Leave an Ethical Will

Your family knows your habits and moods, but do they know your core values? An ethical will would tell them. Ethical wills aren't new -- they're in the Bible -- but they're catching on as those now in their 50s yearn to preserve their parent's wisdom and pass on their own. "We want to leave a legacy beyond our assests," says Dr Barry Baines, author of Ethical Wills: Put in Your Values on Paper. Wills can be any length and shared any time. They're as different as the individuals writing them: Baines tells his kids the importance of religion and respect. Retired lawyer Michael Greenspan, 61, wrote 18 life rules, including "hold on to true friends" and "dance like no ones watching."

Remember, these wills are not legal documents. Ethicalwill.com has tips. » Continue reading

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Spamming won't get the answer

If you really want to know something, don't email your question to hordes of people. Researchers have found that the more people you email, the more likely each recipient is to ignore it.

Greg Barron and Eldad Yechiam emailed 240 colleages at Technion Israel Technology Institute -- individually or in a group -- to find out response rates. Posing as a female student, they asked people if the institute had a biology faculty.

Replies ranged from "very helpful" (with extra information) to plain brusque "Look on the web page!". Others simply tried to chat "her" up.

Only half of group recipents responded, compared with 64 percent of those with just their own name in the "To" box. Single recipients were also twice as likely to be "very helpful".

"Like bystanders at a crime scene, people assume that someone else will help," says Barron. "So if you want a volunteer to bring a cake to Monday's meeting, sending an email to lots of people might not be the way to go." » Continue reading

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Pets are at risk outside too

If you suspect your cat or dog has eaten one of these toxic plants, call your vet right away.

Oleander: Symptoms include upset stomach, hypothermia (cool paws, ears and stomach).

Azalea: Vomiting, diarrhoea, weakness.

Lilies: In cats, vomiting, lethargy, loss of appetitie.

Sago palm: Vomiting, diarrhoea, seizures. » Continue reading

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Exercise your ears

We all know that loud noise can damage your hearing - but it seems not enough noise can also impair it. Consequently, people in cities have better hearing than those in quiet villages.

Researchers at the Universtity of Giessen in Germany spent over a decade testing the hearing of some 10,000 people. As expected, people exposed to very loud noises as part of their jobs, such as construction workers, had poor hearing. But those living in quiet rural areas had hearing not much better. And people, including airline pilots or orchestral musicians, who encoutner constant noise at work, could hear very well. Firefighters, whose lives can depened on sounds, had exceptional hearing.

The team concluded that continual exposure actually "trains" the ear to tolerate it; it is sudden, extreme noise that does the damage. Which would explain why Asian villagers, whose quiet lives are punctuated by occasional firework celebrations, have the worst hearing of all. » Continue reading

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NoFollow No More

UPDATE: Since Google does not allow author link in Blogger comments anymore, HashOut does not support nofollow free author links anymore.

I felt that the people commenting on this blog were not really getting their due. The NoFollow attribute which comes by default with the Blogger templates just stifles the incentive to comment. I've thus decided to remove NoFollow from the comments section. And since my comments are moderated, I have no worries about spam as I can decide what goes live.

Hope that will entice you to comment more and actively participate in the discussions.

For those of you who are interested in removing the NoFollow attribute from the anchor tags in the comments section of your blog but do not know how, here is a simple guide to remove NoFollow from Blogger layouts (only for the new Blogger Layout templates). » Continue reading

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Time Management at Work

Tricks to get more done in less time, from the clients of US career coach Terry Kozlowski:

Don't overdo overtime. One study found that worker productivity sharply declines after 50 hours a week. Make evening plans to avoid lingering. "When I know I have to leave for a 6:30 gym session, I don't say, "I'll just do that later during the day," says a consulting firm executive.

Schedule even the small stuff. Looming little tasks can add up and distract you, says a website producer. "But when a call is set for 3pm, I forget it and focus on the project at hand."

Take a vacation. The former CEO of an engineering firm, required his staff to use all days off. "They'd return with a fresh perspective -- and ideas."

Master the meeting drain. Use time between meetings for jobs you can finish. "I can't force the concentration for big things," says one business manager. But 15 minutes is perfect for answering email. » Continue reading

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Breakfast for Dessert?

Looking for an after-dinner snack? Try cereal -- it may help you lose weight, say American scientists. Of 58 overweight nighttime snackers, half ate a 150-calories bowl of cereal and low-fat milk at least 90 minutes after dinner; the others ate as usual. After four weeks, the cereal eaters had lost one kilo, and ate 140 calories less than usual after dinner. The others ate 85 calories more. The study was funded by the Kellogg Company, but the researchers say the type of cereal doesn't matter. What does: sticking to the serving size. » Continue reading

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