14 Days: 14 acts of kindness (2012.W44)

(Ending Sunday 14th November 2012)

Kindness is a selfless act inspired by the love within. It’s a most natural act of love.

Personally I believe we all have a love bulb within us. We have the ability to self-generate the energy and brighten the bulb up any time as we wish. And we all forget about this. In our lives, we have parents, families, friends, colleagues or strangers, people around us who either help us to illuminate brighter or to dim our brightness. We let them influence how bright we are, may be and will be; and neglect the important thing that we are the source of our own brightness.

When the light bulb is on, it radiates warmth and the act of kindness just shines through and takes place itself with abundant love.

The World Kindness Day is coming, on the 13th November! Will you let your love bulb illuminate to the maximum brightness?

Join us!

Challenge:	join 14 Days, 14 acts of kindness in PERSONAL EXCELLENCE
Extra Challenge:	Extend to 30 Days of kindness
Goals:	Just light up the love bulb inside you and let your warmth shine through
Time required:	14 days to 30 days
Energy level:	Medium to high
Preparation:	Be kind to yourself first 🙂

* Encourage and support us by sharing this post with your friends or clicking “LIKE” if you like our post:)

Don’t forget to share with us your experiences and how your life has changed because of the challenge!!

 

Expand your knowledge (2012.W40)

(Ending Sunday 7th October 2012)

Ever wonder how much knowledge you will have now if instead of watching TV you would be studying?

Some facts:

According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV each day (or 1440 hours of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the tube.

For learning a new language we need around 900 hours to 3000 hours depending of the complexity of the language.

So, if instead of watching TV we would be studying a language, we would master a new language each year.

Don’t get me wrong, I love spend time on TV, video games, internet… Or sometimes I am just too tired to learn something.

A day is just 24 hours and we have so much more hours available when we are in control of what we can do with it. We should spend it carefully and wisely.

To be more conscious of the amount of time and lost opportunity we spend on TV, Facebook, playing video games or chattering away and so on, I’d propose a new challenge:

Replace the time we spend on watching TV or playing games with something educational.

By doing so, you don’t have to really change your habit. You just replace the content of what you are watching. It should be much easier than directly stopping TV, but still beneficial.

For Cindy and me, we will be watching free video courses from Coursera. So we will have lessons from great teachers about history, mythology, model thinking and so on.

You think you can do it? Start right now to plan what you be will watching and see you next week to see how it goes ~

Challenge:	Replace the time we watch TV by watching something educational
Extra Challenge:	Do it for one month!!!
Goals:	To take more conscience of the amount of time and lost opportunities as we spend time on TV
Time required:	The time you spend on TV
Energy level:	Medium to low
Preparation:	Please plan ahead now on what you will be watching and learning for the coming week. So when time comes to watch TV, you have no excuse not to watch pre-planned educational programs.

* Encourage and support us by sharing this post with your friends or clicking “LIKE” if you like our post:)

Don’t forget to share with us your experiences and how your life has changed because of the challenge!!

 

Day 28 – Give your partner time, space and patience to grow

Everything takes its time to grow, mature and consummate. By pulling the seeding, it will not help the plant to grow faster.

We have been brought up differently accordingly to our parents’ teaching, our social backgrounds, cultures and educations; we are learning through various thinking models, institutions and techniques; we are also growing and maturing based on our own unique personal experiences, failures and successes. Each of us has own favorite and effective ways of learning and requiring different time frames and space to grow. What is your most effective and efficient way to develop? In which areas would you like to improve and in what manners?

In a couple relationships, it is always easier to identify what our partners may improve, develop, grow up and get mature on. Our partners may agree or disagree on our views and take or not take actions subsequently. It is important that despite what we think or wish, our partners are individuals who are responsible for their own well-beings, own personal developments and growth, and we are here to support them, but not to take actions on behalf of them. Let them do at their own pace and timing.

