Effortless Decision-Making

How do you make a choice when you’re stuck at a fork in the road?

How can you decide when two or more possibilities seem equally good?

I’ve been learning (but haven’t mastered) the principles of Effortless Decision-Making. It’s a way of making decisions where you can flow through the constant stream of decisions we must make every day of our lives, without getting stuck, without being paralyzed by fear. We choose, and flow, and we let go of worry. [read]

Atlantis makes historic final landing as Nasa’s 30-year shuttle program comes to a glorious end

Atlantis made the perfect landing as dawn broke this morning, gliding down on to the tarmac at Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, to bring to an end 30 years of shuttle missions.

It the 135th mission for the fleet, which has covered an astonishing 542million miles and circled Earth 21,150 times.

And considering this accomplishment, none of the record 2,000 gathered by the landing strip to witness the historic spectacle was complaining that Atlantis was precisely one minute late. [read]

Photography Class: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO

With most cameras three fundamental components of exposure are Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.  These can be set and controlled by fully automatic, partially automatic, and fully manual operation depending on the capabilities of a camera.  For proper, standard exposures, these three components need to be balanced with one another according to the lighting conditions available for exposure.  The state of one affects or relies on the state of the others.  For example, when the ISO remains constant, the opening of the Aperture must increase as the amount of time the shutter is open decreases.  Similarly, when Aperture remains constant, the shutter must stay open longer if the ISO number is lowered. [read]

+++++++++++++++++++ 3 Penguins Photography on Flickr

Lion Reviews Are Out: ‘Great Value’, ‘Shakes Things Up’, ‘Very Few Bugs’

Now that Lion has been released, NDA’s are lifted and reviews are starting to come in. Here are some choice excerpts:

David Pogue – New York Times:

In Mac OS X 10.7, known as Lion, Apple went with the “shake things up” philosophy. It follows an old Apple pattern: embrace what’s cool and progressive, and ruthlessly jettison what it considers antiquated. That’s great if you love stuff that’s cool and progressive, and not so great if you hate people moving your cheese…

[read]

Bill Gates Is Giving $41.5 Million to Building a Better Toilet

Bill Gates thinks the modern-day flush toilet isn’t good enough. Most of the developing world can’t afford to use it, and poor sanitation spreads diarrheal diseases.

So the Gates Foundation is challenging universities to build a better toilet—latrines that are hygienic, generate energy and don’t require running water or a septic system. The foundation is giving $41.5 million toward that end, and proposals include toilets powered by heat, microwaves or solar panels. [read]

Notes of Interest on OS X Lion, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and Display Announcements

APPLE WANTS CONTROL – omits optical drive on yet another device.

With a flurry of new hardware releases appearing alongside OS X Lion today, here are a few notes of interest that we wanted to make sure our readers noticed:

OS X Lion

- While Apple initially touted OS X Lion as being a Mac App Store exclusive, the company announced today that the new operating system will also be made available on a USB thumb drive beginning next month. The thumb drive option will be priced at $69, compared to $29.99 for Mac App Store distribution.

- Beginning with the MacBook Air and Mac mini released today, new Apple hardware will support Internet Recovery, allowing users to install OS X Lion onto blank hard drives in the event of hard drive replacement due to failure or upgrades. [read]

30 Excellent iPad App Interfaces

iPad, often called a revolutionary device, came to the design industry with new possibilities for designers to show off what they can create for this modern gadget. There are no doubts that apps for Apple iPad look beautiful and stunning. Multi-touch and other modern technologies allow users to actually feel the designs. In this post, you will find 30 excellent designed iPad app interface examples. Hope you’ll be inspired by these beautiful apps. [read]

Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine

At it’s most basic, Network attached storage, or NAS, is a great way to share files on your local network. But it’s also a perfect solution for backing up your computers, streaming media across your home network, or even torrenting files to a central server. If you have an aging computer lying around, you can turn it into a NAS for for free with the open-source FreeNAS operating system. Here’s how. [read]

Natural Light Photography Tips

Natural lighting in photos can give off a pure vibe that artificial lighting often has trouble providing for you. There are several techniques you can use when using natural light photography. The lighting of the sun can create many stunning spectrums of colors throughout the day that could result in beautiful photos. However, with this in mind you shouldn’t just run outside and start snapping as many photos as you can without putting some thought behind them first. There are some aspects of taking photos using natural light that you should probably be aware of. [read]

3 Penguins Photography

Billionaire Bakhmatyuk finds eggs are golden

Looking for that ‘one’ business that will make you millions or even billions?  Who would have thought of EGGS?

When Ukrainian egg maker Avangardco announced last April that it was doing an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange, few investment bankers knew much about the company’s owner and chief executive officer, Oleg Bakhmatyuk.

A month later, the once camera-shy Bakhmatyuk was propelled to the growing list of Ukrainian billionaires. Investors valued Avangardco, one of the many assets held by Bakhmatyuk, at some $1 billion by purchasing roughly 20 percent of company shares for about $210 million. [read]