Ask for a tour of Dee Williams's house, and it won't take long. The 84-square-foot space is no bigger than a parking spot.
There's no running water, no
Wi-Fi, the fridge is a cooler, and the toilet is compostable. Williams
knows how extreme this sounds. Before she downsized, she used to worry
about the mortgage on her three-bedroom home, how to outfit her kitchen
with matching appliances, and the endless string of home repairs.
But in 2003, after suffering
congestive heart failure in her early 40s, Williams decided to simplify.
She shed most of her belongings and sold her home in Portland, Oregon.
Now 51, she moved into the
miniature house in Olympia, Washington, 10 years ago. Williams describes
the self-built home on wheels in her memoir -- "The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir," being released today to coincide with Earth
There are a lot of things I like about Android. You can customize the interface as you see fit, access
settings more quickly,
and choose from a much wider array of designs (many with larger
screens).
Our Geek's Geek, Avram Piltch, recently summarized these and
other Android advantages. But after using the iPhone 5 for the last week I'm convinced it's the best smartphone out there — yes, even with the lackluster Maps app. Here's why
The onion plant is a plant that is second only to garlic in my heart,
and my kitchen! I use onions in breakfasts, lunches and dinners. I
always have a large bag of onions on hand. So while I don't need any
help using up my onions, I was still excited to find out how versatile
onions really are
1) Wart Remover- A compound of onion, crushed
aspirin and water is purported to be an incredible wart remover.
Apparently, the onion enzymes work as a wart remover. When combined with
the power of duct tape, warts are said to disappear in hours.
2) Metal Polish- If you are out of commercial polishes, try a few onion
slices in water. Use a cloth to rub the metal with the onion solution.
The onion solution will take a little longer than commercial chemical
polishes, but with a little elbow grease the onions will leave your
metal shining.
3) Insect Repellent- Sliced onions are known to
have a strong odor. Onions in a bowl of water are an effective insect
repellent. Place the bowl where your creepy-crawlies are known to
gather, and in short time they will flee. Probably to some other, less
onion-filled place.
4) Odor Absorber- Onions are known for their
potent odor, but did you know that onions can actually absorb odors?
Chemical solutions, like paint and varnish, have very strong odors which
can be harmful. Onions can absorb those fumes. Onions may not eliminate
the odors entirely, but they can lessen the fumes greatly.
5)
Insect Bites- The enzymes in onions actually have anti-inflammatory
properties. Which makes onions an effective, if odorous, treatment for
insect bites. Just rub some sliced onions on your bite or sting, and
after a couple hours, the pain, itchiness and swelling will disappear.
Who knew that onions could be so useful? I can't wait to try out some of these suggestions for my giant bag of onions.
President Obama may have
gotten our troops out of Iraq, but the gunfire in his hometown of
Chicago is still earning it a searing nickname coined by young people
who live there.
Chiraq.
On Easter weekend, 45 people were shot in the city, six of them children.
Five
youngsters under the age of 15—four girls and a boy—were shot in a
playground where they had gone after Easter services at a nearby church.
There are people who win the lottery and immediately devise a stoic
attitude, a wise investment plan, and a determination to remain the
person they've always been. I would not be one of those people and,
let's be honest, neither would you. Ours would be a millionaireship full
of flipping the bird at plebeians as we board our golden, Bahama-bound
Learjet. God, we would be the worst, wouldn't we?
Well, no. Our little kinks and haughty gestures would be downright
pedestrian compared with the bullshit antics of some of the real lottery
winners out there. The whole point of lotteries is that anyone can win,
and sometimes the jackpot goes to the guy who can feel love only when
he's watching documentaries of the Hindenburg disaster while huffing the
ashes of cremated kittens.
Which is how we keep winding up with these fucking people in the news.
#5. The Winners Who Hid the Money from Their Spouses
Ingram Publishing/Ingram Publishing/Getty Images
Getting filthy rich overnight is fine and all, but what if you have a significant other? Uggh,
am I right? That spoilsport might not agree with your wonderful plan of
filling a swimming pool with strippers and crack cocaine and
dive-bombing in for the rest of your glorious (though likely short)
life. Hell, they might even assume you're, hah, sharing with them.
If that seems like a dickish line of thinking, Arnim Ramdass
is about to prove you right. When the universe decided to compensate
his unfortunate name by providing him and his lottery posse with
sufficient means to ram all the ass, he knew exactly what he
would do with his $600,000 share: hide that huge, heavily publicized
pile of money from his wife by any means necessary. It was time for
Bullshit Feedin' Olympics, and Ramdass was both the reigning champion
and the only competitor.
Via Teinteresa.es He had already been practicing on their wedding cake.
Ramdass did actually manage to smoke-and-mirrors his wife for a period of time. Beyond that, the story is delightfully Rashomon.
