color, Anyway?
Eye color is caused by varying levels of the pigment melanin. How much melanin you have is determined by several genes and how those genes interact with each other.
- Lower melanin levels lead to lighter eyes while higher melanin levels lead to darker eyes.
- Contrary to popular belief, all babies are not born with blue eyes, though most Caucasian-American babies are. Eye color is basically set by a baby’s first birthday.
- The OCA₂ gene produces the P protein that determines eye pigment.
- The HERC₂ gene limits the OCA₂ gene’s P protein production.
- There can be genetic variations.
What Does Your Eye Color Say About You?
Like it or not, people make a lot of snap judgments about you based upon your appearance. Your eye color, for example, can affect how people perceive you just as your clothing or other features can.
But, there are a few things that seem to correlate with your eye color from an empirical standpoint. It’s important to note though that correlation does not imply causation.
Here’s what people believe they can tell about you based on your eye color:
- A study showed that people tended to rank brown eyed people as looking more trustworthy than those with lighter eyes.
- Empirical data show that people with lighter eye colors tend to do better at sports that involve breaks, like bowling. People with darker eyes tend to do better with sports that involve reaction times, like boxing.
- Another study found that people with lighter eye colors tend to be more competitive.
- The same study showed that people with darker eyes tend to be more sympathetic than people with lighter eyes.
Genes Aren’t Everything
Sometimes your genes can go awry and leave you with an atypical outcome. Instead of ending up with blue eyes or green eyes, you can end up with two differently colored eyes or even one eye that features multiple colors. Kiefer Sutherland is known for having eyes that are two different shades of blue while Mila Kunis is known for having one green and one hazel eye.
Elizabeth Berkley, who skyrocketed to fame in Saved by the Bell, has one eye that features half brown and half green pigments in her iris. On the other hand, David Bowie had the appearance of one of these conditions, but it was actually a permanently dilated pupil from a teenage fight over a girl.
Not All Babies Are Born With Blue Eyes
You may have heard it said on occasions that all babies are born with blue eyes. While that is generally true for Caucasian-American babies, babies from darker skinned ethnicities are more likely to be born with darker eyes.
A baby’s eye color can change until around his first birthday, thanks to melanocyte level activity. After that, only about one in six Caucasian American babies will retain their blue eye color. This is one of the amazing eye color facts not all people are aware of.
Learn The Science Behind Eye Color
Eye color is a lot more complicated than what you were led to believe in freshman biology. Considering the many factors that come into play in determining eye colors, it’s a wonder how people can even become people with all those genetic variations.
Learn more eye color facts from this infographic! You might be surprised to learn that there’s so much more than meets the eye!
The post There’s More To Eye Color Than Meets The Eye appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
May 16th
Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
You’re reading Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
What are our major gripes? For most people, our greatest fears never see daylight. The cataclysms, the darkest outcomes that we imagine, those things that keep us up at night usually never end up actually happening. What does happen, daily, are the trifling, petty, minor pains that ruffle our feathers and bring about moments of anxiety, fear, and shame. These are the papercut moments in life that are small pains but pack a big punch: The person cutting you off while driving, not getting acknowledged for the work you put into a project, or paying a bill when your low on cash. Although these moments are not the worst things that could happen, they are the more frequent pains we are met with daily and if not addressed, can lead to greater disharmony.
Nobody likes stress, nobody likes sadness, nobody likes to feel uncomfortable. However, on the flip side of this, is a world of possibility. How do you get comfortable with being uncomfortable? The first thing is to know that something is moving. When we are feeling any level of discomfort it is a sign that you have the potential to grow and that an event is pushing you out of your comfort zone. It is imperative that you see these gripes and sources of discomfort as opportunities rather than intended inflictions of hurt.
Once you realize this, stay aware. Think about how the situation can create growth in you. Maybe the circumstance is allowing you to practice forgiveness, maybe it’s understanding. Either way, if you stay heart-centered you will see the moment for what it really is. The key is that you don’t run from it or fight it but that you learn from it.
When we are feeling uncomfortable, we may try to dodge the feelings by masking it but rather than cover it, expose it by allowing yourself deeper understanding. Get to the bottom of why you feel the way you do. Usually what is causing you to feel uncomfortable has its roots in the past which is being called forth into the present to be healed and released.
Recently I’ve had my share of being uncomfortable because of a decision I needed to make. I had to decide whether to return for a second interview at a job that was lucrative, but wasn’t aligned with what I saw myself doing in the long run. The whole damn day I struggled with this decision, praying that I’d be given a sign, something to show me what decision I should make. I looked. I listened. I read inspiring words, I made a pros and cons list. I read my horoscope. Nothing came. To know me is to know that I work off of signs and going with my gut so when none came, I felt lost.
Eventually I decided to do what I felt was in alignment with my purpose. I wrote an email turning down the second interview. After doing this, I have to admit, I felt good about my decision but part of me still wondered if I made the right choice. Could I have worked at that job and still continued with the work I’m passionate about? Am I going to be financially stable? All of these are questions that ran through my mind.
As I got up from sending the email declining the offer, I looked to the side of me. I noticed two words written on a filing cabinet that was left behind by a former co-worker: commitment and legacy. How’s that for a sign!
There were many lessons that I felt my feelings of discomfort were trying to teach me. The lesson that I realized through this experience was to learn how to trust myself. I had to remind myself that the answers in life are always found internally first then validated externally. So, that sign I was looking for only appeared when I was able to be honest with myself concerning the direction I saw my life going.
In addition to this, the experience was providing me with deeper understanding of my purpose. Seeing the word commitment and legacy reminded me of the importance of prioritizing my purpose in order to feel a greater sense of joy and fulfillment.
Feelings of discomfort are not going to disappear. However, you can learn how to address them in the moment so that it does not wreak havoc on your life. It is just as important to know how to deal with the minor slights of life as it is the more traumatic moments. As you begin to practice looking for the deeper meaning behind life’s challenges, you will shift into a much more powerful way of living.
Kamaria G. Powell was born and raised in Boston, and received her bachelor’s degree in psychology at The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and went on to receive her master’s degree in education at The University of Massachusetts Boston. Following her postgraduate studies, she began teaching for Boston Public Schools.
You’ve read Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
You’re reading Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’re enjoying this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
What are our major gripes? For most people, our greatest fears never see daylight. The cataclysms, the darkest outcomes that we imagine, those things that keep us up at night usually never end up actually happening. What does happen, daily, are the trifling, petty, minor pains that ruffle our feathers and bring about moments of anxiety, fear, and shame. These are the papercut moments in life that are small pains but pack a big punch: The person cutting you off while driving, not getting acknowledged for the work you put into a project, or paying a bill when your low on cash. Although these moments are not the worst things that could happen, they are the more frequent pains we are met with daily and if not addressed, can lead to greater disharmony.
Nobody likes stress, nobody likes sadness, nobody likes to feel uncomfortable. However, on the flip side of this, is a world of possibility. How do you get comfortable with being uncomfortable? The first thing is to know that something is moving. When we are feeling any level of discomfort it is a sign that you have the potential to grow and that an event is pushing you out of your comfort zone. It is imperative that you see these gripes and sources of discomfort as opportunities rather than intended inflictions of hurt.
Once you realize this, stay aware. Think about how the situation can create growth in you. Maybe the circumstance is allowing you to practice forgiveness, maybe it’s understanding. Either way, if you stay heart-centered you will see the moment for what it really is. The key is that you don’t run from it or fight it but that you learn from it.
When we are feeling uncomfortable, we may try to dodge the feelings by masking it but rather than cover it, expose it by allowing yourself deeper understanding. Get to the bottom of why you feel the way you do. Usually what is causing you to feel uncomfortable has its roots in the past which is being called forth into the present to be healed and released.
Recently I’ve had my share of being uncomfortable because of a decision I needed to make. I had to decide whether to return for a second interview at a job that was lucrative, but wasn’t aligned with what I saw myself doing in the long run. The whole damn day I struggled with this decision, praying that I’d be given a sign, something to show me what decision I should make. I looked. I listened. I read inspiring words, I made a pros and cons list. I read my horoscope. Nothing came. To know me is to know that I work off of signs and going with my gut so when none came, I felt lost.
Eventually I decided to do what I felt was in alignment with my purpose. I wrote an email turning down the second interview. After doing this, I have to admit, I felt good about my decision but part of me still wondered if I made the right choice. Could I have worked at that job and still continued with the work I’m passionate about? Am I going to be financially stable? All of these are questions that ran through my mind.
