Why are Goals Important? - Must read

On the best sunny day, the most powerful magnifying glass will not light paper if you keep moving the glass. But if you focus and hold it, the paper will light up. That is the power of concentration.


A man was traveling and stopped at an intersection. He asked an elderly man, "Where does this road take me?" The elderly person asked, "Where do you want to go?" The man replied, "I don't know." The elderly person said, "Then take any road. What difference does it make?"

How true. When we don't know where we are going, any road will take us there.


Suppose you have all the football eleven players, enthusiastically ready to play the game, all charged up, and then someone took the goal post away. What would happen to the game? There is nothing left. How do you keep score? How do you know you have arrived?


Enthusiasm without direction is like wildfire and leads to frustration. Goals give a sense of direction. Would you sit in a train or a plane without knowing where it was going? The obvious answer is no. Then why do people go through life without having any goals?

MEANINGLESS GOALS

A farmer had a dog who used to sit by the roadside waiting for vehicles to come around. As soon as one came he would run down the road, barking and trying to overtake it. One day a neighbor asked the farmer "Do you think your dog is ever going to catch a car?" The farmer replied, "That is not what bothers me. What bothers me is what he would do if he ever caught one." Many people in life behave like that dog who is pursuing meaningless goals.

A CREED FOR THOSE WHO HAVE SUFFERED

I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey . . .

I asked for health, that I might do greater things.

I was given infirmity, that I might do better things ...

I asked for riches, that I might be happy.

I was given poverty, that I might be wise ...

I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men.

I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God .. .

I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things ...

I got nothing I asked for--but everything I had hoped for.

Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.

I, among all men, am most richly blessed!

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE REMEMBERED?

About a hundred years ago, a man looked at the morning newspaper and to his surprise and horror, read his name in the obituary column. The news papers had reported the death of the wrong person by mistake. His first response was shock. Am I here or there? When he regained his composure, his second thought was to find out what people had said about him. The obituary read, "Dynamite King Dies." And also "He was the merchant of death." This man was the inventor of dynamite and when he read the words "merchant of death," he asked himself a question, "Is this how I am going to be remembered?" He got in touch with his feelings and decided that this was not the way he wanted to be remembered. From that day on, he started working toward peace. His name was Alfred Nobel and he is remembered today by the great Nobel Prize.


Just as Alfred Nobel got in touch with his feelings and redefined his values, we should step back and do the same.


What is your legacy?

How would you like to be remembered?

Will you be spoken well of?

Will you be remembered with love and respect?

Will you be missed?

IT IS THE LITTLE THINGS THAT MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE

There was a man taking a morning wa lk at or the beach. He saw that along with the morning tide came hundreds of starfish and when the tide receded, they were left behind and with the morning sun rays, they would die. The tide was fresh and the starfish were alive. The man took a few steps, picked one and threw it into the water. He did that repeatedly. Right behind him there was another person who couldn't understand what this man was doing. He caught up with him and asked, "What are you doing? There are hundreds of starfish. How many can you help? What difference does it make?" This man did not reply, took two more steps, picked up another one, threw it into the water, and said, "It makes a difference to this one."


What difference are we making? Big or small, it does not matter. If everyone made a small difference, we'd end up with a big difference, wouldn't we?

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

Stanford Report, June 14, 2005
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.
I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.
My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.
This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.
Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.

original from

NUMBER GAME Roses

Single bloom red Rose – Love at first sight or I still love you
Single Rose, any color – Gratitude or simplicity
2 Roses – Mutual feelings
3 Roses – I love you
7 Roses – I’m infatuated with you
9 Roses – We’ll be together forever
10 Roses – You are perfect
11 Roses – You are my treasured one
12 Roses – Be mine
13 Roses – Friends forever
15 Roses – I’m truly sorry
20 Roses – I’m truly sincere towards you
21 Roses – I’m dedicated to you
24 Roses – Forever yours
25 Roses – Congratulations
50 Roses – Unconditional love
99 Roses – I will love you all the days of my life
108 Roses – Will you marry me?
999 Roses (WHAT!) – I love you till the end of time

Interesting

the outcome suggests that perhaps there are four main manifestations of ‘interesting’ (broadly speaking):

Common things in life in a common way
This is the very familiar, not particularly groundbreaking, but if it’s done better than everyone else (e.g. like the Japanese who value perfection and continuous improvement) it's interesting. Could also include icons, classics and vintage for example.

Uncommon things in life in a common way
The idea is new and unfamiliar, but the design/execution is familiar, so that people can still relate to it and find it interesting.

Common things in life in an uncommon way
The vision of George Washington Carver above. The idea is familiar, but the design and execution is renewed/refreshed. Quite possibly the holy grail of interesting to the mass market.

Uncommon things in life in an uncommon way
Abstraction and ambiguity. Because the idea and the execution are both unfamiliar, we have no direct frame of reference to guide an interpretation. More likely to interest imaginative artsy folk.

Also just to note that I’m not suggesting that something has a definitive classification here, or that it won't vary person by person. Further, idea and design/execution cannot be neatly separated – they are ultimately bound to each other. But sometimes it can still help to artificially split them - and then piece things back together again when no one's looking ;)

The Power of Prayer

Prayer is a good way of humbling yourself and letting go of ego hassles. Once you pray, you acknowledge the supremacy of a higher power, much greater than you, who can be given the streins of your life. Prayer is a way to get rid of the ego that an individual possesses in the daily transactions of his life. Prayer followed by action is a strong antidote to all the ills affecting mankind. If you pray, but do not act, then you will not be exercising your ‘purushartha’ or your right to change your destiny. With the help of prayer you can also alter the plans of karma that you might have accrued in this or your previous lives.

The main obstacle for happiness, peace or prosperity is the ego, brought into focus by the mind. You have to strike a fine balance between how much you submit and how much responsibility you take for your own actions. Prayer is also a means of healing by which you can change the course of destiny. Prayer should not make you meek or submissive, as is generally the case, but certain mantras and japas, bring out the radiant force within each person and help him to face the challenges life throws at him. To smile in the face of adversity, to be happy in the general scheme of things, to be happy at simple pleasures of life is to pray. Prayer need not be just the manual lip-synching of empty words. The words must carry meaning and must change your thoughts and actions.

To be of strong character amidst chaos, to see the light in any grim situation, to be a beacon of light and positivism is to pray. To understand your function and role you have to play out, to understand the relationship between the individual ego, the world and the Almighty is to pray. To question, seek out, test theories, adapt to change, participate in this pluralistic game of the God, is to pray. Have you started praying yet?


neha singh

original content:
The Power of Prayer

Hand Gestures (Review)

source: http://jeffwerner.ca/2006/03/hand_gestures_r.html

A required three-page report on the process and post-class critique of Hand Gestures, a short film I made for Interdisciplinary Media.

Requirements

Create a short video or film up to five minutes in length. Camera and editing technology at your discretion, though demos for, and availability to, Sony consumer-level MiniDV cameras and Apple iMovie editing stations will be assured. A brief discussion and reading concerning beauty and ugliness will be the sole (and only slightly emphasized) conceptual background for the assignment. Do not make a music video or produce a feature about your pet.

Process (Idea)

I’ve been interested in, and have studied, documentary film and have always had a desire to produce one. More recently I’ve been watching the short films of Charles and Ray Eames (circa 1960s), whose style is often concisely didactic with well-designed and composed subject matter, from spinning tops to bread to animations of the solar system to manufacturing processes.

Like the Eames film for Tops I wanted to study a seemingly mundane and ubiquitous object or form and present it in a beautiful manner, or rather, compose and edit footage in such a way as to highlight the subject’s inherent and easily-overlooked aesthetic qualities. After contemplating everything from stairwells to bicycle cranks to toilets a friend suggested I try different hand gestures.

In addition to creating a video formally pleasing to the eye my second primary goal was to provide the viewer with new information—i.e. to educate—and have he or she come away from the video with a slightly new perspective on the subject and/or a starting point to discussion.