Some sources say the wife found out the truth when idly Googling her
husband one day. Others indicate Ramdass bought a new house behind her
back, and she found a congratulatory card from the real estate agency in
the mail. My personal favorite is the Fox News version,
where ol' Ramdass decided to go full sitcom, attempting to hide his
heavy media presence with a never-ending stream of excuses to keep the
television turned off, and randomly disconnecting their phone, because stealth personified, that man. What most sources do agree on is the fact that when he was confronted, he did the classy thing and ran the hell away,
leaving no traces of himself or his money save for (probably) a
man-shaped hole in the wall. His wife was left facing an eviction and a
pile of bills that he had neglected to pay.
Meanwhile, Denise Rossi
became the second most surprised member of her family when she won a
cool $1.3 million in the California state lottery. The most surprised?
Her husband, whom she immediately and without explanation divorced as
hard as she humanly could. Of course, she conveniently forgot to mention
her winnings to either her husband or the divorce court. This "total
asshole" stratagem for money management proved to be a viable one, and
Rossi waltzed away scot-free ...
Want to buy an incredibly cheap house in Detroit? You're in luck -- just make sure you read the fine print first.
A new program introduced by Mayor Mike Duggan Monday addresses one of Detroit's largest problems -- thousands of vacant and blighted houses -- by auctioning off some of the nicest ones to people who want to live in a Detroit neighborhood. (Scroll down to see a a slideshow of the properties.)
The Detroit Land Bank Authority's Building Detroit auction site
initially lists several city-owned homes in East English Village, a
residential neighborhood on Detroit's east side, with starting bids of
$1,000 each. The auction for each property will last one day only, with
staggered dates in May.
The catch? Unlike the thousands of properties in the county's foreclosure auction each summer,
a winning bidder in the Building Detroit auction must agree to bring
the home up to code within six months, and then actually live in it.
Almost
every listing in the auction looks like a steal for a grand, at least
from the outside. But Building Detroit is up-front about possible costs
new owners might incur, and some houses need extensive repairs. The new
auction will also have open houses for the properties on April 27,
unlike the summer auction, in which houses must be bought without
knowing what's inside (or what's been stripped by scrappers). Read More
Embarking on a parasite cleanse can be
extremely frustrating. You are dying to get those critters out of you,
but have to work against the fact that a lot of times, parasites dictate
your cravings. Another frustrating point is that different parasites
feed on different foods to thrive. So in order to really do some damage,
a general parasite cleanse can be a great help but its also necessary
to consume a wide range of foods that irritate parasites to ensure you
have killed the various types. As I continue on my parasite cleanse
for this year, I have done a great deal of research on what foods and
herbs people say assist the body in killing worms. This is the list of
foods and herbs that I have compiled thus far and have incorporated in
my diet, in order to really whip out a gangsta can of Raw Girl
whoop-ass and rid my body of parasites. 1. Raw Garlic – One of the number one ways to kill parasites. All effective parasite cleanses always include garlic.
2. Apple Cider Vinegar – Increase
stomach acids with Apple Cider Vinegar prior to your meals. This will
keep the stomach free of parasites and will also ensure that you will
kill off any larvae you inadvertantly eat with your meals. 3. Pumpkin Seeds – Can help to get rid of tapeworms.
4. Pineapple – Contain
an enzyme bromelain, that is anti-parisitic. A couple sources claim
that a three day pineapple fast will kill tape worms.
“Quit complaining about your haters and learn to thank God for free publicity!” – Farrah Gray
When
you encountered bullies or naysayers in the workplace or at school, you
could face them head on. But there is a new hater on the horizon. You can’t see him/her and most of the time you don’t even know his/her name. It’s the Internet hater.
Take heart, however. No need to grit your teeth or make a fist. There are ways to battle the enemy that lurks behind Wi Fi lines. Pages: 1 2345678
A high-stakes negotiation is taking place in Silicon Valley among some of the biggest names in the industry — Apple and Google
among them — over accusations that they were involved in a collusion to
prevent their employees from being hired at rival companies. The
employees filed a class-action suit, contending that the illegal hiring
practices cost employees $9 billion in lost wages. Now the companies are
locked in mediation sessions, hoping to settle the case in the next
several weeks.
The question being whispered all over town now is how much will Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe ultimately have to pay?
The
companies privately scoff at the $9 billion figure that the plaintiffs
are seeking, contending it amounts to extortion. The employees, who
number about 100,000, suggest that the facts are so damning against the
companies — and so embarrassing — that they won’t settle for anything
less than a blindingly high number.
It is the talk of the Valley.
A high-stakes negotiation is taking place in Silicon Valley among some of the biggest names in the industry — Apple and Google
among them — over accusations that they were involved in a collusion to
prevent their employees from being hired at rival companies. The
employees filed a class-action suit, contending that the illegal hiring
practices cost employees $9 billion in lost wages. Now the companies are
locked in mediation sessions, hoping to settle the case in the next
several weeks.
The question being whispered all over town now is how much will Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe ultimately have to pay?
The
companies privately scoff at the $9 billion figure that the plaintiffs
are seeking, contending it amounts to extortion. The employees, who
number about 100,000, suggest that the facts are so damning against the
companies — and so embarrassing — that they won’t settle for anything
less than a blindingly high number.