If the above describes you in the relationship with your partner, taking this opportunity to open up a space where you are supporting and embracing your partner’s ways of enhancing him or herself. If your partner chooses not to do much about his or her own personal growth (after you challenge him or her out of own comfort zones), let him or her be. Perhaps your partner is thinking seriously and taking a break before starting or continuing. Let your own self-development be the inspiring example for your partner.

On the other hand, if your partner is the demanding, pushy one: express your gratitude to his or her goodwill on you; thank your partner for seeing your potentials and wanting the best for your development. Assure your partner that you are aware it’s your responsibility to grow, you are taking care of it; ask your partner to be patient and allow you to do it at your own speed and timing. Invite your partner to be a part of the process for the mental and physical supports, encouragements and recognitions, but not as an examiner who constantly checks for results.

Personal growth is a lifelong journey. It’s an honor to participate and be a part of someone’s development process, especially your partner’s. Seize the opportunity well, use your wisdom to support; let your involvements value-add your partner’s growth.

Today I love my partner by: (share it aloud to your partner)

Empowering and trusting he or she is taking care of his or her personal development; providing encouragements and recognitions when he or she needs it and a space allowing him or her to grow at own pace and timing.

For your actions:

(1)    Take time to think about how do you participate in your partner’s personal development? Do you take charge or empower and allow your partner to grow as he or she wishes?

(2)    How could you support your partner more in his or her own development?

 

Free Online Study

This post is about a new information revolution touching education.

This revolution gently started in October 2011 when the two most famous teachers in AI start an online course program. To a huge surprise more than 160’000 students register for this course. There were children, lone mother, PHD… People from all around the world follow the lesson. I know that because I was one of them. This was an incredible experience, and so many views and ideas were shared in nice and productive environment.

After the success of this course an incredible thing happened: Many university teachers from different places begin to propose similar course in fields such as physics, business, humanities, statistics…

And I am not talking a about slide and exercise put online but real course with lecture taught by world-class professors who work universities like MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley and so on.

Courses are interactive videos but this is not all there are also; exercises, active global community, exams, slides, quizzes etc. By a voting system, teachers answer to student’s top questions.

Every course is free and for everyone.

Here is some websites you find this kind of course.

Coursera
Academic Earth
Udacity
Khan Academy

And for the one who are interested with an MIT education for $2’000:

For  high school (secondary school) student

 

Free Online Courses

The internet’s offering of information is nearly unlimited, but this is not always a good thing. Many people get lost with this overflow of information and don’t manage to recognise good qualities information from bad ones. Hopefully we have Google which never stop improving their search engine and Wikipedia who provide answers to most questions we have in mind. These two websites revolutionise the world, more precisely the access to information.

This post is about a new kind of information revolution. This post is about the democratisation of university level courses provided for everyone and for free.

This revolution gently started in October 2011 when the two most famous teachers in AI start an online course program. To a huge surprise more than 160’000 students registered for this course. There were children, single parents, PhDs… People from all around the world were following the course. I know that because I was one of them. This was an incredible experience, so many views and ideas were sharing in a respective and productive environment.

After the big success of this course and two other ones launched at the same time, an incredible thing happened: Many teachers from different universities started to propose similar free online courses.

And I am not talking about slides and exercises put online but real courses with lectures taught by world-class professors who work in universities like MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Berkeley and so on.

Lessons are presented as interactive videos with quizzes, there are also exercises, exams, active communities, slides, etc. Even if there are thousands of students, by a voting system student can vote for most interesting questions and teachers will answer them on YouTube.

Every course is free and for everyone.

Here is a listing of courses I have found.