As I got up from sending the email declining the offer, I looked to the side of me. I noticed two words written on a filing cabinet that was left behind by a former co-worker: commitment and legacy. How’s that for a sign!
There were many lessons that I felt my feelings of discomfort were trying to teach me. The lesson that I realized through this experience was to learn how to trust myself. I had to remind myself that the answers in life are always found internally first then validated externally. So, that sign I was looking for only appeared when I was able to be honest with myself concerning the direction I saw my life going.
In addition to this, the experience was providing me with deeper understanding of my purpose. Seeing the word commitment and legacy reminded me of the importance of prioritizing my purpose in order to feel a greater sense of joy and fulfillment.
Feelings of discomfort are not going to disappear. However, you can learn how to address them in the moment so that it does not wreak havoc on your life. It is just as important to know how to deal with the minor slights of life as it is the more traumatic moments. As you begin to practice looking for the deeper meaning behind life’s challenges, you will shift into a much more powerful way of living.
Kamaria G. Powell was born and raised in Boston, and received her bachelor’s degree in psychology at The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and went on to receive her master’s degree in education at The University of Massachusetts Boston. Following her postgraduate studies, she began teaching for Boston Public Schools.
You’ve read Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable, originally posted on Pick the Brain | Motivation and Self Improvement. If you’ve enjoyed this, please visit our site for more inspirational articles.
Here’s how long you should really keep foods in the fridge
30 Best Inspirational and Motivational Quotes of the Day
One thing that successful people share is that they are driven to set goals and meet them every time. There are various techniques that you can employ to feel inspired every day and one of them is getting positive reinforcement from the best motivational quotes.
You can surf the internet for websites that specialize in quotes or you can download a daily quotes app to deliver the best motivational quotes to you on a daily basis. We are rarely ever apart from our mobile phones so it makes sense to use it as a tool to get our daily dose of inspiration.
We’ll share this little tidbit with you. Apparently, there are three things that make inspiring quotes highly effective.
First of all is the measure of self-selection. You see, in general, not all people are drawn to those quotes and anecdotes. However, when one feels an extreme connection, it triggers a self-dialogue that pushes us to try harder.
Haven’t you ever read a quote and thought, “This is it. This is my quote! The universe is sending me a message.”
Another factor is good wordsmithing. It’s relatively easy to say a motivational piece. But, once you add good rhyming and arrangement of words, the message becomes a lot stronger and more appealing for us.
Work for a cause,
Not for applause.
Live life to express,
Not to impress.
Finally, in addition to those two things, motivational psychology plays a big role, too. Humans are highly aspirational. We tend to look to others for inspiration. We look up to successful and credible people and we follow what those people say. Think Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, or Nelson Mandela.
How To Choose A Good Motivational App For Your Phone
There are tons of motivational apps you can download on your phone but not all of them can keep you engaged. The best daily quotes app should be able to stimulate your senses so you can stay motivated to improve your life.
It should also have the following features:
- Gives you the option to set your goals and track them
- Has a friendly user interface
- Contains a wide range of quotes from famous and successful personalities
- Has no typographical errors
- Has beautiful imagery
- Features sharing options
- Sends notifications
- Has the option to customize and save your favorite quotes
- Provides the opportunity to come up with a list of goals
One great example of a daily quotes app that has these add-on features is Motive. You don’t just get your daily dose of inspiration, you can also use it as a tool to easily track goals and to-do’s. It is Inspiration and Productivity all in one handy little app.
Here are some example quotes that you can get from motivational apps. Is there any one quote that resonates with you in particular?
30 Inspirational Quotes That Can Change Your Life
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” – Bruce Lee
“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” – Dolly Parton
“If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day — go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.”