I've talked before
about the oddball habits one picks up coming from a broken home and how
they can spank life's ass pretty hard (not in the fun way). What a lot
of people don't realize is that these aren't just annoying quirks that
we learn to navigate around. They are relationship time bombs, and when
they go off, they explode-fuck everyone who dares to be in our personal
sphere at that moment. It's hard for a "normal" person to understand
that when you come from this sort of environment ...
#5. Confrontation Is a Battle
Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images You Either Use What You've Learned ...
In most of the screwed-up relationships I've seen and been a part of,
the pivotal person in the circle jerk tends to be an extremely
dominating, hyper aggressive figure. For me, that was my dad. People who
have lived through it can tell you that any confrontation, no matter
how small, becomes an all-out war. Any objection on your part is taken
as a sign of rebellion by the ... we'll call them "douchebags." The
douchebag explodes over every little thing, and the people who don't
want to go through their douchestorms tend to give in to their every
whim.
Eventually, you learn that this is a normal means of leading a
family. The domination and the outbursts become a sign of strength, and
when you grow up in that hell, you can see the direct result: They have
control. Later in life, when your own relationship flops out a big ol'
veiny conflict, you use what you've been taught: douche it right on up.
Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Getty Images "I'll shit directly on your soul, you human toilet!"
... Or You Do the Polar Opposite:
Some of us are lucky enough to learn that the douchebag's system
wasn't just wrong; it was abuse. We vividly remember the fear we felt
when they were Massengilling up the joint, so we vow to never do that to
other people. Unfortunately, many people who make that decision end up
going too far in the other direction, avoiding conflict at all costs.
The longer that goes on, the more it seems like we're walling off or
have become emotionally disconnected, and that's when the relationship
really begins to collapse. But worse, if we continue bottling up and
avoiding confrontation, it can eventually build until an emotional
mushroom cloud shoots out of our heads.
Thomas Northcut/Digital Vision/Getty Images "Dude, all I said is that fedoras are kind of stupid looking!"
We're not all that great with the middle ground, and you'll see that
theme throughout this article. It's not our fault, really. Broken homes
are set in extremes by definition. If the parents weren't violent and
abusive, they were neglectful or passive-aggressive. They were still
douchebags, just a different brand. Like Douche Bagmatic or something. I
don't know my douches. But the point is that it takes an entire
childhood of witnessing the middle ground in order to understand it and
utilize it, and we simply didn't have that.
Read more: http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-growing-up-in-broken-home-screws-your-love-life/#ixzz2xwNBE1NY
Forget the recession, immigration and the mortgage industry collapse — when it comes to loss of American jobs, robots are to blame.
That's
the conclusion of economists who have studied labor statistics and
increasing job polarization, a growing disparity in pay among low- and
high-skilled jobs. A handful of studies from the spring and summer have
picked up steam in recent weeks, and they raise some interesting
questions about the economy in the days leading up to Election Day.
Manufacturing
is still strong in this country — it's just that robots, not humans,
are the ones manning the factories. If automation is the future of
manufacturing, medicine and other fields, less-educated Americans could
be left in the dust.
David Autor,
an MIT economist, found in a study this spring that certain occupations
that consist of routine tasks are more vulnerable to automation. (It's a
working paper, and he last updated it in August.)
The new issue of Good magazine
explains his findings bluntly: "The middle class is disappearing in
large part because technology is rendering middle-class skills
obsolete."
Autor's study, conducted in collaboration with David
Dorn of the Center for Monetary and Financial Studies in Madrid,
classified tasks as routine or non-routine and graded occupations that
involve those tasks.
The Economist
explains that secretaries, bank tellers and other clerks perform work
that is highly routine, and thus vulnerable to automation and the loss
of laborers. Jobs in this country are increasingly polarizing into
high-skilled, high-paying jobs versus low-skilled, low-paying ones, and
automation is a major factor, the study found.
A June study by
European researchers also found the increased adoption of IT systems is
driving the polarization. Industries that spent more on IT also saw the
fastest increase in demand for educated workers, and the sharpest drop
in demand for less-skilled workers.
In examining these studies, both the Economist and Good magazine call out our beloved PR2's
laundry-folding and beer-fetching capabilities, noting that an army of
domestic helper 'bots could eliminate the need for low-skilled workers.
And it's a fair question: When robots start doing dishes, washing our hair and even keeping tabs on our health, what will happen to domestic workers and hospice nurses?
That's
probably a long way off, as industrial robots still make up the vast
majority of automated laborers in this country. The recession has taken
its toll on them, too: 2010 was the worst year for industrial robots
since the 1980s, according to the Fiscal Times.
It's hard when your children, whom you love and would do anything for, tell you you're mean or, worse, they hate you. Sometimes, though, you could consider it a sign you're doing something right.
Of course, we're not talking real meanness here, but the kind of stick-to-it firmness parents need to raise responsible, independent kids. FamilyShare's Megan Wallgren outlines 12 things "mean" things moms (and dads) have to do to avoid raising kids who are "spoiled rotten." Most of them have to do with simply letting children experience difficulty or failure. I found the "don't pull strings" advice particularly worth pointing out:
