It’s hard to sort out individual differences because at the onset, differences naturally result in conflicts. But today’s setup requires you to be more flexible and accepting of other people regardless of background, culture, and history.

With regard to friendship, it is not just about what’s common between two people. More importantly, friendship is about accepting the person regardless of your differences. On top of these, you can say that friendship is about respecting each other’s beliefs, principles, and religions.

There is a need to adjust the superiority mindset and learn that respect is the most important value of all. Let go of the superiority complex because everyone has the right to choose their own set of ideas to believe in. If you feel like you have to be respected your convictions, you also have to respect other people’s differences from you.

You can’t force people to choose what you believe in, the same way that they can’t force you to believe what they believe in. There is a better way to put it. You shouldn’t force people to believe what you believe in, because they also don’t have the right to force you to adopt their beliefs. So stop insisting your own views.

It is important that every person upholds the value of respect towards each other. You can help propagate this by passing it on to your children. The best way to instill this to your child is for them to learn by example. Be the kind of person you want them to grow up to be. Don’t discriminate their playmates on grounds of race or religion.

Respecting other people’s differences will lessen the world’s conflicts. And that is something we must all strive for.

When you’re looking for a new place to live and you have a budget to work with, you might have a trouble finding a suitable place which satisfies all your requirements and is affordable at the same time. Before you move out of your dorm, decide on what kind of house setup you’ll have. If you want to save on rent, you might want to consider having housemates to split the rent with. But watch out! If you think a frat house was fun in college, dealing with other people in the real world might not be that fun.

Living with other people is tough when you’re not used to living alone. When you go solo, you alone decide on whether or not it’s time to clean the toilet, or throw the garbage out. This will all change when you start living with someone. If you want to maintain the friendly environment, make sure that it’s a pleasure to live with you.

Do your own chores on time. You may think that it’s your business if you want your laundry to be washed next week. But your soiled clothes reek of sweat which is just not cool for everyone else. Ditto for your mattresses. Your roommate might have a problem when you’re not fixing your bed after you wake up. Same goes for dishes, the floor, kitchen, and of course the toilet.

Choose the people you’ll live with. It might sound like a good idea to ask some officemates to share a house with you. You can share the bus, your schedules match and you have someone who’ll walk with you home when you work late. Nevertheless, the drawback is that if your housemate/officemate proves to be a jerk later on, you don’t know what nasty things he can say about you in your workplace.

If you don’t know of anyone who can readily move in with you, you can try placing an ad in the local papers, or you can ask friends if they know of anyone looking for a place. You can also look for ads on the newspaper for homeowners or old people who are seeking companion. They may ask you to do some chores or errands for them, but in exchange you get to pay minimum rent.

The air you breathe gives you more than just air. The air in the atmosphere has been outnumbered by chemicals, and other particulates that are not good for your health. Air pollution have caused death in many cases, and when it didn’t, it brought respiratory diseases. With the emissions of all the cars in the world plus smokes from the factories, how much more life can the air give?

Recently there has been a motion to amp up efforts to clean the air we all breathe. Apparently the smog is becoming a little too alarming to ignore. The Clean Air Act will be pushed further and more aggressive to campaign and take actions so that people’s health will be more protected. There will be new pollution controls that aims to reduce air pollution.

Air pollution branches out its harmful effects. It also contaminates our water through atmospheric deposition. The government is doing regular inspections on several factories whose industry are likely to contribute greatly to air pollution.

There are things you can do to help clean our air!

Your car is a culprit. Don’t take your car anywhere you want to go. Support public transportation and ride a bus or your bike at times when driving your own car isn’t really necessary. Walk! It helps you get a bit of exercise.

Talk to people in your community who may want to help out. There are more people in your neighborhood who, like you, are willing to do their own part to save the air but they just don’t know how to do it on their own.

So you want to be rich without working hard? There’s only one way to do it and the word is “fund raising”. Nah, I’m kidding. Fund raising is not for people who want to make money out of it, and it’s not exactly easy, either. Fund raising is a very rewarding initiative if you have a noble cause. If you are supporting one, and you want to help out in the finances like if you want to start a book club for out-of-school youngsters, or if you want to donate money for research on the cure for AIDS, you’ll need all the support you can get.

Some fund raising drives come in envelopes. Did you ever receive an envelope for solicitation? How much did you give? Solicitation envelopes might get raised eyebrows from people because the truth is it’s hard to shell out money that easy. So you have to think of other ways.

The best thing you can do to solicit is to offer services. You can offer to wash cars, give pedicures, do some dogw alking, and even babysit. Know how much you need so you’ll also know how hard you have to work for it. If people have a vague idea about your fund raising details, they’ll have more hesitations to help. To double your funds, you can ask your friends to help out on their free time. Asking money from people won’t be as hard if you’re not alone.

Holding events is a tough but effective way to raise funds. It’s tough because it requires you to have some existing funds to cover some basic expenses. However, events are an attractive way to mention in solicitation letters that you can hand out. Businesses are also looking out for ways to get some publicity an donate some to charity (and lessen their tax burden too).

Donations are always welcome. You can always ask for donations, not necessarily monetary, but in kind. Ask for some old stuff from people’s attics and hold a garage sale of your own.

But before you decide on what kind of activity you’ll be using to raise funds, think of your cause. How much funds do you need to raise? And will your methods be in line with your cause? Having these two in-synch would help you choose the best activity to provide the best returns without making you look like a hypocrite.

Make sure to thank your contributors who support your cause. People who can’t give you money can support you by promoting your fund raising cause to their friends.

The Big Brother phenomenon plus the idea of having a Department of Homeland Security has definitely made everyone paranoid. Do you think Big Brother is reading your e-mail? Sharing your porn? Browsing pictures of your puppy, Cuddles? Well, this guy probably believes so when he found a keylogger strapped on to his brand-spanking new Dell laptop. Check out his story:

“I was opening up my almost brand new Dell 600m laptop, to replace a broken PCMCIA slot riser on the motherboard. As soon as I got the keyboard off, I noticed a small cable running from the keyboard connection underneath a piece of metal protecting the motherboard. I figured “No Big Deal”, and continued with the dissasembly. Being an EE by trade, this piqued my curiosity considerably. On one side of the board, one Atmel AT45D041A four megabit Flash memory chip.”

He even has a letter from the Department of Homeland Security to boot:

Now I haven’t found this bit in mainstream news so I have some reservations about the truth about all of this. Though I stumbled upon this thread on a keylogging software, again with a Dell PC.

Via: Hack n Mod

Design experts have shared their take on how each of these Democratic Party candidates package themselves through their websites. And according to them, Obama’s streamlined site really takes off from Apple’s interface.

That is, Mr. Obama’s site is more harmonious, with plenty of white space and a soft blue palette. Its task bar is reminiscent of the one used at Apple’s iTunes site. It signals in myriad ways that it was designed with a younger, more tech-savvy audience in mind — using branding techniques similar to the ones that have made the iPod so popular.

As for Mrs. Clinton’s site:

Mrs. Clinton’s site uses a more traditional color scheme of dark blue, has sharper lines dividing content and employs cookie-cutter icons next to its buttons for volunteering, and the like.

What’s interesting in this analogy is the point where the comparisons stretch out to the consumer bases for these products. While MacObama appeals to the younger and hipper crowd and has started swaying some of the more open-minded people, PC(linton) is still the platform of choice for many.

Do you agree? Well how about this spot that parodies Apple’s 1984 commercial: