We are the heroes, they are the cowards

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  During his press conference following the Boston Marathon bombings, President Obama denounced the perpetrators as “evil” and “cowardly,” contrasting their behavior with the heroic first responders who rushed to aid the injured: “What the world saw yesterday in the immediate aftermath of the explosions were stories of heroism and kindness and generosity and love.” He… Continue reading We are the heroes, they are the cowards

Google’s Inactive Account Manager

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  You’ve written your will. You’ve talked to your family about end-of-life care. But have you toldGoogle what you want to happen to your Gmail or YouTube accounts? That’s the stated purpose behind a tool the search giant announced Thursday: Inactive Account Manager. (In a blog post, the company admitted it was “not a great name.”) It covers all Google accounts,… Continue reading Google’s Inactive Account Manager

Don’t Let Popularity Set Your Standard

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We are in the midst of a “narcissism epidemic,” concluded psychologists Jean M. Twnege and W. Keith Campbell in their 2009 book. One study they describe showed that among a group of 37,000 college students, narcissistic personality traits rose just as quickly as obesity from the 1980s to the present. Fortunately for narcissists, the continued explosion… Continue reading Don’t Let Popularity Set Your Standard

A Case for Pessimism

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Optimism can be healthy. But assuming the worst is over also means you won’t be prepared.   In 2006, a tornado struck the town of Parkersburg, Iowa. The devastation wreaked by the category F2 twister was sizable: The 150 mph winds left a path of destruction four and a half miles long and a third of a mile across.… Continue reading A Case for Pessimism

United Airlines holds plane so passenger can say goodbye to his dying mother

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  Kerry Drake’s mother was dying. She’d suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for decades and the drugs used to treat her condition had decimated her immune system. One morning his brother called him to say her time had come. Drake caught the next flight from San Francisco, where he works for the federal government, to Lubbock,… Continue reading United Airlines holds plane so passenger can say goodbye to his dying mother