For example, perhaps the viewer knows all the hand gestures featured but only via a North American interpretation (“I didn’t know the ‘OK’ sign could also mean ‘anus’”). Or, a viewer knows something more about a gesture that wasn’t given, or knows a significant gesture that should have been featured but was not (biting your thumb at someone is offensive).

I did not want to create the authoritative account of international body language (esp. within five minutes), thus the process behind my selection of gestures and the way in which I presented them would be significant.

Finally, researched some definitions for hand gestures among sources such as Wikipedia, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and sign language books.

Process (Construction)

My gestural starting point was one I learned during travels in the Middle East, where pulling my sweaty shirt away from my chest with two hands (also a Looking Rather Dapper movement in the West) could be considered rude to an Arab, meaning instead “I have had enough of you.”

While wanting to explore different cultural gestures I also wanted to account for the ambiguity of those well-known to a young, Western audience while still steering clear of the more boring and mundane gestures (such as Handshake or Hi). I compiled roughly 40 different gesture clips split between two performers, myself and—for more contrast, aesthetic appeal and less self-centeredness, a female actor—and imported the footage into iMovie.

I debated between intertitles vs. subtitles and chose the latter in order to maintain more continuity and less jarring edits between shots, for a more direct correlation between description and action, and to shorten the film under four minutes. The timing of the subtitles was also important to create these effects as well as to generate more humour in terms of expectations and evidence (thus the subtitles appear first, slight pause, then action).

During the filming process I instinctively presented the hand gestures in a methodical and, as my third self-imposed assignment criteria, a slightly humorous manner. After reviewing the footage I realized my specific “gesture style” was in direct reference to Martha Rosler’s “system of harnessed subjectivity” in her short film Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975), whereby the artist alphabetically traverses a seemingly benign tour of various kitchen utensils punctuated by sudden violent actions followed by calm and composed returns to monotone composure. I had recently seen this video during an Art History seminar last term.

Evaluation

Classmates and the instructor offered the following during the critique of Hand Gestures:

• Monotone (in terms of gesture) hands were funny
• Sterile aesthetic
• Looks like one continuous shot
• Editing was distracting
• Is it instructional? A social critique?
• What is the context of hand signs?
• Language-based piece, semiotics popular in the 1980s (see Martha Rosler)

Regarding the edits and continuous shot comment: no, each gesture was done separately for ease of editing and acting, though I would have to agree that a continuous take would have been less jarring and more effective, but would have perhaps been less instructive in terms of filming and editing skills.

I wanted to avoid too much politicization of the content and rather leave the interpretations to the viewer, esp. for gestures that differ across cultures like the OK and Stop signs. At the same time I wanted to acknowledge my viewpoint as a western male and thus included primarily gestures familiar to my contemporary audience. The instructor’s comment regarding the semiotics, or the language, of the piece is something I think was beginning to emerge in the work yet was an aspect I, if I were to remake the video, would more consciously incorporate or at least think about.

Overall I think the video was a success if mildly boring. It did elicit a few laughs and myself and some friends are consistently referencing it whenever we make a gesture (I’ll wave Bye and they’ll extend the gesture with a Gun sign, and I’ll counter with a “rub poo in your face” sign).

Blogged with the Flock Browser

7 Innocent Gestures That Can Get You Killed Overseas

By Tim Cameron

If you've ever had your penis cut off and/or been executed while on holiday, you'll probably know that it's easy to offend people from other cultures. Unless you learn the ways of the place you're visiting, even the most well-meaning tourist can regularly find his oesophagus stuffed with burning goat. But surely just plain common sense and good manners will save you, right?

Wrong.

Extend Your Hand, Palm Outward in Greece

What you think you are saying:
"Phew! That was a heck of a moussaka. I'd eat another portion, but I'm completely stuffed."

What you are actually saying:
"Phew! That was a heck of a moussaka. I'd eat another portion, but I'm too busy rubbing handfuls of shit in your face."

