“It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battle. The discovery of a new scientific truth will be more important than the squabbles of diplomats.”
Nikola Tesla, in 1935, making predictions about the 21st century

Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy and shared her story to help other women

Angelina Jolie writes:

My doctors estimated that I had an 87 percent risk of breast cancer and a 50 percent risk of ovarian cancer, although the risk is different in the case of each woman…

Once I knew that this was my reality, I decided to be proactive and to minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex.

… I am writing about it now because I hope that other women can benefit from my experience. Cancer is still a word that strikes fear into people’s hearts, producing a deep sense of powerlessness…

I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.

Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.

My Medical Choice - NYTimes

It’s the first manned plane to fly for 24 hours on nothing but solar-powered batteries. That’s right — we’re talking about a sun-powered plane that can fly at night. “Theoretically,” said its pilot, Bertrand Piccard, “the plane can fly forever.” — Thom Patterson, CNN (via Funny-looking plane designed to make history - CNN.com)

It’s the first manned plane to fly for 24 hours on nothing but solar-powered batteries. That’s right — we’re talking about a sun-powered plane that can fly at night. “Theoretically,” said its pilot, Bertrand Piccard, “the plane can fly forever.”
— Thom Patterson, CNN (via Funny-looking plane designed to make history - CNN.com)

Miriam Defensor Santiago: The Problem With Elections - voters uneducated, candidates unqualified

“Let me summarize the problem with Philippine elections: Of the 50 million voters who will troop to the polls in May next year, the greater majority are not intelligent, they are not educated for voting, and the candidates they choose are not educated for serving. This problem is the result of the fact that our Constitution provides that no literacy requirement shall be imposed on voters. Furthermore, although the Constitution provides that a senator should be literate in that he should be able to read and write, the same Constitution does not require any educational attainment on the part of any candidate.”

Read the full text of the lecture by Miriam Defensor Santiago

Kimi Werner, woman extraordinaire, spear-hunts fishes and rides sharks while freediving. OMG!
Variables by Kimi Werner

Just entered my first stock orders! Good luck to me. :) As you know, the Philippines has finally managed to bag an “investment” grade rating from S&P. I chose to have my online stock account at Citisec, because it’s super easy and fast! Here’s our photo on the day we went to the Citisec office to sign up. Our friends recommend them too. BPI Trade sucks. They took over 2 months (super hassle + terrible customer service) to activate my account which is still useless. (via feannekitty • Instagram)

Just entered my first stock orders! Good luck to me. :) As you know, the Philippines has finally managed to bag an “investment” grade rating from S&P. I chose to have my online stock account at Citisec, because it’s super easy and fast! Here’s our photo on the day we went to the Citisec office to sign up. Our friends recommend them too. BPI Trade sucks. They took over 2 months (super hassle + terrible customer service) to activate my account which is still useless.

(via feannekitty • Instagram)

ashlipants:

sabreglass:

nemomeimpune-lacessit:

The Nu Project’s Nude Photos Tell The Truth About Women’s Bodies

The Nu Project is a no-glamor honest look at beauty and image in our world.

Female nudity isn’t hard to come by in the media, but the bodies we see usually represent a fairly limited scope of sizes and shapes. The Nu Project, a collection of nude photographs shot by Minneapolis photographer Matt Blum, seeks to add some variety to the mix. Blum started The Nu Project in 2005 but said it really took off when his wife, Katy Kessler, became the project’s editor. Blum sees the photos as filling a void. “When I started shooting nudes there was no project like it,” he told The Huffington Post in an email. The things that I had seen either used models with typical model bodies or average people who were made to look extremely unimpressive. I figured there was a way to treat women (of any size/shape) like models and photograph them beautifully, respectfully without a lot of sexual under or overtones. The women photographed are all volunteers, and most of the pictures are taken in the subjects’ homes — where they feel most comfortable. The Nu Project’s website showcases six galleries of nudes, three shot in North America, three in South America. Although Blum told HuffPost that he feels that they have a “good variety of people involved,” he and Kessler acknowledge on The Nu Project website that they’d love for the subjects to be more diverse. “The hardest part for us is that the project is 100 percent volunteer, so I do not see the women until I show up at their door,” Blum writes on the website. “We’re doing our best to encourage all types of women, but we need volunteers of all backgrounds and walks of life to make the project more complete.” Blum said he ultimately hopes that these images inspire the women who see them to feel better about their own bodies. “It’s been really exciting to hear people react to the images,” he told HuffPost. “We get a lot of feedback from women (especially) who have struggled to see themselves as beautiful, and this project has helped them on that path.”

http://thenuproject.com/

This is so cute I’m screaming

Amazing.

Sweet! :)

Success relies on faith

“The notion that we should always and everywhere apportion belief to evidence in such a way that we affirm only that for which we have sufficient evidence ignores the fact that belief for beings like us subserves action. If one acted only on those beliefs for which one had sufficient evidence one would not act as one must to live well.

“When a young person believes that he or she can do such-and-such, it is almost always on the basis of insufficient evidence. And yet such belief beyond the evidence is a sine qua non of success. There are two necessary conditions of success in life: one must believe that what one proposes to do is worth doing, and one must believe that one is capable of doing it. In both cases one believes and acts on evidence that could hardly be called sufficient.”

- William Vallicella

EastWest Prepaid Credit Card (VISA)

Just discovered this! I love the concept of prepaid credit cards because it’s pretty much as good as cash and there are no interest rates and other fees to worry about.

I’ve been seeing the newly constructed and renovated EastWest bank branches, and I’m impressed by their efforts to rebrand. Looks like they’re tapping into the online market with this reloadable prepaid credit card. It’s a VISA and works anywhere in the world (including ATM withdrawals here and abroad), holds up to P100,000, just a P100 sign-up fee (just bring an ID to any EastWest branch to sign up)!

I already have a BPI prepaid credit card (MasterCard) which is very convenient, I can reload it online from my online bank account - but it has a P500 application fee, expires after 2 years, and no ATM withdrawals. Also, when I originally got it, it could only hold up to P10,000 balance— but now its website says it can hold up P50,000 if you reload it over-the-counter. I’ve been using it for shopping online / paying via Paypal / shopping on the iTunes store, and it works really well for me. :)

I’m not sure if the EastWest card has an annual fee or expiration— it just says the card replacement fee is P100.

EastWest prepaid credit card details here.
BPI prepaid credit card details here.

Also, here’s a blog post with a good summary of the various prepaid credit and cash cards in the Philippines. It’s from 2011 so some details might need updating, but it’s still a pretty helpful and comprehensive guide.

Anonymous asked: How small is small? Less than 1M? How does mutual fund work?

Yup! You may start with P5,000 or P10,000 for some funds (such as the mutual funds and UITFs at BPI and BDO). :) Check out the blogs of Investor Juan and Fitz Villafuerte for more information.