– Chinese Proverb
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” – Helen Keller
“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.” – Albert Ellis
“ Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
“The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.” – Andre Maurois
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Herman Cain
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” – Ken Robinson
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho
“Remember that failure is an event, not a person.” – Zig Ziglar
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” – J.K. Rowling
“Failure happens all the time. It happens every day in practice. What makes you better is how you react to it.” – Mia Hamm
“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” – Paul J. Meyer
“Being lazy does not mean that you do not create. In fact, lying around doing nothing is an important, nay crucial, part of the creative process. It is meaningless bustle that actually gets in the way of productivity. All we are really saying is, give peace a chance.” – Tom Hodgkinson
“Happiness is not having what you want. It is appreciating what you have.” – Unknown
“Whatever you decide to do make sure it makes you happy.” – Paulo Coelho
“Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success.” – Denis Waitley
“If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
“Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.” – William Feather
“Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise.” – Anonymous
“Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark; professionals built the Titanic.” – Anonymous
“Most people chase success at work, thinking that will make them happy. The truth is that happiness at work will make you successful.” – Alexander Kjerulf
“Happiness is the art of never holding in your mind the memory of any unpleasant thing that has passed.” – Unknown
“Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you have decided to look beyond the imperfections.” – Unknown
“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Losers quit when they fail. Winners fail until they succeed.” – Robert Kiyosaki
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.” – Mark Zuckerberg
If you’re feeling stuck in your career growth or feeling depressed with how things are going in your life, that one special quote heard at the perfect time can be just the very thing to shake you out of your funk. So pay attention! Be inspired and do the work.
The post 30 Best Inspirational and Motivational Quotes of the Day appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
The 9 biggest misconceptions everyone has about cologne and…
Syria: Stories from the Barrel of a Cannon
The short fiction of the Syrian writer Osama Alomar uses animals that are also recognizable types (his ants tend to be hard workers too), but the effect isn’t usually charming or edifying. Instead of a comedy of manners, his non-human characters are, like their human models, stuck in a nightmare of dictatorship and social paranoia.
Havana
Havana, City of Smoke. From peerless Montecristo #2s, if you are a wishful cigar aficionado; from pirate raids repeatedly reducing the city to ashes after plundering its entrepôts of Spanish gold, or — more grimly — from firing squads putting down slave rebellions, if your heart beats to a different drummer. There is the skin-smoking white heat of the sun, coaxing the eternal question Mark Kurlansky gives voice to in his new book, Havana: a Subtropical Delirium: “How can it be so fucking hot?” Havana smokes like the best film noir. Smokes in attitude, literature, cinema, its fiery political arguments. It’s smoky from the fumes of living under occupiers, oligarchs, plutocrats, dictators, and ideologues. No doubt the Tainos, the indigenes at the time of European encounter, have plenty to smoke about, if there are any left alive.
Havana, too, is the City of Columns, the Rome of the Caribbean. It’s all in your angle of approach. Drive into town from the airport, and your escorts will be the state psychiatric hospital “and drab, gray buildings, or rust-streaked, turquoise, and rotting pink ones — resembling birthday cakes left out too long.” Come at the city by boat, off the deep blue of the Gulf Stream and into the robin’s-egg and violet waters of the port, and a spell — part intrigue, part eyeful — is spontaneously cast. These approaches will condition what you experience next. Will the city be narrowly and confusedly congregated or an adventure in exploration? Is the paint dingy or tropical? (Federico García Lorca had no issue: “Havana has the yellow of Cádiz, the pink of Seville turning carmine and the green of Granada, with the slight phosphorescence of fish.”) Is the place a dump or delicately deliquescing? Kurlansky has taken both roads over the last thirty-five years of visits, and his verdict: “Havana, for all its smells, sweat, crumbling walls, isolation, and difficult history, is the most romantic city in the world.” Keep your City of Light, your City of Love, and your Serenissima, too.
As in Kurlansky’s other discerning and obsessive investigations — such as Salt, Cod, Paper, and The Big Oyster — Havana‘s generous historical narrative is sparked by, or sparks, some Technicolor tidbit he has dug up. In Cod there were the Irish monks in their coracles — big teacups, but not all that big — floating their way to the Faroes and Iceland, the tonsured ones sustained by dropping a hand into the great sea and simply pulling out readymade sashimi. In Havana, that curio might be the nexus of narrow sidewalks and big windows (and street life in general), or the semiotics of shaven ice, the pop-up restaurants now appearing in Habanero homes, or Fidel’s twenty-six flavors of ice cream (Howard Johnson had twenty-eight, but Fidel ate all his at one sitting, according to rumor, a fable that might be read as either heroic or deflating), or the live-and-let-live of perspiration: “Havana is not a city for people who are squeamish about sweat. Sweat is one of the many defining smells in redolent Havana and it is a leitmotif in almost all Havana literature.”
Cuban literature — it takes willpower not to lay aside Havana to read one of the many books Kurlansky suggests, with their gritty magic realism/existentialism: Alejo Carpentier’s The Chase, say, or Cirilo Villaverde’s Cecilia Valdés, a “condemnation of slavery and slavery’s impact on society.” Contemporary Cuban writers are well in the political mix, where criticism abounds. So, too, with the cinema taking on the island’s bugaboo: homosexuality. “Until recently, there was almost nothing less acceptable in Cuban society than homosexuality.” A little late for those who spent years in that hospital on the airport road, and a sad holdover of Che Guevara’s New Man, but New Man was a bit of an automaton anyway, a perfect example of “subtropical delirium.” It is true that “the state accepts criticism”; it even admits its blame for many things, including “the state of Havana. The capital was never its priority.” (Nor did the U.S. government’s waywardly malicious embargo help by hurting all the wrong people, a classic variation on our Drug War.) Then again, “the strength of the Cuban police state is that it is difficult to know what will lead to trouble.”
Throughout Havana, the city’s history is called to speak. Here again, Kurlansky displays his talents as a chronicler well up to the challenge of a true, panoramic story, spinning with humanity and its evil twin, with predicaments, circumstances, forces and counterforces, incidents, availabilities, accidents, signs and wonders, down-and-outs. He starts with the Tainos’ eradication and the early years of Spanish Havana, a backwater founded by Diego Velázquez’s lieutenant, Pánfilo de Narváez, a man both “exceptionally brutal, even for that crowd, but also unusually stupid.” Still, smart enough to stay away from the mosquito-infested, disease-plagued swamps of Santiago and the earlier South Coast towns. To boot, newly founded Havana had the amusement of “so many tortoises and crabs crawling through the young town that after dark a tremendous racket of clawing and shuffling was heard.” One account told of a nighttime raiding party that, thinking the noise was a considerable army, retreated to their ship.
Cuba was a slave market as well as a slave country, though it also had free blacks as well, which in turn resulted in both considerable mixing of races and considerable racism. And slavery would stay with Cuba long after the other islands had foresworn it, a result of the political power of the sugar latifundia. Sugar, leather, tobacco, and shipyards, all slave-driven. Slavery shaped and defined the identity of Havana, socially and culturally. This is not to belittle the profound influence of Havana being a port, with all the amenities necessary to sailors: booze, gambling, and prostitution.
The United States would make its burgeoning imperial presence felt at the turn of the twentieth century, occupying the country until its needs became too onerous to continue financing — a fixer-upper that required seemingly endless renewed investment — when control-at-a-distance became the preferred arrangement. The Platt Amendment, which turned Cuba into a vassal state, was finally defeated by the Cuban legislature, but a series of false starts and fiascos landed Cuba with a military dictatorship under Fulgencio Batista — murder was his go-to solution to nearly every problem — who found a cozy bed with American organized crime. Cuba’s party scene became an infamous stage for tourism at its most exploitative and indulgent, a wretched and poisonous case of bloat.
The 26th of July Movement was as inevitable as an American holiday maker’s sunburn. With the revolution that swept Fidel & Co. into Cuba on January 1, 1959, Kurlansky goes full reporter, trying to winnow fact from fiction and myth. Yes, there was rampant cronyism, and there were incredible strides in education and healthcare; yes, living under the thumb of conspicuous consumptionists became a thing of the past, and yes, there were Che’s tribunals, which “executed so many people by firing squad that Castro removed him from the post and made him the country’s bank president.” That was hitting below the belt. Che would move on to the Congo, then Bolivia.
Kurlansky’s Cuba is a well-stirred cauldron of turmoil, which he spices up with recipes for Cuban delectables: guajiras in song and ajiaco in the kitchen, and, from behind the bar the daiquiri — perfected in Havana, “in part by adding maraschino liqueur” (that being subject to debate), the mojito, and the Cuba Libre. That last required Coca-Cola, and thus local replication of the soda. ‘Twas done, as Cubans made do, ingenuity their stock-in-trade. Certainly, Havana is “a city of unfinished works, of the feeble, the asymmetrical, and the abandoned,” as wrote its native son Alejo Carpentier. Kurlansky: “Havana, to be truthful, is a mess,” as so often is the one we love. But consider: who wouldn’t love a mechanic who kept your 1949 Ford coupe on the street by replacing the burned-out motor with a boat engine? He’s in Havana.
The Barnes & Noble Review http://ift.tt/2qnmzS7
Sig Nordal 