Email Stereotypes: What Your Address Says About You. It can't be denied that people will judge you based on the email service you choose--whether it be Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail or AOL. Hunch, a web app that provides specialized recommendations, surveyed a group of their users to see which characteristics defined users of different webmail providers. As you might expect, most Hunch users are on Gmail. And when it comes to tech savvy, Gmail users are ahead of the curve: 66 percent of them "love" gadgets and gizmos, compared to 42 percent of AOL users and 47 percent of Hotmail and Yahoo users. And 31 percent of Gmail-ers are early adopters of new technologies at about twice the rates of the others--47 percent of these Hunch Gmail users are also on Twitter.
Quick takeaways: Gmail users are the only ones who tend to be men (and perhaps related, to prefer salty snacks to sweet) and to prefer being "entrepreneurial" rather than working on a team. Here's a handy guide from Hunch, based on their results for users of different email servers. Yahoo! In Buddhism You Are What (And How) You Eat. By Nancy Haught Religion News Service CLATSKANIE, Ore. (RNS) It's Friday night at Great Vow Zen Monastery. Supper's over and Noble Silence, the quiet that stretches from bedtime through breakfast, is still two hours away. Two dozen people sit in a circle, explaining why they've come to a refurbished grade school sprawled on a hilltop for a retreat about eating mindfully.
"I've struggled with food all my life. " "I eat when I'm stressed. " "I want to make peace with food. " "I want to give food the respect it deserves. " "I eat to fill a hole in my heart. " When the Zen master finally speaks, her voice is softened with compassion. "Something is out of balance," she says, "even here in a country where there is so much. Dr. Everybody eats, and many of us are frustrated because we do it mindlessly, without thinking about what our bodies need, what our emotions want or even what passes for food. Bays comes to a table already laden with self-help books and nutrition makeovers. The Real Political Math In Wisconsin. WASHINGTON -- The real political math in Wisconsin isn't about the state budget or the collective-bargaining rights of public employees there. It is about which party controls governorships and, with them, the balance of power on the ground in the 2012 elections.
For all of the valid concern about reining in state spending -- a concern shared by politicians and voters of all labels -- the underlying strategic Wisconsin story is this: Gov. Scott Walker, a Tea Party-tinged Republican, is the advance guard of a new GOP push to dismantle public-sector unions as an electoral force. Last fall, GOP operatives hoped and expected to take away as many as 20 governorships from the Democrats. They ended up nabbing 12. What happened? "We are never going to win most of these states until we can do something about those unions," one key operative said at a Washington dinner in November. And there is a lot of money and manpower involved. But the GOP had been hoping for much more in other such states. Anonymous Hacks Church Web Site During Live Interview. Hacker-activist group Anonymous have openly struck against the Westboro Baptist Church after a week of rumors claiming that the hacktivists had brought down several of the Church's websites.
One Anonymous member, who agreed to a live radio interview on Thursday with a WBC spokeswoman, spontaneously hacked one of the Church's websites while on-air. The Topeka-based WBC gained recent publicity for picketing the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards in December and calling for picketing at funerals for victims of the Arizona shooting in January.
According to ComputerWorld, someone claiming to be an Anonymous member threatened to take action against the WBC earlier this week, but Anonymous had dismissed the threats as a hoax. Later in the week, several of the Church's websites went down due to DDoS attacks, the kind Anonymous launched against PayPal and MasterCard for cracking down on Wikileaks last December. However, Anonymous denied involvement in these attacks against WBC. Gates Warns Against More Wars Like Iraq and Afghanistan. Transphorm, Google-Backed Startup, Claims Major Breakthrough In Energy Technology. Donald F. Kettl: How to Shut Down the Government: A Primer. So, you'd like to shut down the federal government? Here's an easy how-to primer, in four easy steps.
First, just sit there; no action required. The federal government is exactly the opposite of the private sector. In the private sector, you can do anything you want, as long as it's not forbidden by law. In government, you can do only what the law specifically requires. No money, no work. This is the easy part. Well, almost. Congress stays in business. That leads to the second step. Also, don't look to the Centers for Disease Control to keep an eye on flu outbreaks.
Third, keep an eye open for the "excepted activities. " Fourth, get ready to clean up the mess afterwards. Thousands of small businesses will be hurt because they won't receive the federal payments they're counting on. Fans of the holiday classic, It's a Wonderful Life, will recognize the theme. We're at an historic turning point where we're rethinking government -- what it is, how much of it we want, and how to pay for it.
Democrats Warm To GOP's Short-Term Budget Cuts. WASHINGTON -- House Republicans unveiled a stopgap spending bill on Friday afternoon that would avert a government shutdown for two weeks while making dramatic cuts to social programs, totaling $4 billion. Senate Democrats flatly rejected such an offer on Wednesday, but today took a more conciliatory stance, while continuing to press for a monthlong extension. The change in tone gives the impression that lawmakers are more willing to cut a deal than they are to let the government shut down on March 4 -- kicking the same debate down the road to March 18. The bill released Friday is the exact same measure floated on Wednesday, according to a Republican leadership aide. When the GOP plan was leaked in the middle of the week, Senate Democrats hit back hard. "The Republicans' so-called compromise is nothing more than the same extreme package the House already handed the Senate, just with a different bow.
This isn't a compromise, it's a hardening of their original position. Housecr.