Course	Category	University	Duration	Next Session
A History of the World since 1300	Humanities and Social Sciences	Princeton University	12 weeks	17 September 2012
Algorithms, Part I	Computer Science	Princeton University	6 weeks	August 2012
Algorithms, Part II	Computer Science	Princeton University	6 weeks	November 2012
Analytic Combinatorics, Part I	Mathematics and Statistics	Princeton University	5 weeks	February 2013
Analytic Combinatorics, Part II	Mathematics and Statistics	Princeton University	5 weeks	March 2013
Automata	Computer Science Mathematics and Statistics	Stanford University	6 weeks	TBA
Basic Behavioral Neurology	Healthcare, Medicine, and Biology	University of Pennsylvania	4 – 5 weeks	July 2012
Calculus: Single Variable	Mathematics and Statistics	University of Pennsylvania	12 weeks	27 August 2012
Cardiac Arrest, Hypothermia, and Resuscitation Science	Healthcare, Medicine, and Biology	University of Pennsylvania	4 – 5 weeks	July 2012
Compilers	Computer Science	Stanford University	10 weeks	TBA
Computer Architecture	Computer Science	Princeton University	10 weeks	September 2012
Computer Science 101	Computer Science	Stanford University	6 weeks	TBA
Computer Vision: From 3D Reconstruction to Visual Recognition	Computer Science	Stanford University University of Michigan	TBA	September 2012
Computer Vision: The Fundamentals	Computer Science	University of California, Berkeley	10 weeks	23 April 2012
Cryptography	Computer Science Mathematics and Statistics	Stanford University	10 weeks	TBA
Design and Analysis of Algorithms I	Computer Science	Stanford University	5 weeks	TBA
Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World	Humanities and Social Sciences	University of Michigan	10 weeks	23 July 2012
Fundamentals of Pharmacology	Healthcare, Medicine, and Biology	University of Pennsylvania	4 – 5 weeks	June 2012
Game Theory	Computer Science Economics, Finance, and Business	Stanford University	7 weeks	TBA
Gamification	Economics, Finance, and Business	University of Pennsylvania	TBA	TBA
Greek and Roman Mythology	Humanities and Social Sciences	University of Pennsylvania	10 weeks	September 2012
Health Policy and the Affordable Care Act	Economics, Finance, and Business Healthcare, Medicine, and Biology	University of Pennsylvania	4 weeks	June 2012
Human-Computer Interaction	Computer Science	Stanford University	5 weeks	28 May 2012
Internet History, Technology, and Security	Society, Networks, and Information	University of Michigan	6 weeks	23 July 2012
Introduction to Finance	Economics, Finance, and Business	University of Michigan	10 weeks	23 July 2012
Introduction to Genome Science	Healthcare, Medicine, and Biology	University of Pennsylvania	TBA	TBA
Introduction to Logic	Computer Science Mathematics and Statistics	Stanford University	7 weeks	TBA
Introduction to Sociology	Society, Networks, and Information Humanities and Social Sciences	Princeton University	6 weeks	11 June 2012
Listening to World Music	Humanities and Social Sciences	University of Pennsylvania	7 weeks	23 July 2012
Machine Learning	Computer Science Mathematics and Statistics	Stanford University	5 weeks	TBA
Model Thinking	Economics, Finance, and Business Society, Networks, and Information	University of Michigan	10 weeks	September 2012
Modern & Contemporary American Poetry	Humanities and Social Sciences	University of Pennsylvania	10 weeks	September 2012
Natural Language Processing	Computer Science	Stanford University	8 weeks	TBA
Networked Life	Computer Science Society, Networks, and Information	University of Pennsylvania	10 weeks	September 2012
Networks: Friends, Money, and Bytes	Computer Science Economics, Finance, and Business Society, Networks, and Information Mathematics and Statistics	Princeton University	10 weeks	September 3, 2012
Probabilistic Graphical Models	Computer Science Mathematics and Statistics	Stanford University	10 weeks	TBA
Securing Digital Democracy	Computer Science Society, Networks, and Information	University of Michigan	5 weeks	3 September 2012
Social Network Analysis	Society, Networks, and Information	University of Michigan	8 weeks	September 2012
Software Engineering for SaaS	Computer Science	University of California, Berkeley	5 weeks	May 18 2012
Statistics One	Mathematics and Statistics	Princeton University	6 weeks	3 September 2012
Vaccines	Healthcare, Medicine, and Biology	University of Pennsylvania	4 – 5 weeks	June 2012

You can find other courses here.

There is also Khan Academy which have more than 3’200 great videos for college and high school level.