I am currently reading this book and also find it a good modern interpretation. It has a concise background on the stoics and combines and interprets the teachings of many of them in to an easy to understand principles.
I bought this in combination with Seneca's "letters of a Stoic" and "Meditations", by Marcus Aurelius thinking it would a good introduction before reading these.
I have noticed many of Stoic practices reproduced or supported by popular religious practices which makes sense if they aid in practitioners feeling the tranquillity/happiness that the stoics sought, even if done through fables and commandments.
shattaf's (North American salad sprayer but for the restroom) work much better then the Japanese toilets, however I would only want to use one in my residence not a public/work restroom. They are common in Brazil and the Middle East, I think the heat makes being "unclean" a bigger issue.
Both shattafs and bidets (which is the whole separate ceramic apparatus, not just the spray) are common here in Brazil. I always though it was because of bigger French/Islamic influence.
As jsnell commented the top status bar is wrong. Android does not allow for centered clock as pictured. Even if you say that this option was added in 4.2 the battery icons are also specifically used in AOKP and not in stock aosp.
I have the nexus 7 and will be getting the new iPad 4thgen to replace my 1st gen. I love the Nexus but the mini looks great. The only worry I would have is that the bezels on the vertical sides look almost look to thin. Even when reading with the nexus I sometimes inadvertently change pages and I think this could be a greater problem on the mini. So for reading I would need to try it first.
According to Apple, iOS is capable, on the iPad mini, of recognizing whether your thumb is resting on the narrower border, or tapping on the interface.
"Rethinking the screen meant we also had to rethink the software behind it. iPad mini intelligently recognizes whether your thumb is simply resting on the display or whether you’re intentionally interacting with it. It’s the kind of detail you’ll notice — by not noticing it."
Where are they giving up liberty. You have to look at the problems from an India perspective not a first world one. Personal identification is a solved problem here but in India lack of trust and lack of access prevents many people from gaining liberty. This system will allow a greater number of people to access government programs, education, and financial tools like bank accounts. That being said there needs to be some safe guards in place to prevent the police state scenarios that many here seem to be worried about.
Biometric security has always been a disaster which is why real projects using it almost never end up being realized. The article portrays it as if the reason India is the first to do this is because they are somehow uniquely able to take advantage of technology. The reality is that the reason they are the first is that everybody realized how flawed it is.
In terms of liberty - a biometric id is, by definition, an "involuntary" identity. It's something you're unable to change or refuse to yield, even if you choose to. A person with a non-biometric identity can freely destroy all forms of that identity and then they cannot be identified any more by it. They have the freedom to produce it when they wish to be identified, and to choose not to when they wish to remain anonymous. A biometric identity is a non "opt out" identity. It can never be changed or altered, and can be forcibly read by anybody with physical control over you. Hence there is a great loss of liberty in a biometric identity, and when you really think it through, almost no advantages that can't be obtained from a non-biometric identity.
I'm Indian, I've looked at it from an Indian perspective and plain logic tells me this is insane.
Heck leave alone our country men and their talent at finding loopholes or the corruption of our system.
When I know first hand that the debate internally amongst the world bank and nandan nilekani went from trying to tackle the privacy issues to "my role is to give every Indian a number" (second hand quote) my hair stands on end.
Not to mention that the system already creates duplicates and overlaps, which then compound which each subsequent generation.
Or the fact that we already have bad data from outsourcers who just jammed info into the system, or the fact that the laptops were stolen. I think we lost data recently too.
I have noticed many of Stoic practices reproduced or supported by popular religious practices which makes sense if they aid in practitioners feeling the tranquillity/happiness that the stoics sought, even if done through fables and commandments.