What the hell?
In Greece, the "hand out" gesture is known as the moutza, and it dates back to the time of the Byzantine Empire, when criminals would be paraded through the streets on horseback, their faces blackened to indicate their shame. If they were lucky, the blackening agent would merely be charcoal. If they were unlucky, it would be a substance much, much worse ...

SHIT, is what we're saying here. Their faces would be covered in SHIT.

If you really want to piss a Greek person off, you can go for the double moutza, which features both hands splayed above your head. However, this will also make you look like a backup dancer from Cats, so it's your call.

Give the Thumbs-Up In The Middle East

What you think you are saying:
"Ayyyyy! I'm the fuckin' Fonz!"

What you are actually saying:
"Ayyyyy! I'm going to jam my thumb in your anus!"

What the hell?
It's not just the Middle East. This seemingly universal gesture is also hideously offensive in West Africa and South America, whose citizens would doubtless get really confused if they ever watched Ebert and Roeper. "This movie is great, Bill! So great that I'd like to anally rape it with my thumb!"

The thumbs-up sign has been confusing people for thousands of years. Contrary to Hollywood legend, Roman gladiators were not spared by a thumbs-up, but by a hidden thumb. If the origins of both gestures are linked, we can only assume this meant, "Do not kill the prisoner, he seems the perfect solution to the emperor's arthritic finger."

Finish Your Meal In Thailand / The Philippines / China

What you think you are saying:
"This is a delicious meal. I mean it. I'm not the kind of guy who would lie about something like this. In fact, your meal was so fucking fabulous that I am going to finish every last morsel and then lick the plate so bright that it reveals the face of God."

What you are actually saying:
"You call yourself a host? I came here for a meal, not some Lilliputian hors d'oeuvre that wouldn't satisfy a mouse after a sizable brunch. Look at me. No, in the eyes. You disgust me."

What the hell?
It is always important that the host provides you with tasty food. However, in countries where steak in bleu cheese sauce costs approximately the same as a lung transplant, it is more important that the host provides you with enough food.

In China, if you finish every last bite of your meal, you are implying that you weren't given enough. Therefore, even if the meal is the most sexually delicious thing that has ever slid down your throat, you should still leave one last morsel on the plate to stare up at you mournfully while you eye it with ill-concealed resentment.

That said, the Orient isn't as uptight as this example suggests. In China it's considered perfectly good manners to talk with your mouth full and to burp after your meal. Farting seems to vary according to the situation and your current company, so ask ahead of time. Lighting the fart is frowned upon in almost all provinces.

Say "Hi" to a Member of the Opposite Sex in Saudi Arabia

What you think you are saying:
"Hi Steve! How's things? Fancy getting a decaf latte?"

What you are actually saying:
"Hi, Steve! How's things? Fancy booking a hotel room so that I can do immoral sex acts on you in the name of Satan?"

What the hell?
According to sharia religious laws, it is deeply immoral for a woman to greet a man in public, or associate with any man other than her husband without an escort. In February 2008, one American woman openly conversed with a man in Starbucks, and was promptly arrested, strip-searched and forced to sign false confessions.

Though, perhaps this is nitpicking considering women are not allowed to drive, vote, own shops, testify in court or ride bicycles there. Bizarrely, it's perfectly fine for women to fly high-powered jet planes, although they're clearly fucked if they feel like taking a bicycle to the airport.

The point being, if you're a woman and are planning a move to Saudi Arabia, offending them with the whole public greeting thing is probably the least of your problems.

Give an Even Number of Flowers in Russia

What you think you are saying:
"Darling, this week has been the most wonderful of my life. Since I first felt the sweet joy of your caress, I have truly come to know what it is to love and to be loved. Please accept these half-dozen roses as a symbol of my eternal tender devotion." (Lean forward for kiss.)

What you are actually saying:
DEATH! DEATH! DEEEEEEAAAAAAAATH!!!!!!

(Lean forward for kiss.)

What the hell?
In Russia, even numbers of flowers are only ever given at funerals, and such a gift is seen as inviting death, which you obviously don't want to do unless you're banging a goth chick.

Choosing the right gift seems to be a minefield of morbidity everywhere you go. Never give a clock to a Chinese person, as the word "clock" is almost identical to a word for "death." Don't wrap your present in white paper there either, as this suggests funerals. And for God's sake, don't give anyone in Bangladesh white flowers or they will presumably be obliged to buy a spade and bury themselves while muttering at you reproachfully.

You know what, screw giving a gift. You may come across as a selfish douchebag, but at least no one will hail you as the fourth horseman of the apocalypse.

Give a Gift With Your Left Hand, Pretty Much Anywhere

What you think you are saying:
"Thank you very much for letting me marry your daughter. She is very beautiful. In gratitude, please accept this dainty, yet tuneful instrument. Did I mention that I'm left-handed?"

What you are actually saying:
"Thank you very much for letting me marry your daughter. She is the most worthless heap of dog vomit I have ever encountered, and I dearly wish that she would die. In gratitude, please accept a generous portion of my own effluence. Did I mention that I hate you?"

What the hell?
Toilet paper may have been around in China since 589 AD, but for much of the world, it remains a prohibitively expensive luxury. In places such as India, Sri Lanka, Africa and the whole of the Middle East, doing anything with your left hand is seen as unclean, as it is (as least symbolically) your ass-wiping hand.

Eating out? Don't even think about using your left hand. It's better to come across as some kind of retarded monkey child than to imply that you rate your host's food on the same level as a lightly-steamed assburger.

Of course, poop is not the only reason left-handedness is bad. According to the Qur'an, Satan himself was a southpaw, which is why he was able to successfully fool the right-handed batter that is mankind.

Give the "OK" Sign in Brazil

What you think you are saying:
"Hi Brazil, I'm US President Richard Nixon, and I'm feeling terrific!"

What you are actually saying:
"Hi Brazil, I'm US President Richard Nixon, and I'm feeling that you should all go fuck yourselves!"

(Note: The above examples are only valid if you are US President Richard Nixon)

What the hell?
In Brazil, the "OK" gesture is roughly equivalent to the finger in the US, which means you should not use it when your hotel manager asks you how your room is, unless you want to tell him that it's purple and velvety and recently molested his wife.

The most famous incident of a misapplied "OK" sign was, in fact, Nixon's visit to Brazil in the '50s. While alighting from the aircraft, he lifted both hands to the cameras and double-fingered the entire nation. Nixon went on to greet the Brazilian Prime minister with a savage kick to the testicles, and concluded his visit by urinating from the window of a moving limousine.

If you're visiting Brazil, you should also never touch any food with your fingers. Even stuff like pizzas and burgers should be eaten with a knife and fork. Not that you'll ever need to apply this knowledge, because after reading this article, you'd be insane if you ever travel abroad again.

Tim Cameron is a recovering gaming addict. His blog, The Silly Addiction, catalogs his ridiculous struggle to go straight.

Now find out what they'll probably be saying in response to those gestures in our look at The 9 Most Devastating Insults From Around the World. And don't forget to check out this video explaining why Jesus kind of sucked as a carpenter. Or head to the brand new Official Cracked.com Store and become a startlingly attractive walking advertisement for our site.

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CarbonRally - 50 Best Websites 2008 - TIME

CarbonRally

Vie to go green by making it a competition. CarbonRally posts challenges, like cutting your shower time by two minutes or line-drying your laundry for a month, to motivate you to reduce your carbon footprint. Never cleaned your refrigerator coils? Neither have we. CarbonRally shows you how to do it and explains why it helps. You can compete on your own or, for added incentive, as part of a team. For extra enviro-credit, check out Zwaggle, where you can donate used clothes, appliances, books and other merchandise to members, then "buy" stuff from other Zwagglers with the points you earn.

CarbonRally - 50 Best Websites 2008 - TIME

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Nano Test

Take the Test right here ..........